It was a busy week. We had three rehearsals for Sound Forth, our annual Independence Day concert. We have one more rehearsal today and then the "dress rehearsal" on Wednesday with the performance on Thursday.
I've been going over music, but I got a few rows done on the Oregon Autumn Cardigan. It doesn't look much different from last week....
....because another project kept us busy, but the sleeve is getting longer.
You may remember, we wanted to add some lightweight wire shelves to our R·Pod. Someone in one of the R·Pod groups on Facebook had shared photos of theirs, so I saved the photos in a file, and we were all ready to start on it last fall when I had my accident. Parts of the installation are two-person jobs, so the shelves stayed in the garage until after we opened up the Pod in the spring and got in a quick camping trip to LaPine. If you read last week's blog post, you may know that we started putting up the shelves last week, and the pups watched us through the gate to the backyard. The plan was to use tension rods and rest the ends on the window cornices. Well, we didn't get very far, because we discovered that the windows were different heights, so we were going to need to use braces, unless we wanted the shelf sloped. Here's the shelf resting on the left (port) side and on the right (starboard) side window cornices. You can see, that would be nowhere near level.
Charlie ordered some brackets for the ends of the poles to rest on. We had to take the rubber ends off the poles for this to work, but they came apart with the disc that rests up against the wall separate. We are able to use those little discs to protect the wall. We used brackets on the side that rests just on the window cornice to take most of the weight off it, as well as the other side, where they are really needed.
Once Charlie got the brackets up on the side where the window was slightly lower, we were all set.
It's hard to tell for sure in the photo because of parallax (I was taking it from slightly to the right of center), but the shelf is now level. The light from the ceiling lamps will probably be blocked from right over the table when we have things stored on the shelves, but they will still light up the room, and there's another one further back, out of view in the photo. If lighting is a problem, we can get a little lamp for the table.
We got a start on the other shelf, which will be over our beds. It's up with the tension rods, but the brackets aren't installed yet. I think we will get that done this week.
Now that I can walk both dogs without Charlie, I can go out early in the morning before it gets hot, so the dogs and I were able to get in a walk every day this week. When I knew it was going to be hot midday and late afternoon, I went as soon as I'd had my coffee.
The new leash, which makes it easier to walk two at once, is working well. We're still trying to figure out how to use it when Charlie goes along. I tried just leaving off the part that splits in two to go to each dog, but then it was a little short for just one. Just to refresh your memory, this is what I'm using. (Full disclosure: The dogs and I are not pictured.)
Yesterday I tried eliminating the middle section. I removed the middle section, which attaches to the belt, took the part that splits in two, and attached one end to Sandy and the other to the belt. That worked better, except I don't have a handle halfway down. You can see in the photo, about halfway down the leash, there's a sort of metal loop. That's the part that attaches to the middle section. I can still grab the leash anywhere, if I need to.
As you know, if you have read some of my blog posts before, I often make bread (usually at least once a week), and I use my bread machine for mixing the dough. Then I form the loaf and bake it in the oven. The machine gets a lot of use, and over time, the axle (?) in the bottom of the pan, which moves the paddle back and forth, became dislodged from the pan. I had to make sure it was back in position before putting the paddle on, or the pan would leak. I was also getting some black stuff around the place where the paddle goes back and forth in the pan. I would have to pick out pieces of dough and throw them away. Bread machines have gone up in price since we bought this one five years ago, but Charlie found a replacement pan online that looked as if it might work. It came with a new paddle, which I didn't really need, but was nice, and if I ever have to make two loaves at once, I can still use the old pan, to let that run until the dough is mixed and kneaded, and then remove to rise while the other one is mixing.
I made one of my two-person loaves to have with our quiche.
The machine worked fine with the new pan, and the bread was perfect.
The grandkids are all doing well. Soren has been playing soccer. He had a great time.
What a happy boy! His birthday is on Friday, so an early happy birthday to Soren!
Meanwhile, little brother deserves some high fives (or tens) for being identified for the talented and gifted program.
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What's in The Doll's Storybook: The second part of the story of How Emil Came To The Doll's Storybook, Part Two. We meet Emil at last. (This is another reedited story in our series.)
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