Baby Powder and Ocean State Job Lot

What in the world does Ocean State Job Lot have to do with Baby Powder you ask?

First off, thanks for asking.  The story goes like this:  

Put Miss Una down at her usual time of about 8pm.  Simple enough.  Change her diaper, cave on the request for "powder", and then place the "powder" on her changing table.  Read to her, sing to her, turn on the lullaby CD, and remind her to stay in her bed (she recently graduated to a "big girl" bed).  Head downstairs for some mindless TV (oh and the sound of the lullabies through the monitor).  20 minutes later and the monitor is quiet as the CD has ended.  Not a peep.  She's asleep.  

Not so fast.  

10pm rolls around and Sally heads upstairs while I do my usual of turning lights off,  set the coffee maker up, etc.  I usually hear Sally checking on Una, but things are different tonight.  Suddenly, Sally calls out, "Daddy, can you come up here?"  I would normally be concerned, but  the use of "Daddy" instead of John makes me think things are not too urgent.  I nevertheless quickly head upstairs.  Sally stops me outside of Una's room and says, "Smell anything?"  [sniff sniff]  Ah...The sweet fragrant smell of...you guess it...baby powder.  

There in the middle of her room in the center of her carpet is a 1 foot in diameter pile of baby powder with the bottle laying along side the circle.  My first thought was she broke the top and it all spilled out.  NOPE.  She shook the entire contents out.  (Note:  Baby powder being shaken form its bottle does not make any noise!!!)

Sally and I controlled our desire to bust out laughing and proceeded to tell Una that what she did was very naughty.   She looked at us in amazement.  Sally retrieved the vacuum cleaner to clean things up and while she did I talked with Miss Una.  "Why did you do that?" "I know" (Una has a tendency to drop the "don't" when stalling).  "Well, now we don't have any for your bum.  What are we going to do?" I lost it when the response was:

"We can get some more from Job Lot"

Who Knew - I do windows

Well, I am in IT, but not that kind of windows.  I'm talking about real windows.  You know, the kind you should be able to see out clearly.  Key word there, clearly.  

Let me explain.  Sally and I bought our house a little over five years ago.  There were three things Sally really didn't like about the house:  

1. The wall-to-wall carpet
   
2. The draperies in the living room
3. The draperies in the bedroom

Well, we took care of #1 immediately after the closing.  Started in the living room, then the dining room, took a look upstairs and with Sally's best "can we?" look we pulled them up from upstairs and the stairwell.  I guess that's what happens when you have beautiful hardwood floors under the old dingy carpet.  Anyway, check-off #1

Sally has looked for the last five years for just the right drapes for the living room.  We've gone through two, maybe three sets in the dining room, but she never found anything just right in the living room.  Cleaning the drapes, as well as the shears, didn't help.  Well, Thursday Sally found just the right drapes.  Yesterday, she, Una  and Nana set out for shears and rods.  In the infamous words of GW "Mission Accomplished".  

So, this morning was 'let's install the drapes' morning.  Down come the old drapes, shears, and hardware (in these tough economic times we were thrilled to find out that our old hardware would work just fine ($140 savings)).  Now with the drapes and shears down what should appear?  Those crystal clear windows, right?  Well, drop the two adjectives and you'd be correct.  

So, while Sally pressed all the drape panels, as well as the shears, and then hemmed the shears with her bright and shiny new sewing machine, I tackled the windows, inside and out.  I picked one of the coldest days of the year to open windows for cleaning, but eh, what the heck, I got it done.  

We've now got new drapes and shears in the living room, and crystal clear windows, too.  Check-off #2 on the list.

Gotta run.  Off to see Arlo Guthrie at the Ziterion Theatre in New Bedford.

P.S.  Do you do windows?

When Work is Not Work

This blog is not about "work" as in my employment (I had previously written "job", but I am going to talk about my other job, as in the one I have at home.) Do not get me wrong, I've been at my employment for over ten years now, and I enjoy the job I have. Each day is its own challenge and I look forward to going to work (although I will admit I look forward to vacations more). But, it is "work".

This past weekend we had an opportunity to do "work" which I've put off too long. We had our roof replaced last week and we had a nice big dumpster sitting in our driveway. It was 3/4 full, but that meant we had a place to dump some stuff from the garage. You know a garage, a place for that 30 years or so of accumulated junk; a place for high school schoolbooks, hundreds of fantasy sci-fi paperbacks, college schoolbooks (in languages I could not begin to read -- Greek); and, treasured memories. Oh, and maybe a car? You think?

Anyway, I jumped into pitching anything not salvageable. What qualifies as not salvageable you might ask? Unfortunately, some things were not in such great condition thanks to leaving bird seed out in the open in the garage one Winter. Mice just love bird seed it seems, and mice need a home, and mice need materials to make a home from. You know things like paper from books (particularly paperbacks). Things like old running shirts you were saving from back in the day when you use to be thin and run? (Yeah, I did that). Things like college dorm clothes someone boxed up and had "Dad" look after.

When I was done the dumpster was full, and believe it or not, I could actually fit a car in the garage. Go figure!!!

I still have a ways to go...Jenn, you had alot of stuff. I have found some wonderful treasures which I hope to share in some future blog. For now I'm just enjoying the memories the treasures I discovered bring me.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what Sally was doing while I went through my junk in the garage, well she found her own "work", that being to tackle scraping and painting the front door and trim. We've been saying we're going to do that for ages, and Sally just went and did it. The front door now looks good enough to adorn one of those posters "Doors of [fill-in the blank]" I haven't seen a Doors of DaBucket yet...hmmm, now there's another project for another day.

Summer, Where Did You Go?

I was able to get out at lunch yesterday and enjoy a cool Summer day. It felt more like Fall. They even mentioned on the weather yesterday morning about it feeling like Fall. Where the heck did the Summer go? I know, I know, we've not even reached the "unofficial" end of Summer with the Labor Day weekend. But, when I pass daily the sign at the high school that classes begin in less than a week, I can't help but feel Summer is coming to a close.


We've had the good fortune to actually have a really nice Summer. Lots of time at the beach in Westport, work and play in our backyard, Sundays at Nana and Gramps for dinners on the back deck, and drinks on the deck at The Back Eddy. Oh, and who can forget our great vacation to Westport.


While the Summer has indeed been great, I've missed a few things. Not one round of golf, not one cast from the rod, and only a couple of trips on the boat. I'm not complaining (well, I'm complaining about how the boat has run yet again this year) as time with family and friends have been great. I've enjoyed tremendously watching Una at a point where she can really enjoy outdoor activities. If you read this blog regularly you already know he just loves the beach. And, she loves anything to do with a playground. Saturday night Sally didn't sleep well so when Una awoke at 6:22am (yes unfortunately I noted the time when I crawled out of bed) I got up with her so Sally could sleep. After a couple episodes of "Blues Clues" I thought Una would enjoy a walk. We made it down to the park at the end of Blackstone. We drive by this park often and a few months ago when Una first discovered swings, that was all she'd say as we passed in the car. I thought she'd enjoy some time on the swings, but found that she also enjoyed climbing to the top of the "big kids" slide. No little four step slide for Una. Noooo...she needed to climb the one that was probably ten steps and a foot over my 6'5" high head. She climbed with ease, stood at the top (the most nerve-racking) and then proceeded to sit and slide down. She slid slowly thanks to the rubber soled shoes she had on. At the bottom, turn and run for the stairs. It was a fun time. Did I mention that I found not one empty plastic juice bottle, empty frozen ice container, or any used diapers? (If you don't get that you missed my Aretha blog). Bravo to those that use this playground. Now, how about the Providence Parks Department doing something about grading so that the walkways don't become impassable for strollers due to mud with the slightest hint of rain? Oh, and can you turn on that lovely Art Deco fountain? Wouldn't that be an enjoyable site for local residents? (Wait: in searching for a link for the fountain I found this blog. http://www.savethefountain.blogspot.com/ Seems I'm not alone in my desire to see this fountain operating again.)

With Summer coming to a close Sally and I have our eyes set on a trip to Philly in September to visit Grammie. Jeff, Jen and Emmett will be visiting, too. We can't wait to see them. Una's all excited to see her cousin. Then October has another trip to Philly when my folks are there for a trip they are taking. Sally and I are also looking forward as Summer winds down to getting some things done to the house that we've not found the time to do with busy Summer schedules.

So, Summer you might be leaving us, but thanks to great family and friends, life is good no matter the season.

Talk at you all soon...John

What a storm

Wow!!! Tuesday I'm working in Warwick, RI and hear an occasional rumble of thunder most of the afternoon. Then about 4:30ish I get an email from Sally saying, "Holy Cow!" and describing the scene at our house. Seems we got pelted with hail.

I got home about 5:45 (a full two hours after the storm passed) and took the picture to the left showing the size of the hail. Yeah, yeah, it's not softball sized hail like they might have in the Midwest, but this is New England. We don't get hail like that.


I took a few more shots as another "wave" of thunderstorms was approaching. You can see from the picture on the left the eerie colors. Definite thunderstorm approaching (including more hail).





This next picture is just an example of the damage the hail did to most of our plants. The hostas in particular did not fair well.










The picture to the right show the damage done to our neighbor's kale. She lost almost all of her lettuce and kale. Needless to say, she was quite disappointed.

We'll have to wait to see how our veggies make out. They look pretty beat up.

Such is life "Living in Dabucket".

Spring has sprung?

Well, we finally had a nice weekend where we could get outside and do some work in the yard. Oh, did I mention we got a nice fence to keep our little Bucketeer safe? Yep. A nice stockade fence in the back for a little privacy and a nice picket from the garage to the house. Una now enjoys running freely around the backyard.

Saturday the Three Bucketeers hit HD for a few necessities; shrubs to go against the new stockade fence, a new screendoor for the back door, and a very cool pedestal sink for a later project. Oh, and landscape timbers as I want to build a raised bed in the garden. Believe it or not the rest of Saturday was spent on installing that damn screendoor. It could not have been more difficult -- Geez!!! While I slaved away at the door, Sally took care of scraping and repainting the two Andirondack chairs. They look great. The screendoor was completed close to 6pm, but I must say, it looks great. It adds alot to the rear entrance to the house.

Sunday was also a nice day so we spent about an hour or so Sunday morning painting the stockade fence. Chatham Fog is the color. We think it looks pretty good. After cleanup it was off to Westport to enjoy the afternoon with Nana and "Gamps". It was so nice that we were able to grill and eat on the deck. Fun time. Oh, and Una just loved her new BigBird. Thanks, Nana.

All in all a good weekend. If feels good to do something with your hands. Very rewarding. More work to be done in the yard, and I'm already looking forward to next weekend (or a little evening work).

That's it for now...John