Changes at Mostert's Mini Mansion on the Prairie

Lots of activity in and around the Illinois Mostert home in Champaign. New mattress came and has been broken in a couple of times..aaaah firm ... we can sleep again. The old mattress and box spring has been picked up and is now helping a friend's son sleep better. The heavy sofa bed in the cabana has been carted away by Salvation Army workers, along with lots of other things from our garage. Tepa has been out there moving things from here to there once again. New futon replacement for the sofa bed has come, the frame bolted together and this morning I hope to get the mattress out of its box and on the frame and all the cardboard boxes out front for Monday's garbage pick up.

I've got a doctor's appointment this afternoon to see if my planar fasciitis is doing any better. Still pains me in the heel when I get up from bed or from sitting for an extended period, but I can live with it. Does cause me to do less walking.

However, our Nutri-System regime is going well and the loss of some pounds over the next couple of months can't hurt I suspect. I don't know about Tepa, but I have been losing about a pound a day with the system. Food is not as bad as it was back in 1988/89 when Nutri-System helped me lose 80 pounds. I am hoping for a hundred pound loss this time. Who knows maybe there will be pictures down the line.

Should be in the pool soon, we finally are expecting some 80 degree days, although at noon today it is just 51.

Fixing the sewer

 
 
 
 

What a rough time we've had the past few weeks. The back bathroom toilet kept wanting to overflow when I flushed it. I tried everything...plunging, snakes, various kinds of drain cleaner, nothing worked. I finally gave up and called a plumber. He checked some things, ran his snake through the drain and went into the crawl space. Then said "I can't help you, call a sewer cleaner." He gave me a name, which I called. They came and cleaned some of the mess which had bubbled up in our front yard through the clean out. Ran their power snake into it and said. You've got mud in the sewer some feet into the yard. Call an excavator. Which I did. On a Wednesday morning at 7 am I hear a backhoe in our yard. The excavator, his brother, and his brother-in-law were hard at work. The boss was an artist with the backhoe and had a trough down to the broken tile within a half hour. They finished off with shovels and soon all the old tile was laying alongside the trough and a new PVC four inch pipe was installed, with a new clean out with a cap that screws on and off. He had to reach with the back hoe way under one of the bushes to get to the four inch cast iron main line from the house, but somehow he did it and the bush is going strong. He checked down the line with a probe and said he thought their still might be more roots coming into the tiles, so for an extra $125 dollars, they dugout another 10 feet, replace more old tile. Aafter a wait for the city inspector, they closed it off and were gone...by 10:30 am. Boss man called the sewer company and suggested they come and run their power snake through the line out to the street. Which they did..finding one more bit of roots, which they eliminated.

Now every thing works perfectly and we have used Pres. Bush's incentive money to improve the economy just as he wanted us to do. And we have the pictures to prove where the money went.

Terrible Winter, Wonderful Spring

This was one of the worst winters we have suffered through since moving to Illinois back in 1967. 7 or 8 truly heavy snowfalls, which is a lot for East Central Illinois. Almost made us buy a snow blower. Except by the time we made up our minds to buy one: they were all gone. We'll see what we do in the Fall. We had enough moisture to help every drought-ridden state of the union and still have enough for us. Of course most of that moisture, as river water, has flowed down our many streams to the Mississippi and on to the Gulf of Mexico. Naturally, with all that snow and rain, Tepa did not get out a lot; except for one multi-week period where she was taking physical therapy for her back and legs and knees. Her arthritis and other problems are now at the point where she cannot put on her own pants, socks or shoes, and especially not a bra. Fortunately, I can still do that for her, along with cook meals, shop, clean house, do the laundry and whatever else she needs done. She drives whenever we travel around town. If we have to go anywhere on an interstate, that's my turn to drive. Because of my poor sight in my left eye, she doesn't trust my driving (in town) ;) Which I find hilarious, since she doesn't have a lot of problems riding with me if we have to go out of town, at a much higher rate of speed. Which of course happens less and less often.

Spring has been an entirely different matter. The early flowers were. The weather has had several extremely warm periods. So much so that I was able to pull the cover off the pool early in April for the very first time. Water is still too cold for swimming, but it is clear and mostly clean and I am sorely tempted each time I finish mowing the yard. My next pool project is to hook our new suncover on to the roller and see if its use really works and heats the pool? I hope so. We have had problems with our back toilet not working. Plumber came to day. Ran his snake and slid down into the crawl space under the house and came up saying "I can't help you. You need the Schoonover Sewer people. They can ream out the big sewer line and take care of that flood of stuff in your front yard." Great guy. Didn't charge us anything. Smart move. If we ever need a plumber we know who to call: Reliable Plumbing. I contacted Schoonover and they are to come fix it (we hope) in the morning.

We are looking forward to having a mini family reunion here in Champaign in June/July, along with the big Mostert-Wiltbank Reunion in Nauvoo. June 23-25. My sister Trudy Wiltbank had nine children, 40 some grandchildren and who knows how many great-grandchildren. While her husband Jim was alive they started having a family reunion every three years. This will be their first in Nauvoo. Since we were (relatively) close to Nauvoo, they invited our Mostert side of the family to join them at the Community of Christ camp on the south side of Nauvoo. Looks like Timo from Utah, the Kari's from South Carolina and the Mika's from Michigan definitely will spend some time in Nauvoo and here in Champaign. Not sure about the Erik's from Utah or Sherry and Troy from Wisconsin. We hope they can make it, but as Tepa says it is more important that they all come to Champaign in 2 years when we have our 50th Anniversary Family Reunion. At the moment Tepa is saying she is not going to Nauvoo. We'll SEE! Stay tuned for the resolution of this exciting saga. And have a great summer.