Happy New Year

Monday...glorious Monday. At least I'm trying to convince myself. The holiday season was great. I got out to play golf five times over the last two weeks and I played well in spite of the wet conditions. My worst round was an 87 in pouring rain and my best a 78 in decent conditions. It was nice to get out with friends and enjoy the sunshine.

Our weather has reverted to bright blue skies and sunshine after quite a rainy patch of weather. The sky today is as blue as they come and not a cloud mars the view. The mountains stand out in their snowcapped glory as we look to the east. Today started out foggy and Darla and I had some trouble jump-starting our morning. We both sleepwalked through our shower rituals and she met me at the body shop, where I dropped off the Explorer for it's repairs.

I am without a car until at least Thursday, but my boss wants me to drive to Monterey in a U-Haul truck, clear out the storage locker that we have there and drive on to Phoenix. We have about two hundred file boxes of insurance policies that date back to pre-1995 and are policies written by the company that we took over in 1995, American Sentinel. Their home office was in Monterey, CA and the files were stored there. We occasionally get a call for a file in storage due to an old claim being closed or reopened and they want those files transferred to Phoenix. My boss asked me to pack up the boxes and have them shipped to Phoenix, but they are file boxes with loose lids and I'd spend hours just getting the boxes ready to ship and then they'd have to take all of the tape off at the other end to shelve the files. I offered to pack the boxes in a U-Haul and drive them to Phoenix. I'm a glutton, because driving a U-Haul doesn't pay me mileage or anything extra for my time. I figure it helps the company and saves on expenses, so ....

Jennifer has arrived at the Army base in Fort Huatuca, about 55 miles southeast of Tuscon. The temperatures for Tuscon have been 77 and 76 degrees, so I'm sure she's happy. She is ready for the six weeks of training and is also looking forward to being deployed. Let's pray for a stint in Germany, where a blonde doesn't stick out like they do in, say, Korea. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but Jennifer has cut off much of her beautiful auburn hair. She had kept it in a ponytail through the first year of her service and tired of having to wash her long hair and constantly have it in a ponytail. I haven't seen it, but it is above her collar and off her shoulders per Army regulations. She says it is about the same length as Darla's.


We had a good New Years, although our sink in the kitchen decided to clog up late in the afternoon. It is a double sink with a garbage disposal on one side and a regular drain on the other. Our guests were our good friends from church, Rob and Cheryl, and Rob and I took a drive to the store and picked up some Drano. I poured the concoction into both drains as the water was running from one basin to the other when I plunged it. We let it sit for 45 minutes and played some games (New Years was game day with dice, cards, basketball, Risk and the ladies working on puzzles while they talked each other's ears off). The clog was severe as the water moved from one basin to the other and we had to hold the plugs down while I plunged or I'd get a volcano effect in the other drain. Rob could see that I was getting exercised and he said, "Let's pull the plumbing." I bailed the water into a bucket and finally cleared it out. I laid towels at the bottom of the sink and took the pipes apart at the slip mountings. The clog in the neck was unbelievable and I know now that garbage disposals are BAD for pipes and plumbing. There was all matter of debris in the neck of the drain (eggshells, rinds, grounds, etc) and I took the pipe out and hosed it out completely. It took five minutes to take it apart and five minutes to re-install it and it works like a charm. I'm turning in to a regular plumber, although I don't sport the "Norge" crack at the rear of my pants. My father-in-law, Earl, lives in the country and has a well and septic tank and refuses to install a garbage disposal because they are so bad for the plumbing pipes. I've realized that now and will make cleaning that pipe a regular maintenance item now. In fact, I went in and cleaned out the pipes on both sinks in the master bathroom and will likely do the other two bathrooms and the laundry room this weekend.

Darla and the boys went up skiing on January 2nd at Donner Ski Ranch. Donner is famous in my family for being the spot where I blew out a ligament in my knee on a senior ski trip in high school. I have never skiied since due to memories of the pain, the humiliation of being carted down the hill in a toboggan by the ski patrol, and a general dislike for cold, wet conditions. Darla and the boys had a ball, although Darla and Daniel started the day out in a bad way. They each transferred one rental boot from their rental to each other and when they were dressed and ready to ski, one ski wouldn't connect to one boot for each of them. They couldn't figure it out until they took it back to the rental counter and the guy at the counter looked at both of their blonde heads and pointed out their faux paus. That was an OOPS! David and his friend, Nick (who is Rob's stepson and Cheryl's son), got tired of waiting and left them behind to get in one additional run. Darla and the boys skiied, while Nick snowboarded. They had a great time and came back sore and tired.

We will be starting a bible study with Rob and Cheryl and two other couples next Wednesday. We will be studying from a text called, "Blended Families, Creating Harmony as You Begin A New Home Life." Each of the couples are remarried and have children from prior marriages. This will give us a chance to share some of our experiences and learn methods to deal with parenting someone else's children. We all look forward to the interaction. It should be fun, it should produce even closer friendships and it should allow us an opportunity to fellowship together on a topic that many people wouldn't understand.