Monday 6-15 Keeping Busy Having Fun

Just having fun

We spent the day having fun doing projects around the house. First we assembled the bird feeder and hung it from the back porch. The feeder looks great. 

Feeder hanging off the porch

 

The next project was making homemade hummingbird feeders. The other day we watched a YouTube video about building them. We went through our kitchen cabinet looking for short plastic containers. We found three of them to use, the containers were old sour cream containers with lids. This morning Larry drilled holes in the top of the lids. The center two holes were for us to put a tie through to lift the lid off to put the nectar in the container. The rest of the holes were for the hummingbirds to drink the nectar through. After the holes were drilled I took the lids outside and spray painted them, the colors I used were red, yellow and orange. While the lids were drying we sanded down the containers to remove the lettering on them. Next we waited for the paint to dry.

Homemade hummingbird feeders

Mounted with command strips

The hummingbird feeder with nectar in it

Larry also completed a computer project, while I was painting the lids he added a new drive to our main computer. He left the old drive in the computer so he could clone it to the new drive. The process went fast with no problems. The computer has a lot of memory and runs faster. 

After I painted the lids I did my daily challenges and The Event: Two Game Tango Mini. The event had 5 games of Spider and 5 games of Pyramid. It took me 29 minutes and 25 seconds, which put me in 20th position in my group.     

Yesterday, Larry ordered some bird seed from Walmart. While the paint was drying we went to town to pick up the seed and a couple other items. While Larry went into Walmart I went to the UPS Store to get the mail, yep, we are still wearing masks. When we got home I put some of the bird feed in the feeder.

In the afternoon Larry read and I took a nap. When I woke up I worked on my puzzle.

After dinner we watched three episodes of Grantchester. Then I watched the 16th and 17th season of Trail & Retribution. I started the 18th season of Trail & Retribution. I needed up doing 26,000 steps, which put me in third place in my group.  

Sunday 6-14 Flowers And Dancing

Just having fun

We had a fun day with a lot of sunshine. The temperature was 95 degrees.

During the day we worked on finishing the bird feeder. It took most of the day because I put on three coats of Urethane. After each coat I had to wait a couple of hours so the Urethane could dry. Before putting a coat on I lightly sanded the pieces. Larry sanded the pieces before I applied the first coat of Urethane. Tomorrow Larry will assemble the bird feeder and hang it. The feeder looks good.

Sanding pieces down

We did two virtual square dances. The first dance was a plus dance with Mike Dusoe at 1:00 pm. He invited Dean Singleton to call with him. The dance was an hour long and 49 people called in, you actually end up with almost 100 people because most of those who call in are couples, some are singles. Sure wish we could get that kind of participation with our local clubs. Before the dance Mike walked us through Coordinate and Track Two, doing these with two couples is a bit different than with four couples. When he called coordinate we moved one and a half positions. My phantom and I would trade and Larry moved up to the end of the line like normal. When he called Track Two, he explained it was like a partner trade. The dance had four tips and each tip had a singing call in it. We had fun dancing to both Dean and Mike.

The second dance was an A2/C1 dance with Lorne Smith at 7:30 for an hour. We had 39 people participating in the A2 tips, which was three tips. The last tip of the A2 dance was where we danced with six phantoms. It was very challenging. For the C1 tips we had 32 people participating. It was fun and challenging. We had a super time dancing with Lorne.

In between doing the bird feeder project and dancing I did my daily challenges and The Event: Klondike Adventure of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 33 minutes and 42 seconds, which put me in 29th place in my group. It was a special day today because it was Solitaire Sunday when we played the Klondike games your points were doubled.

When I went out to water my flowers I had a pleasant surprise. There were a few new flowers. They're not gone yet. They're still there and growing.  

New purple flowers from the partial shady seeds

New Amazon flower

New purple flower from Pollinator Wild Flower Blend seeds

After the dance we watched the second episode of Expanse on Amazon. Then I watched the 14th season and started the 15th season of Trail & Retribution. I did 22,000 steps, which put me in fifth place in my group and for the week I did 177,099 steps.  

Saturday 6-13 Building a Bird Feeder

We had a super day. The temperature was in the mid 90's and the humidity was 27%, which made it very comfortable.

A few days ago I wrote that Larry built a birdhouse. Yesterday, we had a bird visit it. It went all the way inside and looked around, it didn't stay long but it was fun watching it. Larry had fun building the birdhouse, he was thinking about either building another birdhouse or a bird feeder. We decided to do a bird feeder. The first thing Larry did was print out a bird feeder plan. We didn't have to buy any materials.  Since we were using leftover scraps we substituted materials as we needed. He cut the boards to the size we needed using his miter saw and jig saw. Next he made a hole in the front and back of the feeder. He also made a half circle on both side of the feeder. Then we drilled holes in each board in order to assemble the feeder. Larry used his mill and drill. Then he assembled the feeder, it looked great. He then disassembled the feeder so we could sand and stain all the pieces. We stained the pieces using two different colors, black (Ebony) for the roof and wheat for the rest of the pieces. Once the pieces were stained we wiped the extra stain off. Tomorrow we'll apply the Urethane. It was a lot of fun building the bird feeder.

Front of bird feeder

Side view

Assembling bottom frame

Sanding

Wiping off extra stain

Pieces drying

At noon we took a break to do a virtual square dance to Johnny Preston. We didn't stay around long, Johnny was calling a regular dance with four couples in a square. Since we only had ourselves some of the calls were impossible for us. There was noway we could do calls like Relay The Ducey with six phantoms. The other virtual square dances the callers called for a two couple square. We only had to keep track of and dance with one phantom couple.

In the evening we watched YouTube videos. We watched am Amazon movie called House of D. It starred David Duchovny and Robin Williams. It was movie about a starving artist in Paris, who returns to America to find who he is. It was not a great movie. I finished watching the 12th season and watched the 13th season of Trail & Retribution. I did 25,000 steps.

   

Friday 6-12 Just Another Day

Smile and be happy

We had another mild day with the temperature in the low 90's.

We hung around the house most of the day. I was tired and didn't want to go to the lake so I took a nap instead.

In the morning I did my daily challenges and The Event: East Street with 30 easy level of Solitaire. It took me 1 hour, 13 minutes and 56 seconds, which put me in 10th place in my group. After my nap I worked on my puzzle. Larry read most of the day.

Larry did our weekly grocery shopping from Walmart online before lunch. We received an e-mail at 3:45 to say our order was ready. This week our entire order was filled, no items were out of stock or substituted. It nice to see that Walmart is getting caught up. Whenever we use Walmart curbside ordering we always have a pleasant experience. The employees are very friendly.

In the evening we watched our YouTube videos. At the end of the 5:00 news on Fridays they do reviews on new movie releases, today they did one on Knives Out. They said you could watch it on Amazon Prime. We watched the movie. It was a good comedy, crime, drama movie. A detective investigates the murder of a rich grandfather. It stars Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas and Jamie Lee Curtis. Afterwards I watched the 11th season and started the 12th season of Trail & Retribution. I ended up doing 27,000 steps. 

Thursday 6-11 Boating and Dancing

Just having fun

We had a beautiful day, lots of sunshine and the wind was very low.

In morning we hung around the house. Larry did some reading. I did my daily challenges and The Event: Two Game Tango, 10 games of Spider and 10 games of Tri Peaks. It took me 29 minutes and 35 seconds, which but me in 25th place in my group.

After lunch we went to the lake for a couple of hours. For a weekday there were a few more boats on the water than normal. As we were going around the bend Larry noticed one of the houses on the ledge had a dragon in its yard, it was very cute. The owners were sitting out enjoying the sun, they waved at us, Larry waved back but I was busy taking a picture and didn't see them. When we got around the bend the water was very nice so out came the water ski. We both did a set of skiing. After skiing we continued down the lake to where the bridge is. When we got to the bridge we turned around and started back towards Rogers Park ramp. Once there we floated a bit. We had a very pleasant afternoon on the lake.

Living on the lake

Dragon we saw on the lake

Hwy 36 bridge over Lake Belton

   

In the evening we attended two virtual square dancing events. The first was an A2/C1 dance put on every week by the Capital Squares at 6:00 our time. Jeremy Butler called the dance and we had 47 people participating live. Jeremy called three tips of A2 and one tip of C1. We hadn't done C1 in over three months so before the event we reviewed Taminations. It helped a lot but it was still challenging. We had a great time. The second event was a Mainstream/Plus dance with Tom Miller and Bill Harrison. There were 100 people participating, which is the limit. We danced two tips of mainstream and two tips of plus. It was ok but very basic. We had a good hour and a half of dancing.

After dancing we watched a Amazon documentary called Darwin. Darwin was about the 35 people, who live in Darwin. Darwin is located in Death Valley. It was a good documentary. I would never move to Darwin. Afterwards I finished watching the ninth season of  Trail & Retribution and watched the tenth season of it. While watching television I did 25,000 steps. 

Wednesday 6-10 Dentist Appointment

Fabulous Day

We had a beautiful day with a lot of sunshine. It was cooler today. It didn't get out of the low 90's. There was a little breeze.

Larry had a dentist appointment at 10:00 in morning. The appointment was to get a crown put on his implant. 

On the way home he swung by Walmart to pick up an order he made yesterday online. The email said the order would be in the automated tower. He scanned the barcode into the tower computer and the order did not come down the tower, he tried a couple of times. Then he re-read the email, it said if the order did not come down the tower to wait and an associate would deliver it to the tower. It took maybe five minutes and an associate showed up with the order.

While Larry was at his appointment I worked on my daily challenges and The Event: The Hard Road of 16 games. It took me 3 hours, 26 minutes and 28 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group.

 

Larry put the birdhouse together and then hung it on the porch. It looks great. Now we wait for the birds to come to visit.

The finished birdhouse hanging on the porch

The birdhouse waiting for the birds to come

In the evening we watched an Amazon movie called Coyote: The Mike Plant Story. It was documentary about Mike Plant, who was an American singled-handed yachtsman. It was about his passion for sailing. It was very good. Then we started watching a comedy called Kingdom. We had watched the first two episodes awhile back but I wasn't sure if I remembered the storyline so I started it at the beginning. Then I watched the eighth season of Trail & Retribution. I started watching the ninth season. I did 27,000 steps today.       

 

Tuesday 6-9 Another 100 Degree Day

Another 100 degree day

We hung around the house under the air conditioner. It was 100 degrees at 5:00 at our house. Officially in Temple it got to 101 degrees.

Larry's day consisted of putting a few coats of Urethane over the stain on his birdhouse and doing some reading. My allergies were acting up so I laid down for a few hours. I did my daily challenges. I didn't have an event today.

I think my flowers are done for the season. It has been so hot that they started to wilt a bit.

Flowers looking very sad

For dinner I made a Mexican Chicken Soup. It came out good.

Mexican Chicken Soup

In the evening we watched a movie via Amazon called Rocketman. It was about Elton John's life. It was very good. Then we watched the last episode of Off the Cuf, which was about The World's Largest Truck Stop in Iowa. It is located off highway 80. We visited it a few years back and toured their museum. Then I watched the seventh season of Trail &  Retribution. I did 23,000 steps while watching television.