The bathroom light switch was on the wall OUTSIDE the bathroom. I don’t know why. But for 30+ years I have switched on the light before I go into the bathroom and switched it off when I come out of the bathroom. Also for 30+ years, anytime a guest has used the bathroom I have cautioned them “the light switch is on the wall in the hall”.
Since the entire inside of the bathroom got ripped up for the remodel, including the wall where the electrical box was located, I figured we might as well move the switch to the inside of the bathroom. The electrician also moved the fan switch and overhead heat lamp switch over as well, so all three switches now live together.
Here are the three switches in their new location:
This is where the switch used to be:
It’s been two weeks. I still try to turn the lights on/off outside the bathroom at least 5 times a day.
We’re in the very last death throes of our bathroom remodel: the time when you realize you need a new shower caddy, a little table, new towel racks, new shade, new curtain…… aarrggghhhh.
Home Depot feels like it has become our home away from home. We were there last night for a toilet paper holder, a new shade (we have a new window that is a different size from the old window) and some towel rods. YA is fairly handy and took on the toilet paper holder on Saturday afternoon. She didn’t like the size of the anchors to attach the handles so we had to make a trip to the hardware store. It was the third hardware store trip of the day for me, although the other two trips were about the shower caddy, not the toilet paper holder.
Once we were home, she was able to get it finished up in less than a half hour. When she called me to look at her handiwork, the photo above is what I saw. Quite a bit of mess for a toilet paper holder. She’s not traditionally as good about cleaning up after a project, but she did straighten up. I suggested she could clean up more and she reminded me that she’ll need these same tools for the towel racks. Good thought.
When I had to take a picture of the big mess for the little project, she objected and then said “why didn’t you take a picture of the holder?” So… voila:
Really, the last few weeks have been a little nuts. I’m burning the candle at both ends, and I need more hours in a day.
CROPS ARE OUT!
And I had a few hours alone in a tractor, with hopefully more to come.
Big Sigh.
Nice.
Kelly and I spent some time on the roof of the machine shed caulking trim pieces and looking for loose nails and trying to figure out why I have water dripping in my new insulated shop area when it rains. Remember, earlier this summer, when I couldn’t get up on the roof? I bought these new ladder extensions, which give me a hand hold 3 feet above the ladder, and they were worth the money. But it also led to a discussion about ladders. I have an old 24-foot aluminum extension ladder that I’m pretty sure dad got used, and it is better than the old wooden ladder we had been using. I bought a really nice 24-foot fiberglass ladder, but of course, that’s at a theater and used for lighting. It has my name painted on the side, meaning I’ll get it back at some point, but it’s more important to have it at the theater now.
I feel like I should replace this aluminum ladder. It’s got a slight twist on one leg. And it doesn’t have a top step where most ladders have a step now days. As good as fiberglass ladders are, they’re really heavy. And because I don’t expect to get any stronger as I get older, I will probably buy a new aluminum ladder.
It seems fitting that by the time you shouldn’t be climbing on the roof, you’ve also reached the point where you can’t pick up the ladder to get on the roof anymore.
The corn went surprisingly well, averaging 120 bushels per acre, 16 or 17% moisture and 57 or 58 pound test weight.
Remember, corn has to be at least 56 pound testweight to not get docked by the elevator. And it needs to be dried down to 15% moisture to store long term, anything above that incurs a drying cost. I know a couple of my fields were only doing about 55 bushels per acre, and some fields were doing amazingly well to get 120 bushels average. That is pretty good this year. Last year I had about 150 bushels per acre.
Soybeans were terrible, but I knew that. 55 pound testweight, soybeans need to be 60 pounds. And typically, moisture is not a problem, they need to be not over 13% and mine were 11%. They averaged about 20 bushels per acre. Again, considering some years I get 50 bushels/acre, and some places can get close to 100b/A, this growing year is good to have over. We will see what Crop Insurance does with all this.
Pictures tell a thousand words, so here’s a bunch of pictures. (Click on each photo to see the best view.)
RooftopLadderTractor TimeHarvestingHarvestingHarvestingMachineryLosing the LightTractor at NightNight EquipmentCornSoybeans
ANY CORRELATING CIRCUMSTANCES IN YOUR LIFE LATELY?
I have been a member of our church choir for about 20 years, most of them seated next to Eileen, a retired college librarian. She and I are both Altos, and are used to following one another through the music for pitch and rhythm.
For Christmas this year we are singing Morten Lauridsen’s Oh Magnum Mysterium, a beautiful piece that has parts for Soprano I and II, Alto I and II, Tenor I and II, as well as Baritone and Bass. Here is a recording of it>
Our choir is small right now, with only two tenors and two basses. We have four altos. The Tenor I part in the piece is quite high, so I and one other low Alto are singing Tenor I. Both Tenors will sing Tenor II, and the two basses will split the low men’s parts. Eileen will stay as a First Alto. Eileen and I decided after rehearsal of the piece last week that we just can’t sit next to each other while learning the Lauridsen piece because I was following her and she was following me and neither of us was getting our parts right. Neither of us realized how much we depended on one another. It will be better being in the row with the Tenors.
Who are your favorite choral composers? Who have you led astray?
I know that I’ve probably mentioned how much I distrust ads. But every now and then I am surprised — in a nice way.
Reading glasses. I’ve struggled for a couple of years with nighttime reading. As soon as it gets a little dark, it was hard to read – print just a little too small for comfort. In July, after finally figuring out all the ins and outs of Medicare (OK, SOME of the ins and outs of Medicare… I’m pretty sure that Medicare is set up so that nobody truly ever figures it out…and if they do, then it changes), I decided to get my eyes checked and to get glasses. My old glasses were granny glasses and bifocals and completely useless. Even with bigger lenses, I didn’t want bifocals again. My eye doctor seemed to think it was a fine idea to get two pairs of glasses – one for reading and one for driving at night.
I’ve seen too many Warby Parker ads on tv and wasn’t interested until a friend of mine highly recommended them. I did like the price point but didn’t want to do the “five pairs in the mail” thing so I actually went to a Warby Parker store. It was amazing. Staff greeted me, I had someone assisting me within a minute. They didn’t push me toward the expensive stuff (even on Medicare, I was on a budget), and weren’t trying to rush me out the door. They measured using a phone app, did up the paperwork and I was walking out the door literally twenty minutes later. The reading glasses showed up at my house five days later and the driving glasses a few days after that. I had to take the driving glasses in for an adjustment; this was also handled very quickly and very pleasantly. Honestly it took me longer to find a parking spot at the Galleria than it did to get this done.
The reading glasses are amazing to me. I suppose I could have just gotten cheap readers from the drugstore but I’m happy with my Warby Parker experience and love the new glasses!
Recommendations, ads, influencers? How do you choose new products?
A favorite book when our children were growing up was “Louhi, Witch of North Farm” by Toni de Gerez with illustrations by Barbara Cooney. It is a story taken from the Kalevala about Louhi stealing the sun and the moon and hiding them. The hero, Vainamoinen, eventually gets them back with the help of Seppo the smith.
A minor character in the book is Sit Behind the Stove, a character from Russian mythology, who lives in Louhi’s cottage. Husband sketched pictures of Sit Behind the Stove, which our children loved. I imagine Louhi’s kitchen looking like this:
I hadn’t thought about this until recently when Kyrill our Cesky Terrier found a small red ball in the yard and brought it in the house. It is an official Minnesota Twins T-Ball that he loves to chase. At times the ball seems to have a mind of its own, as it is ultrasensitive to even the smallest imperfections and dips in our laminate flooring in the dining room and living room. It gains momentum for movement with every dip in the floor and then rolls. Kyrill has learned that if he tosses it under the furniture it will eventually roll back to him. He watches intently to see where it might emerge, and then pounces on it.
The other day the ball rolled under the buffet in the dining room. When that happens, we usually have to retrieve it for him. After a minute or so, though, it magically rolled back out! It was rather unsettling, I admit, and I imagined that Sit Behind the Stove or perhaps a tomten must have tossed it back out.
Who or what are your favorite mythological characters?
I got the first calendar of the holiday season in the mail yesterday. It’s pretty – scenic destinations from all over – but useless. Nobody on the planet needs additional calendars less than I do – I know that you all know this.
My most expensive calendar is my Daytimer. I was actually given this portfolio-type calendar by my boss over 30 years ago. After he had gotten a good annual review, he presented his three employees (me, Alan, Ann) with this gift saying that he could not have gotten a good review if we weren’t all doing good work. As you can see from the frayed edges, it’s the original binder but I do spend the money every year to update the innards. In the various pockets I keep stamps, address labels, deposited checks and my old vaccination card (before I started carrying around the covid card in my purse). It also contains an address book that I update every couple of years.
Every month I do all my birthday/anniversary/occasion cards at once – on average about 20 cards a month. I pick them out, stamp the appropriate greetings/sayings, sign them, seal them, affix a stamp to them and stick on the address label and then sort them into my Daytimer for the week they need to be mailed. That’s why a lot of the time, my Daytimer looks like it does in the photo above. If I do cards for a holiday, I usually stack those on my dresser next to the Daytimer. Right now I have Thanksgiving cards and National Origami Day cards stacked up. (I have to justify all these stamps/dies/papers you know!)
I’m pretty sure that I could devise a cheaper system for storing cards that are waiting to be mailed but my current system works great and I do have a sentimental attachment to the Daytimer. My boss back then was a fabulous person to have as a boss – I was sorry when he left the company. Alan, Ann and I weren’t long with the company after that.
I’m sending the scenic calendar to work with YA – free stuff goes fast when left on a lunchroom table!
You wouldn’t think that making a batch of cupcakes would be a full-morning event, would you?
First, I had to decide what cupcakes to make. I have a couple of cookbooks that embellish box cake mixes so I started there. First there was a good looking lemon filled cupcake but this would require going to the store for lemon curd. (In addition to the contractor being here, I’ve been trying to make inroads into what I think is just too much foodstuff in the house.) Then I moved on to a cupcake made with juice concentrate – oops, no concentrate except apple. Coming off the autumn, I’m a little appled-out. Maybe a cinnamon toast cupcake – shoot, no pudding mix. By this time I was thinking I should just use the box mix and be done with it.
Then I saw the white chocolate cupcake. I knew I probably had the 1 cup of white chocolate chips (or the equivalent) and I knew I could approximate whole milk with the skim milk and the heavy cream I had in the fridge. Of course, when I was pulling out the chocolate chips, I found an unopened jar of lemon curd. Oh well, next time.
So I finally had cupcakes in the oven by 10:30 (a full hour and a half after starting this project). Luckily I did have cream cheese for the frosting so at least I didn’t have to spend time looking for alternatives. The cupcakes turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself!
When was the last time it took you too long to make a decision?
We have a new church Worship and Music director, who also directs the choir. She is our son’s age, and we have known her since we first saw her at her infant baptism 35 years ago. She was an elementary music teacher and has a lovely mezzo voice. She has purchased lots of new, challenging music for us. We had got pretty entrenched with the same pieces with the former director.
Our church choir is pretty small with about ten regular singers. We are often short on sopranos, which we were yesterday on Reformation Sunday. This is a big day for Lutherans, and there was a display of Luther’s 95 Theses in the front of the church. Our choir director planned big, and we sang three very challenging choral pieces, and recruited the high school band director to play timpani, a college trombone student, a high school trumpet player, and three sopranos who sing in the Badlands Opera organization. Ironically, four of our visiting musicians were Roman Catholics, but they sat cheerfully through two services and sang “A Mighty Fortress” with gusto. They even took communion!
Our bell choir director is also the organist. She has been taking the choir director’s lead and giving us very challenging music, too. It is fun, but sort of daunting to try new things and stretch ourselves in ways we haven’t had to before. The congregation is very happy with our efforts. I believe it was Gustav Holst who said in reference to small church choirs attempting difficult musical pieces that “anything worth doing is worth doing badly”, which I take as encouragement to keep performing these challenging works even if we don’t do them perfectly.
What are some of the positive challenges you have had lately? Have you been part of an organization where positive “shake ups” have happened? What is the most challenging musical work you ever performed?
This week has all been about the theater. Well, Covid and Theatre, I guess. Wait, Covid was last week. It’s all a blur. I’m over the symptoms, but still testing positive. Good thing I work alone most of the time. And by now I shouldn’t be contagious anymore.
It’s rained a lot lately. And now it’s getting cold. We’ve had more than six inches of rain since the end of September. Oh well.
We open a show Saturday, and then next week will be two shows a day for all five days. Kids are bused in from the local area elementary schools. This kid show has always been a big hit for us, and of course we haven’t been able to do one since 2019. We were afraid we had lost a lot of the contacts at the schools and weren’t really sure what kind of reception we’d get this year. We feel really lucky to have an audience for all 10 shows, including three that are sold out. The play is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth night’ called “Lions in Illyria” by Robert Kauzlaric. Very cartoony and big and goofy and the kids should enjoy it. And short at 65 minutes. The three days I missed with Covid would have been helpful about now. I’m sure the paint will be dry by Saturday afternoon. Things will be ‘good enough’. I did take a few shortcuts, I called in some favors. The show must go on. As long as we can keep cast healthy.
I have a can full of stir sticks at the college. I’m pretty sure some of them were here when I started the job 17 years ago. I do know that I threw out a bunch a few years ago and for this show I decided to put all the ones that I’ve used a different container, because I feel like the sticks at the back of the first can were being neglected. Kelly was in to help paint one day and her goal was to use up all the stir sticks. She made a good dent in it. The can on the left is the unused sticks for the show, and the can on the right are the ones that I have used.
I learned how to paint marble for the show. The white and pink one I painted using a ripped T-shirt. My friend Paul came in and painted the green one. He makes it look so easy. And he enjoyed having an easy project like this.
I’ve talked with Crop Insurance about my soybeans. We started some preliminary claims just so the paperwork is out there. I’ve got until December 10 to get them harvested. After that we just write it off and let them go to insurance. This week of 20° temps at night will certainly freeze everything, but honestly, I’m not sure if the beans will ever dry down enough to harvest. We would need a good week of clear sunny, warmish temperatures and that’s really pushing it this time of the year. But with these weather patterns, who knows. I get home about 10:00 PM these nights (after rehearsal) and I was out picking up hoses and taking the outside faucet off the wellhouse. I need to pick up the pressure washer and hand sprayer yet.
Luna has moved right in and made herself at home. Our bed is her favorite place to be now. She loves to play catch and Tug-O-War. She’s shredded a few toys. And we’ve left her home alone and she’s just fine. Doesn’t like it, but at least she’s not chewing up the furniture.
Trail Baboon 