Mother's Day

On Saturday we went to Olympia for a Mom's day lunch at the brother-in-laws. On the way down, we stopped in Tacoma a bought some doors. Sandi found these on Craigs List; They are for the nook and loft. French doors with openable side-lights, they're pretty cool. I'm not going to do photos of un-installed stuff, you'll see all that in due time.

We skipped the ski patrol banquet this year. I really wish they'd do it another weekend.

On Friday, I took the girls and we snuck to Puyallup, where we bought a bathtub. New, large, deep and perfect for the master bath. We "hid" it in the garage and today while breakfast cooked the girls and I set it up in the middle of the garage and mom was blindfolded and led out. Wow, was she surprised! It was great! The kids also made stuff at school, and they commandeered mom's craft area and supplies to make her cards. All-in-all I think it was a good weekend.

We're accumulating stuff for the house, though I think we have to be carefull. We're going to end up with all sorts of items for a house but no house to put them in!

Tomorrow (Monday) we have an appointment with another framing contractor. We've called for an apointment with our business bank to discuss financing, and we have also lit a fire under Viceroy to address the substantially reduced costs of lumber across the country. We're hoping for a substantial reduction in that cost, in order to acheive our budget goals and make this a reality. We're going over both the budget and the plans tonight. We need to do the mark-up of the concept plans in the event that Viceroy steps up and we need to give them another check along with plans to proceed with the final concept in preparation for production.

The damn septic is a problem. Not the new tank and stuff we did, but the temporary tank and pump arrangement at the shop. Fortunately there is an alarm connceted to it, sensing over-fill. It tripped at about 2am this morning, yanking me from what may have been a fantastic wet dream but I'll never know. Usually if the phone rings after hours it's for me, so Sandi graciously pushes me out to answer it. Anyway, I went out and turned the pump power off and went back to bed. We're not putting anything into it, so I was not worried about flooding. This morning I opened up the tank, pulled the pump out and discovered that the impeller was clogged with ickyness, mostly hair and fibrous plant life, probably brocolli stalk and green onions. More emphasis on putting NOTHING into the system that's not supposed to be there. The pump we have is not a grinder, rather an effluent pump suitable for the purpose but not immune to compromise. Easy to clean out, disgusting to take out. Oh my, the things a guy has to do for his girls....

This is the "temporary" tank at the shop. Its main purpose is for the temporary house location, but it's also prepared to be used for the shop if we add a toilet/shower as we'd like to do.

A shot of the shop with all the concrete in and framing underway.

Thanks to Scott, Mitch, Mark, Mike and others who threw in on various parts of the erection process. It took a long, long time. And is still going on.