Holy macerel it's been about a million years since we wrote anything on here. Now here I am to update it, for any of our friends who have not written it off yet.
A LONG TIME AGO -
Let's see the first thing that happened that I didn't blog about was that Mel's parents came to visit. Mel's parents have been to the house a few times now, but they're very project oriented people - they come here, do stuff, then leave still with as many things in mind for our house as they arrived with. This particular trip involved birdfeeders, yard work, and - fatefully - a garbage disposal.
The garbage disposal went in, and we overcame a number of obstacles such as "how shall we mount a switch for it" and "how will it get power". We began to get overconfident. When we attempted to patch it into The Drainline Of Betrayal we learned the truth of the situation. The truth is that our old kitchen drainline (which had given us trouble before - see Home Emergency #1) was a house of cards, and the slightest disturbance would bring it down on our heads. As we ever so gently attempted to remove a bit of line with loving strokes of hammer and pliers, the pipes began to disintigrate. In the end the house scored a very palplable hit upon us, and we had to call a professional plumber. As of now, the whole kitchen drainline has been replaced and is made entirly of non-rusting PVC now, thank goodness. It was expensive, but we got our revenge as a length of pipe remains, like
Fortunato, in our walls.
The birdfeeders were hung easily, but the two of them go from full to empty in about 24 - 30 hours 'cause we've got glutton-birds. The yardwork, while hot, was uneventful.
We thank the Lams for all they have contributed to our house.
THE NEXT WEEKEND -
Shortly after that MY parents - the Thornes (elder) - visited. They had not been here before, but that doesn't mean we didn't come up with some stuff for them to do. My father and I installed a less-crappy latch in our back gate. Now one can open it from the inside without a length of coat hanger! Mel + my Mother trimmed back the rasberries. If we're lucky they might grow back and fruit again in the fall, which would be sweet. The next day we hit the Powderhorn Park art fair. Lots of crap, some neat stuff. My parents bought a picture of a cow. It was a short visit from them, mainly for us to show off the hiz-ouse. We thank my parents for what they have contributed to our house as well.
JUST RECENTLY
My sister got married! It was on August 20th. Here, lemme bust out a couple of pics...
There you go - sister and new brother-in-law. The wedding was in Bloomington, IN. From the Twin Cities it is about 10ish hours to Indianapolis, then another hour and a half or so south to Bloomington.
Incidentally, we have found it is better to go around Chicago with the I-94 to I-90 to 39 to 74 to Indy. AND instead of coming into Indy on 74 you can take hwy 32 (um, around Crawfordsville - halfway between the boarder and Indy) over to hwy 65 and shave a bit off your final approach if you're going to the NE side like where my parents are. Yeah, the exits for that are all open now, Mom and Dad.
If you happen to be taking that route, you should stop for food at WOODY'S FAMILY RESTAURANT at the town of
El Paso in Illinois on 39 just north of the 39/74 intersection at Bloomington (yeah, every state's got one). It was quality old school food fer cheap.
Well, that brings us to the present. I'll update again in a couple of months or something...
