Out in the boonies

Well folks, getting online in Martin county is next to impossible. We finally found a starbucks in Midland where we could go online for ten cents a minute and I only bought an hour so I better hurry. Here is the last few days from my journal.
I'm just going to put pictures on where ever because of the time constraints. Hopefully we'll get this figured out.

11/15/06 Wednesday
6:30 PM – It was a rough day. The wind has been blowing pretty hard since yesterday. Cherie saw her first sandstorm. It wasn’t really much of a sandstorm by Texas standards but it was blowing pretty good. The tumble weeds were barreling along and hard to dodge when we drove to Midland. There were a few we couldn’t avoid and we hit square on. It stayed on the front of the car like a hood ornament. Cherie laughed about it all the way into town.


The front screen door had been just about torn off by the wind and was hanging on by one screw and a nail. I went to take it all the way off and right when I got the screw loose the wind tore the door out of my hand and smashed it to the ground about five feet away, breaking all the glass. That set me right off and Cherie heard some colorful language.


I went out to the garage and tried to work on the bench. As I tried to move it I aggravated my back again. This time the pain level was intense and stayed with me the rest of the day. On top of that I had a bad partial seizure that not only slowed down my mind but my body also. It threw my equilibrium off and I had to be careful to keep my hand on the walls and stuff so I wouldn’t fall or stumble. I laid down for a short while but soon went back to work. There would be no more lifting of anything remotely heavy. Bending down became a chore and I had to keep my back as straight as I could and tried to have something to grab onto to stand up. Not fun. Was like this all day. Hope it’ll be better tomorrow.


We had our first visitor today. Chuck and Lillian came by with their child, Miracle. They named her that because she was a surprise and they weren’t supposed to be able to conceive. We visited for a while and Miracle, who is just about two years old, provided ample entertainment and made sure everyone stayed active, keeping her out of things. What a live wire and adorable kid.

Cherie said that my getting angry probably triggered the slow down. I suspect she is right. She tells me I often have these after an emotional upheaval. I am tired, which is usually the case after a slow down.


Oh yeah, we still don’t have long distance. Cherie tried to dial 0 to talk to an operator from Wes-Tex phone but there was no operator. She got in the car and went to their office to find out what was going on. Right now we can’t even go online with dial up because Midland, which we can see from the house, is long distance. This is so not right. Wes-Tex is a legally protected monopoly so we have no options.

I’m going to call it a night now. We plan on going to Midland tomorrow. Hopefully we will be able to go online at the hotel.

11/17/06 Friday
Evidently the hotel no longer offers wireless internet. Between that and not having our ATT long distance turned on we are completely unable to go online. That is making things tough as it prevents us from accessing certain information and doing our online banking.

I went out to the garage to dig out the bathroom door. Virginia is to visit us and if she needs to use the facilities it would be very uncomfortable for her. When I did I found a list of my grandmothers possessions with prices. This is from the garage or I guess house sale, where I presume her brother Troy was selling off what would have been part of my inheritance. What kind of family is this? I know they are blood kin but don’t understand this at all. My brother, Larry, outright stole, not only from me but my grandmother as well.

Before she died she told Cherie and I that she wanted us to have the house and everything in it. We came to the house to see what was there and it had already been ransacked several times. Troy came in and said “If you see anything you want you can have it”. Being the blunt guy I am I replied “Troy, this is Minnie Lee’s stuff. She told us we can have it. Who are you to give it away?”. With that Troy turned around and left.

Whether my brother was involved I do not know but it wouldn’t surprise me. Everyone claims my grandmother said they could have things like the washer and dryer that Virginia’s brother took. She was 99 years old and easily influenced but from what we saw during our visits her mind was sharp. In my mind there is nothing lower than someone who steals and takes advantage of family. I may have gone to prison but that was for selling ground up aspirin as cocaine and being so incredibly drunk with the resulting loss of the ability to make a rational decision. That night I passed out in a parking lot. The only time I stole was to feed my family. That isn’t a good excuse but in my mind is at least a partial justification. Despite that I think my morals and integrity are better than those family members who robbed my grandmother.

What a start for the day. I noted to Cherie how much our life style has changed with this farm. We are up at or before dawn and get moving. By nine at night we are both tired and ready to go to sleep. Last night I didn’t even make it to ten when I usually like to watch the news. Got to get to work now. Just wanted to stop and write this while it is still fresh in my mind.

My frustration level is high. I finally got the workbench put together so could start cutting the baseboard with the compound miter saw we bought. Getting the first board cut I went to nail it in place. I have noticed before that hammering a nail was difficult for me but that was only doing a few large ones. When I woke from the coma the hospital and later the Brain Injury institute worked to help me learn how to use my right hand. They would throw me a ball and I would try to catch it. Now, as I tried to hammer the small finish nails I am once again faced with how much I lost. I bent nail after nail and kept getting mad as my failures increased. Such a simple thing to have a hard time doing.

On top of that is the fact that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. The nails I bought aren’t working. In fact the baseboard just comes loose as I move on down to the next nail. I give up. Tomorrow I will go to Home Depot where they give instruction to folks that are as ignorant as I seem to be and ask them how to do this. To think that I was a craftsman who made high quality custom furniture for businesses and can’t put baseboard down is hard for me. I feel pretty stupid. Even reinforcing the base for the work bench was a series of errors. It is depressing to say the least. At least I was able to paint the kitchen. At least I can still carve and am grateful I didn’t lose that.

I fell down three times today which didn’t help the pain level. Working on the baseboard required me to be on the floor which adds to the pain level. I hope tomorrow will be better. Cherie has been a strong support during all this. I am a lucky man to have such an understanding woman.
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11/18/06 Saturday
Woke up at four this morning. I suppose that’s to be expected when you go to bed at 7:30. Evidently I pulled a muscle one of the times I fell yesterday cause the right side of my neck and shoulder is hurting fairly bad when I woke up. That’s on top of the pain in my neck and back bones. I’ll take some aspirin and one of the Tramadol I’ve been so careful to save for these high pain days. They won’t last long here. In Toledo my life was fairly sedentary when it came to physical exercise but here on the farm it is very different. The doctors said I needed to exercise and reduce stress. I’m getting plenty of exercise but am not to sure the stress has been reduced much. Getting slapped in the face with my difficulties performing certain tasks doesn’t help. There are plenty of things I can do well but it’s the simple things I have a hard time with that frustrate the hell out of me. The snap, crackle, and pop in my neck has gotten much louder. A couple of times it was loud enough for Cherie to hear.

Virginia came by yesterday. We visited for a bit but she had to get to her doctors appointment. We gave her the tax papers so that should be the final hurdle to close the estate. We asked her about the washer and dryer that had been removed from this house because we would like to buy them back. She said her brother, Kenny, had them but that he didn’t talk to her much. I asked her how uncle Troy was doing and she said he was ok but Delmer had been in the hospital. They are both Minnie Lee’s brothers so that would make them my grand uncles.


We showed her the price lists from the garage sale that had been held at this farm. She didn’t seem to recognize many of the items and it may be they had been stuff Troy had kept stored here. Virginia seemed a little uncomfortable when we touched these subjects. She had some interesting things to say about Linda, whom she definitely suspects stole from Minnie Lee. I remember her at the funeral. She was real chummy with Larry despite telling us at the assisted living home before Minnie Lee died that she had never met him. Virginia said Linda had a key to this house. Another name to add to the list of potential thieves. I’d love to make a visit to her house to see how she acts. If it’s full of Lee’s stuff she may not let me in. That would speak volumes

As I was raking up some of the debri from when the tumbleweeds were cut a pickup truck did a u turn and came back. I went out to the road and an older gentleman asked "Are you Jessie Rea's son?" I told him I was and come to find out he had gone to school with her. We talked for quite a while. He knew my grandmother and everyone else in the area. Come to find out he was the one who had offered eighty grand for the farm. He said he would stop by from time to time. Had allot of good advice about what grows out here and things.