Scorching the World

After I took a shower this morning I couldn't get the water to turn all the way off. I put a large pot there to collect the water until we can fix it, but it fills the pot about 5 times in a day;  I don't plan to recycle the water in the night. Unfortunately, Tom got home too late to do anything about it, and we will be gone all day tomorrow and Sunday. He will work again Monday, so the soonest possible day he can work on it will be Tuesday. That's a whole lot of water wasted, but I don't know what we can do about it. That's the problem with being so far from town. It's 40 minutes each way, so you can't just run down and pick something up and if it doesn't work go back and return it for the right part like we did in Fresno or even in Chile! I worked on a wall hanging for our bedroom most of the day. I'm trying to decorate the room in white and silver, but there isn't enough white or silver to notice a trend, so I decided to add a large wall han...

Wow, where did the week go? Well, on Tuesday Tom got the right connector for the new compressor, but had a really hard time getting it connected. He probably spent 20 minutes trying to get it put on, then suddenly it went on and we were in business. It was so incredibly easy to staple, and so fun! During the day I made sure all the chairs were ready to staple, and got all the pieces of leather with the chairs in order. We went through and got all the stapling done in just a few hours. It was the most fun part of the whole project. We used every single staple from the box Tom had bought. After all the stapling, I had to trim all the excess leather (it isn't really leather, but a fake leather) - anyway, trimming all the excess leather took all of Wednesday and Thursday. Not all day of both days, but as much time of both days that I could hold the scissors until my hands began to cramp up. Then I'd find another project for a while and go back to it again later. When I finall...

I got to stay home all day today! That makes this a true red-letter day ! Tom left for work around 9am and I got to stay home and work on projects that I've started. First is re-upholstering Tami's dining-room chairs. I took two of the chairs with me as we traveled last week and covered one with Trina's help, and tried to do the other at Tanya's house. Then Tom remembered he had a power stapler, so on Saturday we picked it up from storage at Berkshire on the way home and waited till we could get back to Phil's to use it. Today was the first opportunity to try the power stapler, but Phil's compressor is so big, it seemed like overkill to haul it out just to cover chairs. It's really big. While Tom was gone, it took a lot of energy to NOT just use Trina's staple gun. I'm too impatient but I just kept telling myself how much easier it will be with the power stapler. So on the way home after work today, Tom bought a brand new smaller compressor be...

Church starts at 9am this year, and it's at least a 40 minute drive so we left at about 8:10. When we were almost half way there, we remembered that we forgot our gps. We've only been to that building twice and still don't know Napa at all and were afraid we wouldn't be able to find it. And we were worried about getting lost, but it was almost magical how we drove right to it. We laughed when we realized that it is incredibly easy to get to the church once we get into Napa - basically one right turn and one left turn. Anyway, church was wonderful. We were happy again with the friendliness and warm welcome they have given us. We're liking it here more and more. We got home from church to find Phil already barbequing our lunch. We fixed some veggies and spuds to go with the meat and enjoyed lunch with McGills. After lunch Phil and Tami worked on pulling out the back patio floor. They worked on that until they left about 4pm. It was sad to see them leave - like the...

What a whirlwind our life has turned into. We wanted to get out of Fresno as early as possible this morning because it's a 4 hour drive back to Napa. First Tom had to return his rental, so I loaded the truck while he was gone. I had just finished when he returned and all he had to do was load 2 heavy things and tie it all down. Then we went to take some stuff to a thrift store. The 2nd stop was at the Church vineyard where our good friend Jaime (who is in charge of the Church welfare vineyard) had saved some grape starts for us. Tom got enough varieties that we will have grapes early summer, late summer, and clear into December if they don't freeze. And many of them are big enough that they will produce this year! Yum! Getting them took about half hour, but it was so nice to see Jaime again. He is a great, great man. When we got there, he said to Tom, "I'm gonna have to tell your wife that I saw you at the vineyard with a beautiful woman."  So sweet. Then we s...

In the morning, I put in a load of wash. (Tami's dryer was in repairs so I haven't done launder there yet;) Tom's work pants and shirt were dirty so I threw them in and we started working on re-upholstering one of Tami's chairs. (I forgot to say that Trina and I managed to recover one of the chairs and it was REALLY hard!!!) So I was glad to have Tom help me with the other five. I had brought 2 on the trip to work on. Anyway, we had only worked on it a little while when Tom remembered he has a power stapler in our storage!!! Using Trina's staple gun was crazy hard, so it will be wonderful to have the power stapler for the other 5 chairs! Tom had been told previously that the training started at 3pm but about 9am a guy called from Tom's work saying he was already late! Unfortunately, his clothes were in the washing machine! The other problem was that we had taken my Miata and his pick up truck to be serviced. He had no way to get to the meeting and...

Tom got up the earliest and headed to San Jose for his big meeting. It was a training meeting for Synergy employees, done by PG&E. He had to arrange the meeting place, some places for them to service and some thank-you gifts. I hung out with Trina and we pretty much relaxed and enjoyed life. Tom got back around 2pm and we had a quick lunch and tried to get out of town before commute traffic hit. We only hit really slow traffic once so that was good. From Trina's we went to Fresno because Tom had a big meeting/training with a wonderful dinner at night on Friday.. We stopped at our garage full of storage in Berkshire to pick up our sofa bed before going to Tanya's. It will be where we sleep whenever we visit since we took our bed up to Napa. The kids were already in bed when we got there, so after we brought in the sofabed, we relaxed with Tanya a little before going to bed.

Tom needed to go to work in San Jose today and tomorrow, so by 8:30 am we headed to Trina's. He dropped me there, then went on south to work. I mostly played with Trina - she taught me how to crochet a project I have and we dropped kids off at school and picked them up again (these are the high school/college kids because their schools are too far to walk to and they don't have driver's licenses.) and the day just flew by. Tom's work took way longer than he thought and got back to Trina's around 6.  After a quick dinner/snack I went with him to do a little shopping. He needed things for his big meeting tomorrow and I needed to find fabric to re-cover Tami's diningroom chairs. After that The evening was normal stuff, then scripture reading and bed time. We were really tired and were the first ones in the whole house to go to sleep!

We slept in and relaxed in bed way longer than we have for years. It felt so good,  but still, we were up by about 7:30 and went for a walk. It was pretty much the first time we've exercised since we left Chile and it felt good to be going up and down hills. It's a good workout really fast. Unfortunately, I'm so out of shape that we couldn't go the full distance and the last leg of the walk is a very steep uphill climb, so I barely made it. But still it felt good. I was disappointed that when we got home I hadn't automatically lost 20 pounds and built lots of muscle from that great walk, but I guess things don't happen like I wish. After the walk I took a shower while Tom did some more exercises and right after I got out of the shower Alissa called to invite us over for breakfast! Right then! So I hurried and did my hair and make up and Tom hurried and got dressed and we walked the little block around the corner to their house and enjoyed a great lunch with th...

Tami and Phil came last night with Nina and Mila but Draven stayed in Oakland with a friend. It was fun to have time together and Tami was so impressed with how clean and orderly the house is, she said she should pay us rent to live here! That's pretty funny, but it is also really sweet. I'm glad she appreciates the things I've done instead of feeling like I've intruded on her space. (I've been organizing all the cupboards, drawers, shelves, nick-nacks, dusting vacuuming, etc.) She was pretty happy. Marc and Alissa also came up for the day and came over for lunch. It was fun to spend some time with them, too. I had saved bubble-wrap that our TV came wrapped in for Laelle and Tova and they had a great time jumping on it and popping it. Marc took a video, so hopefully he will share so I can post it. Today was the first day that we slept here and spent all day here and will sleep here again tonight.  Tom had to leave early to go to work but was back by about 2p...

Man, we've been busy! Time sure flies - much more so now than when we were on our mission. I'm not sure that's totally a good thing because it means we're getting old really fast, but we are having fun while doing it! We've been working on moving into the house at Lake Berryessa, and Tom has been working on working. Thursday was so long ago now that I can't remember what we did but it involved a lot of driving and shopping and getting back home very late. lol. How's that for a summary? Friday we left about 9:30am which was the fastest we could get ourselves up and dressed and fed. We headed to South San Jose to pick up a pick-up that Tom bought. He test drove it and then we went to a bank and took out the $$ to buy it. Then we went back north to leave our van at Trina's house so we could go to Fresno together in the truck. I had about half hour to hang out with Trina before Tom got there and we left. We were anxious to get out of town before the comm...

It was nice to go to bed and wake up in the same house. No, that doesn't make sense. It felt good to be in the place where we're going to live and be able to go to bed and get up without having to keep all our stuff in our little suitcase. We've been sleeping in a different bed almost every night it seems, so it was nice to stay in one place that we now call home, for TWO nights in a row. We've moved almost half of the things from Tanya's house, but none of the furniture. Tom bought a truck yesterday which we will pick up on Thursday, so next week we'll be able to move the bed and a large cabinet.  In the morning we were waiting for the satellite tv guy to come and install the satellite. We worked on computers while we waited, and then worked on installing a temporary shower. About a year ago, Phil ripped out his shower in the master bath, and took out the tub from the main bathroom, so there was nowhere to bathe in the house. The McGills manage without bath...

We spent the night at Trina's and then Monday morning Tom went to work. I stayed and played with Trina. Mostly we were both busy all day doing just STUFF. The kind of stuff that isn't really anything to tell, but takes up the day. Tom was busy getting flyers copied and then passing them out at a very large mobile home park. He said he had walked his "15 miles" that day. I'm sure it wasn't really 15 miles but his knee got very swollen and he's had pain walking since then. :( When he got back to Trina's he helped me make them us some dinner and then we headed out to the lake house. We needed to do some shopping on the way, so we stopped at a Costco we found. When we walked in, there was a guy there selling satellite tv service. We happened to need satellite tv service, so we signed up! It took nearly an hour and made it so we got to the house really late, but it will be installed on Thursday, so we're happy to have that! Each time we're at th...

The meetings for the ward in Fresno now start at 12:30, so we had plenty of time to get ready in the morning, but we were also packing to go back to the Bay Area - we planned to leave right after Sacrament meeting. A couple of weeks ago when Tom and I were both scheduled to speak in Sacrament meeting, he was sick and didn't give his talk. The Bishop had said he "would get his chance" and sure enough, on Friday he got called to be on standby because one speaker had called in sick. So Tom spent considerable hours re-preparing his talk just in case and was sufficiently nervous again. But when we got there, he saw that all the speakers showed up, so he was off the hook again. The other speakers were really good, though, and we were glad for the meeting. We did leave right after Sacrament meeting and went back to Tanya's to finish packing. We had things in large bins to take back to storage, bins to go to the lake house, and bins to go to Trina, plus our suitcase (litt...

We decided we finally had time to go to the temple this morning! So we got up and dressed and went first thing. Tanya went with us and it was such a beautiful experience! It was the best thing we've done since we got home. There just isn't any way to describe the feelings of joy and peace that you get in the temple. There were many happy tears! To add to that, Saturday morning is the shift we used to serve before our mission, so most of the people there were very happy to see us, and we were sure happy to see our good friends! It was a wonderful experience! Afterwards, we 3 went out to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. It's amazing how full you can get on salad stuff, but it sure is good food. When we got home there was just time to change clothes and then go to see Cannon play basketball. So cute! After the  game I went home and Tom went to Tranquillity to see our rental there and talk to our renter who is buying it; he was gone the rest of the day! He finally got home and ate...

Tom was really under pressure to find some mobile home parks for work; he needed to have places where the marketers could go on Monday, so he was anxious to get out of Napa and get to work in San Jose. Consequently, we didn't get to go for a walk up the hills like we had planned, but packed up and got out of there and down to Trina's by noon. He left Trina's immediately and got to work. While he was gone, Trina and I discussed a crochet project I started and don't know how to finish. I started it in Chile and only bought one ball of cotton yarn because I didn't know how much I'd need. By the time I was ready to buy more, they had stopped selling it because they said it was a summer yarn, and we were then into winter. Who knew they wouldn't always sell it! The problem was that where i started it, I had friends who were showing me how to do it, every step of the way. When the next summer came, I had been moved to a different place and didn't have that ...

Life is so fun. Life is so wonderful. Life is so blessed. What else needs said? Oh, happenings. We began our transition to living in Napa. It's going to be less convenient than Fresno or Fremont - well actually it's less convenient TO Fresno. it's 4 hours from Fresno but 2 hours from Fremont. Tom will be working from Napa on south to San Jose and beyond, so it will be closer for his work. The other upside is the spectacular view and that we have the house to ourselves almost all the time. When we do share the house, it is with Tami and family, which will be lots of fun! In the summer we can swim in the lake whenever it seems too hot. Also, whenever Tom heads south near Fremont, he can drop me off at Trina's and we can play. The only downside is that it is so far from Tanya, but we do have to go there whenever Tom has a meeting there, which will be quite regularly. We took a carload of stuff up there from our storage, but we really need Tom to get a truck to be a...

I didn't post yesterday because it was Tom's birthday and didn't get to it. So I guess I'm not really posting "every day" despite the three good reasons I gave on Monday, and I have three reasons for that: 1. Lack of time 2. Lack of ambition 3. Nobody cares but me anyway! LOL! Anyway, I wanted to fix Tom a good breakfast for his birthday, but he had an appointment with the chiropractor yesterday first thing. After that he had a lunch with a guy from work, so I didn't see him much until late afternoon. He came home all excited about a house to buy in Fresno, but we tabled the discussion long enough to go shopping. I had invited the missionaries to come for dinner on Tom's birthday to make it a bigger deal and we went with Todd and Tanya's menu of Taco Tuesday. We added Spanish rice and refried beans. There was plenty of food and everyone was stuffed. We bought a couple of Claim Jumper pies and ice cream for dessert. It was great. We had tried...

I decided to go back to posting every day because: 1. It's hard to remember the good stuff after a week 2. It makes a really long post when it's a whole week 3. I like keeping track of where my days go because my blog is mostly for me anyway. Tom is still coughing but he doesn't feel sick anymore. So it's hard to get him to keep taking vitamin C, drinking tea, and doing all the other things that are supposed to help him get better. Hopefully he can kick the cough soon. He had decided he didn't want to go back to work until mid-January, or, better yet, the end of January, but his boss (Dave Price) called today and asked if he was ready to hit the road running. He wants Tom to meet with Matt tomorrow and get ready for a meeting on Wednesday and get their plan going and get busy. So apparently Tom will be working soon. That means we should have already moved to Napa because now he won't have time, and he already should have bought a truck because now he does...

After all the Christmas fun in the Bay Area we came back to Tanya's. Tom was still too sick to enjoy being out of bed very long; he just kept coughing and taking naps. But there are things that need done, and he did talk to his ex-boss and got his old job back. Now we're just waiting to see when he will start. I worked on stuff I wanted to do -  my 1st priority was to sew a long-sleeved white top to wear under other clothes. While I was doing that and had the sewing machine out, Caeli came to me with a project she had. Before we came home from our mission, she had saved up her allowance to buy some fake fur and stuffing and wanted to make a pillow. When she realized we would be home in a couple of weeks, she realized she could have me sew it instead of having to sew it by hand. Well, I taught her to sew instead and she loved doing it! She's so happy with her new pillow and new-found skill! Basically we are enjoying being around our grandchildren again! . I also...