Friday, February 27, 2015

Construction With Cookies – Day Who Cares?

I don’t know about you but I’m beginning to get confused about what day I should be describing and which “cookie” goes with that day.  I think I should be telling you about yesterday but I’m pretty sure I already posted a picture of yesterday’s “cookie.”  Maybe I was telling you about the day BEFORE yesterday and the “cookie” from the day after.   It’s all a muddle in my head.  Next thing you know I might get really confused and start baking TWO cookies in one day or NO cookies.  No cookies!?  Can you imagine the butterfly effect that might have?   I don’t even want to think about it. 

Yesterday my head bee, John, stopped by with a mason.  Not the jar, the guy who works with bricks and stones and mortar.  We have a rock wall in the basement which used to be behind a woodstove.  And we think there was a hearth in front because there is about a five-inch gap between the cement floor and the last rock of the wall.  


Dean had told me he would just fill in that gap with cement or concrete or mortar (or whatever the correct substance really is) but I said, “no!  The final touch to this room will be the floor which I (as in I hope Ryan will help me) am going to put in and I can’t do that until the rocks are mortared into the rock wall and I’d really like that to be finished before the end of the next millennium.”  Really?  You think I’d say that to Dean?  Of course not.  I thoughtfully considered what he proposed.  It would save me some money …. it seemed like a simple job … it shouldn’t take him longer than a couple of months …. Finally I said, “umm, thanks but I’m going to ask John if he knows a mason.”  Dang good thing I listened to my gut because mason bee said just filling the space with concrete would not have held the wall and the cement would have begun crumbling.  As I handed him a big fat slice of banana bread he said he would be back at 9:00 a.m. the next day. 

As well as mason bee, my head bee also brought along a painter yesterday. “Dry-wall bee’s bid for the painting is too high,” he said.  “I wouldn’t pay that much and I don’t want you to pay that much.  I brought you another painter to have a look.  She’s a professional and she’ll do a good job but she’s much more reasonable.”  I said thanks! and handed them both a big slab of banana bread.

Right after I hit “publish” on yesterday’s blog post I headed over to Leslie and Ryan’s because Emerson was still home sick.  She thought she would go to school.  She got up to get ready to go to school, but her throbbing head sent her back to bed.  You know a kid is really sick when she chooses to stay in bed rather than go to Doughnuts In The Cafeteria With Dad.  Later, when I got home and checked out the progress of the basement, it looked the same.  Well, not exactly the same, there was another coat of mud on everywhere there had already been mud, but really nothing to take a picture of.  So since there’s really not much to share with you about yesterday, I’m going to tie up everything that’s happened today and be done with it…………til next week.  

Dry-wall bee got right to work this morning slapping on more mud.  Really?  MORE mud?  Dust!  I want dust!  Lots and lots of fine dust!  I don’t care if it filters into my food and my hair.  I won’t even care if there are little tiny white cat prints on every surface in the house.   Start sanding my bee!  Sand!  Sand!  Sand!  Because then you can texture, texture, texture and then paint bee can paint, paint, paint.  I want … oh, gosh … I want to see the light at the end of the tunnel!  No!  I want to be out of the tunnel and done! Done! Done!  Done!  Sorry….got a little carried away….

Anyway…… today’s construction “cookie” – Jewish Coffee Cake – was baking in the oven before dry-wall bee arrived around 8:30.  No, I don’t know why it’s called Jewish and yes, I know, I can’t really pass this off as a cookie (even if you can hold it in your hand) but it was easy and it’s good and I’m running out of cookie ideas.  I might have to break into my Christmas cookie recipes pretty soon. 


 After I’d taken the cake out of the oven to cool I looked up at the clock to see if it was nearing the time for mason bee to arrive and noticed a huge streak of brownish-yellowish liquid oozing across the family room ceiling. 


I had a momentary panic thinking the skylight had sprung a leak but after Dean came running, he told me it was just condensation dripping down.  There is a lot of moisture in the house from the drywall mud and it was minus 14 when I got up this morning so the skylight had frosted over because, according to Dean, we (meaning me) keep the house too cold at night.  When the heat came on and the sun started shining onto the skylight, the frost melted and dripped down the side and onto the ceiling.  All I had to do, he told me, was climb up on a ladder and wipe off the streak from the ceiling.  And then wipe off any remaining wetness from the skylight itself. 


So catastrophe was averted, but I'm pretty sure that means Dean’s not going to let me drop the heat to 58 degrees at night until all this dry-walling moisture is gone or it’s warmer at night.  He’s probably going to make me keep it at something crazy like 62 or 63.

Mason bee and his helper got here just as I was reaching for a knife to cut the coffee cake/cookie


and in less than two hours they had mortared in the rocks that Dean had unburied from the snow, lovingly cleaned and dried and gently laid down by the wall. 


The mortar should dry light like the rest.
My dry-wall bee was getting ready to leave around one so I told him to take some cake with him if he wanted.  I was a little worried he hadn’t liked today’s “cookie” because about an hour earlier, when I’d let him know there was more if he wanted it he told me there was still a lot down there.  I grabbed a baggie for him and then thought maybe it would be easier to wrap the slices in saran wrap so I laid a sheet out on the table.  Take as much as you want.  I’d worried for nothing.  He took the plate, with six pieces still on it, and flipped it over onto the plastic wrap.  And now he is gone for the day.  He’d sanded and textured the laundry room and I hadn’t even noticed any dust floating up the stairs or felt any dust clinging to my nose hairs.

I know you can't see it but it's textured!
Not only that, he’s coming tomorrow morning to sand and texture rest!  I don't care if it’s Saturday, he’s coming tomorrow morning to sand and texture rest! What’s that I see?  Is it?  The light?  At the end of the tunnel?◦
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1 comment:

Art Elser said...

I suspect that if you keep feeding your worker bees cookies and now cake, you will be able to use your Christmas cookie recipe because they will still be doing something in the basement at Christmas because you keep feeding them cookies and cake.

Did Dean "lovingly clean the rocks" by licking them, or did he actually wash them?