Northwoods Woman

My life has been non-stop since that day.

And if that wasn’t enough to fill up my world, Rick & I decided that life needed to be a tad more busy so we bought ourselves a little project.

This building is about two blocks from our house, and was, up until a couple years ago, a bar.  And before that it was a bar.  And other times of its life it was a brothel, a bakery, and… a bar.  So I’m told.

This will consume the majority of our time for the next 9 months as we repair the roof (Rick’s current project), remodel the upstairs apartment to get it rented out (my current project), and then tackle 1,952 other things that need to be fixed on the main floor before we can relocate Rick’s business and I can open up my coffee shop again.

Oh, and still get Paul elected to State Senate, and still work my current job, and keep up with the chores on the homestead, and, and, and….

But if that wasn’t enough, we also have an addition to the family:

Meet Perry.

If he’d stop moving you would be able to see that he is a Siamese kitten that formerly resided at Nichole’s home, but graciously relocated to the Northwoods when Rick decided that we needed another furball.  Rick obviously forgot the high maintenance that a kitten comes with, but luckily for him Thor welcomed him into the home and has been taking him under his wing.

There are not many things in life that shock me, but that right there threw me for a loop!

So I may have taken Summer off from blogging, but I haven’t really had a vacation per se.  Yes, there have been some relaxing moments here and there, as well as over-nights here and there;  personal time with a book on the deck;  relaxing time in the studio creating new items;  snuggle time with Thor while Perry plays with his tail;  precious moments with the grandkids creating memories that I hope they will reflect on when they are older.

Yeah, it’s been a good summer, and the future looks like it’s going to be pretty great too.

Hope you’ll join us for the ride.

People, this thing is a piece of work.  Rick’s talent with building things is beyond words.

However, there are a few bugs that we are working out… slowly.  First off, the drain in the sink isn’t exactly right.  When he designed this masterpiece he wanted it to be unique (like everything else in our life) and have one of those above counter basins.  None that we looked at tripped our trigger so the only option was to find a bowl that could be turned into a sink.  Simple enough.  Just seal the crap out of it and you’re done.

The only difference between these types of sinks and the “drop-in” ones is that there is no overflow safety, which means you have to get a drain to match.  Follow where I’m going here?  Yep, the drain mechanism we got had two huge holes on the sides for overflow.  So in order to actually use the sink until the new drain came in (one minus holes) was to wrap a bunch of tape around the holes and pray to the sink gods that it wouldn’t leak.  Well, that sorta kinda worked for 6.2398 seconds.  But that’s what empty ice cream pails are for, right?

Where the routine part of this little story comes in is that the design of this piece is so far out of normal that I can’t seem to get my barrings around it.  I stand in front of the thing and have a huge counter where a sink should be.  I get up in the middle of the night and blindly reach for the glass to get some water and grab my deodorant, because that is where a glass has been for 13 years.  It takes me twice as long to brush my teeth because I have to remember that the sink is on the right and grabbing things are not the same distance away anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the new vanity, it’s just going to take a while to get used to it.  I’ll eventually remember where my water glass is and learn how to control the water in the new faucet.  It will become second nature to brush my teeth again and get used to the new arrangement under the sink.  Life will get back to a blissful routine.

Now, if we ever move the toilet there could be a real problem.