Scattered Thoughts . . .

Let's face it... my lousy health keeps me at home more often than not so I don't get out much anymore. When I do get out, I try to make the most of it. This past Saturday was no exception as Sheila and I drove down to Rutland for a train show. The drive down there was the start of a very busy day for us beginning with the train show, followed by meeting friends at a local watering hole in town and then ending around a campfire with the grandchildren, Sheila's daughter and Sheila's parents. It was to be a busy day. This day out started with a drive through the mountains and the Green Mountain National Forest on our way to Rutland. What we saw was something I have not seen in ten years or so... absolutely amazing vibrant autumn colors! We first noticed the vibrancy of the colors when we were approaching the highest point on Interstate 89 around Randolph. At that highest point, the colors were bright and vibrant. I suspected this would just be a short preview of wh

Autumn scene, N scale, at the Rutland Train Show. Sheila and I drove down to Rutland on Saturday to attend a very small train show. This show is an annual event hosted by the Rutland Railway Association and the Rutland Railroad Museum. We've been to this show in previous years so I was aware it was a small show, relatively speaking. Compared to the Amherst Railway Society's show in Springfield, MA every year, all shows are small but this show in Rutland is so small that it only requires about an hour of time. The main reasons for attending the show in Rutland yesterday were, first, to get out of the house for a welcome change in scenery. My health has really limited my ability to get out of the house and socialize. I often go a few weeks looking at the same walls all day and all night so our primary reason for wandering down to Rutland for this show was to get out! The next reason for heading to the show was simply because we enjoy model railroading and enjoy viewing

I awoke this morning feeling exhausted, almost overwhelmingly so. I immediately knew I would not be trying to tackle any big tasks today.  All I managed to accomplish was cutting and installing a small shim for a magnetic cabinet catch and sanding a towel bar for finishing. After these two very small tasks, I was completely spent for the day. It wasn't long afterward that my health crashed completely. Sometimes (weekly or a few times each month) my illness causes anaphylaxis. This anaphylaxis often comes on suddenly but sometimes can come on very slowly over the course of hours. Today was one of those days where the problems built up slowly over the course of the morning. I collapsed for a number of hours... I spent time in the bathroom sick... and I just simply struggled to stay conscious most of the day. Bone and joint pain worsened throughout the day. Today I am even experiencing sore muscles on top of all the bone and joint pain. I didn't even have the energy to showe

Tile installed, toilet flange installed... This morning, I primed the underlayment in our new half bath in preparation of tile. Funny thing about this "primer"... I had to search around for this stuff so I felt a bit relieved when we finally bought some at Lowes the other day. The moment I opened the container this morning, I recognized the smell... It smells exactly like water-based polyurethane... the same stuff I use on all of our trim... the same stuff I have sitting in a new gallon can waiting for the next trim to be installed. So... I'm left thinking that this primer is really just a sealer in the form of water-based polyurethane. As I waited for the primer to dry, I started cutting tile. When the primer was dry, I starting laying tile. I have to say it was a quick and easy job! I then installed the toilet flange and screwed that into the floor.  It is beginning to look more like a small bathroom rather than a closet!

New beadboard ceiling... Yesterday's exceptionally bad luck was left behind and today ended up being a productive day! I decided to install the ceiling in the new half bath. I had already pre-finished the boards for this project because it is easier to stain and poly when the boards are on sawhorses rather than on the ceiling. Gravity works against you when staining anything above you so I was thinking ahead and pre-finished the ceiling. Today, I installed this ceiling and it is looking great! The hallway and laundry room adjacent to this bathroom both have wood ceilings. We really like the warmth of the wood ceilings and plan to continue installing wood ceilings as we renovate each part of the house.  I also added a bit more drywall today. I managed to salvage just one small piece of drywall from yesterday's catastrophe. This one piece allowed me to continue on with another project too... I had to install an electrical switch box that is deeper than this thinner-th

First thing this morning, Sheila and I set out to buy more supplies for our half bathroom. The priority was two sheets of drywall and lumber to custom build a door for the bathroom. We made it to Lowes easily, but... Once we arrived at Lowes, we had all sorts of crazy and frustrating problems. Prices were absurd and about 30% higher than all the other local building suppliers. Some items we needed were out of stock. The quality of lumber was not only rather lousy but the quality we were seeing was not matching the claimed ratings. Things would get worse though. I needed just two sheets of drywall to finish the bathroom so we loaded that onto our cart first. I was really looking forward to getting this part of the job finished. I also needed a good quality sheet of 1/2" plywood for door panels. I wanted cabinet grade A-A rated plywood (each side graded A) but would settle for A-B. They had A-C in stock... okay, I would settle for that if I placed a decent C graded side on the i

All the electrical works! Dimmer switch at left, fan delay timer at center, and GFCI outlet at right. I managed to get a little bit more accomplished on the half bath yesterday. That wore me out and I had some health issues later that night so I took another day off today for rest and recovery. Actually, I slept the entire day! I installed the subfloor as well as the underlayment. That was a fairly easy job. We now have another clean and level spot in the old house! Oh, and a solid spot!  Once I get a primer for the self-adhesive tiles, I can finish the flooring. I have a couple of extra boxes of the tile flooring that we had installed in the hallway that we plan to continue on into this new half bath.  A week or so ago, I had written that I installed all the wiring and tested all the fixtures and everything was fine... While everything worked fine (meaning I had wired everything correctly), I had a problem fitting these bulky electronic switches/timers/outlets into the parti

Waiting outside the recruiter's office... Back a few weeks ago, Sheila and I accompanied Adam to his first visit to an active duty Air Force recruiter. Since that first visit, Adam has been going alone but we felt it would be best to introduce ourselves to the recruiter right at the beginning so the recruiter would know that the family is familiar with the Air Force family and way of life. Things moved very quickly in that first week or so but then we moved into a syrupy, frustratingly slow "wait mode". That first week involved completing a ridiculously long application (I think it was 120 pages long) and lining up references. After submitting his application, he was scheduled for his first visit to the Military Entrance Processing Station otherwise known as MEPS. While at MEPS he passed his physical, psychological profile, drug testing and written exam (others in his group were not as fortunate), and then he actually signed a contract putting him into the Delayed

New HP Envy desktop computer with Beats Audio... Excellent audio for a home computer! I had mentioned in a previous blog post a few weeks ago that my computer had stopped working and that finding a new one proved to be a difficult, time-consuming task. Within a week or so, I had a new HP Envy desktop computer delivered to my door. Money is always an issue for us considering the medical bills for both Sheila and me with our respective illnesses so this was a costly problem we did not welcome. We've certainly had more serious and costly 'emergency' problems but this was a problem we needed to address as soon as possible in today's electronic world. This computer issue sort of bumped a few more projects around the house. My health hasn't been cooperating for home renovations anyway so that slows down renovations which helps with the budget issues. Buying a new computer always involves extra costs though. There is software to replace which can total more than

Sheila's mom went for her daily three mile walk on Wednesday morning but started having chest pains when she was close to the farthest point from the house. With no cellphone in hand, she took a short break to try to catch her breath and in the hope the pain would dissipate but then decided to push forward still feeling pain, tightness and pressure in her chest. She eventually made it home only to collapse in bed in pain.  When there was no change to her condition after a few short minutes, Sheila's dad quickly decided to call for the EMT's.  She spent the day and half the night at our local hospital, still with significant chest pain, until being transferred to the more suitably equipped hospital in Burlington in the middle of the night. She was immediately admitted to the ICU and scheduled for exploratory surgery in the morning.  By morning, her chest pain had subsided considerably but all tests were indicating she had experienced quite a prolonged heart attack due to