AFC South Champs

Our Houston Texans ended up winning the AFC South, and will host Indianapolis next Saturday in the first wild card playoff game.  Anyone who says they expected them to win the division after starting out 0 and 3, is just lying.

 

64+54=18

Today, Honey and I celebrate our fifty-fourth anniversary. It was on this date in 1964 that we became husband and wife - easily the best decision of my life.

The secret of our long and successful union?  For my part it's - marry your best friend, someone who will be loving, supportive, forgiving, always in your corner - then don't die and don't do anything so outrageous it chases her off.

Thank you, Honey, for 54 wonderful years!

Living Up to Its Name

The old Boggy Thicket is living up to its name today. We had a little over an inch and a half of rain overnight, and its draining off really slowly.

2018

There is still one milestone to go - Honey and I celebrate our 54th wedding anniversary the day after tomorrow - but for all intents and purposes, 2018 is pretty well in the books. 

Looking back on the year, there were some very positive happenings and some that were very painful.  It probably balances out somewhere in the middle - for us, 2018 was probably a wash.

On the plus side - 

• Honey had successful cataract surgery last spring, and can see without glasses for the first time in over 60 years.
• We got a back porch and a pergola built, and we love it.
• I installed a shooting berm out by the woods, and really like that, too.
• We both made it through another year without any significant health issues.

Minuses -

• The Graffs, the best neighbors anyone could ever hope to have, moved to Ohio.
• All of the St Augustine grass we bought when we got the pergola is dead.  We followed the best advice we could find to the letter, and it's still as dead as if we'd sprayed it with Roundup.  
• We lost our black-and-tan dachshund, Tinker, on December third.

Here's hoping that your 2018 was at least as good, and that 2019 is better!

Christmas Camel(lias)

Our Camellias are blooming just in time for Christmas. The internet says that they can bloom anytime from fall to spring, but I don't remember them blooming for Christmas before.
Anyway, here are a couple of Christmas blooms to brighten your holiday....

Bonus

A lady named Barbara Beversdorf went to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge yesterday to try to get some pictures of Whooping Cranes.
She was at Lamar, Texas, bordering the reserve when she got this shot.

Tired

No post since Friday, but things have been happening.

The right front tire on our truck has had a very slow leak for the past month.  I'd inflate it to 45 lbs., and a week or ten days later, it would be at 28.  I pulled it off Thursday and inspected it for nails, etc. but found no punctures,  so I took it to NTB on Friday, and asked them to rotate the tires and check that one (suspected the valve).  They actually gave me a no-charge receipt, and said when they brought it back out I could just get in and go.

Then they called me back in to look at the tire.  

Soapy water revealed three tiny leaks - all in a row along the center line of the tire.  They said they could try to patch them, but the pattern indicated an internal failure that could prove catastrophic.

$250 later, with a new tire and a new receipt, I headed for the barber shop. At least my haircut didn't involve any unexpected expenses.