Another bit of progress

14.IV.07 - MoM

My new pattern is late to bed (by mid-night) and early to rise -- 6 a.m., or earlier. There is one little problem -- my fracture is still interfering with the good night's sleep I have enjoyed for so many years. My system seems to insist the I get more so I am having to get used to falling asleep frequently during the day in the middle of doing something at the computer. I also had a couple of good timed 15-minute stints in Lafuma today in the sunroom. With the glass on the doors open, the temp was great today.

My main accomplishment was a further purge of the fridge. It wasn't easy to toss some sour cream with a Feb date. It looked good and smelled good. In the past, I didn't look at dates and probably would have used it. Instead, I made up some more ersatz milk and made Knorrs Hollandaise with it. That certainly improved yesterday's salmon loaf. Again, another quarter of the casserole made dinner for me tonight. With it, the salmon loaf was much better than last night. In fact, it was almost quite good.

I was almost finished eating when Chris and Kay returned my call for their happy Anniversary wishes. I actually got my card there on time. They leave for Madrid mid-week. I have happy memories of a lot of visits to Spain, including our first one with you, Sandy. How lucky can one be to have the fairy tale travel experiences we were able to enjoy. It is so great to be able to have so many happy memories -- such as living 8 years in Europe, then, add the French rental houses, Australia, New Zeeland, Hawaii, etc, in the 1990's. I never dreamed that when I married DoD we would have such a charmed and fantastic life!

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A continuation of the letter to us in Saalfelden from Sandy on 26 May 85.

It's great to have Bob back, as you can imagine. I really missed him. While he was gone I got a friend of ours who is a carpenter to tear down that wall between the kitchen and the bedroom (where Dad slept when you were here. The new space is wonderful. We have discovered oak flooring under the linoleum, so we are going to uncover and refinish it this summer. Also will steam off the wallpaper and repaint the kitchen, which looks far too yellow now that it's opened up. I think next summer we'll put a two-story addition on the back (same corner), with a big room upstairs and a screen porch down. We still also plan to put a screen house on the river bank, but I don't know when. I wish Daddy were here to draw plans for us! We have a friend who is an architect and will do it for us, but I'd rather have my pop do it. Taking down the wall was great fun (I helped). Of course, repairing the damage was the hard part. We put a strip of oak down where the wall was, then sheet rocked the rest. Had to leave a kind of beam overhead because it was all nailed in from the top, and getting it out would have entailed pulling up flooring in the attic, and it was just too complicated. We are left with a pretty horrible design flaw, two doors coming in from the hallway, side by side. But the post that separates them is bearing, and we didn't feel like putting in the time and expense to put up a header there. Maybe one of these days we'll have it done. Our carpenter only charges $10 an hour -- and he's very good -- but it gets expensive.

The garden is all in. I had to do most of it while Bob was gone. Marty came up one weekend and was a great help. We replanting pretty much the same things. Never seem to have enough spinach and beets, so we put in a lot of them. Also planted the melon seeds I bought in Europe, but I'm afraid they'll come on while we're in Europe! Ironic. We are looking for a student to live in the house while we're gone, one who is willing to can tomatoes. I think Kirste, (you remember her, the younger of the sisters) graduating today -- in fact their graduation, and that of a bunch more of my French majors, was the reason for our party yesterday. Were able to do most of it in the yard, though the weather was unstable. It finally stormed at about 10 p.m. and we moved it all into the garage. Huge hail and thunder storm, with hailstones the size of straw berries. We were worried about the garden but it was not damaged.