Rainy Days and Rain Nights

We had some Biblical style rain on Friday and Saturday with a huge downpour, hail, thunderstorms and a total of almost 4 inches of rain in 36 hours. The flowerbeds over the pool and in front of the pool overfilled and drained into the pool. The drain from the pool to the street filled up so much that the grate over the drain housing came loose and was laying by the side of the drain when I checked on it yesterday. It started out as a solid rain Thursday and Friday and by Friday night became a torrential downpour that over filled the gutters on the house, filled the gutters in the street and swamped everything in it's path. We sat Friday night and just listened to the rain and hail pounding the roof and were glad to have a warm hoe to hunker down in. The rain kept up on Saturday and again I jut hunkered down and watched the Masters on TV. We did venture out at 5 PM for church and the storm had passed on by then and some sun was peaking out of the clouds.

 

Today dawned bright and sunny although it didn't get over 63 degrees today. I set the DVR to tape both the Masters and the Giants baseball game and headed out to clean up after the storm. I had the tree in the front trimmed on Thursday and some of the branches that were caught up in the tree came down in the storm and I filled the trash can with the cuttings. You can see the original shot of the tree before the trimming right below the first picture of the trimmed tree. The arborist brought the canopy up and thinned out the branches, but to say he "shaped" the tree would be a misnomer. The tree is a Valley Oak, also strangely known as a Coast Oak, and it grows in clumps and fits, but is a great shade tree for the house. Unfortunately, it had been about five years since I had it trimmed and it had pretty well dwarfed the house. The tree crew did a great job. You can actually see our house from the street again. You can also see the nuisance tree in the neighbor's back yard that I had cut down in the third and fourth pictures and then finally the arborist up in the tree with his chain saw doing his work. He climbed the tree and didn't even wear a safety belt. I took  picture of the tree with him way up in it and then one zoomed in on him. He was very good at his job. It is a relief to have the neighbor's tree gone. I used to have a grove of four birch trees along that fence and had them taken out when we put the pool in. It was nice to not have leaves in the pool and then a volunteer grew up in the neighbors yard and hung over my fence inundating the pool with leaves in the Fall. I told our neighbor that I was having my tees trimmed and wanted her trees taken out and agreed to pay for the job. It will all be worth it this Fall. The arborist said the root system is very invasive and is likely already impinging on the wall of the pool.

 

I spent a good three hours out working on the downed leaves and the pool and mowing the lawn. The winds died down today and it was very nice. We leave for Vegas Wednesday night and it will be in the 80's there. Sam is on Spring break, so we will get to spend Thursday and Friday with her. Jennifer and McKenny both work, so we will bring her to the hotel with us and hang by the pool, go to movies, out to lunch and other "goofing off" things with her. We will be in the hotel until Saturday when we move over to Jennifer's house. We will spend one night with them and then move to the Excalibur on the strip for one night as we have a 5:55 AM flight back home Monday morning. We both look forward to seeing the kids and having some fun with Sam. I told McKenny to have the RC car fixed (it has a broken front axle) as I want to see Sam run it and help her build a track for it in her back yard. Darla wants to take Sam out and play soccer with her. We had hoped to see a game, but they are off this week for Spring break.

 

Work is going great. We are having a good month in April, but had a fantastic month in March. I was hoping for about $80,000 in profit, but we received profit sharing checks from five of our companies totaling $114,000, so my estimate of $80,000 was correct, but add in the profit sharing and we had a $194,000 profit month. It would have been nice to have that news when the CEO was here, but I'm thrilled. Pete and I were whooping it up on Friday when I got the numbers. We are actually above budget now for the first three months. I had a young college grad in Harvey's office for a third interview on Friday and we will make an offer to him on Monday. He is a graduate of Lehigh University and sharp. He is a soccer coach and official and currently works for a national stats company that works on soccer stats for MLS.

 

I had my first couple of PT sessions for my shoulder and my range of motion is way ahead of schedule. I ditched the sling after four weeks and I have very good flexibility. It is tight, but I am able to push it pretty good on my exercises and feel great. I had some pain after seeing the physical therapist because she manipulates the arm and pushes me a little further than I'm willing to push myself. She said that most people after six weeks have seriously restricted movement and have to really ease into the exercises. My ROM is very good and she actually moved me into the three week exercises after the first week. I can start to chip and putt in a month and will be back to the driver by June 17th which is four months after surgery. That was the best case scenario and I am living that dream.

 

Darla and I will go to the River Cats baseball game tomorrow night with Charlie and Frieda. We were supposed to go to the season opener on Thursday night but it was rained out. They are having a double header on Monday, but we only plan on going to the second game. I have PT on Monday afternoon at 5 and have asked if they can get me in earlier. They have a good barbecue place up in the Solon Club, which is only open to season ticket holders and we will have dinner up there. We were going to take Miya and Dave, but Miya had a conflict.

I also have a picture of Samantha from her book report on Harry Potter. She was J.K. Rowling and gave the book report as the author. She had memorized the speech and had cards as a prop, but didn't refer to them. She wore one of her Mom's suit coat with the sleeves rolled up and looked like a little executive. Cuteness.

 

I will be back at the keyboard next week AFTER Easter and will return with stories and pictures of our trip to Las Vegas. Until then, enjoy the biggest gift you will ever be offered, the gift of eternal life paid for by the death on the cross of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Praise God. Have a great Easter!