I woke at 6:45am Sunday morning after a fairly decent night’s rest. Once again, I had a busy agenda and getting an early start was paramount to my success. Unfortunately, I could tell before even getting out of bed by peering up and out the half-moon window in my master bedroom that it was a cloudy morning. What I didn’t know was how warm or cold.
I tried not to let the weather bother me and got right after my exercises. It was hard getting going as one might have expected after yesterday’s long arduous work-out in the yard. Like always, though, once I got the sit-ups knocked out, the kinks were clearing and my body woke up. Soon Ykraps and I were walking the sub-division. I took the camera along so that I could capture some pics of the cold looking skies over head.
After our walk I returned for some coffee while quietly going about my usual morning email and web surfing. I was careful not to wake Mindy before her requested 7:45am. I noticed too that there were 16 geese taking up shop at the rear of my back yard. I went out after them with my BB gun in tow. At 7:45am I took Mindy some coffee and readied for a run.
I was out the door by 7:50am. It was only about 54 degrees and cloudy and breezy. The forecast promised improving skies and it looked brighter in the northwest where our weather seemed to be coming from. I took an alternative route today, which I do on rare occasions. I mustered the courage to take Trabue to Hague and then Hague south back to the rear entrance to my sub-division via Western Run. Along the way I took a couple of diversions. First, I ran down Britton Av., which runs parallel to Trabue Rd. and directly behind the Private Dancer and the other businesses. I had never in all my years been down that dead-end road. There were lots of tiny little houses on unusually large lots like I expected. Many of them were fairly well kept with few exceptions. What surprised me was the sprawling Spanish style two-story at the dead-end. It’s a newer build with some beautiful amenities. It looks like a half million dollar home, if not more.
Further down Hague – across from my dad’s and St. Margaret’s Catholic Church, sits the old monastery. I hadn’t been back there in probably fifteen years. It’s changed significantly. Too, to my surprise, it’s now owned by Columbus Public Schools and is called, Columbus Preparatory Academy. It looks like they added several modular class rooms in a cluster and gave them a more permanent look than what you would typically see. The thing about these grounds is that you wouldn’t even know they’re there unless you see the traffic going back there. It’s very secluded.
Back out onto Hague, I had to run the most treacherous piece of the road – tight berm against scary traffic. Lucky for me, that was just a quick quarter mile stretch before I was back in my sub-division. I was back home by 8:33am. Mindy was still asleep. I continued on with my tinkering around in preparation of my family arriving fort the hot tub lowering. Mindy and I had planned to cook a large breakfast to feed the hungry animals, although I hadn’t told them. Mindy was up shortly after I got back. Sadly, instead of clearing, it began to rain and rained pretty hard for a while as a quick front rolled through. The rain just made it chillier. I now felt raw and damp outside, somewhat dashing my hopes for a comfortable work atmosphere.
Tommy called to let us know that he was on his way. And Bobby arrived just after 10am. Bobby shared the story of his Race For The Cure experience as well as a funny boating story . Both took place yesterday. Long story short, they lost Hannah in the midst of the race downtown among 30,000 participants, then Bob lost his car keys in the river while putting the boat in. Luckily he found the keys, but as of yet, they haven’t found Hannah. Kidding- they found her minutes later at the large TV at Nationwide Square – just like they told her to do if she ever got lost. Find a cop and go to the large TV. She did both.
Surprisingly Dad was a no show so far. That’s not like him. When Tommy finally arrived – sometime around 10:30am, Bobby gave him a call. He had fallen asleep and said he assumed because of the rain that we weren’t going to do it. Wrong – we were at least going to try. We all enjoyed the well prepared food that Mindy cooked while waiting on dad. Mindy had to leave temporarily to join her son Jacob at a replay of his pre-school graduation being put on for the church congregation that it’s held at, despite he not being a member there.
Dad arrived shortly after Bob had called. The sky began to brighten as promised while we all ate and drank some coffee. I don’t know that we’ve all been together that often over the past several years. It was nice. After we finished eating, by the way, we had bacon, scrambled eggs, and lemon poppy seed muffins, and fruit. By the time we ventured out onto the deck, the skies had completely cleared and the sun was shining rather brightly. I was relieved! Our strategy was to stair step the tub back down into the deck. I had it resting on concrete blocks stacked two high as well as two layers of 4x4’s. That meant we could lower it four inches at a time until we got to the blocks where it would move to eight inches. Long story short, the plan worked well, although we had to alter it a bit over the entire process. The lowering itself took only about 45 minutes. The rest of the time was spent rewiring the tub which added another 45 minutes, and clearing all the blocks away.
Mindy returned about halfway through the process and joined us on the deck. She seems to get along extremely well with my family. She likes to socialize and entertain. After some additional visiting time, everyone left. First brother Bobby then Tommy and Dad. I could not have done it without them. I appreciated them taking time out of their day.
After they departed, Mindy and I kept working to restore the hot tub to it’s original state and then to secure the deck skirting which has been on and off a number of times through the long repair process. Through the afternoon we continued working in the yard refilling the tub and detailing the deck. It looked great when we ere done. Mindy’s ex dropped off Jacob and Bella at my house sometime around 3pm. They played around the pond for a while, tormenting the geese and sticking their bare feet in the cold hot tub.
Mindy and Bella left for Mindy’s mom’s around 3:30pm. Jacob decided to stay and help me finish up. We weren’t that far behind though. We simply had to wait for the hot tub to finish filling and then cover it, walk Ykraps, and shower. We left at 4:25pm.
We arrived at Gloria’s around 4:40pm – just a little late. It was a relatively small crown for Gloria’s – Larry & Jody, their youngest daughter Lindy, her brother Todd and his daughter Mia, and of course Mindy, me, and the kids. We had pork chops, green beans and potatoes, and stuffing. It was delicious! For dessert, we had Lemon Meringue Pie, and ginger bread. I had a little of both!
We left Mindy’s mom’s around 7:15pm – like always and Jacob and Bella chose to ride with me, and a noisy ride it was. They both, especially Jacob, were trying to be as loud as possible. We played ‘did to- did not’ all the way home. They like playing that a lot, and so do I!
Once at Mindy’s the children were readied for bed almost immediately. Because they had bathed earlier, they required only a light washing, or what I call a “Tippler” bath.
I read each of them a book of their choosing and soon they were out. I was back down stairs by 8:15pm. Mindy and I exchanged back rubs with the limited energy that each of us maintained. I left around 9:30pm for home and arrived home well before10pm. I quickly readied coffee for the morning and completed a handful of small chores. I played some guitar and then read a little on the internet. I went to bed around 10:50 but didn’t fall asleep until nearly 11:15pm after reading for about 25 minutes.
I woke at 6:45am Sunday morning after a fairly decent night’s rest. Once again, I had a busy agenda and getting an early start was paramount to my success. Unfortunately, I could tell before even getting out of bed by peering up and out the half-moon window in my master bedroom that it was a cloudy morning. What I didn’t know was how warm or cold.
I tried not to let the weather bother me and got right after my exercises. It was hard getting going as one might have expected after yesterday’s long arduous work-out in the yard. Like always, though, once I got the sit-ups knocked out, the kinks were clearing and my body woke up. Soon Ykraps and I were walking the sub-division. I took the camera along so that I could capture some pics of the cold looking skies over head.
After our walk I returned for some coffee while quietly going about my usual morning email and web surfing. I was careful not to wake Mindy before her requested 7:45am. I noticed too that there were 16 geese taking up shop at the rear of my back yard. I went out after them with my BB gun in tow. At 7:45am I took Mindy some coffee and readied for a run.
I was out the door by 7:50am. It was only about 54 degrees and cloudy and breezy. The forecast promised improving skies and it looked brighter in the northwest where our weather seemed to be coming from. I took an alternative route today, which I do on rare occasions. I mustered the courage to take Trabue to Hague and then Hague south back to the rear entrance to my sub-division via Western Run. Along the way I took a couple of diversions. First, I ran down Britton Av., which runs parallel to Trabue Rd. and directly behind the Private Dancer and the other businesses. I had never in all my years been down that dead-end road. There were lots of tiny little houses on unusually large lots like I expected. Many of them were fairly well kept with few exceptions. What surprised me was the sprawling Spanish style two-story at the dead-end. It’s a newer build with some beautiful amenities. It looks like a half million dollar home, if not more.
Further down Hague – across from my dad’s and St. Margaret’s Catholic Church, sits the old monastery. I hadn’t been back there in probably fifteen years. It’s changed significantly. Too, to my surprise, it’s now owned by Columbus Public Schools and is called, Columbus Preparatory Academy. It looks like they added several modular class rooms in a cluster and gave them a more permanent look than what you would typically see. The thing about these grounds is that you wouldn’t even know they’re there unless you see the traffic going back there. It’s very secluded.
Back out onto Hague, I had to run the most treacherous piece of the road – tight berm against scary traffic. Lucky for me, that was just a quick quarter mile stretch before I was back in my sub-division. I was back home by 8:33am. Mindy was still asleep. I continued on with my tinkering around in preparation of my family arriving fort the hot tub lowering. Mindy and I had planned to cook a large breakfast to feed the hungry animals, although I hadn’t told them. Mindy was up shortly after I got back. Sadly, instead of clearing, it began to rain and rained pretty hard for a while as a quick front rolled through. The rain just made it chillier. I now felt raw and damp outside, somewhat dashing my hopes for a comfortable work atmosphere.
Tommy called to let us know that he was on his way. And Bobby arrived just after 10am. Bobby shared the story of his Race For The Cure experience as well as a funny boating story . Both took place yesterday. Long story short, they lost Hannah in the midst of the race downtown among 30,000 participants, then Bob lost his car keys in the river while putting the boat in. Luckily he found the keys, but as of yet, they haven’t found Hannah. Kidding- they found her minutes later at the large TV at Nationwide Square – just like they told her to do if she ever got lost. Find a cop and go to the large TV. She did both.
Surprisingly Dad was a no show so far. That’s not like him. When Tommy finally arrived – sometime around 10:30am, Bobby gave him a call. He had fallen asleep and said he assumed because of the rain that we weren’t going to do it. Wrong – we were at least going to try. We all enjoyed the well prepared food that Mindy cooked while waiting on dad. Mindy had to leave temporarily to join her son Jacob at a replay of his pre-school graduation being put on for the church congregation that it’s held at, despite he not being a member there.
Dad arrived shortly after Bob had called. The sky began to brighten as promised while we all ate and drank some coffee. I don’t know that we’ve all been together that often over the past several years. It was nice. After we finished eating, by the way, we had bacon, scrambled eggs, and lemon poppy seed muffins, and fruit. By the time we ventured out onto the deck, the skies had completely cleared and the sun was shining rather brightly. I was relieved! Our strategy was to stair step the tub back down into the deck. I had it resting on concrete blocks stacked two high as well as two layers of 4x4’s. That meant we could lower it four inches at a time until we got to the blocks where it would move to eight inches. Long story short, the plan worked well, although we had to alter it a bit over the entire process. The lowering itself took only about 45 minutes. The rest of the time was spent rewiring the tub which added another 45 minutes, and clearing all the blocks away.
Mindy returned about halfway through the process and joined us on the deck. She seems to get along extremely well with my family. She likes to socialize and entertain. After some additional visiting time, everyone left. First brother Bobby then Tommy and Dad. I could not have done it without them. I appreciated them taking time out of their day.
After they departed, Mindy and I kept working to restore the hot tub to it’s original state and then to secure the deck skirting which has been on and off a number of times through the long repair process. Through the afternoon we continued working in the yard refilling the tub and detailing the deck. It looked great when we ere done. Mindy’s ex dropped off Jacob and Bella at my house sometime around 3pm. They played around the pond for a while, tormenting the geese and sticking their bare feet in the cold hot tub.
Mindy and Bella left for Mindy’s mom’s around 3:30pm. Jacob decided to stay and help me finish up. We weren’t that far behind though. We simply had to wait for the hot tub to finish filling and then cover it, walk Ykraps, and shower. We left at 4:25pm.
We arrived at Gloria’s around 4:40pm – just a little late. It was a relatively small crown for Gloria’s – Larry & Jody, their youngest daughter Lindy, her brother Todd and his daughter Mia, and of course Mindy, me, and the kids. We had pork chops, green beans and potatoes, and stuffing. It was delicious! For dessert, we had Lemon Meringue Pie, and ginger bread. I had a little of both!
We left Mindy’s mom’s around 7:15pm – like always and Jacob and Bella chose to ride with me, and a noisy ride it was. They both, especially Jacob, were trying to be as loud as possible. We played ‘did to- did not’ all the way home. They like playing that a lot, and so do I!
Once at Mindy’s the children were readied for bed almost immediately. Because they had bathed earlier, they required only a light washing, or what I call a “Tippler” bath.
I read each of them a book of their choosing and soon they were out. I was back down stairs by 8:15pm. Mindy and I exchanged back rubs with the limited energy that each of us maintained. I left around 9:30pm for home and arrived home well before10pm. I quickly readied coffee for the morning and completed a handful of small chores. I played some guitar and then read a little on the internet. I went to bed around 10:50 but didn’t fall asleep until nearly 11:15pm after reading for about 25 minutes.
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