Blustery day

12/20/06 Wednesday
It is a blustery windy morning. Last night it stormed with some powerful rains. Out here rain is usually a welcome thing except for the occasions it comes so hard and fast it becomes what they call a gully washer. Even then it is welcome for water is a precious commodity.

Cherie is cold as she often is so has gone to the kitchen to bake some cookies because that is warmer. The news said there was black ice and lots of wrecks in Midland this morning. It will warm up to maybe 57 degrees today and will be sunny. I was going to go to a breakfast thing where folks from all the churches meet at 6:30 AM. I decided not to not only cause it’s nasty out but mostly because it is eleven miles there and back and at sixteen miles per gallon it would burn off nearly a gallon of gas. I just put in five dollars worth of gas which is just over two gallons and there is no longer any cash to spare. Cherie went online to check our Toledo bank account and discovered that they have charged a five dollar checking account fee along with a buck fifty cash withdrawal fee we are clueless about. That leaves us two dollars in the account. Ouch! It’s ten days till my check comes in.

I don’t think either of us will be going outside so it will be a good day to paint half the back room. Cherie will run her application for the custodian job to the church and check mail but her gas is where mine is. We put five bucks in yesterday. At least her Prizm gets much better gas mileage than the truck does so that will help. We also have the quarters we saved up to do laundry with to tap if need be.

I’m going outside to check on what’s making so much noise on our roof. The wind is whipping out of the west and I ought to make sure the steel roof is well attached. It’s been there for decades and I know the nails can creep out over the years of wind and rain. It looked fine when I gave it a cursory look.

The roof was fine. Most of the noise evidently came from dead branches breaking off the pecan tree that stands over the house and garage. However I noticed that part of the metal roof on the old henhouse was banging up and down. Some of the corner had long since blown away. Remembering what I saw at Chuck’s place I found one of the old tires that was laying around and put it on the roof to keep the metal in place.

Monday the wind had been blowing strong from the east when I had been struggling to pack as much of the school bus debris into the dumpster as I could because trash pickup is Tuesday. As I tried much of the paper and lighter stuff went flying away. Now the wind is blowing from the west and I saw that some of the trash came back home and was stuck on the fence. You know how it is, easy go and easy come back. “Nuts”.

Remember what I wrote yesterday? About how things seem to work out as if there is a hand on our lives? Cherie went into town to drop off her application and pick up mail. We got our first Christmas card!!! I know you’re supposed to wait till Christmas to open things up but never have been one for tradition. It was from my sister Robin, the only member of my family who I really can communicate with. She sent us a fifty dollar Walmart gift card. With that we can buy gas and food. Heck we might even get something nice to fix for Christmas. What a blessing and what great timing. Thanks Sis (She reads this blog on occasion,What a powerful way for others to keep up)

I got an E mail from Jay and Sherrie Gilchrist who are with the MS Lunch Bunch in Toledo. At the Christmas party many were asking if anybody had heard from us. I wrote a nice E mail telling of how we are and giving the blog address so everyone could see how we are doing. I also asked if they could see about getting Wayne to the monthly luncheons. That and Denise’s new address. Anyway it touches me that others are thinking about me. Not used to that too much really. Helps the self esteem.

I think I will go online to post this and then we will start painting.

We got the first half of the painting done. It’s always great for us to work together. Of course with the cheap paint it’ll take two maybe three coats. Carman kitty snuck in and got himself a little painted. Shows up well on a black cat. While painting I again heard the neighbors on their ATV’s so got the binoculars out to make sure they weren’t riding on our property. Sure enough they were. I had to get in the truck and go over there where I let them know they couldn’t. I had been thinking of going over and introducing myself for a while but never did. This is probably not the best way to introduce myself but that’s the way it is. One of the reasons I can’t let them ride on the land is that is a specific criteria spelled out in our CRP contract and it could result in a fine or something. Besides that as a former motocross racer and dirt biker I know how quickly this can tear up the land. The guy I talked to was around twenty or so. I don’t know if he is the owner or son at the house or for that matter if he is related at all. There were seven or eight guys there. While there I noticed that a wide swath had been cut around the house. I will have to have this land surveyed as soon as we can afford it. Lee had said that her brother Troy had built on her portion of the property. We’ll see.

It’s late and the reception from Alltell is weak so I keep getting bumped offline so I’ll get this posted while I can. Goodnight.