Saturday 6-29 Air Conditioner Quit

Home Repair

Last night before going to bed Larry realized that the air conditioner wasn't cooling like it should. He went around the house and checked the vents, there did not seem to be much air coming from the vents and the air that was blowing through them was a few degrees warmer than it should be. This morning Larry found that Lockridge Priest was open on Saturdays, he called and the lady said they might make it today and if they didn't they would be here Monday. She asked him a few questions and told him that the air conditioner probably froze up and we should turn it off so it would thaw by the time the tech arrived. After getting off the phone he checked the air conditioner and found that it was indeed frozen up so he turned it off. The service person showed up around 3:00. Our A/C is a heat pump so the tech turned on the heaters to thaw it out. As it thawed out a lot of water came out, the tech used his shop vac and sucked it up. The unit had a leak and was low on freon, which caused it to freeze up. The repair man sealed the leak and filled it up with freon. Now the unit works great.

While we were hanging around the house we decided to smoke the pork roast we bought the other day. We hadn't smoked meat in a long time. We used our gas grill and kept the temperature around 225, it took less than 3 hours and it came out delicious.

The finished product

The pork cut up and ready to eat

Larry also worked on reviews for the Home Depot Seeds Program. He wrote reviews on a yellow safety vest, Shark Bite Couplers / Elbows and the StreamLabs Water Controller.

The front of the vest

Back of the vest

Shark Bite Elbow

Shark Bite Coupler

StreamLabs Water Control

While the pork was smoking I checked out my flowers. A week or two ago I thought the flowers were finished for the season but they surprised me and a lot more flowers are blooming. 

The flowers in our backyard

In the evening we watched a couple of dvds Larry had converted. Men in Black II and National Treasure. Afterwards I watched a few episodes of Murdock Mystery.       

Friday 6-28 Running Errands

Running Errands

We started the day out going to town for Larry's wellness checkup. The doctor gave him a perfect bill of health. Now we wait for the lab results to come back.

Wellness Check Up

Afterwards we went to HEB to do our weekly grocery shopping. Next, we went across the street to Walmart and finished our grocery shopping. Then we stopped by Belton Donuts and bought a couple of donuts for our dessert. 

Weekly Grocer Shopping

Larry is still working on finishing converting our dvds but we did watch a couple that he has completed, we watched: Men in Black I and Cirque du Solei Algeria. They played perfectly. We enjoyed each movie. Afterwards I watched a few episodes of Murdock Mysteries.  

Relaxing in front of the television

  

Thursday 6-27 Squirrels

Watching the squirrels

We had a wonderful day. The weather was very mild.

In the morning Larry continued working on converting our DVDs and read while I did Sudoku puzzles. While relaxing I looked out the back windows and saw four squirrels playing. They looked very young. They jumped from tree to tree chasing after each other, it was very entertaining.

In the afternoon I did my weekly housecleaning. Larry read.

Weekly housecleaning

In the evening we went to Sun City to dance with the Sundancers Thursday Advanced group. For C1 dancing we only had two couples Dan, Nancy, Larry and me. We had a great time dancing with phantoms. For the Advanced dance we had five couples. We had a very nice evening of dancing with friends and tapes.

I have a Garmin Vivofit2 fitness tracker that I wear 24 hours a day. It tracks all of my activities/movements and sends the data to a Garmin app and to My Fitness Pal. I love this device and the data it provides. The last few days it has not been sending my data. Larry looked into it and discovered Garmin had automatically updated the program and that was when it quit working, he tried a couple of things to fix it and finally he uninstalled and reinstalled the program. After doing this it works again. I'm one happy woman. 

I watched a few episodes of Murdock Mysteries and ended up doing 17,000 steps.          

Wednesday 6-26 Back on the Lake

Let's going boating

After a few days hanging around the house we decided to go to the lake. We had not been on the lake for a week and the wind was down. We were on the lake by 9:15 and back in time for lunch. From Rogers Park we cruised all the way to the dam. By road Rogers Park is about seven miles from the house, I have no idea how far it is by boat but it takes much longer to make the journey. We boated over to the waterfall and then on up to the dam. We got in and did a bit of swimming and then we drove by Temple Lake Park, two weeks ago it was under water but looking at it today you couldn't tell.  We had a very nice time on the lake.

Lake Belton waterfall

Lake Belton lookout point

Lake Living (for some)

People enjoying the beach at Temple Lake Park

Sailing on Lake Belton

After lunch I mowed the far back of the backyard, it had been a couple weeks since it was done. It took me about an hour. When I finished mowing Larry blew out the garage, down the drive and the lawn mower.

Mowing the backyard

Larry installed the shelf he built for the Stream Labs Control leak detector. It looks great.

Stream Lab Control Leak Detector installed on its shelf

The new Shark Bite elbow compared to the brass elbow

The new Shark Bite coupling compared to the brass coupling

When Larry finished with the shelf project he did a motorcycle project. The front tire has been losing air so he ordered a new tube. He removed the tire from the bike and noticed that the valve stem seemed to be leaking very slowly, he replaced the stem with a new one that came in the kit. Then he aired the tire back up. Now we'll watch the tire to see if the new stem solved the problem, if not he will have to replace the tube.

The battery on the motorcycle is starting to get weak and slowly loose its charge so Larry ordered a new one and replaced it today. They did not make it easy. The battery is located under the seat which is bolted on from the bottom of the motorcycle.

Replacing the motorcycle battery

While Larry worked on his projects and I was cooling off I decided to do some Sudoku puzzles. The book the puzzles are in has three different types of puzzles.

In the evening we finished watching the sixth season of Endeavor. We watched the third and fourth episodes. We were surprised this season only had four episodes instead of the normal six. But the season ended on a great tone. Afterwards I watched a few episodes of Murdock Mysteries. We had a very nice day.

Tuesday 6-25 Calm Tuesday

We had a terrific day. The wind was down a bit and it got to the low 90's.

I did some Sudoku puzzles. Larry continues to convert our DVDs. While the program was doing its thing Larry started working on reviewing products he got from the Home Depot Seeds Program. He mainly worked on the StreamLabs Control, The StreamLabs Controller will monitor the water being used in the house and if it suspects a leak it can notify the home owner and turn off the water. It also measures water usage, temperature and pressure. He installed the controller at the water filter in the garage where he had a previous monitor. This new control goes inside of the plumbing. The control is larger and heavier than the old one so he is working on building a small shelf for it to sit on, until then he has it temporarily propped it up. He will also have to modify or build a new box to cover everything up.

He also received some Shark Bite ProLock Straight and Elbow couplings. They are plastic instead of brass. The new couplings are larger then the brass one and are easier to remove, you don't need to use a tool to remove them.

Stream Labs Controller

The controller installed

The Shark Bite ProLock elbows and couplings

The ProLock Coupling

The ProLock 1/2" Elbow

We have had so much rain in the last week that our yards are growing fast. It had been less than a week since we mowed but today I mowed the frontyard and backyard. It was hot but there was a breeze. 

Mowing the yards

In the evening we watched the first two episodes of this seasons Endeavour. Then we watched another episode of Cadfael. When Larry went to bed I watched Murdock Mysteries.       

Monday 6-24 Dancing with the Sundancers

Overcast Day

A front came through about 2:15 in the morning with thunder, lighting and rain. The rain came down hard. The front stayed in all day. Occasionally it sprinkled a little. 

We spent the day inside. Larry continued converting our DVDs to online files. It's a long process but Larry is having fun. While he was waiting on the files he reads. I did some Sudoku puzzles.

In the evening we went to Sun City to dance with the Sundancers. Brad Caldwell was out of town so Dan Clairmont covered for him. During the Plus class we had three squares. We reviewed the moves we learned last week. Dan introduced us to Explode the Wave, Explode & Anything and Trade the Wave. The actual dance also had three squares. We had fun dancing with friends and to Dan. 

 

Sunday 6-23 Just Another Day

It's summer time

Once again the wind was blowing, not as hard as yesterday but it was blowing. Too much wind for us to go to the lake.

I did some laundry, Larry is working on converting our DVD collection from DVD's to online files we can play via our TV. This is a slow process and will take him quite some time to complete.

The new season of Endeavour on PBS started last week so we spent last night and today watching the last season. Tuesday we'll probably watch the first two episodes of this season. It's an English detective series set in the 1960's and is very good.

We also streamed this week's GizWiz show and other YouTube videos. While we were relaxing in front of the television we saw three roadrunners and a fox in our new neighbor's backyard.

In the evening after getting caught up with Endeavour we watched an episode of Cadfael, it is a historic mystery series based on the books written by Ellis Peters. Cadfael is a Welsh Benedictine monk who lived in the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, in Shrewsbury England between 1135 and 1145. There are twenty books in the Brother Cadfael series. We have read most of them and really enjoyed them. The TV adaptation was filmed as a British mystery series from 1994 to 1998. It's not bad and the first one was pretty close to the book. 

Relaxing in front of the television

We had a very relaxing day.  

Saturday 6-22 Changing Interests

Smile and have a great day

Today we just hung around, the wind was blowing hard again.

A few days ago we had a conversation about how our interests have changed in the years. While we were living in Tucson we raced radio control cars. We started out by racing 10th scale electric cars. On Saturday mornings we would meet at a gentleman's house where he had a track and race with a lot of other people. It would be an all day event. You would be put into different groups. If you won you would get money back or gift certificates for merchandise at the local hobby shops. I participated in the racing. I wasn't too good but had fun. Gradually we moved into 1/4 scale gas cars. When we were in 1/4 scales cars we would met on the weekends to race in a parking lot with three other guys.  On some weekends we would go to San Diego and race. Every year there was a big national race in Las Vegas, drivers from all over came to race. We met a lot of people and had a great time. When we moved to Austin we stopped racing. Years later we got back into it, by then Monster Trucks came out so Larry bought me a truck to race in the Monster Truck group. I was normally the only woman racing and I had a great time.

When we moved to Austin our interests changed. We bought a boat. Larry taught me how to drive the boat because it usually was just the two of us. Larry also taught me how to water ski. As the years went by we both learned how to, wake board, Air Chair and wake surf. At the beginning we would get up early in morning and be on Lake Travis by 7:30. We would be on the lake almost every day. We also had bought a lot on a private ski lake in Creedmoor Texas, after work and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons we skied there. We kept a boat on Lake Travis and another on the private lake. We averaged 80 days on the lake each year. The last couple of years we have only averaged 14 days. It just seems like we're not as motivated as we once were plus we now travel a bit during times we use to boat. We still have a great time once we were on the lake.

After moving to Austin we also learned to scuba drive. We would fly into places like, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Antigua. Over the years we dove over 200 times. We then got into snow skiing and camping and quit diving. Diving also required flying which got to be more difficult and when baggage fees came along it was really expensive to fly with dive gear.

When we started snow skiing we would sometimes drive and other times we would fly. We would take multiple trips each year. We still like to ski but today we only ski once a year and sometimes not even that.

Now our interest is Square Dancing, we started five years ago. At the beginning we would dance six days a week but now we dance two or three times a week. When there is a special dance we will go. The special dances are usually on the weekends and for a couple of days. We now dance higher level square dancing and in order to get floor time we have to travel. We love square dancing and have met a lot of great people and super callers.

I guess our interest have changed but we still are having fun learning new things. We still do some of our old interests but just not as often. LIFE IS GOOD.      

Friday 6-21 Killeen Kickers Pie Dance

First Day of Summer

Today was the first day of summer. Boy, we felt it. It was hot and humid.

It was windy all day so we spent the day hanging around the house. We spent the afternoon streaming the last season of Foyle's War. I liked how they ended the series. 

In the evening we went to Killeen to attend the Killeen Kickers Pie Dance. Every year the Kickers have a pie dance to kick off the summer. The club supplied a lot of delicious pies, such as: peach, pecan, apricot, chocolate creme, strawberry, apple and others. We had three squares of dancers for Mainstream and two squares for Plus. One of the dancers, John, brought his four grandchildren to the dance. They didn't know how to square dance but on one of the tips Gail, (Dan's wife) and Christina each took one of the girls and danced Siamese. The tip was very fun. Everyone was laughing. Christina Wiggins cued line dancing in between the square dancing tips. She did a great job. Dan Clairmont did an excellent job of calling. We had a super time dancing with friends.

Pies for the Killeen Kickers Pie Dance

Dan Clairmont calling the dance

Having fun doing a line dance with friends

DeAnn and Rick having fun dancing with friends

Betty and Barb enjoying the dance

Dancing as Siamese during a tip

Tea and Billy Ray having fun watching people dancing

Thursday 6-20 Hot and Humid Day

It's hot

It was hot and humid all day.

Temperature at 3:00 was 96 degrees, 53% humidity

By morning the rain was gone but the wind was blowing hard. We went to town to do our weekly grocery shopping. While in town we swung by the UPS Store to pickup the mail and a couple of packages that were waiting for us.

A couple of nights ago I was going to make toast and the toaster wouldn't work. I thought maybe it was the electrical plug so I plugged it into another one, it still didn't work. Larry thought about tearing it apart and trying to fix it but decided it wasn't worth it. We don't need a fancy toaster and only need two slots. While I was sleeping Larry did a little research on toasters. He found a few that were about $20 dollars at Walmart. He read the reviews on the different toasters. After picking up our mail we went to Walmart and bought the Black and Decker toaster. It came in two colors, red or black. We got the red one. Once at home we tested the toaster out. It took a few tests to decide on what number we wanted.

New Toaster

After lunch I finished my puzzle. It took me almost three weeks to complete it. It was very challenging because there was a lot of colors that were very close to the same color. But I liked the challenge. Kirkland Lake Station puzzle all finished.

Kirkland Lake Station puzzle finished

In the afternoon I studied Taminations for about an hour and did the Event: Free Cell Adventure. I checked on my flowers. I saw that I had a lot of flowers but the storms have been very hard on them. 

My poor flowers

In the evening we went to Sun City and danced with the Sundancers Advanced and Challenge group.We had three couples for the C1 hour and six couples of the A2 dances. We had a super evening of dancing with friends.