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This One’s For You Rick!

On the 5th of May, Kevin and Rick (our neighbor) decided to rebuild their unsightly walls. Rick’s house is kitty corner from ours, across the street on the curve. The untold story in the story of the building of this wall is this… Rick was diagnosed just one year before with cancer. Through radiation and chemo treatments he was upbeat and determined to beat the dragon. When he made the commitment to build his wall he had the use of just his right arm since a tumor had eaten through the bone of his left upper arm. In spite of this… he built his wall with just 1 arm!

Rick’s Wall

Rick died September 20th. We dedicate our wall to Rick, who knew what it was to be the best neighbor one could ask for.

Our Wall ~ Before

After

Before

After

Mailbox Detail

A Note:This project is not completed. We have to complete the landscaping which will happing next spring. More pictures in a few months when all is finished.

The Gloves that built it!

New

Ready to Retire

Of Big Trucks and Butterflies

After six years, and upwards of three quarters of a million miles, Sherlene is coming in off the road.

Six years ago this month, Sherlene and I began our careers in truck driving. We were nervous. We didn’t know if we would like the job, we didn’t know if we could do it, and we didn’t know if we could do it together 24/7, six weeks at a time. It was a steep learning curve.

When I married Sherlene, just over nine years ago, I quickly realized she was a beautiful caterpillar. Wonderfully fascinating, but pretty much stuck to the ground. By the Grace of God, she has become a butterfly. In the last six years, I have watched as her wings unfolded, and then dried. As she became more confident in who she is, and what she does, she has tested her wings from the drivers seat of an eighty thousand pound vehicle. It has been an absolute joy to watch.

Today, her wings are taking her somewhere she has never been. She is coming home to be the full time keeper of our home. Since graduating High School, she has always been a primary, at times the only, bread winner. Driving truck has allowed us the freedom to change that, and so we are. Oddly enough, the change is not without trepidation on her part. There will be new things to learn, new experiences to test the wings of my beautiful butterfly.

I will miss her on the road.  When we began this big adventure, Sherlene was excited about the prospect of “knowing the United States like most people know their own town.”, and we have. Sherlene is the one that knew what our route would be, and where the truck stops were, as soon as she knew where we were going. We have enjoyed the miles together, this is a beautiful land, and we called all of it home for years.

I am so proud of her. Not many women would do what she has done. In using her wonderful wings she has lifted both of us to vistas that thrill us with the grandeur of a new future. She fulfilled my dream of traveling around the next bend, and then over the next hill. She fulfilled my dream of a mate that stands next to me, on the same level, working in the same direction. She showed me what a real woman is. Delicate as a butterfly, strong as the wings that carry her up and over all the obstacles.

I am failing now to express the words my heart feels so profoundly. I am grateful beyond  measure. I Love you like all the miles, and all the smiles, and all the sunsets, and all the…

Thank you.

A New Journey Begins…

With bit of excitement and trepidation both coursing through me, I woke this past Monday, alone for the first time in years. With a journey up what looks to be a mountain ahead of me, it was so tempting to just go back to sleep and see if next time I woke the mountain looked any smaller. Starting a new business, losing weight, getting into shape and cleaning the small disaster created in our home caused by years of neglect, tending gardens… You get the idea

With a bit of foresight, knowing what this morning would look like, I had written down some goals and events I wanted and needed to accomplish in the morning. That, was the thing that put my feet on the ground.

The past 6 years  I spent as an over-the-road truck driver, team-driving with my husband, Kevin. In a lot of ways it was really good for me, building my confidence, stretching my abilities and I became really good at it. But 6 years of sitting on your tush most of the time makes you soft and flabby. Before this adventure, I worked out 5 days a week and was in fairly good shape although, still battling life-long weight issues.

Last October, in an attempt to deal with some fibroids and heavy periods I scheduled myself for an ablation which should have taken care of all of that and more including low iron. Five days after the procedure I landed in the ER with complications, exploratory surgery resulting in a total hysterectomy.

After all this, Kevin really didn’t want me to go back on the road but stubborn is my middle name and we had GOALS to achieve! So I joined him back on the truck  for a few months until I realized it was truly time for me to retire from this life. So after 6 years I’ve hung up my truck driving hat while my husband stayed on.

Learning to be at home by myself means learning a lot of new stuff… like keeping the deer out of my garden (grrrr… yesterday they nearly decimated 1 of my 4×8 planter boxes of spinach, beets, beans and cucumbers). But probably the biggest thing to adjust to is being by myself all day and all night without Kevin after 6-years, 24-hour a day togetherness!

My biggest pleasure at being home? Sleeping in a perfectly motionless bed!

A Fateful Cinco de Mayo Dinner

May 5th… I was puttering around my yard when the neighbor’s came out for a chat. It was Cinco de Mayo and Tacos y Camaron (shrimp tacos) were on my menu, I invited them to join us.

Men may not talk as much as women, but these two managed to hatch a plan over dinner… rebuild their retaining walls! Rick happened to know Menard’s was running brick on sale which actually saved lots of money so next thing we know, our drive became clogged with pallets of brick! Shortly after, Kevin decided this might be a good time to replace the old waterline to our house since it was vintage 1920′s and we had lousy water pressure.

As it turns out… there is a lot of work involved in all this… for everyone involved! Here is the story… the captions under each tell it.

Rick’s wall was decidedly less complicated, but you get the picture of their great idea!

Suddenly our driveway was populated with pallets and pallets of brick

… and a new vehicle

Our wall was in bad shape

… and the curb nearly a foot or so made backing our of our driveway a challenge

Up at 6am moving plants. I couldn’t believe how heavy some of them were!

Mr. Bobcat, tear down that wall!

So it went…

Into the dump truck. They hauled 3 loads of concrete away.

And the wall is gone!

Donuts for the crew

Our front porch steps….

…weren’t spared (yay! a new porch!)

Disconnecting the 1920′s waterline from the street shut-off proved to be too much. It broke.

And so it went… waiting for City Waterworks to show up.

I didn’t get pictures of the city waterworks crew. They were there for nearly 3 hours replacing the broken port to our house.

They also uncovered an ancient gas line no longer in use.

A trench up into the middle of the front yard (sigh… poor tree roots)

A growing mountain of dirt…

And a crater…

And a 4-5 hour job turned into a 36-hour nightmare for the plumber.

The crew left at 7pm that night when they finally achieved success pulling the old pipe out of the house.

The next morning they brought in the big guns! This is the machine they probably wished they had started with!

Finally the pipe emerged in a new hole they drilled a couple feet over from the old one.

The connector they used to pull the pipe through with the bobcat

Through the trench…

… to the street.

All buttoned up… sorta

Now the hard work for Kevin begins!

Lucas – Newborn Pictures

Lucas – Newborn pictures at 2-3 weeks

(He slept through most of it!)

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More Grandkids….

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We met Lucas for the first time last eve. We’ve decided again…

Grandkids are the coolest humans on earth.