Not a Quiet Week

It may have been a quiet week at Lake Wobegon, but it was a very busy week here. 

One big thing that happened this week was the long-awaited shower conversion. You may remember that when we moved into this house more than 3 1/2 years ago, the master bath had this soaking tub, which we knew we would never use, other than for storage. I've been keeping my woolens in it in plastic bags.

We had this tiny shower.

You can't see it, but the end of the shower that's obscured by the towel is taken up with a bench. I'll show you later, when the demo is underway.

Monday, late morning, the workers arrived to begin putting in our new shower. They had to drive down from Portland and spent Monday night in a motel in Bend. They set up shop in front of our driveway, so all the sawing, etc., could take place outside.

They ripped out the soaking tub, the tile and the sheetrock. The window and the two closet doors got masked off with plastic. (The closets don't really show in this photo. They're on each side of the space for the former tub.) Already having the plumbing to the tub made this a logical choice.

Part of the deal was that they would take out our old shower. We will put a cedar closet there. Here you can see the bench I mentioned earlier. They used it to hold their tool box. It took up nearly a third of the shower space and made it difficult to get in and out without having water go everywhere. We figured if we need to sit down to take a shower when we get old 😂, we can put a small plastic yard chair or stool in the shower.

Here's how the future cedar closet looked after the demo and our workers had gone back to Portland. In the photo, it looks ike a pipe sticking up from the floor, but that's just the odd shape of the hole. We will put down a new subfloor, flooring on top of that, cedar panels, shelves and maybe a pole to hang clothes on. 

We're busy now selecting doors and deciding exactly where to put the wall between the closet and the rest of the bathroom. We're thinking of a 24" wide bifold door centered on the wall. We are also thinking of bifold doors for the two existing closets. We had taken the doors off them, because they were regular room doors and opened INTO the closet, eliminating a lot of storage space. The other closets in the house all have bifold doors, and we will try to get something like those, but narrower, of course, because the space is smaller.

Back to the new shower: By Monday night, the new shower space looked like this. The shower pan was in, the pipes for the water had been lengthened and now reached higher up the wall. The drain had to be moved from one end of the tub to the middle of the shower. They would shorten the drain pipe later.

I got this photo on Tuesday after the back wall was in. That black thing is a grabbing device they used to help them carry the walls of the shower into the house from outside, where they did the messy work.

On the left wall, they installed the shelves. They are adjustable, to accommodate tall shampoo bottles as well as shorter items. There's an open space behind each shelf for drainage, and the  bottom of the unit is slanted to drain water and provide a good place to put a foot, so you can wash or shave a leg. The grab bar you see goes the length of the shower,

We selected a European-style dual shower arrangement. It will come in handy if we need to wash one of the dogs. It also gives you the option to remove the lower shower head and use it to rinse your hair or to wash soap off the shower walls.

Here's the finished shower. There's a smaller grab bar just inside the shower to the far left in the photo.

The fixtures and the enclosure are all by Kohler. The shower sort of happened around us. We were hardly inconvenienced at all. 

That was far from all that was going on here this week. What do you guess is coming up?

Yes, a new book will be coming out. I have a title and the template for the cover, but I'm keeping that secret for now. I needed a new template for the cover, because the first two books were 60 pages each, but this one will be 70. I still need to take a photo for the cover, because a portrait won't do. However, the inside pages were finished yesterday (Sunday) and went off to my two proofreaders. This book will have smaller type, and many of the photos are smaller to make room for extra text. I had to learn to use MSWord all over again, but it went faster this time. Now I hope I can remember how to use InDesign, which is needed for the cover. I think I'm a little ahead of where I was last year, at least by about four days.

For some cuteness, here are Peter and Soren./

I did get some knitting in, and Rocky visited the Groomer. One of my hearing aids quit functioning on Thursday. I borrowed one of Charlie's because he doesn't use them anyway. I had to turn it up a bit, and could only pair one with my phone, so it's an inconvenience. I need to have my ears checked again, though, so I'll try to get that taken care of this week.

As always, if you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: A few more rounds done on the Hinterland Pullover. Progress on the Seattle cardigan for Pippa. Almost to the sleeve divide. No progress on the emPower People Kerchief.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs.

What's on my sewing machine: It's cover.

What's in my hoop: Still the whole cloth quilt, no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story is Time on the Beach. Pippa and Pauly participate in a photo shoot on location in Florence, OR. They find a lot of sand and learn a few new things.

Someone from a Canadian dentist's office left a nice comment on The Doll's Storybook blog regarding the story, A Field Trip to the Dentist's office.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app. Just a couple of hours left. It's fascinating. Wish I had time to just listen.  

What's in my wine glass: Hook or Crook Cellars Reserve Field Blend, Lodi, CA, 2018 Delightful.

What's my tip of the week: It may be time to mask up again. I called the vet to get a prescription refilled and found out that they had closed early on Friday because several staff members had COVID19. Fortunately, Paxlovid is now available for high-risk patients. I don't know about you, but I'd just as soon not get sick to begin with.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Led Astray But Still Fun--Mostly

Well, this first photo is just to show I've made a bit more progress on the Hinterland Pullover. Just a little less than two inches to go before the bottom ribbing.

On Monday, we drove out to the coast to visit my BIL, Jim, in his new digs in Florence. I thought I might get a lot done on this project during the trip, but it was not to be. (I did get a few more rows done while we Zoomed with our daughter on Sunday, though.)

I worked on another project (a sweater for Pippa) for part of the drive, but I had to help navigate, and then Rocky became stressed, so I had to comfort him. We ended up going way out of our way to the north on the way there. It took an extra two hours, including stops for us and the dogs.

We followed Jim's directions to his new home. It's a manufactured home in a gated community. The house was a real mess when he bought it. It was covered with some kind of black moss, as were the statue, wishing well and bench out in front. He pressure-washed the outside of the house and the other things. Then he had the house repainted, a new back deck put on and the house reroofed. The landscaping was also a mess, of course. He spent a lot of time on that, as well. Inside, he needed to do a lot of repairs and pull up old carpeting in the great room. I think it looks nice on the outside now, and he will get the inside in shape with a bit of time.

Monday's supper was a simple but tasty meal, with a bottle of bubbly to go along with it.

Here's a look at mine. Some salmon, a wild rice dish and three-bean salad, all prepared by our host.

Tuesday, we went to the beach, but it was "blowing up something fierce," as they used to say in the old movies. Not exactly gale-force, but too strong for the beach to be pleasant, so we put the stroller back in the car and drove in to Old Town Florence. We took the stroller out again and strolled up and down the main street. We saw the RV campground where we plan to stay in August, if we can ever figure out how to get there more directly than by going almost to Portland. (More about that later.)

On Wednesday, we took the dogs to an open area near Jim's home so they could run. The houses are built on dunes that have become compacted over the years. The trees and bushes seem to have really deep roots. Dusty loves chasing a ball. 

This is Rocky's idea of "going for a run." He seemed enjoy it. New smells and feeling the sun on his back were undoubtedly pleasant.

On Thursday, the wind had died down enough that it was pleasant on the beach, at least during the morning. The guys (two-legged and four-legged ones) enjoyed a walk on the beach, and Dusty got to chase the ball a bit more.

I was surprised that Dusty didn't chase the birds, but he was happy just going after the ball.

My main objective in going to the beach was to get some photos of Pippa and Pauly on the beach. Even though the wind had let up a lot, there were still gusts that gave me problems. Pauly seemed to know how to keep his hat on, but Pippa's hat went flying several times, and I had to chase it down the beach. I also had to chase the bag I used to bring the dolls in, along with the two plastic newspaper bags I had them in to protect them. The angle of the sun was still fairly low, so I had to deal with my shadow when taking photos with the sun behind me and the bright sand causing the dolls to be backlit when I took photos from the other direction.  The photos are pretty much OK with some editing, however.

We came across this empty crab carapace when we were walking back up the beach to where we were parked. I think it's a Pacific Rock Crab, but you really need the legs and underbelly to identify it for sure. (It found its way into the story.)

Friday we drove home. We tried to go a different way, but somehow missed a turn without realizing it and got off the road we planned to use. I asked Siri for help, and she directed us from there. Again Rocky was unhappy, so it wasn't a pleasant trip. It was better, though, than it was for someone. We passed this wreck. I've been trying to find out what happened to anyone who was in this car. No snow or ice at fault, so I can only guess it was either the driver's negligence or another vehicle (now gone) was involved.

This is where we were when we encountered the flipped-over car, on Hwy 58. This road brought us back to the main road through Bend, but we got on it quite a ways south of town. We think we have our mistake figured out for our trip next month with the trailer. (Fingers crossed.)

I'm planning on asking the vet about Rocky's distress. Maybe he was car sick because he can't see where we're going, but he never threw up. If his ears hurt from the elevation changes, they stopped when he got out of the car, so maybe not that. It's puzzling. He has always been a good traveler.

For some cuteness––or maybe some silliness––here's Johan, ready to go to PE camp. Not silly, you say? Just give him a few minutes.

This week's plan is for a partial bathroom remodel in our master bath. This shower stall is going to be removed and made into an additional closet. The workers will just rip this one out, and we will hire someone else to finish it as a closet. My plan is for cedar lining.

Where will we shower, you ask? We're having the big soaking tub removed and replaced with a classy new shower stall. Here's the "before" photo:

The piece of tile broken off is from the asbestos test, required by state law. The person who removed it also drilled a couple of holes in the wall to test other places around the existing tub. Apparently they found no asbestos, because they are ready to go (we think). It's costing us extra to use this space instead of the existing shower, but we think it will be a much nicer shower, especially with the window. Stay tuned for updates!

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: The Hinterland Pullover, Pippa's Seattle Sweater and again no progress on the emPower People Kerchief this week.

What's on my loom: Still the Trailer Rugs, no progress this week.

What's on my sewing machine: Maybe a bathing suit for Pauly is needed..

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In The Balancing Trick, Veronika shows Billy and Jolena how The Writer fills out a check and keeps track of the checks she writes.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: We finished listening to The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin. We started it when we drove up to Beaverton in February. We didn't have too much trouble figuring out where we were. It was a great book! Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app. I'm a little closer to the end of it. It's good, too.   

What's in my wine glass: Arriccio Merlot 2019. Pretty good!

What's my tip of the week: We often use olive oil in place of butter on our bread, sometimes mixed with a little granulated garlic and some herb mixture like Penzeys "Justice" seasoning, a little salt and maybe some pepper. It's great for dipping, but it can be messy if you pour it on. I like to mix it up first in a small jar, then put it into the fridge until it solidifies. Then you can spread it nicely. You have to leave it refrigerated until you need it, then put it back in the fridge, though, because if you leave it out, it will "melt" (or return to its liquid state).

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Bangs, Pokes and Stitches

Except for Monday, it was a quiet week at our place. Monday night, the July 4th fireworks display at Pilot Butte took place, as usual. It could be seen from the street, but while Charlie went out to watch, I stayed in with the dogs. Rocky had no problem, undoubtedly thankful for being nearly deaf, but Dusty got behind the rocker and wouldn't come out. In this photo from last year, you can see the butte. (Not my photo, taken by Ralph Klinke for KTVZ Channel 21.)

Most personal fireworks are outlawed within the city limits, so it was only a couple of hours of doggy torture.

We got this nice photo of our Soren and Johan providing the slices of bread for cousin Leo and cousin Elsie on July 4th.

Soren's birthday was the next day, although like me, he was born just a little after midnight, just avoiding a major holiday. Unlike many kids, he's always happy with whatever he gets, but this gift really seemed to hit the spot!

We had another...um...online wine party with Madroña Tuesday evening. They are every two weeks. I should get a photo next time. I always forget. I made some progress on my pullover.

Remember our hailstorm from July 2nd? The shredded barbecue cover?

We now have it covered by a very substantial tarp.

Rocky's incision after his lump removal is healing nicely. I used a flash to take the photo, because his hair is so dark. I thought the stitches were black, but they're purple.

Here's a closeup. He will get his stitches out next week, but it looks completely healed to me.

Rocky gets one kind of eye drops in both eyes twice a day, another kind in both eyes twice a day and in the left eye four more times a day. I have my timer set. He gets a vetprofen once a day and his thyroid and blood pressure medication twice a day. Dusty's medication is also twice a day, so I do them at the same time. I use little cups, the way they do in the hospital, so I don't get them mixed up. I tell them, "Here comes Nurse Ratched!" 

Besides the pullover, I did get some knitting in. I cast on a sweater for Pippa, Map Dot Seattle by Sharisse Dunn, in support of the KAL she sponsored in honor of her birthday. My project page is here. You can see I haven't made much progress yet, but I expect to be able to get it knitted up this week. It's designed for the larger dolls, but I'm using thinner yarn and needles.

Part of my time this week was spent getting my Tdap shot/booster. It's reformulated from the old DPT we used to get. Aside from the initial owie, I've had no pain or any side effects. The pertussis component was optional, but I thought why not? No one wants diphtheria or tetanus, with a 10% fatality rate. Whooping cough (pertussis) is very contagious, and it's especially dangerous to young children. Even if I don't get sick, I sure don't want to be guilty of passing it along to someone. When I was growing up, we had tetanus and diphtheria shots. I remember kids I knew coming down with whooping cough and being out of school for weeks. We had no vaccine for pertussis, chicken pox, both kinds of measles and polio. I was in the pharmacy for quite a while waiting to get my shot and pick up our medications.

I've been working on the next book. It will be a little different from the first two. It might have more pages. I'm reading through the stories I plan to use, checking for bad wording or typos. I checked on the sales, and they continue to trickle in. Every time the royalties reach $50, St. Jude gets a check. 

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of our first book, Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, it would help if you left an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Hinterland Pullover, some progress made, and the emPower People Kerchief, no progress again. Also, as I mentioned, a little jacket for Pippa.

What's on my loom: Still the trailer rugs, no progress.

What's on my sewing machine: Still waiting to get the back to the T-shirt quilt done.

What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth quilt, no progress.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Our hailstorm last week inspired "Marbles from the Sky," in which the dolls learn how hailstones form.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone on the Audible app.  

What's in my wine glass: A white wine, ESPIRAL, Vinho Verde, from Portugal.

What's my tip of the week: Like spinach and chard, arugula can be cooked and is quite tasty, whether in a stew, soup, quiche, on pizza or just cooked together with other vegetables like carrots or squash. It's good raw in salads, too, of course.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with few changes. Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is now available for preorder from booksellers world wide. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is also available. The three stories in the first book are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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