Accent Tile Victory

It still doesn't come out in the pictures but by light of day, the green accent tiles do look green.

After I stopped tiling last night and sat and relaxed, my body tightened up. I got up to go to bed and could hardly move. I'm still pretty stiff this morning but once I got up and got to moving around, I loosened up.

I had to take the cats in to the Vet today for their annual check up and shots. Oscar has gingivitis and Willy has lost a couple of pounds.

Now I'm back and it is time to get back to tiling. I'm going to get that finished today!

12:05 PM: V I C T O R Y ! ! !

I have finished the tiling. Shown above is the last tile. Me Am Happiness!

Now, before I rest on my laurels, I need to get to work on the shower and fix the hardie backer problem with the shower pan.

It's about four o'clock now and I have solved the shower pan dilemma. My original plan was to cut off the bottom part of the hardie backer rather than remove the whole board. Well, hardie backer is...um....hearty. My Dremmel Trim Saw wouldn't cut through it. And the blade on my skill saw was not up to cutting through either.

So, I just removed the boards.

Once I got the boards off, the shower pan slide right in to place. The drain was still a little cockeyed so I had to cut a bigger hole around the drain pipe. Again, I thought I was being so crafty cutting a nice tight hole for the drain pipe. Instead, it just screws with me down the road.

Therefore, the lesson is, in areas where it doesn't matter ascetically, give yourself plenty of room. Stop trying to be such a prima donna.

Now the shower pan fits in place nicely and I am happy for the moment. I am kind of concerned about the height of that drain though. It seems like it should fit tighter to the drain pan.

The Worlds Easiest Puzzle

It's a little before ten on a rainy Friday night and I'm taking a break from my tiling duties to stop sweating. 

I suppose I should be wondering why I'm sweating whilst doing a relatively simple job on my knees that involves nothing more than a caulking gun and placing little tiles into the proper spaces. I'm essentially doing the worlds easiest 100 square foot puzzle.

However, it is hard to be hunched over for that length of time doing that tedious work. It's a good thing that I am my own general contractor otherwise I would have fired my whiny, wimpy ass a long time ago.

I've covered some good ground and I'm going to keep going until Susan comes home from the concert she's working tonight.

Here's all I have left to do. It really doesn't look like all that much. For the record, I did a rough calculation and it comes out to 899 tiles.

It is now 11:11:37 PM PDT and I am finished for the evening. I have about 240 tiles left to place and they can wait until tomorrow.

I am very very close!

Highlight Tile Hightlights

I have spoken with my plumber and he informs me that the Hardie Backer needs to be outside the lip of the shower pan.

So, I am going to cut the Hardie Backer about a foot above the lip of the shower pan. Then I will cut it to the proper height, place the shower (hopefully) where it belongs and matches up nicely with the drain pipe and replace the Hardie Backer so it fits behind that lip and creates a nice solid water proof barrier.

It's another case of two steps forward and one step back that appears to be my construction modus operandi.

I spent about two hours tonight placing highlight tiles in the bathroom. The process is to squirt a little adhesive caulking into the tile space and then place the tile into the space, making an effort to center it as best you can.

I devoted about two hours to the job but I know I didn't work for two solid hours. It's very hard on my knees and back. So I squirt caulk into a section of tile, place the tile into the spaces with caulk and then take a five or ten or 20 minute break.

I got almost to half way before quitting for the evening at 9PM.

The unfortunate thing is that now that there is a substantial number of the green highlight tiles in place, they look black more than green. I'm hoping that will change when we get the final lighting fixtures in there to brighten the place up.

Tiling - Day Two Again Once More

My close personal friend, Ron finished the bathroom tiling today and it.....looks.....marvelous!

Now all that is left is to glue the green highlight tiles into place. I'll probably start that process tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are more pictures.

I'm very happy with the look at the entry. I love the symmetry of green tile at either side of the door.

The green highlight tiles shown above have not been glued into place yet. We just set them there and I love the way they look. I can't wait to get the whole thing complete.

It is amazing how large and bright the room looks now. I imagine that will go away once we start installing fixtures.

Tiling Day

I got out of bed at se7en this morning. I was thrilled to sleep in an extra hour and a half. I got dressed, had a nice breakfast and started to get the bathroom ready for Tiling Day.

My tile guy, who is also my close, personal friend Ron, was scheduled to show up at nine. I had to pick up all the protective cardboard that was down on the floor and retrieve the shower pan from wherever the hell I put it many months ago. Fortunately, the shower pan was right where I thought I had left it.

I hauled it into the house and BAM! Right off the bat, I hit a roadblock.

The shower drain does not match the drain hole in the shower pan, by about two inches. I thought it was going to keep us from laying the tile and setting the shower pan. It turns out we do not have to set the shower pan today. I need to contact the plumber and figure out what to do.

So we're okay.

My close personal friend, Ron showed up at the appointed time and we proceeded to get down to business. We had to put down some self leveling compound to even out a couple of areas.

Once we got to actually placing the tile, things went pretty quick.

At the start, we thought we would place the green highlight tiles as we went. They would not set up to the mortar very well so we decided to add them later and glue them in place with silicone.

You might notice that there is a row of improperly placed tile in the picture above. Don't panic! We fixed it.

We (my close personal friend, Ron) ended up working until about 4:00. We did not finish. We had a ways to go. 

Ron elected to return tomorrow and finish things up.

I'm very anxious to fire up the heated floor and feel the warm tile beneath my feet but I have to wait until everything has had a chance to dry.

Super Bowl Hot Tub Sunday

We are sitting here at the very start of Downton Abbey after having enjoyed Super Bowl L, with what Susan and I consider a satisfactory story book ending to a wonderful season.

The Denver Bronco's beat the Carolina Panther's, ruining their perfect season. I am happy with the outcome because I wanted to see Peyton Manning get another Championship ring before his retirement, which I think he will be announcing soon.

I walked over to the Hub to watch the game and Susan joined me just before halftime, after having worked the Monster Truck Rally all weekend.

I beat the crap out of my hands while working in the bathroom this weekend. I'm all bandaged up. I was cutting Hardie Backer with a dull blade on my jigsaw and when I grabbed it to replace it, it burned my finger. Then I banged up my fingers throughout the day just doing stuff.

We got in the hot tub tonight for the first time in months. It was nice and made me wonder why we have been avoiding it.

I think I'm all set for the morning. Ron will be here at nine and the tiling shall commence.

Yea!

Bathroom Follies

I think I'm ready for "Tile Day"!

I spent a good portion of the day putting up two pieces of Hardie Backer.* There is no good reason for the giant slowness of my pace...other than my lack of experience and ability. It just took a lot of measuring and re-measuring and measuring two more times to get the panels to fit.

But they are in and I am happy.

I still have a small amount of dry walling to finish around the area of my future cabinet. I'm going to try and do a little of that work tomorrow but I also have plans to walk over to the Hub Tavern and watch Super Bowl Fitty.

Here are some pictures.

*Side Note: I have heard Cement Board refered to as Cement Board, Wonder Board and Hardie Backer. I have finally decided to refer to it as Hardie Backer. It is the brand name I am using and they have a website that has been most helpful to me.

Four Days to Tiling

I completed my task with the Cement Board in the bathroom. I need to go over to the Depot at lunch and get some supplies for taping and mudding the cement board.

I'm getting excited for the big tile day coming up. It gets us one step closer to a working bathroom. I really want to get that bath tub in place.

After the tile, the next step is Wainscoting. Once that is in and painted, we can install the sink, toilet AND bath. 

We woke up to snow this morning. I went out and shoveled for 15 minutes and cleared my steps, front walk and sidewalk. I didn't think it was worth it to break out the snow blower for an inch of snow that will be melted by noon.

But I still want to use my snow blower some more so let's keep going with the snow.

Five Daze

Last night we completed removing the tiles from our tile sheets. Now they are ready to receive the accent tile when we start tiling in
. . . . . FIVE DAYS!

I still have to get back in and remove a piece of cement board. I thought I was being a real precision craftsman when I cut the hole for the shower faucet. It turns out it needs to be a lot larger in order to accept the flange that goes around the handle.

The snow is all gone. The forecast today is predicting snow but nothing like what we got back in December. I still want to do some snow blowing so I'm hoping for a couple more snow substantial snowfalls.

T Minus Eight Days Until Tile Day

Susan and I are both working in the bathroom and it isn't going well. I'm in my corner trying to finish the dry walling and cement boarding and she is in every other corner creating sanding dust and general mayhem.

Here is one of the problems I'm trying to get through. I need to place a piece of dry wall in that space shown below.

There is a six inch gap in this 2x4 so there is nothing to affix the drywall to at the top. So I'm going to splice a 2x4 into the space. 

This is what one gets when one splices a modern era 2x4 with a 2x4 from 100 years ago. One hundred years ago, 2x4's actually measured 2 inches by 4 inches.

So I had to find a shim to make it a half inch thicker. I didn't quite make it but it's enough to secure the dry wall so I can live with it. Any imperfections I leave to my bride who is a world class mudder/taper/imperfection fixer! I mean, crap! Look what she's done with me!

My other project is getting the cement board up in the shower area.

This is how far I got today before the clash of the sander. However, I'm told I need to remove the board on the right and make the hole bigger around the shower handle. I thought I was being really exacting with my precision hole cutting, but I forgot I had to leave some room to attach the handle fixture.

So, that looks like that's about all that is going to get done this weekend. We shall see how we proceed through the week in preparation for Tile Day.

Compulsory Saturday Post

It's time for a Saturday Update just because I haven't written anything since Sunday.

It looks like tile installation day is going to be next Monday, February 8th. That's the day after the SuperBowl. (Can I say that or must I refer to it as "The Big Game"?) To hell with it; SuperBowl! SuperBowl! SuperBowl!

I still have dry wall to install and finish the cement board around the shower area. I can't do it right now because Susan is in there mudding.

When she is finished, I'll get in there and do my work.

In the meantime, we have picked up our accent tile so we now have everything we need to start the tile installation...except our professional tile installer, Ron. We are expecting him to come by tomorrow and inspect the site. 

At that time we will figure out the best way to proceed.

This is one square foot of the tile we ordered.

This is one square foot of the accent tile we ordered. It's a dark glossy green.

We want to create this effect.

We could not find any tile that had the accent with the color we wanted, so we adapted, we improvised, we overcame.

We will end up marking the pattern we want on the tiles that need to be removed in each one of the 95 square feet we have, removing the individual un-accented tile notated in the pattern, and integrating the lovely, accented, glossy green individual tile into the aforementioned pattern.

Sunday Toils

We have returned from church and are watching the Seahawks being manhandled by Carolina. When we got in the car to drive home the game had already started and the Seahawks were down 14 to nuthin'. By the time we got home, it was 21 to nuthin'.

The Seahawks have the ball at the start of the third quarter and the score is 31 to zip. They have just had a great drive and scored. So here comes the come back.

We plan to continue working on the bathroom but not until this game is over.

7:40 to go in the third, Carolina 31, Seattle 14.

End of Game: Carolina 31, Seattle 24.

Crap!

Well, time to get to work. Susan's in the bathroom and I'm out in the driveway trying to clean up some snow.

I am pleased with my efforts.

I wanted to get out and get these piles of snow beat down, and to an extent, I did.

But my best accomplishment was getting this little pathway cut out of this berm in front of the house. I did that with a shovel, and in my depleted, out of breath condition, that's a pretty good accomplishment to accomplish.

Saturday Snow Day and Work

It's 3:33 on a snowy Saturday afternoon. Susan is busy going at the taping and mudding in the bathroom as threatened in the previous post. I am trying to get up the gumption to place a couple of small pieces of drywall in place. However, gumption appears to be thin at the moment. I'm thinking life as it is is ultimately going to require Susan to complete the bathroom on her own.

I have managed to thicken the gumption enough for me to go out and run the snow blower. It's been snowing since this morning and it is finally petering out. So, it is time to go out and do my duty to clear the sidewalks of dastardly snow and ice.

Oops! Side trip! My $400.00 drug was finally approved by my insurance and now costs only $40.00. I have to go get it.

Dumbass Alert: When one goes to Costco to get drugs and such, one should takes ones wallet. Otherwise one cannot get in door, much less pay for ones purchases/drugs. That was a waste of ones time! One could have been out shoveling...well blowing.

However, it appears I don't have to. My neighbor James is out there doing it for me. What a great guy!

Now it is time for Gonzaga Basketball AND Green Bay vs. Arizona at the Hub.

6:54PM: We have returned from the Hub. Gonzaga won and Green Bay is just coming out of half time, down by one point. 

It is now time for Dinner, which is going to be a salad and Split Pea Soup, which Susan has been simmering all day.

YUM!

9:00PM: Green Bay lost in overtime. It was a great game. Aaron Rogers threw a fabulous Hail Mary Pass in the last seconds to tie the game and send it to overtime, but the Cardinals prevailed.

Now we are going to kick back and get caught up on some recorded television.

Main Floor Bathroom Update

It is the start of what I am hoping is going to be a productive weekend.

We will be returning to work on the main floor bathroom. To recap, we started remodeling our main floor bathroom last May. That is roughly eight months of being without a bathroom on the main floor, which is why we call it the main floor bathroom.

Susan is going to start mudding and taping the dry wall tomorrow. The means that I have to finish dry walling. Here are pictures of the four corners of the bathroom (the one on the main floor) as it looks right now.

So you can see, we have some work.

The Official End of Christmas Season

It's Christmas Take Down Day. I got the lights down from the front of the house. I now am in compliance with my Christmas Rules.

Susan is in the process of removing MantleVille.

In this case, it's DisMantleVille. (I'll allow time for you to stop L.O.L.ing)

So it's a lazy Saturday with the temperature in the 30's. That allows me the chance to go out and try to clean up the snow mounds that have gotten away from me.

I've also been playing with my new camera. I discovered the continuous shooting mode which allows me to get an action shot like this one.

The action is the water drop falling from the icicle in the middle.

Okay, I'm going to go a stow some Christmas frockery and then I'll be back with more words in the form of sentences that say things about stuff.

Christmas Light Take Down

I've really been trying to get out on the front porch at night and take down the Christmas lights. But I can't seem to muster the energy to actually do it.

I'm attributing it more to laziness than stamina issues. I'm really going to try and get it done tonight. It would be a good night to do it. It will be a relatively warm night. It should not be snowy or rainy. There really is no good excuse to not get it done.

I'll include pictures of my progress later on in this post. Pictures that might indicate I got the job done. Tonight!

               *Note: No Pictures!*

I usually have my lights down long before this. I'm not a fan of Christmas lights being on too late OR too early.

I believe your Thanksgiving Lighting display should be quite cold by the time Christmas goes up.

Next you gotta get the Christmas Lights down as soon after New Years to get your M.L.K. lights up.

Then, once that Observance is over, it's time to get your Valentine Display up and going no later than the following weekend. That way, the public has a good three weeks to enjoy the flashing hearts and cupids.

And don't even get me started on my President's Day Spectacle.

Great Power

We have a Neighborhood Social Media Website called Corbin Park Spokane. It is a national website that creates little neighborhood websites. If you live within the borders of our neighborhood, you can join and see what's going on. 

A lot of it is neighbors reporting on break ins or suspicious people they have seen.

Yesterday, someone posted that they were awoken by a snow blower at 4:47AM. I replied that I am guilty of early morning snow blowery but never before 6AM.

The thing I didn't mention was that when I snow blow, I light up the neighborhood. I do almost all of my block, and a good portion of the alley. I follow the philosophy of Spider-Man; "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility!"

My electric start two stage Craftsman Snow Blower with 5 speeds forward and two in reverse and a 26" deck is the epitome of Great Power.

I do feel the guilt of the loud snow blower and so clearing your sidewalk is my way of compensating. Sorry to the people across the street. 

Most of the responses are in support of the snow blowers.

The Return of the Snow Blower

I broke out the snow blower at 6 AM this morning and got to work on the fresh snow that had fallen over night. It took me about 40 minutes to run the machine across all the sidewalks and driveway I cover.

Towards the end, I was out of breath and pretty labored. When it was all over, I sat in the kitchen for about 15 minutes trying to get my breathing back to a normal level.

The newly repaired snow blower performed just like it always does. I have to make a couple of adjustments to the shoes and tighten a bolt on the shute.

It was nice to have it back.

Snow Blow Return

It is once again a sunny cold day. The temperature is about 16 degrees. 

I have just returned from getting the Snow Blower from Richard at Spokane Small Engine Repair.. The total was $85.00 with tax but I gave him $100.00 and told him to keep the change. He got that done quick and deserved a tip.

Richard helped me load it, which just about killed me. I was way out of breath after that maneuver.

Then there was the dilemma of unloading it at home by myself. Fortunately, I have this long thick plank I use for such occasions. I laid the plank onto the tailgate of my SUV and slowly rolled the Snow Blower onto it. Then it was just a matter of sliding it down the plank until it hit the pavement.

Even so, I was wheezing like an Emphysema patient...which I might be. But I got stowed it away and ready for the next snowfall. Who knows when that will be though?!

Now I'm back inside and trying to regain my breathing.

Happy New Year

We have made it to Twenty Sexteen!

It's a little after ten in the morning. It's sunny out and 26 degrees. 

We are having a lazy morning around the estate today while preparing to go and watch the Rose Bowl this afternoon. Susan's Alma Mater, Iowa is playing the Stanford Cretins. The game is at 2:00. I think we are going down to the Red Lion Barbecue to watch the extravaganza.

I will of course be taking lots of pictures with my fabulous new camera. Here's one I just took.

I still have a lot to learn about this camera. I'm trying to figure it out but I'm considering taking a class at the Community College to get a better idea of how everything works.

I'm going to prepare myself for the day now. That means getting a cup of coffee, reading the paper, flouncing about, getting another cup of coffee, surveying my snow blowing area of influence, and so forth. I might even bathe.

7:12 PM: Well, that didn't go so well.

Iowa barely showed up for the game. Stanford killed them. Iowa finally got on the board in the fourth quarter but they were never in it.

We are not going to take this as an omen of the year to come.

Last Post of 20 Fifteen

Susan and I both got the afternoon off and met at the Hub about 1:30. We stayed for a while but I really needed to get home by three. I had a project I had to get to before it got dark.

We have had issues with this part of the roof in the past. Snow melts and collects in that little valley and slowly creates a giant icicle. As the icicle gets bigger, water begins to pool behind and then manages to find it's way down the inside of the wall and destroy the dining room wall and ceiling.

I have strung heat cable up there but have not come up with a good way to wire it in other than attaching an extension cord to it.

So we got home and hauled out the ladder and climbed up there and got it plugged in. There was a sizable icicle already forming when I drove up to the house. But by the time we got out there, it had fallen, so no picture.

But here are some others.

I received great news today on the Answering Machine. The Snow Blower is repaired and ready for pickup. I am really impressed he got it done in a week and for $75.00. I didn't have time to pick it up today but he'll be there Saturday morning at 9, and so will I!

Mo'Sno!

Another three inches of snow fell last night and continues to fall this morning. It's cold out so the snow is very light. That's a plus for me, who is already having trouble just moving the light stuff.

And of course, I am without snow blower so I am hoping my neighbor will take an interest in my sidewalks as well as his.

Today is back to work for another short week and then another nice Holiday repast. I'm hoping Susan will try to take it easy but that is not in her DNA.

She is having some of her girlfriends over tonight for a Holiday gathering of the girls. I don't have a piano lesson tonight but I may just hang out at the Hub or some place like that so they can be totally free of male influence.

I have a couple of projects involving Doctors to handle today. I should be writing about this on my Health Blog, and I probably will. But I felt like adding it here as well in order to create more content. True, it's forced content...but sometimes, content is just content.

Christmas Update

We have survived Christmas Day and now are enjoying Boxing Day. Since I am un-Canadian, I am not participating. I'm not even sure what I would or should do.

I am presently warming a piece of left over prime rib, which we had for dinner last night. It's my second prime rib that I have cooked and my first good one...meaning the first one that came out tasty and delicious.

Yum! That was delicious AGAIN!

With the help of my neighbor Lou, I was able to get the snow blower into the car and up to the repair shop. I have my guy, Richard, who operates a small engine repair shop up in the Garland District. He said he would have to order the axle and that would be the most time consuming part of the repair. 

I'm probably going to be without it for a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the snow will be sparce in that time.

We had a great Christmas Eve and Day. Susan and I took Mom to the Christmas Eve service at Plymouth and then to dinner with the Jensen clan. 

We managed to get home by 9 and did our traditional Christmas Eve reading of "Christmas Day in the Morning" by Pearl S. Buck.

We had a lazy Christmas morning, opening gifts, having breakfast, opening a few more gifts and laying about.

We went over to Mom's about 1:00 and started the Prime Rib.

At some point during the afternoon, we made video contact with Susan's sister and family in Iowa. We had a nice 20 minutes video chat.

We finally sat down to dinner around 5. It was Mom, Susan and I, as well as Evy and Jeff.

In the middle of dinner we were visited  by the Ghosts of Christmas Future when all the DuPree kids came ambling in for a visit. It was a great surprise and they stayed for about an hour.

During clean up, I carried a Christmas plate out to the car and slipped on the ice. There is a little water drop falling onto the walk from a corner of the roof eve, and conditions were just right for it to hit, splatter and freeze in a really wide area.

I hit it and my feet went right out from under me. I don't know how, but the plate did not break and I was essentially uninjured. I scraped a knuckle and banged my right forearm, but I am okay considering the state of the rest of my health. So I have logged my first official ice crash of the season. Hopefully, that will be the last!

So now the Holiday is behind us and we can relax a little. Susan went in to work for a few hours and then will be joining me shortly at the Hub for the Sun Bowl Football Contest featuring the Washington State Cougars.

They are playing the University of Miami Hurri-Bastards and are favored by 2 1/2 points.

I guess I'll update this post a bit later.

6:01 PM: The Cougars won 20 to 14. Susan her boss, Bill joined us after the first quarter and stayed until the end of the third quarter. The she went back to work.

The funny thing was that they where playing in El Paso, Texas in the Sun. Bowl. Prior to the start of the game, they had to clear the field of all the snow. During the game, it rained, or sleeted or snowed the whole time.

Holiday Diaster

It snowed off and on all day yesterday, so when I got home from work, I had some snow blowing to do.

I had done some blowing in the morning prior to leaving for work but the snow throughout the day had pretty much negated everything I did. Plus, I had a lot of clean up to do and get to some areas I hadn't been able to.

I like to keep my end of the alley clean. It makes it better for the garbage collectors and everyone who uses the alley to access their garage. Plus, I feel obligated to clear the alley because I blow all the snow from my driveway into the alley.

So I got the driveway and the alley cleaned off and then I proceeded to the sidewalks. I did up the block behind me and then down the Wall Street sidewalk to Waverly Place.

I suddenly heard this rumble behind me and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a snow plow.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAA!

 They did a great job of eliminating the berm that I wrote about yesterday. They also did a great job of creating a berm in front of my driveway.

But that is of no consequence to me. I have a great snow blower. It's a two stage monster with 6 speeds forward and two speeds reverse, electric start and a 26 inch wide hopper. But then it suddenly seemed at that moment to be not moving so well. I noticed the drive wheels were a little katty wumpus. Upon closer inspection, I came to realize that the driveline axle broke. Into two pieces.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Shit! What horrible timing! Not only was I going to have to deal with the berm without a snow blower, but there is still a ton of snow forecast for the NEXT SEVERAL DAYS!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I won't be able to get it into a repair place until Saturday and then I bet I'm a week out at least!

This is going to be disastrous for me and my neighbors. I'm hoping to be able to use my neighbor Lou's blower in the interim.

CRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!

Snow Season Abides

A couple of inches of snow fell last night and I was up and out there with the snow blower at 6:30 this morning. I didn't do the whole job I would have liked to do but I just didn't have the time. 

I did some additional clean up when I got home last night. Somebody with a blade on his truck had run down Wall street at some point. It was a nice gesture but they did a really crappy job. They plowed a swath just wide enough to create one lane. In the process, they left a berm of snow well into the road that has since frozen and become quite impenetrable. I tried to chew it up with the snow blower and at least eliminated the berm in front of the driveway.

I hope the city plows will have the ability to decimate it when and if they ever come by. I saw evidence of them in the neighborhood as I left for work this morning. However, there is a great deal of snow coming down as I write this which means it will be even longer before the plows hit the neighborhood.

Happy Solstice

I can already feel the days getting longer!

Snow Season 2015

We received our first substantial snow fall in two years last night. There was a good five inches of heavy snow on the ground.

Even with my bad knee, I got out the snow blower and took care of my domain. It took about an hour to cover my domain and I still have more to clean up, but that can wait until tonight...or tomorrow.

Snows and Knees

We had the second snowfall of the season over the night. I didn't really look at how much we got other than removing it from the cars. It was heavy, wet and about two inches. Maybe three. I did not have time to break out the snow blower, let alone the shovel. I'm going to pay for that later as it will be that much more difficult to snow blow when the snow has been walked and driven on and had a chance to harden up.

It's pretty chilly out today and the sun is out, so I can't really tell yet if I'll have some clean up to do when I get home. I'm not very excited about doing any work because my left knee has locked up on me again, and this time, it does not seem to be letting go. This is the third day now.

The Conclusion of Sky Walk Season

Pictured above is Susan painting the final snow flakes of the Painting Season.

We have been decorating sky walks since the day after Thanksgiving. It's a loooooong day when you go off to work at your day job and then you come home, change, load the car up with paint bags, and head downtown to spend a lovely three to four hours in one of 14 sky walks.

The good news is that we are finished. 

We now have our evening to ourselves to do as we please. That is going to feel like a huge luxury. 

I do have a project looming over me that I must get done fast. It's our Christmas card for this year. I have got to get it out. Christmas is 11 days away so I'm fast running out of time. 

I know the basic plan and design. I had in fact, been planning to work on it months ago. I took all the pictures I needed last Christmas. I had the design in my head. I just had to sit down and make it happen. But we all know that was never going to happen.

No Mariah

It seems we missed a bullet. The wind never materialized, at least not in the quantities and gusts that was forecast.

The good news is nobody lost power. The really good news is that we didn't lose power.

Another Day for Mariah

We have received a lot of rain in the last two days. Over an inch on Monday and about a quarter of an inch yesterday. It's raining right now.

The excitement on hand for today is wind. The forecasts call for the rain to let up and the wind to come in, with gusts up to 50 mph. Considering how wet it has been, the fear is the chance for more trees to uproot and take out the 'lectricity.

Fortunately, I'm getting this post in while we still have...