Good day, all. It is most definitely fall in KS. The nights have been down in the mid 40's to low 50's. Days are mostly in the 60's or 70's. I haven't so much noticed the leaves changing yet, but I'm sure that is just not far away.


Decided to take a WFH day today. The boy is up here working on the house. He's got almost half of the siding up on what I figured would be the hardest wall of the house to work on... the south wall over the garage. In exchange, Kev took the day off to work on the brakes on the boy's truck.

Otherwise, not a lot going on today. Meeting the crew for lunch at an Indian restaurant today. That should be fun. The Indian kid's last day with us is tomorrow, so we thought we'd do something nice like take him out to lunch. He thought he'd do something nice for us like help us out with what is good Indian food since some of us may be still having to venture to his homeland in the future.

Hi all!  Sorry I've been away so long, but you know me, I always come back even if it is just to say hello.

It was 92 here one day last week then later that night a cold front moved in and dropped us back to normal Fall temps.  We were under a frost advisory last night....there was no frost here this morning, but I guess they got one a little further north.  I've been wearing hoodies for the past couple of days....50s and I'm freezing!  I really need to move some place where it doesn't get cold. 

I have some news too.  Actually a couple of things; one I'll tell you about now, the other I'm going to make a seperate thread for.  First, my husband is going to retire next July.  The City made him a good offer that he can't refuse.  We'll be able to pay our house off with a portion of it and still have a nice chunk left over.  They will also pay full health insurance premiums for us, and he gets to collect his full pension too....no penalty for retiring 2 years early.  The only stipulation is he must retire before the end of December, 2011........if he doesn't take it, he will lose the cash incentive and we would have to pay half of our health insurance premiums beginning in January, 2012.   It's a long story, and kind of complicated, but it has to do with their hourly workers union contract.  The City is looking to save money, and by offering "the old guys" (employees with 25 years or more of service) this one-time deal, they will actually be saving a ton of money over the long run.  There are only about 15 employees eligble for this "incentive" to retire.  That leaves 115 hourly employees that can't retire next year, and those poor guys are going to take a royal screwing.  We'll be ok, but I feel sorry for the other guys.....it isn't looking good for them at all. 

While it's a good deal for him, it also causes me worry.  You guys know about his problem and the stress it's putting on our marriage.  I can't help but wonder how much more stress all that "togetherness time" is going to create.  I mean is "happy hour" going to be starting much earlier in the day once he's not working??  Past practice says there's a strong possibility, and if so, I don't think I'll be able to deal with it......it may be the final straw that breaks the camel's back.  I wish I had a magic wand.....that way I could wave it at him and cure him.  Anybody know where I can get one? Anyway, as they say, we'll see what happens, huh?

Rainy Monday to you all. We are getting some much needed rain. It still won't be enough though. We won't have colorful leaf changing here. They have started to fall, but they are yellow and then fall off or are brown and fall off. The lack of water all summer long really will prevent the pretty colors. Last night the weather man said it could cool off enough this week at night that we could have frost Thursday or Friday morning. If that happens, we will have 90* temps and frost within a weeks time.

Mz - don't feel bad. It was 93-95 on Friday with humidity and I turned the air on too. I was able to turn it off later Saturday as it cooled off.

Web, aren't earthquakes cool?! Okay, maybe only tiny little midwestern earthquakes that do no damage. Now every little bump you're going to think is an aftershock. When we had our earthquake a few years ago, I thought it was actually kind of fun. Again, no damage or casualties or anything like that, and it's kind of fun.

Enjoy lunch and WFH day Mema!

Ghost, unfortunately, that's a problem you'll have to deal with sooner rather than later anyway. That he's retiring under good circumstances, at least you won't have extra stressors to deal with at the same time. I wish you the best of luck.

Yeah Fuzzy, we're not going to have good colors here either. Which kind of stinks, because the county right next to ours counts on that fall foliage tourism. I hope it doesn't drop off for them too much.

Hope it's not gearing up for a bigger one.  You never know which plates are gonna shift or when they're gonna do it. 

It's weird, but whenever I think of an earthquake I always think of them being just in California or Alaska.  Always surprises me when someone here on the forum says they had a quake.