Monday, April 21, 2008

Window Weekend

So the weekend was kind of a mixed bag. We were able to watch two Oscar movies: Lars and the Real Girl and There Will be Blood. I enjoyed the first. The second, not so much. It was way too long, had no point, a weird soundtrack, and was just way too dirty. Not porn dirty. Rolling in mud, haven’t taken a shower in a month dirty. Blech. Anyway, I’m almost halfway done now.

Saturday evening I made myself some lentil soup while Adam grilled out a steak.



If that’s not a strange juxtaposition of food preferences I don’t know what is. Sunday morning I headed to 8am mass to play handbells but not before Adam noticed the top shelf of the fridge was filled with a liquid. He suspected it was chicken stock since I had put a partially used box there the night before. More on this later. While I was at church Adam’s dad arrived to help start installing the new windows. I stopped at Menards on the way back home to pick up the additional edging we needed. When I got home they were working on the window in the cat room. Apparently they needed some additional supplies so they left for a few hours (to go to Menards. How ironic.), leaning the box spring up against the hole in the wall so bugs and birds were kept out.

I was in the process of baking cookies (white chocolate macadamia nut)



when they returned. They finished up the first window and proceeded to the second, which went a lot faster.

One old and one new:



Both new:



From the inside:



There was a foam insulation incident that has necessitated the repainting of the cat room (and perhaps replacement of carpet, but for now we just covered that up with a cat scratcher.) We were planning to repaint it eventually anyway, but it just ends up it will be sooner rather than later. Other than that both windows went in nicely. They will be stained to match the wood trim and then they should be good to go. The cats already like them.



The space between the screen and the edge of the window is wider than the other windows were so even Ted can fit.



And as Adam discovered last night, we can even shut JC inside the window. Ahem.

That was finished up around 3:30. Then Adam and I headed up to Menards (Yes. Again.) to investigate paint colors. I think we’ve settled on a very muted lilac color. I’m still toying with going more gray, but we’ll see. We also stopped at Linens ‘N Things to pick up new towels for Adam’s bathroom (the former towels being another casualty of the aforementioned foam insulation incident.) Our last stop was JC Penney’s where I took advantage of a nice 20% off everything sale. I made honey mustard chicken tenders for dinner, whereupon we noted that the top shelf of the fridge was once again flooded with liquid. Obviously it wasn’t chicken stock since the offending box had been thrown out that morning. As I mopped up the mess I tried to think about what might be causing it. Then I recalled that after dinner the night before Adam had used the in-door water and after lunch that afternoon his dad had some soda with ice. I made the connection and we discovered the filter (which just happens to be right above the top shelf) was leaking. (So the whole thing had absolutely nothing to do with me since I rarely use the ice/water but I’ve yet to hear mention of being sorry for yelling at me about it that morning.)

Anyway. After perusing the owner’s manual and online troubleshooting sites Adam went to Lowe’s to get a replacement filter figuring perhaps it was cracked. No such luck, the new one leaked too. So we put an ice cream bucket under the leak and he called the service department this morning. They think it’s an internal filter problem so they ordered a part and should come to fix it when it comes in. We got in under the gun on this one – our year warranty is up in about a month.

So, a pretty good weekend for accomplishing things. The rain that was supposed to come didn’t. The weather was great and we were able to enjoy it for a while. This week is supposed to be pretty good too – 60s and 70s, some rain showers here and there. Adam figures he’ll need to start mowing the lawn next weekend. Speaking of which – our neighbor was out this weekend steamrolling his lawn. I found that kind of odd, but apparently it’s very common. It makes the lawn look more manicured or something. Strange.

This week for me is a little unusual. I have my normal Monday night hand bells. Wednesday night is UWO’s CMA Night. I was debating whether I really wanted to go or not since I usually don’t talk too much and feel kind of out of place. But the chapter is picking up the tab so I figured why not? I’ll just make sure not to get there so early this time so I have less time to stand around feeling stupid. Also my boss is on vacation all week long. She left me with a long list of projects, of course. This coming weekend I have the cleaning I didn’t get around to this past weekend to take care of. Potential painting or additional yard-related work. Appleton West is doing “Little Shop of Horrors” but Adam doesn’t want to go and I don’t want to go alone so we’ll see about that one. The same thing happened when Oshkosh was doing “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” I need a “going to local theater” buddy. Sometimes it sucks not having friends.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with some more kitty pictures:

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