Friday, May 15, 2009

The day in pictures- good, bad and ugly

We had a great time celebrating (now) J15's golden birthday.  Per her request we had Chinese take-out.  It's a family tradition that the birthday boy/girl gets to choose what's for dinner that evening.  She had a fairly low key evening.  Dinner, cake and presents.  She got $ from my brother, my parents and Vs' mom.  From us she got some iron-on appliques that she wanted to customize her denim jacket, a book and an IOU for a cat.  She has been asking for a cat for a long time.  I grew up with cats and love them and we had a cat, as well as dogs, for a while when she was younger.  We're going to wait until we're moved into the new house before we get it.  I don't want to stress the poor thing out too much by bringing it home and then promptly moving.  Also, with as much as the doors will be open carrying stuff in and out I don't want it to run away.  I really hope the one she chooses will be a good mouser.  We may need it.  She wants to go to the animal shelter to pick one out.  While a tiny kitten would be fun, she wants a slightly older one that would be more able to defend itself against the dog should he decide to play rough.
We were out at the house this afternoon in the rain.  The basement is still leaking.  And while checking out one of the window wells, we found this charmer:
Isn't it beautiful!
And speaking of beautiful...
J15 says we're bringing sexy back to the kitchen!
It is sitting where it will be but we don't have the island built yet.  V and my Dad will be putting in the gas line tomorrow afternoon. I love the little side door.  It is a space to store the cast iron griddle that came with it as well as cookie sheets, baking stones and other stuff like that.
But now for the bad and ugly:
ICK!
We tore into a suspicious wall by the basement stairs- one we weren't initially planning to remove but I found a mouse tunnel leading into it when I was pulling down the ceilings the other day.  This isn't even the bad spot for mice although you can maybe see along the bottom where they have been.  The bigger problem is that there evidently was a leak in the roof at some point- which was patched- but they never repaired the water damage to the wall. There is plywood that has begun to de-laminate.  If that is even a word.  It will need repaired but we will probably need to take off the siding to get to it from the outside as well. Sigh, one more project to add onto the list.
But now, to round things out on a good note...  We have a winner in the family!  Since this was bike to work week.  The schools have been having a 'Ride, Walk, Win!' contest this week.  Every day that a student bikes or walks to school they have a ticket with their name on it put in for a drawing.  Earlier this week K9 won a nalgene water bottle and I11 won a bike headlight yesterday.  But today was the big drawing.  From all 6 local elementary schools participating, there were only two winners of bikes from a local bike shop. Guess who was one of the winners!!!
K9 with his certificate for a new bike!!!
YAHOO!!!  He has been complaining that he needed a new bike but that got put low on the priority list.  What a great way to wrap up the week.  
Now- I'm off to throw in a load of laundry and box up some books.
Have a great weekend!

9 comments:

  1. OK, my stove may not be sexy, but up until the moment you connect yours ---- mine kicks it's ASS!

    Um, after it's connected? Well, then I'm be crying with jealousy. What a beaut!

    Congrats on the bike too.

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  2. Oh. My. Goodness. I am in love with your stove....I'd pop on over and "borrow" it, except it's about the size of my entire kitchen (seriously!! My kitchen is teeny!) so it would never fit here.

    How lovely! That's awesome about the bike!!!!! What a cool contest they're doing! And awesome that your clan came out so lucky on the bike front. :)

    Ugh about the damage and the work ahead...but...look at that range! Wowee!! Something like that makes all the hard work seem so worth it.

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  3. I so look forward to your posts! I really enjoy hearing and seeing your house coming together, and I like hearing about your kids. and I think your stove is THE BERRIES!! wow!! looks very high techy!! You will be cookin' some super duper dinners and dez~zerts on that BABY!!!! Sounds like things are coming together. You got your stove, your daughter is getting her kitten and your son won a bike!! and the other one won a light!! and hubby gets to tear off the siding....poor guy...have a great weekend!!!!...debbie

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  4. Six burners? Six????
    Jealousy, jealousy!!!
    V's gonna need a whole lotta loving from the oven dealing with the mouse!
    Congrats. It looks marvelous!

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  5. What a stove! And makes sense about the cat; I've never had a pet, but someday....Sigh on the mice. Was that leak something the old owners disclosed? Either way, oof.
    Hope K9 enjoys the bike :-)

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  6. Yep, the range is a 6 burner, It has one 15,000 BTU 'power burner' that I'm thinking will be useful for canning. And it has a 'simmer burner' for just that. The grates are cast iron and form a continuous surface so you can slide heavy pans from one burner to the other. There is a griddle that fits over the center two burners and the standard oven and broiler. There isn't a window in the oven but then, I generally am bad and open the door to peek anyway. One nice thing is that even though it is electronic ignition, both the burners and the oven can be match lit in case of a power outage. My current stove, I can light the burners but if you need the oven you are SOL.
    It is made by Premier, a small company in Illinois so it's even fairly locally made. I can't wait until it's fully assembled and built in.
    The island will be fairly small (the stove is 36 inches wide so takes up much of it) with only one 18 inch drawer base cabinet to the left of the stove. On the other side (the short side) V is going to build in a bookshelf for my cookbooks- pretty cool, huh.
    We still need to decide if we're going to order a custom counter or try to do something on our own.

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  7. Oooh, how I LOVE kitchen appliances! What's the skinny door on the left for? Cookie sheet storage? And, an actual burner for canning?! Oh, how wonderful!!! Good buy! Congrats on the new bike. That's a great contest!

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  8. Love the stove... It is so kewl. And winning a bike... that is awesome. Congrats!

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  9. Congratulations to K9 for winning a bike! I'm so jealous about the whole island! Great idea with the shelves for cookbooks. I've wanted my husband to build me an island forever and I had requested shelves for my cookbooks on one end of it. Maybe one of these days he'll get around to it.
    Those mice sure have done a job on the place. I just can't imagine them living that way and especially running a business out of there. It had to be really bad. I hope this is the last of your mice and water damage.

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