The Pool is Open for the Season: Happy Memorial Day

 

 

We had our first 100 degree day today and it will be the coolest day of the week upcoming. We expect 108 and 109 degrees on Friday and Saturday. We had David and Miya over today and they were in the pool, although Miya just sat with her feet in the water by the steps. David got in and got drenched. They showed up with a new car, a Mercedes Benz Compressor. It's about time Dave got a new car, but it's quite a change from a big SUV to a 2 seater sports car. They had dinner plans so could only stay for about two hours and were on their way.

 

Darla and I were up early this morning and met Neil and Lilly at Mimi's for breakfast in Roseville. We had visited with them at a party the night before and they are planning on moving to Arizona and we wanted to hear more about it and have a chance to visit one on one. I still can't see a reason that they are moving other than Neil doesn't like the politics in California. They both have children and grandchildren in California and have lived in this area for over thirty years. I asked him where in Arizona they want to live and he said that they have to go and visit the Phoenix area and get a feel for what will work for them. If they go, we will miss them.

 

We got home from breakfast and I worked on the yard in back, trimming back some of the bushes and cutting some of the older fronds off a few of the palms to let the new growth take over. I also swept and cleared out the small leaves from the surface of the pool and then was in my water lounger fast asleep while Darla cleaned the floors and bathrooms in preparation for David and Miya's visit.

 

Yesterday was golf, actually it was church followed by golf. I had to leave church at 9:30 for my 10:15 tee time. Pastor Bryce was almost through with his sermon by the time I had to pack up and leave. It was our Memorial Day tournament and it was a warm day. It was the start of the really warm temperatures as we reached 98 degrees on Sunday. I had one of those "what could have been" games of golf.  I shot 43+42=85, but missed at least four putts of four feet or less. I did birdie number 17 to get to 85 and a net 71. It was fifth place in my flight which will pay about $25. I also won $31 in skin money for the birdie on 17. Paul and I ended up taking second place in the qualifier last week and I won $57 and another $15 for the closest to the pin on number 15 last week. We will play our fourth tournament in four weeks next weekend as we have the NCGA Individual Net Amateur event. We will qualify 4 players to go on to the regional qualifiers in the area. I qualified last year. I had to come in from the pool and put in the scores from Sunday's event and also do the handicapping for next week's event before David got here..

 

We had a party at Charlie and Frieda's last night with John and Camille & Neil and Lilly. Charlie and Frieda's daughter, Carin, had about three of her girlfriends over as well, so it was a party. Neil surprised me with several bottles of Twisted Tea. We had enjoyed these alcoholic iced tea beverages in the Reno area a couple of years ago. They don't sell them in our area and he and Lilly were up in Minden last week and he bought some to bring to the party. Twisted Tea comes in lemon, raspberry, Peach and Mango flavors as well as straight iced tea. It's good stuff.

 

I have one of our Corporate VPs, Mike,  in the office Wednesday to Friday of this week. He will be working with two of my newer underwriters, Linda and Theresa. We have a sports night on Wednesday night with the SF Giants game on and a variety of games set up throughout the office with prizes for the winners. I have two of our vendors bringing in food and a bar for the guests. It should be fun. Pete, Mike and I will join Tabb, one of our main retailers, on Friday and play golf at Morgan Creek Country Club in the 108 degree heat as it turns out. We tee off at 9 AM, which should keep us from being too hot.

 

Darla found out this week that Silpada is closing down. She has watched the transition from the original owners to their daughters and the struggle that they have had keeping sales up and representatives engaged and happy. The whole "home party" sales concept is slowly dying as the younger generation embraces online retailing. Also, it's hard to get some of the Millennials to have parties, partially because they have to ask their parents if it's okay to use the basement. Avon has struggled and Tupperware (as long as they've been in business) have suffered huge shrinkages in sales in the past several years. Warren Buffett bought Pampered Chef  a couple of years ago, but even that company is feeling the heat and moving more and more to an online retailing presence, which squeezes out the reps. Darla and I both think that Silpada will move to an online presence once the cobwebs are shaken out of the closure of the company as it is. They fired about 200 of their staff and will close the company on July 31st. We expect to see the online presence re-emerge in the Fall. We'll see. Fuller Brush is still around, but you don't see salesmen traipsing door to door.

 

Silpada has been a God send for Darla over the years and helped to put the boys through Cal Poly, where they both graduated with no debt. Darla and I also had some amazing trips with two visits to Hawaii, a trip to Mexico, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. It hsa been amazing, but all good things must come to an end and she will grieve the passing of this chapter of her life and move on.

 

You can see the pictures of Darla in the pool and get a feel for the kind of weight that she has lost on her diet. She told me that taking pictures of her in a swimsuit is a set up, but I think she looks great and I'm so proud of her. Her diabetes is well under control and she has lost almost 25 pounds. As Shirley put it, it's like she lost a 20 pound sack of flour that was tied to her waist and another 5 pound sack of sugar for good measure.

 

Darla and I will be off to Washington DC in a week and a half and look forward to visiting the nation's capital. As everyone knows, I am not a fan of the current occupant of the White House and his apology to the Japanese people over Memorial Day was a slap in the face to every American that was killed in Pearl Harbor. The nuclear bombs that were detonated in Japan saved 100's of thousands of American lives and brought an end to the war. Obama is and has been an embarrassment to this country. He has fractured race relations in this country, decimated our military, made a mockery of this country in foreign relations and spent millions of dollars taking his troll of a wife and his kids on expensive vacations around the world. Good riddance to this chump. I'm not thrilled with the choices we have this year and would absolutely HATE a Clinton presidency. Trump wouldn't be great, but it won't be another national nightmare.

 

On that note, I will sign off. I need to fire up the barbecue and get some tri tip grilling. I hope you are all well. By the way, that Mercedes Benz belongs to David's cousin and he was borrowing it for the day. Ciao.

 

 

 

Master Bathroom is Finished

A day late, but back at the keyboard. We were out to dinner last night with David for a late birthday celebration. Darla is finished with her diet and back on 2100 calories and boy, did we use them well last night at Benihanas. Miya, David's girlfriend was supposed to join us, but had a death in the family on Saturday, when an aunt passed away. She was spending the day with her cousins. The picture above is from Benihanas. We had a good time. Dinner was at 8 last night as Darla had an event in Lodi that didn't end until 6 PM. She got home a little after seven and we headed over to the restaurant to meet Dave. Benihanas uses about 6 cooks to handle 12 tepanyaki tables and sometimes it can take awhile to get your chef. It was after 9 before he finally showed up at our table. Our server came over and announced that they were sorry for the wait, but that we would all enjoy Martinis. Darla got overly excited for someone who doesn't drink, but the server was actually saying Martinez would be our chef. We had a good laugh over the confusion.

 

Martinez showed up and asked if we wanted him to shave David as he pulled out his chef's knife. That was the start of a fun night. He looked at me and said, "Hey where have you been, man? Do you still have the blue Chrysler?" He said that he had seen me a few times driving in Roseville. He is a long term chef at the restaurant and we have had him more than a few times, but it was odd that he not only remembered me, but figured out that it was me in the car. The Chrysler has limo tint windows and it's hard to see me when I'm driving. We finally got out of there a little before ten after a fun night of food and laughter.

 

The other pictures above are of Darla with Jennifer's painting mounted in our bathroom, some of Darla's flowers in the backyard, a picture of the final piece of the Master bathroom remodel, the opaque windows that were installed just today, and a picture of Samantha that I edited using an Old Tyme photo app on my phone. It is nice to have the construction behind us and we are thrilled with the result. The shower is huge and we had an initial issue with the temperature of the water. It didn't get hot enough. We had the plumber come back in and adjust the faucet to increase the heat, which worked great. We were both pretty upset that the faucet only gave us a lukewarm shower. I also worried that the tile was already in and all of the plumbing was in the wall behind the tile. As it turned out, the plumber hadn't set the faucet to turn on far enough and the hot water mix was too small. Thank God they were able to fix it.

 

Darla was off to Lodi and the Italian festival on Sunday and David came over to help me work on a broken fence post. I had planned to change out the rotted post, but was told about the metal sleeves that are sold that are pounded between the fence post and the cement that is set in the ground. David and I were able to set two sleeves on either side of the post and bolt it in. It was amazing how solid the post was when it was complete. The post was leaning at about a 30 degree angle and we got it back to almost plumb. I was supposed to play golf with Paul and he had an 11:45 tee time. David was meeting me at 10. Well, he showed up at 10:30 and it took us longer than we had planned. Getting the sleeves set in the concrete was not easy and the spot where the fence post was set was in a raised bed above the pool with a retaining wall behind it. We were pounding in the sleeves with a hand sledge hammer and kept hitting our hand on the retaining wall. We were working at the neighbor's house and they had opened their garage so we could get power. I went in and grabbed a backpack and set it over the retaining wall to keep from bashing our knuckles. when it was all over and complete, I found the backpack in my garage as David misunderstood and thought it was ours. The neighbor didn't help or pay for materials, so I should have just kept the backpack. Just kidding, I laughed and returned it.

 

I went over after and met Paul coming off number 9 at the course and we played the back nine together. We kept going afterward and played the front nine again. I got in 18 holes and Paul played 27 holes. I shot 42+42 and played the white tees on the back and the blue tees on the front. I got home about 6 and had hoped to do the blog then, but got a note from Neil that he needed the handicaps for the Memorial tournament (that is next week) early Sunday evening as they were heading out of town. I did the handicapping while I watched the taped golf tournament and then got a shower before Darla got home.

 

Saturday was the Senior 4 ball qualifier. Steve and I won it last year and went and played the regional tournament in Santa Clara. This year, Paul and I hooked up and played  and Steve and Ron played as a team. Paul and I struggled on the front, shooting a 34 and turned it up on the back nine with a 31 for 65.Our slow start cost us as the qualifiers shot 61 and 63. We took second place out of the non qualifiers and won $114. I also had a closest to the pin with 4' 10" on the 180 yard par three 15th hole. It was a fun day, but we left some strokes on the course.

 

I did get out this last week and played the course at Serrano. I'm on the golf committee and we went out Wednesday and six of us toured the course. I shot 88. Thursday night was league and I was completely out of sorts, shooting a 50 and never getting in any kind of a groove. I hit my first shot out of bounds and it went from there.

 

Darla and I have decided not to go to Mexico this year in December. We are going to Hawaii instead to see Darla's brother Steve and his wife, Kirstin. We usually go to Mexico with Dad and Shirley, but they have a cruise planned. We will all be together on our family cruise for my 60th, Dad's 80th and Sherry's 50th. It will be a great trip and not going to Mexico will save us over $1600. Daniel and Becky are getting us our flights to Hawaii this year for our 20th anniversary. Daniel has tons of free miles. he pays for everything with mileage cards, including his rent in Pasadena. It has been about four years since we've been to Kona to see Steve and Kirstin. We will stay with them for four days and probably spend three days in either Maui or Kauai.

 

We did invite Dad and Shirley to join us in Lake Tahoe in August. We'll have Jennifer, McKinney, Samantha, David, Daniel and Becky all at the 4 bedroom condo at some point during the week. We would love Dad and Shirley to join us as well. The condo is located on the slopes of Heavenly Valley ski resort in Nevada and with a view of Lake Tahoe.  

 

Darla and I have two trips planned prior to the Tahoe vacation. We'll spend four days in Washington DC in June with my board duties wiht the Western Insurance Agents Association. We also have a golf trip planned up to Graeagle in Plumas County in late June. We will rent a house on the 16th hole at Plumas Pines golf course with Charlie and Frieda and Neil and Lilly. The group will play Plumas Pines on Saturday and Graeagle on Sunday. We are going up for the three days, but I will only play golf at Graeagle. I have played Plumas Pines before and want to spend the day with Darla up in Reno on Saturday. We will be back late afternoon and will have a big barbecue at the condo that night.

 

Well, that will do it for this week. Darla will get her Explorer back from the body shop tomorrow. Paul said that the paint and body work is all done, but they had to replace the right headlight and ordered the wrong one. They will get that tomorrow and have it installed. I hope you are all well and enjoying this thing called life. Be well. Ciao.

 



Big Birthday week ahead

 

Darla's Birthday is tomorrow with David's coming the next day and Alicia (Darla's sister) the same day as Darla although they are 5 years apart. Darla's parents were in town for Luke's T ball game and we met at Cabo's in Granite Bay for dinner. Well, actually I met the whole gang after golf at 5 PM and we celebrated a late Mother's Day and the birthdays. Earl and Frances just returned from two weeks camping, a week in Yosemite with family followed by a week in Columbia up near Sonora with their church group. Both boys were there and Becky. Dan and Becky had planned to come into town next weekend, but changed their plans when they found out that everyone was getting together for birthdays. Maya was busy, so she was saved the whole "family meet and greet" (for now). We had a great time and visited and ate great Mexican food and it was made even more delicious by the fact that Earl bought dinner.

 

It was a busy week and we had our media day for the Trusted Choice tournament in August that I am doing the scoring for. We had television, print and radio at the event and we followed the meeting with a nice buffet lunch and then a shotgun golf outing. I invited Paul from the golf club as he had mentioned to me that he had never played Del Paso Country Club. I've played it a few times and actually played a Northern California PGA event there, the Pro-President event with our club professional when I was President of the golf club. The course is in great shape and still feeling the afterglow of the Senior PGA Open that was played there last August. It is the club's 100th anniversary this year and having the National Trusted Choice Championship is a feather in their cap. We both struggled and I shot 89. I guess that is a continuation of my recent play.

 

I say that and then Thursday night shot 40 in league and we beat our competition 13-7. We are in first place with 41 points after three weeks.

 

Friday night was poker and we had a small cold front move through that night bringing high winds and some cold overnight temperatures. Steve hosted and had cigars out for everyone (I passed) and had his back patio decked out for the game. Cards were blowing off the table and we were trying to hang onto our drinks and quarters. We finally carried the table inside and ate dinner watching the Giant's game and then played cards inside after that. I won early, taking five of the first six pots. That is never a good thing and although I was doing great before dinner (up about $50), I lost often and prodigiously after dinner and walked away before midnight down about $35. I had a good time with the guys and always enjoy getting together.

 

There is a Senior 4 ball qualifier next week and I called Paul and he agreed to team up and see if we could qualify this year. Steve and I have qualified twice and failed to move on both times. Charlie stopped me after league last week and told me that Paul, Ron (my twilight partner) and Steve had all signed up and named me as their partner. Ron and Paul both play twilight, so I was able to explain to Ron the dilemma and he agreed to team up with Steve and asked me to call him. Steve seemed a little peeved when I told him, but he and Ron know each other from poker and the golf league and we smoothed it over.

 

We had the last two days of the 54 hole individual tournament this weekend and I didn't feel too encouraged after my 91 last weekend. I don't know where it came from, but Saturday I shot a 38+42=80, net 66 to vault back into contention in the event. I went from 16th place to 6th in the second round.

 

This event has been tough on me as we have a member who went through a huge medical crisis in his life over the past four years. He had a bad knee problem and ended up with a blood clot that traveled to his brain and he almost died. He has had trouble sleeping, had serious pain including fibro myalgia and endured three surgeries on his knee. He has been slowly getting better. He was a 9 handicap back in the day, but was shooting over 100 when he came back. He approached the handicap committee and asked for a Medical Handicap. Basically, what he wanted was to suspend his prior scores from 2012 and only use his current scores to figure hi handicap. I agreed that once he had at least ten scores, we would issue him a temporary medical exempted handicap. He got 13 scores in and I issued him a 26.4 handicap. He signed up for this tournament and added four more scores which brought his index down to 21.3. Unfortunately the handicap on the date of the due date is the one that was used for this event. He shot a 91, net 63 on Day one and the membership was screaming! He had signed up for skins and won over $85. I talked to him during the week and told him to tone down his bragging as people were talking. I also told him that he would not be eligible for the overall trophy as he wasn't using a 20 card handicap and the rules require that the overall winner had to have a 20 score card.

 

Well, Saturday he shot an 80, net 52, and was just as loud and bragging about his scoring, saying "You poke the bull, you get the horns!" I was out with Neil posting scores on the scoreboard and heard him loudly tell everyone that he didn't feel bad about shooting such a low score and if people were upset it was no skin off his nose. I told him in a loud voice that he should tone it down or someone just might kill him in his sleep. That got a loud laugh and seemed to diffuse the situation. He came up to me this morning and apologized for his actions. I told him that he shouldn't sign up for skins and just let this situation lie. He disagreed and said it was his chance to really make some money. Thanks, guy!

 

I don't know what he shot today as I left right after my round completed. It was really slow out there. Neil had the high handicappers playing first and they set a slow pace that caused huge waits on several holes. I shot 48 on the front nine (ten shots higher than Saturday). I almost left after 9 holes, but hung in and shot a 40 on the back with a birdie on number 16. My 88 was a net 74, so I finished the tournament at 2 over par. I'll likely get a little bit of money, but I did have the low net at 66 in my flight on Saturday.

 

Darla is supposed to take her truck in tomorrow on her birthday for repairs. She checked her calendar today and has a meeting at 9 AM tomorrow, so I have to take the truck in at ten tomorrow. I have an SUV set up for rental with Enterprise tomorrow. They have upgraded us to a full sized SUV even though Nationwide only pays for a compact car rental. I've know the Sacramento marketing rep for over 15 years. I invited Darla to dinner tomorrow night, but she wants to wait and go to Benihana later in the month. She is still on her diet and has lost 23 pounds now. She has done great on the diet and looks fantastic.

 

Nothing much has been done on the bathroom remodel as some part on the glass surround didn't come in (hinges for the door or something). They did come out and install the towel bars, toilet roll dispenser and some towel hooks, but that is all that has been done. The glass surround is now due to go in this week and we will have the opaque glass in two weeks.

 

We got our reservations set up for our week in Lake Tahoe in August. We will be there from Saturday the 6th until Sunday the 13th and found a four bedroom, two bath condo in Stateline, Nevada. The condo will handle all of the kids, Samantha, their dog and be a main spot for dinners and relaxing. The condo unit has a pool and hot tub across the street from our unit. It is located at Tahoe Summit near the Heavenly Ski Resort Stagecoach Lodge and chairlift. Darla's folks will bring up their motor home and Alicia and Don will come up for a weekend. The boys will only be there for the second weekend, but Jennifer, McKenny and Sam are supposed to be there for most of the week. We will check with Dad and Shirley to see if they will be able to join us at all. It would be a great chance to see all of the kids as well as spend some time in God's country Lake Tahoe.

 

Well, that is the news that is fit to print this week. Work continues at a frenetic pace. I have about five meeting outside the office this week. I hope all are well. We will talk soon Ciao.

Mother's Day 2016

Mother's Day and there is always something missing. Yes. I still miss Mom. She was a guiding light that was extinguished all too soon. I love Shirley and she is a wonderful partner for Dad, but there will always be a small hole in my heart that Alice Lyon used to fill. Fun to see a goofy picture of Mom on Darryl's Facebook page today. That gave me a smile. We talked to Jennifer this morning and Sam was still sleeping. They had a fun day planned getting together with some of Jennifer's single Mom friends for dinner. The kids were going to play together and the Moms would drink mimosas or something. McKenny is in Colorado on a job. The picture of Sam above I call Sam and the Dandylyon.

 

 

You can also see the slow turning of time on the bathroom job. We got the new toilet installed this last week and they repaired some damage to the granite and finished off the flooring by the door where the carpet attaches to the tile floor. They measured for the glass surround and that will be installed next Friday. I bought the toilet roll dispenser and towel racks and those will be installed this week. We also had an issue with the clear glass window that they installed in the shower. The two story behind us looks right down into our bathroom. They told us it would be $200 to replace the glass with opaque. We complained (Darla did) and they agreed to eat the cost of fixing the window to privacy glass if Darla gives them a good review and will agree to be interviewed about our experience with the job and the contractor for their website. She agreed.

 

You can also see some new "ouchies" to the exterior of the Explorer. Darla had a little fender bender on Thursday and we are having the car repaired next week. Originally she set up to have Caliber Collision do the repairs, but my good friend from the golf club, Paul, is a master body mechanic and will oversee the job and do a couple of small repairs to sots that have some scratched paint. We take it in next Monday for repair.

 

Finally, you see the picture of David and his girlfriend, Maya, at the River Cats game on Friday night. He finally introduced her to us and they have been seeing each other for about three months. She is a Medical Doctor, an Endocrinologist, and owns her own home in Sacramento. She is about six years older than Dave and they met at the Crocker Art museum in downtown Sacramento at some fundraiser. David was flirting with her and she told him she was too old for him, but that didn't stop him. She is a Christian and a native of Sacramento. She is a very nice girl, an easy conversationalist, smart and attractive and we enjoyed our evening with them. David has dated off and on, but didn't want to introduce any of the other girls as the relationships weren't serious. He really likes Maya, so will be interesting to see where this goes. If anywhere.

 

Darla and I are setting up our replacement trip for Lake Almanor. We found a 4 bedroom condo in Zephyr Cove (on Lake Tahoe) to rent. It is in a private gated condo complex and includes use of the private pool and hot tub. It is a third floor corner unit with views of the Lake. Looking forward to spending time with Samantha, Jennifer and McKenny. The boys have a European vacation with their Dad in June and will only be able to come for the weekend, but we will have a ball. The condo will allow Jennifer to bring Maceo as well. We will be able to go to the lake, hike and relax all week. I'll be coming off a week of handling scoring for the National Trusted Choice golf event at Del Paso Country Club for our state Insurance Agent's group. We have our media day on Tuesday and will meet with the National tournament committee, have lunch and then play golf in the afternoon. Burns is a sponsor of the event and we have two spots in the golf event Tuesday afternoon.

 

Wednesday I have a River Cat's Day game and Pete and I are taking two agents to the game and taking care of their lunch and drinks. Our seats are excellent and a magnet for foul balls. We are right behind home plate and there is a large screen protecting us from flying balls and bats, but high popups tend to fly over the screen and hit the facing of the stadium and careen back near us. I had one whiz by my head in the fifth inning and then actually caught one on a ricochet off the wall in the sixth. David's boss had come over and was visiting us and I gave him the ball for his seven year old son.

 

Darla did get back from her trip with Missy and her family to Monterey and I added two pictures of Missy and Darla to the blog. They had a good time, but were really late getting back from San Francisco on Tuesday. They got held up in the city and decided to wait for the traffic to die down before heading home. It is good to have her back.

 

The one nice thing about the master bath remodel winding down is that they had a cleaning crew come in and clean the bathroom from top to bottom. We in turn were able to get in and dust the bedroom and hallway which was where most of the dust collected from the job. It was pretty grimy there for awhile. Nice to see it finally winding down and I look forward to Friday and the end of the job.

 

I played in the twilight league Thursday night and actually played with Drazen in the pro shop. He is a plus one handicap and shot a 39. I had a 40 and we won again 14-6 and lead the league with 28 points. My partner, Ron, was in Kentucky for the Derby with one of his carriers. Saturday was the first round of our 54 hole Individual tournament. It was raining and I had trouble and shot 49 +41=90 on the day. A good comeback on the back nine, but the rain had stopped by then. I'm not doing great in the tournament so far, but have two more days to go.

 

David, Darla and Alicia all celebrate their birthdays next weekend, so we will get together with family for a barbecue. looking forward to seeing everyone. David met us at church this morning and then took his Mom to lunch afterward. We had Luis Palau as our guest pastor and his message was powerful and dramatic and there were many people who gave their life to Christ after the service. It was great. Luis is from Argentina and is 81 years young and a hoot. He is an evangelist in the vein of Billy Graham.

 

Well, that is it for this week. Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mothers in my life. Be well. Ciao. 

 

Alone Again...Naturally.

 

 

Busy Weekend is in the books. Even busier for Darla as she was in Lodi today at a street faire until 6 PM and then left here about 6:45 to pick up Missy and some of her relatives to drive them to Monterey for two days. Darla often wonders how she gets herself into these things, but it is because she has such a kind heart. Missy doesn't like to drive long distances or on the freeway and Darla agreed to take them to Monterey and then back through San Francisco and home on Tuesday.

 

I played golf yesterday at Timber Creek, a championship venue in Roseville designed by the late Billy Casper. It is challenging and made even more so by the heavy winds that we experienced on Saturday. The winds were sustained at about 25 MPH with gusts of 40 MPH. It was a strange day because the temperature topped out at 86 degrees even with the wind. I struggled in the blustery conditions and shot 47+44=91. I also played the first night of twilight league with my partner, Ron Floyd on Thursday. Ron is the marketing manager for my largest agency in town and we play together in the golf league. We played two 25 handicap golfers on Thursday night and smoked them for a 14-6 win and first place after the first week. Fun stuff. Ron played with me on Saturday along with Paul and Rico.

 

Today, Darla was up and out of here by 6 AM and I slept until about 7:30 and then got up, ate some breakfast and headed outside to work on the backsplash and river rock border around the pool. The rock tends to get pretty calcified over time and I took an etching product to the surface after power washing it. I let the etching product do it's work and went in to town to the Ace Hardware and picked up some aerosol cans of Thompson's Water Seal. I roll on the product, but the vertical backsplash surrounding the pool just drips right off, so I spray that on. I picked up a couple of solar lights for the backyard. The replacement batteries for the solar lights are $5 and the lights themselves are $4.99. They are plastic and tend to disintegrate over time with the sprinklers and intense heat in the valley, so I just replace them. I also picked up some Weed and Feed and a new heat register for the new Master Bath. The old one was dirty and discolored and I want everything new in there.

 

Unfortunately the opening is 10" x 6", but the register itself is 12" x 6". I didn't take it down before buying it and had to return the item this afternoon for the right size. I got back, hosed off the rock and then laid down to let it dry. Rest is an important part of the job..at least that's my story. I got back out there about 2 PM and put the first coat of the sealer on the rock. It took me the better part of an hour and I came in at 3 and slept until about 4:15 (The Rest thing).  I added a second coat at 4:30 and then ran over to the Ace to exchange the register. I got back and was putting it up on the 10 foot ceiling in the bathroom when Darla got home. I helped her unload. We ate dinner together. Leftover tri tip and baked potato for me and orange slices and cottage cheese for Dar. She has lost 18 pounds on the diet and looks great. Her blood sugars have dropped to the point that her doctor is putting her on a once a week insulin dose rather than daily. Very proud of Mrs. Lyon here in Northern California.

 

I cleaned out the garage after she left for Monterey and then edged the lawn and applied the Weed and Feed. I then watered in the fertilizer and weed killer and then came in to empty the dishwasher and work on some handicapping for the golf club. I had to get the handicaps out for the 54 hole event that starts next Saturday. It is an individual event and is our Championship in stroke play. Our Club Championship is in September and is match play.

 

Work continues to befuddle me. I lost two producers this month and slowly watched our numbers dwindle toward the end of the month. Friday was our last business day of the month and we had our biggest one day premium bump in about two years. We added almost $40,000 in income on $215,000 in premium in one day. I went from being behind 2015 to passing last year and getting close to our budget number for 2016. My staff continues to amaze me and it is truly the next man up (although my last two producer additions have been female).  We start May on Monday and the race starts all over again.

 

I added pictures from Samantha's soccer game, some pictures of the tile that got done this week and some pictures of the river rock job complete. I love how the sealant gives the rock a "wet" look and brings out the browns and oranges in the rock. You can also see a picture of our broken toilet and the damage to our new cabinet where it fell. The tile guy put the toilet up on the curb of the new shower enclosure. The curb is only six inches wide and we heard a tremendous crash as we were watching a movie last night. The toilet had fallen against the cabinet and then smashed on the new tile floor. We aren't sure if one of the cats jumped up on it and caused it to fall or gravity caused it to tumble. The contractor has taken responsibility for the accident and will repair the cabinet (it just needs some paint) and will replace the toilet. The cats were pretty freaked out.

 

The job will just about be complete this week. They will measure for the 3/8" glass surround for the shower tomorrow and it takes about a week to get and they plan to install that next Monday. They are out tomorrow to finish the plumbing and install the faucets, shower heads and hook up the sinks to the sewer line. They will also paint the T-111 on the side of the house and install a new toilet. Tuesday will see the baseboards installed and Wednesday they will have a crew come in to clean everything and hang the mirrors. Then we wait for the glass surround to go in. We are almost there and I'll be able to shave and brush my teeth in the new bathroom on Wednesday.

 

That is it for another week. I hope all is well with each of you. Glad to see that Jennifer and Kal finally got to meet Xander and will hopefully all be home early this week. Be well. Ciao.