Putting Christmas Lights Away

It was 11:30 am, Carol called me and asked if I would cut the lights free from the wire that they were hanging on in front of our house.  That stopped me from working in the greenhouse. 


Carol had started to put the Christmas lights away.  She asked me to help cut some of the wires that were holding the lights.  I was a little reluctant to go, but went anyway.  I cut them free and she took charge and was telling me what to do.  I figured that I might as well help here out and get all the light down.  It wasn't long until all of the were down.  We put each string of lights, which included the icicle lights into grocery shopping bags.

We stopped for lunch.  After lunch I put the lights on the front porch away.  I then removed the icicle lights that were on the eves of the roof.  I put them in bags and put the bags in the totes.  They are now safely in the garage. 

I then went back to work at the greenhouse.  Carol suggested that I mow up the leaves that had been on the lawn all winter under snow.  The tractor had to be moved to get the lawnmower out of house five.  Of course the tires were flat.  I pumped them up.  The one tire on the lawn mower was flat. I pumped it up.  Took the tractor out side and moved the fork of the lawn.  I put the tractor back in the greenhouse.  The lawnmower was nearly out of gas.  It started right up. I mowed up the leaves and dumped them in the garden.

I mowed the lawn.

Utah County Today

With a big list in hand we headed for the big city,  Big? Oren and Provo.  First thing in Utah county was a stop at Spanish Fork and Costo.  There we stopped for gas.  Surprise, 1.599 for a gallon of gas.  We filled up for under $20.00.  We went into the store for a bathroom break.  I took the ink cartridges for the Dell and HP printers to have them refilled.  The Dell cartridges were empty.  I had them refilled.  The HP cartridges were more than half full.  I brought them back.

We drove to Sam's Club, where we bought a whole bunch supplies and a few groceries.  I brought the battery for my Sony camera.  It runs down after a couple of days. I went to three different tech stores.  The first two, had none.  The third one was a battery store.  $49.95 was too much for me.  I concluded that I could recharge more frequently than a new battery.  I put it back into my pocket.

6x9 envelopes were on my list.  I stopped at one of the office stores and found some.  I wanted brown envelopes with out a clasp.  But there were not any.  So I got the white ones.  They are pretty light duty.  They don't take as much postage.  They are called catalog envelopes.

We had lunch at Jdogs.  The only thing they serve are hot dogs  with five different condiments.  We ate at one in Provo down from BYU.  The serve polish or beef dogs grilled in front of us.  They were good. 

We have a great grandson who is two months old who we have not seen.  He is the son of Emly and Stwert Lewis.  The live in the north east of Orem.  We sort of new how to get there.  We drove past 400 East where we should have turned to the north.  A quick U turn got us back on track.  We turned to the east and mad a right turn.  It was the wrong street.  We went to the next one.  This is it.  We knocked on the door.  There was no answer and it was the wrong house.  The is about the fourth U turn that we made.  We the showed up at the right house and were met at the door by our grand daughter. 

Carol and Oliver

Emily and Patrick

Carol, Oliver, and Merrill

We had a short visit, got few photos, and some hugs then headed back to Costco.  I picked up the ink, we got a few items.  While doing this there were a lot of samples that we accepted.  Most were good, and there were a few others that we would not buy.

We headed straight home.  It was 4:45.  Unloaded the car and began a little resting.

When I came into the house before lunch, she was cleaning out the lower cupboard right of the kitchen sink.  There were a lot of chips, crackers, old mush, etc.  When she was finished there was nearly a bushel of old chips.  Some had a best used by 2008 date.  Other were badly rancid.  It is all cleaned up now and full of good food.  Items at the bottom of the drawer are not seen for years.  At the back of cupboards below the counter may as well be gone.  The same for the back of the freezer and fridge.  The challenge is to make a shallow drawer that can be pulled out all the way without dropping on the floor.  I have a few ideas to work on a little later on.

Did a little cleaning the garage in back of my table saw.  There was a big barrel made with some type of paper, that was full.  I took it out by the road.  I began to clean up the area back there.  There are some oak pieces of wood that I haven't seen for a long time.  I expect to do more later on.
I loaded the truck with the waste from the garage and several garbage cans from the nursery and took them to the dumpster.

Going for a drive, going for a walk, cleaning some ice and snow from yesterday off the drive way and side walk.

We had bacon, pancakes, and eggs.  We haven't hat that for a long time.

Ward History 2015 II

The first deadline for getting the ward history completed and turned in is past.  The second deadline is coming.  I worked on this the biggest part of the day.  The main problem to day is to get some photos in the history.  I had several photos, but could not copy them and paste them in the document.  I tried and tried and tried.  If the were in Picasa, it was easy. I finally got one in Picasa but couldn't remember how I did it.  Finally a solution came.  I would email the photos to me from my iPad and then down load, then zoom in on them, then copy, and paste them into the history.

I have to get the signature from the bishop and the ward clerk.  I called the bishop and he was available.  Then getting it printed was another hurdle.  The printer with my desk top is out of ink. but I was able to select the wireless printer in the front room and print them there.

I went to the bishop's office at the church, gave them to him, had a nice visit before I came home.

I watched Hugh Nibley on YouTube.  The last thing tonight was to spray the toilet with lime a way.

Valentine 2016

Friday afternoon, I drove to Fillmore to get a Valentine present for Carol.  I thought that a box of chocolates would very appropriate.   I stopped at the hardware store, which has a section of cards, sewing supplies and appliances, etc.  I asked them for chocolate.  The did not have any and suggested the drug store.  The someone suggested the florist shop on the south end of town.  I was there in just a few minutes and pleasantly discovered that the had a lot of different valentine gifts including boxes of good chocolates of several different sizes.  I got the largest box that they had which was not all that big.  Also, it was the most expensive one they had.  Will you wrap it?  The did with a nice ribbon.  I put it in the trunk to hide it until this morning.  I recommend the  The Fillmore Country Floral. to anyone for a good place to get gifts for all seasons.

This morning I set it on a family room table.  I then began to write something to go with it.  I wrote many different lines, which took me over an hour, then spent some time tweaking them to come up with the following:

The years have come and gone.

Wrinkles have taken center stage.

Gravity is a constant companion.

Our vision has faded.

 “What” is the most used word in our vocabulary.

Our hair has changed over the years.

Our wrinkles are prominent.

Gravity has taken its toll.

Memory has slipped.

My heart aches when your body aches.

Your beauty, your goodness remains.

You are a charitable, thoughtful, and compassionate.

Your love for the Savior grows stronger.

I am a better person because of you.

 My love for you grows as the years come and go.

May our remaining years be prosperous.

I tried to scan and copy it.  I could not get the scanner to work.  I took several pictures and this is the best one.  I added a heart and enlarged it.  I then put the verses in front of the photo. This is what I left on the table.

Ward History 2015

I kind of dropped the ball on ward history.  I started out pretty good at the beginning of the year, but by about June, I didn't get much recorded.  The history is to be turned in to the stake by February 17, which is next week.  Wednesday night I picked up the weekly agenda notes from the Bishop.  worked some yesterday morning and got all the information that I could get from his notes.

Yesterday afternoon was our ward chapel session at the Manti temple. I started at six and we left home a little before four.  We were way early as usual.  Carol always plans to be at an appointment plenty early and this was no exception.  We were the first one from our ward in the temple chapel.  The 5:30 left which left us the only ones in the chapel.  slowly others from our ward began to enter.  We were on the second bench from the front.  A few more people came in the front door, and others came in the back door.  We could see much behind us.  The chapel session started, and when we left for the 6:30 session, the chapel was nearly full.  There was nearly ninety people on the session.

When we were finished, we began our journey home.  The night was cold and we got home at ten.  We had lunch before we went to bed.  I was supposed the record "Doc Marten" which started at seven.  Carol has been waiting all week to watch it.  She was pretty unhappy when I discovered that it didn't get recorded.

This morning I began work on the ward history.  There are a number things that I would include in the history that are a little news worthy and would be in the Millard County/progress.  I can see that on line.  We subscribe to the paper which allows us to view it on line.  It took several phone calls and a couple of hours to get user name and password. 

Well it worked.  I found one article and photo about one of the young ladies in our ward that had a notable achievement.  I wrote the need text to go with the picture, but I could not copy the picture.  I messed around with it and unsuccessful.  Finally, I took a screen shot of it and eventually go the photo in the history.  It was poor quality

Temple Day

Today we were to be at the temple.  The last couple of days we have had so much snow and the fore casts indicated that the road to Manti would be pretty bad.  We chose not to go.  I missed not being at the temple. The weather here was pretty nice and several times during the day when I was outside and the sun was shining, it was pretty warm.  The temperature in the shade never got above freezing.

Carol has had a lot of nerve pain in both legs which started last night.  She did not sleep at all during the night but she did get a few naps during the day.  It is bad, but has eased some.  This morning her pain was a ten and now about a 9.5. 

Another Big Snow

It snowed on the way home form the Temple in Manti, Saturday night.  Sunday, yesterday, was a snowy day, and this morning there was another four inches of snow. 

Using a large scope shovel, I removed about six inches of snow from the front sidewalk.  I used to do that pretty quick years ago, but now I have to stop and rest several minutes.  I got it all cleaned off.

I put air in the tractor tires.  That tractor easily started.  Starter key has not worked for years, so I have to hot wire it.  It started up and drove it out of the greenhouse with the bucket close to the ground pushing eight inches of snow a head of it.  I pushed snow all the way to the road.  I pushed some to the side and backed up and pushed snow again.  I made it out to the street and began clearing the snow from the driveway.  My tractor for some reason will not move very fast, especially when go a slightly uphill. 

That's much like me at the Manti temple.  I park the car in the maintenance parking lot.  The walk back to the temple is slightly uphill and as I get closer to the temple I slow down.  I think that there is a little heart stress. 

I like to start by the garage door and push the snow north down the driveway and across the road.  But I have to push it off the sides of the driveway.  I finally got it cleaned off.  I drove to the Stephenson's west of us and removed snow in front of their house where they park their car and truck.

After finishing that I went to the Miller's.  They have two cars and a truck at their place.  The truck was gone.  It took me quite a while there.  The snow plow pushed the snow behind the cars.  After a lot of forward pushing and backing up to push more snow.  When that job was finished I drove across main street cleaned out Fawn Hunters drive way.  It was fairly steep.  I drove up forward, turned around and pushed downhill.  It took about five passes for that.

I stopped for lunch, started the tractor up and drove north to the Masner's home.  The car and truck were sort of snowed in.  I pushed snow on both sides of their car and one side of their truck.  Their vehicles were parked facing the street.  I pushed the snow in front of the vehicles and then in back of the vehicles.  I was going to do more, but it was so cold and was going up hill so slowly.  I put the tractor in reverse, started going faster, and made backward you turn.  The wind was blowing.  I turned around a came home. 

I did a little planting and quit for the night.


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