Fun Day!

 I thought I was supposed to sub this morning,

so I got up,

worked out,

made an egg sandwich,

and sat down in front of the zoom.

And the other instructor came in and was all

"What are you doing in here???"

OH!

She needs me to sub on MAY 17.

Lol.

So........

since I suddenly had several hours to kill,

Kyle and I went to WalMart and returned

the bed frame I bought yesterday for him

(he has been sleeping on his mattress on the floor,

but that's not good for his back and looks

dumb when people come to see the house...)

and then he started BUILDING a new frame

(had to go to Lowe's first and get a saw...)

He antiqued it, so it matches the dresser he made.

and I made a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.

It was a nice day.

Then at 5:24 we went outside and watched a rocket launch

and then it was back into the zoom room for my night class.

Rod should be home from work soon.

So I'm off to feed him some dinner

(and a cookie) and then it's off to bed.

Night all!

We Made It!!!

 Whew!

We got in about 11:45 last night.

And I was EXHAUSTED!!!

I only drove for about 124 miles,

but it was still a LONG 2 days.

(I drove for a little on Saturday too...)

Boy was I happy to get into my REAL bed.

A blow up mattress is fine and all that,

but a nice warm waterbed with my

darling husband is AWESOME.

This morning I did a T-Tapp workout

and then took a lovely shower and

washed my hair.

(We still haven't fixed the shower at

the little house, so showers were quick

and infrequent...)

And then Kyle and I ran to WalMart to get

some groceries and other stuff we needed.

Then to the house to unload and

TAKE A NAP!!!

Also I did laundry.

And put a pork roast in the crock pot.

And then I taught a HUGE class!

My classes have been running between

13 and 15 students for the last months.

Tonight I had TWENTY-EIGHT!!

Wow!

It's been awhile since we've seen those numbers.

Anyhow.

I'm bushed.

And I'm off to bed.

Oh yah, I forgot I took this picture 

when we got on the road.

This is the Love's truck stop in Ellis.

The first town out of WaKeeney.

Just before Hays.

It was a good trip, pretty uneventful.

Except the running lights didn't work on the trailer.

It was the truck, not the trailer, they didn't work

on the uHaul either, but we thought it was the trailer.

(Luckily I'm a pansy and we stopped about dark

every night on the way out... we didn't figure

out the running lights weren't working until 

Monday morning...)

The lights worked on the stock trailer when Kyle was

pulling it with HIS truck, but on Rod's truck

they didn't work.

So we tried lots of options, but finally ended up

at Tractor Supply in some town somewhere

and bought a pigtail that hooked into the gooseneck.

Ran it out the bed of the truck and into the

trailer hitch. That worked. YEA!!!

Other than that... it was just a LONG LONG trip.

We spent the night just outside of Memphis.

Got up nice and early and hit the road again.

Kyle's mattress was in the bed of the truck

(under the topper) so he slept in there

and I took the back seat.

So we were HAPPY to be home in our own beds.

On the Road

See ya' soon WaKeeney!

We are hitting the road!

Gratuitous picture of my lilacs this morning.

Just because.

Headed Back Across the Country

 Just finished teaching class.

As soon as I'm done here I'm packing

up my computer, so you won't hear

from me until at least Monday.

(After I teach again...)

Today we did our taxes. (UGH)

And then we drove to Hill City in

Graham County and paid our real estate

taxes on the ranch.

And then we drove over to the ranch 

and walked around, made some

"wouldn't it be nice" plans

and took some pictures.

It's beautiful, and green!

The pastures have nice green grass

UNDER the old grass from last year.

If we had a chance to mow it, it would

all look like this.

(This is the "death tree" forest...)

The sky was a beautiful blue.

It was pretty breezy, but down in the

valley and in the forest there was hardly

any wind at all.

It was a beautiful day.

If you squint you can just barely see Kyle over

by the water trough.

It's a good walk from where we plan to put

the house...

There's the old foundation from a house.

We also found an old license plate

from Oregon in 1936!!!

And then we walked over to a spot we haven't

gone before and found...

a root cellar!!!!

The top is gone, but Kyle said it goes pretty

deep - it's currently full of rolls and rolls

of coiled rusty barbed wire.

And tumble weeds...

but with an excavator or maybe even his

skid steer we should be able to clean it out.

Anyhow.

It was a lovely day and we had lots fun.

Took a small load to the dump.

And then came home for some lunch

and a rest to get ready to teach.

While I was teaching, Kyle set up his bed.

(Since we are done with the floors...)

I didn't take a picture.

And now I'm too tired to go take one.

(And I can hear him in the kitchen, he

has dinner ready....)

So.

Be thinking of us.

We are sure thinking of all of you and

keeping each of you in our prayers.

Talk to you again on Monday!

PS - the little bunch of bushes at the back of the property

are LILACS!!!  Starting to bud!!

And yes, we are going to have to re-seed the yard.

It was a rental, so you know how that goes....

but now that we are going to be here,

we will take good care of it.

(And rebuild the little fence.... lol)

Last Day

 This is our final day here at our little

house in WaKeeney until we move

for REALS.

I am loving it more and more every day.

Especially as things are getting done.

This is the living room.

It's not a great picture - the floor is lighter than this looks.

This is our bedroom.

More representative of the color of the floors.

It's a warm brown with a yellow undertone.

(Ha... did that sound interior desinger-ish?)

We pickled Kyle's bedroom floor.

At first it was too "white-washed" and I really

didn't care for it.

But after 24 hours and 2 coats of sealer 

I think it's really pretty!

We only had one casualty.

Somewhere in all those bags of sawdust is the

stone out of my ring.

Guess the vibrations of the machines were

just too much for it.

Good thing I know the lady who made it.

Maybe one day I'll have her replace it.

(But mostly the side with the stone slides around

to my palm so it took me all day to notice it...)

The electrician was here a few weeks ago and

replaced all the electrical outlets and switches.

He had to take out the medicine cabinet from the

bathroom and he did a "temporary" light fixture.

It's a little disconcerting to look up from brushing

your teeth and seeing a hole instead of a mirror.

So this morning while I was doing our taxes (UGH)

Kyle fixed that little problem.

We bought a light fixture, but electricity isn't really

our thing, so it will have to wait.

Starting to look like a bathroom!

I hear Dad got to start a little vegetable/herb garden

there at their new home.

We bought a few things to get started here,

but I think we are going to take them home with us

and bring them back so they don't die from lack of water.

We got two lilac bushes, a rosemary, a lavendar

and a RUBARB!!!

I'm so excited!

Plus we discovered a TULIP patch out by the clothesline.

Everybody has bunches of tulips in their yards

and in random clumps on street corners.

One house has the ENTIRE front yard planted

in multiple colors of tulips.

Looks like Denmark!

Ok, time to do Kyle's taxes and then go pay

the real estate tax on the ranch and a 

bunch of other random errands.

Floors, Floors and more Floors!

 Wow!

Bless the hearts of those who CHOOSE to 

refinish floors for a living.

I guess somebody has to do it.

But we are glad it won't be us 

EVER AGAIN.

Whew!

It has been a LOT of hard work

and our bodies are sore.

But we are pretty pleased with how 

they are looking.

We are in the middle of the process,

so we still don't know what the end

results will be, but so far so good.

First Kyle ran the big belt sander to pull off all the

old stain and varnish.

Look at the difference!!!

It is red oak, so the stain was REALLY orange.

But boy when it is in its raw state

it is really beautiful!

Unfortunately, even a clear stain will 

turn it right back to red/orange.

So we had to get creative.

There were still some dark spots.

We tried the YouTube trick of

hydrogen peroxide to lift the stains,

but it just turned the floor yellow.

Not sure what was up with that,

but we decided to scrap that idea.

While he was doing the main floor areas

I followed along and did all the edges with

a little orbital sander.

I sat on a little rolling stool Kyle figured

out for me so I didn't have to sit on the floor.

That little guy has some POWER and 

since there were wheels on my little stool

it sometimes tried to pull me across the room!

My legs and abs got a good workout 

making sure I had relative control.

And then your back muscles come into play

to try and move it laterally in front of you 

to sand the edges.

Meanwhile, Kyle followed the big sander when he

was going forward - it pulled you along,

but then you had to back up and it did NOT want

to play along. Plus you had to lift up on the

handles to rotate it onto its nose so the belt 

would contact the ground.

So... I'm pretty sure there isn't a muscle group

he isn't VERY aware of at this moment.

(Not to mention the blisters on his palms...)

Poor guy!

(He let me do a small section in my bedroom

and BOY was I glad he was doing it.

That was HARD WORK!!!)

Anyhow.

We had purchased a medium brown stain

but when we put it on... I'm not sure who 

decided BLACK was medium brown.

It was SO dark!!!

(And that is AFTER rubbing it off with a rag!)

Yikes!!!

We let it dry overnight to see if it would soak in and

lighten any. (Spoiler alert - it didn't...)

So he started sanding it off.

And low and behold we got a beautiful

weathered barnboard sort of look!

The right side is my zoom room, mid sanding.

(And my little sander...)

The left side is our bedroom - still wet so it looks

weird, but what a difference!

I stained all the rooms.

And since we were going to just sand it off again,

I didn't worry about making it even or whatever.

It sure made the living room look SMALL.

One of the hazards of staining in bare feet.

The stain is water based so washes right off,

but I wasn't so sure it would come off my shoes.

And I only brought one pair.

About 30 minutes later after Kyle did another light sanding in the

zoom room and then moved on to the bedroom.

Oh oh, just glanced at the clock.

I need to start my zoom.

Kyle is in Hays returning the sanders.

We got all done by 3:00 and I had to 

be here to zoom at 4:30. So he had to go

without me. He's also going to Home Depot

to pick up the stuff we need to finish up.

Gotta run.

Love to you all!!!

Good morning from WaKeeney!!!

 It's the crack of dawn.

And I don't have much time this morning.

LOTS to do!

But let's see....

First of all,

yes.

We had a flat tire on the stock trailer.

But there are 4 wheels on it, so it didn't

tip over or anything.

We had just left Love's for a fuel stop.

About 2 miles up the highway it blew.

Blessing #1

It blew on the right side.

So Kyle didn't have to change it on

the highway side!

Blessing #2

Rod had everything organized so all 

Kyle needed to do was grab the jack from

the box right inside the door of the truck bed

and the lug wrench from the back seat.

The tire was changed in under 15 minutes.

(There are benefits to having had worked

in the service dept at VW changing tires

and oil all day long.... lol)

Blessing #3

Rod found us a Walmart and they had the 

tire in stock. It was only 12 miles away.

They had it mounted on the rim in about 15 minutes

and we were back on the road.

There have been a million blessings.

But...

for now...

we are here and all is good so far.

The electrician is coming in an hour

to look at the furnace.

It was working when Kyle was here.

Then he came and rewired the house

and now it's not working.

(The wiring job was amazing, by the way...)

Except he took the OLD medicine cabinet

that had a mirror on it, out of the wall

above the bathroom sink so he could

access the wiring to put in a new light 

and electrical outlet.

So there is no mirror in the bathroom.

Just a big hole in the wall.

Yeah. We will need to do something about that.

That whole thing is kind of a mess.

We have to go into Hays as soon as he leaves.

We need to drop off the trailer.

We were just TOO TIRED to do that last night.

Then next door to Home Depot to get the

stain and clear poly for the floor.

Then to WalMart for some essentials.

Like, you know, FOOD.

And trash bags.

And a mat for the bathroom floor.

Then finally to the rental place for the 

floor sanding machine.

And then it's back here to get working on the floors.

So..... now I need to get into the kitchen

and clean up our mess from yesterday.

Once I was done teaching, Kyle whipped us up

some spaghetti, I blew up my air mattress 

(electric pump - whew!)

and we fell into bed.

Our little space heaters kept our bedrooms nice

and toasty warm.

Later!