Dad’s Weekly Report

Dear Family,

I am looking out the window as I write this and it is snowing.  There isn’t any sticking on the ground yet but there will be if this continues.  And the snow is coming down sideways so the wind must be blowing.  We have had a pretty dry winter with warm temperatures.  Ruth is coming for a visit tomorrow and it is supposed to be bad weather for the next few days.   I’m glad that we went on our walk earlier today.  I have been trying to walk everyday after work and have been able to most days.

There isn’t much to report from here.  Work has been hard recently and I have been working longer days.  I still try to get in some shop time in the evenings.  I have started a new wood project, a blanket chest.  It is pretty complicated and will take me a long time to finish.

Sandy and I have wanted to put heat out into our outbuilding for quite a while.  We are planning to run a natural gas line out to the building and then put heaters into both rooms.  We put some money aside and then asked a plumber what he would charge for the plumbing.  The estimates came in way over budget and so we will be delayed again.  The gas line has to be buried at least a foot deep and will be about 140 feet long.  I guess that when the weather gets warmer and the ground thaws I will try digging the trench myself to save money.  Our ground is pretty easy to dig here without many rocks.  I don’t like to dig.

Well it has stopped snowing and I see a patch of blue sky.  Spring must be coming because the neighborhood is full of robins, big fat ones.  There is a bunch hopping around the yard now.  I think that they are looking for worms but I don’t think that they will find any.

Well sorry for the short post.  I’m in the February blahs.

Love,

John

I completed my first project on my new lathe that Allen gave me for Christmas.  First I had to change out the circuit breaker.  The one that was in there was a GFI and it would trip whenever I started up the lathe.  Probably all the induction in the motor.  My great grandmother’s rocking chair had a broken spindle.  The new spindle that I made is made of maple.  I got the stain close but not exactly right.

still in the lathe

installed in the chair

Next I need to make some new rockers, the curved boards on the bottom.  They are worn down about 3/8 of an inch and so they aren’t round anymore and don’t rock well.  Anyway I think that the spindle turned pretty good.

I finally finished the TV table for Sandy’s sister, Candy.  Here is a picture of it. 

Dear Family & Friends,

Happy New Year!  I hope that your celebrations the past couple of weeks were enjoyable.  I have enjoyed the past month.

At the first of the month we flew to Portland, OR for an early Christmas with our family.  All our kids were there except for Lyle & Emily.  We had a great time together.  One of the fun things we did was to visit April’s parent’s house and cut a Christmas tree.  They had planted a couple hundred trees a few years ago and the one we cut was one that Allen and Ruth had helped them plant.  It was a beautiful tree.  We had fun setting it up in Ruth’s & Curt’s house and decorating it.  April & Wes suggest we have a ugly sweater contest and Wes got us guys to all grow mustaches.  So we had our family picture taken this year with our ugly sweaters and mustaches.  Here is our 2011 family picture.

My sweater was voted the ugliest.  I think my victory in the contest was assured by the big reindeer head buttons.

We stayed at Ruth’s & Curt’s house which they just purchased.  It is a very old home, built before 1900.  It has some interesting quirks but it has been fixed up pretty nicely.  .  I was sorry for the week to end.

I received some great gifts for Christmas.  Of course Ruth gave me Dilbert books and Brent came through with a C-clamp.  I also got a lot of great tools that I will really enjoy.  My super gift was wood lathe that Allen gave me.  It is a very, very nice lathe that I will have fun with for a long time.  I have been playing with it a bit, but it keeps blowing the circuit breaker when I turn it on.  I have it connected to a 20 amp GFI circuit.  I talked to a friend and he told me he thought it was because the big motor has a lot of inductance which is tripping the GFI.  He loaned me a meter today to check it.  I think that I will have to replace the circuit breaker with one that is not GFI.  Sandy has been wanting a oil painting of the ocean for some time.  She asked that I contribute to a fund so that she could buy it.  However Ruth has an artist friend and she commissioned the picture.  So I gave Sandy a plane ticket to visit Lyle & Emily during Lyle’s Spring break from school.

When Christmas came it was somewhat anticlimactic.  Sandy and I were here alone.  On Christmas afternoon we drove to Mesa, AZ to spend a couple of days with Sandy’s cousin and Aunt.  It was nice to go to warm country.  The best part of the trip for me was a hike that we took out in the desert.

On Thursday of this week Sandy’s sisters and brother-in-lay and niece came for a couple of days.  So we celebrated New Year’s Eve a day early with them.

I am nearly finished with the TV table that I am making for Candy.  It has been a fun project.  The most interesting part was the door that I built for the front.  Here is a picture of the door.

I found an article in a magazine about making woven wood panels and have wanted to try it.  I first tried to cut strips of wood myself with my table saw but they broke when I tried to weave them.  So I purchased a long roll of edge veneer.  It is a thin wood strip, about ¾ inches wide with hot melt glue on one side.  So you stick it together by ironing.  Sandy graciously let me use her clothes iron.  Anyway I thought it turned out very nice.  Tomorrow I have the day off and I hope to work on putting the hinges on the door to attach it to the table.

Well that is all the news.  Hope that you have a great new year.

Love,

John

Dear Family & Friends,

It is hard for me to believe that November is almost over.  And 2011 is almost over.

Last weekend we went to Salt Lake City for Sandy’s nephew’s Trevor’s wedding.  We left here after work on Thursday and drove to Blanding.  Then early Friday morning we got up and drove to Salt Lake City.  At 5:30 AM, on the road between Blanding and Monticello I should have been driving 45 mph but I was driving the speed limit 65 mph and we hit a deer.  I don’t know a place where you see more deer on the highway than there.  I tried to swerve around her but she just kept moving and she hit the front fender and driver’s door.  So now the door doesn’t open.  Tomorrow we take it in to be fixed.  Luckily the car was still drive-able, only it was has been a pain to climb in through the passenger side door.

The wedding at the temple was nice and it was nice to see all the family.  Here is a photo of the newlyweds and a picture of some of the children that came.

We spent a couple of nights staying at Wes and April’s place.  It was a nice visit.  I especially liked going out for Japanese food.

We left for home on Saturday afternoon and drove as far as Green River.  Sunday morning we got up early and drove to Blanding in time to attend their Stake conference.  Then drove home to Flagstaff.

Sandy left again on Wednesday to go to Blanding to help with a reception that was on Saturday evening.

This coming week is Thanksgiving and we will again go to Salt Lake to have our holiday at Wes’s house, hopefully we won’t run into any deer.

I have made good progress on a new project out in my shop.  I am building a small table for Candy to put her TV on.  Now I am working on a door for the front.  It will have a woven wood panel.  I have the frame of the door built and am preparing the strips for the panel.  I will probably stain and varnish them before I assemble them.  It will take forever to varnish all those little pieces.   It is a fun project.

Love,

John

I was told that I have to add another picture.  Wes told us we all had to grow mustaches in November.  So under duress I have not been shaving my lip for the past week.  It is really annoying.  Here is a picture showing growth so far. 

Dear Friends & Family,

Well winter caught up to us on Friday night.  A storm came in and it first rained then snowed.  So Saturday morning we woke up to a little snow.  Then the wind blew the snow around a bit most of Saturday.  It did warm up enough to melt most of the snow off of the driveway so I only shoveled a path out to the shop.

I spent most of the Saturday working out in the shop working on a small table that I am building for Candy to put her TV on.  I got the top all cut out and glued back together and I worked on the legs, gluing the pieces together and then cutting them to size.  I used my new planer to size the legs.  My plans called for them to be 2 inches by 1 ½ inches.  According to my calipers they measure 2.003 inches by 1.501 inches.  I sure love my new planer.

By the way, today you all changed to standard time from daylight savings time.  We didn’t change so as we were on West Coast time, we are now on Mountain Time.

Last week Sandy and I went up to the mountain and went on a hike.  It was the Kachina trail which was one that Sandy and Ruth hiked when Ruth was here.  It is a one way trail so we had to take both our cars and drop one off at the end of the trail.  Here is a picture of me on the trail.

Notice that I am wearing suspenders?  Suspenders are comfortable and so I have decided that I from now on I am wearing suspenders on Saturday.  Perhaps when I retire I’ll never wear a belt again.

It was really nice weather on our hike.  It was a little cold when we started, even a little snow on the trail but it warmed up. We were a couple of weeks late to see the yellow aspen leaves.  Most of them had already fallen.  There were a very few still left.  Here is a picture of some of them.

What was left of the aspen leaves.

It was about 7 ½ miles long, mostly flat, a little up and down.  I am out of shape.  When climbed out of bed on Sunday.  I could hardly walk, my calves hurt so bad.  They hurt for a couple of days.  Gotta go out and get some more exercise.

These pictures I took with my new phone.  I was pleasantly surprised that I took nice pictures.  My old phone worked fine except that the external speaker got so quiet that I couldn’t hear it ring.  My new phone is simple and has big buttons that are easier to push.  I think it is made for old people, it even has a pill reminder.  I like it even though I am not old.

Well that is all the new from here.  I hope all is going well for you.

Love,

John

Dear Friends & Family,

Izzie 1996 --> 2011 RIP

This was a sad week for us.  Our dog, Izzie, got so frail that we finally decided we had to put her down.  She had recently been not eating well and had lost 6 pounds which was about a quarter of her weight.  She was getting slower and slower and not able to go on a walk any more.  She mostly just slept and when we got her up from sleeping she had trouble standing and walking.  But mostly she was getting senile.  She had recently been wandering around.  When she wasn’t sleeping she was just aimlessly walked around.  Our vet told us that was a sign of senility.  She used to stay pretty much with Sandy and when Sandy wasn’t around she would stay with me.  Lately she has just wandered off not knowing where she was.  She was also having more and more trouble with house training, not knowing why she was being let out and just doing it in the house when she got the urge.  Anyway Sandy took her in on Tuesday and brought her home and we buried her in our back yard.  We have both missed her a lot.

I have had a lot of shop time this week working on projects.  I have finished a cabinet in the garage that we put our camping stuff in along with other stuff.  I ran out of Masonite for the doors, so there are about a 1/3 of the doors still missing.  I’ll make them when I buy some more in the future.  This is exciting to have this cupboard made because now we have all of our stuff out of boxes.  There are no more boxes of stuff except what we have stored in the attic.  I have 3 other projects that I am just starting.

Yesterday we drove to Phoenix for the day.  We went for three reasons.  We visited the Pioneer Village.  I mostly wanted to see their blacksmith shop.  Unfortunately the guy that runs it was out on military training and it wasn’t open.  We also took in a temple session in Mesa and then visit with Sandy’s aunt Afton who is having her 89^th birthday.  Sandy made food and we had dinner with her cousin and aunt before driving home.  It was a nice outing.

The only problem this weekend is that I forgot to take my pill on Friday afternoon.  I take Lyrica every day and usually take a pill at about 4 in the afternoon.  My body is so used to it that when I forget to take it then it is impossible for me to sleep when I go to bed.  I realized that I had forgotten about 11 PM after lying awake for a while.  Then after taking my pill it took a couple of hours to take affect so I got almost no sleep on Friday night.  What a pain.  Saturday I was pretty wiped out.  I have an alarm set on my phone to remind me but Friday I turned off the alarm without taking the pill.  Gotta try not to that.

Well that is all the news.  Hope that you are having a great October.

Love,

John

Dear Family & Friends,

Another week is over and another month.  It seems like time goes too fast.  This weekend was General Conference.  I watched all the sessions this time and really enjoyed them.  I get the feeling that the church leaders really love me.  I hope that you had the opportunity to enjoy conference.  One of the families that I home teach is a part member family.  Only the mother is a member.  They have a son who is nearly 13 years old.  We visited them this week and I ask their son if he wanted to go to the Priesthood session with me.  He agreed and so we went together.  I think that this was the first time he had attended the Priesthood session of conference.  I also found out that he was as of yet un-baptized as his father won’t give his permission.  I was surprised because he usually attends on Sunday.  He said that he wanted to but still needed to read the Book of Mormon.

We have been getting a lot of rain over the last few weeks.  The wild flowers have really come out in our yard.  Here is a picture of the flowers in our yard.

No more floods.  We get really pretty skies here.  In the day the clouds form interesting patterns then at night when it is clear we have very bright stars.  Our neighborhood is quite dark, on purpose, so that we can see the night stars.

Work has been busy lately.  I am working on a couple of projects to try to improve the quality of the parts we purchase.  I have gotten good feedback from those I am working with about these projects.  The hardest part of my job is to get others to support my ideas. It is a very political company.  Everybody is nice about it but it is still lots of politics.

Not too much to report on at home.  I continue to work on a long list of projects.  I try to have a little time in my shop everyday.  Sandy is busy making quilts and helping others like she is wont to do.  I bought some traps and have been catching gophers in our yard.  The body count is up to four now.  The new mounds of dirt that they push up have been decreasing.  We bought our plane tickets to go to Portland in December for our early Christmas.  I guess I better get busy with my Christmas shopping.

Take care and call when you can.

Love,

John

Dear Family & Friends,

It has been a nice week.  Sandy came home Wednesday after taking her sister, Philis, back to Blanding over the weekend.  We went home teaching a couple of days this week and then we had Stake Conference today and yesterday.

The exciting thing this week was on Tuesday.  I got a call from the county emergency management group in the afternoon saying that there was a possibility of flooding.  A storm had dropped an inch of rain on the burned mountain.  I got home from work about 4:30 and the water was coming down the field in front of our house had filled the ditch and was just coming over the road.  I got to watch it fill the ditch on our side of the road then come flowing across our yard.  Here is a picture of the water at its highest level.

About 2/3 of the water was flowing on the edge of the property line near the yellow fire hydrant and along the fence line.  A third was flowing between the two berms and just a little bit was going down our driveway, (on the lower right of the picture), hit our row of sandbags  which directed around the other side of our house.  The water you see flowing across the yard went through the fence and flowed across the back yard to the houses behind us.  It was pretty interesting to watch the flooding.  All the times past that it has flooded we have not been home.  The water flowed across the yard for under an hour.

I wish our ditch flowed better.  It doesn’t have much slope to it.  All the ditch in the picture only has 3 inch slope.  Saturday I worked on it digging out high places so it will flow better.  What we really need is to clean out all the weeds in the down stream neighbor’s ditch.  Unfortunately nobody is living in that house now.  I am hoping that the HOA has the weeds cut and sends a bill to the owners.

I have been building cupboards like crazy.  I finished a large one in the shop.  It is large enough that I don’t have enough stuff to fill it yet.  Now I have started another in the garage.  When I get it built there will be no more for a while.  We have one more box to put away full of camping gear.

Well that is all the news for now.  Hope you are doing well.  Call us when you can.

Love,

John