Our week began with Larkin's birthday celebration on Sunday, August 30th. She is a four year old!
Emily made a beautiful cake and we enjoyed a delicious dinner of pot roast.
Larkin is coming to grandma's on Tuesdays for preschool. We had our first class this past week. Notice the cute little dress she is wearing? That belonged to her mother! A good friend in Virginia did the machine embroidery and I believe I sewed the dress. The leggings with kitties on the knees are not vintage, however. How appropriate that her birthday gift from Steve and me was a little stuffed kitty with her own pet carrier complete with a food dish, pretend can of cat food, and pretend perfume bottle with a brush and comb.
Tuesday evening, we entertained Beckie for dinner. Homemade pizza.
Thursday, Elise came to visit. Beckie joined us for lunch at a BBQ place literally around the corner from our house. We had noticed the lighted Budweiser sign in front and just assumed that it was a bar. But, it is also a restaurant and it is called the Stellar Hog. They had just opened up their patio for outdoor dining that day! The food was amazing and portions generous. We had a nice chat with the owner (we were the only customers) and he claims that the place is the oldest continuous running beer garden west of the Mississippi. The building is the original farm house in the neighborhood. That is my bottle of BBQ sauce on the table since their sauce has gluten (many teriaki and soy sauces are made with wheat and are often a key ingredient in BBQ sauce).
Beckie couldn't join us at Emily's that afternoon since she had to work. We had dinner there and I gave Quinn and Lucy piano lessons and played cello duets with Noah. All three kids are truly ideal students. They are smart, they practice, they are progressing. A joy to teach!
As far as how we are settling into our new place, we made a LOT of progress this past week. The first step was a marathon shopping trip at Menards hardware for all kinds of things - the most immediate need being lumber. We needed a board for a shelf to finish the organ desk. A board to finish one of our large bookcases (the top shelf had previously been configured to hold a television. Since our TV is in a different room, we needed it to hold books again). Boards to convert a 4-shelf bookcase into a 5-shelf to hold our DVDs. A board to cut to make shelves for the smaller downstairs cedar closet as well as a wood rod and closet rod hardware to get the larger cedar closet functional. And, with all the supplies, we were able to finally unpack all our dozens of boxes of books and load them onto the shelves. Ultimately, I want to paint the inside of the shelves black to match the outside but that will be down the road. The DVD shelf is now finished, the stain is dry, and it is ready to be loaded up. We unpacked all of our pictures and paintings this week (we have SO MANY - too many for the walls we have) but hanging even a portion of them is yet to happen because we have PLASTER walls!!! I am very intimidated with them and we want to consult with a handyman before attempting to hang anything. Oh, and apparently, Command strips are the way to go for the lighter pictures and so Beckie is going to get us some the next time she shops at Costco. We are still living in a fishbowl because I want the handyman to install the curtain rods. But, at least our living room is somewhat "normal" now. I was able to teach Ethan Barner's cello lesson in there on Friday. I cleaned off the rust from the iron bed side bars and the guest bed is now set up. Gotta go back to Menards to get cross boards, though, so no one can actually sleep on it yet. I ordered coat hooks on Amazon and we have them installed in most of the closets. A couple of closets won't accommodate the taller hooks so I have ordered shorter ones. Steve mowed the lawn on Monday and that evening we organized the garage. Someone was throwing away a wonky old small homemade table and we are now storing tools on it. Our neighbor had a heavy old narrow beat up table and it is now my potting table. I think next week, Steve and I can start to tackle the basement? Slowly but surely we are making progress. As much as our aging bodies will allow.
No comments:
Post a Comment