Work on Workshop Begins

The third part of the foundation project is that for our 24 x 30 metal workshop. The crew began laying the forms for it last week, the plumber is supposed to add the plumbing this weekend, and they plan to pour on Tuesday.

Real Construction Begins!

Carl and Maxie have the substructure for the deck almost complete! We think we'll be laying the deck flooring Monday or Tuesday! YIPPEE!

Footings for the Deck

Once the house foundation was completed, the crew started on the footings for the deck. The deck will be the length of the house (65'), 12 ' deep, and about 8 ' tall -- quite a structure. Here's a portions of the pouring project:

All In A Pickle

We got home from Camp Meeting with LOTS of eggs! I made egg salad, we had fried egg sandwiches for breakfast and we STILL had eggs. I had heard my sister talk about pickling eggs so I decided I would do that.

I went on the Internet and found a recipe that (a) seemed fairly simple; and (b) called for ingredients that I had on hand. The only exception was something called "pickling spices" so I looked further on the Internet for what that meant. I learned that it was a combination of things such as peppercorns, cinnamon sticks, mustard seeds, bay leaves, cloves, etc . etc. I went to my larder and found that I had peppercorns, bay leaves, and cloves, so that's what I used.

The next problem is that I didn't have a container in which to make my pickled eggs. Carl went down to our local resale shop, coerced the employee to sell him something after they had closed, and came home with a great looking glass gallon jar (with an orange lid which goes beautifully with my decor in the trailer) so I am all set.

I made two dozen pickled eggs and now, a week later when they are ready to eat, I have to say they are delicious!

Who Knew!

Making Room for VIPs

My brother-in-law is our builder of record (definitely a VIP) and he and my sister will be staying with us during the building of our house. Our long-range plan is to wall off a 9x12 area in the metal workshop and put a bed and window unit it in for them to stay in. That is still a great plan BUT until the foundation for the metal shop is poured and the metal shop is built, they will be staying with us in the 5th Wheel (aka "trailer" and "RV").

After they stayed with us on Friday, I realized we needed to make some more room in the trailer. So I spent most of Saturday going through every cabinet and piece of furniture and packing up every item that we were not using. Then Carl came up with the idea of taking out the table. We then went to the trailer's storage hatch; cleaned it out; and freed up even more room.

Today we made a run to (a) deposit "stuff" into our store room; and (b) take more "stuff" to Goodwill. We also went to Home Depot and found "over the door" hooks to install so that my sister and brother-in-law will have a place to store their "stuff."

I think we are officially ready for our VIPs to show up on Tuesday :-)

Vacationing in Our Own Back Yard

Yesterday Carl and his best friend, Bill, played their weekly golf game at a beautiful course about 30 minutes west of where we live. Bill's wife (and my best friend), Susan, and I decided to go with them and lay by the pool. The pool area is gorgeous: surrounded by huge oak trees and beautifully appointed. We had the pool to ourselves, there was a gentle breeze blowing, and it was like being on an island somewhere far, far away.

We read our books, talked, snacked on mini-corn dogs and played two rounds of Trivial Pursuit (both of which I lost by 1 pie).

It was relaxing and very enjoyable girlfriend time.

Workshop Arrives!

The foundation for the house is complete and work begins on a footing for our back porch deck (the first picture).

The exciting thing is that the steel building materials have arrived and as soon as the shop foundation is poured we can erect it. We plan to move all of our household goods from rental storage into the workshop and then move our RV to the property. We'll live in it until the construction has been completed.
Carl worked his tush off helping to unload the steel and slept very well that night.