Achievement Gawds

We had such a wonderful day of achievement that I can hardly contain myself. On Friday, we invited my Mom and her special friend John (I can't call him a boyfriend cuz we're talking 'bout my Mom here).

Anyway, John is everything I am not when it comes to home improvement. He got us started on our Entryway Project. Here's the deal. We are removing the hardwood floor in the entryway and replacing it with tile. We have found a tile pattern that we like and have ordered it...almost.

So John came over and helped me get the whole thing going. We cut the hardwood which will allow me to remove it and replace it with tile. Here are pictures. Here is John doing all my work. I love him for that

Below is the floor just after I began removing a couple of the boards. I have a long way to go at this point.

In this picture, I have removed a few more boards and the view shows the repair area I will have to deal with.

Here is a picture of the entryway cleared of the hardwood flooring. This is the area where the tile will be placed.Here is a shot of the repair area after I have chiseled away the damaged boards.

Okay, from here, I have to patch this section of floor. I tried a couple of plans but they didn't work so well for me. I finally ended up taking a long piece and just hammering it into place. Then I hammered another piece into place next to it in the shorter span. it worked well and they are a tight fit. I'm rather pleased with myself. However, the last time I was pleased with myself, I followed by cutting into a gas line...so, not really so smug.

Classy Classiness at it's Classiest

This evening I completed the very classy piece of resistance to finish off the front porch. I painted a delicate highlight on the mailbox to totally tie together all the elements of the house painting frontal exposure project. Now...it is perfect...except for the other little highlights we want to add.Nothing major, actually. We just want to experiment with some subtle striping highlights around the columns. It's the type of thing that probably only we would notice.

Something else I just noticed is the damn telephone cord hanging in the background of the mailbox. Whoever the Moron was who strung the telephone many years ago didn't give a crap about pieces of resistance.

It's not that I am just now discovering this. I knew it was there. I just don't know what to do about it right now. When we remodel that room where that phone line goes to, I will do it properly through the underbelly of the house. In the meantime, I am forced to live with that wire as is, mocking me and preventing me from completing our flawless front porch perfection.

It is tough to be a Prima Dona!

Annual Furnace Turn On Competition

My project for today was to drain the radiators in our heating system and remove the one in the hallway. We need to remove the linoleum under that unit and it is time to get moving on this entryway project again.

I ran into an unforeseen problem almost immediately after attaching the hose to the furnace and opening the drain. The floor drain in the Laundry Room backed up. We've had this problem before and the fix involves a plumber and a heavy duty snake.In the meantime, I had to get the system drained so I placed the hose in a five gallon bucket and began hauling buckets into the yard. I will bet you I dumped 100 gallons. I guess that shouldn't surprise me when you consider there are nine radiators tied into the systems along with all that pipe. It seems much larger when you have to haul it.

Removing the radiator went smoothly. Something had to. Even pulling out the remaining bit of flooring was relatively easy. It did take me back to all those staples we removed. Anyway, that's another step closer to completing the project. Only ten quadrillion steps to go.

And since we are talking about the furnace, it is time to start discussing the game I play every year where I see how long I can go before I have to turn on the furnace. last years record setting effort got us all the way to October 8th before we caved.

We have a small glitch in this years competition. The furnace cannot presently be turned on. You would have to refer back to April 19th where the gas was turned off...semi-permanently...because I am an idiot.

I have not gotten an Inspector over here yet and I need to make that happen. I have been telling myself that the Inspector is an August job and it seems that August is upon us...perhaps even overtaking us.

Susan has kept herself busy all day with cleaning. The house hasn't been cleaned since before we went to Iowa and it needed it. She goes into Crazy Cleaning Mode and it's best for me to stay out of her way as well as do what she says. Now!

In conclusion, I noticed that my Hit Counter is about to go over 1000. Unfortunately, most of those hits are me.

Saturday Night's Alright...etc!

I had a wonderful evening this Saturday night and I don't even know where to begin. So let's start at the beginning.

Today was my first day back at Scotty's Bar & Grill in a couple of months...probably since the surgery. No wait! I have worked one other day since the surgery but this is not important and I should delete the whole last line. If you're not reading this, you'll know I did.

It was a slow day but nice to be back in the Bartending Saddle.

I finally connected with my friend Mike via the Skype. He is currently residing in Torreon, Coahuila, Mexico. He's teaching English, which he's really good at. I've heard him speak it. Skype is really cool. I have to turn more people on to it. I would like to get Susan and her sister Margaret going on it. Of course, then I would never have access to the computer.

On my way home, I picked up a huge piece of cow for the Bar B-Q, along with some asparagus for stinky pee and some mushrooms to top it all off. That was an excellent meal.

My task of the night was to clean the fish aquarium. There is only the one goldfish (Norman) in there but he is a major creator of scum. That task went easily and it would go more easily if I would learn the lesson of regular cleanings.

I decided to light the fire pit and burn some scrap wood we have built up. It was a lovely night for a fire, sitting in the glow with a drink and a cigar. Finally, I would like to say that I had no reason to be fearful of the squirrels NOT finding the new feeder. The had no trouble at all. I haven't seen them use it yet but it gets emptied every day so I'm pretty sure they found it. I'll probably see it in use tomorrow. Pictures to follow.

Squirrel Surprise

I have invested in a new Squirrel Feeder. This is quite different from the previous feeder and I think it will take the squirrels a while to figure out that it's there. I tried to help them out this morning by rustling the peanut bag like I did whenever I refilled the feeder. I've been out of town for so long they have grown weary of waiting for me to feed them...so they didn't come running this morning when I rustled.So now I will just wait and see how long it takes them to figure it out.

New Paint and Cones

One of the wonderful features of returning home from vacation was the discovery that our painting project on the front of the house is complete. We are very happy with the way this came out and can't wait for the next three years as we complete a side per year. Next year, we do the east side of the house. That's the side with the deck.

I love this look on the front porch. That shiny dark green floor looks fabulous. We will now have to put up Police Tape to keep any visitors off the front porch. It's too nice to walk on. I wonder how long it will be before it starts to get scuffed up and dull looking.

I put the furniture back out last night along with the Porch Swing. we ate our first meal back out on the porch. It was great!

While we were gone, we had Mark come over and do some occassional watering. We should leave town more often. It's very good for our plants. everything seems to be thriving and very green.

I'm especially exciting about the upcoming fall Hops Harvest. I have cones developing on both plants and my friend Ron who have planted Hops as well has a nice crop coming in.

There will be some beer brewing soon with home grown Hops.

Return from Iowa

We have made the trip back from Iowa and now have to face the reality of our non-vacation lives. Yup, it's back to work for Susan and I. On top of that, we have a mound of mail and some heavily neglected cats to attend to.

But lets talk about our trip home. We left Des Moines Saturday morning pulling a 4' x 8' U-Haul Trailer. We had some furniture and paintings and assorted do-dads from the Sue-Dad.

We made a stop at the Kipping Farm in Redfield to say so long to Susan's cousins. We sipped some smoothies and got on the road about 1:00PM.

Our goal for the day was to make Cheyenne, Wyoming. We fell short by a couple hours. We spent the night in Sidney, Nebraska and that was fine by us. We put in an eight hour day on the road. The weather sucked and we were ready for a rest.

A good deal of our drive over all three days looked like this.

Although, some of it looked like this.

We awoke on Sunday morning with the quest of Yellowstone Park. It took us all day thanks to road construction (this will be a great country if we ever finish it) and long and windy roads. We reached over 9,000 feet at one point, and that's not good for your gas mileage when you're pulling a trailer.

When we arrived at the Old Faithful Inn, it was after 7PM and we were pretty beat. We checked in, had some dinner, went to bed. We know how to party. Here ar some pictures of the incredible Od Faithful Inn.

We managed to crawl out of bed at an early hour and get our day started. We saw Old Faceful and you can too thanks to the magic of video.

We drove into the driveway about 7PM last night. We did some preliminary un-packing and loved on the kitties who missed us terribly...or maybe not at all. Hard to tell with them.

Anyway, we are home and pleased to be back. I'm off now to fold laundry.

Gear up for the Fair

Yesterday, Susan and I attended the opening day of the Iowa State Fair, the best State Fair. (Don't miss it, don't even be late) We were joined by our fair hostess, Margaret, who is Susan's sister. Also joining us was her cousins, Louise and Irene.

It was a hot muggy day, just perfect for walking around for hours upon hours upon still more hours. I ran out of gas about 5:00 but we stayed until 10. I'm not one to complain so nobody knew about the throbbing, burning ache in my knee. I just sucked it up and heavily medicated myself with beer. That might be the other reason I ran out of gas at five.

Anyway, the Iowa State Fair is quite a spectacle. Immediately upon arrival shortly after nine, I set out on my goal to eat every kind of food available at the fair the was followed by the words "on a Stick".

We started with a Corn Dog or "Hot Dog on a Stick".

Then I had "Cheese in a Stick". This tasted light a grilled cheese sandwich. It tasted like it was made with the Cheese of the Gods, also known as Velveeta.
While wondering through the Ag Building, I found "Egg on a Stick". This was a special bonus "On a Stick" food because it was free.
The best "On A Stick" food was "Pork Chop on a Stick". It was slowly bar-b-qued in a large rotisserie cooker. Absolutely Fabulous!!!For dessert, "Ice Cream on a Stick". I had to fight Susan off for this one. The beauty of this "On a Stick" food was it was a Winning Prise for coming closets to guessing when Louise would arrive.The next day, I discovered I had pretty much covered all the "On A Stick" food. All that was left was "Chicken on a Stick".This was the only "On A Stick" food I didn't eat.We found a place were they had "Salad on a Stick" but that seemed too nutritious.

I have since learned that I missed "Deep Fried Bacon on a Stick" and Deep Fried Twinky on a Stick". I guess we will have to go back.

We start our return trip home tomorrow and are planning on a three day journey. I hope we can get in eight hours tomorrow and maybe twelve on Sunday. That will give us an easy sixish hour drive home on Monday.

Humid in Iowa

Susan's father died last Tuesday, August 4th, 21 days short of his ninty-se7enth birthday. I guess that's a pretty good life.

So, we have driven to Iowa. The funeral was yesterday and all went well...at least as well as things can go when you talking about a funeral. We got to see lots and lots of her family and so, in that respect, this has been a good trip.

We still have the Iowa State Fair to look forward to and tonight we are going to see the local Triple A baseball team. I think they are a farm club of the Cubs. The San Diego Chicken will be there to entertain so we are pumped to go. He calls himself the Famous Chicken now but he's still the same guy and he is pretty funny to watch.

We made our drive here in two days rather than our marithon 24 drive that we have done in the past. It was nice to break it up into two days and it was a memorable drive featuring a very cool sunset. We made it to Gillette, WY the first day. We were trying to make it well into South Dakota but Freeway Construction and a major Lightning Storm prevented that. It was raining so hard that we had to pull off the highway and hide under an overpass for about 15 minutes.

We got an early start the next day and drove through Sturgess, SD during the big Motorcycle festival they have there. I've never seen so many motorcycles. It was truely amazing.

So now we are here and enjoying the remaining days we have before loading up a trailer and returning with some of Susan's parent furniture and assorted stuff. I am not publishing this entry or any of those to follow until we return home. I figure there is no reason to give a burglar a clear message that we are not home. But I wanted to get some stuff written before it gets lost in the fertile sediment of my sentiment.

Hot Tub Delivery Day

It was a busy weekend full of accomplishments and I have the aching sore neck to prove it.

Last weekend I borrowed a truck from my friend Rob. It's his extra utility truck...I call it the Farm Truck. I went to the dump and hauled stuff and did a series of manly truck related items. Rather than return it on Sunday, I just kept it for the whole week. I hauled two loads of pea gravel to the new hot tub pit. I hauled lumber. I hauled and hauled and hauled. I used about $80.00 worth of gas.

I don't think I have reported this before so I better say it now. Our neighbors have offered us their hot tub. It is a 15 year old Hotsprings hot tub. It is in good condition and all we have to do is move it.

So we have been preparing the site where the tub will go and getting ready for the move. Yesterday was move day. I got several friends to whom I am now indebted. I rented a hot tub dolly which was very slick. This was a big metal cart with steerable wheels on both ends. We lifted the tub up on end and onto the cart. Then it was just a matter of wheeling it next door and dropping (softly) into place.

The most amazing part of the whole operation was that the tub is level. I'm not sure it will remain that way once we fill it, but for now a level tub is a happy tub and I am happy.

Rob has his truck back and it is very clean and gassed up.

Painting is continuing on the front of the house. Our painter has been very meticulous about preparing everything. She has spent several days scraping, power washing and caulking. It looks like she is just about ready to paint. Once she starts that, she'll be finished rather quickly.

The heat has been unrelenting for a couple of weeks now. Keeping water on the lawn is a major effort. If I miss a couple of days, you see it right away.