Yesterday we learned that we need to do about $700 worth of work on our irrigation system. That was after our 8-year old dryer’s motherboard went out and we had to buy a new dryer. This is the joy of home ownership. I think we have decided to downsize again, by a lot. We love our house, but do not need the hassle. In Mexico, we have plenty of local resources to work on these kinds economically. Here, not so much.
I am putting this image up for future reference. Tío Lauro took the picture before the front of the house started changing. We should get some great new pictures within the next couple of months as Lynn finishes with infrastructure work and starts adding some finishing touches to the ground floor apartment.
We have been thinking of a good name for the house. We have really never named any of our houses, but it somehow, in the spirit of Grandpa Milo, to give it a good name. La Casa de los Ventanales del Cerro de las Mitras was the first name proposed (by Tío Lynn). We actually kind of like that, but have not really settled on anything yet. We are hoping our friends will help us pick a good name. We might even get a plaque!
Christian was given one of the coolest challenge coins ever for some of the research he has accomplished in his job. He got one from his professor when he was getting his PhD, but this seems like a much bigger deal. They gave it to him after and invited talk he gave on that research. He is scheduled to give and even more important talk in a few months. It really is amazing to see him performing at this level.
Aunt Julia is the absolute best person. She promised to send me something from Grandpa and Grandma Jenkins house and, yesterday, it arrived in the mail. It is the Cottage Grove High School Yearbook for 1948, the year Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah graduated when Milo was Student Body President and Sarah was Honor Society President. My plan is to scan it in and send it out to all the siblings, cousins, and anyone else who wants to see it. The note says:
Hi Ken,
I promised to get you something from Grandma J’s house and came across this that day we all went to C.G. to see all the things Ann had collected.
Love,
Julia
Well, shoot. We just found out our dryer is kaput and it is only eight years old. The repair guy was just excellent, but we all decided (he, Lorena, and I) that it made a whole lot more sense to just buy a new one than to try to repair this one. That is frustrating, but it is also just life. After Lorena finish lunch we are going to head out to Lowe’s to order a new one. Oh, well.
There are big culture and spiritual things going on in our lives right now–many of them to do with just getting older and the kids really “owning” their own lives, but also in terms of global and national events and changes in the community we have been a part of our whole lives. Some of my very best friends have died (Warren B. and Al R. in particular. I was feeling a little sad yesterday when I noticed this picture of Warren and I from the time I visited him when he worked in St. Thomas, V.I. I could be mistaken, but I think this picture was taken from above Trunk Bay in St. John. He was the best of friends. Al was that way, too. Whenever we had not seen each other for a long time, we would just start up where we left off. I had to hold nothing back from either of them and they would call me out when we disagreed, but they did it agreeably. They are both gone now, but I am grateful for the times I had with them. It is really good for me to remember people who loved Jesus and lifted me in my always too weak efforts to follow Him. Al and Warren were both that way.
Lorena and I are embarking on an effort to read through the whole Bible together today. We have been reading through the New Testament 3-5 nights per week with Grandma Conchita over Skype, but just Lorena and I are going to start in Genesis and try to read the whole Reina Valera 1960 version of the Spanish Bible. This is as a result of some significant new changes in our church life. Depending on God is a good thing, but it is hard to remember that in times of turmoil and change. We are working hard to not lose our peace and joy. I actual ordered two, fairly high quality (goatskin cover) Bibles to facilitate the whole effort. I have made my way through various English versions (KJV, ESV, NASB, NIV, etc.) of the Bible over the last twenty years or so, I have never made it all the way through the Spanish Bible. Let’s see how we do.
I was in a really good place, health-wise, just a couple of months ago. Then, after the graduation and the holidays, I gained a bunch of the weight back that I lost (maybe 60%). If one squints their eyes, they might say I had a little bit of a viable excuse through the new year. But now it is MARCH! And there is no excuse for anything after mid-January. Yesterday, though, I climbed back on the wagon. I ate the appropriate amount of calories with zero junk food. Today, I am doing it again and also I put in my first walk in several months. The worst part is that I have move back up into the obesity range. I can get back down. I just need to make sure I do not get distracted again.
Month 6 WEIGHT: 220.4 lbs. BMI: 34.5
Lorena and I have been living according to an ad hoc schedule since when I finished my degree back in December. We have been at loose ends trying to figure out what to do next. We have finished almost all we set out to accomplish since we arrived in Texas almost three years ago. The only thing left is the thing that is, mostly, keeping us in Texas–that is the finishing of the house on the hill to the point where we can live in it well. We are still six or so months away from that. By that time, we will be close to the end of the year and time to receive family for the holidays, so we are thinking it does not make sense to do something else until early 2025. The election will have occurred by then and either Trump will be president or it will have been stolen again. Either way, that will be at least a little bit of an indicator about what we might want to do and where we might want to live.
I said all that to say that we have decided to try to start living a more ordered life again. To that end, we went out today after our worship meeting and bought fixing for a fine Sunday dinner of pork loin and vegetables. That is one of the little things we hope to continue to do through this period of uncertainty. We want to add other regularities like that to our lives.
Even after finishing my PhD at University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL), I continue to work there as a volunteer. We have collaborative projects with the ITESM University system in Mexico, a public/private water services company in Australia, University of Nebraska–Kearney, North Carolina State University, and the USGS, with other potential partners on the horizon. My professor, Troy is working to make me an Adjunct Professor at UNL so that I can act as a committee member for appropriate graduate students and have an official, unpaid connection with the university for work I would be doing whether or not they give me that designation. Today, I wrote them a formal letter to request an adjunct professor appointment, so we will see where it goes from here. I continue to work on the GRIME2 software and support the research efforts that use it. It is kind of amazing to us that it continues to attract user and has different applications than what we could have imagined when we wrote the software.
Lynn is putting the final touches on the apartments and potential buyers have set appointments to come seem them. The top picture is the base for the stairway leading from the main azotea to the azotea on the roof. The middle picture on the left is the equipment room with part of the hot water heater and two of the air conditioning units. Too its left is the asador on the main azotea and the grill that will sit over it is the bottom image.
Since I started posting back in 2004, I have written almost 4000 posts. There are a handful of guest posts, but the vast bulk of them are mine. By the time I hit the 20 year mark, God willing, I should be well over that 4000 mark. I have averaged just a little over 200 posts per year and plan to keep doing that as long as I can. The two big personal habits I have adopted that have had a monster positive effect on my life are 1) reading my Bible every day as the first thing I do (starting in 2006) and 2) writing in this blog, initially to have a record of our homeschool, but secondarily, to hold myself accountable with respect to many aspects of my life.
Lynn’s construction team should finish putting one of the final touches to the apartment construction: the stairway to the second azotea (roof entertainment area). It truly is turning into an amazing rebirth of what was not a very impressive building. At this point, we are trying to decide whether we want to hang on to the building for a while or sell it as soon as we find a buyer. Either way, we want to rent out the all the apartments so we either have cash flow to build a fund for our next project or to make the sale of the building more attractive to investors. Either way is fine with all of us. Lynn will decide.
Grandma Conchita, Lorena, and Tío Lauro visited a restaurant owned by Conchita’s first cousin in Allende, Nuevo Leon, not to far from Lauro’s atelier. The whole family has been there before. I showed the picture to Christian and he remembered the food really well. We are going to visit there a gain on our next trip.
Toda la perrada fueron a ver las casas, la foto arriba y lo de abajo a la derrecha del mero abajo estuvieron tomados por el hueco que va a estar el balcón de la primera planta de la casa del cerro. Estamos super animados con todo. El hueco como esta ahorita esta en la foto de la izquierda de abajo. Los que fueron so Rigo y so familia, Grandma Conchita, Lorena, Lauro, y Lynn.
Lorena is having a great time in Monterrey hanging out with her mom, her brothers and their families, neighbors, and other friends. Last night they went out for cabrito. After church they all got together at Grandma Conchita’s house to eat barbacoa. When they finish and Rigo arrives from the other side of town, everyone is going to drive over to San Pedro to see the current state of the apartment building and the house up on the hill. I am really sad I am not with them. These are the very best of times. Lauro did some practice sketches of my graduation picture and is planning to do both a portrait and an etching to go along with his semi-famous “El Científico” etching. I cannot wait to see the final product. I told him we want to put an etching of this and of El Científico together in a prominent location in the house on the hill.
Lynn is working with Lorena on the financial aspects of our little remodel projects in San Pedro and, today, she is going to do a walk-through of both of them. He sent us this picture of the work he is doing to build a balcony on the first floor of the house on the hill. It is going to change the character of the whole house. It completely opens up the first floor, both in terms of the view and of how much light will come in (that is a south facing window). The thing that is great that you cannot see because of the clouds is the mountains above and on the other side of the valley–the famous ‘M’ formation.
Tío Lauro took Lorena and Grandma Conchita to visit his atelier in Loma Prieta yesterday. They are having entirely too good of a time for me to not be there with them. The image on the left is side of the atelier that used to be a complete mess, but honestly looks amazing. With the recent rains, the nearby (one block from the atelier) is beautiful and the Río Ramos runs clear. The inset image is of an enchilada plate from a recent Lorena had never previously visited in the town of Santiago.
Almost everywhere we put our GaugeCam cameras, raccoons show up. They are amazing little animals. They have been particularly prominent at the KOLA location in Kearney, Nebraska. They are totally fascinating–I get addicted to watching them.
My wonderful bride is headed off down to Mexico to visit her mother who is having some medical issues. She and her brother Lynn are going to go over all aspects of their construction business, investigate plans for their next project, and most importantly, figure out how long it is going to take for Lynn’s crew to get our house on the hill in good enough shape so that we can go start spending a bunch more time down there. Lorena and I went to DQ for lunch to celebrate Valentine’s Day before she left. Notice she dressed all in red for the occasion and I wore my red Nebraska ball cap.
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