Ted and I celebrate our birthdays and our wedding anniversary at Bentley’s every year. Ted says their grilled salmon is the best he’s ever tasted (he orders it frequently), and I love their pepper steak (which few restaurants even offer). The meal is always worth the 2.5-hour drive each way. We’ve become well-acquainted with the owner over the years, and we have a favorite server.
We belatedly celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary at Bentley’s in July and, as usual, we asked for one of Merrill’s tables. This time, Merrill had some news for us: (1) he thinks he’s going to retire within the year; and (2) Bill, the owner, had a stroke, so he no longer greets guests at the door, although he still oversees the kitchen. Merrill thought Bill’s condition might improve enough for him to greet guests in the future.
We had our usual delicious meal and finished with our favorite desserts. I like Bentley’s nice, thick whipped cream-topped grasshoppers, and Ted loves “The Thing”–an ice cream sundae with walnuts, strawberries, and a hard chocolate coating, topped with whipped cream.
Ted’s birthday will be here soon, and we’ll be back at Bentley’s to celebrate it.
The ranks of retired people added a member in July. One of the office staff members that I hired during my working years retired, and I was invited to the party, described as a “high tea” for “Her Grace.”
It was wonderful to see so many of the staff and teachers I hired and worked with—still there 12 years later—and it was fun to see that they all enjoy working and celebrating together, just as we did while I was an active part of the team. I started as a one-woman show, but the Adult Education program grew too large for me to handle alone. The first person I hired was Jeanette (also retired now), on the left in the photo below. Her Grace, Sonja, is in the center, and I’m on the right.
The two ladies in the front in the photo below are Lynn and Ellen, who were hired after I retired. Those in the back row were some of my co-workers: (L->R) Patty, a lead ESL teacher; Lindsay, a GED teacher (almost invisible behind Lynn); Sonja, an office staff member; Mandy, my second-in-command who took my place; me; and Ingrid, a lead ESL teacher. By the time we decided we needed a group picture, quite a few people had already left or we’d have a much bigger crowd in the photo.
In keeping with the English tea party theme, the party favors were little cardboard teapots with candy inside.
When I retired, the staff gathered photos of our group from throughout my tenure, wrote a story to go with the photos, and had it all bound into a book titled “A Tale of the Star Kingdom.” Our AEL (Adult Education & Literacy) program—the “Star Kingdom”—was one of a limited number of the 26 statewide AEL programs that had achieved Star status for excellence. In the book, I was designated as the Empress. The current staff made a similar book for Sonja. In her book, Her Grace, Sonja, was recognized as the Duchess. Shall I assume that when Mandy retires from the dean’s position that she accepted after my retirement, she will be referred to as an Empress in a similar book? I hope so.
In addition to the book, invited guests were asked to send stories about their memories of Sonja. Those stories were put into a binder for Sonja, and each of us who was present read our own story aloud to Sonja and the group. It was fun to hear all those memories. Among other things, my story included a trivial but true lesson I learned from Sonja. It was about candy. Sonja worked at the front desk and always kept a dish of candy on her desk for visitors. All of us regularly contributed candy to the dish (it’s not a budget item), and Sonja once told us that: (1) the more candy there is in the dish, the more pieces individual people take; (2) chocolate disappears very quickly; and (3) nobody likes Dum Dums.
I was still doing PT at Athletico at the time of Sonja’s party, and I couldn’t help noticing that the candy dish on the Athletico counter was filled with Dum Dums. There was very little difference in the Dum Dum level over my next few visits, so maybe the Athletico staff will learn the same thing I learned from Sonja.
I hope Sonja’s retirement is filled with as much happiness and as many blessings as mine has been.
Due to a variety of reasons, Ted and I, Kathy and Annette, and Kari’s family were unable to get together for our “birthday season” celebration until June 24. Part of the delay was due to my TKR. Although my physical progress was rapid, I didn’t have enough energy to tolerate a seven-hour excursion—three hours of driving, plus party time—until then.
Our family celebrates six birthdays in only a few short weeks, so we usually make it a group event. Mother’s Day falls in that time frame too and, because we celebrated so late this year, we added Father’s Day to the party. We chose Columbia, MO as our party place. Annette’s son lives in Columbia and his birthday fell two days after the party, so we celebrated his birthday too. There were a lot of gifts to be opened!
Because the weather was very hot (heat index of 105 degrees), we scratched the plan for a picnic in a park like we did for the solar eclipse and met indoors at Shakespeare’s Pizza. Shakespeare’s has a quirky attitude. For example, here’s Shakespeare.
This Shakespeare’s location is across the street from the Mizzou campus and has a sign telling patrons “This isn’t the dorm. You don’t have to bus your own table.” It’s a very large restaurant with several dining rooms. Rather than repeatedly giving directions to the rest rooms, the floor literally has an inlaid yellow brick path that will take you from any dining room to the rest rooms—just “follow the yellow brick road.”
Signage is fun to read. Here’s the parking lot sign.
This is the back of a Shakespeare’s gift card holder.
And here’s a beverage cup. Notice how the location of Shakespeare’s is described. On the other side of the cup, one of the restaurant’s other locations is described in terms of latitude and longitude.
There used to be a red light and a bell above the rest room doors with a sign that said, “Did not wash hands.” I don’t know if it was in working order, but who would want to take that chance?
Back to our party. . . . June 24 was a Monday, and we met for lunch, so the restaurant was deserted. We picked a dining room that was vacant and had a long table that would seat all nine of us. When we finished eating, we stacked all of our dishes on a vacant table (that doesn’t really count as bussing our table, does it?) and got down to the business of opening gifts and catching up with each other.
Soon (four hours after we arrived, but the time flew by) it was time for all of us to think about heading for home, but first, . . . Blue Stem and the Candy Factory were only a few blocks away. Blue Stem, our first stop, has a constantly changing display of work by Missouri artists, and Ted and I are looking for wall hangings. We didn’t find anything we wanted, so we all headed for the Candy Factory, which makes its own chocolate. After checking all the displays and making our selections we left with fresh chocolate candies in bags. Then Ted and I headed for our car, but some of the others went a few more blocks to the Peace Nook, another favorite family stop in Columbia. The air-conditioned, nearly-empty restaurant and the large table were a good lunch choice; the company, conversation, and gifts were all delightful; and we all went home happy. It’s so good to celebrate things as a family. ❤
My right knee has been bone-on-bone for nearly four years but, with gel injections in my knee every six months and an elastic sleeve to stabilize the joint, I managed to delay surgery until March 2024, when the February gel injection made no difference at all in my knee pain level. It was time to schedule a TKR—a total knee replacement.
I made an appointment with my orthopedist to discuss the surgery and to set a date for the TKR. My only condition was that it had to be after the April 8 total solar eclipse. There was no way I was going to miss that!! Because I was having difficulty doing so many things—walking more than a half-mile, standing for more than 30 minutes, biking, Pilates, etc.—I decided to do physical therapy (PT) before my surgery to strengthen the muscles around my affected knee and to improve the healing process following the surgery. I’ve gone to Athletico for various types of PT in the past and have always enjoyed working with their outstanding staff. This time was no different. Their attitude begins at the front door.
More detail is provided on Sarah’s (my therapist) laptop.
The pen mug at the check-in desk reminds patients and staff why we’re there.
The mood indicator lets us know how the staff is feeling
In the 22 weeks I worked with Sarah, I only saw one mood change. I don’t remember what it was, but it amounted to “It’s a ho-hum kind of day.” Every other day was “happy,” and that’s the atmosphere you can feel when you’re there.
Most days, there’s some topic under discussion, and everyone—staff and patients—joins in while the therapy continues. One day, for example, the staff was planning a potluck lunch for themselves and thought it would be fun if each staff member brought a food item that began with the same letter as their first name. That was an entertaining discussion, with everyone contributing ideas—some realistic, some hilarious! On another day, during the Olympics, the TV was on. When Simone Biles performed, therapy stopped temporarily while we all watched her, then cheered for her. Abbie, one of the therapists, was pregnant, and was going to learn the gender of her baby at her next OB visit. For a few weeks before Abbie’s appointment, a whiteboard propped near the entrance invited everyone to “Guess Abbie’s Baby.” Staff, patients, and visitors (usually patients’ drivers) could vote for “boy” or “girl.” “Boy” outnumbered “girl” by about 6-1. I voted with the minority for a girl. After Abbie’s visit with her OB, the board showed the results.
Sarah, my therapist, was fun to work with. One of my friends sent me some goofy goggles to share with her, and Sarah was willing to go with them for a photo op.
The general consensus among my doctor, my physical therapist, and my friends who have had TKR surgery was that the first two months after the surgery are “tough,” but things get much better in the third month. I didn’t get many specifics about what “tough” included, and now I know why. As Forrest Gump said, “That’s all I have to say about that”—just like all those people I talked with.
My first post-surgical PT session was scheduled three days after my surgery. It was very painful, due to the swelling and the surgical pain. During that session, I had to keep reminding myself that I had actually liked Sarah a lot at my pre-surgical session six days earlier. With Sarah’s expertise, eight weeks of PT prior to the surgery, and my determination, I made rapid post-surgical progress. I did my PT exercises every day—before and after surgery—for a total of 22 weeks, with only a few (11 of 154 days) exceptions.
Thanks to all the PT I did, I needed a walker for only four days, then walked with a cane for a week, and then walked on my own. When I had my one-month post-surgical visit with my orthopedist, he and his staff were amazed that I was walking on my own without a limp. They had the same reaction to my physical progress at my next visit, six weeks later. They told me that, at the 10-week point, many people are still walking with a cane (or at least limping); some still take pain meds; most don’t have the range of motion or the strength in their knee that I do; and most are still doing stairs one step at a time. Unbelievable! I’m so glad I did pre-surgery PT!
The two best tools I bought for my recovery were: (1) an ice/compression machine; and (2) a pedal exerciser. The ice/compression machine replaced the CPM (continuous passive motion) machine that TKR patients formerly needed. Basically, it’s an ice pack version of a heating pad attached to a six-pack-size cooler with a water/ice reservoir and a motor that circulates the ice water from the reservoir to provide the added benefit of intermittent forced-air compression. The ice and compression kept the swelling—and therefore, the pain—down, and walking plus PT kept my knee flexible. At first, my knee couldn’t bend enough for the top of the stroke on my stationary bike, but sitting on a chair to use the pedal exerciser in a more recumbent position was an easy way to keep my knee flexible whenever I needed it during the day and, unfortunately, the night.
Sarah and my orthopedist used measurements and physical evaluations to determine my progress; I set my own goals. Success for me included:
Walk a mile outdoors one month after surgery. I did that and walked two miles on the neighborhood streets three weeks later. On my first outdoor walk after my surgery, I only made it to the second house past ours. I went a little farther each day until I could walk two miles.
Bike at least 10 miles three months after surgery. I had to wait two months to bike because my knee had to heal enough to support me just in case my bicycle tipped and forced me to throw my leg out to the side to keep from falling. If I injured my knee before it was sufficiently healed, the chances were good that I’d need surgical treatment to repair it. At two months, I rode 7 miles on my bicycle, and at the three-month mark, I rode 15 miles.
Achieve at least 135o of flexion in my new knee by the end of my PT sessions. There’s a limit to how far a mechanical replacement knee joint can be flexed. The PT goal is 120o-130o. The normal range of flexion for a natural knee is 120o-150o; about 145o is average. At my last PT session, Sarah prepared her report for my doctor and measured my knee flexion at 141o.I took that good news home to Ted, and we went out for medium-sized (not small) chocolate-dipped DQ cones to celebrate.
I am so thankful for all the people—the doctors, the nurses, Sarah, other PT patients, friends, family, and especially Ted, for getting me through this. I couldn’t have done it without all of you—especially during those first two months! It’s great to move without knee pain.
I didn’t know there were words to “Taps” until Ted and I were scouting out parks to view the April 8 total solar eclipse. We saw this memorial to the soldiers of Jackson, MO and it includes the words to “Taps.”
My birthday was a few months ago, while I took a break from blogging. I found the photos tonight, and they gave me the opportunity to re-live an enjoyable evening. Kari’s family came to our house bearing gifts for me from them and from Kathy and Annette. Kari has been trying some deep-water exercise classes at the Y, and thought I’d enjoy some water equipment to exercise in our pool, so the two families bought some for me.
First, a weight belt so that I can be upright in the deep end of the pool to do leg exercises.
Then barbells to exercise my arms while I’m upright in the deep water.
And finally, a water bottle sling I wanted so that I can walk without carrying my water bottle in my hand.
I always have fun on my birthday–not because of the gifts, but because of the people I spend time with and the good times we have together.
One day I walked into our family room during the few minutes the setting sun shone through the window and directly on our “Wave” sculpture from Hawai’i. It really made the blue color of the sculpture stand out in the room.
Ted and I went out to eat one evening this week and watched this cloud grow all the way home. At first, it was an amazingly beautiful cumulus cloud, but within our 15-minute drive, it developed into a huge cumulonimbus cloud, and we saw a strong thunderstorm on the radar about 40 miles east of us. It was so beautiful, even walkers on the street stopped to talk about it with us.
I worked for the Bureau of the Census for three years as a writer-editor. In those days, we didn’t have word processors or spell/grammar check, so before submitting a text for publication, we proofread it in detail, including capitalization, bold/italic fonts, font size, punctuation, and spelling. Our goal was to publish a letter- and word-perfect document. Today, that goal is apparently unimportant, but even after all these years, I still read like an editor and I can’t help catching textual errors.
For example, the historic district of St. Charles offers ghost tours, and one of their posters says: “Haunted House. Twilight tours after dark.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines twilight as “the light of the sky between sunset and full night.” It defines dark as “devoid of light.” In other words, it’s impossible to have a “twilight” tour after “dark.” Merriam-Webster defines evening as “the final part of the day and the early part of the night.” That’s probably a better description of the tour time. Just knowing it’s a ghost tour pretty much tells visitors when it will occur, so I doubt if anyone except me notices (or cares about) that error.
I was astronomically mystified when I was reading a book in which the author told readers that “It was already late June, so the days were getting longer.” The summer solstice, when the sun is at its highest in the northern hemisphere, is usually on June 21. After that, the days get shorter, not longer. Luckily, that error didn’t affect the plot of the story.
During my employment years, I worked with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). I once received a letter from the head of the department thanking me for my “patients.” That letter was generated on a computer in the early 2000s, but spell/grammar check doesn’t always catch homonyms if a word is spelled correctly. In my opinion, that error looked really bad, coming from the department that oversees the public K-12 school system, which includes the teaching of vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. I practiced my patience, because there were no patients working in my local program.
Most confusing to me recently was the care tag in a shirt I bought. The tag said “Reversible garment. Turn inside out to wash.” If it’s reversible, which side is the inside? I just threw it in the washer and it came out clean.
We have a 93-year-old lady in our neighborhood who has been a lifelong Cardinals fan. A few weeks ago, several members of her family invited her to go with them to a Cardinals home game. I don’t know which of the family arranged it, but the seats were in one of the luxury boxes with air-conditioning, food, and all the other high-end amenities. (Maybe someone’s employer had a corporate box.) Peggy was reluctant to go, but the family convinced her that she’d enjoy the evening. She finally agreed, but said she was going to take her 60-year-old jacket with her. The temperatures were in the 90s during the day and in the mid- and upper-80s for the game, so that announcement brought a lot of protests, but Peggy insisted, and she wore her jacket.
The evening was such a success that Peggy didn’t stop talking about it for days, and she still brings it up in conversation. First, the luxury box seat tickets got the group through a special gate without a line. Peggy had her jacket on, and the gate attendant stopped her to chat, complimented the jacket, and asked her for her name. During the conversation (no line–remember?), Peggy mentioned that, although she used to attend games regularly, she hadn’t been to any in the new stadium, which opened in 2004.
As the group moved toward the private elevator that took them to their luxury box seats, lots of people stopped Peggy to talk about her jacket and many of them asked permission to take their picture with her. (She said, “Yes.”) One man offered to buy the jacket from her, but she told him, “No way!” Another man, standing nearby, offered to marry her to get a specific pin on her jacket. She turned him down too. 🙂 The luxury box was a treat and, before long, there was another surprise for Peggy: her name appeared on the jumbotron, along with the information that this was her first time in the new ballpark. Right after that, her son’s family and her grandchildren called her from Kansas City to say they were watching the game on TV and saw her name in lights. She said she felt like a celebrity, and it was the most exciting night of her life. I talked with Peggy the day after the game and asked if she was tired from the late night. “Not at all,” she said, “I’m way too excited to be tired!”
Here’s what all the excitement was about. It was a lot of fun to read all the pins and to recognize so many of the great Cardinals players–especially those from the “Whitey-ball” era.*
A few days later, Peggy had another surprise. The Cardinals sent her a framed certificate to commemorate her first time at the new ballpark.
Several of us in the neighborhood had a little party for Peggy’s 93rd birthday this week. We kept it simple–ice cream sundaes, brownies, and talk–and we all saw her Cardinals’ certificate on the kitchen table. She’s still excited about the ballgame she didn’t want to attend. Isn’t it great to be 93 and still having that much fun–including a marriage proposal at a ball game? Long live Peggy!
* Players’ pins on Peggy’s jacket: Tito Landrum, Rick Horton, Pete Rose, Bob Forsch, Keith Hernandez, Tom Lawless, Greg Matthews, Ozzie Smith, Vince Coleman, Willie McGee, Danny Cox, Jack Clark, Tom Herr, Tony Peña, Todd Worrell, Terry Pendleton.
I didn’t start playing Wordle right away, but I loved it the first time I tried it, and I’ve been playing it ever since. In March, I saw an article online that said the longest winning streak was 968. According to the article, the average number of tries to solve Wordle is four, and that’s true for me as well. I don’t try to guess the word before starting. I just play to solve the puzzle, not to solve it in x number of tries, so I don’t care if it takes all six tries to do it.
My statistics are a little skewed because I started playing before The New York Times bought the game, but according to the current online chart, I’ve solved one puzzle in 2 tries (lucky); 133 puzzles in 3 tries (which, according to the article, takes “skill, finesse, and intellect”); 222 puzzles in 4 tries (average); 145 puzzles in 5 tries (whew!); and 38 puzzles in 6 tries (nerve-wracking). I frequently solve the puzzle in under 30 seconds, but there have been a few puzzles I had to set aside for a few hours before taking a fresh look at them to “see” the word that will fit. Wordle now offers hints, but I don’t use them–that would spoil the fun.
I’m disappointed in my streak record. Twice, NYT has ended my streak when I clearly remember playing the previous day. The longest streak they give me credit for is 457 days, which isn’t shabby. There’s no trophy for the longest streak, so no big worries there. At least they don’t mess with my 100 percent solving success record!
I keep a running record of my solutions, which comes in handy when there are multiple possible words that fit (prune/prone, crush/crash, terse/tense, etc.) and only a limited number of tries to choose the right one. I’m amazed at the number of five-letter words in the English language.
How long is it until midnight when tomorrow’s puzzle will be released?
One day, as I was waiting for the traffic light to change to green, an unusual car pulled up in the adjoining lane. It was a marvel to see, and it’s too bad it didn’t stop a little farther back so I could take a picture of it from the side. Except for a space just large enough for the driver to operate the car, the entire car was filled with trash. Even the windshield in front of the driver had trash on the dashboard up to the driver’s sight-line. The interior of the car–front and back seats–was tightly packed with trash and so was the trunk. I have no idea if this was a temporary situation, the driver’s lifestyle, or a contest entry, but I’ve never before seen such a trash-filled car.
Do you ever think about how many things are arranged in alphabetic order? In many instances, this arrangement keeps things orderly and makes them easy to find, but does alphabetic order ever seem unfair to you when your turn in line is determined by the first letter of your last name? I’ll guess that if your last name begins with a letter in the first part of the alphabet, your answer is “no.” My last name began closer to the end of the alphabet, so my answer is “yes.”
I attended a small, rural, two-room elementary school. Depending on the year, there were 50-60 students in eight grades, with grades 1-4 in one room and grades 5-8 in the other. Our school had two small libraries consisting of three shelves that stretched across the back of each classroom. The libraries included a full set of encyclopedias and several dictionaries, so that diminished the space available for recreational reading materials during one’s four years in that classroom. Because this was true of so many schools in our largely rural county, the county provided a “traveling library.” The county school superintendent and his/her assistant made the rounds of all the rural schools every two weeks to exchange packing boxes filled with about 30 books. In a round-robin pattern, each classroom in each school exchanged its current box of books for a box with a different selection of books that came from a different school.
I have always loved to read and I finish books quickly, so I was always impatient and eager for the traveling library to bring a new box of books to our school. Unfortunately for me, my teacher believed that the fairest way to distribute the new books while keeping order in the classroom was to allow a few students at a time to make their one-book selection. This was done in alphabetic order, always beginning with the “A’s.” I lived in an area of Dutchmen, many of whose names began with De-capital letter-remainder of last name, such as DeBlaey, DeMaster, etc., and my last name began with “S.” Those early-alpha kids always had the first pick of the traveling library books and I was always in the last group to make a selection. The traveling library rules said that when you finished reading the book you selected, you put it back into the box and then had the option to choose a different book from the box. The early-alpha kids frequently failed to finish their selected books in the two-week exchange period, so their selections didn’t make it back to the box until the exchange day, and I rarely had a chance to read everything I wanted to read.
Alphabetically, things changed for me when I enrolled in a large university (35,000 students). Class enrollment was open for several days each semester, and was available in alphabetic order. Naturally, those who were in the first alphabetic group were nearly always able to enroll in whichever course/day/time they chose while those in the last group usually had to make some course/day/time adjustments. BUT, the alphabetic groups changed order each semester. I don’t remember the exact groupings, but if, for example, A-G had first choice this semester, they moved to the #3 spot the following semester; group H-P moved to #1; and Q-Z moved to #2. In this way, once every three semesters, everyone had a chance to be first, second, or third in course selection. What could be more fair while still maintaining order and a manageable number of students enrolling at a given time? There may be other entities that do this, but I’ve never encountered or heard of them, so this was a happy revelation to me as a college freshman, and it’s certainly more fair than always giving the “A’s” first choice and the “Z’s” last choice.
I recently read that the double-space at the end of a sentence is no longer the rule in typing. I assume that’s because electronic devices automatically insert a single space following a period, and it’s easier to change the rule than to fight the power of all the electronic devices.
I, however, learned to type a long time ago and was taught the double-space protocol. How long ago? Well, because I was such a fast typist (I have a high school award pin for “Fastest Typist”), I was assigned to one of the three new electric typewriters in our high school typing classroom. Woo-ee! In fact, at that time, only the IBM Selectric typewriter with the letter ball in place of individual keys could keep up with me without getting tangled. After all these years, tapping the space bar twice at the end of a sentence is so automatic for me that it slows me down to have to remember to tap it only once or to go back and delete the extra space. I’m just going to continue tapping the space bar twice after each sentence I type and let the electronic devices do their thing.
If you’re checking for double spaces after periods in this post, you won’t find them because, even though I tap the space bar twice, WordPress autocorrects me and uses only a single space. The exception is if I compose something in Word (or another format) and copy it to WordPress to post.
You can’t fight the power of big media, and you can’t fight a long-term and harmless habit either. Let’s hear it for double-spacing at the end of a sentence!
P.S. My “Fastest Typist” pin said “70 wpm” but I typed faster than that. The pins weren’t available for any speed above 70 wpm.
Due to strong solar storms, a large portion of the United States had a rare opportunity to view the northern lights this spring. Friends and family from a number of states posted photos showing the stunning display. Ted and I drove north of the city to a dark field to see the show and this is what was visible to us. It was definitely underwhelming!
On our way home, we saw red and green lights overhead and Ted said, “There they are! The northern lights!”
On August 21, 2017, Ted and I, Kathy and Annette, and Kari and Dylan saw a total solar eclipse. In spite of weather forecasts for clear skies in Columbia, MO–halfway between Kathy and Annette and the rest of us–thunderstorms moved in, and we re-located eastward to Warrenton, MO to view that eclipse. It was so amazing, we decided right then to reserve April 8, 2024 for another family eclipse viewing.
It doesn’t seem possible that we made those plans seven years ago, but we followed through and planned a day in Perryville, MO for this event. Our same group gathered, and Theo joined us. In 2017, he decided to settle for the near-total eclipse at home with his school classmates, but the rest of us raved so much about the totality that Theo has also been looking forward to the 2024 eclipse for seven years–nearly half his lifetime!
Once again, weather adjustments had to be made for this eclipse, although not by our group. Early information advised the nation that, of the 15 U.S. states in the totality zone, Texas was the most likely to be clear in April; the Midwest was iffy, but was likely to be cloudy; and New England was likely to be overcast. In real time, Texas was overcast with thunderstorms in the forecast, and the Midwest and New England were clear. Lucky us!
We liked the way we viewed the eclipse last time in a small park in a small city with a picnic lunch, so we wanted to do that again. Ted and I made a trip to Perryville and to Jackson a few weeks ago to scope out the parks, the bathroom facilities, the viewing spaces, and the parking. Perryville City Park was the winner, so this time, we went to a small city (pop. 8,500), but a large park. It took Ted and me less than two hours to make the scouting drive to Perryville, but there were lots of advance warnings on newscasts and on electronic highway message boards in our area to expect heavy traffic on April 8–eclipse day. We decided an early start was the way to go. We all brought food to share and got an early start to Perryville, leaving home just after 7:30 a.m. for the 1:58 p.m. totality event.
That worked out well. The drive to Perryville on the Big Day took three hours instead of less than two hours, and the traffic was definitely heavier than usual, but it moved along at near the speed limit, and we arrived in plenty of time to easily find a parking spot. Unbelievable! As we were parking our two cars, Ted and I saw our next-door neighbors! We emptied our car trunks, selected our viewing area, and then relaxed for a little while and ate our picnic lunch before the start of the eclipse.
Some nearby eclipse viewers wanted a group photo of themselves and I offered to take it so that everyone in their group could be in the picture. They returned the favor for us.
Before we knew it, the time was 12:30 p.m.–the start of the eclipse. We checked the sky and, sure enough, there was a little bite out of the sun at about five o’clock. Repeated progress checks showed the moon blocking more and more of the sun. Our excitement level was rising. We had some high, thin clouds, but the eclipse was clearly visible through our eclipse glasses. It’s hard to believe, but I took this photo at the 50 percent point.
Between 50 and 75 percent of totality, the light in the park noticeably dimmed and became weird. Even in the sunshine, the blankets we were sitting on felt cool to the touch, there was a sudden cool breeze, and the temperature dropped 8-10 degrees–enough to make us feel chilly.
I put my eclipse glasses over my camera lens and took this picture at about 90 percent totality. The sun is so bright that even a mere 10 percent looks like this. I was hoping the eclipse glasses might show a clear view of the dark moon covering the sun, but cell phones aren’t that good yet. By this time we were all lying on our backs to get the best view of the sky; birds were quieting down; and outdoor lights had come on.
Shortly after this, the only visible part of the sun was a thin crescent, similar to a new moon. At that point, we could see the crescent becoming smaller and smaller. As the eclipse approached totality, the park filled with excited voices (including ours), there was an instant of a bright flash when the moon completely blocked the sun from view (the diamond ring), and in that instant, it was as if someone turned off the light switch. Near the end of the video, my camera view becomes erratic because I changed position from lying on my back to sitting up and I forgot my video was still recording. Turn on your sound to hear the excitement, and to watch the sun’s light dim.
In the video, my cell phone camera shows totality as a bright white circle with a black dot in the center. What we really saw was a full-moon-size pitch-black circle surrounded by a strong bright white ring, surrounded by the wispy white corona of the sun. I looked online for pictures that matched what we saw, but I didn’t find any. We (including our resident meteorologist) concluded that the strong white ring was a result of the high clouds over the sun in Perryville. Whatever caused that ring, it was a breathtaking, beautiful sight and the high point of our day. Totality in Perryville lasted a few seconds less than 4 minutes, so we had time to look around and enjoy it. Even so, it ended too soon. Here’s a picture of us in the dark. It’s 2:00 p.m. and the parking lot light is on in the background.
And here’s another picture during totality, but with the camera automatically adjusting the light for a “better” (?) picture.
I took a video of the 360-degree sunset during totality.
About five minutes after totality passed and the sun began to appear, we saw the weirdly-colored sunlight again. It looked like a storm was coming, except that the sky was blue.
When about 30 percent of the sun became visible, things looked more normal, and the sun looked bright again.
We stayed until the sun was fully exposed and then joined the crowds on our way home. Again, traffic moved steadily, just as it did on our way to Perryville–but at only 2-7 mph for three hours. We were excited to move forward at 10 mph for an occasional quarter mile before braking again. After three hours of this, we saw a gas station right beside I-55 and decided to stop. It took 15-20 minutes to drive down the exit ramp and cross I-55–about one-quarter mile. There were at least 100+ cars at the gas station and the bathroom line reached the convenience store door with people constantly arriving. This is about half of the gas station parking lot. You can see the backed-up traffic on the road in the right center of the picture. All four directions of this intersection were backed up like that. (Photo credit to Kari for this picture.)
We opened our ice chests and had a snack to fortify ourselves for the rest of our drive, then spent another 15-20 minutes getting back onto I-55. After another hour of slow, but steady, progress–we’d covered 50 miles in 4 hours!–we reached Festus, where I-55 adds a third lane (St. Louis metro area) and were finally able to travel near the speed limit for our last hour home, arriving at about 8:30 p.m. Kathy and Annette live about 3 hours beyond us, but encountered an accident that halted traffic on I-70, so they didn’t get home until 12:30 a.m.
All of us agreed that, if we’d known in advance how bad the traffic would be, we would still go to the eclipse. In 2017, we saw an amazing total solar eclipse, but this one was so-o-o-o much better! It was worth every minute of the experience–even the heavy traffic. The next total solar eclipse will be on August 12, 2026 and will be visible in Iceland. It might be worth making the trip.
P.S.
To celebrate the eclipse, Ted saw this picture of an eclipse snack on the National Weather Service Employees Facebook page. Start at the bottom with the full “sun” and move counterclockwise around the plate to view the Oreo eclipse.
Every year, the Missouri Botanical Garden offers a holiday light display called “Garden Glow.” Ted and I decided we should experience it before the lights were turned off on January 6. It was a calm, crisp January evening and we had a beautiful holiday walk in the park (literally).
Everything seems to eventually become an abbreviation these days, and this event was no exception. At the entrance to the garden, the decorators assumed “Garden” and simply announced the display as “Glow.” All of the light displays were prettier than the pictures. In addition, pretty instrumental music played softly throughout the garden all the while we walked.
From a distance, this looked like a wall of hanging lights. As we came closer, we saw that it was a number of individual large trees with strings of lights hanging from their branches.
This display changed color every few seconds.
The Botanical Garden has a hedge maze all year, and it was decorated with lights for the holidays. Past experience has taught me that I get claustrophobic and panicky in mazes, so I avoid them. In this case, I figured it couldn’t be too bad to walk through it because the building where I stood to take the photo on the right was at the entrance, and I could always see it from within the maze. All I had to do to get out was head toward that building. It worked. Ted and I walked through the maze and I could always see which direction to go to get out. The downside was that there were no visible shortcuts, so it took a long time to navigate the twists and turns to get to the exit. It was fun to be wandering between walls of holiday lights with other people also working their way through the maze.
These tree displays also changed colors every few seconds. No matter which color they were, the lights were beautiful.
A projector decorated this building differently about every 30 seconds. We watched for almost twenty minutes, and didn’t see a repeated projection, so we walked on.
This was my favorite display. The picture looks a little eerie, but the blue lights on the huge tree had a magical quality in person. I almost expected to see Christmas fairies.
It was a beautiful winter night and there were fire bowls and refreshment stands with warm beverages throughout the park. Ted and I were dressed warmly and had a wonderful time. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
‘Twas the month of Christmas, and all through the house there were things to be done. I always enjoy having our house decorated for Christmas and eating cookies and candy that, for unknown reasons, we only make at Christmas time. One of my favorite decorations is this tatted mobile that Ted’s mother made.
Thom and I have a Christmas tradition of giving each other a miniature Lego set each year. Based on the price and the online photo, I selected a Santa sleigh and reindeer set for Thom. I thought it was so cute, I ordered one for myself too. The eight bags of pieces I found when I opened the box was my first clue that this was not a miniature set. I think I should have also checked the number of pieces in the set–390!
This set far out-sized the miniatures Thom and I usually exchange. (See the photo on the right, below.) As a result, I had to display it with something larger to keep it from looking like Will Ferrell beside the other elves in “Elf.”
Kathy and Annette invited us to spend Christmas in Kirksville with them. (That sounds like a Hallmark Christmas movie, doesn’t it?) They had a pretty little Christmas tree in the living room.
On Christmas Day, we all wore our Christmas socks. Ted decided to show a little leg; we women were more modest.
Santa was good to us. Ted was happy with a Dairy Queen gift card and a plastic banana split–a symbol of one of his favorite sundaes.
I was thrilled to discover a soft and cozy fleece shirt in my gift-wrapped box.
Kathy’s cat kitchen towel made us laugh.
Annette said the over-sized “Crazy Cat Lady” mug was the perfect gift for her. The towel cat looks less certain of that.
We all pitched in to put Christmas dinner on the table. Annette (the vegetarian) roasted a perfect turkey. What a shame she didn’t eat any of it–it was delicious! Ted poured the wine, and a pumpkin turtle pie was a perfect finish for the meal.
After a long weekend in Kirksville, Kari invited us to join her family for Christmas in St. Charles (another Hallmark movie). It was a happy gathering with a delicious dinner and more gifts for everyone.
I attended one more holiday gathering with some fellow retirees from the college. We enjoyed lunch together and several hours of good conversation. We didn’t do a gift exchange and we had separate checks for lunch, but the holiday spirit was definitely with us. Left to right are me, Liz, Heather, Paula, Terri, and Paula’s husband, Bill. Kathy, Cindy, Elaine, and Yvonne were unable to join us. Bill didn’t say much. He might have been out-talked by five women.
Christmas 2023 is now in the past. The decorations have been put away and the candy and cookies are (nearly) gone. Here’s a picture of my mini Lego tree from Thom. I’m getting discouraged asking for world peace every year, but hope springs eternal, so my holiday wish is once again for peace on earth and good will toward all in 2024.
Dewey’s is Ted’s and my favorite pizza restaurant, and we go there often because we both like pizza. In December, we received an email from Kyle, one of Dewey’s managers.
The next time we were at Dewey’s, we were presented with a bag bearing a gift tag with our name on it. The manager who gave it to us (not Kyle) thanked us for our patronage and mentioned that we were one of their top five customers in 2023. (We like pizza a lot.) We thanked him for the gift bag, but waited until we were home to open it. Our gift was two Dewey’s glasses and a $50 Dewey’s gift certificate. Even better than pizza is free pizza!
Over the years, when I’ve checked into various places, I’ve discovered that there are other women with the same first and last names as mine. One time, I asked the check-in person how many other people shared my name on her list and she said, “Five.” Just the other day, I asked again and the registrar said, “Eight.” Wow!
When my kids were little, I took Jeff to the pediatrician for something or other, and the nurse needed clarification about which Diane and Jeff we were because there was another mother who shared my name and had a son named Jeff. During a recent (flattering) check-in experience, the check-in lady asked me to re-verify my birthdate. I told her I know there are other women with the same name as mine, but I didn’t know I shared a birthdate with any of them. “Oh, no,” she said, “you don’t. You just didn’t look that old.” 🙂
In all the time I’ve known about these name doppelgangers, I’ve never met one until (drum roll, please) my last haircut appointment. When I checked in, the check-in lady asked if I was with Donna or Michelle (the stylists). I said “Donna.” She replied that her computer showed me scheduled with Michelle. Then she noticed that I was listed with both Donna and Michelle. At that moment, another woman spoke up and said she had an appointment with Michelle, and we all realized that the other woman and I had the same first and last names.
Here I am with my name twin. We were seated in side-by-side chairs while we waited for Donna and Michelle, so we chatted with each other and decided we should have a photo of ourselves. You can see Donna and Michelle in the mirror behind us. Donna is taking the picture.
One of our gallery pictures of our grandson has always hung crooked, no matter what I did to straighten it. One day, I decided to weight the picture with pennies. Unfortunately, between Ted and me, we had only one penny, and that turned out to be insufficient. The picture still hung crooked.
I mentioned this little problem at a family gathering and said I thought I needed another two cents. The conversation moved on, but after a few minutes, Dylan re-entered the room and handed me two cents. Thank you, Dylan!
I added Dylan’s pennies to the back of the picture and it still didn’t hang straight, so I tried a nickel. That didn’t help, so I moved up to a quarter. That helped a little. When I added a second quarter, the picture hung straight.
I don’t think I’ve ever added more than two cents to a picture, but this one was a 53-cent job. The bottom corner of the picture butted up against the door frame. I wonder how far it would have tilted if the door frame didn’t stop it. Well, at least it’s finally straight and this little guy’s picture is no longer cockeyed.
Ted and I had to clear our walls for the painters in Fall 2022. We were both tired of looking at the same old things on the walls, so we decided that we would only re-hang the things we missed looking at. One of the things we missed looking at was a two-piece sculpture. It’s not an easy thing to hang. The two pieces need to be properly aligned; they are heavy and awkward to handle; and the design pieces have sharp corners. An added challenge is that it needs to be hung on eight irregularly arranged hangers.
I decided that a template would probably avoid repeated trial-and-error efforts, so we spread some large, taped-together sheets of paper on the basement floor and properly aligned the sculpture pieces on them. Then we marked where the irregular hangers were so we’d know where to put the nails into the wall. The hangers are welded to the sculpture frame, but the frame does not extend to the edges of the sculpture. That provided another challenge: deciding where to place the template on the wall so that the sculpture would hang where we wanted it to be. We worked with the outside measurements of the sculpture and the template to determine the center, transferred those measurements to the wall, and then taped the template to the wall.
Instead of pounding the nails all the way in on the template markings, I tapped them just hard enough to make a visible dent in the drywall. Then we removed the template and put in four of the eight nails we needed–just enough to hold the sculpture temporarily–before hanging the sculpture to check its placement. It looked good, so we took it down and hammered in the other four nails. Now the sculpture is securely hung and the placement looks good. Nice work, if I do say so myself.
Back in September, the U.S. Marine Corps literally lost (as in couldn’t find) one of its aircraft in South Carolina. The F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet went missing after the pilot ejected. The plane flew about 60 miles without its pilot and then crashed into a wooded area. The Marine Corps ordered a two-day stand down while they searched for the jet.
According to CNN, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Caroline wrote on X “How in the hell do you lose an F-35? How is there not a tracking device and we’re asking the public to what, find a jet and turn it in?”
Here’s an idea from Walt Handelsman, a cartoonist.
Thanks to the kitchen update, the basement workshop got an update too. The last time we updated our kitchen, we selected some of the old, to-be-removed cabinets from the kitchen and had them moved to the workshop for neater storage down there.
The cabinets pictured below were original to the house, and are now 44 years old. They show their age and the drawers no longer work very well. Naturally, the upper cabinet is installed (i.e., fastened to the wall). The lower three pieces, however, are just set in place against the wall with the countertop pieces simply resting on the cabinet tops, making those pieces easy to move. Not surprisingly, we never moved them. The PVC pipe drains the washing machine above, so the cabinets were placed separately on each side of it. The dark portions of the cabinet sides are the original color of the cabinets. I hated that dark color when we bought the house, so I stripped the cabinets and stained them lighter. The dark areas were against adjacent cabinets, so those portions didn’t get stripped. You can see the raw edge of the Formica countertop in the center. That countertop wasn’t originally on that cabinet; the workers at the time cut it to fit.
This was the workshop in the basement, so we didn’t need or expect beautiful cabinetry. We were satisfied for many years, but with new cabinets coming to the kitchen, it was the perfect time to replace these worn-out cabinets with something only half their age.
When our kitchen crew, Christian and Craig, removed the upper cabinets in the workshop, they noticed mold and some ceiling tile damage. That must have developed years ago when the washer hose broke and sent a full load of water to the basement floor–gallons of wash water and more gallons of rinse water. I left the washer running while I was away from home, so I wasn’t there to immediately turn off the water. Oops! What a mess that was to clean up! Since the cabinets were installed before the washer hose ruptured, we couldn’t dry the water or remove the ceiling tiles above them, and we couldn’t see the resulting damage. As a result, the water absorbed by the ceiling tiles in that area dried slowly enough to develop mold. It’s a good thing Christian and Craig could repair it now.
I expected the same kind of installation from Christian and Craig as we had last time: attach the upper cabinet to the wall, put the lower ones in place, and cut the countertop(s) to fit. Wow! Was I surprised!
These guys didn’t put the cabinets in the basement; they installed them. They leveled everything and fastened every cabinet to its adjacent wall and to its adjacent cabinet. To hide the drainpipe space needed between the cabinets, the guys cut a spacer from a flat wood panel taken from a to-be-trashed cabinet from the kitchen, and inserted the spacer between the cabinet sections (arrow). None of the removed countertop pieces was long enough for the entire lower surface, so the right portion has a backsplash and the left portion doesn’t. To make a continuous countertop around the drainpipe, Christian cut a half-circle into the back edge of the countertop and joined the two pieces with a nearly invisible seam sealed with clear caulk. The back edge is also caulked along the wall. All of those details make the four lower cabinet pieces look like a single unit. Compare the photo below with the top photo above. Attention to detail makes a big difference!
Speaking of details, . . . The over-the-top thing the guys did in the basement was to cover the exposed end of the upper cabinet with a trim piece (below). It’s not a perfect fit, but, like the spacer and the continuous countertop, I didn’t expect that level of detail in the workshop. Craig cut the piece from one of the old, matching cabinet doors and attached it to make the upper cabinet look nice from the side. Uh, that would be the side that faces the storage room. Doesn’t everyone want to see a beautifully finished workshop cabinet edge from the storage room?! Christian and Craig certainly do!
I expected these repurposed cabinets to look a lot like the previous ones, but in better condition. Instead, I feel like we ought to do something special in this room to justify such nice cabinetry. When I repeatedly complimented Christian and Craig on how beautiful the cabinets looked, they kind of shrugged as if to say, “How else would we have done it?” and Craig said, “Well, I like my workshop nice.” Obviously, it could have been done as simply as the previous crew did with the previous cabinets, but that’s not how these guys roll.
When we emptied all of our living area rooms for painting and carpeting in Fall 2022, we got rid of so many things, that we removed shelving and still have extra shelf space. The same was true when we refilled the “new” basement cabinets–we have extra space in our updated workshop. I wonder how long it will take us to fill all the empty shelf space we now have throughout the house. There’s a saying that the more countertop you have, the more things you set on it. I’ll bet the same is true for closets and shelves.
Our kitchen update project included some changes to bring our kitchen from its circa 2000 look to the 2020s era of design. Most of the changes were optional. One was not.
One evening last spring, while Ted and I were eating dinner, the chandelier we installed when we updated our kitchen 20+ years ago abruptly turned itself off. Everything looked good when we checked the breakers and the light switch connection. We tested the five light bulbs in another lamp and they all worked fine. In August 2022, we had the electrical box for this light moved to center it over the kitchen table. We wondered if there might be a problem with the installation, and felt nervous about using a light that might have wiring problems. I called our electrician, and he assured me that, as long as the switch was turned off, we were not in danger of an electrical fire. We planned to replace the chandelier with a new one during our kitchen update, but now we had a sense of urgency to shop.
We bought a new chandelier and called the electrician to install it. When he removed the damaged light from the ceiling connection, he found the problem. The installer who moved the kitchen table light in 2022 (same company) pinched some wires with a screw when he attached the chandelier to the electrical box, and that eventually broke the wire. You can see the damage indicated by the arrows in the photo below. After installing the new light, the electrician prepared to leave and informed us there was no charge for the service. The company, he said, stands behind its work and we lost a chandelier due to their error. He even offered $100 toward our new light.
While he left his work area to get some other tools, the electrician let the (relatively heavy) new chandelier hang by a wire designed to hold the fixture during the installation process (left). I’d have been nervous about doing that, but it worked just fine. We used a 1980s vintage pole lamp from the basement (in the corner, left photo) for table lighting while we shopped and waited for the new chandelier installation. The right photo shows the new chandelier, properly attached to the ceiling.
In addition to the new chandelier, we made a number of other changes to our kitchen design. There weren’t a lot of home devices to charge in the late 1990s when we last updated our kitchen, so one of our kitchen outlets used to look like the left photo. All of those plugs are inserted into a six-gang tree with 2 USB chargers which, in turn, is plugged into a two-gang outlet. Twenty-some years later, we had a six-gang outlet with built-in chargers installed to accommodate our current needs at that location. Much neater.
Instead of our Bed, Bath & Beyond silverware tray, we now have a two-tiered built-in silverware tray in this drawer.
All of the lower cabinets have drawers instead of shelves. Now it’s much easier to put things away and to get them out because we don’t have to remove the items in the front to extract an item from the back.
We added a drawer to the island so that we can store placemats and napkins conveniently near the table.
In our last kitchen update, the island backsplash matched the countertop. This time, we matched it to the backsplash over the cabinets.
Some of our previous cabinets had a matching flat panel on the exposed sides. This time, we added a trim panel to all the exposed sides, even in the corner where we keep the stool.
We replaced our Corian sink with a composite one. The Corian sink was still in great shape, but could not be removed from the surrounding Corian countertops, since they were poured together. Now we have a composite sink attached separately to the countertops.
For this update, we ordered upper cabinets of varied depths to eliminate the straight-line front edge of the upper cabinets. Compare the old kitchen look (left) with the updated look (right).
Here’s a picture of Jimmy’s, Christian’s, Craig’s, Ted’s, and my favorite change: the LED strip lighting over the countertops. It’s gorgeous in the evenings when the random bronze-colored backsplash tiles shine softly in the light.
In addition to setting up temporary kitchen/dining areas in the basement, we had to empty all of the kitchen cabinets before the crew could begin their work.
Just like closets, you can get a lot of stuff in cabinets!
Jimmy, the company owner, sent Christian (left) and Craig (obviously, right) to start working on our kitchen on June 21. The two guys worked daily through July 16. They started by removing our old (20+ years) cabinets. The cabinets were installed from right to left, so needed to be removed in the opposite direction.
The cabinets are gone and the hardwood floor is well-protected. The kitchen looks so spacious!
When we replaced the original kitchen cabinets in our house, we put some of them in the basement to provide closed/covered storage. They are now 44 years old and definitely show their age. In our current kitchen contract, we included removing those original cabinets and replacing them with some of our current (now old) cabinets.
During this project, the guys made their mess in the garage and in the driveway, and cleaned it up every day. In the photo below, the truck is delivering the new cabinets and Christian is cutting one of our current/now old countertops to fit the new/old cabinet arrangement in the basement.
The first cabinet is installed. The wood is birch.
All of the base cabinets are installed. By doing the lower cabinets first, the guys can keep busy working on the upper cabinets while waiting for the countertops to be measured, manufactured, and installed. The island is actually four cabinets. It looks like a cabinet puzzle fitted together in this photo.
Even the interiors of the cabinets are beautifully finished.
Some of the separate cabinets for the island were built with full-length side panels. When two cabinets were placed side-by-side, this created a great place to stub toes while working at the island (left image). Fortunately, Christian had a neat little toe kick saw that could cut a square corner under the cabinet (upper right image) to allow for a continuous toe kick all the way around the island (lower right image).
Christian was at least as picky as I am about details. His level was his constant companion. Are these cabinets level by themselves as well as with each other? . . .
. . . You bet they are!
Under-cabinet lighting for all the upper cabinets was part of our design and required new electrical work. You can see the large hole in the wall and wires extending from the walls where the lights will be connected to the switch.
At this point, we ran into a problem and the guys had to pause their work for ten days while we waited for the countertops and a new cabinet to be made and delivered. Notice that rust-colored stripe of paint in the left center of the above photo. That was formerly covered by our microwave, which was mounted beneath a 24-inch long cabinet. You can also see the outline of the microwave installation template in that photo as well as the handwritten dates for each new microwave oven we installed. The delivered cabinet (short upper one, below) was only 18 inches long. Christian said he called the designer to verify the size because it seemed high to him. She verified an 18-inch long cabinet, so he installed it.
Why was that a problem? If we’d installed the microwave beneath that 18-inch cabinet, the bottom edge of the microwave would be where the top edge of the blue tape is in the photo below. The microwave cooking tray would be three inches above that line and the top edges of the cooking dishes in the microwave would be even higher. Check the blue tape line and my line of sight. I would have been unable to see whatever was in the microwave! Christian and Craig removed the 18-inch cabinet and the contractor ordered a longer one.
The mystery is why the designer planned an 18-inch cabinet for that space and why Jimmy, the boss man, who came to measure the cabinet dimensions in person didn’t catch the error either. As for Ted and me, cabinet length never came up in our design conversations, and we made the assumptions that the experts used standard lengths, and that the length of the two 24-inch long cabinets we’ve had above the microwave over the past 44 years was a standard length.
After the ten-day hiatus, work resumed on July 26 with the installation of the countertops.
After the countertops were installed (still waiting for that over-the-microwave cabinet), Christian got started on the backsplash. You can see it below on the island between the two countertop levels and to the left of the exterior door. The wall above the cabinets on the left is multi-colored because there was another problem.
After Christian and Craig installed the stove, I noticed that its back edge was more than one-quarter inch farther from the wall on the left than on the right. Even to a non-perfectionist, the stove looked like it wasn’t pushed in all the way on the left. I tried pushing it in, but it was tight against the front edge of the lower cabinets and didn’t budge. I told Christian it was going to drive me crazy to have the stove looking crooked every day for the next 20 (?) years and he agreed. He explained that he (as a fellow perfectionist) squared that line of cabinets with the line of cabinets under the window. Doing that revealed that the two walls formed a greater-than-90-degree corner. This didn’t affect the line of the cabinets, because the countertop was measured and fitted after they were installed and it fit tightly against the fronts of the cabinets and against the wall.
To compensate for the crooked wall, Christian painstakingly built up the wall surface (the dark-colored stuff) that would be behind the backsplash. When the backsplash was installed, the back edge of the stove was in parallel with the backsplash. The refrigerator covers the left edge of the backsplash, but if you move the refrigerator and examine that backsplash edge, you’ll see that there’s one-quarter inch of built-up surface material visible behind the standard backsplash trim piece. Christian is my kind of project worker!
In this photo, Craig is installing the garbage disposal and Christian is finishing up the under-cabinet lighting. He admitted it was hard on his back and he was glad to be finished with that task.
The guys worked through August 1 and then went on another hiatus and worked on other jobs. The cabinet for over the microwave had not yet arrived, and Ted and I needed to prepare for our overseas trip. The remaining upper cabinets and some finishing work were completed on October 21 after we returned home.
Most of our interior house update was completed by December 2022. In February 2023, Ted and I got serious about updating the kitchen. We updated the lighting and had the room painted in 2022, but that’s all. We had our first appointment with our kitchen designer on February 21. The planning, selection, and ordering processes took awhile, and we were finally scheduled for the professional workers to arrive on June 21.
Before giving the pros permission to demolish our kitchen, we had to set up an alternate eating and cooking space. Just like 25 years ago, that space was in the basement. We got out my old Wal-Mart craft table and some of the folding chairs we acquired in the early 1970s with grocery store trading stamps, and voilà! we had a dining room.
We also needed a prep/storage area. We set that up in the shop, where we have a table with a power outlet for the microwave. We won’t have the convenience of a stove for awhile, so I cooked and froze some meals in advance. We’re going to count on the microwave and eating out until the kitchen update is functional again. We used the shop table and our wedding gift kitchen table for prepping food and for storing the things we needed while the upstairs kitchen was unavailable. The paint cans under the table are not food-related. They are waiting to be put into “new” cabinets coming from our current kitchen.
Dishwashing was a challenge, but not impossible. Since we didn’t do any big cooking projects, we didn’t have many pots or pans to wash. Our system was to scrape the dirty dishes, then stack them in the bathroom sink. A dishpan on the right worked for washing and one on the left took care of rinsing the dishes. A large cutting board on our 1972 vintage baby high chair served as a place to drain the rinsed dishes before drying them. Then we stacked the clean, dry dishes on our trading stamp card table just outside the bathroom door before taking them back to the shop and putting them in the prep/storage area. (Photographer visible in mirror.)
The crew had to pause our job for ten days while we waited for the delivery of a cabinet. It had already been five weeks since the work started, and my frozen dinner supply was running very low (i.e., gone). Fortunately, the guys were at a point at which they could connect the stove. (Still no sink or water source in the kitchen.) By then, we appreciated the luxury of having a stove and an oven. We had no countertops, so the microwave had to stay in the basement. All but two of the cabinets were installed and off the floor, so there was room for us to collapse our kitchen table and to eat beside our soon-to-be installed dishwasher. We’re moving up in the world–literally up–from the basement.
We laid some of the shelving from the yet-to-be-installed cabinets over the unfinished island to create some surface space. That made it possible for us to set things down somewhere in the room. Some 2x4s and two doors from our old cabinets covered with plastic tablecloths gave us counter space under the window and beside the stove.
Even dishwashing became a little easier. We didn’t have running water or a drain in the kitchen yet, but at least the dirty dishes could be set on the stove, washed and rinsed in our trusty dishpans, and set to dry where the future sink would be installed. Clean, dry dishes could be put on the shelf-covered island. That’s a lot more space than we had for doing dishes in the basement! We could work side-by-side and move our elbows!
All of the above was inconvenient, but not especially difficult. In fact, it worked well enough that we decided we could entertain guests. We didn’t have enough space in the kitchen yet, but we invited Kari’s family to join us for a pizza party in our basement dining room. With paper plates and cups and carry-out pizzas, it was easy and fun.
For several months, workers have been laying cables for broadband throughout our county. One day, this truck was parked on our street. It’s hard to read in the photo, but right above the orange cone, it says “We’ll be at your house in a Gigabit.”
Hallowe’en was more than a month ago, but I think this display is worth posting.
This neighborhood sign encapsulates the issue with only a few words.
Wow! What a trip this has been! We saw so many amazing things that it’s a little bit hard to process it all. Recording our experiences and reviewing our photos as I wrote the 2023 BT blog posts was like re-visiting everything again, but with more time to consider it and to cherish the memories. We don’t have a lot of photos of ourselves, but here are some that show us in places we’ve never been before.
This is the restaurant we went to with two other couples on our second night in Jerusalem. We added another couple to our group within a day or two and the eight of us sat together for dinner every evening during our time in Jerusalem and Egypt. We all have each other’s email addresses and are keeping in touch with each other. We also became acquainted with and knew the names of at least ten other couples during this time, so it’s fun to look at our photos and to recognize so many of the people in them as we toured together in a group.
We asked the waitress to take a picture of our group of six in the restaurant. Her pictures didn’t turn out very well, but here’s the setting, and it should be easy to imagine six new friends enjoying a delicious dinner together in an open-air dining room on a warm summer night in Jerusalem.
Ok, the fake Trojan horse is pretty corny, but we had just toured the ruins of Troy, Türkiye, and it seemed appropriate to have a corny vacation picture.
When we had a free morning, it was relaxing to have coffee and hot chocolate in the Winter Garden on board our ocean ship before our afternoon excursion.
Kotor—home of the serpentine road. What a ride! The views at the 25th curve were magnificent, and after lunch at a local restaurant, there was time for a few minutes of exercise on a swing.
We toured Taormina and heard some local legends about how to treat a man who cheats on you and how to drink wine like a Greek, then had time for a break to relax and admire the Ionian Sea.
Pompeii, the site of a 79 AD tragedy, was a fascinating place to tour in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius. Some of the things the Romans included in the infrastructure and the buildings were amazingly advanced, especially the (could be) “pizza” oven!
Pisa is sinking and the tower is leaning. Every day, Ted and I learned something new. At Pisa, I learned that the Leaning Tower is a bell tower and only one structure of a religious unit including the tower, the adjacent cathedral, and the baptistry. It was hard to take pictures because the sun shone directly at the camera. We had to guess what we were aiming at and hope for the best.
Gaudi’s name is so familiar to me after seeing La Sagrada Familia and the Park Güell in Barcelona that I’m not sure if I ever heard of Gaudi before this or not. I’ll never forget him now! How could a single person design such magnificent structures and include so much meaning in every part of those structures?!
Every time we come home from visiting new places, Ted remarks that we probably just had the best trip ever. The same thing was true after the 2023 BT, but this one will be hard to top with the next new places we see.
