2015-01-12 Spending More Time in Austin

After our 3 weeks with Karen's father in Seattle, we spent 5 days in Los Angeles. Our niece, Jessica, was in the Color Guard marching with her high school band and we wanted to support her.

Our 5th wheel was still back in Round Rock and we needed to get back to it and continue our traveling. We flew back to Austin from LA on the 2nd of January and stayed with Karen's sister's family for another 10 days.

I managed to find odd jobs around the house that needed to be done to keep myself busy.

Their garage was still 3 deep in boxes since they moved into this new house. The Christmas decoration boxes only added to the pile. So we put those boxes into their place above the garage first. Then Karen, Mark and I started in on the remaining boxes one at a time. If the box wasn't labeled I would label it. There was a garbage pile, a reorganize and stack it pile, and a donate pile.

Margaret pitched in when she got home from work and helped make some tough decisions that the men had no clue about. Eventually after Day Two we were only left with a pile of boxes against one wall and almost room to park two cars.

During the cleanup I got distracted and in the process of moving the dryer to clean behind it, I felt compelled to dismantle it and clean it with a vacuum cleaner. This was a task I was well suited for, having been a Sears Repairman in my prior life.

The dryer vent wasn't on very well so a lot of lint was being sprayed around the garage. I simplified the vent tubing, cleaned it all out, and reattached it. No more lint dust.

While we were cleaning up, Mark mentioned that Margaret had always wanted a cabinet moved over the dryer instead of where it was over the washer. Mark and I made quick work of that job and it was nice that Margaret noticed that it had been moved.

Of course, NONE of this has been documented with pictures. All the participants were too busy doing the work to get any.

About a week later Margaret noticed water coming up from under the water heater wall. Mark and I diagnosed it as a bad water valve going to the washing machine. ONLY two trips to the hardware store later and we had replaced BOTH of the rusty valves.

On our second trip to the store I suggested that we pick up a door insulation kit because both of their outside doors were not sealing well and this probably wasn't helping their gas bill. We thought we'd try ONE kit just to make sure we could install it and make it work. It turned out great and the drafty door is no more. Mark says he'll finish the door going into the garage later.

With that done it was time to start acting retired.

Karen spent time with the girls by taking them shopping. Very few pictures actually exist of these events however.

We had a wonderful time with the Rogers family but it was time to travel on and head east toward Orlando.