2014

I am not sure how it happened but somewhere along the way our boys grew up. 

They used to be these cute little kids and now they are grown men. I'm not saying that is a bad thing but there seems to be a consequence involved for me in that process. I got old. Now when I see a picture of us together I realize I am the short guy. When the 6th grade Bible class was studying the Exodus, we learned that Moses was 80 years old when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. I asked the class if Moses was younger or older than I am when he was sent to Egypt. They actually had to discuss it. A few thought I had to be older than 80. Some thought I was just in my seventies. Others said they were sure I was just 62. Why oh why was there no one saying I am sure you are just 40. OK, reality check 50 is in the review mirror but still 62 or older? Especially those kids that thought I had to be older than 80, they might be getting a lump of coal in their report card for the 2nd quarter here at Christmas time.



 Although I will have to admit I might have failed a little in the last 10 years. We went down to Menards to pick up 9 interior prehung solid core doors for the house we are remodeling. I had bought them on-line and when we received notice they were at the store we drove on down one fine evening thinking we could just present the load out sheet and be merrily back on our way home. Oh yea, that was going to happen wasn't it? First we went to door number 9 and waited until someone found the time to acknowledge our presence. Then I waited while an employee walked up and down the warehouse aisles looking diligently for our doors. Sharon was staying in the pickup where it was warm while I was out in the cold. I felt you would all want to know that fact so you could truly understand how much more I was suffering here than she was. Finally the dear employee searching so diligently for the doors asked a supervisor if he had seen the 9 doors with Royce written on them. "Oh yea I bundled them up and put them on a pallet this morning they are just around the corner over there" was his reply. Wow my hope soared now. Now we are just minutes from loading a pallet of doors with a forklift and heading down the road home.
The employee who shall from this time forth in this blog be known as Turtle due to his incredible speediness, climbed on a forklift and drove around the corner. Minutes past, more minutes passed, a half hour passed. I heard someone's intercom go off with a request for help and it sounded like Turtle's voice. More time passed and then this little Hispanic guy wandered off around the corner. About 15 minutes later here came the forklift at a crawl with our doors. No longer on a pallet but leaning precariously. The forklift came to a slow stop and Turtle disappeared.  Now I know all of you who know me are thinking to yourself, it is a good thing that Royce is a patient man or he would be going absolutely crazy by now. The little Hispanic guy picked up one of those doors and just hoisted it over his head and put it in the pickup over the side of the box. He had to be at least 5 foot tall and weighed, oh, 125 on a heavy day. Even though I am extremely patient, I thought I would just grab the next door and put it on the pickup to help speed things up a little. You remember that little guy putting the door over the side of the box of my pickup? Well I got the next door almost up to waist height when I realized the door I had picked up must be a lot heavier than the one he had loaded. That door was not going any higher and I felt like it was about to go down to knee level, when I got one end propped onto the pickup bed and could kind of shove it in on top of the one already loaded. That was when I decided that if they could not get their manufacturing standards to the place that all the doors weighed the same light weight as the first one must have, I was not going to help them out by loading any more. Especially as every door had to go a little higher.

I don't know if you can read the abstract below but if you can, take a look at the numbers.

I was really bummed when we picked this up after we had written a check for the house. Instead of the amount we had offered, I would have been willing to write the check for the amount the abstract shows the judge directing the executor to sell the house to us for.  Fact is, it kind of disturbs me that I might have gone against a court decree by paying too much for the house. That would be against the law, right? Sure, sure it could have been a typo, but one can not be too careful in following the dictates of judges.

We had an evergreen tree die beside our house this summer. When we had one die a couple of years ago I started to cut it down but just, well I hate to admit it but in the end I chickened out and brought in a professional to cut it down. 

Not this time. I was determined I was going to bring that baby down. I will admit I did feel Sharon could have been a bit more supportive. She kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to cut it down. Kept mumbling something about it hitting the house or maybe landing on me. Ha, my motto is "have chain saw will try anything once". I notched that tree and had it figured out exactly where it was going to land.

Except it didn't. It did this little twist as I cut it off the stump. It didn't fall so much as just lean into another tree. I don't understand. I notched the tree. Looked up to make sure which side the tree leaned toward. Had it all figured out that it would fall in the clear about 30 feet to the west. It was at this point when Sharon became very supportive of my tree cutting ability by asking if I was sure I didn't need to get some help. Not me, I had this one down cold. Of course every time I would cut off another 4 foot of the trunk and say a prayer that when it dropped again it wouldn't land on me, it would just land a little more perpendicular. Pretty soon I had that sucker standing just about straight up again caught in the neighbors tree. By this time Sharon was almost doing a little dance of excitement in celebration of my prowess.

All's well that ends well. I finally got a rope on that baby and pulled him over. Funny thing is I ended up exactly 180 degrees from where I had intended it to fall, although that does seem to be a common refrain in my life.

We have a three legged deer who spends a lot of time in our back yard. After she lost her leg, I am assuming by leaving a dent in someones car, she looked pretty tough for a while. A year ago I was riding on the bike trail below our house when I was stopped by a neighbor and asked to call the police to get an officer out to shoot the poor ragged thing. My response was "I don't think I want to call the police to come shoot a deer." He looked at me like I was some idiot tree hugging nature lover and said " If I had my rifle here I would nail it right now." When I mentioned that we were in the city limits and shooting firearms was frowned on, I think all I did was reinforce his opinion that I was some lefty liberal nut trying to curtail his rights to blast anything anywhere he had the desire to do so. He told me that he will shoot whatever he wants in the city limits. By this time I was edging backwards and hoping to just get down the trail and away. Oh silly me, that didn't happen. He said "Give me your phone." Now why I didn't just start pedaling away as fast as I could at this time I don't know, maybe it was like the man who doesn't move when a cobra is staring at him. I actually handed the man my cell phone. He called 911 and told them to send a police officer to shoot the deer. I am thinking, um excuse me but that is my cell phone number showing up on their computer system. He then starts telling the dispatcher not to send some namby pamby cop but a real good cop who will knock this deer down. Um, still my cell phone number showing up on their monitor. He hung up and handed me back my phone. I grabbed it and started pedaling away from there as fast as I could go.

Later I saw the deer still alive. She was being followed by last years fawn and her twins from this year. Ok maybe she should have been shot because our flowers are not safe from the 4 of them, I asked around to find out why she wasn't shot after the nice man requested in such a civil manner. Turns out the police just could not find where they were supposed to go to shoot the deer. Yea I bet that is what happened alright. Although they are probably still snickering about that Spoelstra nut case that insulted them and wanted them to shoot a deer in town.

Oh well they could just as well join the rest of the world, I hope your year was as much fun as mine.

Project with the Boys

We are working on remodeling a house that we have purchased as an investment with the boys. It was in pretty sad shape. The kitchen had some work already done but the rest of the house needed work.

Matthew worked on woodwork and laid carpeting among other jobs

Tony came along a couple of times to help with demolition and applied some polyurethane. 

 Micah put up trim and cut out the old door frames.

The bathroom was trimmed in a florescent pink the picture below does not do the pink justice. It was much brighter than the picture shows.

We ripped out the pink shelves and cupboards. Sharon demanded that one.

I don't know it looks to me like we lost a lot of storage.

All in all it was a great weekend to see how capable Micah and Matthew are. I really can't take any of the accolades for their skills. They have spent several summers working for R&R Roofing on roofs and other construction jobs.

We stuffed them all in the car and headed down to Joshua and Casey for Thanksgiving. A new pleasure, Joshua and Casey hosted Thanksgiving this year. I don't have a picture but wow there was a lot of food.

It is good to see our sons as young adults.