Busy Day

It was another nice day on Thursday (unless you want rain as we all do in Southeast Michigan). It was sunny with a slight breeze and a little warmer than yesterday (I think the high today was 78 degrees F.)

The car was still chugging upon acceleration, making quick changes on the expressway a little dicey.

I ran some errands at lunch. I went to the hardware store to pick up more mineral spirits, and then went to Leda’s Coney Island next door. I fully intended getting a gyro with a bowl of soup (one of their staple lunch specials) but the waitress tempted me with a warm corned beef and cheese sandwich on an onion roll with a bowl of chicken noodle soup for the same price ($5.99). I admit, its been so long since I had corned beef I gave in. It was excellent and the soup was good, if somewhat under-seasoned (but I fixed that).

Then I went to the Feed Store and got a bag of bird seed. I stopped at the bank’s ATM to replenish my cash supply and drove back to work.

They had another open house and classic car show at the end of the street where I work and, as usual, traffic when leaving at 5:00 PM was horrible. I must admit, I have wandered around looking at the cool cars before, but today I just wanted to get home.

I stopped at the corner gas station (where I wished I’d bought my last tank of gas) and bought some Cope. I was going to cut through the quarter car wash when it dawned on me that I hadn’t washed the car since those guys detailed it for me. So, I pulled in a stall and hosed it down. I drove home and wiped it dry with a towel.

Then I drove out back so I could easily transfer the 40 pound bag of birdseed from the trunk to the can. I did that, and took the car back out to the front and into the garage. I noticed one rear tire looked a little low at the car wash, so I turned on the air compressor and checked all the tires, adding air to the low one.

Finally in the house, I treated the cats, changed clothes and checked the mail. I got my first Father’s Day card and, after reading it, set it on top the fireplace. Thanks, Jake and Carla! (I do the same thing to you and Melissa, BTW. My stuff always gets there early as I’m never sure just how long it takes the mail to get to you guys way down there.)

I also checked my email and found Jeremy sent me a link to his presentation last weekend. I watched about 10 minutes of it (great so far, son) but will have to check it out in stages as its almost an hour long.

I watched a bit of the news while I had a cup of coffee. Then I went out back (it really was nice out) and did some trimming in the very back garden, still trying to keep the kudzu from strangling my hostas, raspberries and day lilies. There was a LOT of trash that will need to be picked up, but I do want to do some work inside tonight, so I went back in just before 7:00 PM. I made another cup of coffee.

Fortunately, the flexible gas line is long enough that I could push the stove into the downstairs doorway (I did have to unplug the stove though as the electrical cord was much shorter).

And, now there was a problem (one I had anticipated, though). I knew that when they put the gas line in for the stove, they tore up not only the new tile, but some of the old. So, there was a big (say six inches around) hole (maybe gouge would be a better word) under the stove that went all the way down to the original floor. So, I got out some spackling compound and filled it in (it took almost the whole small can!) I smoothed it as best I could (which was not all that smooth) and decided it would have to dry for at least a day or two before I should attempt to put the new tile over it.

Luckily, it was in the rear of the stove cavity, so I could still work in the front. I ended up only being able to lay four tiles, two of which had to be cut out to fit correctly. I had to stay away from the cabinet edge as the old linoleum was buckled up (I’ll have to work on how to deal with that!) I took a picture to show you what I mean.

The stove being out of commission for the night, I heated up another pot pie for my dinner at 8:15 PM. I watched TV while waiting for the coffee to wear off.