November 21 - 27, 2024 Debris Removed - Shock Extenders - Wall Repair - Karaoke Night - Doctor - Drapes - Cabinet Repair - Pictures

 My Blog Reflection

The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.

Abraham Lincoln

November 21, 2024

Kelly has been down with a chest cold the last few days but was much better today. While she and Celina drove around hunting up a restaurant for the "Red Hat Ladies" to go for lunch after touring a mansion in Tampa, I hung around the house. My only project was to get the large piece of carport aluminum in the yard "folded" so that I could put it on the golf cart and take it to the park's shop to be recycled. When I arrived I found they had a large trailer with a pile of aluminum from the storm damage stacked ten feet high. There are still a number of damaged roofs in the park that have not been dealt with yet. I'm told contractors and materials are both hard to find. We are so lucky to have dodged the bullet.

The park has a nice library in the clubhouse. I went up and retrieved a book to read. I sat in the Florida Room and read until I fell asleep. I'm bad for that. I was awakened by the Prime driver slamming the van door as she delivered the battery powered Christmas lights we ordered to decorate our golf cart for the Christmas Golf Cart Parade in a couple of weeks. It will be our first time participating and it should be fun. In addition to decorating the cart Kelly will bring her Bose speaker and blast Christmas music as we wind throughout the park. After the parade there is a Christmas Party in the clubhouse.

November 23, 2024

We checked out a couple of garage sales in the morning. Kelly purchased a vase from Sweden for $20.00 which is selling on Ebay for $200.00. This one has a small chip so I doubt it is worth much. I didn't buy anything. Most of the stuff today was junk. We lunched at Waffle House and found it to be "okay". We hadn't been to one in years. 

When we got home I jacked up the golf cart to install the shock extenders I purchased. Of course they were the wrong thread and wouldn't fit. I took a nut off of one shock and went to Home Depot to check out the correct thread size before I ordered another set. I got on Amazon and ordered the correct extenders. Hopefully installing these will eliminate the bouncy ride.

My friend John picked up from the house in Perryville the items I ordered from Amazon, which unfortunately let get shipped to the wrong address. He boxed them up and forwarded them to me here. One of the items are new solenoids for the golf cart. I'm a little anxious about replacing them because the originals have not been removed since 1984 and are quite rusty. I've sprayed all the nuts and bolts numerous times with Liquid Wrench and hope that I have good luck getting them off.

November 24, 2024

In the morning I decided to start repairing the loose veneer caused by some water intrusion in a living room wall two years ago. I cut the top veneer layer with a utility knife and found that the veneer under it was not moldy nor wet. My "fix" is to reglue the top layer of veneer back to the inner layer to eliminate the "bubbled area". I made a cut along the length of the bubble in one section and applied glue under both sides. I then placed a piece of wax paper on the wall so the glue would not stick to the board I was attaching. I then screwed the board to the wall to hold the veneer in place until the glue dried. Here is a picture. I will wait at least twenty-four hours before pulling the board off to see how it worked.

We bought tickets for the "Social Sunday Karaoke Night" in the clubhouse for this evening. It was the first park event of the year for us. The event was well-attended and the pizza and beer served was a big hit.

There was singing, dancing, pizza, and beer. What more could you ask for? The DJ provided music for those willing to get up and sing.

He did a great job and really kept things moving. Almost all of the songs were "County-Western". Some danced but we just sat and watched.

Here is proof we were there. I pulled this picture off the park's Facebook page.

Of course, there always has to be one jerk in the group. We couldn't believe this guy wore this shirt for the evening. I am happy to report that Kelly and I weren't the only ones offended by his ignorance. He sang two songs. In protest we didn't clap for him.

It was an entertaining evening but after three hours we had had enough. We came home to watch football only to find that our Spectrum internet was out once again. This time there was an outage in the area, not an issue with our connection or equipment. Spectrum has had a lot of issues since the hurricane.

November 25, 2024

Kelly had another minor eye procedure this morning to correct some cloudiness from her cataract surgery last year. She gets one eye taken care of today and the other next week.

Kelly will be cooking a turkey and trimmings for Thanksgiving and needed some items from the store so we made that trip before heading home. Celina will join us before she goes to visit her cousin that evening. With just three of us even a small bird will mean leftovers for quite a while. LOL. 

Once home I unscrewed the board from the wall to see how the repair worked. I was pretty happy with it. In the picture below the first repaired area has the screw holes in it. I cut a slit in the next section to the left, filled it with glue, and screwed a wider board over it, hopefully to level things out. 

The following is a picture of the largest bubble. It is about two feet long and two inches wide. The bubble is about a half of an inch high. The moisture must cause a little swelling because each time if I didn't cut a little slice out the veneer would overlap when glued. I don't want that. My goal is a flat surface for finishing.

November 26, 2024

When I pulled off the wide board I learned that putting a wide board over the glued cut in the veneer was not a good idea. It spread the pressure too wide and did not do a good job of holding the veneer in place where it was cut. This morning I re-glued the second cut in the areas where the glue did not hold. I then screwed on much narrower boards. Hopefully these will do a better job.

Last year Kelly purchased drapes to complement the sheer curtains in the guest bedroom. Here are pictures of the sheers.

Lots of white in this room so we decided to keep the drapes floor length rather than cutting them off the length of the window to add some color. The drapes purchased were too long so Celina hemmed them for us. Kelly ironed them and we hung them up. We are pleased with the new look.

I have a couple of small pictures to hang but I need to paint the frames to coordinate with the drapes and other colors in the room. 

In the afternoon I went up to the clubhouse parking lot and played Cornhole. They play every Tuesday and Friday. There was a good crowd and they were all really friendly and welcoming. There were three sets of boards set up. Everybody drew a number for a team member. This eliminates "ringers" in the group. My partner today was Eric from Michigan. A really nice guy who lives only about four houses away from us. We lost every match. Surprise, surprise. The only "prize" for winning is bragging rights.

Earlier in the week Kelly had informed me that the cabinet door on her vanity was falling off. Upon investigating I found that the wrong type of hinges had been installed sometime in the past. To make the hinges work the installer glued blocks of wood on the inside of the vanity. The glue had failed and the blocks were pulling away from the cabinet. All of the hinge screws were loose because of this as well. Rather than spending money for different hinges, I re-glued the blocks in place and filled the screw holes using toothpicks and glue. It took a lot of clamps to get the job done. Luckily I have a bunch of clamps from a project a couple of years ago.

November 27, 2024

Once all the clamps were removed and the hinges reattached, the door opened and closed properly.

My last project of the day was to hang two pictures that Kelly brought from home.

We thought the wall in the kitchen was a great place because the green in the mat matched the wall color. We aren't crazy about the wall paper so covering it a little didn't hurt our feelings. We are happy with the look. It was hard to get a picture without glare on the glass.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow and enjoys the company of loved ones and friends.