Monday
We’re up intermittently slept which has been usual since all the shootings during the early morning hours. It’s been 10 days since the last shooting so we’re about due for another one. The propagation sounds about normal on my HF radio. We got a couple of very sweet letters from our sponsored children in the Philippines. The three families are doing pretty well with our support. Life has been tough for a lot of them since COVID devastated their livelihoods. Inflation has also taken a toll on their ability to buy food for their families. It costs about $1.33/day/person for food at the poverty level which is MUCH cheaper than we’re paying at Wally World. They routinely have tropical weather providing heavy rain that floods their streets and destroys their crops.
We spent the latter part of the morning discussing her appointment with Emory next Tuesday. We could not agree on the phone number she dialed even though her phone had a record of the phone call.
The battery in the Blue Focus was down to 12V. I hooked it back up to the four small solar panels on the fence to give it a bit of a recharge. We’re all ready to get groceries tomorrow morning.
Tuesday (Grocery Day)
It’s overcast and about 71 degrees, heavy storms tonight. Radio is warmed up listening for Uncle Paul to chime in. We went to Wally World at 9:30 to get groceries, that went pretty fast as our grocery list has gotten smaller. The number of items has been greatly reduced by simplifying our meals down to Meat and Potatoes. We were home and ready to dart out to the bank at 10:20. We were well on our way to Longhorn by 10:30. We arrived 14 minutes early and sat in our car until they opened. Lunch was terrific, Hanna was very entertaining. They completely ran out of CO2 yesterday, so no soft drinks. I had to tell the manager to put a sign on the door! (It’s unfair that we are seated and then find out the most ordered drinks are unavailable.) We were VERY tired on our way home and we didn’t get back up from our nap until after 3:30. We filled out the online forms for her appointment next week and then watched some Hallmark films. She normally doesn’t like to watch movies again, but now she can’t remember watching them, so we enjoy watching them for the 2nd or third time. A HUGE storm blew over us about 8:30, the wind was truly remarkable. It didn’t amount to much rain or lightning, but boy you’d thought there was a tornado with all the wind.
Checked on the Focus battery, it was 12.4V which is more than 80% charged using the solar panels on the fence. I moved the modified IR circuit board from the black to the white casing to be used on my front lawn.
I’ll modify this circuit board sometime this week to cut the output power which significantly lengthens the life of the IR LEDs.
Slept reasonably well.
Wednesday
Got out of bed about 8AM and checked in with Waterway while sipping coffee. I had two hard boiled eggs for breakfast and part of a ham steak. The big project this morning is to make a dry run to Emory Brain Center. I asked her to bring the page I printed out that had the appointment and the address of the doctor we’re going to see next week. After we were both in the car, I realized that she had the green referral sheet from the doctor. (No address on it.) We went back into the house looking for the sheet. I searched all the rooms and when I resorted to looking in her purse I found it I found it in a folder UNDER her purse. (She had actually set her purse back onto the manilla folder with the page in it without realizing that’s what we were frantically looking for.) The trip to Emory was a bit long only because GMaps was routing us through the back roads back to I-85. We ended up on Briar-Cliff road and it was only two turns to get to the building we needed. We verified the check-in desk and decided to go to Longhorn for lunch because it had gotten so late.
Lunch went well, they got their shipment of CO2 and had soft drinks this morning. We were rather stuffed when we headed home for a nap. We tossed the tenderloin we were going to eat in the freezer to eat later. We got off a little early to our midweek church service to pick up three Cobb Salads at Zaxby’s. Church went well and we tuned in Hallmark when we got back home until we got sleepy.
Thursday
Up sipping coffee and listening to my HF radio this morning. She made a second pot of coffee since I drank most of the coffee in the thermos. Eggs and breakfast sausage again today with a glass of Orange Juice. I did manage to modify the InfraRed Illuminator to cut its power in half like I’ve done to all the others. (Half is Plenty with Starlight Cameras)
My head is getting cloudy, I need a nap to clear my head and get organized. We tossed the frozen turkey because the package was damaged and leaking. (We have no idea if bacteria got into the package.) I wanted to set an alarm for the cars coming out of Silvercreek. But the area is too small from the house cameras.
Had a good long nap but my body was hurting all over. My skin just didn’t feel very good and that makes me irritable. I ended up taking a bath and another nap before I felt better.
One thing we learned doing the Pahrump estate was to put all paperwork to be discarded into a box, not the garbage can. That way if we’re needing something we may have accidently discarded, we can still get to it. Eventually, (usually months later) we take our time and pick through the box to make sure everything is actually trash. (Most times there is something in that box that is either PII to be shredded or it’s something we simply should not have discarded.)
We watched Hallmark while I sorted through our discard box and then headed to bed about 10PM.
I need to replace the seal under the garage door, the dehumidifier can’t keep up.
Friday
Woke up a little early so I got onto 20M FT8 for a little while. I heard uncle Paul on the radio this morning! It was a blast, he said “Hello Mark” during his check-in, and I said “Hello Paul” LOL.
My Electric usage $160 doesn’t seem to change much with the outside temperature.
She’s off to the gym and I choked down three eggs and breakfast sausages. No letters from the sponsored children this morning. I need to buy a seal for my garage door today. Mom called, she knows about the Tropical Ridge headed her way. It shouldn’t get to be a bad hurricane unless it turns 180 in the Gulf back to Florida.
I steamed frozen vegetables and potatoes even though the potatoes had green skins. We store the potatoes on the floor in a cardboard box, she’s been opening the shades for much longer periods of time and they are going bad. We need to keep track of them and move them into a much darker area of the home. *Which is my cave.
When she got back from the gym she said she had some M+M’s on the way there. I mentioned that the M+M’s were for when she has the sour taste in her mouth. (Usually on her way back) She responded with she did have a sour taste on the way back. I waved off the conversation and she called me on it saying she wanted to hear what I had to say. I repeated that the M+M’s were for her sour taste which is low sugar. She repeated she didn’t eat them on the way back. Arg… We couldn’t agree on what we were talking about and now we’re at odds about these stupid M+M’s.
We went to THD and picked up the seal for the bottom of the garage door, but it was too hot to replace it tonight. We picked up two bottles of Margretta with alcohol and that made both of us happy. It was supposed to storm at 7PM, but that was a bust for the 2nd day in a row. Watched the original JAWS movie, it was very entertaining.
The tropical wave will become a tropical storm by tomorrow and run the west coast of Florida before turning East toward Savannah. It doesn’t sound like it will have much impact above Macon this weekend.
I had two 4oz glasses of Whiskey, so I am drinking plenty of water to flush my system tonight. No changes in Camera or lighting for the last couple days. The $800 Trane thermostat failed to wake up twice now, normally you touch the screen and it lights up. The thermostat is actually working and if you use a flashlight, you can barely see the screen. I turned off the screen saver so it will always be illuminated from now on.
Stock Market made a “Correction” on Friday
Saturday
I am up, a bit sleepy with sleep in my eyes this morning.
40M Band is horrible this morning
Mom is getting her first “Named” storm this weekend.
I just can’t get a good head of steam this morning, I laid down for a little while and felt much better. The seal under the garage door has been falling off the door for years, now it’s a problem because the dehumidifier can’t catch up. I also found out that the pully bearing is wore out and is about to fall off the bracket.
It still ran all night long keeping it at 60% and the humidity climbs up when it stops. That may change when the moisture gets pulled out of the garage contents. Funny story I saw a water bug (Big Roach) trying to get under the door for water, not any more buddy!
The wide piece is the new one, the rest is what was left of the old seal.
We had ham for dinner with veggies and leftover mashed potatoes. We took a good nap and then I took a bath to calm my skin. I worked on one of the sensors in the attic that is having issues for a little while until we sat down and watched Hallmark.
Sunday 307KWH/1228KWH
Tuned into the Waterway net while I checked on Tropical Storm that’s headed for mom. The storm is tracking further west than expected and gaining strength, she could get 50MPH winds by Monday. I checked into the net and stomped on someone else I couldn’t hear. I think I’ll cut my power back while announcing my call sign and then go back to full power when NCC calls on me. The propagation was much better today, and they will crank up the Hurricane Net by tomorrow.
Debby has GROWN considerably in the last two days.
We both took showers to get ready for church this morning. We’ve got about an hour before we have to leave. No letters from our sponsored children and the garage humidity seems to be better with the new door seal. (I should have replaced it long ago.) I staggered the interrogation of the four sensors from my cave in hopes of helping the struggling sensor. It seems likely that the issue is the long wire to that sensor. (It’s at the end of the cable.) Occasionally all three sensors will align and knock out each other’s readings, but that can’t be avoided.
We took the chicken legs out of the freezer Thursday or Friday, but we didn’t document when we did it. Nor did we put a post-it notes on the cupboard to enable us to plan meals. Yesterday she made Ham, but we really should have eaten the chicken yesterday and had ham today. (Sunday’s meals have to be simple and ham is a simple meal.) We’re also supposed to do an inventory EVERY day because we keep tossing food that has been around too long. She’s supposed to document things, but we’ve been totally unsuccessful on keeping up with it. For my part I’ll have to forgo the radio for a while and spend more time with her in the mornings.
We ended up going to Longhorn for lunch since there’s no time to figure out dinner. The clothes in the dryer were still damp after being “Air” dried, so we’ve set them to heated dry.
The Tropical Storm is gaining strength and mom is under it. My sister has sold the backup power system I had built for them. Now they have one solar generator that has 1/4th of the capacity of the golf cart batteries. We’ll have to see how this plays out. They have 600 watts of solar, but that’s only useful if the sun is shining. I have not heard what they did with the 5KW generator I gave mom.