So Friggin' Pleasant

Lindz and I spent Memorial Day weekend at Lake Norman. It's kind of like a Caribbean resort at her parents' condo, but no one tries to sell us weed, and the drinks are cheaper. We're always so grateful to be so near this escape. Unfortunately, our drive to the lake sometimes coincides with a NASCAR race. A race creates hateful traffic stretching into all the neighboring counties. The travel and expense that racing fans will undertake puzzles me; I can watch people drive too fast and swerve in front of each other during my commute every day. At least there's some possibility of punishment in NASCAR.

Thankfully, we missed the traffic this weekend. This is only theoretical bitching.

Beef Penis

The next project

This is the next target of our nesting-on-steroids campaign. It will be a different project than remodeling the bathroom, since we don't have another kitchen. We won't be able to drag the project out over a year.



There are lots of cute shows on HGTV about remodeling, and Lowe's or Home Depot are more than happy to give you a bunch of catalogs full of expensive shit. I wish some of it pertained to our kitchen. The USA's home improvement marketing machine doesn't have the dinky galley kitchen on its radar. I don't pretend to be surprised, just annoyed. I took the two pictures above while standing in the same spot. This is a small kitchen. It's nice and efficient for one cook, but it bears no resemblance to the vast rooms full of custom cabinetry that fill magazines and catalogs. I'd like to make some aspects of it more space-efficient; perhaps IKEA will have some options. Our kitchen is huge by European standards.

Anyway, we're thinking Corian or some solid counter top material, a big, deep, single bowl sink that takes less counter space than the present shallow two-bowler, apothecary glass cupboard doors, and perhaps a new window. We're replacing the Reagan-Era dishwasher anyway.

Our house is a modest, comfortable ranch. Tearing out walls and doing a dream kitchen would cost more money than we'd ever get back from a buyer, so we're going to be moderate. It will be a harder project to live with than the bathroom, though.

Up in Michigan 2

Our late maternal grandmother had an incredible collection of salt & pepper shakers. Grandpa built the display cabinet.

I found this sign at a store in Frankenmuth. It's virtually identical to one that our late paternal grandparents had in their front porch area (my sister has that one in her guest room now). I hung it on our porch in Raleigh.

This is Delphi. However, it is Steering Gear to us. It was Saginaw Division of General Motors. Our dad worked there for 34 years. I left the picture file full-size for detail.

This 1967 ranch is the house is the first house I ever lived in. It still has the same sycamore tree out front. Our family lived here for 11 years before moving to the house where our mother still lives today.

But enough about the past. Here is my eldest nephew, standard-bearer of our family's next generation, lighting fireworks in the sandbox:

And here is my eldest niece bouncing on the trampoline:

Up in Michigan (some random pics)

My brother and I drove up to Michigan. In Ohio, we purchased a bunch of fireworks for the delight of our nephews and ourselves. Here's one lighting up the sky above our elder brother's back yard:

This is the bathroom I shared with my siblings as a child. I believe it's original to the 1964 construction of the house. One doesn't find lavender toilets, tubs and sinks very often anymore.

Here is part of the slate backsplash in my sister and brother-in-law's new basement kitchen. The basement is gorgeous, and there are no purple fixtures.

The reason for our journey was the baptism of our new niece, Cecilia. It was a beautiful day, and she is a beautiful baby.

As always, food was crucial to the family visit. I helped my sister make three caramelized onion pizzas for the baptism lunch. Here's the first one out of the oven:

It was goooood. We drank plenty of beer with it, such as Bell's Pale Ale, Bell's Amber Ale and, most importantly, the dedicatory homebrew: Petite Merde Transverse Brown Ale. There was plenty of food of all sorts, and lots of family & friends.