On Saturday, Liz and I were in Frankfort to help out with Julie’s annual plant sale. We arrived the night before, and were all up early to help out (Julie had gotten up around 5:30AM, looking to water her plants before the visitors arrived).
Our goal for the day: build some additional plant stands, and relocate flowers from the basement to the outside.
I took a bath in this stuff.
Julie was kind enough to bring over some home made food for us, which we re-heated in our microwave for dinner. She’d been working on prepping food for us the past day or so, and it was absolutely delicious.
My family came into town on Saturday, and we hung out downtown with them on Saturday night. On Sunday, we all met up in Chinatown for Dim Sum, along with Liz’s parents. We met up at Phoenix, and this was Julie and Bob’s first experience with Dim Sum (my mom spent a lot of the meal introducing various dishes to them, and making sure their plates were never empty).
Originally, we were going to resize the bedrooms and make them a bit smaller (but equal). With some additional discussion today, we decided to make the master bedroom a little larger… and to make the adjacent bedroom (the guest bedroom) a little smaller.
Beneath the first layer of tile is… another layer of tile. See that humongo piece of floor that’s broken off and resting against the counter? Liz did that, all on her own.
The bit of bad news: we were unable to track down the source of the leak. Though we saw it initially, the additional exploration ended up revealing very little. To top things off, the water in the tub stopped working completely (when it had been working fine, previously). Not a good sign, especially since we couldn’t identify where the leak originated from in the first place.
On Sunday, Bob and Julie both came by the house and offered more of their time and assistance. While Julie and Liz worked on stripping the paint from the windows and doors… Bob and I focused on the concrete. I say Bob and I, but again… this was another task where I helped where I could, and mostly stood on the sidelines.
Stripping paint has its dangers – the primary one being splinters that find their way through latex gloves. Here Liz is receiving some emergency surgery from Bob (aka Dr. Robuston Bean).
I cannot emphasize how dirty and disgusting the attic was. Liz and Julie braved the upstairs using Tyvek suits and masks, but from what they reported – the floor was littered with mouse pee and poop. There was a ton of junk up in the attic, and the mice/squirrels just had a field day with it all.
Overall, the exhibit was surprisingly small. But at nearly ever display, there were tons of folks crowded around (cameras and cellphones in hand), absolutely mesmerized. Calling these guys hypnotic is an understatement, and I found myself often transfixed in place – unwilling to move.
On my way to helping Bob with the furnace, I stopped by Frankfort to drop Liz off at her parents’ house. They have an annual tradition of making apple pies, and Liz was going to be joining her mom, Katie, and Savannah and prepping up a ton of pies.
On Saturday, Liz and I got up early to head down to Frankfort. The town had their annual garage sale, and for the past few years… Julie’s sold a lot of her plants during the event. Throughout the year she’s slowly tended to a small army of plants, and kept them warm and safe in the basement.
From time to time, Julie and Bob will come into the city and spend the evening with us. We’ve gone and hit up a few bars/restaurants in our neighborhood, and it’s always a fun time. Over the weekend, they came in and we tried (unsucessfully) to get in to Longman & Eagle. So far, it’s the one neighborhood spot that has always filled up before we can get there in time.