It's the final days of the great House Overhaul!
And not a moment too soon, because my little noodle brain can't
take much more of this.
While I am more than grateful for this amazing gift and am
in no way deserving of any of it, I'm ready to have my yard and peace back.
Work is coming to a close today with replacing the basement window
(after it was removed to put in cement and a radon mitigation system)
and putting on finished hand railings to the front porch.
To celebrate, I got some coneflowers to join the recovering salvias on the front porch beds,
and a hydrangea for the back corner.
Poor things.
They haven't turned brown and died yet, so I think they will pull through.
In the meantime, I've been sort of occupied in other ways.
Played a fun concert with a Sinatra-esque singer.
Once the sun went down and wasn't stabbing us in the eyes,
it was a wonderfully pleasant night to be outside.
On a Swedish candy kick.
These Bubs are pretty tasty.
They are intense though, so I only nibble a few at a time.
Can't eat sugar like I used to.
Got a rare glimpse into the neighbor's back yard.
They replaced their privacy fence.
So, I got an unexpected new fence too.
Surprise!
This view didn't last long.
The new fence was up within a day.
I chose the new numbers for the front of the house,
and was home to "direct" the contractor where I wanted them on the house.
I also asked them to put a set of the old numbers on the back of the house.
For historical, and hysterical, reasons.
One fine Saturday, I took an hour or so to check out the Iowa Vintage Fest.
It was just okay.
Kind of an overpriced flea market.
However, at one of the record booths, I found this David Bowie promo poster.
It's big, with a few small tears, but otherwise in pretty good shape.
I talked the price down just a bit and it was mine.
Amongst the sea of old t-shirts, I found this gem.
A Titanic t-shirt!
With new tags on. And at a reasonable $20.
Perfect.
Made sure to vote in the Iowa primary.
Vote while you still can!
Getting some sunshine.
Started painting the small patch of ceiling.
The spackle seems to have held, and I see no new signs of flaking,
so after giving it a good coat of dark blue, I started on the Egyptian stars.
I did this in parts, because it's tiring to paint on the ceiling.
That's why Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel lying down.
Between stars, I set about fixing the portable air con issue upstairs.
Now that the small window was replaced with one that couldn't open
(and so I couldn't vent the air con tube out of it) I had to come up with
a new solution.
Moved the unit closer to the dormer window, and set it on a crate.
Okay, not too bad. This might work.
But now the hose won't reach the window.
In a rare move, I went to Amazon to get a hose extension and ended up
finding the part I needed to fix the problem.
It ain't cute, but it will keep the room cool on especially hot days.
I ended up taping the tubes together, and using the window insert that
came with the new tube, I got it arranged and ready to go.
Problem solved.
Remember: Whenever you run into a problem, there is an almost
100% chance someone else has had that same problem and found
a solution to it. A bit of research and elbow grease, and the problem is fixed.
More stars
Mmmm, fresh concrete.
It raised the floor just enough that I have to slightly stoop so as to
not run into the floor joists.
Yard Goat approves.
Finished stars.
Well, sort of. Some of those stars got a bit out of control...
...so I erased the blurry stars with blue paint and redid them.
Much better.
Controlling chaos. It's the ancient Egyptian way.
Went to the stack of to be read books and pulled out
Flaubert's Parrot, by Julian Barnes.
Interesting so far.
Somewhat light, summer reading.
It is on Bowie's Top 100 Books list, and every now and then,
I'll take a title from the list to read.
Indian lunch at a restaurant I haven't been to for a long time.
Still kind of expensive (probably why I don't go there much)
but this potato and sauce dish (with roti bread) was very tasty.
I like to see Shakespeare plays live.
I get more out of them seeing them performed versus reading them.
Love's Labour's Lost
Shakespearean humor and mistaken identity all rolled into one.
The cast was great, except for the guy playing the Spaniard,
who ground the play to a halt every time he spoke.
yes, I got a real Stanley.
Have been mostly indifferent to the whole Stanley cup trend thing,
but I was taken with this black iridescent color.
It will leak if it tips over, so regular water bottles are needed for traveling
around, but nice for sipping on cold water all day.
Get outside and enjoy the summer heat!
It'll be cold and miserable again before you know it!
No comments:
Post a Comment