The Day After Christmas

Christmas is in the rear view mirror and we can finally relax and return to normal life where we hate each other.

Don't worry. I'm not really that cynical. I love this time of year but I do like it when all the Holiday pressure is off. We still have New Years to contend with but that is so much more informal and stressless.

Susan deals with more pressure than I do but a lot of it is self-imposed. She has all these snacks and Christmas treats to make. There is a tradition to uphold and it involves some stress.

My best gift was one I've wanted for a while but held out until I got it as a Christmas gift. A shower stool.

I tried it out for the first time this morning and I love it.

I was afraid it might lead to longer showers, followed by a larger water bill. But that was not the case this morning. I think my shower time was about the same. But it's great to sit there and enjoy hot water streaming over you.

All in all, it was a good Christmas for both of us.    

Floor Review

I was looking through some old posts and I came across this picture from August 29th, 2022.

It reminded me how hideous that old linoleum floor was and I wanted to have a comparable picture with the new floor.

So there you go.   

Mt Spokane Opens

Mt. Spokane opened for the season yesterday but it doesn’t look very pretty up there.

That’s from the webcam at Lodge #2. They only have three lifts running. They say they have 28 inches on top and 15 at the Lodge.

I want to get up and ski but not under these conditions. There is no precipitation in the forecast for another five days. And that doesn’t guarantee snow. It could be rain with the warmer temperatures we had.

It looks like it’s going to be a short season unless some major chilly dumpage arrives.

The Ramifications of Snow Lethargy

I have just come in from removing snow from the sidewalks and driveway. It was a task made more difficult by my quiescently apathetic attitude towards snow removal yesterday.

We got about 3 or 4 inches of snow late yesterday and I just didn’t feel like going out to deal with it.

When I got up this morning, there was a wet heavy snow coming down that soon morphed into snain and then, straight rain. The snow on the ground became saturated with moisture.

My snow blower was useless in this stuff. I was unclogging the shute constantly. I finally figured out that I could use it with the blower off and just shove a mound of snow to the side of the driveway.

 In addition to making the snow so wet, the rain also brought down a smattering of leaves that still hung in the trees. So now they are all mixed in with the snow. Not a huge deal but if I get it in my head to make a snowman this season, I’m going to be working with a lot of dead crunchy organic material.

Common Sense Cranberry

There are certain things that are essential for a proper Thanksgiving.

Turkey with mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy are the obvious items. The other essentials I prefer are candied yams, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. 

What often gets overlooked is the style of cranberries that are served. For most of my life, I was not a cranberry fan. But my tastes have developed and matured over the years and I am now a cranberry aficionado.

But not that jelled crap that comes out of a can. For roughly the same price and a bit more work, you can serve a fresh, authentic cranberry sauce that is far superior to that can of jello.

All you need is one 12 ounce bag of cranberries, a cup of sugar and a cup of water. Bring the sugar and water to a boil and add the cranberries. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Cover and let cool to room temperature and then put them in the fridge ahead of your meal. This recipe is available on any bag of cranberries.

I usually do this on Wednesday. It’s a fun, easy and relaxing project that eats up maybe 30 minutes of your day but adds a subtle garnish to your festive table that says, “I care!”

The Great Pumpkin Toss

We had to wait until Sunday for the Great Annual Pumpkin Toss. I had a little mishap while bringing the pumpkins up to the balcony. I set it on the railing, bumped it and it rolled off. Fortunately, there was enough of it to rescue and toss again.

Here are the pictures of Susan, Mark and myself tossing pumpkins.

Great fun was had by all and it makes me wish we had more pumpkins. I'll have to remember that for next year.

Halloween Hangover 2023

 It’s the morning after and we have a shit load of work to do.

We’ve removed all the stuff from the front yard mostly and it’s not even noon. But we have all this crap in the Living Room that has to go back up into the Carriage House.

We are taking one of several breaks we’ll be taking and then we shall return to tackle the mess.

1:25PM: We are making progress. The front yard is clean. All the hanging ghouls are stowed in the Carriage House. We are taking a break before we load up the tombstones.

4:45PM: It is finished. Well, mostly. There are a few little items here and there to be cleaned up. Mostly little table displays like the haunted house serving as a center piece on the kitchen table. The same goes for the stuff on the Dining Room table.

However, Halloween is put away for another year. I’m glad it’s behind us. I think we have to start having the discussion about how much is too much.

Halloween 2023

This is our 18th Halloween on Corbin Park.

Today Susan is preparing a bunch of food for tonight and we have to get all our scary displays out on the front lawn. I expect to see our first Trick or Treaters around 4:30. That's when the real little kids start showing up.

It's just after ten now so this post will be a progressive account of the happenings of the day.  

4:00PM: Putting all the displays together went very smoothly today. By the time that Randy and Bob showed up at 1:00, we had a lot of the stuff in place.

There are so many little details that I forget about. Fortunately, Susan knows where everything goes.

10:32PM: The night is over and I am exhausted. Susan as well. I don’t have an exact number yet. It’s somewhere between 1,100 and 1,800. I’ll find out soon enough. 

We extend our sincere thanks to Randy, Bob, Mark, Ellen, Kelly, Kyle and Crystal who helped us pull this thing off.

Susan and I need to have a serious conversation about the future of our Halloween decorating. We’re getting old and this is getting harder and harder.  

One Day to Ghouls

 It’s the day before Halloween which means our work begins in earnest. We don’t put out our Halloween stuff until the day of so they don’t get pillaged.

We carved most of our pumpkins last night and we’ll finish up the last two tonight.

So far today, we have raked the front yard to get the latest wave of leaves and chestnuts up. Now we are bringing out some of our basic display props and I’m going to pound in the stakes for our fence. We will probably hang a couple of our ghouls in the trees and then tonight we will unload the rest of the Halloween props from the Carriage House.

Okay, it’s almost noon. Time to get back to work.

4:00PM: We got quite a bit accomplished. All the stuff I described above. Mark is coming over shortly to help us bring down all the craft pumpkins and tombstones.

We have some friends coming over tomorrow afternoon to help us put all the displays out. Then they will hang around for the Halloween festivities and enjoy a little party afterwards.

Witches Ride 2023

Every year on the Saturday before Halloween, there is an event held here in the park called the Witches Ride.

A bunch of people dress up, mostly as witches, gather in the park on the basketball court, do a little dance, and then rides bikes for a couple of laps around the park.

Then they go to the Hub Tavern and enjoy a frosty witches brew or two.

Today was that day!

It was a pretty chilly day so I’m surprised by the number of people that showed up. We decided not to ride but to beat the crowd to the Hub.

The other event we wanted to see was the annual Hub Tavern Pumpkin Coloring Contest. Susan and I each had an entry.

This is her entry.

And here is mine.

There were only six entries so we knew we had a pretty good chance of scoring some Hub booty. Frankly, the other entries were pitiful.

I must admit that I liked Susan’s the best. And so did the judges.

Susan won a nice metal Halloween basket with some stuff in it. I won a “Pac2” shirt and a Hub travel mug.

Another great day here on the park.

First Snow

 It looks like I turned the boiler on just in time.

I woke up this morning to find it snowing. You have to look closely at the picture to see little streaks of snow coming down.

It’s really more of a sleet or snain. It’s snowy enough that you can see it falling and it’s not coming down as hard as rain. But it’s wet enough that it’s not sticking to the ground at all.

Meteorologically speaking though, I believe this counts as our first snowfall of the season.

And here are a couple of pictures from the Mt. Spokane Webcams to put a smile on a skiers face.

Wine Work & the Coming of the Ween

We are going to have to ignore any further progress on the kitchen for a bit as we come into Halloween Season. It’s just over a week away and we have a lot of Halloween decorating to do.

So, I have finished staining all the baseboards and trim and they are safely stowed away on my new rack in the garage. Susan is happy with her window work and all the plastering she’s been doing. We are cleaning up extraneous detritus still hanging around from the remodel and putting ladders and tools away.

We did some wine making work this morning by pressing the juice out of the Merlot grapes we bought last weekend. We just about filled our seven gallon carboy with a still sweet but very cloudy must. I think this wine will be around 12% alcohol.

The major house decorations will happen next Tuesday. But here are a few shots of the porch and the front of the house.

Eeeeew! Scary!

And finally, if you picked October 23rd, at 10:47AM for the end of the Boiler Game, you win.

Your check is in the mail!

Malbec Update

 Here is our carboy full of Malbec juice percolating away.

Friday Projects

I think the Boiler Game is going to end next week. It’s possible we could set a new record but the extended weather forecast makes that possibility seem distant. 

In any event, the weather we have been having has been awesome. The high for today is expected to be in the 70’s.

I have two projects for today. The first is to get all my baseboards and door trim stained. The second is to build a rack in the garage where I can store all the trim and baseboards. 

The baseboards and trim can’t be installed until Susan finishes her work on the walls. That includes paint and wall paper.

But first, she has to finish the window she’s been working on. She has also been doing some plastering around the doors where the old trim was. This new trim compliments the trim in the rest of the main floor and is a bit thinner than the stuff we’re replacing.

This is where I plan to put the rack.

It’s not going to be anything fancy. Just a 2x4 with a 45 degree support.

Like that!

I should point out that I adjusted the placement of the rack. After looking at the area I picked, I decided it would be better to have them further back in the garage. I had better access to the studs.

Anyway, there is another project out of the way. 

I’ve got the trim I stained sitting out in the sun and I’m going to let them enjoy a little sunbath. So for now, I’ve got nothing to do.

Unfortunately, Susan will find something.

Later: What a dumbass!

I just went out to hang the trim boards on my new rack. It’s too far apart. I’m going to fix it by adding a middle brace.

But really, what a dumbass!

Floor Fixation

 It wasn’t a pain in the ass at all! It took us less than an hour to pull up the kitchen floor boards, reset the bad boards and replace all the boards we picked up. It went so fast I didn’t have time to take any pictures.

We started by placing a piece of masking tape on each board we removed and numbered them sequentially as they came off the floor. The two errant boards we had to fix snapped into place nicely. From there it was just a matter of counting backwards and replacing the boards.

It’s a great feeling to have that done and done so easily. I hope it stays put now.

So, that job was the main thing on my agenda today. I know Susan plans to continue her work on the window. I guess I can start the staining process for the baseboards and door trim.

Floor Setback

 Susan has been busy working on the window and I have been milling the boards for the baseboards. In the middle of our respective tasks, Susan discovered a floor board that is not clicked in properly. 

It’s just below the window Susan is working on and near the Piano Bar. It’s close to the wall so we don’t have a bunch of boards we have to pull up, if it comes to that.

I’m going to try for the easy fix and use a pry bar against the wall to try and snap the errant board into place.

If that does work, we will have to pull up about four rows of boards to get to the unsnapped board. That will be a major pain in the ass.

Later: Nope! That didn’t work. I guess we’re going to have to tear up the floor. Time for a major pain in the ass.

The Grapes of Prosser

 We have just returned from a weekend trip to Prosser, WA to get some grapes to turn into wine.

We left on Friday and enjoyed a couple of wine tastings as we traveled and then a nice dinner at the Horse Heaven Saloon in Prosser. 

We couldn’t get our regular reservation at the Sunnyside Inn because we called too late. We ended up at the Holiday Inn Express which was nice, but had none of the charm and ambience of the Sunnyside Inn.

I think we are getting to the point where our age is overtaking our enthusiasm for wine tasting. By now, they all taste pretty much the same. We went to three different places yesterday and I felt the effects of the tastings pretty quickly.

The prices down there are getting pretty extravagant too. When we first started going down to wine country, you could do a tasting for five bucks. Now, every place down there wants a minimum of $15 for a tasting. They then take it off if you buy a bottle. But they are all awfully proud of their wine and charge for it.

Along with the grapes ($100.00) we bought a case of wine ($100.00) and six bottles from various places for another $150 at least.

So now we are back home and happy to be here. I’m going to make a fire in the fire place tonight. It’s the first time we’ve had a fire in months. We had to wait until now because all the cabinets and flooring were in the living room and changes in temperature would affect the flooring.

Wine Awards

 We received our reward for our Fair entries this year.

Above is the list of entries, placement and money awarded.

And here is the check they included.

Another documented proof of our Award Winning Wine Making Status.

One Year, One Month and 29 Days

For the first time in over a year, August 11th of 2022 to be exact, the kitchen on nearly back to normal. It’s not finished yet. We still have a lot to do. There’s painting and wall papering to do. There are baseboards and door trim to install. We still have a window to paint and crown moulding to put up on the upper cabinets. The final touch will be ceiling tile.

In spite of all that, we moved the furniture back into the kitchen today and it is a habitable space again. 

Another bonus we didn’t think about is that the Living Room and the Dining Room are almost clear of all the crap we moved out of the kitchen. It’s the first time I’ve seen the carpet in those rooms since Febberarry.

All is good with the world!

Floor Finale

We are going to finish the kitchen floor today. I don’t have time to write right now. I’m supposed to be working on the floor.

Before I do that, I would like to mention that they are starting to tear up the tennis court across the street in the park. We’ve been here almost 19 years and they’ve been talking about replacing that tennis court since we first arrived. Today, it is happening.

Back to the floor.

Here is the first spot we are going to finish today. It’s in the pantry by the back door.

2:00PM: THE FLOOR IS FINISHED!!!

Here his Susan putting down the last piece.

We are presently enjoying a celebratory beer on the front porch and congratulating ourselves on our big accomplishment. Everything went smoothly today and we are happy with the results. 

Now it is time to move furniture back in and start living in this space and see how well it holds up against us.

All I can say for now is, that is one tasty beer.

Mo Mo Flo

 We are concluding a highly productive weekend.

It started on Friday when we took a one day trip to Prosser and back to get some grapes. We bought 100 pounds of Malbec from Chad O’Brien of O’Brien Brothers farms. We paid $120.00.

We left at 9:00 on Friday morning and arrived at the farm at 11:30. It took us a little time to find the pick up spot. I had gps coordinates, not an address, and my gps does not accommodate latitude and longitude very well.

We were very close but when you end up in an ocean of grape vines, very close is not close enough.

After the grapes, we drove to Prosser to have lunch at a great little Mexican restaurant we found called Las Islas.

With our cargo secured, we returned to Spokane in time for a short break before working at V du V winery. It was a very slow night but we manned the bar while my friend and owner, John jammed with a couple of musical friends.

We had planned to meet with Shaun on Thursday night to continue working on the floor. Shaun never showed up. He didn’t text us or call us or notify us in any way that he wasn’t coming.

We decided that we should not rely on Shaun, which may be what he had in mind.

So we got to work on the kitchen floor on Saturday morning.

Most of the floor was done. We had to work from the island toward the sink, which also includes the pantry.

Here are the results of our work on Saturday and Sunday.

We had quite a few intricate cuts to make and we did a pretty good job. I only screwed up three boards to the point where they are useless. 

We are going to attempt to finish tomorrow. It’s going to be very close as far as the total number of boards we need.

I’ll let you know here when it’s all wrapped up.