gt, I live in the Pacific Northwest for exactly the reasons you’ve listed. We have a nice, moderate climate (most of the time).
Drywall is up - yay! I’ll take some pics a little later. My wheel is being delivered tomorrow - double yay!! I’m hoping it arrives early, then I’ll have time to mud the laundry room walls.
FCD worked hard all day while I was lazing at the office. He’s now pooped, and taking a well-deserved rest. I’m doing a load of laundry now - we’re almost out of clean unders. Other big plans for the week include a trek to the convenience center on Thurs to dump our trash and recycling. Oh yes, I have an exciting life.
I had to close the house and turn on the AC today - it was just over 90 outside, and creeping to the mid-80s inside, so now it’s cool and not muggy. I hate that I can’t leave the house open - partly for fresh air, mostly because it’s gonna shoot my electric bill thru the roof!!
Is it Friday yet??
Enough with the hiding!
No, I’ve not really been hiding - just obscenely busy. In the past two weeks, I’ve remodeled a bathroom, stripped and re-finished the kitchen floor, changed the water heater, installed a sprinkler system in the front yard, installed a front yard, planted shrubs, been in two parades, bought a new vacuum cleaner, got a new computer, fixed the soft spot in the front entry area, lost about ten pounds and arranged for the installation of new carpet.
I hit an all-time record on Water Heater, Sod and Sprinkler Day - SIX trips to Home Depot in one day. First trip was to buy the sod. Second and Third trips were to get the sod - one full pallet per trip. Fourth trip was to get a sod roller (turned out they had none available, despite what they said on the phone). Fifth trip was to pick up the Everlasting Jobstopper - we wound up being short one stinkin’ tee fitting. Sixth trip was to get a replacement sprinkler valve when one of the ones I’d just finished setting up in a buried valve box decided to leak.
On the flooring front, we decided to call the carpet people on a semi-whim to get an idea what it would cost to replace the ratty 18-year old carpet the house came with. Anyone who grew up in Chicagoland will know the jingle - Five eight eight two three hundred! The price was so good and the 18 months same as cash finance added up to new carpet will be laid on Friday. What better time to investigate that wobbly spot in the floor? We took knives to carpet and pried up the subfloor. Found nothing bad like cracked joists, so the flooring went back down, but this time glued and screwed so it should never again wiggle. New carpet deserves a new vacuum, so we finally got a Dyson Animal.
As for the computer, I’ve crossed over to the White Side. The big black tower and big black monitor are replaced with a skinny white Intel Inside iMac. I’d been thinking of replacing it for quite a while and one day, Windows pissed me off that last time and rebooted itself for an update even though that PC was set to “ASK FIRST” before downloading, installing or rebooting.
Whew! I finally managed to catch up with y’all.
Camping was fun! We headed out on Saturday morning to a state campground where I’d made a reservation, but it turned out that they had a ton of campers and tiny, crowded campsites. After some deliberation, we opted for Plan B: accepting Josh’s mom’s offer to let us camp in her backyard. She was out of town for the weekend, and her place is on about an acre in Western Massachusetts (on the western side of the Quabbin, for those in the know) with enough forest growing around the yard that you can pretend there aren’t any neighbors around. We set up camp at the edge of the yard, next to the forest and down a hill from the house. We made a firepit and said that you could only go in the house to use the bathroom or get water (we also stored the food there at night).
One advantage of not camping on state land is that we could drink with impunity. I think the four of us went through about 48 bottles of beer between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning. Grub was sausage, bacon and bisquits (we cooked the bisquits in a pan with bacon grease - yum!).
Cool stuff that happened: Saturday night I noticed a little glowing point in the grass, and a flashlight revealed a little white grub with a glowing ass curled up in the ground. I showed everyone else, and we figured it must’ve been a glowworm, 'cause what else could it be?
Sunday, a friend of Josh’s from high school had a party at his place for his brother’s college graduation and he invited us by for free food and beer. We ended up playing wiffle ball with a bunch of kids ranging from about 10 to 25 years old. It was fun to be one of the cool older kids.
Sunday night, we had a camp singalong. I’m the only nonmusical one in our group: Josh and Nils sing in chorus, Nils is also a singer-songwriter, and Liz is a cellist and composer. Nils brought a guitar and Liz brought a cello. I’d bugged them for weeks to send me some of their favorite songs so I could compile a little songbook, but I never received a single one, so we had some trouble coming up with songs that we all knew. Oddly (because we’re all born-and-bred 'Merkins), one of the songs that we mostly all knew was O Canada. It took me a moment to figure out what Liz was playing, and then Josh and I started singing along. I missed a couple lines, but I think Josh filled them in. I’m going to save that story for the next time some Canuck complains 'bout how ignorant 'Merkins are of what goes on up north.
Speaking of up north, I like the weather here just fine! See, first you have winter, which is fun if there’s snow, plus there’s nothing like curling up with a blanket and a book in front of a fire. Anyway, when you’re sick and tired of the cold, along comes spring and summer, and everything is green and growing and warm and it’s such a relief. But after a while, it gets really hot and miserable and everybody starts complaining. Just when we’re all sick of the hot weather, though, it gets cold again. I was just thinking earlier today how much I love those cycles, because every spring feels like something special and new.
Explosions! Baby Geese!(But Not All At Once!)
It must be getting hot, the apartment transformer blew this morning. It was after my shower, but before breakfast, so all I had was a banana(nnannnannnanna…) Looks like they fixed it after an hour. On the way to work, I saw some baby Canadian geese. the sure are cute when they are young(but they grow up to be major league poopers). More straightening and sorting for inventory.
Drive (back) safely, swampy.
Drae, I agree about summer. I might have to move back to the homeland.
rosy, hope you get better!
Hey Snakes, what kind of jersey? I’m a Hurricanes fan.
The real estate inspection on the VunderLair happens Thursday afternoon. The formal appraisal happens Friday. This is costing me a bundle, and I have yet to buy a sledgehammer to redecorate the kitchen that isn’t even mine, yet…
Bobbio - quick - get on the phone to HGTV - maybe your home can star in one of their makeover shows and you can get the work done for freebies! You’re welcome! 
dogbutler, it’s a Columbus Cottonmouths jersey, worn by Matus Kostur during our 2004-2005 season. Autographed and everything! This brings me to 14 jerseys, including Mickey & Pluto, Grateful Dead, and Starfleet Academy. I have a couple of replicas and 8 game-worn.
Good Grief, it’s hot! We’re having a Booster Club cookout next weekend and I’m hoping we don’t all melt.
Hi everybody! I’m still alive. And I’m now a Minnesotan! I’ve got lots of stories to share, but I’ll have to tell them a little at a time. (And I’ll have to catch up on everyone else’s life later this week!)
Mom, the cat and I flew out on Saturday, the 20th. Lily (the cat) came through like a trooper. She cried a little in the car, but once we got to the park & fly place, she quieted right down. She made it through security with no problem, even though I had to take her out of her carrier (in the special little room where they strip search people or something… we went there so she wouldn’t get away if she tried to run once out of her carrier). She didn’t like the noise when the plane first started or the sounds and sensations of take offs and landings, but during the flights she slept.
We got in to Mpls just fine, got the rental car, and made a quick run to a grocery store to get a disposable litter pan. Poor Lily had been without for 7 hours by then! We let her out in the back seat while we went in to the apartment rental office to sign the lease. When that and the apartment walk-through were done, we all went in to our new home. And the excitement was over… or so we thought.
We have a fireplace, and Mom was showing me how the damper works. Lily wanted to “help.” She climbed right in. We started looking for tissues to wipe off her paws before she tracked soot around the whole apartment. In the time that took, she thought “Hmm… maybe I should climb up the chimney. See if Santa Claus is there.” She didn’t get very far when there was a sudden POOF of soot! She turned and looked at us with that stunned Oh Shit look on her face, before taking off. We’d have chased her to keep her from leaving a black trail of soot in her wake, but we were laughing too hard. Which added insult to injury.
In the end, she really hadn’t gotten very covered with soot. Here’s her poor sooty neck.
Oddly enough, that’s what I thought when I saw the ‘before’ pictures of your new house, that it had been used on one of those ‘decoratin’ shows.
It’s a little late to say now, but I knew what burgoo is. Well, not “know” like I’ve ever had some, but I heard about it one time on NPR. They were talking about local traditional foods. Burgoo came up. I thought it was supposed to have rabbit in it. But then, I figure you just throw any old thing in the pot and call it “burgoo” and there you go: a pot full of burgoo.
Glad to hear you all made it all right, Taxi! Your story made me smile; it reminds me of Beatrix Potter’s The Roly Poly Pudding, which is about how Tom Kitten gets in a lot of trouble by climbing up a chimney. My mom used to read it to my brother and I, with voices for all the characters. It was one of our favorite stories.
Taxi - that’s hilarious. Something about cats and fireplaces, but I’ve never had one try to climb in.
Sounds like everybody’s been busy…so it’s not just me. 
I’ve been making histrionic necklaces, but now that I’ve got my desk covered (well, more covered) in eyepins, beads, and jump rings I kind of want to switch to sewing. Unfortunately I’m halfway through Overdone Necklace #3 (black red and gold, the first two were silver and clear and amethyst and silver, respectively) and I don’t want to put everything away.
I need a maid. A patient maid. Or maybe a mommy.
It may be a little late to start a sewing project, too.
Tomorrow evening I’m going to make Mr. Lissar take pictures of everything I’ve made recently and stick them up on our photo page.
I nominate taxi78cab for next week’s MMP - she said she has stories to tell.
All in favor?
AYE
all opposed?
(sorry, no crickets - last weeks critters ate them all up)
Nah, Lissla, it’s early yet. You could clean up quickly (in, say, 1/2 an hour) and still have hours and hours to sew in.
See, Taters, that’s the thing. “Most of the time.” And then there’s the logistics. Far-away best friend would be even farther away (she’s in Germany); the trip to visit Mom would be longer; all my local friends would be here and not there (although there would at least be a few Dopers…); my brother and his kids would be much farther away (although he might be willing to move; someday-to-be-ex-sister-in-law maybe not so much). Oh, and there’s that little job thing. But, maybe I’ll win the lottery and be able to have multiple homes so that I can go wherever the weather is ideal that day.
gotti, please stop making us look like slackers. I think you may have outdone even FCM, and no one gets more done than FCM. There’s a rule!
Camping trip sounds like fun, TWO.
Where’s the homeland, dogbutler?
Yay! taxi’s back!! I was just wondering the other day when you were going to re-appear. The cat story is priceless.
I planted something like 6 containers, plus 4 canna lily bulbs (which may or may not turn into anything; I may have waited too long) and 6 four-o’clock roots (ditto), plus put 3 perennials in the ground (they needed to move). Then I did some cleaning up in the garage. Hopefully the rain will hold off another day so that I can at least finish up containers and finish getting plants in the ground.
How come it’s past my bedtime already? Days go by so fast during gardening season! And I’ve already got a list of stuff to do in the morning before I leave for work!
GT
Oooh…forgot…I’d second the motion on taxi starting us off next week, but apparently we already voted…
GT
Wisconsin.
warning - do not click this link unless you have 15 minutes to spare. It will make you sit there and go “huh?” but you will smile