Mostly Staying Home and Greetings to All - Apr 2020

Hi Everyone!
Just wanted to check in and I hope everyone is well.  We’re in our homes and determined to do our part and to aid anyone we can while we as a nation/globe fight off the virus.  Recently the governor invoked the “Stay At Home” rule which most are abiding by as far as I can tell.

Although we did have some curious visitors recently.

Our yard backs up to an inlet that rises with the tide of the Chesapeake Bay and these guys showed up to check things out.

Yesterday we went for provisions (I love that term vs. groceries and household items)at the local Sam’s Club during the senior hours.  

We continue to work on projects around the house and have been calling, GoTo Meetinging, Zooming, using FaceTime, and said hi to neighbors from a distance.

Much like you all I suppose.  Quite a few folks were wearing masks and everyone was maintaining their distance.  I was surprised to see sections of the store blocked off in a 'One Way' direction.

I also noticed after the Pharmacy area the traffic was routed through the back area where they had a big supply of toilet paper and paper towels.  I looked around and I’d say 90% of the carts in the store had one or two bundles of toilet paper.  I thought, “this is nuts!”

I it made me immediately wonder how many rolls we have at home.  My gut reaction is that people who were not concerned about TP supplies just went along with the emotion of the moment?  I decided I wasn’t going to get caught up in this buying spree.

One of the workers we passed insisted I may want a bundle (9 rolls) but I declined to her complete surprise.  Like everything, we all react to the same situation in many ways so I have to respect what people decide to do.  I really have no idea what they are dealing with so why question it?

However, I did go home and estimated we need about a roll a week between the two bathrooms and I checked -- we have plenty for quite a while.  Maybe for a few months.

The other observation we made was how the workers outside were wiping down the carts before they went inside.  Nice job!

This whole situation makes me think about World War II and have everyone pitched in and “did their part.”  I hear people clapping for medical workers as they go into and out of the hospitals at shift change and how sewers (Kelly) are home trying to create masks for doctors and nurses who may be running low.

My part at the moment ~ I can pray for family and friends and situations.  I know some of my readers will get that and some won’t but that’s OK.

After getting our groceries and such we could scanned them with the Sam’s Club app but by the time I figured it out we were close to the register and we checked out pretty quickly.

Our main work at the moment is yard work and putting in this year’s versos of Pam’s Garden.  For 2020 we are almost doubling it.

This is how it looked before I rented a sod cutter again from Home Depot along with the trailer and got the sod cut.  I cleaned up the machine and took it back, then spent the next couple of days getting up enough courage to pick it all up piece by piece, load it into my cart, then load it into the pickup and carry it over to Kelly and Jon’s house.

They have an area beyond their back fence, before the water that they are sodding in.  Last year’s batch of grass is doing well and so this year’s is going to be added to it.

I’m also deep raking the yard and putting down grass seed after getting rid of green ground cover (aka healthy weeds) so I’m getting my exercise.

We’re also figuring out some covering for the deck and building some flower boxes to hang.

The idea worked OK but the supports were 2 x 2’s that failed.  It got windy after a couple hours after this photo and the tension snapped one.  I may have to go with 4” x 4’s, but we will see.

That’s about it for now.  Hope you all are finding new things to do and are keeping your spirits up.  And seriously, if there is something that I can pray for you about, I would be glad to do so.  Either message me on FB or email or call or whatever.

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Flashback: Pancakes and Polishing the Roadrunner

Sometimes my mind wanders.  There we were, reading to the boys before afternoon nap time and engrossed in "Curious George Makes Pancakes."

The boys love pancakes and this one had a few blueberries in the plot.

For some reason it triggered a thought back to our time at Cheyenne Wyoming during Frontier Days. I remember gong to a free pancake breakfast downtown in Cheyenne and along with hundreds of other folks, being served some big pancakes.

It was a fun day.

A day or two later I was in the midst of one of the many projects we have going at our house in Norfolk (15 minutes away from the boys). I decided it was time to clean the vinyl siding on the house and garage.  I had some fairly expensive spray that was supposed to take the grime and algae? right off the vinyl.  I hooked up the hose and started on the garage first.  I figured I could give it a test run on the back side of the garage and no one would notice if it didn't work out.

Well, the green stuff and dirt didn't loosen up and fall right off after I sprayed it.  Instead, I had to use elbow grease to get it clean.  I got a bottle of Awesome spray soap cleaner from Dollar Tree and it worked perfectly. With my ladder and some rags, I systematical rubbed down one side, then the other, row by row on the siding.  I didn't mind it, but it took a little while.

In fact I did one side and the back, and on another day did the front and saved the other side for yesterday.

All in all I spent about and hour a side on the garage but I was pleased with the results.  Not only did it get clean, I got some exercise,  and felt a sense of accomplishment while I worked away.

As I stepped back it reminded me of all those times that I washed and waxed the Roadrunner.

I never minded doing it and knew that I was saving money by doing it myself and I knew that it was done well.

So there I was -- thinking of days gone by that were fun memories.  Thankfully we have pictures of all the places we went and things we did and can look back and smile.
We're about to head out on a road trip tomorrow and make some more memories.  We'll be in the truck going to Canada, (north of Toronto), Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee for a couple of weeks.

I imagine there will be lots of those kinds of days with flashbacks and memories of our time on the road.  We enjoyed it SO much.  And we are enjoying this stage of our life too.  Hope you are having a great week and thanks for joining us today!

Getting Settled In

We've been in our new (renovated house) for a couple of weeks now and things are moving along well.  I'm including a few pictures of the mostly finished house.

Our daughter Kelly asked a few days ago if it felt like home?  -- Not yet but we are getting there.  Here is a look at what we've had done:

The house.  We painted the whole house and renovated the kitchen and both bathrooms. We opened up the kitchen by taking out a half-wall between the kitchen/dining room and cut a pass-through window above the stove between the kitchen living room. The master bath had a door from the hallway and the bedroom. We took out the hallway entrance. We also had a new roof put on, new gutters, new windows and have done some gardening. We still have the baseboards and trim and baseboards to finish inside.

After becoming fans of downsizing, we relearned the skill of upsizing and got new furniture for every room.  I was amazed at how quickly we filled up the garage which is from the tools and stuff we carried in the motorhome.  😳

We love projects and have a long list so we are enjoying it.  Pam's garden is still going strong despite a fungus that took out the squash.  The

pictures:
Kitchen

 New flooring, countertops, cabinets and appliances, lighting

 Dining Room

New lighting, pantry cabinets

Den/Family Room

Living Room

Hall

New lighting, moved cold air return vent from above closet to the door (second door on right). Removed hall access to master bath.

 Office/Bedroom

New lighting

Hall Bathroom

Completely renovated, new floor, tub, vanity, lighting, shelves, tile, 

Boys bedroom (for sleepovers with Grandma and Papa)

Master Bedroom

Master bath

Completely redone. closed off the hall door, moved the pocket door from the bedroom, tile floor and shower, new vanity and plumbing.

Laundry room

Removed cabinets, moved washer, dryer, added mop sink, added shelf, bench seat at lower right

Deck

We didn't do anything to the deck, just got a table and some chairs.  Adam and Melissa gave us their umbrella which gives us some good shade.

Garden

Yard

That's a brief look at our new abode and some of what we've been doing in the last month.  Hope you all are having a great summer.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Renovations at the Lynnbrook House

I wanted to give you a quick tour of the Lynnbrook House and how it is coming along.
It's been a busy couple of weeks and a lot of hard work.  Pam and I are doing the painting and the rest of the work is being done by a local contractor and his subs.

Interior Design and contractor work is being lined up by Live Oak Real Estate, LLC.

We are glad for the changes that occurring daily, and we're hoping for to move in a couple of weeks from now.  We will see.  There is a lot left to do.

The major items we're having done are the kitchen, both bathrooms, laundry room, the roof, and new windows throughout the house.

Kitchen
Its a small kitchen and everything needed updating, so we started over.

"We" gutted it, cut a pass through window from the living room,  patched the ceiling and walls, repainted everything, added laminate flooring and then new cabinets.  The appliances and countertops arrive in a couple of days for installation.

The hallway and master bathrooms are getting completely redone too.  I noticed how small the hall bathroom was and then thought, "Hey - we used to live in a motorhome.  That was a small bathroom.  This is not as big as some, but it is fine.

The tile work is finished and now the trim work and vanity install next.
Hall bathroom

Master bathroom

Laundry/mud Room

Roof
Just like the DIY flip house shows on TV we had a couple of "Ugh Oh" surprises!!  that we had to take care of.
The first one was some plumbing and pipes under the bathrooms that had to be upgraded.
The second one was the big one.  A few weeks ago we noticed a large drip coming from a hole in the kitchen ceiling where the electrician had been working.  After a couple of heavy rainstorms, it was apparent we needed a new roof.  We knew there was some patch work on the roof, but it apparently wasn't doing the job.  We ended up replacing two sheets of plywood and eight 1" x 6" pieces of lumber.  We figured, "Pay now or pay later" and opted for now.

Painting

We feel like we are making progress and almost have the end in sight.  We also feel like we are not as young as we used to be.  We love the exercise that comes with the painting and yard work -- and we are getting plenty of it!

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!