Brake Dancing

Well, you know how it goes. When it rains, it pours. In the last month, Louie and I have had several repairs on our van. We really can't complain, since our van has about 164,000 miles on it. We love our van, and it has been a wonderful vehicle. AND, we are not ready to give it up yet. We love it for our 'Goodwill Hunting' adventures, as we can haul home about anything we find. We are not financially ready to replace it. It still drives and rides like a new vehicle, but in the middle of last week, I started hearing some rubbing noises going on in the rear, like in the rear left wheel. Our brakes have a habit of squeaking after it has rained, and after you apply the brakes a few times, the noise goes away. This time, though, the noise needed some investigation. We decided the investigation should occur though, about 9:30 Friday night, after we had filled it with gas for our trip to Milwaukee. Louie removed the left rear wheel, and discovered that the hardware that holds the brake shoes in the upright position was rusted and broken, and indeed, the brake shoes were rubbing against the drum, AND it was not going to be taking us to Milwaukee on Saturday. Now, Louie works for a couple of really nice guys who own the local Ford Dealership, so he called one of them and asked if we could borrow a car to go to Milwaukee. As always, he graciously agreed, and lent us a 2007 Ford Taurus.

Louie became a Ford technician shortly after we graduated high school, and worked for about 17 years as a technician. Then, 17 years ago, he became a Service Manager. His hands now, are clean and soft. Today, he went back in time, to his days of greasy hands.

This is the side with the broken brake parts. Louie ended up replacing the brakes, hardware, etc, and turning the brake drums.

He thought it was only right to do the other side while he was at it. It's a good thing he did, because he said, although the parts, like the other side, were not broken, they were frozen, and he doubted that that brake had even moved for quite awhile. He also replaced the wheel bearing, because it was about to break also. Good timing, huh?

So.....like I said, we have had lots of repairs in the last few weeks, but we can tell you now, that the front and back wheels, suspension has all new parts, so we should be good to go.

We believe that God protects, and although there were no major catastrophies with our defective parts, we were given warning ahead of time, and we listened to the warnings. God is good, and we feel blessed................AND I feel blessed to have such a wonderful, sweet, caring husband who used his day off to fix our van for us, to save us labor costs. That means so much to me.

All fixed!

Milwaukee Trip--Cabinet Revamp

Louie and I got up early this morning, and we headed for Milwaukee at 5:32am. We arrived at our friend Cindy's, right around 9am, I believe, and her daughter Jen(also our friend) was out running errands. While we waited for her, we started working on Cindy's new sewing machine cabinet. The plan was to cut a hole in the top, and install a shelf at just the right level, so Cindy could lower her sewing machine down into the cabinet, and the top of her sewing machine would be flush with the top of the cabinet. Jen had given her this cabinet as an early Mother's Day gift.

In the first picture, Louie has just finished working on making the template, which fit perfectly around Cindy's machine, so he could start cutting out the opening.

Let the cutting begin!

Once the opening was cut out, we needed more smoothing tools and sandpaper, so Jen made a run to the hardware store, and Louie and I installed the shelf, which we had pre-made at home the night before. I have a cabinet exactly the same, that Louie had recessed for me, so he already had a head start with his knowledge and he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Here is a picture of Cindy eagerly waiting, (and avoiding all the sawdust flying around her newly dusted house from the night before....silly girl!) Jen is busy doing the froggy stitch (Rip-it, Rip-it!) to kill time.

Ta da! The moment Cindy has been waiting for! To sit at her recessed cabinet!

Blurry, but you can see that her machine now sits on the shelf, and she is able to use her knee control for the first time since she has had her machine!

The bonus is, it looks beautiful all closed up and put away too. Cindy was thrilled, and it was a pleasure to help her do this, and a reward to see the pleasure on her face and the gratitude in her hugs! Jen, you did good, by picking just the right Mother's day gift!

After the cabinet was finished, we decided to go for breakfast, which was more like lunch, by this time, but we didn't care. We just wanted food! We went to our favorite IHOP place, and had breakfast afterall. Jen talked us all into getting a Beezlenut Splash, and it was SO FUN! We talked about all the possibilities of making our own, and what we could do to change them, for more fun! I said we needed the loop de loop straws. Wouldn't that have been fun? I think our waiter thought we were nuts. Four grown adults ordering Beezlenut Splashes! Hey, you are only as old as you feel, or in my case, how I mentally feel, (because I should be in an old folks home if it was determined by body aches!) Ha ha! So here are our drinks.

I had an omelet, which comes with 3 pancakes, and I just could not finish everything, so I finished off the pancakes and ate only a little over half of my omelet. I should have asked for a take out bag. What was I thinking? I was raised to not waste food, (hense, my shape!)

Here is Cindy, trying to get those jello pieces up into her straw. She's such a sweetie! As you can see, she couldn't finish her omelet either!

After we ate, we went 'junkin', (or 'Goodwill hunting'). We all found a few treasures. After we had hit all the treasure shops, we stopped at Baker's Square for pie. Gee, you know it just wouldn't be a normal visit with my Milwaukee friends if we didn't stop for pie! I had Chocolate peanut butter pie, which was DELICIOUS! Yes, Jill, I DID finish mine! Unfortunately, I left my camera in the car, so I didn't take a picture. We all sat at Baker's Square and talked, reminisced, and I laughed til my face hurt. The perfect therapy, in my eyes, is to enjoy, and laugh with good friends. It can fix about any problem I know of.

It was wonderful spending the day with Jen and Cindy. We came back to Cindy's, and we visited some more, then we had to give our hugs and head down the road. We left about 6:45pm, and arrived home about 10:30. I was getting pretty tired, and didn't want to go to sleep and leave Louie to try to stay awake, so I called my sister and chatted with her. She was buying groceries while we visitied, and it was good to talk to her. Louie was pooping out about the last 20 miles or so. He kept drifting to the left, and when I would say something to him, he said it was windy, but when he drifted across the road on one of the local streets not far from our house, he couldn't deny it any more.

As usual, we had a wonderful time. I told them the next time we come up, I'll be on the back of our Goldwing. Yippee!!! I can't wait!

Welcome to the Shoppe!

Welcome to the new and improved 'shoppe'! This is Louie's space. It is an 8' x 20" space built on to the back of our attached garage, so it makes it quite nice to access in any weather. It is a space where many activities occur. It is our 'fix it' shop. It is our 'build it' shop, it is where Louie repairs pool cues, it is his private space, and it is where he makes pool cues. It is also the space where he hopes to have a new cnc machine built for doing inlay work on pool cues. He is still in the process of building the cnc machine. This space is not new. It has just needed some TLC for quite some time. The 'Shoppe' has needed some reorganization, and more space lately so Louie could get in there and actually have some space to work. Between the two of us, we have been working hard at reaching that goal. In a previous blog, you will see the state of disorganization, and some of the steps we have taken to get here. I spent 4 1/2 hours this morning vacuuming, and doing some last little details. Louie had pretty much moved everything around, sorted, relocated, or thrown out previous to my 'spit shine' job this morning.

And so, our tour begins. Welcome to the 'Shoppe'.

Here is the 'end' of a desk, which holds his inlay machine that he is making work with cnc.

Here's the front view. Next to his desk, is a toolbox filled with all kinds of supplies and goodies

for pool cue making, (and some stuff that has nothing to do with pool cue making!) The box with the clear cover on it, is the box containing the working to make the cnc work.

Next, under the covers, is his computer, to try and make this all work, (and for fun too!)

More storage and counterspace.

The end bench holds his pool cue lathe, where he turns cues, does wraps, and such.

Turning the corner, are two of his saws, and the air hose. His compressor is in the garage,

and the air lines are directed through the wall so we don't have to make storage for the compressor.

Just a bit of trivia here. We moved to this house 12 years ago. Louie made the wooden car siding boards out of 19' tubing boxes from where I work. He sawed each board by hand, (before he got all his power tools), and measured, and figured the angles. He also pounded each board by hammer and nail. Later, we did the same thing to our garage walls, and by then, he had an electric saw, and air nailer, which made the job go much faster.

The compressor is on the other side of this wall.

More cabinets, floor, and wall. The wooden wall cabinets were recently purchased at the Habitat for Humanity restore. What a great source for reasonably priced storage! As you can see, the cabinets with the multicolored doors add character, and will be left as they are. A few of the cabinets do need some knobs, but storage clear up high, is for objects rarely or seldom used. (Yes, a tall ladder is indeed needed!)

More storage, and Louie's antique planer, which works very well, thank you!

Here are some cabinets that we stacked, and the little hardware drawers were added to the wall today too. They were sitting on the bench, and I thought this was a more appropriate space for them. You also can see Louie's router table, and another little grinder type tool, which sits on top of the table.

Here we are back around the room. The other door you see goes out to the back yard.

Thank you for looking at our new clean shop!

Mission----- REORGANIZATION--PLEASE!!!

Here are some pictures before we got started in our reorganization project. These pictures are a week or so old, I am just getting around to posting them. Louie's shop is in bad shape, and needs more space to work. Nothing is put away where it should be, and you can barely walk through.

Here is his pool cue lathe. I don't know how he gets anything done, or knows where anything is.

This shows that we have purchased a couple used cabinets from the Habitat for Humanity Restore.

So many tools, so little space.

Up goes the cabinets! Yippee!

Stay tuned for the 'After' photos!

Can You See What I See?

Today, Louie and I spent today with my brother, 'junkin'. His birthday is Thursday, and we knew we wouldn't be around next weekend to spend the day with him, so we picked him up around noon, went to see his wife, who was at work, ate lunch, said goodbye, and headed for the 'city'. We had a load of stuff to donate to one of the thrift stores, so we dropped our donations off first, so we would have room for more 'junk'! (Hi, my name is Michelle, and I have an addition to thrift stores).

First, we went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore, because Louie wanted some more cabinets to hang in his 'shoppe'. We loaded up on them, put them in the van, and continued 'junkin'. We hit several Goodwills, but the second Goodwill we hit, I found a treasure! I found an Electrolux Vacuum cleaner! It is the Silverado Deluxe. I plugged it in, and the powerhead ran fine, except it was hopping all over the floor. Louie found an eraser bouncing around on the brush, and as soon as he removed that, it sounded fine. I removed the powerhead wand, and checked for suction. I said 'Hey Louie, this thing really SUCKS!' With the $18.38 price tag attached, I didn't have to give it any thought at all whether it would be going home with us or not.

Ok, I agree.......it was not very pretty was it? It was dirty, but I knew with a little soap and water, it would look good as new in the not too distant future! We got it home, and since I hadn't vacuumed yet this weekend, I put a new bag in it, and tried it out. The powerhead kept losing electricity, so I started investigating the problem. I thought the pins were a little loose going into the floor wand end, so I had Louie look at that. I tried it again, and found that the problem actually was at the beginning of the hose. There are little electrical connections that make contact, and when the hose was rotating, it was losing contact. Louie took it apart, and fixed that, but it still wasn't acting too good. Louie wedged a little piece of wood next to the male end of the connector, as a little piece of plastic was broken off, and it didn't fit tight down into the female end. That tightened it right up. It was better, but it still was not as good as it could be, so Louie pinched the pins so they weren't round anymore. That made it fit tighter going together, and it works as good as new now! Yippee! Louie, you're my hero!!! Ok, so with that problem fixed, next, it was bath time for the old 'Silverado'.

As you can see, the cord was a little grimy and grungy...ok a LOT grimy and grungy! A little hot soapy water and a washcloth fixed that in no time.

Good as USED!!!!

Could this BE the same vacuum cleaner???? Is sure is!!! 'Junkin' is fun, but seeing what your treasures look like after a bath is almost as exciting as the hunt! Could you have pictured such a nice looking vacuum when I first saw it? I feel like I have just won a small lottery!

Springtime Bag and Gift Bag Appliques

Today, for quilting, Patty asked Renea, if she would share with us, how to applique, ....again. She had taught us before, and since Renea is our applique queen, Patty asked her to show us again. Renea was so sweet, and she made up some little kits for us to do today. First, we made a little gift bag, using a lunch sack, fabric cutouts, and ribbon. What a fun project! They went together quite quickly. Renea does a lot of these for holiday gifts, and birthday gifts. She is a recycler, like me, and she is SEW creative!

As usual, I act first, and THEN ask questions later. I pressed my little bears on the bag before I took the gift tag into consideration, and as you can see, I should have pressed my little bears on the bag a bit lower than I did. Ok, live and learn. We all enjoyed learning to do this though.

Our next project was this sweet little spring bag. Renea had all the kits made up, with all the pieces cut out to the right size, and this bag just is so darling! I just love it, and it looks so happy and springy, making me think of happy thoughts, singing birds, and flowers. It was a little more time consuming for me, since I am new at this, but everyone's turned out really cute. I love the little 'scallops'. We all learned to do the blanket stitching, or satin stitching, whichever stitch we chose, and realized there is a lot of starts and stops, but well worth the time and effort, and HOW CUTE!!!!

I know Renea reads my blog now and then, so Renea, sweetie, THANK YOU SO MUCH for helping us, and showing us AGAIN. We all appreciated it. You are a sweet friend to all of us, and we all love you dearly. Thank you, thank you, thank you!