This month's calendar                                 Archives                   

June 10, 2011

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

I was just about to comment on how June was turning into "June-uary" when we had a heat wave arrive. It was about 75 - 80 degrees last weekend and just what my garden needed. It was just enough of a burst of heat to encourage the kale, beets, carrots and beans to venture forth from the earth and even some of my flowers began to show their colors. I hope our rain is behind us.

With the great weather, I got the urge to tackle some of the weeds in the yard...but just a little at a time. My knees have been giving me a bad time. It doesn't seem to bother the weeds at all if it is rainy and cold, as they manage to grow in any kind of weather. Anyhow, I pulled out a couple of wheelbarrows of weeds and pruned some trees. Speaking of wheelbarrows, mine is in poor shape. It managed to lose one of its wheels and this isn't a fine time to do that! Hopefully, Dave will be able to fix it.

I spent a couple of days this week painting the boards to the seats for the steamboat. The paint that Dave ordered was a little darker than what was on there before but they don't make the other shade anymore. Most of the seat boards had to be sanded and puttied before I could primer and paint them. But still, some of the seats required a couple of coats of the darker gray paint to get all the paint to soak in. It was a two-day job and that didn't include the painting I had to do inside the boat on the parts of the seats that couldn't be removed. That was a trick as I had to practically stand on my head to do most of that painting. It turned out a little blotchy so I need to apply another coat on that. I sure will be glad when the painting is all over with. I also scrubbed the metal deck plates so you will be able to eat off of them too. The next phase will be to clean the boiler which is always a messy job. Then I get to finish cleaning the inside and polish all the brass. Our deadline for getting all of this done is before the 4th of July.

Dave started his volunteering with the Visitor's Information Center at the Chamber of Commerce this week. He is there to answer questions from the tourists that come by every Monday morning until after Labor Day. He seems to enjoy this but it gets a little boring sometimes. It is always good to bring a book to read or a computer to work on. I have volunteered as an alternate and only work when someone can't do their shift.

We will be staying home this weekend. Leslie and her family were planning on coming down but they have a last minute soccer tournament scheduled instead. Since both girls are on the same team, they don't want to leave them short-handed. Last weekend they got their new pool liner installed and the local fire department came and filled their pool with water for them. The only stipulation is that if there is a fire in the neighborhood, the fire department can have access to their pool water to help put the fire out. It was a good deal for them because the fire truck could fill the pool with water twenty times as fast as they could with a garden hose. It will be nice for them to have their pool in operation once again as the girls really enjoy swimming.

I was so proud of myself. I was thinking about getting some throw pillows for my couch and wanted a "coastal" theme. I wasn't excited about sewing them myself and a friend would have done them but she would have had to charge me more than I wanted to pay. While I was at Cart-M (the local recycle place), I wandered into their store and - lo and behold - there were a couple of pillows that would match perfectly with my couch. They were blue and they had starfish on them! How lucky was that? The price was right too - $5 for both pillows. What a bargain!