Tuesday, November 5, 2011 AM

Barbara complained that I have not been blogging enough, so I'm going to try to catch everyone up this morning.
It's been a while, so I'm sure I'll miss some important things.
Penny and Randy were caught in a routine traffic stop in Sneedville last week.
They are the duo who ran off with each other from Creeekside a few weeks ago, and came up to Clairemont and broke in.  They made off with my jewelry, which was an extensive collection of saphires, rubies, diamonds, pearls, topaz, emeralds, and some stones that my jeweler, Mark Enix, of Fountain City Jewelers, had custom designed for me.
I'd say the collection was worth well over $50,000.00 in value.  At first, I didn't realize what all they had taken, and gave the police a lower extimate.
The Sheriff's Office in Grainger County recovered some of the pieces, but they had been mutilated by having the stones gouged out with needle-nosed pliars.  I knnow I'll never see any more of my lovely jewelre again.  They had pawned my lovely rings for 'scrap gold' and had got $300.00 for them.
The Sheriff's Office has not been keeping me informed, and I have to try to find out when court appearances are happening.  They had promised that I would be kept fully aprised of the situation as it advanced.  They haven't yet told me that Penny and Randy have been arrested.
Work at Creekside is going slowly, as usual.  Stucco is somewhat slow, as the work he's doing now is not really a one-man job.  There's too many distractions, too.
Janie is working out really well.  She's a local lady who used to volunteer at the Goodwill with me, and she's "Little Miss Sunshine".  She works really hard, and all the time.  She sees the things a woman sees, and keeps cleaning and putting things where they belong.  She's a great help.
Yesterday, she brought a huge crock pot of homeade soup which was wonderful.
I'm now wanting to get going on the kitchen, so that she'll have somewhere to work with her creations.  She loves to cook, and we all love to eat.
We put up one of those round, plastic-covered growing houses in the back yard, to store lumber and materials in, so that we'll have more floor space in the house, and so that we can get some of the piles of lumber out of the yard and under cover before the winter weather sets in.  It's at least 20 degrees warmer in it on a sunny day.
My health has not had much improvement.  I'm very hoarse, and my voice squeeks whenever I talk.  I have quite a bit of trembling, and I still wonder about the possibility of some kind of light stroke during all this ordeal.
I had enough stress just taking care of Clairemont, then we took on Creekside, and began the revolving door with the employees, and now this home burglary and the loss of my possessions, and my nerves are shot.  I've noticed that I'm very 'jumpy' and almost jump out of my chair when something suddenly startles me.  I suspect that that's a reaction to nervous distraction.
The sun is shining on Clinch Mountain, so I must get started with other chores.
Sinse I mentioned Barbara at the beginning of this post, maybe she'll accept that as enough.
I'm 'Off and Runnin'!