From Sou Chef to Engineer

When Ethan comes over on Wednesdays, he often helps me cook. He's my #1 Sou Chef. Yesterday we traded our cooking skills to mechanical skills. We attempted to put the double stroller together that has been in our garage all winter.








After about 20 minutes we moved all the parts to Jim's garage. We figured he would put it together since it was junking up his side of the garage. (I decided this...and Ethan agreed)

Hope to post the finished product soon!

Did you mention retirement?

My work has been slow and never taken off as I wished it had. My Mom needs more coordination in her health care. Morgan was born. Ethan is a toddler. Baby Trueblood is arriving in June. Many people I work with are losing their jobs and no one knew what to do with me.

How are all these related? Pick Two reasons-- and retire!!

Most of you know I got my first real job when I was 16 at the Dutch Pantry Family Restaurant. I was so excited to be hired as a waitress. There was one small problem- the pay was 1/2 minimum wage and I was worried my parents wouldn't let me work while I was in school for $0.99/ hour. (Apple doesn't even have a cents sign on their keyboard) So, I just didn't tell them what I was going to earn. I was assured I would make over minimum wage in my large tips generated from serving coffee and frozen foods warmed up in a steam table.

Now move ahead 41 years...8 jobs, 2 children, 10 apts/homes, 1 husband, 3 dogs, 2 granddogs, 2 grandchildren and 1 on the way.

RETIREMENT is my next adventure. Some of you who have known me well might have heard this before. This times things are a little different. (see first paragraph).

I'm excited about my new adventure and to be surrounded by such a wonderful family who gives me joy beyond what I can express.

When the Cat's away...the Mice are lost!!

We have an ice maker...a really nice ice maker. It makes little cubes of ice which stay fresh due to a process where the ice doesn't freeze, they just get born-then melt!

You'd think my life would be complete---except the door to the ice maker has some issues. The problem is the door doesn't close completely at times  It just stays open about a half inch.  When this happens, Jim gets a screwdriver and does something. 

Jim left for the UK yesterday and won't be home for a week. That's a long time to leave a freezer door open.  Since I have no idea how to fix the door, I string arted it!  This looks just like the string art project I did in 7th grade (imagine colored string-smaller scale)

I'm thinking about stringing some other parts of the house!!

Like Mama, Like Baby

Anne Elizabeth got her first haircut at the Cameo Room Beauty Shop in Columbus, IN. If you remember hearing about Ethan's first haircut (refer to Anne's blog) ---recap---dirty children's place in Greenwood; then Corey's homespun haircut--it was time to approach the dilemma again.

After getting Anne's approval (very important fact of this story), I told Anne that I would be happy to take Ethan to the Cameo Room.

Presto! Appointment made for that day! I picked Ethan up at school and told him about our activity. Success-- we had a hair cut!



Looking a little timid after a quick wet down of hair. Should have taken before pic--major bed head look.


















About this time, Ethan starting saying "all done". It was time for the secret weapon- iPhone with airplane mode turned on.





A few self portraits...and a few text messages sent since Ethan knows how to turn airplane mode OFF!

Now, if I could only convince Corey there were no chlorofluorocarbons and ethanol particulates in the air this would have had a good ending!!

Morgan Elaine

Morgan Elaine Trobaugh turned 4 weeks and 5 days old on January 23.

Anne has made it out of the house just a few times since winter is hibernation time in the Midwest.

I'm Anne's mother, so I always offer advice. I told her she needed to get out of the house. People start getting weird when they never leave the house and the only color they see outside is-GREY! (ok- my main reason was I wanted to play with Morgan)

Anne left for Target and I got time with Morgan.

Here's what play time consisted of:













In between yawns, Morgan kept saying "I love you grandma".

Engineering 101

"To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the
glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big
as it needs to be."

Most everyone who reads this blog has either lived/or is living with an engineer. I'd like to think my life has been enriched because of this.

It's with this, that I want to show you Jim's yearly engineering feat. The pontoon boat needs to be kept unfrozen during the winter months on the lake. This is a perfect job for Jim. He can design, create, redesign, recreate and test for 3 months. Perfect it by spring, then disassemble and think about how to improve it next year.

His first design was to buy a heater for the water (from Rural King….my favorite store…FREE popcorn {did I hear FREE}). This worked well, but then Jim figured out the cost to run this heater and quickly realized he needed a new design. How did he figure out it was expensive to run? He actually sat at his desk and wrote numbers on a paper and did math stuff (probably Calculus….cause he can!!) This was before my blog--otherwise I would have taken a pic.

Scrap the heaters! On to Bubblers! The top picture shows a line between the 2 boats (yes, we're renting/giving space to our neighbors boat) with a device that churns the water. It's placed directely between the two boats. Now let the fun begin---Jim can do what he does best---TEST it! He can adjust a timer to come on whenever he wants to. He started off with Bubbler on for 12 hours, then off for 12 hours. Way over designed! Next iteration- on one hour, off one hour X 24 hours.

Jim can't wait until it gets really cold to see what other changes he can make!

Anything Can Happen Wednesday

Most of you who read this blog aren't old enough to know about the Musketeer's Anything Can Happen Wednesdays.








But if you were, you'd know that Wednesdays are fun days for me.  Here's some things from Anything Can Happen Wednesday.