My sisters

I don't get to spend much time with my sisters- such seems to be the way of the world these days. Families live all over the place and it's hard to get together on a regular basis. This photo was taken in April when Ammon died. My sisters went to a great deal of trouble to come from their various places of residence. (My brother, his wife, and their son came, too.) I could never fully express how wonderful it was to have them here. They were so helpful yet independent so I didn't have to worry about playing "hostess" to them even though they had never been here before. They managed to rent a car, get back and forth to the airport, get down to the funeral home and everything. They also helped here with meals and just general hand-holding and shoulder providing. They mean a lot to me.

This a "tag" thing

I am not really savvy about blogging. My daughter-in-law (pictured here) set it up for me long ago. She's really a computer whiz compared to me. Our family has been greatly blessed to have her as a part of us and we all love her dearly. I think my sorrow for her "aloneness" is now greater most of the time than my sorrow over the abrupt and premature loss of my son. I will see him again some day. But Victoria's grief and everyday frustrations are, day by day, being permanently etched into her mortal experience. I would change it if I could.

I am driving from Dayton to Batavia (near Cincinnati) at least two times a week. It's about a 60 mile trip each way and can take anywhere from 70 to 120 minutes. Before moving here, I never really thought about Dayton, Ohio. I certainly never thought of it as a heavy traffic urban area. Yet, each time I have made this trip, either way, there are vehicles 2-3 lanes across, bumper to bumper in each direction! Even when I made the midnight trip last week- actually about 1 am, the highway was far from empty. Where is everybody going?! I realize that I am one of the "everybody" on the road. Most of the vehicles contain just one person, as does mine. The cost of fuel has dropped dramatically, thank goodness, but even when it was hovering near $4 a gallon, the traffic was still heavy. We know the availability of fossil fuels is limited. We really need to figure out another way to get around. I really don't see that happening with our current lifestyle. The downtown area of Dayton, like most cities, is pretty empty after the work day. People and businesses they frequent after work hours have moved to the suburbs. We have a drugstore within walking distance of our house, which is not truly "downtown". If we want to walk more than a block, we can go to Arby's, KFC, or even a Wendy's or Dollar Store if we really feel like a good walk. There is a hospital just up the block from us but our doctor is 1/2 hour drive away. There is a church about 3 blocks away but it's not the one we attend. Our post office is about a ten minute drive away but our postal carrier is kind enough to take away any letters I put out to be mailed. I keep trying to figure out how to use the car less. I just don't have any idea how I, or anyone else, can do without a car. Eventually, we'll be forced to. If I'm lucky, that will happen for my grandchildren or great-grandchildren. I guess that will be our legacy to them- along with the unfathomably huge national debt. I hope they're smarter than we are. I feel guilty about it but don't know how to fix it. I'll just continue to teach them all I know and encourage them to learn more. I don't think it will matter who the President is. We'll still have the problems.

With mixed emotions

It's official. We signed the papers with a realtor to have our house on the market. We are starting with the price of $159,999 for our 1/2acre of land and roughly 2500 square foot house. If we were to miraculously get that much, it would give us about $25,000 for the last year and a half of heavy labor for Russ, me, and many other people who have helped without pay. However, we don't realistically expect to get that. So, maybe we'll get enough to cover our expenses and just figure we had experience and a place to live for a year and a half, along with a place for Ammon's family for several months, James's family for a month, and several other assorted guests. It's really a lovely house now so it's a little hard to think about walking away. On the other hand...................... last night we got a pretty frantic call from Victoria in the middle of the night. Kadon, who is 3 and has asthma, was having a serious attack. It was after midnight and we live nearly 1 1/2 hours away. Russ had set his alarm to get up at 5 am to take some young church members to the temple in Columbus. Victoria knew we couldn't get there in time so she was just calling to let us know what was happening. She called her bishop (the leader of her church) to come stay with the other two kids while she rushed to the hospital with Kadon. I got out of bed, grabbed a few things and headed south. I relieved the bishop so he could go home and waited for Victoria. She arrived a little before 2:30. Kadon had been treated and released. He was very tired, still wheezing slightly, and threw up a couple of times just as they got into the apartment. Victoria got him into bed, I cleaned up the floor, and we sat and talked for 5 minutes so she could fill me in and we could have some closure to the incident. I'm grateful that everything worked out okay but it would have been easier if we lived closer. So we're hoping the house sells then we'll move closer to be more available...............for awhile anyway. Who knows what the future will bring?

Birthday celebration

Recently our two youngest grandchildren turned one year old. Lisa's daughter, Elliette, is farther away than we would like so we didn't get to be with her for the occasion. Brooklyn is only a little over an hour away so we were there to see her in all her Cheeto-eating.................. and chocolate cake-eating.. glory. It just can't get any better than this, can it?
Once she was cleaned up, it was time to open presents. She already had a doll but I saw this one and it was just the right size for little Brookly so I bought it anyway and I was pleased with her reaction. She immediately hugged and kissed it! What a cutie!

The final big project

The two bedrooms at the rear of the house were small, typical of a 1910 house. The closets for each were also very small, also typical for the era. We made a decision at the beginning that we would tear out the closets and walls to make one large master bedroom. We ran into some very unexpected major structural problems that caused near panic. After consulting my dad and some other builders, Russ formed an idea to deal with the problem. However, due to other things being higher priorities, our room has been the very last thing to get finished. This past week we plunged into the mess again, plaster dust, scraping and sanding plaster and wood, painting- to finally finish our room.This picture was toward the beginning of the project.This photo is from the same direction as the one above, from the north side of the house looking south. (I will have to refinish the bedroom doors but I can take them off the hinges and take them outside.) So we are officially DONE with the major plaster and sawdust messes in the house!
The picture below is from the south looking north to the "closet" end of the room. Having the floor filled in and refinished has made the room more unified so now it looks lovely!
This is the closet Russ built. I need to stain and varnish the closet doors and Russ will hang them but that is a pretty small detail after what we have had to do! What a relief.

One Door

I mentioned in a previous blog that repairing/refinishing doors was time-consuming. We spent two full days fixing the front door. This is one of 5 doors in the foyer of the second floor. This picture is from the inside, showing how damaged it was when we bought the house. At some point, there were apparently several unrelated persons living in this house and each one had a night latch or deadbolt on their bedroom door to keep things safe. This next picture is after Russ repaired the hole made in the frame of the door and I sanded and refinished it.
Now I have finally managed to get the door itself scraped, sanded, holes filled, and refinished. It took a couple of days. I now have 3 more doors to do. It doesn't show up very well in the picture but Russ filled in the hole in the door where the night latch went with a small plate of brass.