August 21, 2011



Amazing how fast time flies by. Already, I'm behind on this post and it just seems like yesterday that I posted last. So to catch up. Two weekends ago we enjoyed a visit by Joann's ex-boss from Pfizer, Sylvia, along with her husband. They stopped by on their way to a canoe trip in Canada. It was nice catching up since we hadn't seen them in quite a while and we certainly did spend a fair amount of time discussing our old work place, certainly in light of the recent Fortune article. 



Cow Judging

Then on Sunday, Kathy and John joined us for a day at the WI State Fair. We saw all the animals so that Jo and Kathy could relive their agricultural roots (or at least their perceived roots since they grew up in a city like I did) and did enjoy watching the judging of the cows and pigs (not sure how you train to be a professional cow or pig judge, but someone does). Unfortunately, we weren't able to see any sheep since they seemed to all have gone home already. And as with any State Fair we sampled the many tasty foods - Jo and I shared a hamburger with a Krispy Kreme doughnut as the bun. It was an interesting mix of sweet and burger - and while quite tasty not something I would need to eat again for a while. This was coupled with a cream puff - a State Fair speciality - and giant "Suzy Q" like dessert. We had all had our fill and while I didn't get a corn dog, I'll always have next year.



Cream Puffs in Preparation

We saw continued destruction of our two bathrooms and they are now just about completely gutted. They started doing a small amount of reconstruction on one of the bathrooms - mostly just laying in a temporary floor so they don't land up falling through into the kitchen. It was quite interested to see the 100 year's worth of work that was underneath the walls and to try and guess the purpose of all it. This week the plan is to start getting the framing in place. It will be nice not having all trash hauled through the house all day. Needless to say, the house is in a complete state of mess, and for those that know us, you can imagine how well we are dealing with it.



The Master Bath Destruction

To add to the overall mess and feeling of destruction, I started the repainting of the dining room (this was mostly as this was the only room that didn't have someone traisping through it on a regular basis). The first step of which was my favorite chore, removing the wall paper. While the outer layer of wall paper came down fairly easily, the wall paper layer under is proving a bit more challenging. But the job is on its way and hopefully paint will be going on the walls by the end of the coming week.



Master Bath Destruction Almost Done

This weekend was our first without major plans or visitors since early June. We took the time to catch up on some local shopping we needed to do and relaxation which is always nice. We had a beautiful Sunday morning today so we hopped on our bikes and toured a local bike trail for 2 hours and then home to a robust lunch since we had worked up quite the appetite. Next up is some naps and then getting ready for another exciting week.