So what have we done since the last blog entry??




This is called "Christmas at The Sherman's"

Those bottles were that empty when we started, by the way.  Needless to say we had a great time. Not sure where Steven was...

So that's Christmas.  What did we do on New Years Day?


Went to training at London with people like this.  Of Course this is Mandy and Jason Burgess from Chillicothe,  Of course you could figure out some of this by READING HER BADGE, but then you would have to ask my lovely wife what her husband's name was.

Jason.

So anyway, weather actually got cold so we built a fire.  We probably did that when you were here, but why would you care?

After being started by Ryan Tevis, passed on to Mike Wilson and finally landing in the care of you (and your family) here is what happened to the "guitar of someone's future"


It made heat.

Some of the timeline of the story may be wrong, but I really don't care.

Oh yes.  Jumping ahead a bit, Emma did indeed inflict serious injury on an innocent tree, but other that a concussion and some face bruising, she was out in service today with us.  Here she is at McDonald's:


The green in her face shows up better in real life.

So anyway, muzzleloader season was in December and those stupid deer refused to walk into the garden for the half hour I was out there.

Jerks.

Saturday January 3rd was a NOT FUN DAY. Muzzleloader season, no deer ( also was not really outside, but none knocked on the door.), Memorial service for Linda Brown who died after a long bout with Alzhimers.  BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!  Also a memorial service for one of Perry Caito's brothers, Charlie.  He had MS, I think.  They were at the *exact*same*time*

We (meaning your mom and I, certainly not Steven.) went to the Caito service.

Then about 4 seconds after that was over there was a baby shower for Marlon and Sarah.  Steven did show up there.  We didn't go.

Too much bad news - GOOD news!



I've gotten it slightly cheaper, but just HAD to get a picture of under $2 gas.  Price is rising most places right now.

Oh yes, the London training went wonderfully.  First day, we got trained by the lead singer of AC/DC how to maintain vacuum cleaners.  He looked different in person.

For the other 3 days we went, EVERYONE was jealous of us since we got to do the vacuum maintenance.  I gloated a bit. OK, ALOT.

I was able to swindle the sister taking photos to give me a copy of all that she took, but it cost me 12 bucks at Staples to buy her a 32gig flash drive.  I got one too.  Here she is with her husband:

And of course Stacey doing a mini-photo-bomb.

There were very serious moments like this.

And this.

And this.

But occasionally actual work like this.

Linda (Kasler) Runk and her husband Dave are there in the center of the photo.  Looks like serious work until you hear the story.  Dave takes the firehose all the way out the back door to flush it out and make sure it works OK.  But, it was cold and WINDY.  When the firehose turned on, all the water that had built up in there since 1974 when it was last tested shot out and since the wind in London is EVIL, it blew back in his face.  Linda said he was orange.  Sorry.  No photos.  Bums me out too.

So anyway, waht all of that was about is training people to do maintenance on Kingdom Halls, Assembly Halls and Branch Facilities.  It was truly cool.  Here are the approximately 40% who showed up for the final day at the end of 6 weeks.

Maybe 20%. Not sure.

So anyway, Justin Hand is at London today demonstrating how to wrap insulation on pipe for Warwick.  He will be going in a few weeks.

Oh yeah, Steven just bought another Jeep:

2001, V6, 180K miles, some guy in Columbus for $2000.  WAY nicer than the burgundy one.  Blah, blah, car stuff, blah blah.


Someday my hands are going to give out and I will not be able to do vinyl installs anymore.  Could be 10 years, 5 years, next Wednesday... just not sure.  So your Momma and myself are going to scrap stuff.  Starting with all the junk in the shed.  And the old furnace/heat pump.  Here is your Mom taking apart stuff I drug out of the shed.

 This is actually really fun to do.  You get to take things apart without worrying how they go back together. The you separate them based on the materials they are made from.  At some future date trade them in for loot.  Getting some advice from Phil Jackson.  Got to know him at London.  He does scrapping for a living.  Said he has got over $2000 for a load of good scrap before.  (Takes a while to build that up.)

MORE NEWS AS IT HAPPENS!


or within a month or so.

zanahoria!

NEW BLOG!

It's been over a month since Joshua went to Guyana, so ...

TIME FOR A BLOG!

2 days after Joshua left, we went to the London Assembly Hall and met Melanie and 20 or so of her family.  Not sure where the other 15 were.  Perhaps the most amazing thing is the following picture:


Amazing but true.  That is actually where Steven sat thru THE ENTIRE ASSEMBLY.  Not sure if you can even see the stage from back there or not.

This is a really cool circuit.  It is the other half of Troy & Stacy's circuit AND instead of a slightly grumpy lady in a bathrobe for a demo, you get Phil Jackson with tattooed arms and a huge wrench  to be the scary imposing householder.



After the assembly, we went to Los Mariachis in London with a portion of the Wilson family.


And no, I did not take this photo.  But thank you Google image search.

** 1 WEEK LATER **

First and next to last visit of C.O. Ronald Keniston.
Super nice guy with friendly outgoing wife.  Forgot to get a photo of him, so here is one of Jeff Houtz instead.

Right after that was deer season.  Incredibly, the entire 1 hour I was sitting outside the back door I did not see a single deer.  But fortunately Jim Leonard and his sons Jim, Jim, Jim and Jim did get some deer.  They got so many, he gave us one.  So one day while Steven was playing Dad to The Dean boys, Carol and I cut up the deer and added about 40 pounds of meat to the freezer.

Also at that time, December 1st to be exact, I started a diet. 180 pounds of fat and bones.  It's based on an Adkins diet of Low Carb, Low Sugar and all the meat, fat and anything not starch and sugar you want. 

That means, I was forced to survive on stuff like this:

And this:

Grueling!

The really cool thing is I lost 5 pounds in one week and currently at 173 and dropping.

No donuts, but all the bacon you want.  Definitely a Jim Gaffigan diet if there ever was one.

In other news, the greenhouse is repaired and already has a few plants in it that can withstand cold weather.  


The old truck topper is finally gone.  No more hauling that thing around.


And the most recent news - Starting on our Tardis Smokehouse.  Will NOT be accurate, but it will be blue and at first glance be recognizable. With smoke coming out the top, of course.  So step one is remove the old paint off the doors so the meat we smoke does not become contaminated with lead. Generally something that should be avoided.



More pics as they come.

And here is a carrot.