A very busy week with lots of challenges………………………………..

As always, first the chronology:

12/05/21 – Sunday – Up a little early this morning with dogs barking and scam phone calls.  Cleaned up.  Kathy and Todd went out to help Julie with Shelby’s Birthday Party at the cinema.  I went to church.  Came home and had a light snack for lunch.  Downstairs and did the blog.  Some chores at the house then out for the usual afternoon get together.  Left early to go to Julie’s for Shelby’s Spaghetti Birthday Dinner.  Home and got guns ready to go shooting tomorrow.  Otherwise, usual evening routine.

12/06/21 – Monday – Up early this morning with dogs barking again.  Don’t know why I set an alarm.  Got cleaned up and we all went to the range to punch holes in paper.  Made a stop for dog food and probiotics for me.  Then Bob Evans for a big lunch.  Home and napped most of the afternoon.  Up and a snack for dinner.  Chatted with the guys on 2 meters.  Todd and Kathy went up to the Rice house to say goodbye to everyone.  I stayed home and cleaned guns and put things away.  Played a little radio.  Otherwise usual evening routine.

12/07/21 – Tuesday – Up early again with dogs barking.  Cleaned up and spent most of the day in the shack taking care of some business and playing radio.  Todd spent the day packing up the goodies to take back to New York with him.  Took him over to the airport about 4PM.  Stopped at Olive Garden on the way home for dinner.  Home, put the truck away and usual evening routine.

12/08/21 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time.  Got a complete nights sleep.  Chores and cleaned up.  Out to the bank to sign some papers.  Then to Shelbyville for shopping at Harbor Freight and Lowes.  Had lunch at Hardee’s while over there.  Home and unloaded things.  Took a nap.  Up and had a great dinner.  Usual evening routine.

12/09/21 – Thursday – Up early again with dogs.  Spent most of the day in the shack doing Arduino coding.  Kathy went over to take the kids to school and brought Shelby back because she wasn’t feeling good.  Usual evening routine.  Had a drain issue that flooded downstairs.

12/10/21 – Friday – Up at the usual time this morning.  Made a phone call about the septic system.  Went to Lowes and got parts to repair the downstairs commode.  Spent the afternoon doing that work.  Usual evening routine.

12/11/21 – Saturday – Up many times this morning.  An eventful day with tornadoes, loss of power and internet.  Spent the day taking care of those issues and getting the issue resolved with the septic system.  Tried for a nap but unsuccessful.  Took Kathy out for dinner tonight as she’s been running her ass off.  Otherwise, usual evening routine.

---

Now the specifics:

I guess the biggest thing this week was the tornadoes that hit Kentucky. I want to thank everyone that texted or called to see how we were doing. We were warned that we would have bad weather with a cold front coming through the area Friday night into Saturday morning. We don’t have anything outside to worry about so went to bed at the usual time. Then early Saturday morning the alert radio alarmed indicating there was the potential threat or a tornado had been seen. So we took the dogs and went down to the family room. It’s in the lower level of the house and has no windows. We stayed there till the threat had passed which was about 45 minutes. Went back upstairs and of course Rusty had to go out and pee. Got everyone settled just in time for the power to go out and generator to kick in. We were without power or internet for about 7 hours. So don’t rely on the internet or any of the services it carries in the event of an emergency. Everything was back to normal by lunch time on Saturday. We had no damage but many people around us had downed trees and tree limbs. Worst thing to deal with was Kathy complaining that she couldn’t watch TV.

Shelby had a birthday party on Sunday at the movie theater here in Louisville. Kathy and Todd went over early to help set up and helped with the party. Then Julie had a spaghetti dinner for her with an Ice Cream cake from Dairy Queen at home. I went over for that. Shelby thought it was a wonderful day with the party and her friends and of course her uncle Todd.

We always go shooting one day when Todd is here so we went Monday. Kathy even joined us. It was a nice family outing.

Todd and Kathy went back over to Mike and Julie’s so Todd could say goodbye to everyone. Then he spend most of the day Tuesday resting or packing goodies in his suit case. We took him over to the airport and dropped him off around 4PM. Hit heavy traffic on the way home with people getting off work in Louisville so we decided to abort the trip home and we stopped at the Olive Garden on Hurstbourne parkway. Traffic was still heavy when we got out of Olive Garden so I took the backway home to stay off the interstates.

We got the refinancing approval last week so we scheduled the closing for this past Wednesday. Went to the bank and signed a lot of papers. That should all be done now and I’ll have saved myself $200 a month in payments and shortened the payoff period by 2 years. A win on all fronts.

Thursday I spent most of the day doing Arduino coding and re-learning a lot of things. I was sitting at my desk late afternoon and heard bubbling from the downstairs bathroom. When I looked there was water coming out between the commode and the floor. I ran upstairs to see what Kathy was doing and the only thing going on was the clothes washer emptying itself. So we spent the evening cleaning that stuff up. Friday morning I went to Lowes and got all the material needed to put a new wax ring under the commode and hardware to rebuild it. Also made a call to the septic guy. He was tied up and said he’d come around Saturday and look at it. He came over and took a quick look, told me were the problem was and he would have it fixed shortly. Sure enough, about an hour later he announced he was done. I paid him and he’ll be back later this week to put in a riser so we can get to things more easily.

Well that’s been my exciting week. A lot of new things happening but trivial to what the poor people are dealing with that got nailed by the tornado. My heart goes out to those people. Not sure I have the strength it would take to start from scratch again.

That’s it for this week. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Will blog at you again next week.