Status report . . .

Well, we STILL don't have all those stall doors up.  In fact, one of them that WAS put up had to come back down before it got rained on.   

I got some clear silicone caulk and got the u-panels caulked on Lizzie's door.  But when Arthur pushed against the one they had mounted on his stall, the u-panel on the bottom fell off because they had forgotten to screw it on so I could hardly get that one protected from the rain!  So Mark (now at work) called Jerry and he came by when he got off work yesterday and took it off and put it inside the barn.  (How he could do that by himself, I have no idea.  He's really really strong!)  Oh well -- doesn't look like there's going to be any hurricane while Mark is out this time anyway! 

John and Bruce came by last Sunday and rented a tractor to clear out their property next door.  It was pretty darned exhausting, given the heat down here, but they made quite a bit of progress.  Well actually, they went out and bought a little lawn mower first.  Ha!  Talk about futile!  Took them no time at all to know that thing wasn't going to do it!  But that big ol' Kubota tractor they rented next did a fine job.

And then there was our internet/TV/telephone process a few days ago.  Sigh.

We've been having problems with the phone going out several times over the last year.  Thankfully, my Google Voice number generally rings on my cell phone when people try and call the house, but still . . . we're getting tired of continually having to call the phone company to get the phone working again.  When Mark called them about it last week, they said it wouldn't  be fixed until 9/21!  Gees!  So . . . I went online and signed up for a new Cox Cable contract (silly me). 

We currently use Cox for our internet access, and along with that we have VERY basic TV from them -- maybe 10 or 12 stations.  That isn't many, but in the case of a storm when the satellite stops working we DO have news channels on cable at least.  Anyway, I was planning to get their phone service, and also upping those TV stations to 290 staions!  And they were supposed to install a new wireless router as well (something else we've been having problems with and were about to replace).  But as it turned out, the guy who came wasn't told to do what I THOUGHT I had requested.  He said I would have to call the company and they would let him know what to do, but when I tried to call them about it, they put me on hold for more than half an hour.  Hey -- forget THAT!  So I just canceled the whole thing. 

We also have DISH, of course -- have had it for more than 12 years or so!  So instead, we're going to have DISH come by and upgrade our DISH equipment to a "Hopper."   Instead of the two separate DISH receivers we have now, that single "Hopper" will work on FOUR separate TV's.  Currently, when there is more than one TV on one of our receivers, both TVs see the same thing.  But on the Hopper, each TV can choose a separate channel.  And you can be recording up to 6 programs from any or all TVs at one time and then watch them on any of the TV's as well.  That's really great.  So if I start watching in the living room and then want to fix dinner, I'll be able to put it on hold there, and go turn it on in the kitchen and continue watching the same thing!  And as I said, all four TV's can be watching separate programs even though they're all hooked into the single receiver!  Great!

And THEY will install a new wireless computer router for us while they're at it even though we won't be using DISH for internet access. 

They're also going to hook up a 1 TB external hard drive so we can store as many programs as we want - no size limit anymore!   And they said the installer will also move all the stuff we have stored on the two receivers we have now over onto that hard drive before he takes those out, too.  Nice!  Glad we're not losing any of that stuff.  AND -- the pièce de résistance -- once they're done upgrading, we'll be able to download any of our recordings to our Kindles or our laptops, or our phones and watch our TV shows anywhere, anytime.  Love it! 

As for me, I'm assigned to 3 days a week of physical therapy on that shoulder of mine.  Sigh.  It IS helping, though, I have to admit.  I think I'll probably still have to have the surgery, but they're telling me that if I can strengthen all the surrounding muscles and tendons it will take less time to recover from the surgery.  Sure hope they're right! 

I am going to have to visit Dr. T. next week.  I'm still having those annoying hot flashes so I need to find out why.  Bruce (Mark's brother-in-law who's a medical professional) said it could be caused by a thyroid tumor - that's a bit scary!  Anyway, I'm sure Dr. T. will order some blood tests or something or other to check things out.  Always something, huh?

But then the last weekend of this month when Mark gets home, we hope to get together with Jan and Mike and go celebrate our 16th anniversary and my birthday (69)!  Looking forward to that, that's for sure (the celebration, NOT the "69" part)!

We'll probably be going back to Morton's down in Madisonville since that's where we've gone every single year except last year.  Here are a few of the pictures they took of us during earlier lunches --



This one was taken down at Morton's on Jan and Mike's anniversary.  Look how GREY we both are these days!  (I finally gave up on letting my hair grow out and got it cut short again so I HOPE it will look better in OUR anniversary pictures!  We'll see.)