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9:26 a.m. - 2005-10-30 Has it really been 14 daysAlthough it has been 14 days since my last update, I have been tuning in now and then to read what my buddies are up to. It was fun to read about the San Diego advertures of Art, Chaos, Poola and Mom. Although it appears that Journalcon itself is not that exciting, getting together with people you enjoy is, and so I get the impression that everyone's trip was worthwhile. In the last 14 days, not much has happened at Chez Yarnsmith. I work too hard all week to have a life and what life I do have is centered around this house and on the weekends. Last weekend, we started on the East side of the house. It was cold and rainy and we managed to clear the debris, dig up the old plant material and lay two patio stones for the hose reel to set on so it doesn't have to sit in the mud. I also managed to plant 3 Hydrangea bushes in the backyard before the raindrops started to fall. Sunday we went to the pumpkin farm and picked out a pumpkin, a turban squash and a few gourds. The rain held off long enough to put out our plywood graveyard, make a front stoop "vignette" from the vegetables and plant a "graveyard" sign I found at Michaels Crafts. The final touch was hanging our giant spider web under our porch light where it is casting an eerie shadow. Mike is really getting into this. He has been working all week to get enough leaves to fill the two giant pumpkin bags he bought and those too are now gracing the display in our yard. The pumpkin farm had a little carnival a petting zoo, a corn field maze and an area set up where plywood was painted with different characters with holes cut where their faces should have been. The idea is to stand on a hay bale behind the plywood, stick your face through the hole and have your picture taken. It is times like these when Mike wishes Michelle would get married and start with the process of creating Little Paco (our future grandchild) so he can take Little Paco to the pumpkin farm, thereby having an excuse to go the to petting zoo and stick his face through a plywood cutout. Things like this is what endeared me to Mike when we were dating and when our daughter was young and ultimately is why I married him. Come on Michelle...get Manny to stick a ring on that finger so we can take Little Paco to the punkin farm. (Manny is Mexican which is why we call our future Grandchild "little Paco"...we are not being racist...if he were Polish, we would call him "little Stashu".) All last week was work work and more work while Mike alternated between running his Mother to Doctor appointments (about 3 per week), getting her hearing aid repaired and sifting through crap in her apartment, throwing out most things (she's a packrat) and packing what is keepable. The move in date approaches..I am NOT looking forward to it." Yesterday, we transplanted a million lillies of the valley and hostas along the East side of the house and weed wacked the rest of the foliage between the patio and the neighbors garage. The neighbors garage sits on the property line along the South East side of our back yard. The plan is to extend the patioed area with packed gravel and pile the 2 year aged Oak next to the neighbors garage and also create a space to put the barbeque grill. Next weekend we will lay some weed fabric and have a ton of grade 8 gravel dumped on our driveway. My sister promised her family out to me on Saturday afternoon where we will all pitch in and move the gravel from the driveway to the back yard and tamp it down. If there is time, we will stack the oak and free up yet another part of my debris filled yard. There is much to be accomplished yet today before that can happen. I also have 6 more bushes to plant in front but before that can happen we need to dig up 3 ugly bushes and clear some weeds. I will never finish all my started projects before it gets too cold and we are called inside to deal with the boxes yet unpacked. During the week, Mike took up the carpet the cat peed on and underneath was smelly...yes smelly, dirty, old fashioned linoleum. They carpeted right over the dirty floor. He disinfected the floor and pulled up a million staples and it is now ready for Empire (sing it everyone: 588-2300..EMPIRE)...(on second thought I guess you would only know that jingle if you live in Chicago), to come put down some cheap carpeting. I am not going to spend alot of money because it is in my Mother in Laws room and she smells like bad perfume and whereever she lives, all carpeting and furniture take on this horrible smell. Once she is gone, I will need to replace all my furniture and that carpet. Too bad the cat peed on it...I wasn't planning on replacing it yet. We also had our fireplace cleaned this past week. We paid 115.00 for cleaning and a 5 point inspection. The guy looked hungover, didn't do the inspection and spent 15 minutes with a giant vacuum cleaner and a long giant Q-tip. I think next year we will by a shop vac and our own giant Q-tip and clean our own chimeny. I don't think we will be hiring "Early Times Chimeny Sweeps" again. Speaking of fireplaces, we brought in 3 large pieces of 2 year aged Oak and cheated and bought a duraflame fire starter. The logs seemed to catch but 1/2 hour later when the stinky fire starter burned out, only the back bottom log was still lit and it wasn't in flame but just a giant hot coal that smoldered for another 2 hours. The top log, layed diagonally over the two bottom logs was singed and that is all...For 1/2 hour there was a roaring and I mean ROARING fire in the fireplace and it all of a sudden just "poof" went out. We had the logs stacked according the duraflames directions and in a manner in which others that have fireplaces have told us to stack them. Two logs on the bottom, one at the back of the grate and one at the front and the third laying diagonally across the two bottom. The duraflame starter sat between the two bottom logs directly under the top log. Anyone out there know what we did wrong???? Our wood is stacked outside..but isn't that where you are supposed to stack it....could the rain we had during the week have made it unburnable????? Send your thoughts and suggestions to my notes section. Well, I must now sign off, take advantage of this extra hour and get my A** out to the yard to resume preparing my future gravel patio. Happy Halloween P. I. Yarnsmith
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