...6.17...Over the Weekend...

...it was a nice quiet weekend...we celebrated Father's Day with a late Sunday lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant...if we wait until about 2 pm the crowds have disapated...

...I did the weekly shopping...and I went to Trader Joes...

...I boiled my dishcloths...it keeps them semi-white...haha...and they're not as prone to get stinky...it reminds me of Nanny...who told me one time that you should always scald your dishcloth before you hang it up to dry between uses...so I scald mine really well...

...I baked a banana bread...and even though I had the walnuts sitting on the counter to add to the dough...I somehow forgot to do that...so we have bread with no nuts...

...I had my first fresh peach of the season...YUM!

...and we had gotten some rather wilty organic lettuce...so I dunked it into a bowl of cold water for a few hours...and it miraculously revived...

...and now these pretty soft southern sky photos are from an evening walk over the weekend...in the neighborhood behind ours...it's a nice quiet little enclave of mostly brick row houses...very similar in style...do you see the kitty on top of this roof...I initially thought it was the stray that one of our neighbors feeds every day...

...but it was not...as we walked further into the neighborhood...we saw the stray...he's skittish...but not too much...kind of like Callie at the parsonage...whome we hear is doing just fine...

...it was such a lovely evening...after such a hot day...the actual temperature was 96° F (36° C)...but the heat index was 103° F (39° C)...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...6.15...Dinner and a Movie...and blogger comments...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...that snake looks huge...HUGE...and scary...even if he's not poisonous...your shades look awesome and the sailboat does look funny without a sail...good luck with the new boat......Love, T

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...your pink lace looks gorgeous...and family visits are so nice...I'm really happy Frodo is doing well...and your new steps are great...

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...your lasagna looks delicious...is that your BIKE...it's awesome!...and so is your pup...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...I loved going on the walk with you...I love the petal strewn sidewalk...and the glimpses of your construction...I know it can be frustrating to live through though...

...to Beth from BLD in MT : Living a Simple Life in This Interconnected World...I loved the red dress you wore to the Jerry Berry...that looks like so much fun and you and Matt look so happy there...

...and on the reading front...I did manage to finish David Copperfield...and I'm a good quarter of the way through Bleak House...many people think this is Dickens best work...and it is really good...and it's the book I've read the most recently as I read it when we lived in North Dakota...so not all that recently...I remember the plot clearly and most of the characters...and I'm sure the Man is already dreading the movie...haha...

...for dinner...

...we had vegan Thanksgiving...baked tofu chick'n...vegan stuffing...cranberry sauce...and the very last of last years Okinawan sweet potatoes...we split it...it was pretty large...so that was delicious...

...just more of the Pie in the Sky series...and a funny sidenote on that...I was chatting with Mom...and mentioned that we'd started watching it...and she said...that wasn't it...the Pie in the Sky she was talking about was a movie recommended to her by my big brother and sweet SIL...so I'll have to look that one up...haha...funny that they have the same name...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely weekend!

...6.14...New House Update...now and then...

...the Man relocated the smoke detector still in the kitchen...but over the dining area...it used to be right next to the oven...so whenever you opened the oven it went off...so hopefully it will be less prone to alarming us when there is no need...

...so that left holes in the ceiling where it used to be that had to be patched...of course...

...curtains down...floor and table covered...the ceiling painting begins...

...the Man took down all of the lights...so we're making do in the kitchen with several lamps...

...and my nifty craft light...

...and the Man is weilding that super-wide roller to make quick work of these two coats of Benjamin Moore White Snow...

...now back to the past...and this will be the final install of the 'then' posts...as you're all caught up with all the changes we made before we 'moved'...

...a couple of miscellaneous things before the big project...we got a lawn spreader...for distributing organic things...hopefully it will work well...

...and we did some tile shopping for the kitchen backspash...so many choices...it'll be white for sure...

...we both liked these arabesque tiles...they remind me of the wall beside the stairs at Mom's...

...now...on to the big project...replacing the gas hot water heater with a heat pump water heater...

...first the Man had to reconfigure the circuit breakers as a heat pump WH requires a lot more power than a gas one...

...this is the 20 year old water heater...

...pretty inefficient...the cost per year 20 years ago was $405...which the inflation calculator tells me would be worth $537 today...

...so we drained all the water out of it...

...and we took it out and the pipe going through the wall...as we won't need that anymore either...

...and set it aside...I called the county and they will come and pick it up from the street later...

...the new water heater was delivered...

...so we unboxed the new heat pump water heater...

...it's quite a bit larger than the old one...

...the Man got some plumbing fittings assembled...

...and I patched the hole in the wall...I cut a circle out of some spare sheetrock and held it in place with a strip of cardboard...after I had packed the hole full of insulation...there's a metal grate covering the outside and we'll just leave that in place...

...and then I spackled all around the strip...I'll remove the screws and the cardboard and spackle the rest after it dries...as then it will be held in place by the dry spackling...

...next...I 'volunteered' to crawl up under the house and shut off the gas...

...it really wasn't creepy at all...the ground (sand) is all covered with plastic...and the little vents let in quite a bit of light...

...so while I was down there...I covered all the pipes with insulation...

...and just like that...it was all neatly installed...

...our garage isn't heated...but I don't think anything would freeze out there...we will have a few days in the winter where the temperature dips into the teens...so it will be a good idea to insulate all of the exposed pipes...

...which I tried to do as neatly as possible...

...and that's it...I'll still keep you updated on the progress going forward...but you're all caught up on the photos I had saved from the past...

~Have a lovely day!

...6.13...Thrifty Thursday...

...y'all know I'm always looking through the bins of 'unsellable' items to see what can actually be saved or repurposed or reused...

...and I found this stained (or more probably bleached) pink bag/purse...I'm pretty much a sucker for any tote out there...and I liked the style and shape and vegan-ness of this one...but you can see why the thrift store thinks they can't sell it...but I picked it up and looked inside...

...and the inside is a lovely tan colour...better than the pink if you ask me...and it's not stained...

...when I got home...I turned it completely inside out...and you can tell that this corner bottom seam is meant to be on the inside...and I thought about unpicking and it and re-seaming it on the inside...but it really doesn't bother me...so I'm just going to leave it the way it is...

...I did remove the 'do not wash' tag from the inside seam though...haha...

...but otherwise I think it's the perfect summery tote...

...and then a striped Liz & Co. summer top...and y'all know I'm a sucker for stripes as well...

...it has a small stain on the front...maybe coffee??...so I'm going to try to get that out...if not...it's still a cute top for yard work eh...

...what have you thrifted lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

..6.12...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...the big project for the week was refurbishing Our Airman's old Boy Scout trunk...

...there was actually a post about it...back in 2011... ...and you can see the trunk against the center post in this photo...from when the Scouts in North Dakota did a big closet cleanout...

...and then there's a whole post just about the trunk...

...so...nothing about the trunk has changed in all those years...but it needed to be 'fixed' because it needed to go with all of Our Airman's things from the storage unit...

...the main problem...of course...being that it has no handles...so without two people it's pretty impossible to pick it up...

...and also...of course...I did some interweb searching on the Swedish American Line...a defunct Swedish cargo and passenger shipping company...

...just because thing like that fascinate me...

...I also tried to find out something about this person...who once owned the trunk...but turned up nothing...

...so...on to the handle removal...they were extremely...EXTREMELY difficult to remove...I mean...they really did not want these things coming apart...

...but we chiseled and bent and pulled until they did in fact come apart...

...then we drilled out the remaining rivets...

...seriously strong rivets...

...I picked up a goodwill belt...I think it was $1.59...and I'll post about my other thrifty finds tomorrow...

...I just cut off the end...

...measured what I thought would be an appropriate handle length...

...and then cut two of those...

...I used the old tab...which was still in place under the metal cover...as a template for where to place the hole...

...and we had the nuts and bolts from 'something'...I don't remember what...but I think they'll be pretty perfect for this refurb...

...testing the fit...I think it looks pretty good like this...

...but I wanted to re-install the little covers as well...

...and I had to screw it back on as I don't have any rivets...and the hole is probably too big for them now anyway...

...then I set it outside in the sunshine to air out a bit...and it's already on it's way to Alaska now...I'm sure Our Airman will be happy to have it back...

...I think the only other crafty thing I did was to knit another little dishcloth for my niece for her birthday...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!