Stories and other stuff

I'm just kinda laughing at myself today.  Of everything going on in my life, I'm just chuckling over putting a urinal in my basement.  It's either really cool or extremely tacky.  The thing is and with me there's always something, no?; it's what I'm planning on purchasing for the urinal which started me thinking about tacky. To set the stage for this story, I'm gonna say for the ladies, this is an all-guy post and it's strictly a matter of plumbing, and yes, this is gonna be tack. To set the story, here's another story.  We were on a road trip to Canyonlands and my son had to go.  I mean he really had to go.  Being in the middle of nowhere in central Utah, with a few dirt roads here and there, I did what any dad would have done.  I found a place for him to go. My son being raised properly by his mother (had to be her, y'all know how I am) was sheepish about going au' natural.  Well, it just so happened that I also had to go, so I went a...

There easily has to be three feet of snow on the ground up here.  It's not an exaggeration and judging from the depth of the snow on top of my recycling trash can, I think it's a fair estimate.  Just as a frame of reference, the pool is over 4 feet tall. I spent about two and a half hours digging out today.  When I got home from downtown, my neighbor was thinking about doing it by hand.  I was thinking that wasn't such a good idea for him when I have a snowblower in the garage, so I helped him out.  His son-in-law has been shoveling their driveway but he wasn't home today, so I pitched in to help. That snowblower of mine is a beastie.  And as neat as it is, and it does a wonderful job, the snowblower at the church is every bit as good and somewhat easier to maneuver because it's smaller.  That and mine needs a lil' bit of air in the tires.  My compressor is downstairs though and I can't move it  until at least tomorrow because the gro...

Click here  to read today's post.   Sometimes what's old is new again.

I'm getting a little excited about the renovation going on downstairs.  The walls were painted on Thursday and I went down this morning to get a peek at what it looked like first hand.  I've been meaning to go exploring but I've been either busy during the day or just too tired at night.  This morning, though we were moving tile into the basement and I got my first look at it, and the difference between what was there and what is there now is night and day. My contractor and I had a little chat about paint, too.  He decided to use the paint/primer combo for the first time on my basement and he had to paint it twice.  In the long run, it actually wound up costing him more to paint it with that than it would have to primer it first, he told me.  I've used it once, when I repainted my bedroom and I had the same problem with it.  To get it to cover properly, I had to paint it twice. And when I did, because of the color that was on the wall and the purp...

I was gonna buy a ham the other day.  In fact, I left the house and headed down the street.  Ham is on sale and I've always wanted to try this particular type of ham.  But then, there was this nagging thing that told me to not go buy the ham.  So I, for once, listened, although I couldn't for the life of me understand what the big deal about picking up a ham was.  I just turned around and came home Today I understood why.  Ham money was spent on ice melt.  Wal-mart got a shipment in this morning (news courtesy of my next door neighbor) and I bought 200 pounds of the stuff. That's kind of a dumb story, I know.  But it's an important one when you look at it from the viewpoint of a bigger picture; one of following that still-small voice that guides a Christian.  It's a story of really not understanding something but being willing to trust and obey.  It's all the things we as Christians are supposed to do, and sometimes don't. Not buyi...

The last time I've encountered a layer of ice on top of snow was ten years ago when we were deployed to Bangor, Maine.  That's the same trip I met the wife again, it's a long story and I don't wanna get into it.  Let's just focus on the snow thing, shall we? My story starts this morning with having to move my car so the contractor could get in the driveway.  There was a little bit of ice on the car.  He told me the drive up was something pretty spectacular.  I went out about noon to gather up a pamphlet from the VA I got in the mail.  I now have VA medical care but don't understand why if all I have is what they say is a nonservice-connected disability.  Again, that's another story...  The car was parked just behind the truck, and as I turned to go down the driveway, I almost wound up at the bottom of it.  I was able to grab the truck and not fall. I had some icemelt in the garage, so I threw it down and made a little path between my truc...

You know, if all you have to do today is just hang out with your dog, it's not a bad day.  It's not all that I had to do, but the great thing about being Bucky's human is that sometimes he just doesn't give you a choice.  Sometimes he makes you hang out with him. Y'all know how I feel about this dumb dog.  I've seen God use Bucket to do some mighty things in my life.  It all started for me with the story of "My Dog Max", and every step of the way, Bucket has been right there, kind of the tie that binds this dysfunctional family together.  I told you he's a bona-fide hero dog for taking care of my father-in-law when he was TDY to Indiana. Ol' Buck's been a little Buckybandoned lately, but today I'm making some time for him.  Inbetween, I'm folding laundry and kinda watching history unfold... you have to appreciate how far we've come as a country and it's awfully fitting that our President's second term inauguration ca...

My plan was to make fried chicken dinner for tonight, complete with rolls, mashed potatoes and country gravy.  I mean, the whole works!  It's all in there... chicken is in the freezer, have plenty of potatoes, even the stuff for making gravy.  The fryer has oil and everything.  I even took out the rolls to thaw and bake. My plan was to make a cheesecake for dessert.  I have some leftover blackberries from the garden in the freezer.  All of the stuff to make the cheesecake is in the fridge and cupboard.  I asked the lady from church about baking it.  She gave me some pretty good tips.  I even pulled up the recipe. I talked to a friend of mine who I gave a bottle of my homemade BBQ sauce to.  He told me he used it to make pulled pork and really liked it.  Just the cuts of meat I needed to make pulled pork with were on discount at the Winco.  There is now a change of plan. The rolls go in the oven in about a half-hour. ...

Today's story is about keys. I have to start this story way back.and it'll lead someplace in the end.  Call it an "object lesson" if you will.  The story starts like this: Years ago, the spare key for my truck was misplaced, remote and all.  I like the remote for the locks.  It served two purposes:  One to set the alarm, and two, to move the locks without the key.  The down side is that sometimes the key locks stick.  I didn't know that, though, and for years I've been under the misconception that the teeth on the key for my truck had worn down to the point where the key would start the truck, but not operate the locks. That's why I've only had the one key for the truck for years. I got by with one key for the truck, so when I bought the car, I just never made a spare.  I was just a little more careful with my keys than I had been in years past. Fast forward to a few weeks ago.  I let June borrow my car and the last thing I told her...

I'm taking a little break from my project.  I'm just about done with it and think tomorrow will wrap it up.  I was kinda feeling the spirit today, and I don't know what the dealio is, but if I eat a couple of bananas, I feel great, physically. Maybe it's time for the Centrum silver multivitamin, or the one-a-day over 50 and the fish oil caplets.  I have some sort of vitamins in the cupboard.  Guess it's time to start taking them again.  And bananas.  One a day... So I have a little story to tell.  That's kind of the whole point of the blog, though, no?  I have stories to tell and some days they're better than others.  Today's story is about TV. I fired directv last week.  The bill was too steep.  A couple of days later, I had a phone call from a number I didn't recognize.  I googled it and apparently it belongs to the "we love you, come back" department at directv.  I didn't call them back, because I was still being ...

I spent $7 on dinner.  Another $23 for the following:  a box of kitty litter, two cans of air freshener, a box of store brand trash bag liners, and two boxes of brownie mix.  They were only $1 a piece and they'll go well with the two cans of chocolate frosting in the cupboard. I was going to make a yule log cake.  I find these days I was gonna do a lot of things, but don't have a lot of free time to do said lotta things.  I have a project I'm going to finish by Sunday evening.  I will work on it today after round two of snow removal. I managed not to break a shear pin on the snowblower today.  I had an unfortunate incident where I left my keys in the church gym and locked the door behind me.  I thought I'd lost them in the snow and spent an extra hour moving piles of snow with a snowblower looking for them.  Fortunately, someone came and found my keys.  Tomorrow I'll make another key for the truck.  Gotta have a spare.  I'v...

According to KSL, we're experiencing winter storm "Gandolf".  I guess the weather channel decided to start naming storms that will have "significant impact" and this one does/will.  Being at home right now is a blessing in disguise. My doctor told me to eat some bananas.  I did and I feel much better.  Some sleep and some chicken soup are equally responsible, but bananas did the trick.  Add that to foods you should eat when you feel like crap list.  Bananas.  Who knew? Oh, yeah, the story... With winter storm "Gandolf" messing up my driveway, I'm especially grateful for the behemoth snowblower that's sitting in the garage, all warm and dry, with electric start, and just waiting....  I can clear my driveway off in about fifteen minutes with this thing.  What it will do to a Sunday newspaper is a thing to behold... It's instant confetti, but a real mess to clean up afterward.  I guess, just like real confetti. How I got my snowblow...

As I mentioned before, I think to get us all out of the collective mess we find ourselves in, it's going to take shared sacrifices.  We've asked the wealthy to pay a little more in taxes.  We're paying again what we did two years ago in payroll taxes, which is only fair. Given my little financial circumstances, that shared sacrifice looks like me not having directv anymore. That's going to save me $100 a month.  In the meantime, I haven't had a chance to hook up a tv antenna to pick up regular tv, so I have a DVD collection of this and that I haven't watched which is keeping me entertained today. I ought to be at work.  I'd rather be at work, but I have something I'd rather not share.  My doctor gave me the bad news today.  I'm only half way through what this is and she doesn't want me to go back to work until Saturday.  Me, I'd be back today, but tomorrow works.  In the mean time, there's no TV and I'm watching, of all things, ...

I don't know why I have all these stupid food things.  Maybe it's just because I like what I like and often, it involves just a little bit of this with a little bit of that. Chinese food always came like this:  Chicken chow mein, sweet and sour pork, ham friend rice, and egg foo yung.  That's how we had chinese food and it's the little bit of this, little bit of that I like. I didn't find out about ordering the #1 until I tried to order chinese for a group of us on my first TDY to Bangor, Maine in 1991.  They were gonna lynch me because what I wanted to order was about $50.  Hey, you live and learn, but I genuinely didn't know any other way to eat chinese. Same with mexican food.  The combo plate came with a taco, a tamale, a cheese enchilada, and rice and beans.  You got a little bit of this and that and the food was good.  Even when you order chicken parmesan at a restaurant, you get a pasta with it.  So I made lasagna, and I made pasta...

If you walk into my home, one of the things you'll notice is a somewhat large collection of a Pfaltzgraff pattern they no longer make on display in the china cabinet.  The china cabinet is built into the wall and the Pfaltzgraff collection takes up most of the display space.  What's not displayed takes up a lot of the cupboards underneath the cabinet.   Most of the collection has been pieced together over the last almost ten years from finds on e-bay.  I haven't added anything to the collection since the Mrs. moved out, save one thing. One of the accessories that this pattern had was photo frames.  They're very rare to find and once in a blue moon, you'll see them on e-bay.  I paid almost $30, with shipping, for the last one I bought. Last weekend, I found one for sale and bid on it.  The buyer, I noticed was offering free shipping.  I won the auction on the second of January, but didn't complete paying for it until Friday.  I paid $8.49 ...

Well, it's Saturday. No overtime tonight, which I'm happy about.  The money would have been nice, but so is staying in on this cold day.  I would never have made it as an eskimo!  Brr!!!!   Let me say that again.... brrrr! I accomplished a little bit of grocery shopping yesterday afternoon before work.  I told my stealth roommate we needed to start eating up the tomatoes we bottled.  On the stove there is a pot of red sauce cooking.  I had some of our green peppers from the garden in the freezer, to I tossed some of those in as well.  Of course, now there's a problem, because well, nothing I do can be simple. I can't decide on what to make using said red sauce and I have to make a decision quickly.  It's either gonna be spaghetti, chicken parmesan, or lasagna.  If I make zagne, I'll be eating it for a week.  I have the stuff and whether or not I make it today, I'll make it this week.  If I make chicken parmesan, I can mak...

I've been blessed to have some overtime come my way the past month.  I do very well when I work OT; time and a half at what I make is good money.  This payday, I worked two hours of overtime more than I worked the pay period before.  Tonight I looked at what will go in the bank tomorrow and I will get $6 less than the previous pay period. If you haven't been paid yet this year, you'll see the same thing in your paycheck that I saw in mine tonight.  The 2% payroll tax holiday is over.  For me, it's an additional $100 a month, roughly in Social Security taxes. I agree that holiday needed to stop.  The economy needed that boost of cash.  But now we gotta start getting our financial house in order in this country.  I gotta do my part, but that means an already tight belt just got a lot tighter. It's not a gripe from me because I support having the rich pay more.  I can't ask them to do that without not wanting to do my part.  I want to...

The upstairs of my home is a bit dated.  I've mentioned this before, but having pink toilets and tile kind of limits the choices one can make when considering paint colors.  Add in the original wallpaper that matches the fixtures, and you're limited.  Shades of pink or orange, or an off-tan color will work.  White works well, too, I suppose, but white is, well, so white and plain. I've been working on a little project in my little bathroom, on and off, for the past month or two.  It's a small room, but I've been using what I had laying around to get as far as I have.  A Christmas gift will enable me to finish the project, but I'm still stuck with the ongoing dilemma of what color to use. I came across the original paint cans the other day in the garage.  I know the names of the colors and more than likely, I'll wind up using the peach color for the walls again, but with a rainbow of colors and textures out there, I'm toying with trying something el...

Well, my 2013 is starting off with a bang.  At about 3:30 this morning my kid texted me the word "What".  Shortly before that, I woke up to the beep of my phone.  The cat stepped on it and dialed my boy who I'd texted Happy New Year to at midnight.  Any other time, the phone's keypad lock would have been on. It only rang once before I hung it up, but the kid must've seen he had a missed call from his old man and was probably wondering what the weirdo was doing calling him at 3;30 in the morning.  At that time, for me, someone better be in the hospital or worse, or in jail, if you're calling me. I went back to sleep, but soon after my stomach really started hurting.  Too much rich food, I think. Anyway, I woke up to find that during the midnight hours, one of the animals had shredded a bag with trash in it. One of my little furry friends, with claws attached, decided it would be fun to go outside.  I tried to get her back in the house, but all I c...