Thursday 8/16

[Liz]

Waiting on delivery of a power loveseat with power headrests. Looking forward to comfortable seating in the living room. It's what Bob and I decided to get for each other for our birthdays.

Bob is out doing a tour of the Village. That's one of his volunteer jobs.

Nothing else happening here...too hot for outside activities. Game night tonight....about 6-8 of us gather at a friend's house in the Riverwoods neighborhood. We usually play Hand and Foot, but sometimes Mexican Train.

Irmi, I'm glad you are apparently not getting the flooding at your house that was on the national news re Pennsylvania.

[Bethers]

I hope you don't mind Liz. I took your post and made it the start of a new day.

Nothing exciting here. I'm not planning to work much today... At the store. But after making my bedroom window treatment with a comforter, I've got a couple others and going to try to do similar on my two front windows. That's today's project. No sewing involved!

[BarbaraRose]

Beth, I would like to see pics of your window treatments!

Slept on the porch last night. Was pretty comfy but I put a new brand of kitty litter in the cat box before going to bed and it really smells awful so I had to deal with that all night! Need to go back to the old stuff!

Handyman showed up this morning and is painting now. I am washing bedding, etc to get the flea bomb chemicals off of them. Will bomb the porch later today. I got bit twice last night out there!

It is cooler today but no breeze so none of the cooler air is coming inside. May go outside and work on the area by the driveway. Or maybe I will take a nap... After 8 days of working, it is nice to just kick back and relax a little!

[Irmi]

Good afternoon everyone!

Beth, I'd like to see your window treatments, too.

Barbie, be sure to take before and after pictures of all the work you're doing on the house and yard.

We'll be leavibg shortly to pick up another half bushel of steamed crabs to share with friends. Liz, no we haven't had any flooding here, but the ground is very saturated. Unfortunately, we have more rain moving in this weekend.

[JudyJB]

Barbie, they say you should vacuum thoroughly every day for a week or so, especially after using one of those bombs, to get rid of eggs. Even couches and anything with upholstery.

Got half my narrating done. I talk pretty normally, but it is amazing how easy it is to stumble over words when I am reading and recording. Doing it one slide at a time so I can delete the sound on one and redo it before moving on to the next. Whew.

Hot day here on the river, but at least the campground is not full and not as noisy as on the weekend. I'm sure it will start filling up tomorrow, but I will be leaving on Saturday. Irritating how more than one family will occupy one site instead of getting two sites.

[Bethers]

This is the comforter turned into window treatment in the bedroom. I have plans to recover the valance at some point.


I just broke one of the tension rods for the two windows I'm doing today... I had one good one and one cheap one. The cheap one is history now... Need to order another. Meantime this one is a work in progress but you'll get the idea.

I plan to keep the valances on these as they match a section of the fabric in the sincere and sofa cushions.

[BarbaraRose]

Judy, when I record my message for my voicemail, it takes me about 6 times before I think it is acceptable!

Irmi, I just realized I forgot to take before photos of the bedroom and bathroom but I think I have some I took of them when I moved in. The closet and bath are just about done with the white paint. It is looking much brighter and clean in there! He will do the bedroom tomorrow and I will do the yellow on the lower half in the bathroom tomorrow. Will eventually get the ceiling fan put in and the light fixtures updated but that can wait until later. I just need it move-in ready for now.

[BarbaraRose]

Beth, can those be lifted/tied up so you can get light from the windows?

[Bethers]

Beth, can those be lifted/tied up so you can get light from the windows?

Yes... The bedroom ones are set up for that. The others will be.

[BirdbyBird]

Nice slow rainy day here so I explained to Lark that it was a perfect day to drive over and practice her good dog moves inside the local Petsmart. Those long downs with distractions, like the GHL squeaking the stuffed toys on the racks and Lark's favorite balls was not really appreciated by Lark but she got the concept of stay means stay! She had so much fun, I turned around and took Josef over. The difference in the ages and his maturity showed. He quickly moved up to the down stay with the treat parked on the floor about a foot in front of him. As long as it isn't hot in the car they might as well just wait in the car or van next time. Luckily the store is only about 4 miles from me.

Also got to pick up my rig yesterday. I will share the story just so folks can tuck another "story" in their memory about the strange things that can happen to our MH. As I may have mentioned before the engine first started acting up and seemed to lose power climbing a "hill/mountain" in western PA on my trip back from my son's. It occurred while driving through a severe thunderstorm. I pulled over and made it to the exit. Looked at the small state park that was at the exit but realized that I was in the middle of no where. After checking out the small campground I decided to try and make it closer to civilization. I turned the engine back on, the wrench symbol disappeared and I made it into Ohio, found some semblance of civilization and parked at a Cracker Barrel for the night. In the morning I drove to a nearby Auto Zone and the diagnostics came up that the engine was running too rich???? So I got in and headed the last 200 miles towards home. The engine didn't seem to have its full power but ran fairly evenly then I got stuck driving through another brief but heavy downpour and we definitely felt like we limped the rest of the way home.

So the last time the engine lost some of its power it was all about spark plugs and a couple of bad cylinders. As it turned out that the remainder of the cylinders where still working well. As none of us will be surprised many of our MHs have design flaws. I know, so hard to believe. Not. A Ford engine that is originally designed to run in a truck is thrown into flat front Class A. Ah, yes. Seems the air intake was positioned so low down in front it was a perfect funnel to suck in all the water from the deluge of the thunderstorm and the water on the highway. As soon as the extreme moisture made it into the air filter, the filter absorbed it and suddenly the air wouldn't pass through like it should. The vacuum that resulted actually twisted the air filter and forced it to press together. Engines don't run well without a good air supply. All that air filter squishing also damaged the sensor on the air filter that affects the how the engine figures how much gas the engine needs. So my trusty mechanic figured it ou (like looking at the air filter) fixed the air filter and then fixed the original issue, or at least has tried to, by configuring a shield that will try to divert the air intake angle and prevent the water sucking in the future....

That is all I have for now. Tina

[JudyJB]

And I'll bet that air filter was mostly paper or cardboard! Makes sense that getting wet would damage it.

When I was in the UK, I rented a VW Golf, but they upgraded me to a very small Mercedes because I was renting it for a whole month. It was a weird car in that it had a lot of controls I could not figure out, but mostly it drove fine. Things like opening the trunk were a challenge, but I managed to figure out most of them. Never did figure out the radio, however.

Anyway, about halfway through my trip, I was headed to my B&B in a small town called Haltwhistle. As I drove through town, I made a turn and discovered my car would only go about 15 mph. Luckily, I was only about three blocks from hotel and on a back street so I limped into the parking lot for the night. I figured I would have to call Avis the next day. The next day, while getting into the vehicle, I discovered that below the turn signal, it had a lever with the word "limiter" on it and a red light on the end. Turns out this is a kind of cruise control that prevents you from speeding, and I had hit it with my hand while turning that corner. Unlike U.S. or regular European speed controls, this "feature" could not be overridden by stepping on brakes or pressing on accelerator. You had to physically push the button to turn it off!!

[OregonLuvr]

Good afternoon all. Had to take the Motorhome into town today to get a new water pump. Those little buggers are spendy!!! I cant complain too much to as this one has lasted 11 years without so much as a hiccup. Got gas on my way home as I was down to 1/4 of a tank and I need to exercise my generator every month. So I ran my genny all the way there and back but turned it off when I got gas. So that is done for the month.

Getting ready to get out of town for sure in October and maybe somewhere in September. Meeting up in Redding for the Stillwater Pow Wow if anyone else is interested in meeting us there. I will post a link below

http://www.stillwaterpowwow.com/home2.html

Barbie you should try the feline pine pellets for the cat box. My puppy was litterbox trained when I got her and that is what my breeder used so I got some. I thought they might stink like those little green trees you hang in your car LOL but no. And when they pee it turns to sawdust and you can just scoop out the pee and poop. The very best thing was I didnt have to sweep up the grit all the time. I got a 40lb bag at Walmart for really reasonable. I dont use it anymore because she is housebroken, it lasts a really long time.

[Bethers]

Dang, Karen, that sounds like fun. But I don't think I could get there until it would be almost over. If I did drive 8 hours the first two driving days, I could make it the 5th... Exhausted LOL Looks like fun.

[Cougarfan]

Dang, Karen, that sounds like fun. But I don't think I could get there until it would be almost over. If I did drive 8 hours the first two driving days, I could make it the 5th... Exhausted LOL Looks like fun.

I don't think we are getting there until the 4th and will be there through the weekend. If you can make it, it would be great to see you again.

[Bethers]

I'm not ruling it out... Don't know if I could even get a site last minute. But that's the only way I could do it. I'd love to see both of you, too.