Stuck

I'm stuck inside today. It's icey, really icey, so I tried to find a million other things to do than update the blog but
couldn't come up with anything. It's the guilt. After a couple of days of missed posts, it's no big deal. After a couple of weeks, just provide some lame excuse about being busy at work. But after a couple of months, it's clearly just because I am lazy and I suck. So there you go.


Here's a bunch of updates and stuff.

These pictures ended up in the reverse order from what I wanted, but oh well.

This is a cardinal that was in the tree on Christmas day.
This is the tree.

This is a good shot of the damaged package of kitchen flooring. There's more coming to replace.

Here's the re-wallpapered back entry.

Here's the re-wallpapered laundry room. Same paper as the back entry.

Repaired wall in the basement stairway.

Fresh caulk by the living room fireplace. Done by Pat- that's why it looks nice.

New bricks by the garden. Bricks were from Kenny- Fred and Pat installed them.

This is the bride from the wedding I did in October. She's Melissa, we like her. She married my cousin Brandon, son of David, son of Billie, sister of Fred.

All the kitchen cabinets are done! Bob's hoping to come up a couple times in January and get them all installed. Then the kitchen floor can be put in and then they'll be done!

Oh, and food- For Thanksgiving at Billie's we had turkey and ham, along with 18 side dishes and 12 pies.

For Christmas, Sher make goose and chicken, taters, dressing, veg, and all the other stuff.

A brief interlude

I took a brief interlude from the blog, and now I'll take a brief political interlude from the flood topic.

I don't want to talk about who won, 'cause that's all over the news anyway. I do want to say that I was most impressed by both candidates speeches tonight. I felt that each was gracious and generously non-partisan.
I was also thrilled at the amazing voter turn out. I think everyone should vote, or at least have the opportunity. I think we should have a door-to-door poll so that absolutely everyone can vote. And if you don't want to vote, you have to own it and not just claim it's too inconvenient. Barring that, I think we should have a national holiday for voting.

So, no matter who you supported, I hope that you give the new guy a chance.

(Next time we'll have pictures of caulk!!!)

Why I live in Iowa

Just a quick note now that I am back to some semblance of normal.

Last Monday, I went for a ride to Prairie du Chien with Billie.

When people ask me why I live in Iowa, this is my new answer

The pictures don't do it justice. But I'll post a few more eventually.

Substitute Blogger Duty

Pam is really falling down on the job so I'm stepping in for an episode of "The Poowater Chronicles". "I" being Jill.

Yesterday, Hiltje (Sher's niece) came up and helped. Sher was not specific about exactly what sort of help, but at any rate it was much appreciated. Actually, I believe they cleaned out much of the upstairs. No small feat.

Sher is trying to locate her wallpaper record book (who DOESN'T have one of those?) so she can order the right wallpaper to fill in the kitchen bits. This is a potential project to be undertaken by Sher's much younger sister, Chris. Chris is arriving next Wednesday and will be put to work until Sunday. After that, she's on Abbie Duty.

Since Chris is just back from Africa, I don't care how hard she has to work. I'm too jealous.

Pam will be unavailable for blogging or flood duties for several more days as she is officiating at a wedding on Saturday. This is Pam's first turn as officiant and she's quite nervous. Everyone can rest assured that no matter how badly she blows the ceremony, she will be impressively shod.

That is not particularly "floody" news, but it's all we've got.

Here's a picture from the safari since I have no photos of the flood progress:

Bad Blogger- No Biscuit!

I know I am the most neglectful blogger in the family.  And since there's apparently only 2 of us that puts me in last place and as number 2.

But enough about my shortcomings.  Let's talk about what has gone on lately.  Not much since the lovely woodwork was installed.  That is until Friday.  That's when the stove arrived!

Here's a picture.

It looks really nice.  And apparently works fine, but after cooking in an electric skillet for so long, they are having trouble locating the cooking pots.  Everything is still packed in a variety of boxes so it will take a few days before they can get everything located.

Tonight they are going to Fred's 50th class reunion.  I'm sure it will be great fun.  He went to school with some great characters.

Here's a few more pictures to make it look like I've written much more than I actually have.

This is a blurry picture of my car mileage at 11001 which I though was neat.

Food and Fridge and Fwoodwork

While I was out of town, David and Keith came down and put in woodwork and mopboard. They got all that they could installed. The only bit that is left is the stuff in and near the kitchen, that we won't know how long to cut until floors and cupboards are in.

When I stopped on Monday, Sher was having drinks and dinner with her business partner. (Fred left Monday morning for a fishing trip to Wisconsin.)

Dinner was zucchini casserole.

Here's pictures of the stuff and some more of the fridge.

Birthday Girl.

Fridge

I'm going out of town for the weekend, so I thought should post quick before I leave.

There's a new fridge.  I'll explain the story about what, why, and how later, but for now here's a crappy picture of a really nice fridge.

Counter Mods

Fred and I have individually completed some counter modifications.  Here's some pictures

Fred put bottom shelves in the basement counters.

He also made this cool shelf for his bait fridge so he doesn't have to bend over.  Which is good, those of you who have seen him bend over know what I'm talking about.

Here's what's in the bait fridge now
And the freezer- I don't know what it is and I don't want to.

I found some contact paper that had been sitting in my closet for several years.  I thought I would just have enough to give Sher a small water sealed area next to her sink to dry dishes.  Once I got the rolls going, I ended up doing all the counters.  There's a square of back splash about 5" x 5" that didn't get covered.  

A couple extras- these are interior doors that are going to Joni to finish.  Mostly you can see the extra vinyl that Joni is going to use in her shop bathroom.

This is the dishwasher.

More Crazy Cookery

I talk a lot about how Sher puts food on the table these days, so today I took a couple pictures.

Here's some spaghetti she's boiling.
This is Fred's camp stove that fills the house with what I assume is toxic fumes, but it makes damn good beans.

Do we really need kitchen cabinets?

Yes, of course!  But it's amazing how normal can seem so strange after being abnormal for so long.  (This applies to many aspect of our family, but here I'm talking about kitchen cabinets.)  Sara and Slugs brought some BEAUTIFUL rebuilt cabinets yesterday.  After looking at a Sunday school table with rubber tubs underneath for drawers for so long, it makes the kitchen look strange.

But the cabinets are amazing!  Slugs rebuilt the cabinets to be even better than what Sher started with.  They are built with birch plywood rather than the old crappy press board.  And the insides are all nicely finished and varnished "so they'll wipe off nicely".  So he brought up 5 cabinets and said he was bringing 'some extra plywood' to lay on top as a temporary counter, so Sher could still have some work space since she'd have to take out her big table.

So it turns out 'some extra plywood' is a counter top with finished edges AND A BACK SPLASH! 

Slugs cracks me up.  Coming from a long line of half-assers, the care and detail he puts into his temporary solutions baffles me.  It's just SO NICE- so here's the pictures.

(Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of the food- it was grilled pork loins.  I didn't think the raw pork was very appealing, and I had to leave before they cooked.)

Here you can see some cabinets and the counter.  For our new viewers, the new stuff is the lower cabinets.

Here's a wider view of the new stuff.
Here's looking from the back entry.
The glued stuff.
The whole she-bang.

This is the only picture I got of Slugs- that's his back.  He has nice legs and he doesn't have lights on his feet- he must have reflective shoes..