Monday, July 16, 2018

Phone woes, visitors


Friday afternoon, since Mama and Victoria were in town for Mama’s physical therapy appointment, they stopped by the local Sprint store and tried to get Mama’s phone switched over to Sprint. The Spring store did their best I suppose, but they were unable to get the phone working on the Sprint network during the two plus hours Mama and Victoria waited. They left the phone at the store and I picked it up on my way home; after I spent an hour in the store waiting. Still no service. Victoria let some of Mama’s more frequent contacts know that they would have to call my phone or Victoria’s phone to reach Mama while we worked it out. Then, Victoria spent the entire morning Saturday making calls to the Sprint service center trying to find help. Finally, about noon, a representative told Victoria that there were instances where a device was not compatible with the Spring network – there was no resolution other than to purchase a different phone. So, Saturday afternoon, Mama upgraded to a refurbished iPhone 7 from her tiny, outdated iPhone SD. Now she is individually connected to the electronic world once again. I still harbor a grudge about the “need” (generally speaking) but what can you do?

While they were at the Sprint store Victoria started a lease on a 50 GB Hot Spot for use at the farm as our internet connection. It was set up pretty quickly Saturday afternoon. It is nice to have internet connectivity at the house, but Mama and I have not tried to use it for out business yet. With the pending arrival of visitors to the farm we had other pressing concerns. Mama and I will still go to the office tonight to do a meeting with our coach – one of two we have remaining – because even if the internet connection is functional, the cell service is questionable for an hourlong call. We postponed our coaching sessions due to Mama’s surgery but are now mobile enough to finish out the sessions. In fact, Mama will be driving herself to her physical therapy appointment this morning. She and Victoria tested out her capability to enter and exit the Sequoia Saturday during their trip to town.

Trace, Krystal and the kids are still struggling to get their vehicle back in the road, so I went Sunday morning and picked them up for church. That afternoon they took the Sequoia home with them and I rode home with Victoria who had driven in separately to give herself more time to get ready that morning. She was also going to pick up the girls on her way to church. It would have been a tight squeeze to get all of us into the Sequoia. Anyway, Trace and his crew met us at church that night and since Mama had asked Krystal for help cleaning the house we had them take the Sequoia home that evening as well, so Mama would not have to pick them up before she needed to leave for her appointment this morning. Krystal and the boys will work at the house while Mama is in town. Mama is very excited to have the help. Krystal had a cleaning business of her own in Florida so there should be very little instruction needed – even though Mama will probably give instructions anyway.

Brittany and the twins will arrive this evening. She is traveling from Altus today. Andrew is stationed there at the moment. That shortens her drive to the farm today to a little over two hours – driving time that is. How long the trip will take her depends largely on how much time she has to spend taking care of Zoe and Sophia along the way. At any rate, she should be at the farm before I get there. Joshua and Alicia will be arriving sometime after midnight. It will be our first time meeting Alicia and her children. I believe Joshua and his crew will stay through Thursday morning and Brittany and the twins will stay until Friday morning. That way she can spend the weekend with Andrew on her way back home. It should be a fun time at the farm. I do not have enough vacation time remaining to take any time during their visit, so I will have to make the most of our evenings.

With the continuing hot, dry conditions, Mama and I have decided to give up on the garden. The vegetable plants are struggling to stay alive between waterings and have no energy left to produce fruit. This week I will pull them up and feed them to the cows. Temperatures are forecast to be 104 to 106° F through the week. There is no chance of rain. It is time to cut our losses and conserve water.  I will keep watering the trees and shrubs, but our vegetable garden is done for.

Sad day.

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