We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Russ and I have never considered ourselves "city people". It's hard to tell right now whether the havoc we read about and have exposure to is due mainly to living in this city, or just the general deterioration of society. We have been reading daily about inebriated people, gruesome murders, robberies, and general chaos. All too much of it occurs within a few miles of this house we're living in. I'm not afraid. I'm saddened and disgusted. It doesn't have to be this way. We went from living in a pleasant, albeit crowded, valley in Utah where our neighbors were caring and helpful to living where we don't even know any of our neighbors. Many of their yards are littered with garbage. People are suspicious of each other because of the fear of theft or harm by desperate drug addicts or gang members. We have been hoping to find peace in the unit of the church here as we have always found anywhere we have gone to church. There are many wonderful people here, but the little Dayton Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not isolated from the sorrows surrounding us. When we went to church Sunday we found out that out of 4 regular members of the fledgling Scout troop Russ has been desperately trying to get going, 2 were out of commission indefinitely. One that we had great hopes for (he has expressed a desire to be a neural surgeon and gets really high grades in school) is in junvenile detention. Another young man is in lock-up in the psych ward of the hospital for evaluation. Russ is having a "court of honor" tonight...........for one young man. I guess even God has said that the worth of souls is great- even one.

I've been plastered for two weeks!

I have not been imbibing but I am having to recover from the plastering I have been doing. My hands have been aching and going numb again. I wanted these pictures in the opposite order. Oh well.... This is the foyer of our house. I don't really have a good "before" picture of it. We have decided that rebuilding is definitely harder and more time-consuming than building new. All of the exterior walls, which in this room includes the two walls you can see in this photo, are solid masonry. There are 3 layers of brick with a layer of plaster on the inside of the house. When we purchased the house last spring, every wall had some cracks, holes, and missing plaster. We have replaced some of the lathe and plaster interior walls with sheetrock. But in the foyer, we just plastered....and plastered.....and plastered. Nearly a month ago, I spent a couple of days refinishing the woodwork of the stairs, up to the first landing. For the last two weeks I have been repairing and smoothing the walls and ceiling. Russ, fortunately, did the finish design on the ceiling. The texture doesn't come out in the pictures but it's a swirl pattern created with a stiff brush, spackle, and lots of heavy wrist work. We used today's replacement for plaster. You mix it with water to the desired consistency then work like crazy to use it up before the chemical reaction takes place that hardens it like rock! So this is a focus on the wall picture, now ready for painting. And..............................................
this is actually from the landing going up but the rest of the foyer basically looked like this. In a couple of weeks we'll paint and I'll post pictures of the finished foyer.

Another "before and after"

This photo was taken near Mother's Day, shortly after we had "moved into" this house. We had the dining room all torn apart and didn't have the kitchen finished so Angela had brought us a meal along with the flowers. We sat at the table in the living room. Last weekend I invited all of our adult children who live nearby over for a nice meal. I have lovely china and glasses that I rarely use and wanted to make an occasion for doing so. The corner in the rear of this next picture is the same corner behind Russ and me in the picture above. It's nice to actually eat in the dining room!
We started with hors d'oeurves served in the living room, the sliding pocket doors to the dining room were closed. When Russ and I had the soup course all on the table, we opened the doors and invited everyone to sit down for our luncheon. The last picture is dessert: strawberry chantilly and cookies. We all had a wonderful time and we only messed up a couple of the items on the menu. I plan to do it again in a couple of months.

AAGHH!! A curse on motor vehicles!!

This winter has been relatively mild here in southern Ohio. There really hasn't been any particular reason for vehicles to develop problems. However, Russ has been kept disturbingly busy recently trying to keep various family vehicles running. Granted, none of the afore-mentioned vehicles are new. It's just that none of us tend to ever buy new vehicles because they cost so much and depreciate so quickly. But there has been a rash of mis-functions recently here! Our 2001 Dodge started having the oil light come on whenever the engine was idling then it came on more frequently for longer times. Russ replaced the sensor and it helped for a few days then started again. We feared the worst. We had a new engine put in it just a year ago! After some unsuccessful attempts to find a "cheap" way to again replace the engine so we could just sell it and be rid of it, we heard about a reputable shop that could look at it and took it there. They repaced the same part Russ had just replaced for a fraction of the cost of a new engine, and it has been working fine ever since. Ammon's mini-van needed brakes. They drove up here for a Saturday so Russ could work in our driveway replacing them. He got one of the parts on wrong at first and then couldn't get it off again. For several tense moments, we thought the car was dead in the driveway and Ammon's family would be living with us again, at least temporarily. At last the repair was completed and with a huge sigh of relief, Ammon's family drove away. Angela's family has a Chevy Suburban to carry their 3 active boys and the autism assistance chocolate lab dog. It has been reluctant to start when the temperature drops below about 35. One morning Angela called, frustrated at having plans to run errands thwarted due to the failure of her best efforts to get the vehicle to run. Russ and I drove over to her house. Much to all of our confusion, it started right up before Russ could do anything beyond removing the air filter to look inside. Yesterday Victoria called to say the oil light on their mini-van came on so she managed to just get to the children's doctor office (where she was headed) but had to leave the car there. After several phone calls, arrangements were made so that Russ could go down to Cincinnati today to work on the car. We're praying that all it needs is a new oil pump. Later yesterday, we got a phone call from Angela at her boys' school. Her Suburban wouldn't start. We drove over and Russ rode with her, after getting the car started, to an auto supply store. They got some dry gas and a new fuel filter. I followed Angela's car to her house and Russ spent some time laying on his back in their driveway getting fuel up his sleeve replacing the fuel filter. It seems to be running okay for now.
That is a condensed version of just some of recent events. Prior to, as well as in and around these, there were several illnesses to deal with. In the words of an injured vet we met in an auto shop, "Life holds many challenges". I guess we don't have much choice but to keep plugging along. Mankind is not perfect and neither is anything he makes.

Our "guest" rooms

I was hoping the room wouldn't look as pink as it did in the previous blog but I guess it still does. Oh well, this is one of the completed bedrooms (the one with the 1919 writing on the ceiling) with the furniture in place. It works out very well that most of our furniture is either hand-me-downs from parents or purchased at used furniture/garage sale type venues. It's appropriate for a grand old home.
In the next picture, hanging in a prominent place on the wall, is the painting Russ's sister painted as a wedding gift for us in 1970. I guess to some people, that's old.
The sailboat was one Russ's dad had as a child. The braided rug on the floor, I made. Nothing expensive here but all invaluable.

How do you prepare for death?

Getting philosophical again, we recently heard of the death of our beloved prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The world was a better place for his presence but now he is gone. In talking about his passing, someone made a comment to me about not being really surprised (considering that he was nearly 98) but "not really being ready for " his death. It made me wonder about what it takes to get ready for death. A scripture states "if ye are prepared ye shall not fear". Lots of people of afraid of death, afraid of their own life ending, afraid of the loss of loved ones. So how can we prepare so that we don't need to fear death? I have often heard advice from people who have had near death experiences or that have faced the possibility due to a dire medical diagnosis, that we should live every day as if it were our last. What does that mean? If we party hard, will we go out happy? I don't think so. Most people when they are actually faced with leaving this life begin to wonder,"what's next"? That is what we need to prepare for. We prepare for leaving here, or having someone we love leave here, by trying to make our relationships worthwhile. We take the time to tell loved ones that we love them, regularly. We make up quickly when there is a glitch in our relationship. We don't waste time holding resentment or refusing to forgive. We also do all we can to be certain that we give our loved ones good reason to miss us when we go! If we do good things for them, say good things to them, and treat them with respect, they won't be relieved to have us gone. So, ironically, one way to prepare for death, is to make life more pleasant. Also, if we will be fearful of what will happen next, we need to find out all we can about what happens next. Everyone has to do their own inner search as well as investigations into what people report who "have been there", meaning those who have had near death experiences and people who claim experiences with the spirit. Personally, after all I have heard and read, I believe there is a God. I believe He sent His son to this earth to atone for our sins. I believe that there is one Heavenly Father therefore, not all churches are equally right. How could that be possible? God must have an opinion. Our quest is to find out what He expects of us and do all we can to prepare to meet Him. Then we will not be afraid.

We thought we had smelled the last of it!

We're at it again- tearing the house apart. When we first looked over the house to decide which bedroom to have as our "master bedroom", we decided to take the two small back bedrooms with their tiny closets and rip out the wall to make it one larger suite. We put the work on hold several months ago in lieu of preparing for Ammon's family to move in and trying to winterize the house, etc. We have reached a point where we're ready to tackle it- well, as ready as we could be................. We opted to remove the plaster and lathe from the ceiling where the little closets between the rooms had been. Lo and behold, we found, at the top of the outside wall, more animal bedding. It had obviously filtered down from the wall space above. I filled the shop vac full.
I tried to get a picture of the old "knob and tube" wiring as well as the original gas piping as Russ was pulling it out of the wall and ceiling. By the way, we decided that was when the remodeling mentioned in a previous blog took place. 1919 was most likely when they tore apart the ceilings to replace old gas fixtures with more "modern" electricity.
You can just barely see Russ standing on a ladder inside our plastic shield. It did help keep some of the mess out of the rest of the house. It took nearly as long to clean it up as it did to remove the plaster and lathe.
This is the resulting more "open" space which will be finished some day.......................