Wednesday 10-30 Another Cold Dreary Day

Cold wet day

It was another wet day. It didn't get out of the 40s. It's suppose to be even colder tomorrow.

I got up around 8:00 and made breakfast. I spent most of the day finishing a novel by Emma Jameson called Marriage Can Be Murder. It was a historic fiction about a doctor who tries to solve his wife's murder. It was a good book. 

Larry winterized the sprinkler system and put covers on the outside hose bibs.

In the evening we were going to go square dance in Georgetown but it was cold and spiting rain and it was suppose to get colder. We decided to stay home and start watching the ninth season of Doc Martin. We watched the last episode from season eighth before starting the ninth season. We watched three episodes. Afterwards I watched three episodes of Murder Is My Life. 

We had a relaxing, trying to keep warm and dry. 

Tuesday 10-29 Damp Day

Damp Day

We had a damp day. It sprinkled on and off all day. It only got up to the low 50s.

A drizzling day

This morning we cleaned the interior of the boat. Larry and I wiped down the seats, other vinyl parts and instrument panel. Then we put a vinyl protection on. After lunch Larry went back to working on the boat by vacuuming it out and cleaning the carpet. Now we have to wait for the carpet to dry before vacuuming it out again. Then we'll cover the boat up for the season.

Larry cleaning the boat's carpet

While Larry was cleaning the boat's carpeting I read. When he finished we went to the UPS Store because we had a package there. 

The other day when Larry found out that Louise's ceiling fan light fixture was bad he did some research and found out that the light fixture had failed on other customers too. Some of them had replaced it under warranty but Louise's is past the warranty period. He found a replacement on Amazon, it was not an exact fit but from the reviews he thought he could make it work. This afternoon he worked on it. Larry had to modify the old casing on the light. He removed a few tabs on the new light fixture and drilled a hole in the old casing. Once he did this he put the fixture back together. He tested it out and it works perfect. The light fixture is very bright.

The old light fixture

New light fixture installed

Removing the tabs

In the evening we finished watching the Ken Burns Country Music series. The eighth episode "Don't Get Above Your Raisin'", was about country music between 1984 to 1996. The series was very good. Afterwards I read a bit.

Last night I finished watching a series on Acorn. This evening I started watching a new series on Acorn called My Life Is Murder. It's a private detective who specializes in  investigating murders. It's an Australian murder mystery series starring Lucy Lawless from Parks and Recreation television series. I watched three episodes. It's a cute series.    

     

Monday 10-28 Halloween Dance

Overcast Day

This morning we woke to overcast skies. While we were eating breakfast a fog came in. It sprinkled a little bit after lunch.

This morning Larry called the support desk for Louise's Obihai phone device. The technician had him change a bunch of settings on the device three different times and it still would not work, after being on the phone for an hour he got disconnected. He called back and got a different technician, he had him change one setting on the device and then he did some things on his end and had Larry reboot the device. Now Louise's home phone is back in service.

Larry decided to winterize the boat. Larry does this every year. Some people say we don't need to because in Central Texas it doesn't get that cold and we keep our boat in the garage which is warmer than outside. But it doesn't take long and it's not worth taking a chance on damaging the engine. First Larry had to back the truck up to the trailer and pull the boat out of the garage. I helped him by directing him to the trailer. Once the boat was out of the garage The last time we filled the boat with fuel Larry added stabilizer so the fuel was taken care of. To warm the engine a bit Larry hooked it up to water and started it. Once it warmed up he removed all the hoses to drain all the water out of the engine. While Larry was winterizing the boat it started to sprinkle so the boat got wet. When he finished the project we wiped down the boat. We still need to clean the interior and then we will cover it back up. 

Larry making sure everything is going correctly

The plunger connected to the boat

Removing the hoses

Putting the hoses back on

 After the project was done we watched a couple of episodes of the GizWiz. I read.

Reading is fun

 In the evening we went to the Sundancers Halloween Dance. We had nine squares and 10-12 couples for round dancing. The Sundancers invited Dan Nordbye to come and join Brad Caldwell to call the dance, Lucy and Jerry Pate cued round dancing. The Sundancers served a lot of delicious snacks; sandwiches, chips and a lot of different desserts. The dance started at 7:00 and was over at 9:40. The format was mainstream, round dancing, mainstream, round dancing, plus and round dancing. This format went until 8:30 and then it was plus and rounds, the very last tip was an Advanced tip. A lot of people dressed up for Halloween. We had a super time dancing with friends and to Brad and Dan.

Friends enjoying a break in between tips

More dancers enjoying the Halloween Dance

Friends having fun dressing up for Halloween

Relaxing in between tips

Dancing with friends

Paula, Brad, Lucy and Jerry having fun square dancing

Lucy and Jerry Pate

Brad Caldwell and Dan Nordbye

Paula and Brad round dancing to Lucy's cuing

Jerry round dancing with Betty

When we got home I finished watching Hamish Macbeth. It had a good ending. We had a great day.  

Sunday 10-27 Brother Do's

Doing Brother Do Projects

While we were on our trip Larry's sister Louise was making a list of things she needed to have repaired. This morning we went to Round Rock to do her projects and to visit with her and her dog Alice.

We got there around 9:00 and got back home around 3:30. When we arrived the first thing on Louise's list was her home phone. Louise has an old Obihai OBi100, which is an adapter that is used with the internet to obtain phone service. The old device was discontinued years ago and when she had a problem with her phone service the company blamed her old device and would not help. A few days ago Larry ordered her the new version, today he replaced the old Obihai with the newer version. He tried to set it up but couldn't get it to work, not surprising since there was probably nothing really wrong with the old one. He is guessing something is wrong on the provider side. He called the support line but there is no support on the weekends, you can only get support Mon thru Fri between working hours. Louise has her home phone number forwarded to her cell phone so she is getting by.

The next project was her toilet, she had a problem with it running all the time and the control valve to turn it off would not work. He needed to replace the control valve, we needed to go to Lowe's. Before going he checked out an extension cord she had trouble with and discovered the plug needed replaced. Off to Lowe's we went for parts. After replacing the old valve it was time for lunch.

Louise had bought a pizza from Papa Murphy's along with chips and pie for dessert.

After lunch Larry replaced the plug on the extension cord. Once it was repaired he tried it out on her blower, worked perfect and Louise was one happy woman.

The next project was her television Roku. He rebooted the Roku and reconfigured it to work on a different router, hopefully her buffering problem goes away. Then he programmed a device so Alexa could turn her Christmas lights on and off.

The last project was her ceiling fan light fixture. The light is flickering, Larry played with it and couldn't figure out why so he brought the light home to play with it. While Larry was doing projects I played with Alice. We had a very nice visit.

Louise and Alice

The valve Larry replaced

Larry replacing the plug on an extension cord

         

Larry working on the ceiling fan light

Alice enjoying the sun

In the evening we watched the seventh episode of Ken Burns Country Music series "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way", which is Country Music between 1973 to 1983. When Larry went to bed I started watching the third and final season of  Hamish Macbeth.

Saturday 10-26 Just Relaxing

Just Relaxing

We didn't have much on our agenda today. 

Larry is still playing with the carburetor on the motorcycle. He has two and one is working better than the other. He took one of them apart again and went through it again and it still did not run correctly so he put the old carburetor back on, it is working really well so maybe he will just stay with it.

The motorcycle battery he purchased back in June sudden quit working the other day. He had bought it through Amazon but it came from a vendor, he sent the vendor an email and the very next day a replacement showed up, they also provided him with a shipping label to send the old back. Really great service. Today when he was working on the carburetor he installed the new battery. It is kind of a pain since you have to remove the seat and it is bolted on. The new battery works great.

While Larry was working on the motorcycle I read and did my Solitaire World Tour, which was 30 Solitaire games. I also worked out for an hour, a half hour with Gold's Gym and a half hour of Just Dance.

Work out programs I used today

 

Afterwards Larry asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. I thought he meant on the motorcycle, I changed clothes and started to braid my hair. He was wondering why it was taking me so long. He found me and said we were going to take the truck for a ride. He had washed the motorcycle carrier and wanted to take it to storage. On the way home we stopped by the UPS Store to pick up a package that was waiting for us. The package was new toll tags for the Minnie and truck. 

While we were on our trip TXTag sent us a letter saying we needed to call them about our TXTags. When Larry called they said they had made a change and we needed to get new toll tags for the Minnie and the truck, the car was OK. Not sure why he had to call, they could have just sent them. The new tags came in the same package but each vehicle was assigned a number so you had to be sure that the right tag was on the right vehicle. When we got home Larry replaced the old toll tags with the new ones.

In the evening we watched two episodes of Ken Burns Country Music, which were fifth episode "The Sons and Daughters of America" country music from 1964 to 1968 and sixth episode "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" country music from 1968 to 1972. Then I finished the second season of Hamish Macbeth.    

Friday 10-25 It's Cold

It's cold

Last night a front came through and brought rain and wind. When Larry woke up it was in the 40's and it only got to the mid 50's. The wind was very strong. We just hung around the house.

When we got home from our trip a couple of our Alexa devices weren't working correctly. We have two Echo buttons that we use a lot and both of them had stopped working. This morning Larry reprogrammed them, now they work perfect. It's funny how much we now rely on technology and when it doesn't work we feel lost. The nice thing about the Alexa devices is you can still do it manually if you need to.

We read a bit. Larry was teasing me about working out on my Wii Fit. I told him I wasn't going to because he was teasing me but I did workout with it. I knew it was a long time but I didn't know it was 149 days. I do keep a bit active via square dancing and while on our trip we hiked and walked when we toured places. Wow, here it goes. I worked out using my Wii Fit for 30 minutes and Just Dance for 30 minutes.

149 days since I worked with my Wii Fit

The three different Just Dance programs I used 2019, 2018 and 2016

In the evening we continued watching the PBS Country Music series. We watched another two episodes. First episode was "The Rub", which was about when country music from Beginning to 1933. The second episode was "Hard Times", which was about country music between 1933 to 1945. The third episode was "The Hillbilly Shakespeare", which was about country music between 1945 to 1953. The fourth episode was "I Can't Stop Loving You", which was about country music between 1953 to 1963. Afterwards I started watching the second season of Hamish Macbeth. We had a relaxing day.  

Thursday 10-24 Updating Tags

Overcast Day

I crawled out of bed before 7:30 today. I had woke up with Larry and couldn't get back to sleep. So I decided I might as well get up. 

Yesterday, the Bell County Tax Assessors offices were closed due to training so we could not renew our tags, we could have just mailed them in or done it online but we prefer to walk in. This morning we went to town to renew the tags on the car and boat trailer. Since the office was closed yesterday we thought it might be busy but when we got there the parking lot was almost empty. When we walked in the building there was no wait simply walked up to a very nice lady and got waited on. While paying for the car and boat trailer tags, we asked if we could pay for the truck even though it's not due until December. The lady said she thought we could. We told her we had it inspected already. She was able to renew the car, truck and boat trailer all at one time, perfect. Next stop was the Property Tax Appraisal District building to pay our property taxes. I stayed in the car while Larry went inside. He was back within five minutes, no lines. Small towns are so great.

Decorations for the season in front of the Chamber of Commerce building

Waiting for Larry to come back after paying our property taxes

When Larry got back he noticed that the Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center had a cute decoration for the Fall. He took a few pictures. Then we went back to the house. Once at the house Larry put the new stickers on the vehicles.

In the afternoon we watched an episode of the GizWiz and a couple for YouTube videos.

In the evening we went to Sun City to dance C1 and A with the Sundancers. We had a small group this week. For C1 we had one square and an extra person, we danced 5:15 to 6:30. For A we had one square and three extra couples, we danced from 6:30 until 8:00. Then we danced another half hour of C1. After being gone for two months it was nice to dance with our local A and C1 friends. We had a great evening.

While we were dancing a rain storm with high winds came in. We were concerned that our inflatable Halloween decorations might have blown away but when we got home they were standing tall and looking great.

Last night I started watching a series called Hamish Macbeth on Acorn. It is a series about a small Scottish town of Lochdubn with a constable named Hamish Macbeth. It went on for three years. It started in 1995 to 1997. It is a cute series. Tonight I finished watching the first season.   

Wednesday 10-23 Doing This & That

What's next on the agenda?

It has been so good to be back in our Sleep Number bed. The last two mornings I have slept in, yesterday I didn't get up until almost 9:00 and today about 8:15. 

After breakfast we continued getting caught up. The first thing we did was take both the car and the truck to Valvoline Instant Oil Change for their yearly safety inspections. The truck's tags aren't due until December but you can get it inspected early. The truck also needed to go for spin considering we don't drive it much. We loaded up and drove it to Valvoline. It was early so we were out very fast. We told them we would see them a few minutes for another inspection. We dropped the truck off at the house and got the Equinox. When we got back to Valvoline we had to wait a bit because they had one bay closed due to them getting the old oil pumped out into a truck. There were two other people in front of us. Once the truck left with the old oil we got the car inspected. Inspection number 2 all done for another year. It cost us $7.00 per vehicle for inspection. The rest of the inspection is added on to the tags.

Taking the old oil away

Equinox getting inspected

The truck getting inspected

The other day Amazon put their new Kindle on sale. Larry's Kindle is four years old and other than the battery not last quite as long as when it was new it works fine but the new one is thinner, lighter and even more impressive it now has a background light. It's even smaller than my two year old Kindle. The new Kindle was on sale for $65, normal price is $90, by trading in the old Kindle we got 25% off plus another $15 off, ended up costing $37 with tax. We received it yesterday. Larry's Kindle is black so it is easy for us to tell them apart. Amazon stores all the books we have purchased in the cloud so when Larry setup the new Kindle all our books were immediately available. Then he packaged the old Kindle up to ship it back for the exchange. So far the Kindle looks great.  While we were in town we mailed the old Kindle back to Amazon.

New Kindle and my Kindle

Look at how bright the new Kindle screen is compared to my Kindle

The next stop was Walmart to pick up a few things.

After lunch we went outside to put up the Halloween decorations we got from The Seeds Program. We plugged in the decorations and blew them up and arranged them where we wanted them in the yard. Then we used the stakes that came with them in the ground to hold them up. Today was very windy and they survived so we should be good to go. Larry set the decorations up through Alexa so they will turn on at sunset and turn off at 10:30. That way we won't have to remember to do so.

Holding up the pumpkin decoration while trying to anchor it to keep it from falling

Ready for Halloween

Indoor skull for Halloween

Halloween Decoration at night

Then Larry did a couple of motorcycle projects. We used the motorcycle during our trip and it worked out great. Larry didn't like how it ran so today he put the old carburetor back on. He wanted to take it for a ride to make sure it ran correctly. When he tried to start it it wouldn't start. It took him a couple of hours to find out that it was the battery. The battery voltage checked out good but when he put any load on it it wouldn't work. He had the old battery so he put it in the motorcycle and it started. He took the bike for a ride and he said that it ran excellent.

Replacing the carburetor

Motorcycle Projects

Louise had e-mailed Larry and told him that there was a new Ken Burns series on PBS called Country Music. She said it was very good. Larry went on the site and found that it was an eight episode series, each episode is about two hours long. So in the evening we watched a couple of the episodes. Louise was right it is really good.   

Tuesday 10-22 (Post No 2) Mini Waffle Maker

Just having fun

Two blog post today, one on our Mini Waffle Maker and the other is my normal daily post.

While we were on the road I blogged about making mini waffles for breakfast. One of our friends from Georgetown asked about our mini waffle maker.

A couple of years ago a tech show we watch reviewed the Dash Mini Waffle Maker. We thought this would perfect for us. We bought one at Bed Bath & Beyond for $10. We have a large Belgian waffle iron that Larry's sister gave us years ago that we love but as we have gotten older we now eat smaller portions, the mini waffle is perfect.  We use it a lot both at home and on the road. It makes great waffles and is very small so it is easy to store. 

When I make the mini waffles I use a complete pancake mix. I make the batter according to the directions. I let the batter sit for 5 minutes. While the batter is setting up I plug in the mini waffle maker, it only takes 2 to 2.5 minutes to heat up. Once the time is up I put the batter into the maker, be careful you can over fill the maker. There is a light on the waffle maker that tells you when the waffle is done. We like our waffles a little crunchy so I use a timer between 3 and 3.5 minutes. The waffle comes out perfect every time. The waffle maker comes with recipes for making different waffles but it doesn't tell you how long to bake the waffle or how much batter to put in. It does tell you to spray the waffle maker before cooking because the waffle will stick. I don't because the waffle doesn't come out as crispy as we like. It doesn't normally stick, I just use a fork on the edge and it falls off the top. 

Larry looked on the web today and discovered it is a little difficult to find these. Bed Bath and Beyond showed them out of stock online, they might have them in the store. Amazon shows they are out of stock, Walmart was out, our local Target shows they are in stock for $10 and Kohl has them online for $17.

Dash Mini Maker Waffle

Opened

Batter poured in

The blue light is on

Waffle being made

The finished product

 

The Belgium Waffle Maker and the Mini Waffle Maker