Sunday, November 11
Happy Veterans Day and a huge “Thank You” to all who have served our country through military service!
After all the late night activities in Hobbs last night, we were a bit slow moving around this morning. Barbara was a touch under the weather from the long day, so she stayed at home while I joined Mother, Ernie, and Billee for the early church service before coming back to Big V for the morning.
Our main job for today was to begin printing the second volume of our journal. One might ask, “Isn’t this a little late?” One would definitely be right about that. We spent the first part of July proofing the entries since January 1. Everything was about ready to go when my Dell (with ALL the entries for six months in its memory) crashed. We had it repaired in Albuquerque, but didn’t immediately back it up. We had no more than gotten back to Artesia when it went down again. We bought a new laptop for me, but that didn’t help get the information back, and I began to lose interest in the project.
When we went to Marianna, Florida, in October to pick up Aunt Glennis, we were pleasantly surprised (heck, even exuberant) when Cousin Danny was able to come over from Tallahassee and not only recover all the data, but get the whole system up and running again. Believe me, the first thing I did after reinstalling the various systems that I use was to back everything up on a new external hard drive!
Having said all that, our interest in getting the journal put together was revived. I purchased three reams of 24# paper, set up my Dell and the printer on the “buffet table” in the kitchen area of Big V, and was ready to start up our print shop.
Since we have a relatively small printer, I have to constantly monitor the ink levels as I print out the various entries. Unfortunately, the color cartridges and the black ink cartridges don’t run out together, and if I fail to keep an eye on things, I end up with one or more pages of pictures with no text, or text with pictures that have some pretty funky c
olors.Anyway, I got the process started today. Each journal takes about 3 hours to complete, and there’s not much else I can do except watch the ink levels and the paper supply and put the sections together as they are printed. This picture shows the computer and printer setup. What it doesn’t show is the tremendous mess of loose papers, stacks of papers, and empty ink cartridge boxes.
Nancy Terpening called while I was running the first of the journals to tell us about the concert presentation by the Artesia Concert Association that was scheduled for this afternoon at the high school auditorium. We had seen some posters around town, but assumed we had already missed it. Of course, we accepted Jerry’s offer to come pick us up at 3:30 for the 4:00 pm concert.
The concert for today was by Gaelic Storm, an Irish band that had the crowd on their feet, clapping, and generally having a great time for 2 ½ hours. Gaelic Storm, a pub band formed about ten years ago, catapulted to fame when the members were cast as the party band in the steerage scene of Titanic. Featuring authentic Irish pub band instruments (as well as a new electronic bagpipe) and a repertoire of traditional Irish songs, the band plays over 125 dates a year to packed houses and clubs. Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed the concert and spending the evening with Jerry, Nancy, and Becky.
Monday, November 12
After getting a few more sections of the journal printed off, we went to Mother’s house to wash clothes and take care of some chores around her house. Since we had several loads of clothes going, we made two or three trips between Big V and the house, trying to accomplish some of the minor chores of the day in between handling loads of wash.
Tuesday, November 13
While we were visiting with Nancy last night she and Barbara discussed Barbara getting in one last mowing on their property. Since this is something Barbara really likes to do, I went out early this morning and got the riding mower ready to go. Jerry bags the grass when he does his front and back yards, but we don’t try to use the bags when were mowing off the range grasses, so I had to disconnect some of the system before Barbara could “saddle up and ride off in a (literal) cloud of dust. (Barbara: As crazy as they all think I am, this is a special time for me to do something useful and reflect on important issues at the same time!)
While Barbara was mowing, I did some of the minor chores around Big V. It seems that, just like with a house, there’s always something that needs to be done.
When she finished on Jerry and Nancy’s property, Barbara brought the mower back and began cutting some of the tall grasses and weeds between Big V and Jean’s house. Unfortunately, the mower ran out of gas after about three rounds, so I grabbed a gas can and went to town to get some more “go juice.” I was going to finish what Barbara had started, but after running for about a minute, the mower shut down and wouldn’t restart…no clicks, chugs, or anything, so we moved it back to the barn until we could talk to Jerry about it.
The afternoon was spent printing and collating sections of the journal…it’s beginning to look like a never-ending project.
This evening I called Jerry and asked him about the lawn mower…seems he’s had that problem before when an in-line fuse blew out…sure was glad to think that it wasn’t going to be anything serious…will just have to find out tomorrow.
Wednesday, November 14
We had the first rumblings of winter early this morning. About 8:00 am a storm front hit the Artesia area with a vengeance. Visibility was reduced to almost zero for a few minutes as heavy wind gusts stirred up the dust and dirt in the area and temperatures began dropping. It never got really cold, but it wasn’t the balmy 80’s that we have been experiencing.
Susan came over from Hobbs to work today, so Barbara and I met her and Jean for our usual Wednesday luncheon at Chaos. Jerry and Nancy missed lunch with us because they were preparing to leave for Albuquerque to attend a Bill Cosby show.
After lunch we went by Mother’s house and then came back to Big V for a short nap. When I woke up, I went out to check the fuse in the lawn mower. Sure enough, it was burned. Luckily, I had a spare fuse of that size with my motorcycle gear, so I installed a good one, fired up the lawnmower, and went out to clear the area between the fence line and the road. The downside of all that activity was that I was soon covered with dirt, so I had to take another shower as soon as I got everything put away. As we say around here, “Cleanliness is next to…impossible.”
Tonight we went over to Jean’s house to sample her latest culinary adventure. She found an old recipe for fruitcake cookies. She made several batches, experimenting with different times and temperatures. We thought that all of the efforts were tasty, but the last batch really hit the spot.
Thursday, November 15
Finally…The first six copies of the journal are completed (well, as complete as we can make them here in Big V). All that is left is to print off the cover pages and take them to the print shop for binding. Volume Two of the journal (January 1 – June 30) runs about 230 pages…a bit longer than Volume One, but then, we had a few more adventures this six months than before.
After dropping the journals off at the print shop, we drove up to Roswell to pick up some parts for the motorcycle and visit the used-book store. We had a large tub of books to take in to them and spent some time looking for new reading material. After about 45 minutes we left the store with a new batch of books and $200.00 in credit for future purchases.
We made a quick stop at Cal and Carol’s house to drop off some pecans that we had gathered in Mother’s yard, and then went to Sonic for dinner. By 5:00 pm we had checked in on Mother and returned to Big V.
We made a short trip over to Jean’s to sample her new recipe of eggnog tapioca (very good) and try the fruitcake cookies that had “aged” overnight (also very good). Then, it was back to Big V for the rest of the night.
Friday, November 16
Happy Birthday to son-in-law Ryan McQuitty in Liberal, Kansas!
It was a cloudy, grey, and cool day when we got up, and nothing much changed until after 1:00 pm when the sun started peeking through the clouds.
We spent the morning working on our various chores inside…too cool to enjoy being outdoors today. Barbara was working on a project at her computer, and I continued trying to straighten out the last of the mess that resulted from our journal printing project…nothing earth-shaking going on around here today…just the usual chores that go with any home and family.
We received an email this afternoon from our good friends Abbie and Bill in Lady Lake, Florida.
They informed us that they are moving into Crossroads Community Church (the church that we helped to build in March) this week and will have their first service in it on Sunday. They also included the most recent picture of the completed building. We are planning to be in Lady Lake on December 9 for the formal dedication services. We have fond memories of the time we spent with so many volunteers as we worked to get the structure put up and closed in. Certainly, this is a time of reflection and gratitude as we look at what God is accomplishing in that community.Jean called and invited us out to dinner tonight with her and Becky. At that time, she didn’t know whether Jerry and Nancy would be back from Albuquerque in time to meet us. When we met at the house, the plan was for the four of us to meet Jerry and Nancy at the Piccolino Restaurant, a place that we haven’t tried yet. Piccolino is located in a refurbished service station on North First Street here in Artesia. It is evidently a good spot to eat…it was crowded to overflowing tonight, with a 30-minute wait by the time we got there.
Jerry and Nancy arrived while we were trying to decide whether to wait or go somewhere else. We ended up voting to go to the new Chinese restaurant n Main Street. It turned out to be an excellent choice and a good time was had by all.
After returning to the place, we went in and visited with Jean for a few minutes. Barbara came back to Big V to do some dishes while Jean and I watched the end of a college basketball game. Then, it was time for me to return to Big V, watch the news to see who Artesia would face in the football playoffs next week (the Bulldogs were seeded first in the state playoff brackets and had a Bye for this week).
Saturday, November 17
Birthday Greetings go out today to one of the country’s newest teenagers, granddaughter Randi Colwell in San Antonio, and to niece Brandi Boley (Tom and Nancy’s daughter) in Cleburne, Texas.
We did find out this morning that our Artesia Bulldogs will host Moriarty in a second-round football playoff game this Saturday. Moriarty defeated Los Alamos last night while the Bulldogs took the night off with a first-round bye in the state playoffs.
Not much excitement around here today…the morning was spent in washing clothes and doing some chores at Mother’s house. The afternoon was reserved for lounging around and watching Kansas University take care of business with Iowa State on the football field at KU Memorial Stadium.
Tonight I got a little rowdy as I was watching the Texas Tech/Oklahoma football game, so I went over to Jean’s to watch with her while Barbara watched a couple of her shows here in Big V…wow…what a game! It should be really interesting to see how the standings shake out tomorrow.
“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”… Bernard Meltzer
At home in Artesia (at least for a little while longer),
Jim & Barbara
