Month: June 2026

Kevin’s been busy

I have accomplished almost nothing in the last few weeks. Not feeling guilty about it at all, well maybe a little. I did get almost all the binding applied to the motorhome quilt, but I need about 12 more inches. Of course that means searching for the fabric remnants and getting around to cutting them. I have found the remnants, but there are just a few shorter pieces left which means a lot of joining. Oh well, today or tomorrow I will get that done and finish the first step of the binding. Then I have to rearrange the sewing area to lay the quilt flatter so it doesn’t distort the last stitching. Sigh.

Kevin, however, has been amazingly busy! He has mounted the Navajo rug. That required making a frame with internal supports, stapling 2” wide Velcro to the supports and frame, then getting it securely on the wall.

He also replaced the mount on the outside TV in the motorhome. We hardly ever use it because it was flat mounted too high to easily view. He installed a rotating/tipping mount that should be much more usable. We probably still won’t often, but it might come in handy for movie nights with others. He also spent time on the phone with the Vroom slide guy, diagnosing our slide out issues. It wasn’t just as simple as replacing cables, since it still didn’t work when he did that. A motor or two might be dead, so we just gave up and set up an appointment with the guy in Red Bay to get it worked on. I am still pretty pissed at Velocity Truck Center in North Las Vegas for being the root cause of all this. If they had been more careful with tying back the wiring they untied, the slide would still be working. I know they won’t do anything about it though, so I plan on just doing some complaining on social media.

Kevin is also getting his new 3D printer on Tuesday! He ordered it months ago, but it was a brand new 4 color model, and it took a while to make and ship to the US (from China of course). He already acquired a 4 spool filament dryer, and says it works so well on his single spool printer that he is going to buy a single spool dryer for the motorhome. It is easier since we will be having full hookups most of the winter. Yes, he does take his single spool printer with him in the motorhome!

He has replaced the CVT belt on the RZR and got it all greased up. Since new belts need some gentle driving to break them in, we went to Wisconsin to ride the Cheese Country Trail. We have done it before, and it is a nice ride on an old railroad bed. We tried to start at Mineral Point, the northern terminus, but there was so much construction we couldn’t find the trail! We then drove to Darlington, the next major entry point. From there we ride to Monroe, had lunch at the Suisse Haus (fabulous Wisconsin buttermilk blue cheese burger!), then road back. The only complication was there were three big detours due to bridges being out on the trail. They added about 12 miles to the trip, a not insignificant amount! But I did take some videos.

Here are two of what most of the trail was like. Lovely country. The second one shows where the trail was dug into a hill leading to a pretty solid tree covered route.

http://Cheese Country Trail, 19 June 2026 https://youtu.be/9wMl0nDlJA0

http://Cheese Country Trail canopy 19 June 2026 https://youtu.be/8EkzJmttOok

And here is what the detour looked like. Still nice rolling countryside, but I missed the trees.

http://Cheese Country Trail detour through farm country https://youtu.be/OEqLOBY6hns

I also had fun at a ukulele seminar by Ukester Brown. The Des Moines Ukulele Society sponsored it, and he went over some strumming techniques and even how he memorizes songs (a real issue for me!). I brought my Kala baritone that I wanted to sell, though I played my new Pono. I think I have a buyer for the Kala! I am holding it for her.

That’s about it. In a week from now we will head to Whitewater State Park where we will stay while Kevin gets his heart testing done. I have a bone density test (super easy) and a surgery consultation during the same time. This trip will determine if we blow the entire summer or just some of it! Of course health is more important, but the older I get the more I realize we just don’t have that much time left to really get out. So time becomes even more precious.

Gonna be home most of the summer :-(

We did get home on Friday, 29 May. We were able to put the motorhome in its new outdoor storage location easily. It is at the end of a row, and is one of the few spots that is long enough for us! Being on the end, we can put a slide out if we need to do things inside which is awfully handy. Then began the long, tedious task of getting it ready for storage. Everything came out of the refrigerator and freezer, toiletries, clothes, etc. I drove the truck home and came back with the new Subaru, and we got it all home in one load! Kevin didn’t unload the RZR until Saturday, but it all went pretty smoothly.

Remember the Navajo rug I bought? I opened it up for a picture. Isn’t it gorgeous?

Granada Red style

Sunday was a big day at church. Our pastor is semi-retiring back to his home state of South Carolina, and there was a special service and a big potluck afterwards. The choir got to sing a fabulous spiritual with a soloist, a former member, who came back specifically for this service. I love blues-y spirituals! Pot luck was fabulous as pretty much all Protestant church potlucks are. (Side note: The only potlucks I think I have ever been to that were awful were in Utah. Limited amount and style of food, lots more people bringing chips and dip. My grandmother would have been horrified!)

On Monday we took my poor hail damaged Subaru into the repair shop. It was fixed (mostly) on Thursday and I got to bring it home. They had ordered 3 small pieces of trim incorrectly, so I will have to go back later and get those replaced. That said that would be a quick job. It was nice to get an easy to drive car back instead of the hard to park truck. We also got our new roof on Thursday which was a particularly nice thing. It was a good crew. They were respectful, only broke one plan 🙁 , and cleaned up the site extremely well. We still don’t know when the siding will be repaired, probably a couple of weeks.

I am also still waiting on when the siding will be repaired. It will probably be in the next couple of weeks, but no specific date yet.

And of course there were doctor appointments which will be a continuing theme all summer I am afraid. I was diagnosed with atypical ductal and atypical lobular hyperplasia (ADH/ALH) in the breast I had the lumpectomy for my ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Not cancer, not even a pre-cancer like the DCIS, but it does up my risk significantly. We decided to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It is only a couple of hours away, and I lost confidence in the folks I used last time. I had my appointment on Friday, and I really liked the doctor. Explained everything, listened well, described alternatives, etc. I am starting tamoxifen and will be having a surgical consult at the end of the month. The doctor said the surgeon might not be recommending surgery since the spot was so small – crossing my fingers! If I do end up deciding to get surgery, I think I will wait until fall. It isn’t an emergency, and that would fit my schedule better.

And the reason to wait until fall? Kevin’s heart murmur turned out to be aortic stenosis. He has 3 days scheduled at Mayo himself at the end of the month for testing and decision making. But it is looking like they will recommend a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR). It probably can’t take place before mid-July, and it might be later. With the recovery from that, we will be lucky to be able to get to the ukulele festival on 22 August let alone the late July planned RZR 3 day ride. Sigh. Getting older sucks.

We have had lots of rain over the last 2 weeks, and the landscaper says he needs about 10 days of dry weather to bring the equipment in the yard without damaging the lawn or irrigation system. I doubt I will get much planted this year since it is so hard on plants to get started in a hot Iowa summer. But I can start planning! Or at least, my beloved DIL can start planning. She has a tentative plan already, but it will need to be modified. Due to the new tree’s location, the landscaper decided it needed to be included in the bed as the picture shows. My backyard is really pretty small though my front yard is huge (pie shaped lot). The landscaper is going to pull out the current tree that is dead, add drainage and soil improvements, plant the new tree, dig out all the sod, edge the new bed with landscape blocks, and put 4” of mulch down. Big job! But I think I am going to really like it.