Whiling away the waiting days

Last weekend I posted snow photos. Today it was shorts and t-shirts weather. Ahhhh...Wyoming....it's never boring.

While we've been waiting patiently for the next stage of the kitchen remodeling (one short week to go) we have kept ourselves busy. Dean has managed to cut up, take apart, or bend into shapes and sizes that will fit into the garbage can virtually all the remaining bits and pieces of the kitchen. Who would have thought a whole kitchen could be removed by using your weekly garbage pickup? There has to be a post-retirement career in that. As you see below I can actually park in the garage again---that is until the second week in November when that stall will be filled with kitchen cabinets waiting for installation.

My project during this kitchen lull has been to sew dolls for Emerson and Myra for Christmas. I actually used a sewing machine---yes, one with a real motor--and managed to complete these two lovely misses with only having to rip out and redo two small mistakes. I didn't even pick up any part of the doll or the clothing and wing it against the wall or toward the floor at any time during the whole process. I think I may have developed some patience over the last half-century. Maybe sewing machines aren't so bad after all.....for some things anyway.

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Whiling away the waiting days

Oh, man....it's not even Halloween yet

As we wait patiently for two more weeks until our floor is installed we "enjoy" a Wyoming autumn.

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Oh, man....it's not even Halloween yet

Oh, my aching back

One of the items on my list for this weekend included painting the kitchen ceiling. Instead of the normal Wyoming blue skies and bright sun, it was cold and cloudy. Anybody with a brain would have postponed the painting until a sunny day. Maybe even anybody with only half a brain. Especially considering the fact that the ceiling lights are not yet functioning so the only light in the kitchen is from a make-do pole light Dean devised. I, however, determined to cross off everything from my weekend list, soldiered on and painted the ceiling--two coats no less. I don't love painting walls and ceilings. I don't even like painting walls and ceilings. I'm not especially good at painting walls and ceilings. I'm a messy painter. When I finish my hands are covered in paint, my hair has blobs of paint in it, my contacts have been known to have specs of paint on them, the bottoms of my shoes have paint on them, and my clothes have paint on them. I suspect my painting technique isn't ergonomically correct either. I used a roller extension which was nice. I could stand on the floor instead of crawling up and down a ladder. But as I was holding the pole over my head, looking up at the ceiling while slowly bending backward to reach even further on the ceiling, I thought to myself, "this probably isn't a good thing to be doing." Later that night as my muscles spoke to me in no uncertain terms every time I tried to move I was pretty sure I'd been right. Maybe I should have listened to myself. Oh, wait. That would probably require a brain which I had chosen not to use.



The thrills of painting the ceiling were almost usurped by listening to the Wyoming Cowboys pretend to play football. The highlight of the game was the 1 hour 40 minutes of patter the radio guys had to fill when the game was suspended due to lightening strikes. The final score for the Pokes on their homecoming day was 3-24. Not to be outdone, however, the Huskers final homecoming score was 14-45. Lest you worry I've become a Pokes fan, I only watch/listen to the game in order to report scores to my lovely Wyoming Cowboy supporter, Abby. She reciprocates by updating me with Husker scores. There was no joy in Mudville yesterday.



This morning Dean replaced the final pieces of particle board in the floor and I spent quality time scraping off more of the paper left behind from the linoleum. That was more fun than I can even describe. Fortunately, after I almost sliced my hand with the putty knife, I pulled my brain out of the storage compartment I'd placed it yesterday and put my work gloves on. My back didn't enjoy the scraping of paper any more than it enjoyed painting the ceiling. It's talking to me again.



Before the scraping and wood replacement began today I discovered that two of the ceiling lights actually are connected and work if a lightbulb is screwed into them. That was helpful and brightened the room. It brightened it so much I discovered I need to put another coat of paint on the ceiling. Oh, boy, I can hardly wait for next weekend.◦

Oh, my aching back

Muffins, Squash, Plums and Contractors

My drywaller was here taping, mudding, sanding and texturing at least a portion of the first three days of the week. Monday I traded some squash (his) for plums (ours). I think he's finished. The portions of the ceiling he was working on have been textured. It looks finished to me. But a big fancy-looking sponge is still lying on the floor which implies he will be returning.

Tuesday my plumber came, ate some apple muffins and saved our butts. When he went down in the crawl space to turn off the water he discovered a disaster waiting to happen. It seems a joint in the pipes where the water turn-off valve for the sprinklers is had never been soldered. And the bucket that just happened to be sitting there (and has been since we've lived here) had filled up in the two days since we'd had the sprinklers winterized. So along with all the other kitchen plumbing he fixed that for us. The gas line is installed for the new stove, he prepared the pipes where the sink will go, and moved the water line for the ice maker. And it's pretty darn cool--not the copper pipe sticking out of the floor we had before.

It's looking like we'll just be waiting around until November 5 for the new floor to be put in. Gosh, whatever will we do with our time? I'm hoping I'll be able to get back to my workout schedule at the gym. Every week I tell myself "this week I'll get back on my routine" and every week something happens to prevent me. I actually made it three times this week and tonight I even spent some quality time on the dreaded elliptical. Good thing, because the box of caramel/pecan candies we'd bought from a kid selling them for his school fundraiser was calling my name tonight. I answered the call, ripped the plastic off the box and ate one. Okay, I ate three of them, but I didn't have that doughnut at work yesterday...

Dean continues to whittle down the kitchen debris into nifty little piles which will gradually find their way to the garbage can. If he keeps at it I won't even need to borrow a pickup to haul it all away. Of course while it looks like he's getting rid of all this junk, there's a strong possibility he's just squirreling it away for a future "art project". I try not to think about that.



More updates later. I need to heat up the ol' hot plate and cook something for dinner or I'll polish off the rest of those caramel/pecan candies and that would be oh, so bad.◦

Muffins, Squash, Plums and Contractors

Stretching Those Retirement Dollars

It's the weekend so no busy worker bees at our house until tomorrow. Thus, no kitchen news or photos to share. That means I'll have to bore you with other news.

We have volunteered to usher at the Wyoming Symphony concerts this year and last night was the first concert of the season and our first night of ushering. Dean's preparation for the concert included a trip to WalMart to purchase black pants and shirt (the expected ushering uniform for these concerts) and a quick glance at the seating chart. My preparation included studying the seating chart several times and writing the break-out of the sections on my hand hopefully to prevent not only appearing to, but actually being lost.

We were assigned the balcony, along with a veteran couple to "keep an eye on us." As it turned out, it was a cold and rainy night and the house (note I've already picked up the theatre/concert jargon) was far from packed. Thirty-five years of marriage paid off as we drew upon our many years of cooperation to put that teamwork into play...."okay, I did the last group, now it's your turn." After only 20-30 minutes of pretty enjoyable "work" we sat back with the rest of the audience and enjoyed the concert. What better way to stretch those retirment dollars when that future need will arise. Here's a website to the symphony in case anybody's interested.

http://www.wyomingsymphony.org/

And, since I have no kitchen photos, I took a photo of Lily enjoying her evening drink.

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Stretching Those Retirement Dollars

Plums

It's Friday and for the first time all week when I walked in the door there were no workmen. The drywaller had come and gone and I was only met with drywall dust, bits of mud and a half-empty tupperware of apple-cinnamon muffins. My theory of working with contractors is if you feed them treats they will treat you well and do a good job for you. I fed my electricians oatmeal-raisin cookies and pulled the muffins out of the freezer for the drywallers. I hope there's still something in the freezer for the plumber. However, as much as I enjoy visiting with them and love the fact that they're here working, there's nothing like coming home to your own house with nobody in it but the dog and cat to greet you.

Since I have no exciting kitchen pictures to share I figured I might as well show off our plum tree. I think we planted that tree about five years ago. The first year we got one plum. If I remember right the next year we got three plums. The next two or three years it froze just as it was blossoming---until this year. This year it's the motherload. More plums than we know what to do with. I've made one loaf of plum bread and I see plum muffins in the future. That could be interesting. We may even drag out the ol' dehydrator and give that a try.
Anybody have any plum recipes they'd like to share??













It's Columbus Day weekend so we have three days to catch up on all the things we haven't had time to do:

Put to bed the garden that wasn't
Mow the lawn (please let it be the last time)
Pick, freeze and dry more plums
Try to remove as much dust as possible from all over the house
Give the dog a bath since she's probably just as dusty as the rest of the house
Go out for a belated birthday dinner for me and actually relax for one night. Woo Hoo! And yes, I am now one year closer to "older than dirt" :-)◦

Plums

Really? Now?

Things are progressing at lightening speed here in kitchen remodeling land. So far every contractor I had previously spoken to has shortened their predicted lead time by as much as three weeks. Everybody, that is, except the floor people. When the electrician came to look at the kitchen 10 days ago he told me it would probably be three weeks after he gave me his bid before he could come out. Last Wednesday I received the bid, mailed the deposit on Thursday, called Friday morning to tell them they should have my deposit and to please put me on their schedule. We didn't feel any pressure to have the kitchen completely gutted last weekend because I knew it would be at least two to three weeks before there would be any electrical work. That's why we spent Sunday reorganizing instead of gutting. Well, that and our muscles hurt so bad we could barely move.

Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. my phone rings at work. It's the electrician. I'm thinking, cool, I should get on the schedule in plenty of time to be finished before the end of the month. But what he says is, "I hear you called Friday and wanted to be put on the schedule. Can we come out this morning?" I'm speechless. "uh, uh, well, uh, um, really? now?" ... I'm thinking, holy cow! the kitchen's not completely gutted but I can't tell him not to come out. So I explained what was left to do, two very nice electricians came out and began working. That meant Monday night Dean and I were up until almost midnight on Monday pulling out the ovens, the center island and cooktop, the sinks, and anything else leftover. Honestly it went so smoothly I still can't believe it. No plumbing disasters, strained backs, broken bones, cuts, and not even any arguing. I think it helped that I let Dean be the boss and I was in charge of cleanup, and added muscle when needed.

So now the electrical work is completed until it's time to finish up after the cabinets are in and backsplash is tiled. In the meantime my drywall guy called and came out yesterday to look at what needed to be repaired and textured. When I called to set up the initial appt. he told me he was book for about three weeks. Guess who's coming tomorrow to begin drywall work?

The only glitch in this whole process so far (knock on wood) is the plumbing and that's only because we didn't get a piece of the floor replaced last night. Otherwise he would have been out this morning putting in the gas line for the stove. I should explain that we would have had the board in except it wasn't until it was all measured, cut and the area trimmed and ready that Dean discovered Sutherlands had grabbed the wrong thickeness of board when they cut a smaller piece for us and by then it was past store hours. I could hear that bad, bad word all the way in the basement when the thickness problem was discovered.

The wood floor guys told me they were booked for eight weeks but they juggled things around and I'm on the schedule in only six short weeks. So instead of six weeks of worrying about and/or trying to get the electrical, plumbing and drywall work done before floor time, it looks like we'll be sitting around twiddling our thumbs for six weeks. I'm not complaining though. I wouldn't mind sitting down and twiddling my thumbs for a while.

Here's the lastest visual representation of our life.

And my temporary kitchen.

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Really? Now?