Wasted Week

           This week was a wasted week in some respects.

          You know, because I’ve complained about it lots, you know we have really, really bad internet service here. Last week our internet company was working on a pole next to our back driveway. Mike went out and talked to him. Here, the neighbor’s internet had gone down and the technician was fixing a broken line. Mike told him that we were only getting 1 mbps.

          “Your neighbor’s getting 12. You’re on the line before him, you should be getting what he’s getting. Call them,” he suggested.

          We called — again! I mean, it’s not been all that long ago that I was on the phone complaining to them about the internet dropping out all the time. That’s when they sent me a new router. This time I was transferred from customer service to tech support three times.

          “Don’t transfer me back to customer service again,” I begged. “I’ve been there twice already and they said they can’t get me better service.”

          “You need a Eero,” he said. “It’ll boost your signal and stop you from dropping out all the time.”

          He set it up for me to get two Eeros and for a techie to install them.

         “Someone will be out on Friday, January 26^th,” he said.

          “Great!”

          January 25^th rolls around and Mike has an eye appointment to have his eyes checked. Every since he hit his head so hard back in July, he says he doesn’t see as well with that eye.

          “Why didn’t he say so then?” one of my peeps asked.

          I know, right!

          We were sitting in the waiting room when Mike got a ka-ding on his phone. “Your technician is on his way,” Mike read. There was nothing we could do at that point. Mike saw the eye doctor and she found nothing wrong with his eyes. No rips or tears or disease. He could use a little correction in that eye but nothing that warrants glasses unless he wanted them.

          “Maybe you just notice it more since you hit your head,” she speculated.

          Needless to say, the tech was long gone by the time we got home.

          The next day, our appointed day, while waiting, Mike got to worrying. “Maybe he won’t come now.”

I called the company. Apparently, because they had showed up the day before and we weren’t here, they had marked the appointment as completed. “The next earliest we can have a technician out there is February first,” we were told when we rescheduled.

          “Fine.”

          In the meantime, Mike and I went ahead and hooked up the Eeros ourself. It did improve our service. I was only dropping out a couple of times a day as opposed to six or seven times an hour. But it still took FOREVER for anything to load.

          “We see you have the Eeros connected. If this has fixed your problem, reply STOP,” came a message from the internet company.

          We did not reply STOP.

          “This time we’re not going any place until after they come,” I told Mike.

          Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we stayed home. February first, no one showed up.

          Seven thirty that night we got a message. “We apologize, but we’ve had to reschedule your appointment for February 2 between 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM. Let us know if you’d like to KEEP this date and wait for your technician to arrive or SCHEDULE a new date and time that works better for you.”

They put the words KEEP and SCHEDULE in caps because that’s how you’re to reply to the message. Mike replied “KEEP.”

“Thank you for your understanding. We’ll see you at your new appointment time.”

The second was Friday.

We waited all day and Mike drove me crazy. “I bet they’re not coming,” he said.

“It’s only 11. They said between 1 and 5,” I pointed out.

All day long Mike fretted, and I was getting so aggravated. “Stop waiting for them and do something else!”

They didn’t show up.

“Hi,” Frontier messaged that evening. “We know your appointment window has passed. We’re working to get a technician out to you as soon as possible. Let us know if you’d like to KEEP this date and wait for your technician to arrive or SCHEDULE a new date and time that works better for you.”

Mike replied “KEEP.”

The next day was Saturday. Mike and I had stayed home all week waiting for them and Mike needed to get out and go somewhere.

“We could go for breakfast tomorrow,” I suggested.

Mike called a couple of his buddies and arranged to meet them for breakfast.

The next morning, before we left for breakfast, Mike got a ka-ding on his phone. It was a message from the internet company saying they would be here between one and five. Like we haven’t heard that before!

“Maybe we should stay home,” I said.

“Nah. Let’s go. We’ll be home long before one o’clock.”

So, we went to breakfast. I took a couple of pictures for you but since it wasn’t full light out, I had to digitally lighten them for you.

          Mike and I were sitting in the restaurant, sipping coffee, chatting with his buddies, our orders were already placed when ka-ding came from his pocket.

          My heart sank.

          Pulling his phone out and looking at the screen, he read, “Your technician is on his way.” It was 8:15.

          “Should we cancel our order and leave?” I asked.

          “No,” Mike said.

          “I could go and you can stay and visit. I’m sure they’ll drop you off at home.”

          “Uh-uh.” Mike didn’t like that idea either.

          Our food came and we had a nice visit.

          Just leaving Dushore I spotted an eagle!

          Out near the junk yard, a truck came over the hill flashing his lights at us. We crested the hill and there were two giant dogs on the road.

         Mike slowed down. As we got closer, this guy decided to come over and say hello, getting right in front of our car. I was afraid Mike was going to hit him but he didn’t. As Mike sped up, the other dog ran down the road beside us.

          A couple of miles from home, I spotted another eagle! Two in the same hour is exciting considering I hardly ever see any.

          We were home for about an hour, an hour and a half, when the tech from the internet company showed up. I was so glad we hadn’t missed him. Especially since he found a problem with the wires and fixed them. Now our internet works like it should and I can send the Eero boxes back. We don’t need them and it’s a ten dollar up-charge on our account if we keep them.

          It might’ve been driving Mike crazy to sit home all week but not me, I like being home. I like making things and I’m enjoying this time where I’m not under any deadline pressure for commissioned products.

          The start of our sit-home wasted week began with a couple of inches of the pretty white stuff.

          That handsome Lamar Kipp called me. “My sister’s got a bunch of photo paper she wants to get rid of. Do you want me to take you down to pick it up?” he asked.

          Because I print photos for the church bulletin board, I go through a lot of photo paper. “That’d be great,” I responded. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

          They had more snow out New Albany way than we had here. I took pictures for you. The trees were so pretty.

          Loretta is a year older than Lamar and on the ride over he was reminiscing about their childhood. 

          I love Loretta’s house. It’s not only full of beautiful woodwork that no one’s ever painted, it’s full of lots of cherished memories. Loretta was kind enough to show me around and point out some of the most interesting features of the house. There’s a built-in cabinet/shelf unit that’s twice as deep as normal shelves and drawers should be.

          “I put empty boxes behind my stuff so it doesn’t go back so far I can’t reach it,” Loretta said. “It would’ve been better to make it half as deep and put a cabinet on the other side of the wall.”

          On the other side of the wall was Loretta’s sewing room and I have to say I agree with her. It would have been more useful to have two cabinets half as deep.

          The house has a lot of doors. “I think my husband once counted and there’s 26 doors in this house.”

That sounds like a lot to me.

          The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the placement of her kitchen sink. It wasn’t in the kitchen. It’s in an area I’d call a butler’s pantry.

          The next day I’m at my kitchen sink, when I look out the window.

          “They’re working on the poles,” I yelled to Mike in the other room.

          I watched as they finished with one pole and pushed their way through the weeds to our pole. 

          Mike went out and talked to them. “They’re doing the groundwork for the fiberoptic lines. You’ll have to kennel the dogs because they need to climb the pole in the dog run.”

          While Mike was telling me this, the mailbox beeper went off.

          “Mailbox beeper?” you query.

          Oh my gosh! Yes! The best invention ever! So many times over the years, we’d go down to check and not have any mail. Did the mailman come and we didn’t get any or hasn’t he come yet? To answer that question, we’d call the Kipps.

I used to go get the mail but for about a year now Mike’s been getting it. Making two trips to the box because he checked it before the mailman came is no fun. So, Mike bought a beeper that beeps in the house when the mailbox door is opened. How cool is that! We should’ve bought it years ago!

Mike went to get the mail at the same time a couple of guys were coming up. He stopped and talked to them. 

When he came back, he told me, “They don’t know how they’re going to get the line over the house.”

          “And they can’t climb on the roof,” I said.

          “Nope. It’d be too slippery with all the snow on it.”

          After attaching the cable to the pole in the dog run...

 ...two guys stood in the yard and tried to throw a rope with a weight attached, over the roof.

          I laughed.

          “Do they know how far it is?”

          They tried three or four times before giving up.

          I don’t know exactly how they did it, but they used the bucket truck to accomplish the task.

          My phone rang. It was Mike. “You should come out and get a picture of them in the bucket over the roof.”

          The picture doesn’t really show it very well.

          So, what I was doing while they were putting the cable up is working on my cute little redhaired sister’s suncatcher. Instead of a triangle in a circle, the symbol for Alcoholics Anonymous, this one is a diamond in a circle, the symbol for Narcotics Anonymous. This may look like two different pieces but it’s not. It’s the variation in the stained glass from one side to the other.

          After I finished Diane’s, I made a thank you card to Loretta for the gift of photo paper. I’m not talking about one or two packs here, I’m talking about a whole boxful! It’s such a blessing.

          Then, since my card making supplies were already out, I made cards for Rachel and Jean.

          Since we couldn’t go anyplace because of waiting on the tech to show up, Diane’s box as well as Jean and Rachel’s cards are sitting here in a pile, waiting to go to the post office.

>>>*<<<

          I’ve started a new project.

          “Now what‽” you say.

          I’m interested in watercolors and painting in general. But I bet you knew that. I checked out a book from my online library called Daily Painting by Carol Marine. I’m not sure I’m interested in all the technical aspects of painting, but I’m picking up other bits of useful information. One of those things is using Murphy Oil Soap to clean brushes.

          “It works better and is cheaper than Masters Brush Cleaner,” she says.

          Great! I think to myself. I’d just bought Masters and I have Murphy’s under my sink!  

          Something else she talks about is painting every day. She says it’s a thing with web sites and groups devoted to it and it’ll greatly improve your skills. In a nutshell, not quoting, she says it doesn’t mean you have to paint something every day but to paint as often as you can. You should try to complete a small painting, like a six by six-inch size in one sitting. Don’t worry about composition or style, try different mediums, different surfaces, try stuff you normally wouldn’t, learn something, but just have fun and paint something.

          All the artists I’ve been watching on You Tube all have their favorite things. Their favorite watercolor paper, favorite paints, favorite colors, favorite brushes. But the best advice I’ve heard, besides paint every day (and we’ll see how that shakes out) is to use what you have.

          I don’t have a sketchbook. I’m not sure I need one. I’ve got that cool wallpaper backing material that I’ve used in a couple of other projects. I could cut up a bunch of that.

          I got the backing out and was cutting different size pieces, some for an upcoming commission and some for this new project, when I remembered something I’ve heard before.

          Jenn, close your ears and don’t listen to this next part. You’re probably gonna hate it.

          Jenn, is my editor and an avid book lover. When I painted the church on the song sheet, Jenn was hoping, “...no books were harmed in the production.”

          “Where’s this going?” you wonder.

I heard that old books make great sketchbooks because the old paper contains more cotton fibers.

Guess who has a whole library full of books?

Yep. I do. Because of being closed up with no air circulation and dampness, most of the books are musty smelling and not good for anything, except maybe a bonfire. I found one that didn’t smell too bad. It’s a library discard of a 1906 edition of Rebecca Mary by Annie Hamilton Donnell. I Googled it. You can find editions in good shape for thirteen or fourteen dollars. The spine is falling off the one I have and at least one page has come out. The picture on the front cover is worn and missing pieces. I think that by using it for a sketchpad, I’ve given it a new life.

          I’d already decided I was going to paint a picture of two dogs. I used AI, artificial intelligence, to make pictures for me. I picked one, transferred the image to a piece of the wallpaper backing and set to work. I used my makeshift sketchpad to test my paint before putting my brush to the painting.

          At the end of the day, this is what I painted using watercolors.

          Not too bad, eh? At least you can tell they’re dogs.

          If painting every day improves your skills, maybe the next one will be better, I thought. And I’d try again the next day.

          The next day I decided to paint a different view of the same two dogs. And I decided to use a different paper. I wanted to see how watercolor would work on cardstock.

          I know! I know! I can see you shaking your head. Cardstock is a very untraditional base for watercolors. “Try different things,” Carol Marine says. So, I was taking her advice.

First, though, I wanted to try a quick, loose flower. Painting something with no intention of giving it away or showing it to anyone is very freeing. I worked on my flowers and when I needed it to dry before I could go on, I’d work on the dogs. And vice versa. When the dogs needed to dry, I’d add details to the flowers. The opposite page of the flowers was where I was testing my paints and playing.

“How did you like using the cardstock?” you wanna know.

I didn’t like it at all. There was one point where I was tempted to quit. The paints don’t work the same on cardstock and the water makes the paper buckle. Then I remembered this was a learning exercise and persevered.

When I next sit down to paint, I think I’ll switch to acrylics and try the pups again.

>>>*<<<

Michael, my handsome mountain man, has done something he hardly ever does.

“What’s that, Peg?” you ask.

He bought me something without first asking me.

“Awww. How sweet!” you say.

Not so fast.

“I got you something,” Mike announced a couple of weeks ago.

“You did!” I was shocked.

“Yep. It’s out for delivery,” he said.

“What is it?” I wanted to know, but he wouldn’t tell me.

The mail came. When Mike came back from getting it, I was grinning from ear to ear. Excitedly I opened the package. And my excitement quickly turned to disappointment.

“What is it?” I didn’t know what it was.

“It’s a dryer vent cleaner,” Mike said, pleased as punch.

I shoved it at him. “No thanks! Don’t need it, don’t want it.”

“You don’t want our house to burn down, do you?”

“No. But I don’t need one more thing to do. You can be in charge of it,” I said, got up, and left it on the table.

This week, Mike once again announced, “I got you something. It’s out for delivery.”

“Mike! I don’t need another dryer vent cleaning brush,” I teasingly replied.

“It’s not. You’re going to like this one,” he said.

When he came back from getting the mail, my “surprise” was in a flat bubble Amazon envelope.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Open it.”

“Well, I can tell it’s not a new camera or a new iPad. Why can’t you surprise me with something like that?” I mock complained.

What I pulled out was a suction stopper for my sink.

We didn’t get the right size strainer thingy for the sink so we installed it with the one that came on it. It didn’t have a basket stopper so I’ve been using my smallest Rachel Ray microwave silicone cover for a stopper. I did check for one at Walmart but they didn’t have one and since what I was using was working, I haven’t been actively looking for one.

I took my fancy-schmancy new sink stopper out and was throwing the package away when I saw a illustrative instruction on the back and laughed.

Seriously? 

Let’s call this one done.

Remember, and just in case I haven’t told you in a while, all y’all are in my heart.