July 30, 2005

• I can’t believe that July is nearly over! We have had such a busy summer so far. I still have one more short trip to blog about, but I am waiting to hear if any of my friends object to having pictures up. Sometime early next week, I will write the blog.

  The night we returned from Hawaii, we had a big storm and our beautiful locust tree split from top to bottom, so we had to have it cut down. That was a very sad event for us. We planted that tree when we moved into the house right after it was built in 1975. My husband lovingly shaped it by trimming. It stood at the corner of our screened-in patio and provided shade which kept the patio much cooler in the daytime. Our yard looks so bare without it! All we have left now is a new pile of firewood. Someone asked us for one of the bigger pieces to make a hand carved bowl, and Dan said that it made him feel better to know that the tree would provide enjoyment to the woodcarver in that way.

  It’s astounding to think that next week marks the half-way point of summer quarter. That means midterms for my students. I am sure they are looking forward to that – NOT!! This quarter, I have Medical Terminology, Anatomy and Physiology, and Health Care Law and Ethics. Classes are going well and I expect the students to do well on the midterms, but I am sure they are anxious, anyway.

  We are doing some decorating projects in our house and I am beginning to hope that we have time to finish them before school starts for Dan again. We took the wallpaper down in our main bathroom and the stairwell. We still have wallpaper to strip from our bathroom. We are living in an amazingly dusty house because of the repairs to the drywall. Summer is the time when we do our major house cleaning because Dan does not work, and I am very anxious for that to get underway because the dust is really starting to annoy me. I am hoping to start cleaning cupboards today. I think our bathroom is far enough away from the kitchen that I can safely clean the cupboards without worrying about another invasion of dust.

  I was sad to take the main bathroom wallpaper down because I really liked it, but it was not cleaning up very well anymore so it had to go. We painted, and I am really pleased with the result. We have harvest gold fixtures in there (A word to the wise – don’t ever put choose the “popular” color of the time period!) and the fixtures are in perfect condition, so we don’t want to go to the expense of replacing them, not to mention that replacing a tub is major construction if it is possible at all, so we went with a bold shade of green and a border that ties the whole thing together. It looks great! It looks old, but that is OK because we have antiques so old is appropriate. I am really delighted to be so satisfied with it!

  Actually, we are working on all 3 of our bathrooms. We still have some drywall to replace in what used to be Andy’s bathroom. We put new flooring in and are painting it. In our bathroom, we are taking down white wallpaper and painting the walls yellow. I will be so happy when it is all finished and all the closets and drawers are cleaned out. Do you think we have a prayer of having all that done within the next 3 weeks?

  • 1:02 pm
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