Our Days

It's been just over two weeks since the kids left and have we ever stayed busy. That's the prescribed tonic for a too quiet house and life you know.

There were chores to be done over at the RV and shopping to do for our guest bath project.

Rich looked out our dining room window on the morning of June 26th to see about 80 geese walking down the fairway behind our house. As you can see, there were golfers playing through there but, even though their heads were held high on alert, the geese continued their march.

The next day was a busy one. When we got back from C'ville and St. Louis with the kids, we discovered that one of our bedroom windows had been broken by an errant golf ball...the price we occasionally pay for the view out the back of our house. While the glass guys were here to replace that window, we also had them remove the huge, standard builder-issued mirrors in our bathrooms and the glass shower doors in the master...projects, always projects. The girls were sequestered in the front room during all this activity but still kept an eye on all the goings on.

It had been hot, the first hot spell of the year when that afternoon these interesting [read scary] clouds formed and the winds came dropping the temps by 20+ degrees.

That meant it was time to bake that cake I had been planning for a couple of days. The recipe had been posted on a prominent food blogger's site and I was ready to follow her lead.

Perfect Batter

Perfect Cake

At every stage, my cake looked EXACTLY like the photos she had posted. It cooled on a rack for the exact number of minutes she instructed but when I turned it over, it seemed firmly lodged in the pan. My fabulous husband said, "Here, let me. I can shake it loose." And he did...giggle, giggle

The biggest disappointment and surprise in this whole incident though, was that we didn't like the cake. We dug into it eagerly because none of this would affect the taste, but after a few bites each the whole thing ended up in our garbage disposal!

When the kids and Rich took down the wallpaper in the guest bath, only the vinyl layer came off with the back layer still firmly attached to the wall. Removing it was simply a matter of using a sponge and warm water to wet it, loosening the edge with a thin blade, then gently pulling it off. This time I asked Rich to get the camera since I know y'all think he does every bit of every project.

              

Of course Rich does most of the work on our projects; for instance, you would not want me rewiring your house. There were overhead lights in the guest bath and now we chose sconces. He wanted me to take photos of the locations of the original wires and the newly fished wires before he puts drywall and boxes over them for inclusion in our 'behind the walls' album. We do have a good time working together, just look at that big ole smile on his face....tsk, tsk...I said look at his smile!

The next day, he was cutting a screw to the size he needed when the wire cutter slipped and he ended up in the emergency room...finally. You see, I was just there for a test a few weeks ago and he was there last week to see his optometrist but neither of us remembered correctly where it was. By the time we got there, the whole thing had become quite funny. It was like having Lucy drive you to the hospital. Thank goodness it was only a really bad, really bloody cut on his thumb. I didn't even think to grab my camera so I only have crappy cell phone photos of the whole thing. We were both joking around so much that the staff thought...well, I have no idea what they thought but they were all laughing. Here the doctor is putting four stitches in his thumb.

The giant white bandage did make it easier for him to "thumb" a ride from Target the next day though!

Our nephew, Ted, and his lovely wife, Johanna, were here from CA this past week and divided their time between the homes of a cousin on his mom's side and his Aunt Marianne's. It was so beastly hot, as I'm sure everyone heard on the news, that we didn't do much except go to fun places to eat, tour the old neighborhoods in Chicago where he lived as a kid, we got to go inside their church St. Adelbert's too and visit.

They came out to our house, their last day here. They both love dogs and were really missing theirs so they especially enjoyed seeing the girls.

I don't remember ever posting about Rich's N-scale railroad; because it is massive, he has been working on it a long time. He loved showing Ted, Johanna, and Marianne the progress he's made.

If any of you cringed when I said that Rich does electrical work in our house, he designed and installed every inch of the miles and miles of wire on this layout...you would trust him too!

That evening we joined Ted and Johanna; Marianne; Greg and Jenny; Ted's cousin, Diane, and her husband, Paul, for dinner at Home Run Inn.

What a fun way to spend the last evening, visiting with all of them! So yeah, I'm even posting a rare photo of Rich and I together.

Yesterday we braved the heat to shop for a new vanity top and we scored! We removed the old top and set the new one on just to see how it looks. Now we are having a tough time selecting the paint color and after that there is still a lot of work to be done before the guest bath is finished.

At 2:30 yesterday afternoon it was 107.2 degrees outside; five hours later it had dropped by more than 30 degrees. Rich wanted to go to DQ and on the way, fireworks were being launched just off of busy Weber Road. Rich pulled to the side of the road and we watched in awe having never seen fireworks that close before. The explosions rocked the van...it was great, except for the fact that I only had my crappy cell phone with me for photos. I.must.get.a.new.phone.

If you made it to the end of this post, know that I love you for it!

Lovin' Life ~~ And Our Very Ordinary Life