JTOK Chatter > 2021 > August > Page 2

Month: August 2021

And now for the high ladder work!

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We had a generic white ceiling fan in the living room but wanted something with a bit more pizzazz since we were redoing everything else…and with the high ceilings we also needed help! This is our electrician Jorge (he’s been doing jobs for us since we moved to Gurnee four years ago)!

Out with the old!
And here’s the new one! It’s bigger!

We also got a new chandelier for the foyer…which also required Jorge.

The Original — nice, just not my style

So now I’ll take a minute and tell you some backstory: I found this chandelier on Facebook Marketplace back in May. It was expensive but was being offered at less than half price (I googled). But it was exactly what I wanted. Something I would have only dreamed of getting but never would because of the price.

So we discussed and decided yes. We offered $750 but she declined saying they paid full price. We still wanted it. But we had to borrow a truck and then we just couldn’t connect and then she was on vacation for six weeks… But we lucked out in that we were able to pick it up the day before Jorge was scheduled to come.

We went to pick it up and the lady was super nice. We chatted and told her we were military, this was my dream chandelier, etc. and she offered to buy the bulbs too thank us for our service! Wait, what? Seriously? We knew the bulbs were going to be a couple hundred dollars (we needed 36 and they are specialty bulbs) so we asked again to make sure. Yes, she was sure!

We chatted more and I ended up inviting her to our upcoming party, and she said she would order the bulbs ASAP and drop them off at the house!

It’s huge.

We then shared a few texts picking out the bulbs we wanted (we had the same ones in both our carts) and then she even dropped off four bottles of Prosecco for our party! So the whole thing just went off perfectly.

Anyway. Back to the install.

Since it was so big and heavy, Tom and I even had to help!

Using straps because it’s almost 100#.
This is where I helped — I pulled on one of the straps to pull the chandelier out of the way of the ladder as they raised it.

Getting it to this point took two days and about four hours! It took a bunch of trips into the attic to reinforce the bracket and do the wiring and who knows what else.

And then it was time to install the lightbulbs!

And holy crap. It was just a little bright.

The light was obviously meant to be in just a bit bigger room. Or maybe a bigger non-enclosed space? Or less-bright lights? We all got a good laugh out of it regardless. And long story short, the bulbs are dimmable so we will eventually change one of the three switches to a dimmer.

But it’s perfect and I love it.

We’re down to the final hours.

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Or picking up the kids from two weeks of grandparent camp. Which happens today. In a few hours.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my children dearly. But I absolutely do not miss them while they’re gone for these two weeks. Aside from the fact I know they’re having a great time with their grandparents and making awesome memories…our house is soooo quiet and there’s no whining or arguing or drama or asking for snacks and I don’t have to do any parenting, which we all know is mentally exhausting.

FYI Tom says he misses them the whole time. I say it’s because he wasn’t the only one home with them for their entire lives (minus this past Covid timeline).

Unexpected free drinks!

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We Yelped to find a good restaurant for dinner, only to get there and it was closed. So on we went to our second choice—Tine & Cellar. We get there and get seated…then proceed to watch a bunch of other tables get seated—and get drinks and orders taken—while we hadn’t seen anyone. So Tom went to find a manager.

A waiter came up pretty quickly and apologized profusely—he said they hadn’t told him he had a table (which was believable since they didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason who served what table). He then said all our drinks that night were on the house. SCORE!

So you’re looking at a Smoked Manhattan and a pseudo margarita (I say pseudo because it was called Yolanda Be Cool and was just Blanco tequila, strawberry puree, lime juice, and habañero simple syrup). We were both VERY HAPPY and agreed that these free drinks made being temporarily forgotten about being seated totally worth it.

We went on to order the truffle fries which was about enough for four people (they really should say that on the menu)…but it was okay because they might have been some of the best fries I’ve ever had)

Tom had a fish and chips basket and I had JägerSchnitzel and both were really yummy. We were very happy with our meal!

I’d enjoy this mini overnight getaway a little more if…

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  1. We weren’t picking up our kids from Grandparent Camp tomorrow.
  2. This was an ocean view on a cruise ship. These windows are awesome but the view is…meh.

What’s the story? We were meeting my dad and Linda in Wausau to make the exchange…and Tom decided he would rather drive up the night before and stay overnight instead of having to get up and on the road super early. I was fine with that.

Our birch forest is done!

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I saw these ideas on Pinterest years ago and knew I wanted to do something similar at some time in some house in the future. Well, it turns out now is the time and this is the house! And I’ve been collecting trees and branches from my dad’s property in the upper peninsula on various trips so we were finally ready!

Tom built the box for the trees and screwed the individual trees/branches into pieces of wood which are then screwed down to the inner frame of the box itself! There’s 1-2 trees per piece—which is about the max weight Tom wanted to have to lift up the ladder!

Lined up waiting to be installed!

Done!

Our designer said we should add uplights. (I need to get a better pic — this was during installation.)

Hiking with Papa and Grannie

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From Linda:

North point outer shore on the Big Lake (Lake Superior). The day before Owen and Grannie kayaked from south shore, around middle point, through the channel between outer point and the island. On to two more islands and between those on the Big Lake. A little fish was jumping out of the water around the bow of Owen’s kayak. Also saw two loons. Great ride. Owen is stronger than Grannie.

Katie’s Room: Done

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We pulled out two bags of garbage (sooooo much paper and candy wrappers and broken crayons), did about four loads of laundry, and removed two garbage bags of outgrown clothes. I cleaned the carpet TWICE (but alas it will never be clean because Katie loves to play with makeup and dye and markers and God knows what else and it has permanent stains).

She got a new ceiling fan, curtains, and princess netting, plus we finally hung her initials. Tom will eventually build a window seat with bookshelves IF she can keep it picked up. If not, the new rule is “If you don’t keep it picked up, I will remove the things so you don’t have to worry about it.”

Tom’s senior moment

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We were vacuum sealing hamburger to put in the freezer and I was writing the date on them like I always do: 8/21

After completing a few, Tom looks at me totally serious and says OH MAN.

Me: What?

Him: We forgot our anniversary.

Me: Um. no we didn’t. It’s the 18th.

It then dawns on him I’m writing the year, not the day—August 2021.

I’m so glad we can laugh at and with each other!

Failure and Fun

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Linda let us know it wasn’t all fun and games…

I asked what they were watching. First answer- nothing. Did not accept that. Another ask. Mumble. Another ask. Not a teacher for nothing.

We were watching something Bob. No clue to me. O said mom and dad don’t like it. So maybe you shouldn’t be watching it. Yah. Give me the remote. He hands it nicely. K is totally quiet, unless I ask her specific questions. Me, you lost the privilege of watching tv downstairs.

It was bedtime. K goes to her room. O asks to talk with me. Said it wasn’t really Bob (?) they were watching. Something worse…? Norman, maybe. I thanked him for being honest. Tried the why questions. Did tell him he was the big brother. Both in tears. O really meant sorry. K not so much. I have hidden both remotes for the rest of the week. Told them we would not continue to discuss it.

Fun: Nanc, Tim, Anna, Liz, and my cousin Colleen, her husband Randy, and her brother Randy came over for muffins, coffee, juice. Liz played darts with OK. They also visited. One of my cousins talked about people from Chicago being fibbers? O didn’t like it and left. They have had lunch. Waiting for ham to come out of oven. O prepped it. I made good potatoes. Mark and Julie coming for supper. Once ham out O and I going kayaking. Then to the beach. Hazy today.

So we now have a new front walk!

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So the way the front walk was laid out really didn’t work for us. Where we park the car on the driveway puts us getting out right in the middle of dirt (there used to be bushes there but we took them out (and replanted them) because they were in the way).

We had hoped to be able to just add on some bricks and adjust the design a little…but of course they don’t make the same bricks anymore. We totally didn’t want to rip everything out but we didn’t have much of a choice.

They worked on it over a few days, so here’s the progression.

July 30 — Demolition and prep day

July 31 — We decided on a raised bed on one side. More money. Plus they told us we really needed to redo the stoop because it was falling. More money. Plus we decided to add some accent bricks and a few in-brick lights. More money. More money. This is how a $1600 project turned into a $3700 project. DAMN HOME OWNERSHIP.

August 1 — the meat of the project!

August 2 — had we given it some more thought, we might have gone with a more squared-off design (and fewer accent bricks) to save some labor costs! But DAMN it looks amazing!