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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 30 August 2010

Latest Update: Saturday, 4 August 2010 1:50 p.m.


Monday, 30 August 2010

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It seems like the older I get the faster Monday gets here for me to go back to work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and going to work. The weekends are just not long enough. If it wasn't for the stuff the Bob does around here to help out I would not have the amount of down time I do get on weekends.

The weather has warmed up again, back to 90's but thankfully still relatively low humidity. Now if we could just get some rain!

I had a haircut appointment tonight after work. That thows gym to Tuesday and Thursday this week.


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Tuesday, 31 August 2010

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Wednesday, 1 September 2010

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Thursday, 2 September 2010

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Tuesday night was Y night. Last night I went out to dinner with Marcy. She was supposed to leave yesterday morning for a train trip heading north. They decided Tuesday to cancel due to hurricane Earl lurking off the coast. It could have caused their train travel to be messed up on their return trip. Dinner last night was a consolation to help ease the disappointment of having to cancel.

Yesterday on the way to work my car started acting weird along with a very funny noise coming from under the hood. More of the same when I left work yesterday afternoon. Since Marcy was picking me up at 5:30 I decided to wait until this morning to see how it was acting. The steering was weird and the funny noise was worse when I turned the wheel. I headed straight for Merchants. Fortunately it was just a leaking power steering hose. But, they had to special order the hose so I had to call Bob to come get me, bring him home, then off to work. While they were checking out the power steering issue the off and on loud noise when the car idles finally did it while we were standing there with the hood up. We are not sure what that noise is but I told Jonathan to go ahead and tear down the area where the noise was coming from to see if we have a serious problem.

It is still very hot and dry with low humidity. Since I was driving the hot-mobile I took my Y clothes with me in to work and changed before I left work. Shorts and a tank top are a lot cooler then long pants and a shirt.

Earl will most likely hit the Outer Banks of NC than head on up the east coast. We are too far inland to get any rain or wind unless it comes inland further than predicted before turning north.

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Friday 3 September 2010

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The car is still in the shop. They called this morning with the cost for replacing the power steering hose, flushing the lines, and putting in new fluid. The other noise may be, as we suspected, the timing belt. From the description he gave of how loose it was and the way it was flapping around I guess I am lucky it did not break and wrap itself around something while I was driving. Once they get the belt replaced they can check to see if the noise is also coming from something else.

I am in full battle with one or more squirrels and my so called "squirrel proof" feeder. I've had this feeder almost as long as we've lived in the house. It is nailed to one of the deck railings. It's a square metal container with a flip up lid. A small rocker platform allows the birds to sit and eat but if a squirrel jumps on it closes up the access to the seeds. There are small holes on either side of the lid and box to put a hook through to keep the lid down. I stopped putting hooks on to keep the lid a long time ago because the squirrels stopped raising the lid and jumping inside to hoover the food. The would usually hang down by their tails from the top and eat one seed at a time.

Several weeks ago I noticed the lid up. I made hook with a piece of wire coat hanger to keep the lid closed. Two days later, the lid was up. I put in another hook. Same thing. Last weekend I made two hooks and strung wire from one hook to the other. This morning when I looked out the lid was up again! Bob said to let it get empty and leave it for awhile. I guess that's what I'll do. The funny thing is, I have never been able to find the hooks on the ground below the feeder?




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Saturday, 4 September 2010

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Well, I kicked off the long, Labor Day weekend with a very busy Saturday morning. I have vacuumed, mopped the floors and cleaned the bathrooms in between doing some other stuff. This morning while we were out front talking with some of the neighbors they delivered our roll out garbage bin.  We are converting our two 20 gallon platic cans (I think that's the right size) to store Bob's packing materials. After we washed them with liquid soap we did a second wash with Lysol concentrate.

The cans were kept under one corner of the deck in cinder blocks I stacked up to make an enclosure to keep them from blowing away. At some point I will need to dismantle that mess and clean up the corner. I also had landscape timbers along the sides to keep the trash guys from pulling their carts across the gravel we have under the deck when they went from the neighbor's yard to ours. I can remove those and use them somewhere else.

We finally have a break in the hot weather. Today is low 80's with a pretty good breeze and very little humidity.

The car will not be finished until about dinner time. I will make the grocery store run tonight after we pick it up. Even though it is cool enough to drive the white one it is too full of observing stuff to fit groceries very well.

I am reading the second book in the Flavia de Luce mystery series by Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. If you have not tried this series you should give it try.

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Sunday, 5 September 2010

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