The Blog With No Name

The last item is the water hookup for the sink. Then (could it be possible?) the back porch will be done.

No, wait, I’m lying – I still have to stain the cabinets. Oh well. That won’t take long.

Here is Mr. Plumber Dude himself, cleaning the little bits of grout off the counter:

Well done, Mr. Plumber Dude!

Black Hawk State Historic Site has many interesting things, among which is an acre of true Illinois prairie, which accidentally catches fire at the same time each year. Funny how that happens.

I joined the Citizens to Preserve Black Hawk Park Foundation today. My mother is a charter member of this group, which was founded to stop a highway running through the park. It worked – John Deere Expressway “comes to a screeching halt” at the entrance to the park. It is possible to walk around or near the park and find evidence of more than 11,000 years of human habitation of this area.

His sister did it, so he had to do it. Sigh.

My niece, who is 20 months old, can hum Star Wars music. Not the theme music, not the victory march, but DARTH VADER’S THEME. The whole thing. How cool is that?

Too bad it takes three days to dry…

I have started to buttah the kitchen walls too.

I am going to prime the area over the counter tonight, then tomorrow night I can do the chalkboard! I will be within minutes of completing my part of the back porch job. Then on to the kitchen… (I now wonder whether chalk-boarding a portion of the wall under the dry-erase calendar wouldn’t be a good idea. Which is to say, just maybe I’ll do that. Hm…)

There is a nice woman in our church choir (not that the other women aren’t nice; they’re all nice, OK?) who, let’s be honest, under-medicates herself. Has for years. One consequence of this is that she TALKS A LOT. I personally had never noticed this before, but apparently she talks while other sections of the choir (she’s a soprano) are rehearsing their parts. I was fairly certain tonight that our choir director was going to vault over the piano and strangle this nice but talkative lady. It didn’t happen, but it makes me wonder anew why our choir director/organist continues to work at our church. I think it is memory of Marge, frankly. That, or she is atoning for some great sin in her past. I worry for her blood pressure sometimes.

I regret to have to inform you that our older goldfish passed away recently – his death went unnoticed until Charles wondered why the water was so cloudy, and thus discovered the poor little guy wedged into some of the fishbowl decorations down at the bottom. This was the fourth Goldy, the first three having expired rapidly one after the other. He must have been three or four years old. Our daughter has taken the news remarkably well.

The dishwasher is hooked up. Two trips to Menards later, we have yet another garbage can, this one on wheels under the soon-to-be sink. Best yet, the little ice cream table and chair are now on the porch! It’s like a real room now, not just a tacked-on storage area. Amazing!

Charles put down (well, cut it out but didn’t adhere it) the floor for the back porch. I think it looks nice. ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE better than the crap remaining in the kitchen.

Three outlets for my mixer, plus an under-cabinet flourescent light. Now if only I had some way of anchoring the mixer in place, so I don’t have to hold it while it kneads herb bread. Oh well.

The tape marks where a small sink will be placed. A vision of things to come!

We just had a party, if a bunch of people sitting around the table drinking wine counts as a party. And food. More food than 11 people could possibly eat. There were 11 people in all (including Charles and me). There were 11 bottles of wine (including one of champagne).

The consensus of those left standing is that Charles had 3 bottles all by himself.

So each of the rest of us got (11-3)/11ths of one bottle, maybe.

I don’t know.

I had champagne though, so does it really matter?