Birthdays, Paint and Computer Work

 

Returning from our quick little trip to Virginia, it was about time to start working on some of the projects we had been talking about.  They say talk is cheap.  As long as we were talking about it, it was cheap.   The doing not so much.

One of our projects was painting the cabin before we headed south  this winter.  The green just popped out at us.   We were ready to tone that color down and get a little back to nature with colors. 





Before


Off to Home Depot we went for five gallons of paint.  There aren’t a lot of color choices on display for exterior paint.  We did as the “paint lady” told us to do.  We picked a color from the interior samples then picked up a 5 gallon bucket of semi-gloss exterior paint.  We took both of these to the “paint lady”.  She told us that the paint we brought her wouldn’t work, put it back and got a new bucket.  We should have checked the new paint bucket she replaced ours with.  We didn’t.  After spending several hours the next day painting, we discovered our bucket had been replaced with a 5 gallon tub of interior paint! 

You can guess the rest of the story.  Another trip was made to Home Depot and this time we checked and double checked that we had the right paint.   We’re still working on this project but we’re almost done.  We have plenty of other projects.  To begin with we plan on painting the deck, replacing the refrigerator and getting two different recliner chairs. 

This has been birthday week for us.  It seems birthdays in our family comes in clumps.  We get clumps in August and in September.  This week we’re celebrating three (Terry, DIL, SIL) of them within five days.  I think family gatherings are important.  Birthdays give us an excuse to get together – well, for most of us.  After all, if you don’t have family and friends,  what do you have?  The other night we had our family birthday meal and tonight we’ll do the birthday cake.

Soccer season has started.  Sandi’s first game was the other night and we were there watching her play.  They didn’t win.  You know how soccer goes.  One parent thanked the team in yellow (referee) for the bad call which landed the winning point on the other side.

While we were in Sequim in July I finally replaced my ailing laptop computer with one from Costco.    This new computer seemed to have a few problems right to begin with.  It’s a lot of work to clean off a computer and set up a new one.  I drug my feet about taking it back until now.   One good thing about buying from Costco is their 90 return policy.     However, after a few more issues I decided to return it while I still had a  chance.  After that, we headed to Portland.   There is one big advantage in buying large ticket items in Oregon --- no sales tax. Several hours later and an extra $200 in my pocket,  I finally put the exchange and purchase problem behind me.  The replacement computer is almost the same as the one I returned and so far everything seems to be fine. 

Thank goodness our little community is finally putting in Wi-Fi as we've really been struggling with it.  However, pulling that Wi-Fi to us is a challenge.  We are lucky though because the swimming pool area is right behind us and that was one of the first areas where the Wi-Fi equipment was installed.  Since then we’ve tried external antennas, access points and extenders.  Some of this equipment we’ve had with us in the motorhome and others we’ve had to purchase, return, purchase …..  Eventually, we’ll get this right.

Terry had a visit with a rheumatologist at the Portland VA hospital.  In addition to three cortisone shots, he also got to check out the view of Portland from the 8th floor.

Almost everyone we know has either started on their winter journey south or at least thought about it.  We have no idea exactly when we’ll start in that direction.  We aren’t even sure where we’ll go this year.  In a couple weeks we just know we’ll move the motorhome out of storage and park it in our RV parking area at the cabin.  That’s about as far as we’ve gotten in our planning.  We know it’s easier to move stuff from the cabin back on board when the motorhome is out front.  After that …. we’ll play it by ear.

 

‘Tis life on the road.

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.