Yesterday was a pretty busy day and when I finally sat down last night it was late and I decided I would wait and blog today. I was finally able to get my Church Chuckles calendar out of my night stand drawer without bothering Cruz - so check out the new chuckle.
During the church service yesterday one of the ladies in the row in front of me was holding a little baby and a young couple that have been married a little over a year were in the same row across the aisle from the lady and baby. The girl of the newlywed couple looked at the baby longingly with that little "smile" on her face. The guy of the newlywed couple just looked at the baby like "no way Jose". I almost laughed out loud because I could invision me looking at Cruz like the girl and Cruz looking at me like the guy.
Last night was the first night of LWF family night at Yellow Banks State Park - we meet from like 6-9 on Sunday nights August and September for fellowship and impromtu softball. I thought I'd take Cruz to get her out of the house and see how she would do around lots of people. She was a little shy when the kids wanted to pet her, but she didn't pull on her leash and at times actually laid down under the bleacher I was sitting on....so I guess baby steps.
I'm still on the hunt for books on clicker training because I think I want to do that with Cruz since she won't let me get real close to her a lot of the time. I found these two books at the library (see picture below) and had great hopes to learn lots about clickers - hardly anything at all in them. I do know that I want to have small treats handy for positive reinforcement - so I found some lean, healthy cheese-flavored treats at WalMart last week and bought two bags. I decided to give one to Cruz to see if she'd eat it - I found the treat laying on the floor about an hour later - lovely - guess I need to find another treat for training. As for Butler - he gobbled his cheese-flavored treat right out of my hand.
I don't remember if I blogged last time about having another smell in the house and having MidAmerican Energy come out (again) to check see what was going on. More gas leaks found inside the house with my gas line - so my gas was turned completely off. Plus a 20 reading for CO2 from my water heater - which was turned off again. The company that installed my central air came out last Monday with the guy being here from 8:30 to 5:00 - holey moley. After doing a pressure test in the gas line - he found leaks at all the connections of the gas line/pipe. Looking at it closely he realized that when the gas line had been put in, the pipes were just connected together without any of that sealer stuff. And he installed the liner in my chimney to help my water heater vent properly - my chimney is big and tall which meant my water heater just wasn't able to get everything vented properly. With the liner installed, the amount of area my water heater has to vent up through isn't as big so it should vent properly now. I'm wondering all these years that might have had something to do with my migraines - who knows.
As for the smell - it wasn't natural gas but a "chemical-type" smell. I called WDM Public Works Tuesday morning and found out that a few weeks ago when I had this smell - a vendor was working on a gas line in the alley in the block north of me - so that explained the smell a few weeks ago. Then the day before the same company had come back and installed the liner for that gas line - so that is why I had that smell again inside and outside the house yesterday. I'm learning about P traps and how important it is to run water through faucets, down toilets and drains because that is how the smell was getting into my house. So on my monthly reminder to give the dogs their heart worm pill, I will run water down the drains of things I don't use that much - like the bathroom fixtures on the main floor of the house.
I spent time a week ago on that weekend going through some of my Uncle's things and researched free web sites to hopefully sell his antique postcards, MAD magazines, postage stamps and more. My web site is: http://roniscollectibles.weebly.com/. I put a "gadget" on the right side of my blog page to denote my web site. My first goal is to get all Uncle's MAD magazines on the MAD magazine page to see if they will sell. This will be a work-in-progress for quite some time.
I've been watching the Olympics each night and it hit me as I was watching Bella Korolly (sp?) talk about Gabby Douglas that Bella looks almost exactly like Captain Kangaroo with his white hair, moustache and side burns! Think about it for a second and I think you'll agree :) I'm not sure what is up with those ugly, bright, fluorescent yellow track shoes - I heard Nike gave them to the athletes?! All I know is they are pretty ugly in my opinion.
While I've enjoyed the swimming competition and gymnastics - my favorite is finally here - track and field. My favorite event is the men's 4x100 relay and then the 50 hurdles. I fell in love with Dwight Stones all those years ago when he competed in the high jump and he's a commentator now - but they don't show him on camera. I'd like to see what he looks like now.
Dad was up this past Saturday helping me finally get all Mike's tools organized. Dad would look at something and then say, "if you were going to do such-and-such this is the tool you would need." To which I would say, "now am I ever going to do such-and-such (cut pipe, soder something, strip electrical wires, etc.) and if the answer was "no" the tool went into a box for a tool sale I'm having later this month (hopefully). It took Dad a few times of going through this process before he'd start to look at a tool and tell me what it would be used for and then say, "but you wouldn't need this" and he'd automatically put the tool in the sale box :)
The pix below show that the basement is finally taking some shape and looking uncluttered. My goal was to move Mike's red Craftsmen tool chest dealie away from the dark corner it was in, into a more convenient place in the basement for me to find a tool when I needed it. I had wanted to get all the old masking tape and adhesive off the drawers that Mike had used to mark what tools were in what drawers but after several sprays of a Goof Off-type product and actually rubbing Goof Off on the drawers with using a Scotch Brite pad - some of the tape just wouldn't come off. So I did the best I could to make the drawers look nice and relabled them with blue painter's tape.
One thing that I just couldn't get put together was my utility knife - the old blade in it had broken off so when I put a new blade it in - I just couldn't get it to close properly when I was tighening the screw. I texted the guy that helped me with my weed eater to see if he would be at church yesterday so he could look at it - he replied he would be. Check out the pic below of three guys trying to fix my utility knife :) The concensus was the blade was too thick for the holder to close properly - so off to True Value I went to find the right blade. I have no idea why the picture looks weird in my blog - the picture looks fine on my phone and on my laptop.......maybe it's because the guys are weird :)
A friend built me a stand for my Uncle's Fort Bloomfield sign - which I painted the trim color of my enclosed back porch - check it out in the pic below. I think it looks pretty spiffy - and I can hide my wasp spray (for snakes) and Cruz' toys behind the sign on the stand :) Now putting that large, slightly heavy sign up on the stand by myself was another story.................
This week is the start of the Iowa State Fair and while I'm excited about the fair - it is a bitter sweet memory for me of Mike and me taking a day off work to go together. And Dad and I had our day at the fair too for several years until Dad decided it was a little too much for him to do. I can't believe this will be the third fair without Mike and the third year that my niece Chrissy and I have had our own McFall Day at the Fair - we're going this Saturday. I bought my discount tickets like I normally do with two extra to give to a couple as I leave the fair so they can get in free - Mike did this a couple of times so I decided to do this each year in his memory. I normally look for a young couple with a kid or two knowing that to pay admission into the fair would be a lot of money for them - so if I can help mom and dad get in free - they can spend their admission price on something fun inside the fair.
