Some closure in Amish country

Connie had her PT session on Thursday, which meant she was a) going to be tired and sore and b) she was going to score a lunch out of the deal.  We need shoes for our upcoming cruise.  Me because mine got ruined last January in the couple trips back to Ohio.  Connie because, well, they're shoes.  Me:  "hey, there's a place that has Buy One, Get Half Off 2nd pair shoes".  We go there.  Result?  She walks out with two pairs of shoes, I have none.

We went to lunch at Brown Bag Burgers, which we'd always passed and never gone in.  Not really a lunch type of place, was more for 4p drinks followed by some gourmet burgers.  Connie said the wings were good, my chicken breast was very good.

Made a 2p appointment with the local guy from Edward Jones, so in the interim I could go somewhere and buy some shoes.  The small amount we were going to be investing wasn't really enough for him to mess with and he was a super nice guy, but he did give us a good idea about CD laddering.

Last Friday was a day I was dreading, and a day I was looking forward to in equal parts.  6 months had elapsed since my mother passed away, and it was time to close her trust.  The part I dreaded was dealing with FC Bank for hopefully the final time.  Man, I had nothing but problems with them.  It was my Mom's local bank, the only one in her little town, and just a pain.  I looked at their locator map and saw that Shiloh, Ohio was the closest branch to me.  I was looking forward to it because my time as executor was about to be over.

I get up Friday morning and took the hour drive through Amish country.  Passed a couple of buggies. GPS said I was there, but I was at an Amish market.  Yep, sure enough, FC Bank had an office in there.  Girl who closed out the account couldn't have been nicer, AND I got to score some Amish cheese and some Amish butter.  Bonus.

Then, I had to drive to the nearest PNC Bank on my way home which was in Norwalk.  Another great run through farm country.  Amazingly, there were no detours, no construction along my route.  I'm thinking the Amish buggies don't tear up the roads too much.

Get home and start looking over CD rates.  Best rates are at the First Internet Bank of Indiana.  (It had kind of a cult name.  Kind of like all those dodges to get religious breaks, like the First Internet Church of God.)  But, after some research and phone calls, we decided to go that way.  Better than the 0.1% APY PNC bank offers in my savings account.

Sunday, I smoked a pork butt.  Been awhile, and never in this smoker.  (Not one of Connie's favorites, but Bethany loves pulled pork).  You can follow it along here.  Result was one of my better efforts.  The process was awful.

Where have we been?

We've been lazy, that's where.

Making a July 4th resolution to post more, so let me catch you up.

Connie's been undergoing her treatments every three weeks, and she's hanging in there.  She's not as mobile as she'd like to be, but we're hoping recent visits to the spine doctor, an epidural next week and PT to follow will be a help.

Pretty much a season and a half have come and gone since our last post.  We've relocated in Texas to Port Aransas (Pioneer RV Park) as a home base for the entire season, not just a couple of months in the fall.  Our Ohio base is still Timber Ridge Campground south of Vermilion.

Our grand daughter, Kingsley, is now two years old and cute as a button, just like her mother.

We lost Carmen in February of 2016 to cancer that got into her spine.  In June of 2016, we welcomed Tangy (Tan-jee, like "Olentangy") to our home.  She's ornery, very loving, and can be, well, batsh*t crazy at times, but she's a welcome addition.

I lost my Mom at age 91 this past January.  It was a pretty stressful time since I was in Texas and she was in Ohio.  She fell the day before Christmas Eve and I talked to her from the hospital.  She was upset that she fell, didn't really know how, and they were keeping her there because some enzymes weren't right on the tests.  She had actually suffered a heart attack, had another one shortly after I talked to her, and literally lost the will to live.  She passed away January 23rd, almost exactly a month later.  We had her ceremony on her birthday (May 24th) when we returned to Ohio.

That's pretty much the (real) short story.  I'm hoping to wean myself off posting everything on Facebook and putting things here where they belong.

Thanks for reading.