Posts by Chuck Curtis
This afternoon was a “take a break from your sibling afternoon.” Susanna took Will to “Launch,” an indoor trampoline house. I took Ben to the Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum. What a great time. It was dirt cheap. Only $6 for both of us to visit. It isn’t the biggest museum, but it is a great deal (and the trains are mostly open to climb around on – one just has to be careful).
A quick passing storm allows for some fun outside after dinner:
This year, Susanna and I are trying to focus on smaller projects. Projects that can be finished in a weekend. Over the past couple of years, we have completed many major projects that took several months to complete and we thought it would be nice to take a break from the big projects for a while.
This was one of the weekends where the boys aren’t here, so we tackled a bigger weekend project. We have two big out buildings. One is my workshop, and I have been keeping it in pretty good shape (though the lumber stack below the workshop, and the storage area above it could use a good reorganization). The second building is our garage. The garage has a second floor that has been a focus on our improvements this year.
One side of the loft above the garage is the boys’ play room/game room. I finished that for the boys for Christmas. It was a big change from the dirty wreck of a play room that they had before. However, to get to the play loft, one had to go through the other side of the loft – the storage area. It has been a disaster for the past couple of years. Okay, since I moved here.
I did have one set of shelves built many years ago, but it wasn’t enough storage (okay, if we got rid of stuff it would have been). But the space didn’t feel special. This weekend I added lights and built a second set of storage shelves and a book shelf. Susanna organized and cleaned. The end result is another pretty cool space to hang out.
I know we probably won’t spend much time there, but it is nice to have another cool nook to sit on the property. It is nice to have Susanna to help encourage me to finish projects and not just start them.
The space isn’t perfect. It gets hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I am hoping to add an exhaust fan later this year to keep the temperature more reasonable. One of the window panes is still broken (Ben broke it earlier this year), and that will need to be another short weekend project to fix. We may also add a window air-conditioner to the boys play room (on a timer of course) – hopefully they can keep some of the mess out of the house.
I have been driving our 1999 Jeep Cherokee for many years. It still runs, but is showing its age: the air-conditioning is out, driver’s side airbag doesn’t work, the horn doesn’t work, one of the doors is damaged from an accident last year. With summer coming on, it was time to add a new car. We kept the jeep (it is the only car with a hitch now) and bought a slightly used 2013 Chevy Sonic (only 19k miles). Not the fanciest car, but it gets good gas mileage, had high ratings for being well-built, and fits all four of us.
Now to get the Jeep to pass emissions so we can keep it for a couple of more years. And clean a space for it under the workshop.
The boys have a shortened school day today. That means an afternoon off of work for me. It isn’t as nice out as it was earlier this week, but it isn’t cold and it isn’t raining (yet).
Sounds like a good afternoon to relax on the porch and have a beer…
We had a super busy family day. Our Saturdays start with soccer camp in the morning for both boys. However, this morning, Ben was too tired to play soccer. Susanna took Will to soccer, and I took Ben to run errands with me (i.e. pick up lumber for the boat project).
While Susanna and Will were out, I helped Ben get fitted on Will’s old (okay, until today, current) bike and watched as he rode up and down the road a couple of times to check the fit. I was also able to move some cherry lumber to the workshop loft. I plan to build some more furniture later this summer and want to get the lumber a little more dried out. I’ll have to move some oak up tomorrow.
The afternoon brought more kids. Two of the neighbor kids came over as well as one of Will’s friends from school. I spent the afternoon turning a couple of large pieces of plywood into smaller and hopefully boat-shaped pieces of plywood – interrupted to make several play knives/daggers/swords for the kids.
I’m tired. I think I will take a long hot shower tonight and be not too far behind the boys in going to bed.
Well, Sunday wasn’t quite the day I had hoped for. I had hoped to get the first coat of bottom paint on the boat and get some workshop time, finish up the drawer for the second table and then head out for a sushi dinner.
Of course, the invisible fence broke on Saturday night. And then late Saturday night someone decided to flatten the mailbox. They flattened six other mailboxes on our street that night so I don’t feel too special. Not that replacing the mailbox is a difficult job. And neither is fixing the invisible fence. Normally.
Sunday morning, after the boys went to their mother’s house, I figured I would go out and fix the break in the fence and then go to Home Depot with Susanna to pick out a new mailbox. There is a junction between two sections of fence wire right next to the driveway, and normally it gets broken when people are turning around in the driveway and go off the pavement a little bit. Of course it wasn’t broken there. I walked the boundary and couldn’t find an obvious break. So I had to troubleshoot. It didn’t make sense. The break was in a section of the front yard where it had been buried for a long time.
Anyway, in the meantime, with no invisible fence, the dogs decided to break from the yard. We don’t even get a 15 minute “stay in the yard” break with the beagle. As soon as the fence is down, he is gone. And I still had to dig up the front yard and replace the wire and buy and put up a new mailbox and hopefully paint the boat and be done in time to clean up and go out for an early dinner that night.
The dogs running away was the last straw. I was not in a good mood. And me being in a bad mood didn’t help Susanna be in a good mood. Time to take a break and be pissed that nothing was going right that morning. Then get over it. Then go to Home Depot and get a new mailbox.
I did get the mailbox installed (and it survived its first night along the road). I also got the wire replaced with the yard only looking partly like crap where I dug the trench. I didn’t get done in time to make an early dinner date. I also didn’t get to the boat.
I was able to get to the boat tonight after work. I got most of the bottom painted with the first coat. We changed the color of the bottom paint from blue to green. Just to be different. And because I couldn’t find pink as Susanna had requested. And yellow seemed like the wrong color for this year.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll get into the workshop and work on the drawer and finally catch up on my Sunday projects.
Thanks to some jerk and most likely drunk driver:
Taking a break from our afternoon bike ride.
It was 70-degrees here today. And Sunny.
We had a busy day. I would write all about it, but I’m too tired to spend enough effort to make a long post make sense. Or at least get the post to what passes as making sense (to me). So I’ll keep this short (which I’m sure Susanna is thankful for) plus post some pictures from today.
The boys had soccer practice this morning. I got to sit and watch, so I’m not as tired as they are. They spent most of the afternoon playing basketball. Or make-believe Pokemon with the basketball. I don’t think I’m making sense. But I don’t think they did either, so I’m not too worried. Anyway, it was some sort of game somewhat resembling basketball, but different.
Will got in trouble last night for complaining too much about helping clean up the kitchen. So he got to make and clean up all of lunch. He was upset at first because all he knew how to make was peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. And he is sick of them because that is what he makes every day for lunch at school. So I showed him how to make grilled cheese sandwiches. He made all but the first sandwich. With almost no help (though with supervision). Now he can make two things in the kitchen. He only burned himself once (a little bit). On the same hand that he had cut at breakfast trying to slice a loaf of bread (again a small injury). Yes, learning to cook can be painful. Just wait until he learns home repair.
Susanna and I cleaned the patio after lunch, cleaning off two years worth of leaves and fighting back the encroaching yard. It was much-needed. I had a chance to start sanding the bottom of the boat in preparation for painting. We are switching the bottom from blue to green.
Tonight we get to babysit Michael. It was a surprise (to me). Susanna had agreed a month ago, but we all had forgotten about it. Luckily we had no major pans (other than enjoy the nice weather). I actually got Will to help me take Michael for a walk down the road. Will even went to the neighbor’s house to borrow a stroller. We are finishing the night with two very tired adults, two exhausted and sleeping Curtis boys, and one not quite ready to sleep toddler.
So much for keeping this short.
