Nothing to report

Same old stuff going on here. Soccer, baseball, riding lessons and other activities keep us hopping. Speaking of hopping, we've been letting Neo out of his cage more often. He now spends most of the afternoon free and he loves it. He and Wilma play - really roughly sometimes, but they both instigate it. Neo has tried playing with Shadow this week but Shadow has turned into such an old man in the past year (he's around 7 or 8) that he just grumbles and moves away.

We have tickets to see the Yankees play on the 30th, thanks to Daddy's recent bonus. We're getting a little nervous, though. We bought the tickets in late July. At the time this was the only game that we could get 4 tickets together at (Younger Daughter will be spending quality time with Grandma). Problem is, the time of the game was "TBD" and we didn't know if it was day or night (we're hoping for day...). Well as of today the game time is still TBD. And it's the ONLY game on the schedule without a time. Arghhh.

Older Daughter's birthday is this coming Saturday. We'll be spending the day at my sister's house for my nephew's 4th birthday (which was Sept. 2, but somebody couldn't pick a better day for a party..., at least it's also Town-Wide yardsale day in their town). OD is turning 12 (yikes!).

True Confessions

We've been watching this.

Not only have we been watching it, we actually look forward to it!

I'm so ashamed

The Husband thinks Lucy Lawless looked better brunette. I didn't recognize her as a blonde but I think she's far more attractive on Duets then on Zena (not that I watched Zena!)

Another Thursday and more rain, so I'm guessing that soccer will be cancelled again - which is fine because we also have 2nd Grade Open House tonight.

I've been managing to get some small projects done of late - I have an art swap to get in the mail tomorrow and I have MUCH junk to clear out of here (as usual), but we did manage to put up curtains around the pantry shelves so I don't have to look at the mess all the time. Someday it will be a real pantry...maybe.... I had to do some pantry cleaning because when I wanted to make cinnamon rolls yesterday I discovered that my yeast was dead and my flour was infested with Indian Meal Moths. Ick! And when one dry good is infested it's a good bet that the others are too. So I need to head to Sam's for yeast and flour and buy more of the Lock 'n Lock containers that I LOVE to store dry goods in. We still need to retile the empty space in the kitchen floor but otherwise the Kitchen is more or less under control. Younger Daughter has a corner of the Living Room for her use since her bedroom is so tiny and that has been slowly getting cleaned up and she moved her 'desk' so that she and her Sassy friend can play school (they're in the same class this year and enjoy doing homework together).

We went to a new church last Sunday and The Husband and I both felt at home. We'll be back this week to hear the sermon since Sunday's sermon wasn't really a sermon - it was the (new) pastor's vision for that church, which was pretty much the vision that every pastor (and Christian) ought to have for every church. But both the choir and the congregatonal singing was AMAZING! The Husband, who has a wonderful singing voice and usually sticks out in any congregation, was able to sing loudly and not be obvious. Even the hyms sounded like they were being sung by a full choir, not the anemic, half-hearted singing we've been hearing at other churches. Just a few days earlier I had ordered some Traditional Hymn CDs from CBD because I missed them, but this church could easily fill that void and we hope it will fill some others. If you know me in a churchy way then you won't be surprised that I have chancel issues about this church (there's no cross at the front, only a denominational seal!). Sighhhhh. Maybe the new pastor will address that at some future date.


So I was looking through my photos from Maine in August and noticed that I didn't take very many - and there are even fewer that I really like. The two girls below are Younger Daughter and her cousin "Gwen" (Girl Who Eats Nothing !) who lives in Maine.

Trying to catch up...again

Things are plodding along here. School's in full swing - next week will be the first FULL week of school since they had last Friday and Monday off for Labor Day. Both of the older kids are in Middle School now and they only have one Back-to-School night for all grades, so we'll only have two to go to this year instead of 3.

The Husband is swamped at work, unofficially managing a project and a moderately clueless consultant. When he was working from home yesterday he ran some stuff by me to try to figure out if the problem was in his explaining or in the Consultant's understanding. Well, since I understood it pretty well I'd say it's not the explaining...

We've had lots of rain and it mainly seems to happen in late afternoon so soccer has been frequently cancelled. They had pictures last night (but no practice), and The Boy has a baseball game tomorrow morning (they've also been rained out a lot so this will only be his second time at BB since it began in August. Also tomorrow Older Daughter will be starting Horseback Riding Lessons, thanks to her wonderful AuntL who is not only paying for lessons but also transporting OD along with CousinS to the barn every Saturday. Thanks AuntieL and family!

The garden is horribly overgrown but I'm harvesting mucho tomatoes and basil. There are a few eggplants and peppers holding thier own and I picked (well, I accidently mowed over the vine) a watermelon today that's the size of a cantaloupe. That's bigger than last year's which were the size of tennis balls! The Boy ate both in one sitting.

Rain

It hasn't started yet, but we're supposed to be getting buckets of rain this weekend from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ernesto. It's nice and cool so since the kids are off today and Monday we'll probably do some baking. Older Daughter has a friend who spent the night and The Boy has a friend coming over later, but Younger Daughter's friend couldn't come over which left YD crabby (surprise!). I have her reading right now but I only have about 3 pages left before she whines again.

This is what happens when you want to go canoeing and a cloud breaks open just as you're getting in the boat. The Boy made a break for the house while OD and Dad pulled the boat up onto shore. I think they were glad that they hadn't left 15 minutes earlier.

Yaayyyy!!

The school busses were rolling this morning and all 3 kids left on them. Unfortunately only two will be coming home on one because The Boy is having a bout of Swimmer's Ear and The Husband took him to the doctor at 10:30am.



It's been quite a week (again). We got a call from the State Dept. of Health about The Husband's lab results. He did battle with Campylobacter - and we had to retrace our meals in Maine, including reporting the chicken barbecue at Dad's church....

Speaking of places we ate, this was one of them:

Big G's makes their own bread and the slices are HUGE! The photo below doesn't do the sandwich justice. This is Older Daughter with half of her half-sandwich ( IOW, she's holding 1/4 of a sandwich. The husband and I split a sandwich and still took home leftovers).



We also ate at Olive Garden one afternoon. Older Daughter ordered chicken parm and I ordered eggplant (which the girls and the Husband refuse to eat. The Boy will eat anything). After helping younger daughter I cut into my eggplant and it seemed unusually firm, so I asked O.D. if she had gotten her chicken. She had taken a bite and declared it good and fine and wonderful until I pointed out that she had my eggplant. Maybe if I cover food in sauce and cheese and tell her it's chicken parmesan she'll eat it...

Mary's Violet Eyes Made John Stay Up Nights...

...Pacing. But we no longer need to remember "Pacing" because Pluto has just been demoted and is no longer a planet.

In case you didn't learn it in school, the title is a mnemonic device used to remember the names of the planets in order -- Mercury, Venus, Earth...you get the picture.

Catching up

I tried to post a few times but Blogger wouldn't behave. Let's hope today's the day!

I finally pulled pictures off my camera. I'll post vacation pics in a later post. But here's the pic of my basement ceiling for Jenny.



You're looking at the bottom of the original kitchen floor and the plethora of nails and screws holding various subfloors onto it. Hence the reason we will be installing Pergo at some point in time instead of refinishing the original wood.


Oh, and directly under this portion of ceiling is my washer from which I extricated an ankle sock from the pump. Everything seems to be back in working order (well, at least the as far as the washing machine is concerned).

And...

the washing machine chose today to stop draining. Sassy Neighbor, if you're reading this, I'll be spinning a load of clothes dry at your house tomorrow :o) and we took the Birthday banner off your front porch.

Yes, we're home

and mostly alive.... It was quite a trip home. I slept through much of Saturday (packing day) so The Husband and kids had to go it alone. They did an ok job - it got done at least, even though it took hours longer than it should have - but now I can hardly find anything!

We left Maine at 7am instead of the intended 3am and arrived home at 4:30pm after a really long trip that included several unscheduled stops for dog cleanup (Shadow does not travel well!). As we arrived home The Husband immediately headed to the bathroom then to bed. Tuesday I took him to the doctor and antibiotics have helped but because of his heart issues they're running all sorts of tests on him. He's still not up to par but he has managed to work from home yesterday and today.

More about the trip later and I'll post some pictures when I find my camera...

Hi adoring fans...

Today's blog is coming to you from Dad's basement in Maine - it's wireless and everything! The weather is great although it's a little too cool for me to swim (but the kids and dogs have been in the lake every day).

This is just a quick check-in...maybe tomorrow I'll post some pictures but we've gotta get down to the cottage ("Camp" as they call them up here) for supper.

HOT!

104F at Walmart today. On the highway it dropped to 100, then to 94 at home. We've been living in the bedrooms (they have AC) - including eating dinner. The kids' third soccer practice in a row was cancelled - once for thunderstorms and twice for excessive heat (I know - you Arizona gals are practically freezing when it's below 100!).

We're making progress with the treadmill - it's out of the garage and in the house. Now it needs to get upstairs and then get assembled. It's probably not going to sprout legs anytime soon, huh?

Jenny - this is why we can't strip the kitchen floor down to the original wood. This pic is of our basement ceiling and all those nails are holding down two layers of subflooring :o( I suggested to The Husband that we bring down the flooring from the attic but he thinks that sounds like work. So we'll do Pergo.
THIS PIC WILL BE ADDED WHEN BLOGGER DECIDES TO PLAY NICE

We did manage to get the downstairs bathroom fully operational once again! You can replace a closet flange on your own if you know where to get the hinged flange from (it was no small feat! I only found one retailer online for it).

Blogging will be light or non-existent next week.
And I'm gonna post this asap because the power is flickering again (more thunderstorms)

Happy ...

System Administrator Appreciation Day

It also happens to be The Husband's thirty-somthingeth birthday :o)

We spent yesterday running around searching for soccer cleats for younger daughter. Walmart, then Dick's Sporting Goods, then Kmart with no luck. Then Sassy Neighbor sent me back to WalMart and had me ASK someone this time. Not only did they have cleats, but they had PINK cleats.
And after all that a thunderstorm cancelled soccer practice last night.

Wilma insisted on being in the picture:

Update - Part 2

If you haven't read the beginning - scroll down to the previous post before reading this one.

So we went to bed on Tuesday night with a leak somewhere above the dryer in the basement. Overnight our 2 gallon bucket was filled with water and we *thought* we knew from whence the leak sprung. We were wrong.

Wednesday, The Husband went to work but he sent his parents over to help me out. Grandma kept the kids out of my hair (thank you, thank you, thank you!) while Grandpa helped me trace the leak. Well we discovered that it wasn't coming from the pipe that we thought. It appeared to be squeezing out of the floor and onto the pipe. Yes, really.

So Dad and I continued to try to track down the source. The dripping in the basement was now taking place nowhere near any pipes. And no, there are no pipes in the floor because the basement is unfinished and you can trace all of the pipes, yet we had a 6" circle of wet in the 100 year old hardwood.

Well, on top of the wood is asubfloor, then two layers of linoleum, then another subfloor then ceramic tiles. We wondered if the dishwasher might be leaking and pushing water out from between the layers of linoleum over to this spot in the floor two feet away (which, by the way, was literally spraying out of the floor and onto the pipe). Let's pull out the dishwasher and take a look. Great idea except we could only get the dishwasher out halfway (because the "hole" that it sits in is on the first layer of linoleum, a good 3/4 of an inch below the current floor). Now what? I know! Cut a hole in the cabinet so we can look behind the dishwasher! Umm, no water there. Now what? I guess we need to pull up the flooring down to the original hardwood.

So I pulled up the tile and Dad pulled up the top layer of subfloor and two layers of linoleum. That was the easy part because there was a piece of plywood almost the size of the stove so we didn't have to cut the plywood, just pull up the 27 nails. The lower subfloor was a different story. So I pulled out the Roto-Zip and started cutting. Slowly. Because I kept breaking bits. Then I picked up the saw and the bit fell out. For those of you unfamiliar with spiral saws (Sassy Neighbor...) that's not a good thing.

So I started calling neighbors looking for another one to borrow. Nobody around here seems to be home during the day.... Fortunately Builder Neighbor was home! And he has a Roto-Zip! And he agreed to take a look at mine. So I went over and related the story, including the part about how I thought the house was haunted by a water-dripping ghost. Well, not only did he come over to see for himself (and he agreed with me about everything - except the haunting part - but with him shining a flashlight at the leak and me looking at it from a different angle I finally spotted it - a pinhole leak in a pipe 6" below the wet floor. I thaked him profusely for his advice and time, but then he proceeded to replace my subflooring under the stove, replace the stove, push back the dishwasher and reinstall it. Then he apologized for not having his plumbing equipment at home (that's ok - The Husband needs to have some part in all this).

So as a 'thank you' for folks like that I usually make a loaf of beer bread or give them the mix (it's from Tastefully Simple and it's really good), but Builder Neighbor's wife is the consultant I buy it from so it probably wouldn't be the most thoughtful idea.

So here's a photo, per Jenny's request, of the mess in progress. I was going to take a few photos of the lovely holes I cut and the floor I was attempting to destroy, but Builder Neighbor got the kitchen cleaned up before I knew what happened! I still have to replace the tile in front of the refrigerator and thaw out the big ice dam inside that is the reason for that leaking. Oh, and The Husband still needs to fix the leaky pipe in the basement so that we can turn the hot water back on.

Update - Part 1

It's been another eventful week and everytime I wanted to blog something we were offline. Our internet seems to be back finally - I think it's because Sassy Neighbor called and yelled at them :o) . Supposedly they've been upgrading our service - but after two weeks of upgrading (and a lot of down time) so far I'm not impressed.

I fell down about 5 stairs last week, but we're pretty sure I tripped on something and it wasn't an MS-related thing. Fortunately I didn't go through the plate glass door at the bottom of the stairs, but I was amazingly sore for a few days.

The Boy and Younger Daughter started soccer this week. We weren't impressed with the organization or communication! I had to email them to find out when it started and I later found out that the coordinator gave me the wrong time. Sassy Neighbor was never contacted, either, so it's not just me. Anyway, we have soccer Tue and Thurs until mid-October.

Our kitchen tile has been inexplicably cracking - particularly in front of the refrigerator. When I cut my foot on a piece of tile I decided it was time to pull it up and investigate. The subflooring was wet from water dripping out of the freezer. So I pulled about 12 tiles and we're planning on moving the fridge so I can pull up a few more then replace them with cheap tiles until next year's tax return arrives and we can put down Pergo.

The next day as I was working on the tiles some more, Older Daughter wend downstairs to reboot the laundry and came back with the news that the basement floor was wet. So I headed down to investigate. I located the leak (or so I thought)in a pipe above the dryer. I went upstairs to try to figure out if the leak was coming from higer up the pipe. In order to accomplish this I had to pull out the stove from it's corner and cut a hole in the wall. Fortunately, this was one of the few drywall walls in .the old part of the house (the rest is plaster). At this point The Husband returned from work and was greeted by children gleefully bounding out of the house with cries of "Hi, Daddy! Mommy's cutting holes in the kitchen wall!".

This story is so long I'll have to post more later... All you need to know right now is that we have no hot water - but it's much easier to deal with now when it's 90 degrees out then it was when our water heater broke on a Friday night during a blizzard.

Unplugged

It's been a fun week so far -- our phone line is out so they're sending a repairman on Thursday (so call our cell phones in the meantime), and our Internet has been sporadic (first available appointment is August 1st, but we ascertained that the whole neighborhood was out so they had it fixed today - as well as Sunday. Hopefully this repair will "take"). So I've felt a bit disconnected for the past few days.

Monday morning we took the kids to swimming lessons only to find out that it isn't swimming lessons.... Instead it's the summer recreation program. So they're doing that this week (9-12 every morning - yay!!) and two weeks from now and we still have to find swimming lessons.

There is yet another thunderstorm rolling in. Last night we lost power for 10 minutes and had a brownout later on (necessitating once again resttting all the clocks). I hope this storm will break the humidity, but somehow I doubt it. Sunday we actually had 100% humidity - I didn't think that was possible unless it's raining.

Is there a VW Bus Renaissance going on that I'm not aware of? [yes, I know I ended that sentence with a preposition, deal with it!] I hadn't seen a single one in years but all of a sudden I've seen about eight in the past week. Weird.

Anybody want a dog?

I hurried the kids through supper tonight and then ran out the door to get them to VBS at 6pm (I still haven't decided if I like it in the evenings or not...). In the rush there was no time to clean up the table.

When I returned there was half a bratwurst missing. And the macaroni salad looked like it had been rifled through.

As I cleaned up the kitchen Shadow wandered in and stood at my feet (he likes to watch my feet when I'm in the kitchen in case I drop something). I looked at him and asked, "Did you eat my dinner??". He looked back and burped.

Home!

We survived the annual extended family trip to Knoebel's Grove Amusement Park. At first we were afraid of what the park was going to be like as they were flooded by a tropical storm a week before we left. Here are some photos taken by an employee of the flooding.

The floods happened on Wednesday and by Friday night they reopened. We were there the following Friday and if you didn't know there had been 4 feet of water over the entire park you wouldn't have guessed! They did an amazing cleanup job. One Kiddie ride was out of commission and the big pool was still muddy, but you could barely tell what had happened.

The campground we usually stay at was flooded as well but it didn't recover as quickly so two days before we left we had to find another campground with enough room for the InLaw's Fifth-wheel trailer, which meant being an hour away from the park. But it all worked out well.

Wilma came with us for her first camping trip (she did well in the tent and at the Amusement Park) and the other two dogs went to my sister's house. Wilma also got to visit with her previous family (my SIL's family who raised her) and was very excited, but she seems to know that she belongs with us now.

At the moment it's really icky out - 90 degrees and there are thunderstorms on the way (I know - you Arizona gals would kill for only 90 degrees!). I've been trying to do laundry from the trip but it's so humid that nothing will dry.