Dr Copa

Well, it’s been four years since we bought our new Roomba vacuum cleaner!  Our new vacuum cleaner isn’t new anymore!  I sent it down the hall as usual, on its weekly tour.  It usually runs an hour.  I usually hear it running; and I’m aware it’s working.  For some reason I became aware that it was not working.  We took it apart, checked it all over, but evidently it died of a heart attack.  No reviving, no emergency repair, off to the trash I guess!  I’ll keep the brushes and get rid of the rest.

 So after several weeks, we found another one on sale.  Very lucky, I think, my wife saw a flyer that came in the newspaper and off we went that weekend to get a new one!  I didn’t say anything at first; but I didn’t think it worked as good.  (I try not to start any arguments, you know how that is!)  But I decided to say something anyway this time.  Lo and behold before I could say anything my wife said “I don’t think that new vacuum cleaner works as good!”  I said “I think you’re right!”  She said “I’ve cleaned it once and discovered that the brushes are not as stiff as the old one, I’m thinking I might try to change them out as they look pretty much the same.”  But we’ll see, at least this one works!  And I really don’t have much time to play with it.

I’ve noticed as I drive around this area, exploring roads that I’ve never driven down before, is how many great looking Gaines Mailboxes there are around here.  Where we used to live in New England, practically no one spent the money on their mailboxes because in the winter time the wicked and most dreaded snowplow driver would frequently damage or destroy so many mailboxes. That was a cause of great frustration to many homeowners.

But now that we live in an area where snowplowing is not done frequently, I have noticed a lot of nice looking Classic Mailboxes lining the streets.  It actually is quite pleasant to drive through neighborhoods where the mailboxes are not all rusty and dented.  Nice Keystone Mailboxes give the casual observer the feeling that the occupants of the houses actually CARE about taking good care of their homes and yards.  They make a great first impression. 

I have a daughter that lives in New England.  She is a county deputy police officer.  She is soon to be a State police officer.  She has been invited to try out for the SWAT team.

I’m very proud of her!

When my wife and I lived in New England, we made our living doing landscaping work and grounds maintenance in the summer. We took great pride in how nice my clients yards looked.  Although we did basic work such as lawn mowing and shrub trimming, our favorite work was with the flowers.  In New England, the growing season is very short, so flowers are dearly appreciated when they bloom! 

We especially enjoyed working with planters.  One of the advantages of working with window flower boxes is that if you are planting something that can’t survive the winter up there it is fairly easy to bring the plant indoors for the winter – planter and all! 

I think my favorite window box planters were the ones that I filled with cascading petunias and the flowers cascaded all the way to the ground. That was simply breathtaking!  Lining the edges of a deck with a variety of decorative garden window boxes filled with dinner plate dahlias added a great dash of color to an otherwise stark deck.  And I like being able to move the planters around to mix it up a little bit, get a little variety.

3-D puzzles, who would’ve thought?  I’ve put a lot of puzzles together in my time, but boy was I surprised at Christmas when I got a 3-D puzzle.  I didn’t know WHERE to begin!  After reading the instructions three times, I started in.  It was a puzzle of a train station, with little cardboard figures.  It took about twice as long to put together, but it looked pretty sharp when I was done.  My next one is going to be of the Pentagon!