9-20-10. I’m sorry I took so long to write. I’ve been busy, but so is everyone else, so that’s no excuse. Yesterday was a nice quiet day around here. Saturday Walt’s daughter, Berta and her fiancée came out here at 7:30 a.m. and started working on a portable garage we bought at Menard’s. It took those two and Walt six hours to put it together, working non-stop and it rained off and on the whole time. Now we have a 12 x 20 x 8 high taking up most of the front yard. Basically it’s a big grey tarp with metal pipes for the frame. It looks good and will serve its purpose just fine. You know when you’re renting you don’t want to put up anything permanently. It will be so good to not have to scrape all the snow and ice off the car this winter and keep the little “gifts” from the birds and bats from getting on it in the summer. It seems like this summer has been about four weeks long. I’m sure glad the lovebirds came out to help because I don’t think Walt and I could of done it by our selves. Now if I want to I can have a “garage sale” instead of a “yard sale” and I won’t have to put everything away overnight. I kind of wish now we had put it along side the house instead of in front, but it’s too late now. Ron and Berta are good workers. Ron had all the tools that were needed for the job.
Last week we went to the Quad Cities two times, Muscatine on Wednesday as usual and Tipton once or twice. My dryer quit heating up and I was determined to be sure it wasn’t a fuse or something other than the heating element. First I checked all the fuses in the big fuse box in the basement and they were okay. I finally called my neighbor that used to live by me and asked for his opinion. I asked him before he moved if I could do that and he said yes, so he said it was probably the heating element and they are really hard to get to and I would probably be better off to get a new dryer. A few years ago I had a washer and dryer in the basement and my granddaughter gave me another set so I put them in the kitchen. After a few years the dryer quit working, period, so I paid ten dollar to get rid of it and had the one brought up from the basement and it didn’t work, so I paid another ten dollars to get rid of it. I bought a new one and guess what, it didn’t work either, so then I knew it wasn’t the dryer’s fault and it was in the house. It turns out that the outlet wasn’t connecting just right. They fixed that and then it was fine, so that means I paid to get rid of two good dryers and the cost of a new one. I wanted to be sure about this one, so it was hard to do, but I managed to get into the heat element and it wasn’t burned into, but was darkened on one end. I went to Menard’s and got a new dryer. A guy that works there said a new element cost $50 and then the motor might go bad, so now I’ve got a new dryer. They finally got printers you can use without a computer, so I got one of those and it does about everything except enlarge. It will print copies of enlargements, but won’t make the little pictures into big ones. I really like it. It’s a Kodak like my camera.
Last Wednesday we met Anita at the restaurant for lunch and got to spend some time with her. The Saturday before we went to Fruitland where Lisa was having Zoie’s birthday party. We got to visit with all my family for a while that day. Zoie is now nine years old. It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true. I guess it was two weeks ago that we went to the Cities twice and to Muscatine twice and Tipton once or twice. Walt had an appointment at the Veteran’s Clinic, for his yearly check-up. They always do extensive blood work on him and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. That is always good to hear, of course. He’s still got the C.O.P.D. but he manages it well. I told him I wish I could go to his doctor because mine always finds something wrong with me. I think I already wrote about when the landlord was mowing grass and the mower threw a rock through the door glass. After that I went to pay my rent and I had a picture of him on his golf cart, and a picture of the hole in the window and I gave the land lady my rent then showed her the picture of Larry, her husband. I said, “Do you remember this guy?” She said, “Yes, I think I’ve seen him around here before.” So I said, “Awhile back he said it wasn’t safe for me to stay in my house, but I didn’t know he was going try to prove it to me.” I showed her a picture of the hole in the glass. We had a big laugh over that. As I walked out I said, “I think he was aiming for my head, but I got out of the way too quick.” I think it was last week when Ron came by Berta’s apartment after he got off work and had a beautiful ring and asked her to marry him. I’m really happy for them. I think I said last time that Bill and Cheryl White had ten grandkids now and I should have said Frank has ten great grandkids now, not all of them are Bill and Cheryl’s grandkids. Walt’s latest great grandson, Rylan, is going to have a little sister named, Savanna and I think she’s due sometime in January when he’s a year old. My dear friend, Kay Day Applegate in Vancouver, Washington was having terrible headaches a while back, but the doctor couldn’t find anything causing it. Then a few days ago her daughter, Debbie, called me and she was crying and she said Kay was in the hospital and they thought she had a brain anurism or seizure. They ruled out the anurism and were going to try and find out if it was a seizure. I told her to let me know when they find out and she said she would, so I’ve been on pins and needles since then and I am really anxious when the phone rings.
I guess that’s enough for this time. I hope all my friends with health problems are doing okay.
Bye, bye for now.
