is feeling much better. She had a UTI. If you don’t know what that means, it’s a bacterial infection that’s not catching, and that might be all you want to know.
Also, she has befriended another of the people who come to our house to fix or build things. This morning she sang “Amazing Grace” with the plumber.
One of the joys of children is the unexpectedness of certain things…like a fever that starts during Mass on Christmas Eve. Happily, that was after the children’s choir sang. Poor Naomi. She’s still fighting it off, whatever it is.
Poor little pathetic Mimi. She wanted to be there for putting out the stockings, but she didn’t feel so good.
And here’s how it looks:
If you click on the pictures, you can see a larger size.
We’re very happy with it.
Naomi prevailed on Mr. Claude to have his picture taken with her. Simeon joined in. He is also enthusiastic about Mr. Claude, whom he saw smoking today. From then on, he called him “Smokey.” Oh, and he began saying, “I like smoke!” To which Mr. Claude replied, “No you don’t!” Of course, Sim couldn’t let that go – his most mischievous look on his face, he repeated, “I LIKE smoke!” Mr. Claude continued to try to dissuade him from liking smoking.
I’m not too afraid that one exposure, at the age of two, to someone who smokes is going to solidify a habit in my son.
Can you see the smaller tiles? I think they were worth the headaches that poor Mr. Claude suffered over them.
Well, after my disparaging words yesterday about when the fireplace might get done, I must now report: the tile is up! It will be grouted tomorrow. Michael is my hero, as we all know from previous posts, and he is so again in this case. I’d been planning on calling the fireplace folks this week, but didn’t feel up to it, what with a cold that was taking away my powers of clear thinking (but not my Potty Ninja powers, you’ll be happy to know), so Michael called and the tile guy, Claude (or Mr. Claude, as the kids call him) came today.
This is the “before” look. I don’t love the cinderblock look, but it’s better than the Black Hole of Doom look, so I don’t think I should complain.
I should have taken more “during” pictures, since it’s a remarkable process, but I was also making cookies with the kids, helping with projects, etc., so I wasn’t snapping every step.
Mr. Claude is a melancholic Romanian (complete with accent), a perfectionist, and great entertainment, as far as the kids were concerned. They all really liked him, and Naomi wants to invite him to Christmas at our house. I’m not sure that’s going to happen.
Mr. Claude seemed to like them, too. When I told Naomi and Sim to stop bickering with each other (for the tenth time in about 2 minutes) in the living room and how unpleasant it must be for Mr. Claude to work with them making those nasty noises nearby, he told me, “Oh, I don’t mind. I like it. It’s just too bad I don’t have any of my own.” He must really like kids if he even likes them when they bicker.
This is pre-grout, of course, but I really, really like it! The mantle won’t be in for 3 weeks, but I’m willing to wait. Can you see the small tile accents? They gave Mr. Claude headaches. The tile is also “rustic,” which means that the edges are somewhat roughed up. That gave Mr. Claude headaches, too. “You see, eef zey had straight edges, I could get zee lines straighter!” I don’t think anyone’s going to notice.
“How do you want zees? Like zees? Or like zees?” He asked that a lot today. What does Mr. Claude think? “I sink you should have it like you like it.” Okay.
He was great, though, and did what I asked without complaint, despite a feeling of misuse because of the small accent tiles and the headaches they created.
I am really excited to see what it looks like with the grout. I’ll keep you posted.
Michael’s opinion: “Darn! I missed my chance to have castle turrets on the cinder block.” But I think he really likes the tile anyway.
Hannah’s opinion: “Once we get the house fixed how we like it, it will be a DREAM house!”
Naomi’s opinion: “I wish we would take pictures of the workers who come here so that we can remember them!”
Simeon’s opinion: “Can I use that box cutter when you’re done?” Okay, he didn’t really say that, but I’m sure he thought it!
Since our last post, we’ve come a long way. Of course, since Thanksgiving, we haven’t progressed at all…but we won’t focus on that, will we?
We’ve had a couple of steps since that last post, so here are some pictures:
This was the start. Every cinderblock had to be cut.
See? Cut cinderblocks.
Rather than try to remove the whole structure that was already there, they used the cinderblocks to support the previous structure.
Our porch…
…is still a work zone. Much to my dismay.
Whew! We’ve evened out.
And now we have a frame!
The next step was to finish off the cinderblocks. It looked like this for a while.
There’s still a space behind which things can fall and be VERY DIFFICULT to retrieve…just ask Michael! He didn’t drop the object, but he was elected to retrieve it, and he did. He’s my hero.
Now the fire bricks are in place and mudded. (Is “mudded” a word?)
It looks pretty nice.
Not that it actually matters, of course, since this part will shortly be blackened with fire. But it looks pretty nice right now.
Up next week: tile on the outside. And someday: a mantle! Hannah is concerned about where the stockings will hang. We’ll keep you posted.
We’ve been doing Bible memory verses with the kids for a while now, and they’re doing very well with it. During Advent we’re working on verses that tell the Christmas story. This morning, after reciting the ones we’ve learned so far, which include the verse about there being “no room for them in the inn,” Hannah got very thoughtful. Then she asked, “Why didn’t they just write ahead to the inn for reservations?”
It arrived yesterday, and mercifully it wasn’t raining when the delivery guys came. The many stairs up to the house make delivery of very large and heavy items difficult enough without rain adding to the fun.
Here’s the old range:
Here’s what it looks like without a range:
You can see the sunlight coming in from the window.
Here’s the new range:
Uh…yeah…no sunlight this morning. BUT there are 6 burners! And the oven is 36 inches. Whoohoo!
I have already tested the oven on pizza, cookies, and biscuits with excellent results. I can do 2 pizzas at once in there! The stove works, but we haven’t done a whole lot on it yet. Michael is looking forward to stir-frying on it.
Simeon was quite skeptical when the men came and took the old range, but he recovered quickly enough when I told him they would give us a new one. He was fascinated by the process. The deliverers were quite amused by our kids, who all watched the whole thing.
