June sun, pretty much done with the construction activity:

6/1/08:
Last month was hard for me to get started, not seeming to have the time to create the page for a new month– I kept making extra entries in April. Maybe this is because I unconsciously knew what May held and was reluctant to spring into what has come to be known as my Inconvenient Tooth adventure. Perhaps this month my unconscious is anxious to get on with things yet to behold since I'm starting this page a few hours before the beginning of June, ready to get going.

Jay and I have been working hard. The builders are almost done. The concrete of our new front porch had a very visible flaw in the front, above the step. The cement guy has been working today and yesterday to fix that with some decorative work over that area. He is coming back tomorrow or Monday to finish so we'll have a picture later. They said they are going to compact the new gravel drive area and then I think that is about it. We still have the plumber coming week after next, after we cut out some of the wall adjoining the bathroom in our bedroom, to replace all of our old plumbing. The rest will be up to Jay and I, finishing trim, some odds and ends of painting, and we need to put in kitchen cabinets where our water heater used to be and above the stove. Then there is the yard and other things to keep us busy, more like normal.

So, what is that picture up to the left of? Looks like our neighbor's car, our front yard trees, that brown spot of dead grassÉ oh yeah, the Honey Bucket is gone! Yes, our lovely centerpiece for the front yard disappeared Friday. Things are heading back to what passes for normal for us– whew!

Remember as far as anyone knows, we're a nice normal family.— Homer Simpson

6/11/08:
Hey man, what's up? We were busy last weekend moving our computers and desks out of our bedroom and up to our new living room. Then we moved everything left in the bedroom to the south end of the room so Jay could cut a 2 1/2 X 4 foot piece out of the wall that adjoins the bathroom. Voila! Access to our shower plumbing which, interestingly enough, sends a line right over to feed the toilet tank. There are always interesting and creative things to discover in older homes. The plumber was not impressed with the combination shower/toilet plumbing someone in the distant past had created. They came yesterday and put in all new water lines, drilling through our kitchen and bathroom sink cabinets and down through the floors to bring up the new lines. The picture to the left is of the new water lines coming up into our bathroom cabinet. I was quite taken with their neatness, having envisioned large holes around new lines that we would need to fill around and finish off. No need, although we do need to fix up the old pipes now. Even more interestingly, rather than throw out the baby with the bathwater, the plumber decided to keep the combo shower/toilet water line arrangement, simply replacing those lines in the same configuration. Why fight it when it works?

This evening I worked on finishing painting the trim around the large back window of the addition. It is a lot of work and, yes, I am still not even close to being through. Actually I am almost through with the new living room, with the stair base molding and handrail, plus trim in the original house where we put in new walls and tore things up, yet to do. Plenty to keep me busy for a while. Later in the evening a red glow appeared on the east wall of the new living room. I took a picture of its source, through the window looking west– it is to the right. Click on either picture here for larger versions. More later, take care.

... you'll see, you'll be lucky in this life to have something you must do to take your mind off all the things you didn't do. Then he said, I suppose that is something like a joke. But, my dear girl, very serious. — Grace Paley, from the short story "My Father Addresses Me on the Facts of Old Age"

6/14/08:
I finished the window trim painting Wednesday and we moved our computers and desks up from our bedroom to the new living area that evening. Thursday I finished painting the top of the half wall between the new and the old. Today we hung the huge blinds in the back window and hauled off the ladders– heading toward normal again. With yet more to do in the rest of the house, our addition living room construction and finishing activity is done. Click on the small picture to the left to go to a page of pictures I took this evening. More later? Yes, more later.


The amelioration of the world cannot be achieved by sacrifices in moments of crisis; it depends on the efforts made and constantly repeated during the humdrum, uninspiring periods, which separate one crisis from another, and of which normal lives mainly consist.— Aldous Huxley1894-1963, British Author

6/16/08:
There is no rest... I am home. The VA has told me they have received all of the employment and reference verifications they require and they have only a couple of more steps to complete prior to officially offering me a social worker position in Mount Vernon. My current workplace has been kind enough to allow me to use some of my vacation leave while I await the VA position, a good thing since the VA is anticipating me starting there next Monday. I will have to be at the Seattle VA hospital the first month for orientation before starting work here in Mount Vernon, so it is a very good thing I am able to be home now. We still have a lot to do. We keep bringing more and more things home from the storage place. Today we assembled one of Jay's bookcases and got the bedroom almost back to normal. Normal is nice, after all.

We have had a cool, wet spring. A local funky market we go to for wine tastings and celebrations had a get-together last weekend to celebrate "Junuary", a reference to our unseasonably cool weather lately. This last weekend we finally had some nice weather, so yesterday I dug up a flower bed at the back of our addition, today adding some of our voluminous compost supply to the bed and transplanted a hosta and a fern that I had put in a raised garden bed last fall just for such things. I still need to put in some edging and add more plants, but it feels good to get some of it done.

Tomorrow I plan to sand and paint the stairwell handrail and baseboard, plus maybe finish the flower bed I was just talking about. My body is tired... The interesting knitwear to the right links to a website by the maker, with information about breast cancer and handmade, knitted prostheses.

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this, that you are dreadfully like other people.— James Russell Lowell

6/22/08:
I have been very, very busy this last week, trying to get some of the things done I want to get done before heading off to Seattle for orientation to the VA through July. I am quite anxous about this big change, and I will let you know how things go.

I am more than a bit achy from painting, moving stuff and gardening– all ready for the new job. The picture to the left is of part of our foxglove crop this year, and if you click it you can see a page of pictures I took today. There is a lot more garden work I want/need to get done, and we have trim to get in place in the original part of the house, plus we still are going to buy and install some new cabinets in the kitchen where the old water heater used to be. As usual, more later!

The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the social worker-judge.— Michel Foucault, 1926-1984, French Philosopher