Our thoughts are with you ...

Yep, our thoughts are with you, but kinda glad I'm not shoveling snow again!

My sister from northern Ohio sent me a text that they have 13" of snow right now and will probably be getting more today or tonight.  DeWine has his lockdown, and God has His own version.  

My neighbors from Anna sent some pictures of the snow and their roads and drives.  I can really recall doing this.  The only saving grace was that they had a big snow blower with a cap and heated handles. It was kinda like the neighborhood snow blower.  We could use it to do our drive and walks, and everyone helped doing each other's drives.

This may not look like much snow, but I'm guessing that the banks of their drive are at least 18"-20" and pretty solidly packed.  The wind blows so hard that the snow develops a very hard crust on the top and makes it hard for the snow blower to get through.  It tries to climb the snow.  Also, anyone who has lived in the country knows that somehow, immediately after you get the end of the drive cleared out, the county snow plow comes down the road and deposits another foot of slush, ice and gravelly snow right where you just cleaned !!!!

This picture looks out their back door toward the back yard of our former house and the cemetery back there.  I remember this area when the wind would blow (which was always) there would be areas in the back yard that were clean down to the grass, and other areas where the snow  was 2'-3' deep from drifting. Part of the bad memories was how I would just get the driveway and sidewalk cleaned and it would already have started to drift back over.  Sometimes by evening you couldn't even tell we had cleaned it in the first place.

These are the medals that go to my friends and family back in Ohio for all your hard work today and last week.  You are champs. 

 

 And I know I always say that nobody likes a smarta_ _, but just wanted you to see what our reward is today for having just gone through 5 straight days of heavy rain here in Youngsville. My weather station says we have had 4.40" of rain just this month.  We had over 6" of rain last month.

Normally I wouldn't do this to my friends, but all that rain has pretty much drowned out a couple of trees we planted in our back yard and we'll be doing a lot of yard work back there this spring.  The saving grace is that all of the water is outside, and we don't have to worry about the sump pumps any more.  Supposed to be 60 degrees today ------- but Thursday's weather shows 100% chance of sleet and ice, and Friday calls for a return to rain..Oh well, I see some upper 50s pretty much all of next week.  Pollen clouds are on the way!!

"O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?" (Percy Byssche Shelley)

Hooah  

P.s.  Funny. While I was outside taking this picture of our house, a guy and his son from California drove down our street and stopped right next to me.  He said he noticed that I was taking a picture of our house and wanted to know if it was for sale! He was moving here from California and was looking for a house to buy.  Housing around here is booming!! Can't build them fast enough.

What have you been up to? ....

Winter in NC ... cold enough that I can only hit a bucket of balls about once a week, but warm enough that if I decide to do something aroung the house I am able to work in the garage.  So, when one of my friends from Ohio might call and ask what I've been up to lately, I can tell them that my son, Doug, and I have redone our laundry room.  It was so blah, and I figured as much time as Pam spends in there, she should have something nice.  So, check this out....

This is a shot of the room as it was before we began our project.  Nice enough but very boring.

We had seen a picture of a nice room in a magazine and Doug and I said that we could do that.  He has really become quite the project guy since he moved here. He has lots of room to work on his things.Be sure to check out the "fort" we built at his house for the kids.

Here we go.  One of the best things we got for this project was an air compressor and a couple of nail guns.  Boy those really made this project go lots smoother and quicker, and no hammer marks on the boards.

One of the things that slowed us down a bit was having to work around the washer and dryer.

I have no ego problems ... I was a good carpenter's apprentice and "go-fetch" boy.

Pam did a lot of the touch-up painting and did a good job.  good steady hand.

Another thing that held us up a bit was lugging that big step ladder in and out. Solved that by going to the hardware store and buying the middle sized ladder so we could finish the painting without marking it all up as fast as we painted it.

OK, so now we were fitting out the upper cabinet and getting ready to brace it.  This went pretty well.

Pam was painting the cabinet front.  We took the doors off and painted it out in the garage.  Doug built the "front" at his house. Cabinet doors are painted and drying on the right of the picture.  Each day the paint brushes and rollers had to be cleaned up -- good job for Pam, right! 

Finished product.  Pam is going to do a little more decorating and maybe we'll put in a couple of small under cabinet lights to highlight the items on the shelf. 

The little pictures don't do it justice.  I think it looks really nice and a lot more pleasant for Pam  on laundry days.  It wasn't too expensive if you don't count the tools that we bought that we'll use all the time anyway for the next projects.  Also, it actually only took a couple of weeks of off- and -on working.  Probably could have done it in a week or less if we had all the materials  on site at the same time. Oh well, not bad for our first project here.

So, bottom line -- nobody got a finger or hand power nailed to the wall, nobody fell off the ladder or got knocked through the door from plugging in the dryer while standing in a puddle of water, and there were no divorce decrees issued.  They tell me that happens a lot when newbies undertake these kinds of projects. 

“Man Pain Is When You Do Something Stupid” ... (a line from "Tool Time" featuring Tim Allen.)

A promise made is a promise kept ...

The weather here in the Tar Heel state recently has been almost as bad as it is back in Ohio  -- cold, LOTS of rain (as opposed to snow, sorry Dave) and not a lot of sunny, warm days. Hey .......... Mr. Chamber of Commerce --------------what's going on here? I can only take so many days of sitting in the house reading WWII books. 

So, I told myself on Monday that I needed to break out of this funk and promised myself that without fail, some time this week, I would at least hit a "bucket of balls" (I like throwing throw around those cool golf terms.). I figured between that and watching the PGA players on their California swing, I could make it through the next month and be ready to go in the spring. 

Well, around noon today, it was 55 degrees and sunny; but it was quickly starting to fade and the forecast for the rest of the week was calling for VERY cold and SNOW!  I know -- this is North Carolina.  What's up with that? 

So I made the promise and I intended to keep it -- even if the end result is, well, kind of different from what one would expect. Here I am hitting a bucket of balls!  Great form, huh?

You know, I have been playing some form of golf since I was 15 years old.  That's 57 years ago and it's amazing to me that I have played any game that long and am still scoring almost the same today as I did back then.  Either I was good at 15 or I haven't improved a lick.

“Golf is a puzzle without an answer. I’ve played the game for 50 years and I still haven’t the slightest idea of how to play.”  (Gary Player)

Hooah

(P.S.  OK.  The swing isn't that good -- rolled my wrist, hips way out in front, bad weight shift .... But at least I hit a "bucket of balls.")