Ice Storm Aftermath

Buzz Saws and Brush Piles

A common sound in the neighborhood a couple months after the ice storm is the chain saw, buzzing away as homeowners clear out the damage caused by the ice storm.

Not one, and I mean this, NOT ONE, home with trees escaped the loss of tree limbs, either a few or a lot. The city is scheduled to start picking up tree limbs at the curb on Feb. 4th. About half the population has already removed the tree limbs to the city's drop off point. That means if you drive around any neighborhood in the city, and I mean ANY neighborhood, you will see massive brush piles at the curb of about every other house on the street. Below are several snapshots I took just driving up the street from our house. Amazing...

Bathroom Project Update - Week Three

Warren is napping in the den. I'm blogging. The fireplace is off now because it's warming up outside. Supposed to be over 50 today and pushing 60 tomorrow. (Eat your heart out, you northerners!) We may go outside later but for now, chilling is the name of the moment.

We are just glad the morning is over. You see, we had a quandary this morning. To take the cabinets out or not. Either way has problems. How the heck do you remove the cabinets? Seems like way too much of a project for us. But leaving them in means what do you do with the underlayment that goes under the cabinets? It has to be removed because we have to put down concrete backboard. So the underlayment has to be cut off right at the edge. But there's a ledge that limits how you work under there. Huh?

Warren and I decided to chisel it out and lay the tile right up to the edge of the cabinet and lay quarter round or something down to cover the edge. Whatever. Seems like a good enough solution for now. More later on the rightness of our decision.


Now the underlayment is completely up, the vacuuming is done, and the next project is to get the glue off. This will be a major work day or two because it doesn't all come up with one coating of the solution.


Definitely the project is going to drag on, but that's okay. It beats having to get it all done in a jiffy!

Thank You!

Big thanks to Ben, Sarah & Dan!
I love all of you!
to quote a famous person,

How'd I ever get so lucky!

Love,
Mom

Early Arrival at the Office:


Later, budding already:

So I took it home.
Here's what I left for the office:


Thanks!

Bathroom Project Update - Week Two

We are loving our Saturday Morning ONLY Project! What gets done, gets done. Nothing more. We stop at noon or earlier if a stage is finished before noon. Makes it much easier to face a weekend project when you know there is a time limit.

Warren is pretty much the worker-bee at this point. I can't do the hard physical labor that he can.

We are happy to report the worst is now over. Especially since Warren figured out there is a solvent for the nasty glue that held the subfloor down., which we have to replace with concrete backer board, eventually.

Before

After

But next week, the project will probably be just to remove the glue left behind and maybe measure for the concrete backer board and figure out which thickness to buy given the height of the backer board and the height of the tile, plus the mastic.

That's it from the home front, folks. Cats are out from their hiding places, enjoying the fireplace. It's 5 above zero out but we don't care!

Driving the Cats Crazy

I was over at Laurie's Three Dog Blog today. She was talking about how her one dog just can't stand the kitchen fan. It really drives him crazy. I got to thinking how we were driving our cats crazy this past weekend, too. Below you see Mr. Fat Tail, otherwise known as Hamilton. My cat. This fat tail photo actually doesn't relate to our driving him crazy, I'd just let him inside in the middle of the night shortly after he'd been in a scrap with something outside. Probably Diamond. See here for more about Miss Diamond.


We're driving our cats crazy this weekend because we started our Winter Project. We usually start some home improvement thing right after Christmas. Last winter we had hardwood floors put in two floors of our house.

This winter, we decided to re-tile the master bathroom ourselves. After watching many hours of rehab on HGTV, we decided, "How Hard Can It Be?" and started demolition this last Saturday morning. Hopefully those words won't come back to haunt us later this winter.

So it's officially Driving the Cats Crazy Month around here. They disappeared for the day right after we started bashing the tile from around the tub and filling trash bags with nasty old carpet from the floor. In fact, I can't recall even seeing them in there this week to investigate the changes in the room.

We got Step One done: removing the carpet and tile.


Step Two is removing the subfloor and the stoopid glue the previous rehabber put down, which may take more than one more Saturday Morning to complete. Then we move on to Step Three: putting in the Concrete Backer Board. All of this required new tools. (Don't you love a job that needs new tools?) And I'm pretty sure we will be driving the cats crazy and into hiding on many more Saturday Mornings to come.

Warren got a little "crazy" himself toward the end of the morning. But we finished Step One before noon and we're committed now...oh boy...

Miss Ellie and the Green-Eyed Monster

It's the next day. I catch Miss Ellie staking her claim to HER spot, for heaven's sake. I think she looks a bit sad here or is it mad?

Because if you look at the next photo, which happened right after I took the picture of Miss Ellie on HER blanket, she stalked over to confront Hamilton, who was stretched out on Warren's lap and legs.

Now, if you ask me, Miss Ellie looks decidedly JEALOUS here. Because Warren is her person, Hamilton is Marcia's cat, for heaven's sake. What is he doing on HER person? And if you look closely at Hamilton, he's really egging her on with his smug, proprietary attitude. I can read it all over his face. He's rubbing it in.

I guess this is entertainment in the cat world. They are having quite the time, engaged in this friendly scuffle over who belongs to whom and what belongs to whom. We try not to interfere too much. It's too fun to watch, and they say animals need stimulation. It's not like we take these two cats out on a walk around the neighborhood, like Sarah's Dan does with Henry!

Peaceful Sleeping Kitties (??)

I came downstairs today for my morning coffee and t.v. news in the den. Coming around the corner from the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, I stopped abruptly.

What?? Two cats sleeping close to each other on the couch??

This doesn't happen in my house. It used to with our cats, Snuggy (short for Snugball) and Eekie (short for Eclipse.) They were litter mates, which I understand is about the only way cats will snuggle together in sleep. Quite the peaceful scene for two cats who barely tolerate each other on a GOOD day.

I quickly grabbed the camera to document this historic moment. Then I sat down for my coffee...

And I got to thinking...

This fluffy hand-knitted blanket is Miss Ellie's domain. She LOVES sleeping here! But Hamilton is on the blanket. Aha! They must have had a contest of wills during the night. And Miss Ellie lost. Yeah. That's the real story.

Now, to even out this battle, I have to say, Hamilton will let Miss Ellie have first dibs on the food bowl, just about every time. But if he gets in his mind that Miss Ellie has a favorite spot, he had been known to ace her out.

Case in point: Hamilton climbed onto Warren's lap this afternoon and had a nice long nap. Miss Ellie isn't much of a lap cat, so he can get away with this quite easily. But Miss Ellie doesn't like it and in the last couple years has even climbed into Warren's lap every once in a while. A real change in her behavior. One which Warren appreciates.

So...I wouldn't say this photo shows peaceful sleeping kitties. I would say it shows Miss Ellie resigned to her fate. And thinking about how to get her blanket back. Notice who is wide awake and eyeing me disdainfully...

Marcia the Bookworm

This photo of me is called "The Bookworm." It was taken in August of 1955 by my father in our house on Mildred Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can see I was raised in an ultra-modern house, my father being an architect.

My Dad would announce, "Here's our bookworm," whenever this slide was projected on the screen. This slide can once again be seen by our family courtesy of the new toy I bought recently. It's a scanner that converts slides and negatives to digital images. I've been heartsick for a long time, knowing I had all the slides my Dad took when we were kids and how much money it would cost to get them all converted to photos. Now that I've got the software on the computer, it will be quite simple to bring all these wonderful images to the modern era. How excited I am! I can hardly wait to zap a couple images to my brother and sister so they can see what I've been up to down here in Missouri. They are up there in Wisconsin right now without a clue to the treasures I am about to unearth. What fun!

BTW, please let me know if you can figure out what book I'm reading!

UPDATE: Here is a link to the slides/negatives to digital scanner.
From Hammacher's website. Click here.

P.S. The link doesn't want to work, so once you get to Hammacher's site put this in the search window: The Slide And Negative To Digital Picture Converter

Where's the Fire?

You will notice there is no fire in the fireplace, but there are two expectant cats sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace waiting, waiting, waiting... They don't understand why there's no fire beaming down its luxurious warmth to the cats on the rug. It's been sooo cold lately and every night when the humans get home, they turn on the fireplace. So how come there's no fire in the fireplace tonight? Maybe if we wait here, they'll remember, and turn it on!

They don't know it's been in the 60s and 70s outside the last three days. They don't know that a tornado ran through the county just north of us a couple of hours ago. Hamilton did climb up on Warren's chest when the sirens went off here because I wasn't home yet and he did NOT like that horrid noise. But the siren is long forgotten and now they are wondering why we've forgotten to turn on the fireplace.

BTW, in case you're wondering what you're seeing in the glass fireplace front, it's the satellite tv saying it's lost the signal. Wonder what's up? More rain? Hail? Storms? It's just waaay too unseasonably warm for cats or humans around here!

Warm Winter Welcome

If you look closely at the background of this photo, you will see lots of green. Which is quite strange, seeing that it's January. Even stranger when you remember that we had the Ice Storm of the Century just a couple weeks ago with a power failure that lasted 3-5 days depending what block you lived on.

January 7th with a 74 degree high for the day. Good golly! This is a very strange January thaw. I'm more used to a northern January thaw, well, it's been awhile, but the Januarys I knew way back were in the 40's. Not the 70's.

But that's what we have today. Kids playing the neighborhood in shorts and T-shirts. Warm winds blowing. Running to the store without a coat and the car windows open. What fun!

The New Cat Ornaments

I think my new "sister-in-law" did a great job choosing a Christmas present for me. I think she got it right, don't you?

Actually, I'm blanking on what I should call my daughter's new mother-in-law. Anyone know?

And then there's the Miss Ellie Ornament. Another great choice, I would say. What fun!