Monday Highlights

Here’s a new view from The Stone House. We are making appreciable progress on the new lower level bathroom. Notice, I did not say basement. I think we can graduate from that term from now on! The shower is going in too, this week.

We have Brad and Sierra here with us all week. They add a just right dimension to our lives: taking over the kitchen, running errands, and chatting long over the pushed back dishes at table. I realize that we have adjusted to our own two-people routines and we like it, but it’s terribly easy to give over to having the kids here. I had only just begun to stop missing them.

It’s eclipse day. With our cloud cover and being in Wisconsin, it merely appears to be a little more cloudy. I hope all you eclipse chasers had a wonderful experience, though.

I have to admit that another bright spot in my world is how nicely Amazon brings me these bits of only what I need in the moment. Right now it is a filter for the upstairs air cleaner, and precious, albeit expensive zinnia seeds from Floret. (There ought to be a little link right here for them. Just google them if you don’t know. Floret flowers and get yourself an education. Erin is an amazing worker, generous and unassuming.)

We bought switch plate and receptacle covers at L&M for the new bathroom Saturday. The double switch plate cover was too small. Elv felt a little frustrated about his workmanship because he had really tried to get it right. Not to worry, apparently it happens a lot. Amazon had the oversized plate for us and it will be shipped to us by Wednesday. Just a little detail, that makes so big a difference. I’m sure there’s a moral to this story somewhere.

We have a furnished guest room at last. This little room has had quite a spin in the last year. In the end, the crazy ideas have to go away and we must settle for what’s practical and needed. I wanted a piano room/an extra visit space/library room/ play area in this house when we moved back a year ago. Finally, after a few months of some of that sort of happening in this little room with little windows and slanted walls, and an air mattress for guesting, well, the yen wore off. So now with the right furniture and some little touches of hygge and love, we have a veritable guest room. I wanted that, too, after-all. The other spaces happen naturally in the proper places that they will anyway. The children gravitate to the landing on the stairs wherein I tucked a bookcase full of their books. The piano is back to it’s old spot in the living room. Elv’s den is a great place to take a private tete a tete, if you wish. And we have bookcases full of books in more than one room of our house. So we solved it. I’m satisfied.

A last tidbit to add here, is that we installed Wi-Fi again. I think it’s been four years since we shut it off. It really didn’t bother us much till lately, when Elv’s devices were never updated and getting clumsy. I did miss using the computer for blogging. The phone is do-able, but not the same. We know how life is quite ordinary and doable without all the tech and speed of Wi-Fi. Let’s see if we can stay in that ordinary place even with the crazy fast internet. So much garbage to avoid on the internet. A new search engine called Freespoke is available now with no adult content and having reliable news. I added the app to my phone for the search engine part of it, for recipes and learning. I want to try it.