Episode #3: Retirement Projects and Travels Through August 11, 2024

                      

The picture above is my house that has become my "retirement home" and I am very happy with that.

One of the things I wanted to do upon retirement was to start reading the many books I have amassed over the years. I started the first few months each morning with a couple of devotional books and a book I got from my brother Mike about the sinking of an American Nuclear Sub in 1968. The book is full of detailed information that was historically accurate and fascinating. I remember this event when it happened though not widely discussed and now I know why. But as the days got warmer and longer I was spending more time outside on projects that I have had planned for many years and I started to fade on my morning routine. I have several books in the queue but have read only this one. 

The other thing I wanted to do was to journal my activities each day as I transition from decades of a very demanding working career that often required north of 60 hours per week. I did not want to wake up one day and say to myself 'it has been months or years since I retired, what have I done with my time'? I always enjoyed journaling over the years and have now filled almost two small journal books. It would have been more efficient to type them out as I can type much faster and obviously more legibly than my handwriting, but I wanted to have them for the boys after I am gone. It would have never happened, but I would have loved to have something like that from my Dad. So I continue with the handwritten journals for now and will plan on at least a monthly entry here on this blog for now.

As noted earlier, I retired on the 15th of December 2023 as we had planned to spend our first Christmas away from home and be with Jacob and Lauren then return home the next week for Christmas with Brad, Nic and Theo. But Jacob and Lauren both were sick so we chose to wait for a week or two and do like we always have done and that is to celebrate Christmas and Jacob's birthday in early January. 

I did go back to work for 2-3 days on December 31 to do the year end accounting inventory for Hope Concrete as they do not have anyone else with the experience or knowledge of this process. Since then the only "work" I have done was when the owner called me for some assistance with an OSHA review due diligence meeting with a contractor. That took a couple of days to conduct, recap and make recommendations to ownership. Since then, I have done some technical writing on some of their OSHA  Written Programs which over the course of 4-5 weeks I put in about 30 hours. I could work on this for several weeks if I choose to as there is a lot of work remaining, but not sure if I will, keeping the grand babies and my list of things I have here at the farm is taking up a lot of time. I have completed the re-write of their Lock-Out/Tag-Out Program as well as their Emergency Response Plan which includes site plan drawings for each location. I have cut back the amount of time I volunteer for my church sponsored outreach ministry so if something has to go it will be the work for hire as I have spent several decades doing that. Though it is nice to have that unplanned pay check once in a while.

1. I was facing pushback from Carol Ann about cleaning up and organizing the upstairs bonus room but I was determined to make it happen, but it had turned into a bad dream quickly. The vast majority of the stuff up there was hers and she did not want to get rid of any of it, so I was very careful about throwing anything away. It was difficult to even walk from the doorway to the closet door. There was so much stuff and it was haphazardly stacked and piled up and it took considerable doings just to get the stuff out so we could see what was there and then decide how to best organize and store it all. We did get rid of some stuff but the vast majority of the stuff that was there is still there. Likewise with the big storage closet upstairs .It is now clean and orderly and a useable space. What is more important is she can find what she needs or can see what she has stored up there.                                                                                                                                               
   
   
   
2. Same story, second verse with the out building we brought from 107 when we moved here. My vision was to have this as a workout room or gym. This was the case for the first few years we were here with a bench, free weights, treadmill, elliptical trainer, etc. After loosing a couple of jobs, it became a place for all the stuff I had gathered and collected over 28 years at Redi-Mix, 5 years at Gibson, 5 years at NBR and the last 2.5 years with Hope Concrete. Soon it became a catch all for wintering summer plants, pots, tools, etc. After many days of going through the stuff and junk, keeping most and throwing some away it can now serve as a nice fitness room that just so happens to house about 200 picture frames for Carol Ann's hobby projects but they are hanging neatly on pegboard but it is definitely 95% better and absolutely a useable space again.                                                                               
   
   
   
3. I have needed a new security light on the west side of the house for over a dozen years or so. What was there was a 500 watt quartz light fixture with an on/off switch but it was on the outside of the house in the vicinity of the bathroom that has no window or door to the outside, so it would be a long walk around from the patio, front porch or garage door to turn it on. I bought a 5000 lumen LED fixture that had an integrated photo cell to replace that fixture. The location of this fixture is pretty high plus the weigh of the fixture made it quite challenging to mount but I finally got it done. It really does light up the west side of the house and the small barn over there as well. I really do like it.                                                                                                                                  
   
   
   
4. The left lift cylinder on the tractor bucket has been leaking hydraulic fluid for a few months, not terribly bad but it did have a leaking seal. Upon investigation, I find this will be a particularly difficult process for me to attempt and with the price of the seal kit, I removed it and took to the local John Deere dealer and they had it rebuilt that same day. They had it repaired quickly and I picked it up the next day and reinstalled it and it is working great.
5. I bought a telescoping flagpole about 2 years ago and finally decided it was time to put it up. I was going to install it by the driveway near the garage but I wanted a good light on it and did not want to be constantly weed trimming around the wire supply line. Plus at 20' tall a regular landscape light tapped off my house lighting system would not be bright enough that far up. I decided to erect it at the shop. I called the power utility to come out and mark the location of the underground power lines and dug a hole next to the overhead door. It was a bit dodgy with the flag attached to the fully extended pole when it was pretty windy, so I attached a couple of turn buckles to serve as stand off supports. I mounted a 50 watt light with a timer on the shop roof and it shines nicely on the flag overnight. Now I could adjust the start stop times through out the year. It is not as good as a metal pole but it is working good and I love the flag there near the road. I liked it so much, I put another flag pole on the pipe corral at the loafing shed on the west side of the house.                                                                                                      
   
   
   
6. The garage was turning into a nightmare with so much stuff stacked along the walls and under/around the work bench. The plastic cabinets that were mounted on the wall above the work bench were in disrepair and one was broke due to overloading it with stuff so I took it down before it fell and had to find a place for all the stuff that was in there, so it ends up on the work bench or on the floor with the other stuff that was becoming overwhelming. Even with all of this overburden of stuff I could still park two cars in the garage but it was becoming a real mess. I took the work bench out of the garage and found a place in the shop to place it and I removed the remaining plastic cabinet and put it under the carport in hopes of repurposing it somehow. I bought a large metal wire rack shelf and put it in the place where the work bench and cabinets had been and was able to clean all the stuff off the floor and have it organized and neat with room left over.
7. The shop was without a doubt is the biggest project on the list. It was so cluttered up with a lot of stuff and so disorganized from years and years of storing everything that was too big and bulky to have in the house or the 'gym'. I put this off until some of the other projects were complete or nearing completion. To say it was a huge undertaking is a giant understatement for sure. I started this in late spring and worked on it on and off for over four months now. It is not complete but I would say it is greater than 90% done and I absolutely love having the room to store my mowers and other stuff with room to work on projects. Additionally, I had kept the old entertainment sectional that we had at 107 (Carol Ann is using 2 of the 3 sections to store fabric and supplies in her sewing studio) though it was not very user friendly because it was basically just a big open cabinet for the old style 25" TV so there were no shelves. However I did clean it up and moved it next to where I spotted the garage work bench and put the remaining and useable plastic cabinet in the section that was used for the TV. It was a perfect fit and now useable for storage and with the doors closed it hides the stuff and supplies I have stored in there as shown in the first picture below. That was a good save. Several loads of stuff have been hauled to the dumpster. It is amazing how much crap one can amass!                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
   
   
                                                                                                       
   
   
                                                                                                            
   
   
   
8.   After getting a new roof in September of last year that is now black rather than the grey we had before, we thought painting the front porch rail and porch to match would be a really nice contrast to the white siding and blend nicely with the new roof and the freshly painted black shutters. This ended up being a bit of a project within itself as there was a little bit of wood damage that needed to be made and sanded down. I chose to do a primer coat so I used Kilz to help seal and cover up imperfections. After that was done, it rained almost every other day for what seems like weeks so I was not able to finish the with the black top coat. We also decided to make the wood repair and paint the back porch posts so I did this same process with the primer coat while waiting for the rain to stop. After finishing the painting which turned out to be a lot more work than I had planned on, it did look very good and glad I did it.                                         
   
   
   
9. I have had up to 4 brush piles at a time that needed to be burned which I took care of this winter and spring. I had burned one back in the fall as Coby thought there were skunks nesting in the one near that fence line. I burned one in January and the other in March and still have a couple to go.
10. I found a water puddle in the garage floor which was coming from the garage closet where the water heater is plumbed and wired in. I replaced this water heater about 3-4 years earlier. I got it swapped out under warranty but had to remove the leaking heater and load it in the truck and swap it out for a new one. This is the third water heater I have installed here in 17 years.
11. With the substantial rain this spring we have had a bumper crop of ragweed. I have kept the pasture mowed but the fence rows have gone rampant with me spending time on other projects and so I have had to spend a couple of weeks this summer cleaning these fence rows and there is no easy way to get this done except with a machete, clippers, or a hatchet. The rain has been great for the grass, but that means more time on the mower. Until just this week I have mowed every week since this all started a few months ago. It takes a solid 8 hours to mow and trim each time, so sometimes it is now a two day event, especially since the temperatures in August have gotten back into the triple digits. The humidity leaves the grass too wet to mow early and the higher afternoon temps have me looking for activities inside the shop with all the fans on.
12. While not a big project, I did spend some time this spring completely redoing my landscape lighting. I replaced the troublesome fixtures, repositioned some of them, and added three more to the scheme. I really like the way it turned out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
13.    After seeing how much better the landscape lights turned out, I could see that I needed an upgrade to my driveway lights. So another trip to Home Depot and boom there ya go!                                                                                                                                                                                
    
    
    
14. In addition to these projects, I have taken a few trips this year. In late January I spent a few days in Phoenix with sister Patty and brother Mike. I had a very nice meal and visit with Sherri, Mike, and Kathy and Art. While there I also got to see a couple of nieces and a nephew. 
15. About a month later I made a very last minute trip to New Orleans to support my daughter in law as she received her Masters Degree in Psychology. Her mom and dad were not able to attend so it was only Jacob there for her. Jacob and I made a weekend plan for me to arrive unannounced and I was strategically spotted in the hotel lobby as they walked in from a trip to a museum. She was so very surprised and happy I was there, she just broke down and cried. It was a very sweet moment and so very glad I was able to be there for her.
16. Since the first of the year, we have made 3 trips to visit Jacob and Lauren in Montgomery. It is always a fun trip. Except for the first trip of the year, when we got home we found that our pet cat of the last 17 years had died over the weekend. It was almost dark when we got home, but I buried her that evening at the back of pasture near where I buried Brad's dog Gracie a few months earlier.
17. The 8th of April brought an event that many of us never see in our lifetime, a total eclipse. To add to the event Patty and Mike made the trip here from Phoenix and was here for a week. Danny and Melissa were in San Antonio for an event and stopped by here for a couple of days on their way back to Tulsa. This is the first time the four of us were together since our gathering in Las Vegas in 2020. We drove about 35 miles east of my home to see the 100% eclipse.                                                                                                                                                                                            
    
    
                                     
    
                                                                                                                                                        When we do get the chance to have all of us together, I often think of the first picture below taken of the four of us in Phoenix in 1968. I think in so many ways, our bodies have aged as they should but mentally, I am not sure the case is the same 😆. The second picture was in 2012 in Phoenix, and the third was in 2020 in Las Vegas. I do love these group pictures of the 4 of us over the years!                                                                                                                       

    

    
    

    
                     

    
    
    

So far this year I have only attended two classic car shows. It is strange, now that I have the time, I find so many things to fill my days that I do not want to spend all day long at a car show. I believe one of the things that I enjoyed about these events in the past was the amount of downtime it requires, as you have to be there before 10 am to be registered and the awards are usually around 3 pm with nothing to do except look at other classics then sit and chat with friends and passers by. They always want to tell their story of the car they once had that was the same or near same as the one I have. I have seen so many of the same classics so many times and they are just not as fun as they were the past few years that I have attended them. How ever my Cutlass continues to win awards pretty regularly with the last one earlier this summer where it won Best in Class Car 1970-1979.

I would like to spend more time flying my drone, but I am out of ideas of places to fly and take pictures and videos, but will get back to that soon. For now, the main daily hobby is taking this time of retirement to be with the grand babies.💓💕💖