We're going to be Part Time Missionaries

We've been wondering about callings since we have been in our Ward since July (three months). Saturday, Bishop Hicks called and wondered if Cathy and I would meet with him on Sunday and, of course, we said yes.

We had a nice visit. He's a good man as most Bishops are. Then he said he had a "request" from the Stake President. Would we consider being "Stay at Home Missionaries" and assist with the Kentucky, Louisville Mission? It's apparently "part time" but will involve quite a bit of our week each week. We will be assisting the full time missionaries with housing and other needed tasks to free them up for their work as much as possible.

We're filling out our applications/recommends and it all has to go through SLC so it will be a little while yet but it sounds like a rewarding and interesting experience.

My sister, Beth and her husband Bruce sort of do similar work by being guides and whatever is needed at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City and they have really enjoyed their service. We think we will enjoy this mission/calling a lot.

I will provide updates from time to time.

Kayaking on Harrod's Creek

As part of my exercise regimen I bought a kayak. I have a life vest and a waterproof bag for my phone and cash, etc.

Last Saturday the weather was pretty nice in the afternoon so I launched at Harrod's Creek at a place called The Landings. It's a condo development on a little marina there. Here in Kentucky the term "creek" is a little different than out west. Harrod's Creek is in many areas wider and deeper than the Colorado and although it's a very long creek it's not nearly as long as the Colorado and it flows much more calmly.

You can see from the picture that it's more like a "Swanee River" than a fast flowing mountain river and it's ideal for beginner kayaking. From The Landings one can paddle upstream toward a city called Lagrange which is around 15 miles or downstream toward the Ohio River (about a half mile). I opted for upstream and really enjoyed it. It's very peaceful, quiet and serene and there is lots of wild life (deer, smaller animals and birds).

The weather is getting cooler now but I hope to get a few more days on the water before it becomes unbearable. We'll see.

Walkout Basement Bathroom

Shortly after we moved in, we decided to re-do most of the flooring in the house and that included the new tile in the bathroom in our walkout basement. In order to do the floor properly, I had to remove the toilet and found that the PVC (plastic) flange was broken. The flange is where the toilet connects to the floor and is pretty important in making sure that everything unsavory is properly routed to the place where you want unsavory things to go and nowhere else.



In our basement as in most basements, the floor is what's called a "slab" meaning that it is made out of cement and there is no space under it. Just dirt. So unless I want to take out the newly installed floor and jack hammer the cement around the opening, all the work has to be done from the top. In this case the broken piece actually had been inserted into the sewer pipe (also PCP) and cemented into place using PCP cement. PCP cement is designed to melt the plastic, or PCP, from both pieces and cause an everlasting bond. The two pieces effectively become one.

So, we see from the first picture (taken by my Blackberry, my camera is still being repaired) that the piece is coming out in small shards. I used a small hacksaw and some small wood chisels and literally performed some tiresome and difficult sculpturing in plastic but it worked.



In the second picture, we see the new flange, now installed properly (I hope) so it won't break like the last one did. Below is the finished project. Not really a work of art unless you're the one who spent all day installing it. I also replaced all of the innards (valves, gaskets, floats, etc.) with new top drawer stuff and I truly believe (hope?) this unit will function properly for a long, long time.

Note also that the wall paper which is uglier than it looks has, at least around the toilet, received it's coat of oil-based primer and been painted the final beige color. I've found that it is much easier to paint the walls behind toilets when they aren't there.



And soooo... time marches on.

Camera's In The Shop (getting fixed)

It's been awhile since my last post. My Canon camera was stolen a couple of months ago when my new truck was burglarized. I started using the little Nikon that I bought mom last Christmas and I really liked the portability of it. I got in the habit of slipping it into my "cargo" pocket on my cargo shorts and it was always handy when I needed it, until...

A couple of weeks ago I apparently bumped into something and smashed the viewing screen on the back of the camera. The camera still worked in a rough sort of point-and-shoot mode, but I couldn't tell what I had accomplished until I downloaded (uploaded?) the photos to a computer.

So we decided to get the camera fixed. Even though it is expensive to fix and seems to be taking quite a bit of time, it will be less money than buying a new camera (just barely though).

In the mean time, work has been progressing here on the house. The main floor (dining room, living room, kitchen and family rooms are basically done. The upstairs (three bedrooms and two bathrooms) is in pretty solid shape. One bedroom will be the guest room and it still needs painting. It is in good shape, but has wallpaper (and ceiling paper) designed as a nursery and will probably scare any sane guest who wakes up in it without proper warning.

The smallest bedroom has become the office and also requires paint (simply because the existing color is weird).

The master suite is in good shape but needs paint for the same reason the office does. Both bathrooms also fall into that category.

The big rec room in the walkout basement was pretty sad. The previous owner (male) used as his retreat to put it as nicely as possible. The wife stayed away from this level because it was just kind of a "guy place." A mess in other words. It had a built in wall unit designed for one of those huge rear -projection TVs of the '80s and it was wall papered with fabric wallpaper which was probably pretty nice when it was first installed 20 years ago. Spots and stains are all over it now.

The paper won't come off the wall without destroying the wall. Some friends and I removed the wall unit and that meant that the wall against which the wall unit was attached had only partial wallpaper on it and the ceiling above the wall unit was painted, stained and varnished to look like the same wood that made up the wall unit.

I sanded the ceiling down and got some stain blocker oil-based primer and painted it. Then I installed paneling on that wall where the wall unit had been. The baseboard molding (also incomplete because of the wall unit) is 4 and 1/4 inches tall. Lowes didn't have it at all and Home Depot had in heights that were either one inch shorter or one inch taller. I finally found it at Kentucky Lumber out in Crestwood. It wasn't particularly expensive ($.85 a foot), but it took most of a day to track it down and get it home. i only needed twelve feet of it.

Then I spent the last two weeks painting and painting and painting the wallpaper. It drinks paint like a thirsty man in the Mohave. We have delayed the carpet installation down there because it is so much easier to feed paint to the walls when I don't have to worry about the floor. The one room took five gallons of primer and six gallons of paint and I really still have one of the four walls left to put finishing touches on. The stairs and downstairs entry area need paint also and I haven't even started on that.

Anyway, the carpet people are here and doing their thing down there right now. I am going to scale back my efforts to a few hours daily and begin enjoying our new home.

In addition to finishing the painting in the basement and painting the upstairs, I need to do some work in the yard.

It sounds like a lot of work and it is but I am going to go at a more retirement-oriented pace from here on. I really do enjoy doing the work and it's keeping me occupied.

We still haven't received any callings in the church. I think I have mentioned that things seem to be in a state of fluidity regarding the church here in the Louisville area. With sixteen wards in our stake and not enough room to accommodate the continuing growth, everyone seems to be anticipating boundary changes and possibly the dividing of the stake. The Bishop DID ask me last Sunday if I was ready to handle a calling and said there is something coming but he didn't say anything else. I would love to be called to be the ward organist. The incumbent is a wonderful lady who just is awful at playing the organ. I know I would rehearse two or three nights a week and enjoy that challenge.

We are looking forward to a visit from Jake and Meredith in early November, and Adam and Myisha in December.

I am hoping to have the camera back soon for many reasons, not the least of which is to add pictures to this blog from time to time. Stay tuned.