Happy Anniversary/Boxing Day

Today, December 26, 2008, is the 38th anniversary of our wedding. We have just concluded 5 1/2 days of our girls, Kelly & Hannah; their husbands, Mike & Steve; and our two grandsons, Dominick & Noel; gathered here for the Christmas holidays. We had three good family meals with Grandmother Marie Thomasson as well, including a pizza meal over at her house.

Kelly & Mike & boys left on Christmas Day, and Hannah & Steve left on the 26th at noon. Then Leslie & I put on our walking clothes and walked the trails at Landreth Park in 65 degree weather, over 2 1/2 miles. We watched a TV movie next, then went out to take care of Leslie's two watches at Kohl's. She had 4 links removed from one watch--which took about 45 minutes or so--and we bought a battery for her other watch. Now she has two fashion watches to wear for any occasion. Then we went to Mythos Greek restaurant at about 5:15 for a fine anniversary meal, to Wal-Mart then to May's for some shopping, then on to home. We wound up watching "So You Think You Know the Lyrics" and a movie, "Christmas Child," which was over at 10:30. Now it's quiet and time for bed.

All in all, a really nice 38th anniversary day. We are glad to share it with you all.

Pysanky on the brain

Here's what I've been doing of late...and I mean late. I've been doing pysanky every chance I get. I got some brown eggs that are really great to work with. Here are some of my recent creations. It always takes me a while to get in the groove, so some of these are underwhelming. Last night I gave a pysanky lesson to Jill Halbach, who works for me part-time in the Post Library. We worked until 11:30. I think I grossed her out when I showed her how to blow out the insides. Not a pretty sight!

Lest We Forget....the Ice

Today, December 8, 2008, is the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the ice storm that knocked us out of our house for a week (see the blog entry from December 10, 2007). It started on Saturday night, December 8, and by mid-morning on Sunday the 9th, power was out all over the area. We were out of our house from Sunday until Saturday afternoon, spending the last night at Barry & Barbara Williamson's house in Loma Linda.

We hope never to see such an ice storm in our lifetime.

Snow is predicted tonight, but not much to accumulate.

Deck the Halls....

Yesterday, Saturday, December 6, we started decorating for Christmas. We started around noon and worked all afternoon up till suppertime. Then I went off to the Missouri Southern basketball game, and Leslie continued working on the decorations. I did put up the garlands and lights, and the tree and lights. Meanwhile Leslie did everything else, from putting away the normal things and replacing them with Christmas items, including hanging the ornaments on the tree. The picture below shows Leslie early in the project.
We can't decorate for Christmas without playing Christmas music, and the very first music we must hear, year after year, is the Ray Conniff singers (see below). The reason we do this is that my parents had this record and played it at Christmastime, and I always associate Christmas with the Ray Conniff singers. It's dorky, I know, but it's necessary.

The next two pictures show the finished product, after Leslie spent all Sunday afternoon finishing up. Now we have the Christmas spirit.

The "Tree Corner" all finished, above.

It's nice to have the garland lights on the stairs, because we don't need to turn on the overhead light to go up or down the stairs at night. It gives a warm feel to the house.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

How We Spent Our Thanksgiving Day

We spent most of Thanksgiving giving thanks for the good weather that allowed us to prepare the yard for winter. Here you see the only picture grabbed from the day's events, of Dale mowing ground cover with the relatively-new electric mower. All of our powered yard tools now are electric: mower, weedeater, and blower. Except for the 100-foot cord, we couldn't be more pleased. With the help of these tools, we mowed, raked, mulched, and moved the yard waste to the back yard, where, on Friday the 27th, it will be transported off to the dump site.

All in all, a good day. And that's what we are thankful for.

The Bolero Will Find Muscles You Forgot About...

We haven't posted to this blog for nearly 3 weeks. It's not like nothing has happened. We have traveled to St. Louis for Noel's 2nd birthday party. (We always like to be invited to grandchildren's parties.) Leslie has made another historic preservation Powerpoint presentation to Kiwanis, and I have been muddling along at work. Today we cleaned house for the first time in a month, and we are proud of our efforts. However, the rest of this post will be about yesterday's festivities.

Yesterday was another 5th Saturday round dance clinic--although this month it was on the 4th Saturday because the 5th Saturday follows Thanksgiving. Paul & Linda Robinson of Tulsa and John & Betty Stanley of Kimberling City converge on Joplin once every 3 months to hold an all-day clinic & dance. Both couples make a great sacrifice to do this for us in Joplin, and we really appreciate the opportunity to learn new dance figures. We have attended several in the past year, and all have increased our skills & confidence.

Yesterday's clinic was on the bolero. It's a Latin dance that times slllooow-quick-quick. It always starts with a slow side step. It's a workout for the legs, particularly the thighs, as it involves a lot of stretching and lowering of both legs. We had a 2 1/2 - hour lesson in the morning, then lunch, then a 2 1/4 - hour lesson in the afternoon. We learned several new moves, plus two new dances. This was followed by nearly 3 continuous hours of dancing Saturday night. By 9:15 my feet and legs had had it, but the last dance started at 9:25, and it was a jive that I requested. What was I thinking? Today I can hardly walk. Bolero is hard on you because of the stretching and lowering involved. But it is a cool dance, quite sexy looking. Below you see two pictures I took, which is why I am not in them. There were 10 student couples there, from Joplin, NW Arkansas, and NE Oklahoma. Six of the couples were Tanglefooters, the club we are in. In both pictures John & Betty Stanley are teaching. In one you can see Leslie paying close attention, like a good student.


It was an enjoyable, but grueling day. We hope to recover before the regular Monday night lessons & dance. By the way, we have about 30 student couples now, taking lessons from 7:00 - 8:15. They are a great group, very positive and enthusiastic. Also pretty talented, better than we were when we were first-time students!

Fall colors

It has been a very colorful autumn chez Simpson. Here are a few photos. But I'm already depressed about what lies ahead--bare trees, gray sky, cold temps, freezing precipitation.... I'm so not ready for that.

Ents R Us

Yeah, I know it's a bit of a stretch. Since Kelly made adorable tree outfits for Dom and Noel for Halloween, I took her idea and went another direction. For our Tanglefooters party last night, we were Ents, sort of. We probably looked more like camouflage. And no one else dressed up, so we felt like major dorks. Oh, well. It was still fun, and people liked our outfits.

Chicago!

A view of fall foliage at the Chicago Botanical Gardens

Hannah and Steve by a giant pumpkin....

"he put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well."

Hannah and Steve's corner. It's a lovely tree-lined neighborhood.

My favorite part of their house is the rounded bay at the front with gorgeous stained glass windows.

For the first time in history, MSSU had a fall break, October 13 & 14, so we decided to leave on the 10th for a long weekend in Chicago. We went to visit our daughter and son-in-law, Hannah & Steve, and to check out their new house, a delightful brick bungalow in one of Chicago's historic bungalow districts. We flew out of KC, and everything went smoothly, travelwise. While we were in Chicago, the weather was glorious. We did as much outdoorsy stuff as we could, going to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, to a park near Hannah and Steve's place, and walking around the neighborhood a bit.

We also ate ourselves silly. On Saturday we got up late and had a delicious brunch at a Swedish restaurant. We ate outside on the terrace, then walked across the street to browse through a Scandinavian import store. Other ethnic eating highlights of our trip were Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, and Peruvian food. There was a Polish place Hannah and Steve wanted to take us to, but we just plain ran out of meal-times. Next time....

On Monday, Hannah did something sneaky! She'd already taken the day off from work to spend with her parents, but she also scheduled a job interview downtown. While she interviewed, we walked around downtown, along the river, popped into a couple of stores, then met up with her again. She said the interview went well, so we're hoping that she can end up in a better work environment.

Tulsa concert

Monday night, September 29, we went to Tulsa to see the Newsboys in concert for the 4th time in a year and a half. I KNOW! We probably wouldn't have gone if we hadn't finally influenced someone else to go with us. Greg and Shannon Hatfield, a delightful newlywed couple from our church, wanted to go, so that was all the incentive Dale needed to plan yet another trip to see the lads from Australia. We had a great time, but all of us were exhausted the next day.

I've always wanted to get a photo of the big dude outside the fairgrounds, so I finally got my chance. He was wearing a Coca-Cola shirt this time! I wonder what size he wears.

Dale took this photo of the 4 of us--love those flattering arm's length shots!

What a GREAT concert! I think we've turned Greg and Shannon into Newsboys fans, too. It was the perfect night for an outdoor concert. The weather could not have been better. We were packed in like sardines but that was ok. Dale chatted with a nice guy next to him who had chauffeured the Newsboys around for a year.

Summer's Last Hurrah

We've been working in the yard all day and admiring what we've accomplished this summer. I would especially like to express my appreciation to Kelly for her landscape design--I could have never done it without her expertise. Things are already growing and looking good, so I expect great things for next year. And since she planned for fall interest, it should look good for another couple of months. [If we could just do something about the ugly garage apartment in the background!]

Good-bye, Jean

Yesterday we attended Jean Kunkler's funeral. What a dear sweet lady she was! Rusty took care of her so lovingly for over 60 years, but especially the last 5 when she was so sick. The funeral was actually quite nice--a true celebration of a well-lived life and rejoicing that she is finally free. The minister told a wonderful story about her integrating the city pool in Iola KS in 1954. She had a Girl Scout troop that included 2 black girls (which in itself is pretty amazing). One hot summer day she took them all to the city pool and they wouldn't let the black girls in. So Jean told them if they couldn't all swim, then none of them would. She went to City Hall, talked to the Mayor, went before City Council, and talked them into opening the pool to anyone regardless of race. Quite an accomplishment in 1954!

A tough week for Leslie

As anyone who knows me knows, I HATE speaking in front of a group. I am too timid to even speak up in a Bible class, so being in front of an audience is over-the-top trauma. I reluctantly did programs back in the 1980s and early 90s, but it always made me so sick that I decided I just couldn't do it anymore. After I put together the "Extreme Makeover" program and showed it back in May, I keep getting asked to show it to other groups. This week I had two back-to-back programs. On Tuesday, I did a powerpoint slide program about the Post Library to the Kiwanis Club. A tough audience made up of 60 men. I asked if there were any women in the group and was told there were lots of women. (I asked if they were in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.) On Wednesday, I did the Extreme Makeover powerpoint program for the Webb City/Carl Junction Rotary Club. Now THAT was really a tough audience. They didn't laugh where they were supposed to--just stony silence and no comments or questions afterwards. I saw one guy who was apparently asleep. However, I've been told by people in both groups that it was very interesting and they enjoyed it. I have now given 5 public presentations in 4 months, and I actually lived through it without getting sick until after it was all over with. I did cheat, though. I went to my doctor last month and asked if he'd prescribe some anti-anxiety meds to help me get through it. So between pills and lots of prayer, I was surprisingly calm. I have another program scheduled in September that will probably be a big one--at Spiva, where they usually have large crowds.

Showing Off....

Saturday, August 23, we had 25 people over from the English & Philosophy Department for a cookout and to show off our summer work. It was like a church meal, in that we provided the meat and buns and plates and cups and plasticware, and asked the rest of the department to bring side dishes, desserts, and specialty items. It was good to bask in the glow of warm appreciation for our work, and it was good just to have a time of fellowship away from the department. Both of our new full-time faculty were there, and one of our two one-year full-time replacements was also. It was to run from 5:00 to 7:30, but folks stayed till after 8:00, and that was OK.

We received some sprinkles of rain in our area an hour or so before the event, but it cleared by start time. We heard that Carl Junction & Webb City got a deluge for a good half hour. We had only a brief shower.

A good time was had by all. It was the first of many such events in the future, we hope.

TA-DA!!!!!!

...and our paint clothes are going into the trash.

The Home Stretch

Today, Saturday, August 9, 2008, we semi-finally completed the staining in advance of the rain. Everything but the brackets has two coats on it. The second coat will go up on the brackets when we get the time. We would not have gotten nearly as close to finishing if it weren't for the kindness of our friend Bob Paschall, who volunteered to help. He came over and stained lattice for several hours Friday morning.

We browsed through the photo archives looking for good before/after shots, and found a couple of good angles to show the contrasts. Below are early shots of the original yard taken before and during construction, followed by one taken today.

Before

After

Here are some more taken from a different angle:

After

How gratifying it is to see these photos and realize the amount of work that has been done. When it is all done, all touch-ups made, we will take a final group of photos and call the great Backyard Renovation Project complete.

Right in My Own Backyard

Below you will see what Leslie & I have been doing this week. Here it is Thursday, and we have been staining (not painting) the lattices & pergola. It's Olympic stain, but it sure goes on like and looks like paint. Leslie has been getting up at 5:30, and sometimes earlier, to eat breakfast and get out to work on the garage by 6:00. I usually have gotten out by 6:15, but today didn't get out till 7:00.

What was required to get where we are now? Well, the wood was washed with Deck Brightener and rinsed, then after it dried completely, we rolled on the Borrada wood preservative. After it dried, the lattices were stained directly, but the cross timbers and the posts were primed first. At this point, all of the wood except for the brackets, which I cleaned this morning, have one coat of stain on them.

I couldn't wait to post up these pictures before completing the brackets. After I post this up, I will go out with the garden hose and rinse them.
Once the second coat is on, we will go back and touch up to remove the gray drips from the espresso wall color. Then we'll pose ourselves in front of our "What We Did on Our Summer Vacation" project.
There's a popular cha-cha that our dance club dances to, to a big band-era song called "Right in My Own Backyard." Here is part of the first verse: "I'm spending my summer vacation right in my own backyard...." How appropriate this summer. We'll probably download it and dance to it on the patio!

For the Archives

This one is sort of a footnote to the last post by Leslie, and also for the archives. I took a picture of the two products used in prepping the lattices and pergola. It's a very labor-intensive project, requiring first cleaning the cedar with the Olympic Deck Brightener on the left. You have to use a hand-pump sprayer specially designed for detergents, mix the product with water, spray it on, brush it in with a hand brush, then after 30 minutes rinse it off with the jet spray on your garden hose. Do this on all four sides. Let it dry completely for a day or two (in 100-degree weather it should be much shorter), then move on to the product on the right.

Borrada LP is a wood-boring insect repellant. It's clear and about the consistency of wallpaper paste. It has to be mixed with warm or hot water to a 2:1 or 1:1 solution, then rolled on or painted on. I used the small paint roller on the table, on all four sides also. It has to dry 1-3 days (hopefully only one day) before you can put on stain or paint. Now, I used it only on the 7 thick posts and not on the lattice. Then, after these two products are used, you can prime with one coat and stain with two. We are not priming the lattice but putting two coats of gray stain on it. The posts get the primer plus two coats.

We will probably spend most of the week of August 4-8 doing the patio side (west) of the garage, which has a whole lot more lattice on it. It will be up at 5:30 on Monday for a quick breakfast, then out to work about 6:10 or earlier, before the sun comes over on that side of the garage.

I almost forgot--we haven't done the lattice on the garage door. You know how wide that is. That has to be prepped starting Monday the 4th.

Stay tuned for more reports, hopefully the last ones regarding the back yard, which we plan to finish by the end of this week.

A preview of coming attractions

We worked too hard yesterday in 100 degree heat (well over that in heat index) for me to not document our day's work. I started at 7 a.m. while Dale went to a men's breakfast. He came home and started around 9:00, I guess. Our primary focus was the pergola and lattice on the north side of the garage. I stained both sides of the lattice with 2 coats of solid color stain. Dale primed the pergola framework and gave it one coat of stain. I also stained the underside of the back porch. That was fun, crawling around on rocks and disturbing the spiders that live there. I quit at 4:30 and cleaned up. Dale worked until 5. I just took a detail shot of one side since you can't get the full effect until we do the brackets and garage door. We'll have some touch-up to do later, as it's impossible not to get primer and stain on the already-painted garage walls.

Family Weekend, July 25-28

We will take a break from describing building projects and instead post up some pictures from last weekend's family gathering chez Simpson. Kelly, Mike, & sons came down from St. Louis, and Hannah flew in from Chicago, and we had a nice weekend together. We even got to enjoy the new backyard patio some while they were here. Marie came over, too, on Saturday, and we had a cookout, the first time we had used the grill since last year. A good time was had by all.

Whenever Dom comes for a visit, the first things he looks for are the harmonica, plastic recorder, and a third musical toy. He loves to walk around the house blowing them. Hannah got some quality time with her nephews, as the picture below shows. Noel crawled up into the loveseat with her and wanted her to read a book to him, which he loves. He doesn't care who you are, so long as you read to him. Saturday Mike & Kelly took Dom to the movies to see "Wall-E," which didn't come on, they said, until after about a dozen previews. It's not right to make children wait that long to see their movie.

Sunday for lunch, we all met at Schlotsky's and had sandwiches and pizzas. Since we had missed a chance for a posed group shot at home, this group shot at the restaurant will have to do. But it is a great shot of a good-looking family, isn't it? Even greater because the photographer wasn't in it.

Mike & Kelly & boys had to leave from the restaurant to go home, so the rest of the day was spent in hanging out at Grandmother Marie's until time to go off to see The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie, which Hannah had wanted to see. One-word movie review: overwhelming. A far remove from the Batman TV series of the 60's. Heath Ledger's Joker will go down in film history as one of the most evil maniacal villains of all time. Following the movie, we went to Babe's for a fix for Hannah--grilled cheese sandwich with onion rings and a cherry limeade.

Monday morning Hannah, Leslie, & I decided to have breakfast on the rocks. Though already a bit on the humid side, it was a pleasant way to start the day eating outside. The surface is a bit uneven, so you have to move the chair legs around to find the right setting, but who cares?

Then Hannah & I went on a bike ride. I suggested we go to North Middle School and Columbia, which Kelly & I did last summer. But when we got to north, the custodian was waxing the floors and said we couldn't come in. Rats. So we biked up to Columbia and got in. We were met by a very nice retired marketing/sales man who is now custodian at Columbia and loving it. He gave us the run of the building, once he stopped talking. Hannah enjoyed touring her old elementary school. Then we took off for the trail, biking through downtown, across the Broadway viaduct, to the trail head, across the creek, and up to St. Louis Avenue. Since it was getting late, we turned around and rode home. Total mileage was over 7 miles for the trip, which, including the visits to the schools, took about 2 hours. But it was an improvement over Hannah's first inclination, which was to do the treadmill downstairs for 30 minutes.

Then we went over to Marie's house about 3:00 for Hannah to say goodbye, then took off for Springfield. We got her there in time for boarding her flight and drove home to a strangely quiet, empty house. Such are family weekends, beginning with a bang and ending with a whimper once everyone departs. It reminds us that it is just we two Chez Simpson.

So Much Depends on a Red Wheelbarrow,,,

Here, with apologies to William Carlos Williams, is my adaptation of his famous poem:

So much depends
on a red wheelbarrow
Filled with pea gravel
Behind the red Ranger.

[It really is a Ranger; the tailgate comes from a salvage yard. Mazda trucks and Rangers are built in the same Ford plant.]

Yes, today I made one more--and hopefully last--trip to Seneca to get a load of pea gravel, 1100 pounds of it. It's an 18-mile round trip, and I have been down there 4 times now. Because my old wheelbarrow has rusted through and is all bent up, I went to Home Depot late last week and bought a red wheelbarrow. It has already been used quite a bit.
That's only 8 shovelsful of pea gravel in the wheelbarrow, but it's like having 8 flagstones in it. Below you see the bed of the truck, only about half full but certainly heavy enough.
Once I got home, I loaded the wheelbarrow several times and dumped the gravel on top of the stones, then used the flat side of a rake to spread it and two brooms to sweep it in the cracks. the following two pictures show the results, not finished but at least roughly in place. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
The one above looks toward the pond. The following is a nice view of the fountain area and the rest of the "patio." Tomorrow we will touch up and hopefully complete the project, allowing me to finish painting the garage trim. I will wait till after our company has come and gone before I get back to washing and treating the cedar of the pergola and trellis for painting.
We bought the stones a week ago Saturday. They were delivered and dumped on the street a week ago today, and now, a week later, stones and gravel are in place. It has been a hot, physical week's worth of work. We never knew we could do so much work in such a short amount of time.

A footnote to the trips to Seneca: The May tornado that swept through north of Seneca and killed 8 people destroyed several homes and businesses and ripped up trees on both sides of Highway 43. Those homes and businesses are being rebuilt now. We drove past that area each time on the way down to and back from Seneca. You should see all the uprooted trees piled up in fields. It must have been a massive storm.

Puzzle Complete, and Great Movie

Following are two pictures of today's work. We made our third trip to Seneca , to M&M Stone, and loaded one pallet of mossy flagstone into the bed of our truck ourselves, then unloaded and laid the stones at home. This was the 5th pallet, the first 4 of which were delivered on Tuesday. We spent the rest of the week laying stones, Leslie in the early morning and after supper, me during the day. I will need to make one more trip to M&M for pea gravel, unless some place in Joplin sells it in the size we want. It will fill all the spaces and be swept and sprayed with water to settle it, and then we will be done...we hope. The picture above is from the north end, by the retaining walls. The picture below is from the garage looking to the back steps.
What a week! What a backyard project, including painting the trim, and soon the lattice & pergola. We might be ready for a backyard cookout by week's end.

Forgot to mention in yesterday's post: last night Leslie & I rented and watched Lars and the Real Girl, a wonderful, quirky movie that we will never forget. Everyone reading this post needs to see it.

Jigsaw Stone Work

Today I (Dale) took over the stone-laying project after Leslie went to work. She has been getting up at 5:30 each morning this week, eating an early breakfast, then going outside at 6:00 and working two hours laying stones. Because she's not strong enough to handle the largest stones, she has been laying only those she could carry. It's hard work. So today I said I would tote the largest ones and put them in place where they were needed. In doing so I completed the area surrounding the fountain. By "completed" I mean only laying the stone; I will need to find the smaller stones to fill in the larger gaps. Here are a couple of photos of the area:

Click within the pictures to enlarge them.

There is another area equally as large as the fountain area that now needs to be laid. I will be hauling the stones up to the area this afternoon. To do so requires a wheelbarrow and good legs to make it up the sloped driveway. It's sort of like working the blocking sled in football practice, you have to use your legs so much. But it's all good exercise.

I hope to have pictures of the completed area by day's end tomorrow.

We're too old for this!

[Note: We'll have enough of the flat stones that I can use them to construct a nicer retaining wall around the terrace.]

Here's some of what we've been doing this week. Yesterday we had about 3 1/2 tons of stone delivered. Last night after dinner (while Dale was at a meeting), I laid stones until 9:15. Today I got up at 5:30, laid stones for 2 hours, then cleaned up and rode my bicycle to work. Dale considers this my project--he's busy painting the garage. (Notice the lattice panel laid out on the ground so he can paint the wall behind it.) He did lay the stones in the lower area outside the garage doors, as shown in the bottom photo. But he had the hardest job--loading stones into the wheelbarrow and pushing them up the driveway to where they needed to be. The dump truck just dumped them in the street on the north side of our house, so moving them to where I can use them is back-breaking work. We're both very tired and sore, especially Dale, who put in a 12-hour hard-labor day (minus a couple of breaks). But we're determined to get this done quickly. Hannah is coming home the weekend of the 25th--we want to have all the stones laid so she can admire our handiwork!

Grueling but gratifying

We overdid it again, but things are really taking shape. We got an early start, getting up soon after 6 a.m. to try to work before it got too hot. Yesterday Dale went to Yard Shack south of town and got a load of finely crushed limestone and spread it out. We needed another load, so we went back to Yard Shack this morning. But first we headed on down to Seneca to M&M Stone, picked out our paving stone & paid for it. We got 4 pallets of mossy ledge stone. They'll deliver it on Tuesday. Then we went back to Yard Shack for another load of the powdered limestone. We spent the rest of the day working extremely hard, as you can see by the pictures below.

This is part of what I did. I laid down a layer of the limestone, then moved all the concrete pavers around the oval iris bed I created. I put more of the limestone in the gaps between the pavers. Looks pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

Dale concentrated his efforts on the depression outside the garage door. He had to dig down several inches because of the sweep of the garage door. He knew that by the time we added the crushed stone base and the depth of the stones, the doors wouldn't open over it. So once again he had the back-breaking task of digging out roots and rocks and leveling the area. As a result, we'll have a slight. terraced effect. In the background, you can see another job I worked on today--creating a little stone retaining wall around the built-up area. Then we spread the rest of the crushed stone. We have a few days to recover before we start the massive jigsaw puzzle of laying all those big stones. I made Dale wear a back brace today--I wore one, too. I think that helped a lot. We're exhausted, but not in agony like we would be without the protection.