Awake: 5:58am Temp 64 sleep 6+58 rain began @ 6:05 overnight @ Nicktown.
Ray & I do some quiet text on Skype because both our wives are still sleeping. After Kathy awakes, we skip the 8:00 am Mass & 8:30 KK meeting & zip out to Indiana, PA for grocery shopping @ Wal-Mart & Martin’s.
Today is our “will work for food” program. Outside work on the storage building is not feasible due to heavy rain, so after some causal talking with Melissa & the young boys, I head upstairs to the unfinished bathroom where I use Kevin’s soldering iron, paste & solder; then give those thin wires a good wrap around the larger copper wires, solder then together, replace the lid on the electrical box, test the fan & declare this fan business finished.
Soon after, Kevin arrives & mainly he, with a fraction of my help, replaces the full sheetrock panel we removed (2) weeks ago, Saturday 17th. Being proud of ourselves for not breaking that full sized sheetrock, I say something like: “what’s next?” Before Kevin answers, he flips the fan switch on & discovered no motor running. Huh! “I can’t believe this is happening” I tell him. We did not want to remove that sheetrock again. Fortunately Kevin went to the 3rd floor & was able to get his muscular arms & big hands stretched out far enough to turn the screw out & open the electrical box from above the insulation. He wiggled a few connections while I monitored the fan motor from below; sure enough, thin wires from a sister connection have joined the fault process. Again, my blunder; I had forgotten that connection also contains thin wires that mix with larger copper wiring.
In order to properly repair this glitch, Kevin suggests we make a relatively small access opening which we did. I was not comfortable using the old 100 watt soldering gun from Kevin’s grandfather, so I’ll repair this connection of wires with my 140 watt gun next week sometime.
Next, Kevin shows me his future “work to be done” list. There are many things on this list, which allows me to choose & select whatever I feel is doable. Some jobs are solo, others we can do together. Right now, Kevin will be busy grilling burgers for dinner, so I select the dirtiest job of all: pulling unused wires from the basement ceiling that run thru ceramic tubes in the rafters; obviously very old wiring.
Kathy spent some time reading to Matthew & Andrew while they ate their snack. Then it was her turn to get some work done. She’s still removing old wallpaper glue from one wall in the 3rd bedroom. She tried a new removal solution today, Dr. Pepper soda. She was concerned about the possibility of ants finding this sweet treat & concluded that it really didn’t work any better than the chemical she used last time. So she continued the removal using the chemical.
Before we knew it, the (5) min call for dinner echoed into the basement & up to the 2nd floor. I could hear my sister’s voice from above; she had just arrived from visiting family, friends & cousins in Ohio & western PA. We assembled around the dining room table; before meal prayers were said & then our “will work for food” program starts to pay off.
Dinner by Kevin: grilled burgers with blue cheese, grilled potatoes & mixed salad + smoothies for everyone; Kevin’s best hamburgers yet!
While Kathy washes dishes & cleans up the kitchen, I return to the basement & continue my wire pulling; then our time is up for this visit. We arrive in Nicktown @ 5:00pm, a little later than usual.
After washing up & changing clothes, K & I walk & attend 6:00 pm Mass @ Saint Nicholas Church & walk back to our motorhome. About an hr later, heavy rain with thunderstorms rolled thru the area.
Evening DVR movie with popcorn: “Roman Holiday” with Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert, Tullio Carminati. Hepburn got 1st break & an Oscar as princess yearning for normal life, who runs away from palace, has romance with reporter Peck. 1953. We both loved this story; so gentle, so dignified, so real. By all means, move it to the top of your list.
Lights out: 11:54pm
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