That’s my Gramps (D.J. Romino) on the left listening to Sen. Byrd play the fiddle.

Well today, despite the evil heat and humidity, I managed to get it in gear and replace the window. Not that it was easy. And not that it ended entirely well.

First I had to scrape the window a bit because the 24″ x 24″ piece of glass would not fit in the slightly larger than 24″ x 24″ window.

Sure, I do all my home repair work in a sun dress, don’t you? Seriously though, I’d been out and about (and trying not to die from the heat – 90+ degrees) and in my typical form decided once I got home that  I’d work on some projects that needed finishing. Well why in the world would I change clothes? I was, after all, ONLY going to pop that glass in the window and secure it, right?  Oh and maybe paint an ammo can and perhaps paint the Wheel of Morality (the 5th Great MEAT-n-Greet at Coopers Rocks is coming up soon.)

Well after all that scraping, which turned into me sanding and scraping and then getting out my wood chisel. Which of course I could not find. But after digging it up I was not surprised to find that it needed sharpened. Which mean I had to find something with which to sharpen the chisel before I could make any progress. I was trying to not lose my patience since this was becoming quite a large pain. (The first window – predictably – went in without any drama, scraping or fuss.)

I think I must have put that piece of glass in the window about 20 times and it still did not fit. Of course it wasn’t me working non-stop. I had a few respites thanks to intermittent thunderstorms which were rolling through. But once they stopped coming and going and I no longer had to run for cover I finally (thought) I won! Yes the glass went in. The glass was secured. And then….the glass cracked. But you know what? By that stage I really did not care. And it was only a tiny crack. And the window is in the back of the garage.

Oh, did I mention I also had to tie on the weights for the bottom window? Well I did. And I had to free the windows from many years of paint. At the very least I know that the trim on the house used to be blue before the current mauve.

And so you are probably wondering why the heck anyone should care about me putting in a new window in the back of my garage. Well it’s a valid point to ponder. And so I’ll come clean. That particular piece of glass that I just installed is a particularly evil piece of glass.

Because yesterday while I was out geocaching with 89SC at The Jug WMA that evil piece of glass had a devious plan which it managed to bring to fruition. What was the evil plan you may ask? Well it just so happens that since glass is fragile I had placed this evil piece of glass on top of a small cart in the garage. And there it sat in wait, concocting a plan. Waiting…waiting for someone oblivious.

And since Chad lives here too, it didn’t have to wait very long. Sometime around 2:00 pm Saturday that evil piece of glass lured Chad in and sliced him up. Oh yes. It did.

And how did I find out? (Because remember I was out in The Jug where there was no cell service.) I found out via a short text message that Chad was at MedExpress. And that was IT. No more information. And why did this freak me out? Because Chad and Dad were at home with an industrial wet saw cutting flagstone.

Nicely played Mr. Evil Piece of Glass. Nicely Played.

WARNING! GRAPHIC PHOTO of Chad’s Injury coming up next. Not as gnarly as my summer destroying injury of June 2009, but still slightly unpleasant.

[Show as slideshow]

 

It just happened to be on April 24. No big deal. Except that’s our annivesary.

Because nothing says Happy Anniversary like picking up trash.

And then we had dinner at Apple Annie’s in Point Marion.

Do we know how to live it up or what?

It appeared that all the planets were going to be in alignment for our trip. I had no problem getting my vacation days approved. I was organized. Both our cars were inspected.  AND We were promised Canadian SUMMER temperature. Which confused me since the forecast was for 55 degrees Fahrenheit and we all know that MY concept of Summer involves 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Guess going a few degrees North in latitude changes ones perspective of appropriate Summer temperatures. (Yeah, I still packed my long john top.)

At any rate we headed out after work and since Chad was making such good time on the road, we figured we may as well drive straight on through instead of stopping in Buffalo as earlier planned. We arrived at the TK homestead in Canada sometime around midnight or so, after encountering the sole rude Canadian (at the border no less, what’s up with that?) and promptly crashed. After all, we had a BIG day of summer-like temperatures ahead of us.

As promised, the next day dawned with Canadian Summer temperatures (and even what I’d consider called WV Late Spring temps at one point). The sun was out, the wind was NOT blowing and it looked to be awesome out. Which of course means that we set out on the traditional Team Kuclick pastime of geocaching. We also took the opportunity to begin instructing W & R in the fine art of re-hiding the geocache so as not to alert the general public that under THAT cleverly stacked sticks / bark lay an awesome treasure.

After a brisk day of caching, marching through a marsh, pulling small children and generally enjoying Canadian Summer Temperatures we headed back to the TK headquarters for nourishment and regrouping. After all, we had plans for these Canadian Summer Temperatures. Big Plans. We were foiled, however, in our late afternoon (BIG) plans which involved sun & refreshing beverages since the early  Canadian Summer temps dissipated into a gale force wind (not really, but it was windy).  Please note, however, that this in NO way prevented certain menfolk from engaging in a rousing game of golf, where the golfer who was losing had to pull the cart. As you may imagine, playing in such windy conditions was a bit trying.

There was additional geocaching in non-Canadian Summer Tempertures. In fact, it began to flurry. But ha! We see your flurries and LAUGH in your general direction. (And the much anticipated endless sushi. Oh endless sushi….why do you not exist in West Virginia?) The geocaching involved epic fail geocaching whereupon PMD & I left the men folks with the kids and said “Oh we’ll be right back.” which are generally our famous last words. But the men folks, being accustomed to that muttered something, but were not quick enough to prevent our running off. Mostly because they knew what sheer joy geocaching brings PMD & me (or it could be because we didn’t really give them much choice…)

Halfway up this possible mud-flume of doom, while she is stuck in some shrubbery and I’m trying to figure out how to get around a tree, PMD looks at me and indicates that this was possible not the best idea of all times. And I say, “Eh, I do this stuff all the time.”  (and mostly because I have no common sense or people to make me stop) Despite some misgivings we made tit to the top of the possible mud-flume of doom and realized that A. We had all the kid supplies and B. PMD actually had kids. The latter being important since if she fell down mud-flume of doom, there would most likely be a child-rearing problem. While me…well I figure sidekick could handle the 2 ferrets and 4 cats by himself.  After a cautious (for PMD) descent we headed back, willing to accept our DNF.

Probably the best part of the trip (for me at any rate), however was when PMD and the girls took me and Ping on surprise trip to visit some of Ping’s relatives.

And so ends my late, short & lame post about our visit North.

[Show as slideshow]

 

Being the dutiful aunt & uncle that we are (stop laughing) we laced on the old school roller skates (because I forgot to pack our roller blades) and hit the hardwood. You know what? I had forgotten how much fun roller skating is. Oh yeah, it was fun.

And WAY better than being on the treadmill or exercise bike. Although the roller skates were heavy. Far heavier than my roller blades. It was like I had strapped on cinder blocks that happened to have four wheels screwed to them. Anyway, cinder block or not,  it was fun. It was so much fun that I had to be drug back to the snack bar for cake. Yeah, me being drug away from exercise for food. Seriously, stop laughing.

The cake was (of course) a work of coolness. And deliciousness. Delicious coolness, chocolate Egyptian goodness.  How can you top that?  You so know that if Dr. Kent Weeks had a birthday cake, it would totally look like that. (I half-heartedly apologize for that last bit of geekiness. Yes, I think Egyptologists are rock stars.) And Chad pointed out that surely when Bronwyn is defending her dissertation in Egyptology that this cake is going to be the photo on the cover.

And don’t think the aunt & uncle were the only grown ups with skates. The birthday girl’s mom & dad were FAR MORE COOL in their inline skates and mad food service skills. Hot pizza & soda? On skates? What madness!

Sadly since we had to get back to Morgantown we left before the party was completely over.  But I’m totally dragging out the roller blades, well once I find them.

[Show as slideshow]

 

Imagine my utter surprise when I awoke to find four inches of snow blanketing town and more on the way. Now THAT’s more like it Mother Nature!

Now alot of folks would freak out and stay inside (or worse, be stupid and try to get their convertible pontiac whatever off the side of a hill with the top down) but not me. I had cards to be mailed. And plus, come on, I own tons of winter gear! Chad and I bundled up and headed down to the post office (and liquor store because it never hurts to have a bottle of port on a snowy day).

It sure is fun to play in the snow when you’ve got nothing to do. Lots of fun.

After a quick snack and a rest, it occurred to me (thanks to her loving husband -ed) that we owned snowshoes that had never been used. So back we bundled and off we went, going up and around neighborhood (and seeing the aforementioned folks in the convertible – kids, if you aren’t driving a snow worthy car, just walk) enjoying the 6+ inches of snow (while being pelted with yet more snow).

I love snow days, even if they are just Saturdays in disguise.

ps. our siamese Kimi REALLY wanted outside. She started out the back door a few times but then thought better of it. When we went out to put on the snowshoes she snuck out onto the front porch.

She gave it the old college try but retreated to the porch by the time we’d gotten into our snowshoes and were heading up the hill. I dare say, I doubt Kimi is going to be making any more breaks for freedom any time soon.

[Show as slideshow]

 

From the depth of some box was unearthed the following photographs, which nearly ended up in a dust heap, if not for my step-dad snagging them and handing them over. My mom is not much of a keeper of things.

[Show as slideshow]

 

And so Mom and I thought hey…let’s take the four floor tour! Yes, yes we did. Surprisingly this time around, despite the upper floor portion of our tour consisting of only four other folks including the tour guide, it wasn’t creepy. Not creepy at all. Which was strange.

In fact the only scary part was hanging out waiting and waiting and waiting among the rather irritable and cranky folks who were also waiting for a tour.  Honestly. I thought one lady was going to break out a whooping stick or some other implement of damage. And I thought I had anger management issues. Ha!

Anyway, while milling about and wasting Mom and I checked out the entertainment….not a lot of channels in this neck of the woods.

Once the tour got started though, anger management lady seemed to calm down. But just in case Mom and I checked out the phone service. You know, in the event we had to make an emergency call for help.

It was a grand time indeed. Cold, sad and strange. But not creepy. Perhaps it was because it was such a nice sunny day. Maybe it was because there was a carnival on the front lawn. Who knows.

[Show as slideshow]

 

I wore the same dress in December 2007 to the company holiday party.  Although it required some minor alterations before I could squeeze into it. I had to take out the zipper in the back and add a set of eyelets so it could be laced up the back. And my minks (yes, poor little critters) were found in a second hand store. [For the record, I didn't wear the fur out of the house. Not really my style.]

[Show as slideshow]

 

[Show as slideshow]

 

Fourteen weeks is a long time to be sitting around doing nothing (ok, I didn’t just sit and do nothing, but I am out of riding shape at any rate).  Long suffering husband pretty much figured that once I got my all clear from the surgeon he wouldn’t see much of me. Which is pretty accurate. I’ve got a lot of barn time to make up for.

And so what would an arm update be without a photo. Although you may be much disappointed to see that the scar has faded drastically. Yay for Vitamin E Oil.

[Show as slideshow]