FrazzledApril's Blog

June 2nd
Jun 2, 2008 | 11:59 AM PST

Today... my father in law passed away.  At 9:35 a.m. Pacific time.  He was 83 years old... he took his last breath with my husband beside him as well as the hospice nurse and his care giver who has been with him for the last year and a half.  He was not suffering long, thankfully... and he did not seem to be in any pain, he was sleeping when he passed.

My main concern now, is for my husband.

I wish I could say that all that was on our minds -- on his mind -- was mourning the loss of a loved o ne.  Sadly, there will be much more to it than that.  My brother in law is... well, no other way to put it -- he's a complete pain in the #@!$.  He is 40 years old and has never moved out of the house and has been fully dependent upon his parents all of his life.  He has been harassing my husband since their mother passed 2 years ago -- about keeping the home and allowing him to live in it for the rest of his life.

For many reasons, this is not going to happen.  Although my FIL's will states tha tthe home is to be sold, we know now to expect a legal contest to the will... and everything will be going through probate with the additional burden of my BIL making it even more difficult.

It is a very long, drama ridden story that I will not bore anyone with -- suffice it to say -- the worst is still yet to come.  But for today -- I'm hoping and praying for my husband -- that he is able to take some time alone to grieve for his loss.  I wish I were there with him, but won't be able to go for a few more days.

 

Adventures in Rock Tumbling (Part 3)
Jun 1, 2008 | 2:20 PM PST

I have parts 1&2 in my blog -- with pictures of how these all started out.   When I started -- I had 6 pounds of rocks... after the first step (coarse grinding) only about half of them were prepared for the next step -- and they had REALLY lost a lot of mass... and so I added another pound and put the new ones in with the ones that needed further grinding and they started out the first step together again.  The other half moved on to stage 2 which is fine grinding.

After that... half went into fine grinding and half went into stage 3 -- pre-polish (which is really just the final step of grinding).

At this point... I am down to about 3 pounds of rocks!  about 60% of the mass has been ground away!!

So... I took them out to clean them today and to determine how "ready" they all were for their next steps.  Here they are -- the top half finished pre-polish and the bottom half finished fine grinding:

They are not shiney yet unless they are wet -- which is ok, that's just how they're supposed to look at this point.

Here are the first half again -- some have gotten SO tiny I don't even know what I'll do with them!!

And the bottom half -- these completed the fine grinding stage today and are ready for pre-polish:

Since there are so few left -- I decided to put them all together and run them all through the pre-polish stage.  Even though the first half have already been pre-polished, it will not harm them.  At the pre-polish stage it doesn't remove any further mass -- it just smooths them... so, I think it'll be ok.

They have to run through this stage for a week and then they can all go through the final polishing stage -- and they should be nice and shiny then!!  I can't wait!

If they are not quite sparkly enough by that point, I can burnish them -- which just means a mild soap/water solution in the tumbler -- it helps to shine them up a little more.

Good Morning!! And HAPPY June!
Jun 1, 2008 | 10:38 AM PST

Well -- I've been a bit distracted and have not posted a blog about my yard for awhile.   I have been doing a little work out there though :)  We've had quite a lot of rain, so I have not finished as much as I'd like to have -- but I can't really complain too much about rain, now can I?

My bigger 3 gallon pots arrived and so I transplanted the brussels... I'm thinking that 4-5 gallon pots probably would have been even better... but still, 3 gallon is larger than what they were in before and so I hope they are somewhat happier.

My ProtoGrow also came in and the first application was yesterday -- oh man it smells AWFUL -- but apparently it works miracles... so I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

Here are a few pictures... I laid down a few more bales of pine straw but still have 5-6 more to lay.  I think it looks a lot better and will also serve to help the plants a long too.

Here is one of my rhododendrons that is finally starting to bloom -- this is the only one so far but I'm really excited:

My hosta are getting quite HUGE!

And here is a small patch that I had to enclose... those are little impatiens and I really don't care much for the fence, but my dog Avery kept tearing through them and killing them -- and I love how impatiens look once they start to fill in and bloom like crazy -- so, I hope this will help:

That's it for now -- more later :)