Working on the EEEK EEEK Leak, and Finishing a Quilt

We got the leak stopped for sure now.  Even during a rain storm the other day, we didn't get a drop of water inside. Whew! Glad we got this thing tackled before it got any worse... or before it did any more damage.

While out and about for errands, we picked up a few tubes of good ole Power Grab. It's adhesive in a caulk tube an easy to use.  We find that it holds most anything to anything.  Wood, vinyl, metal, cloth, whatever.

This is what we were covering.....  around the base of the king sized bed. This is the compartment that holds our diesel engine as well.  The carpeting on it was okay, but we worried about mold and decided if we are changing the flooring, we can change the sides of the box base too. We ripped off the old carpeting... whew!  No mold!   But we decided to change it anyhow to the same cream vinyl soft flooring we did on the back wall over the bed.

Steve did a little squiggle of the Power Grab adhesive on the wood paneled surface.

Then he smoothed it out lightly with a finely notched trowel.  That way the vinyl would hold, but not have big swirly lumps under the surface.

Next tool is from my bag of tricks... yes... my rolling pin from the kitchen cabinet!  hahaha  It worked good to smooth out the vinyl and keep it in place.  The Power Grab sets up quickly. He worked around the entire base and got the pre-cut vinyl on in a matter of minutes.   P.S. this is leftover vinyl flooring from our upstairs bathroom.

Now the base of the bed matches the back wall 

where we removed the mirror last year. ... 

The flooring is painted blue for now, 

but we picked up some soft grey textured carpet tiles 

that we are going to lay tomorrow. 

In my last blog, I mentioned that Steve re-wired our power supply cord to now directly feed into the Progressive Industries Electrical Management System. For now this will work by just dropping our big 50 amp power cord (a.k.a. The Snake) out the door and letting it drop and partially close.  Later he will cut a hole in the base of this compartment and feed it out through a trap door to the ground below. 

This will work for now in our own yard, but we will get it situated correctly and be able to lock the compartment again when the cord is in use.   Knowing him, he already has the trap door on order and we will hear the buzzing of a big hole saw in the near future?

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Steve helped me with a little project last night.  In my sewing room, I have two file cabinets with a large table top spread over the top of them as a cutting/sewing table.  It works well for me, and it previously was to the right of my sewing machine in the corner:  I keep my sewing machine on an old typing table (thanks Linda!) which has it just at the right height.  It has a clear plexi glass table extension called a Sew Steady device to give me more flat sewing surface. 

(this is how it used to look) 

I decided that I needed more table space to my LEFT... not on the right.  That way when I work on big quilts or projects, the heft of the fabric would be better supported if the table were to the left.  Once he helped me move it over to the left and turned it, I put the typing table to the right. Perfect!!

Now everything is in a much better position, and all within reach. And to think I had been thinking that having things to the right side, being right handed, made sense?  Nawwww   But I was glad I was able to figure a way to make it work better.  And glad that I have a husband who interrupted his watching of Hogan's Hero's to come and move it around for me!

This morning I came into my sewing room with a fresh attitude and sunshiney smile on my face.  Ahhhh that works so much better!

All along the wall under the windows is my big quilting frame 

that I use for doing the stitching on the entire quilts once I put the tops together.

(and lots of supplies underneath) 

The last wall to the west is taken up by a closet (also filled with more supplies and quilting batts and tubs of yarn)  and some of my other well-loved things hanging on the walls.  I surround myself with happy things and it sure makes a difference when I go in there to work on my quilts.

Speaking of quilts, I grabbed the newest one and finished sewing on the binding this morning. Steve had to go and drive his Old Fart Party Bus... so I had time to sew and ignore the housework while I did. Heck, I even stayed in my jammies until noon, to finish up this quilt.  LOL  The binding is the maroon fabric folded around the edges and stitched down. 

This is the quilt I started this summer when we took off for a week vacation.  Thus the name I put on the label on the backside. I am glad I got it done before "Fall" weather sets in.   Barely made it, I tell ya.   The back fabric was from a set of sheets that I have from cleaning out my dad's cabin after he passed away.  The color compliments the quilt, and it feels warm and snuggly, like "family".

I hung it out on the clothesline to get a good pic of it all finished. I love the feeling of each quilt as a piece of accomplishment and as a work of art too.  This one almost reminds me of Swarovski crystals with the rich deep jewels flashing in the diamond shapes.

It looks pretty good draped on the old vintage rocking chair

by the fireplace. 

This evening I am putting it to good use as I type this.

Yup, it's curled up around my legs and keeping me cozy warm. 

Stay tuned, we will be finishing up the flooring the motorhome,

perhaps tomorrow. 

Then loading it up to be Campground Hosts for Oct. 1 at 

High Cliff State Park. 

Spike! And A New Power Line

Spike!

I don't mean an electrical spike.
And I don't mean a spike in volleyball.
Or what they do to the football in an end-zone celebration.

Instead my "Spike" ended me up in the emergency room. Not fun!

My sudden spike in blood pressure went up to 190 and I was not feeling right inside. I alerted my hubby after using our home BP cuff, so Steve bundled me up and off we went to the ER in Fond du Lac. From there it kept increasing up to 226. They got me on some medication and it started to slowly come down. They ran me through an EKG, a CT scan, and of course all the necessary blood work and lab work. Then they gave me a second clonidine pill and I could relax and really feel it coming down.

After three hours I was finally in enough of a safe zone to be released. He gave more clonidines to use in case it gets above 180. Since I normally don't have high blood pressure, he is not putting me on a full-time medicine. Instead he gave me pills for just in case. And of course, he wants me to follow up with my regular family physician.


The very next day we ended up going back there again to see if we needed to change a medication because it was creeping back up again in the 165 range.

I am following up this Friday with my doc.

This happened once two and a half years ago, on the day I planned my dad's funeral after a horrible battle with cancer, and dealing with my stepfathers soon to happen demise also from cancer.

This time, it happens to also coincide with a dosage change on my hormone replacement therapy patches, which may be a contributing factor. But, I feel there's enough crazy family stress happening in my life from all angles that is contributing to the spike again.

In the meantime, I am monitoring my blood pressure and it's been in pretty good zone since --- so I hope this is not going to reoccur again.

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Onward to other things!

The ER doc prescribed me one hour of peaceful sewing or weaving or knitting if I feel my blood pressure going up. Now that is a good prescription to hand out!!

I managed to put together these 20 blocks into the main section of this quilt that I started while on vacation a few weeks ago. Now all I have to do is work on the borders.

I also managed to paint a rainbarrel for our brother and sister-in-law, Pete and Cindy. They built a new house and are starting their landscaping and yard work. The rainwater will come in handy. I use stencils and Krylon spray paint for plastics.  Steve drills a hole and puts in the bung plug and spigot.

Since we changed the color of trim on our house from green to blue, I decided to paint up a barrel in blue for us as well. I am selling the green one on the local Facebook Marketplace. I still have another green one in the backyard but I think I'm going to paint over that one next time it's empty so it can be blue as well. I just love using rain water on my plants and flowers instead of city water. Not only for cost but also because it is minus all of those chemicals. I even painted up both of my watering cans.

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Almost all of the crazy little helicopter seed pods are down from the soft maple trees in our neighborhood. We had a lot of wind the last few days and they have really covered the ground.

I've been waiting to spread my pretty black mulch around in my flower beds until these crazy things are done falling. Otherwise they look so messy on top of the black mulch.  The last few times Steve has mown the lawn, he uses the bagger device and sucks them all up. Then he deposits them in the city garage mulch piles for yard waste so they are no longer in our yard.

As it is, we still get seedlings 

popping up on our lawn,

in my flower beds,

and among my tomatoes.  GRRRRR

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It's a beautiful week of weather here in Wisconsin with low humidity and in the low 70s. Right now I'm dictating this blog while sitting outside in the shade on a lounge chair. I'm watching Steve work on his newest project.

Steve has decided to run a 50 amp line from our updated electrical panel in the garage out to our motorhome where it is parked in the back yard. He has acquired the heavy electrical cable, the underground conduit to run it through and a post with the 50 amp outlet and breaker, just like what you see in a campground.

Now if we have guests stay in our motorhome, we can safely run both roof air conditioners, the refrigerator, or an electric heater if need be without worrying about overstressing the power cord from the garage.

With our updated service in the garage now we can run a full 50 amp power line instead of extension cords. The old service was only 15 amp off the house, and we could pop breakers just running a vacuum cleaner out there or trying to cool the rig down before loading for a trip with the fridge on.

We had already called Diggers Hotline last year to do the fence and knew there were no power or gas lines or water service in this area of our yard. Safety first!

He measured out and marked the line with paint across the grass and now has commenced digging where the post is going to be set in cement by the fence.

I'm enjoying watching him work, and I told him there is only one shovel so that means he gets to use it!?  Next he needed to dig the long stretch from the garage out to the fence through the yard.

He rented a trenching tool from the local hardware store. For 30 bucks for 2 hours it's well worth it rather than having to dig this distance all by hand.  PS he has on his safety work prescription glasses and steel toe sport shoes from work.  Even in retirement, he finds use for them.

We haven't had much rain in Wisconsin lately, so our ground is pretty hard and dry. Steve will let the trencher do the hard work instead of his back.

He completed the entire trench in about 20 minutes flat. He only ran into three rocks and no tree roots.

It's about 35 ft long and 14 inches deep.

Once he was done, he took the time to clean the machine all off. Being returned a much cleaner condition than when he rented it. That's my guy!

Whew.. that is enough work for the afternoon.  He said we should relax now and take a nap. I am up for that!!!