Friday night at last.

Dear Family and Friends,
Today has been productive, a nice pace for a change and a peaceful day.  I climbed out at 6:15 to a very cold room, no wonder since the doors are wide open to outside.  I quickly showered enjoying the steamy hot water perhaps a minute or two longer than required.  Then it was downstairs to make a cup of coffee which turned out good and start working.  Today that meant prewriting an appraisal that I was to see later in the day.  Then it was time to leave for a local ranchette with 5 acres and a nice layout.  The phone call was from Casey's Auto Body asking that I come in to sign papers so they could get their $4,600 from the insurance company for the work they did to the bug.  I told them that there were two warning lights flashing on the dash.  They said bring it on it and they would see to it.  But wonders of wonders, when I started the car after seeing the ranchette both warning lights were dark and never came on again all day.  I went to the auto body shop, signed the paper and headed to Hayward.  It was total job to be back in my little bug, a car that at 230,000 miles drives solid and smoothly.  Once I arrived I discovered that the owner of the house owned a Odyssey van like mine.  We enjoyed chatting about run flat tires which we both hate and I learned some things from him.  After I completed the appraisal I then drove to Castro Valley to do the driveby report I had already written.  I shot the photos, took at look at the house from the street and then headed back home arriving at 2:30.  The girls came by for a minute which was a nice break and then at 3:25 the report was emailed to the lender on time.  Later I heard it had been accepted without any review complaints.  Then I started to work on the next report that was due but discovered that I had no FHA case number.  No use writing the report without a case number so I did something more fun.

I went out to the motorhome and pulled the two 6 volt batteries.  They were incredibly heavy and I was very glad I had purchased the strap that lets you lift them a little more easily.  I drove to town and purchased two new U2200 Interstate Batteries but they will come in tomorrow.  I think the price was good.  I've seen them for sale at RV stores for $175 a piece and I paid $238 for the two of them so I felt that was pretty good.

I had a few groceries that I wanted but of course I could not find steel cut oats in all of Brentwood, rare little items to be sure.  I picked up fruit and some yams.  Ken told me that yams or sweet potatoes were incredibly good for you so I thought I'd give them a try.  Now to figure out how to cook them without destroying them.  If you have ideas email me at discoapp@comcast.net and share the ideas.

I want to tell you that this has been a pretty nice day.  I've been privileged to have phone calls with Nikki, Jason, Sibyl, Jerry, Art, Timothy and Sylvia today, and all enhanced the day.  It felt good to keep appointments to the minute on time, to get the work done that was supposed to be done, to get money in the mail and to finally buy the batteries that I've hoped to buy for months.

Tomorrow I hope to make it to church to hear our beloved pastor share her message.  Both Kallie and Keanna have a busy morning planned with their mom and dad.

Thank you for being a good sounding board, tonight my own car is back in the garage, my work is pretty much caught up and in order, tomorrow will be a good day, its the Sabbath after all, I have food on my shelves, a warm place to be and I'm feeling better, still coughing but still much better as my body recovers from being on the antibiotics for 10 days.

Love to all,

Tim