Christmas Time, Blog Time, HO Ho ho

 

Before Christmas is Thanksgiving...before Thanksgiving is my Birthday (sometimes it falls on Thanksgiving).  So for Thanksgiving, we enjoyed a nice, boneless leg of Lamb dinner, complete with different veggies and a large sweet potato that we split in half.  The nice thing about the Lamb, it lasts for another 4-5 meals, so I put a third of the cooked lamb into the freezer.  And what about my birthday?  Pizza from Pizza Hut.  Not that the "Hut" is the best pizza, when you have not had it for nearly 5 years, it tastes darn good!  Now we have had various low carb pizzas over these past 4-5 years, but they just are not like a real pizza.  I "almost" had a Lou Malnati's legendary Chicago deep dish pizza shipped, but I just could not justify the cost...so Pizza Hut was it, and it was good.  And what about Turkey???  We got a bone in Turkey which I made Turkey Soup out of...that lasted four to five days!

Of course, with Thanksgiving being over, we now have to prepare for Winter in Florida.  That included getting rid of an ant farm which suddenly showed up outside our front door.  

Although I could have called the HOA and they eventually would come and take care of them, I hit them with TERRO ant bait, which took out the sugar ants real quick...but the majority of these ants were not sugar ants...more like Little Black Ants, and you need a different TERRO for that...but I did have Amdro and it did the job, except these little creeps kept moving to areas nearby.  It took about a week, but they are now under control.  The difference between these two type of ants is that the Sugar Ant seems to climb up and down walls, power cords, drapes...they just get into anything and everything if you don't control them.  The Little Black Ants seem to stay along the ground...which means poor Indy's food bowl was their favorite place to go.  Let's just say that we are prepared for Florida Winter now, no ants inside for well over a week now.

Since we arrived home from our California trip in late September, I knew it was time to put the HHR back into the shop again.  Once we got back home, it started right up...which lasted about 5 seconds then died.  I figured it might have had water in the gas due to the high humidity and the one tropical storm that it endured while we were gone.  After two shots of gas additive and a few hundred miles of driving, it became apparent this was not the issue.  The Camper Van needed an oil change, and I decided that would be first.  Then the first hurricane, Helene, hit the area, and although we did not have issues, others around us did, including massive power outages.  So I held off (procrastination) until two weeks later when Milton hit the area and caused even more damage.  Although I had an appointment to get the oil changed for the Camper Van, that had to be canceled as we headed north to get away from Milton.  By late October the community was getting back to normal, as close to normal as it could be with debris piled up along so many roadways due to the damage that Milton and Helene caused...so I did get the oil changed, and that was blogged about in late October.  By early November I got the HHR into the shop where it stayed for nearly a week.  $1,700 later, it is like we have a new engine...but the check engine light was still coming on due to a sensor in the Catalytic Converter. So I put an additive in and started driving it in 2nd gear as much as possible to get the RPMs up there as if it was on the highway.  220 miles later, before the second treatment, the light turned off.  I put the second treatment in and continued the high RPM driving for another 30 miles, filled up the tank and started driving it normally again.  It has been another 200 miles, and all is well.  The HHR has over 170,000 of driving miles, and another 120,000 miles being pulled behind three different motorhomes, included up to Alaska and back, so it has seen its days for sure.  But we love our HHR, which we purchased a month or so after we got married in 2011...it was originally bought by a rental car agency in 2009, so we are its second owner, but it has had multiple drivers.  Overall, it has run very nice for us until a couple of years ago.  This time I think we have it fixed.

Which brings up to up to Christmas.  Christmas Day we are going over to Marcia's brother Mike's house.  Christmas Eve I will cook a Texas Ribeye, with Baked Potato, Veggies, and our favorite seasonal dessert, Cranberry Orange Marmalade Sauce over Rebel Ice Cream.  (2 - 12 oz bags Cranberries, 1 cup Splenda Brown Sugar, 2 cups Sugar Free Orange Marmalade, 16 oz baked chopped Walnuts, 4 tbl Lemon Juice.  Cook Cranberries and Splenda Brown Sugar mixed well in a standard 2 Qt. 8″ x 11″ glass baking dish for an hour, covered, at 350 degrees, stirring once half way through.  Add Orange Marmalade, nuts and juice, stir well, cook uncovered for another 15 minutes.)  A half cup serving has 4 net carbs, the ice cream has 2-6 net carbs depending upon flavor (Rebel is our favorite brand).  We also put a couple tablespoons over our Hot Oatmeal in the morning.  It is YUMMY!

We hope all of YOU have a wonderful Christmas Holiday, and remember just what it is we are celebrating for. 

 

Blink, Dog Park, IRS Goof, Aunt Mary

 

To say that I am overly pleased having the motorhome so close is such an understatement.  The "Blink" cameras came in Friday, and I spent a number of hours learning how it all works, and got them set up Saturday for their first night of duty...that brings even another level of satisfaction to this situation.  

Above is a picture I captured from each camera, one looking to the rear, and one looking to the only entry to the storage area.  On Tuesday I am taking the motorhome for a drive, and when I park I am going to park just a bit further away from the fence, and at a slight angle, so that the rear camera will capture more of what is going on behind the motorhome.  Also, there is a tree which has a branch that is hitting the main entry door...I want to stop that from happening.  To get notifications I have to leave my kindle on with the Blink App activated, but that is not a big deal.  (We don't have smart phones, otherwise a smart phone would work too.)  Found a notification that I downloaded to my sounds which says, "Motion Detection", which I now have set up for ONLY the Blink Motion...before it was a general notification, and that was driving me nuts.  Overall I am pleased with the Blink System.  I did add a WiFi extender which allows the cameras to hook onto our existing WiFi system.  It only provides one bar, but it is ample for allowing the cameras to talk to the Sync Module 2 which captures and controls the cameras.  When the motion detection goes off, it captures a minute of video.  I can also manually activate the video, or take camera pictures.  Amazon owns Blink, and two outdoor cameras and the Sync Module 2 comes to $115 through Amazon.  I am opting for the yearly Cloud Service which will allow us to see what is going on inside the Condo when we are gone (will bring the cameras inside, of course), otherwise video would only be captured and stored on a USB drive, which you have to take out and put into a computer.

         

The first two times I took Indy to the Dog Park, she was the only one there.  I went at 10 am on Tuesday, and found eleven dogs there!  A guy I sat next to told me they come just about every day, some as early as 8:30, and by 10:45 they are all gone.  And yep, at 10:45 it was just Indy and I again.  On Friday we went back at 9:45, and there were 10 dogs there, a few that were not there Tuesday, so a few who were there Tuesday were missing.  So this is going to be our routine, go on Tuesday and Friday early enough to beat the heat and see other dogs there.  Saturday Marcia got her hair cut, so we went to the park which was nearby, and we were happy to find one other dog there at 12:30. 

On Thursday I gave Indy a much needed haircut.  It is nice to see her eyes again, and I am sure she enjoyed less hair the next day when we were at the Dog Park.  (Even at this earlier time period it is well into the 80's with humidity in the upper 70's!)

On Monday we got a refund check from the IRS...but we had marked that we were going to take the credit on our first quarterly payment, which we did.  I looked it up on the IRS website and they have a section on "Returning an Erroneous Refund."  This is what it says as it applies to us:

   If your refund was a paper Treasury check and hasn't been cashed:

1. Write "Void" in the endorsement section on the back of the check.
2. Submit the check immediately, but no later than 21 days, to the appropriate IRS location listed below. The location is based on the city (possibly abbreviated) on the bottom text line in front of the words TAX REFUND on your refund check.
3. Don't staple, bend, or paper clip the check.
4. Include a note stating "Return of erroneous refund check" and give a brief explanation of the reason for returning the refund check.

So we followed their directions, and I returned the voided check with an appropriate letter.  I always try to remember to take a photo of any letter I send to the IRS...you just never know, having that picture might save a penalty/interest charge if they don't get it.  Oh ya, they actually have us interest on the less than a hundred dollar erroneous refund check...I told them to keep that interest since I took the credit on our 1st Quarter Check (which I provided a bank statement copy for that check.  And YES, I erased our address in the picture.)

Well, my Sister Sandy heard from our Cousin Debbie that Aunt Mary passed away in her sleep Wednesday night / Thursday morning.  Here is a precious picture, which I shared on the blog back in late July, of Mary and Mom together.  We knew at that visit that Mary had stopped eating a few days earlier, and that it was just a matter of time.  This leaves mom the only survivor of the eleven children that Grandma had.

It has now been two weeks since I got the HHR out of the shop.  It 'seems' to be running ok, but I want to give it another few hundred miles before I write about it.  I need to take it back in a week or so because it does have a check engine light, but I read that with a new computer this is not unusual as the computer learns how the car operates.  It has 160,000 miles on it, and another 100,000 tow miles, so I don't expect it to be perfect...just hoping it gets us around town here and other areas we might tow it to.

Has it really been 6 weeks since my last post?

Time flies when you're having fun...and also when you're not...

Dad got out of rehab October 17th.  It was rough the first week or two, but he got stronger each and every day.  The independent living facility they are now in is wonderful.  They have helped so much AND there has been a true concern for their welfare.  So glad they moved into this place...

While at dad's urologist a few weeks ago we learned about a procedure he can have called suprapubic cystostomy or having a suprapubic catheter put in so he would not need to self-cath twice a day.  This procedure should cut down on his UTIs.  Since he has been home they have prescribed antibiodics twice already, mostly as a preventative treatment.   We hope this 15-30 minute procedure can be done in early December...it could have been done earlier except they want to do it in a hospital setting due to his age and his Atrial Fibrillation.

In the meantime...I have been getting a few things done.  First, the car needed front brakes.  Back in 2016 I had them done at a national place here in Sacramento...that didn't last long.  So for $160 I got 2 rotors and 2 sets of brake pads from NAPA Auto Parts, and all went well with doing the brakes (it had been years since I had done a brake job) until I needed to put the caliper, holding the new brake pads, back over the rotor.  Arny did that part, and one of those was even a struggle for him to do.

Next, I replaced all four speakers, one in each door, and put in new window switches which were a bit difficult only because they were minutely larger than the ones I was replacing.  But Arny was able to grind down the areas that needed attention and all was well.

The fan over the bed has not worked for a few years...yes the vent would open, but the fan did not work due to a rain sensor.  I found a replacement kit for $50 that would get rid of all the circuit boards which are known to fail, and still provide a temperature sensor so it can automatically come on or off depending on the temperature.  I also needed a new up/down switch for the bathroom.  Ordered all of this from Dyer's - RV and Trailer Parts and Accessories, which got them to me overnight even though I didn't need them that fast.  No problem doing that work.

A few days ago I realized that the fridge needed defrosting, and that simple job turned out much harder when I discovered the drain line had busted allowing water to come onto the floor.  $5+ and now there is a new line, thanks again to Arny's smaller arms being able to reach the nipple coming out of the fridge.  

There are a few more things I want to do to the motorhome before we leave in mid-December.  The big thing on our agenda is the annual Burdick Christmas Gathering on December 14th.

Settling in at the Condo, Car Fix(es)

Two years ago we come home and very quickly a sinkhole develops very close to our condos.  This picture, shared back then, shows the red arrow where the sinkhole was, and the green arrow which points to the condos.  Of course, all the road work and sewer work has been finished for a good 18 months now.

Our condo is way at the other end of the condos where this green arrow is at.  Well, when we got home and did our initial unpacking, I took the RV over to the RV/Mobile Home park for two nights before I put it into storage.  I made the comment, “So, any sinkholes open up while we were gone?”  Surprised when he said yes, just that week a very small, possible sinkhole opened up.  Well, our first Monday home and I hear the helicopter overhead again, and yes, the news had broke about the small sinkhole close to the where the large one swallowed up a car two years ago!  So far, nothing else has happened with this one, and it seems to be a non-issue.  Bad news though…assessment on our Condo went down by $10,000…good news, Property Taxes went down by nearly $200.  With no plans to sell it, not much of an issue UNLESS a sinkhole opens up on Condo property.

When it comes to unloading the motorhome, I sometimes wish we just had a toy motorhome and our journeys are in our mind.  It is a lot of work, for both of us.  I bring things in, Marcia unpacks most of the bags and boxes.  We (she) runs everything from the kitchen that she can through the dishwasher, and if it is to go back into the motorhome, then to the spare room it goes until loaded before we leave.  All bedding, towels, etc. get washed.  There is always a lot of laundry to do too.  And then there is the huge shopping trip to restock the shelves and the fridge and freezer.  And the number one thing to get done fast when it goes into storage is  that I take the motorhome fridge apart and clean it very well, and prop the doors open so that mold won’t pop up.  All the fridge shelves are brought to the condo and washed in the dishwasher, and stored in the spare room.

This is a section of the HHR exhaust which includes not one, but two Catalytic Converters.  There are also two o2 Sensors hooked into the pipe.

This area here (left) is where it connects to the exhaust manifold.  There is a flexible area which allows the pipe to move with the vibration of the road.  It is this area which broke, and our HHR sounded much more like a motor speedboat, or a kids street race car. We have a good repair shop near us, and I took it there last Tuesday just for them to look at, and they ordered the parts, including both o2 sensors, and did the work this past Friday.  There goes another $700.

Joe’s Auto Repair and Curtis Transmission are all one business.  Joe retired a little over a month ago, and now Jim is the owner…but he has kept all of the staff, has made some improvements in the office, including a new computer system and the hiring of another girl, Nichole, to work alongside her older sister Misty.  Misty is something else…she is very knowledgeable about cars, is very friendly, has a good rapport with the service staff, with the new owner, with the customers, and with the various parts house staff that she is constantly calling to line up parts.  She stands at around 5' 2", and can sure handle herself...told me today that she had a Black Belt when she was like 14 years old.  I can not say enough about how good this place is.  And it is nice to be able to start up the car without thinking that we have awaken all of our neighbors...however I have already ran over three older ladies who couldn't hear me coming as I drive through the condo complex!

When I was at Joe’s Auto Repair and Curtis Transmission on Friday Jim, the new owner, mentioned that at 130K, I should have the Transmission Fluids changed, unless I has already done that recently.  We bought the HHR back in 2011 from a Pine Bluff Arkansas Chevy dealer as a used car…it had been a rental car.  The salesman told me that they had changed all fluids, filters, hoses and belts…and I can hear you all saying, “Ya, but salesmen lie nearly as much as politicians lie.”  Well, in this case the salesman was named Gary, and was my youngest son’s baseball coach, and I knew that Gary was an honest person.  He told me that he had seen the work order and was confident it was done.  Above is a 2009 HHR transmission outside of the engine.  Along the bottom you can see the flat area…that is what they take off to get to the transmission filter.  The tech who worked on it today told me that the fluid looked real good…had color, had no sludge, and no shavings.  THAT folks is GREAT news.  It means that the Chevy place in Pine Bluff really did change the fluid and filter as promised, and also that our transmission “should” be in fine shape…good to go for another 50-75K miles.  All I have left now is to replace a tire (front right, the front left blew out last year…will put these on the back and move the back to the front and replace them next year.)  It seems that there is always something…

Next…update on Bubba and Skruffy.