One wall is completely gone, the other mostly gone and the only reason the sink is still standing is because they couldn’t get the power to the garbage disposal shut off. The contractor remembered that we had two different fuse boxes (old house) and forgot where I told him the second one was.
Last night we went to Kroger to stock up on some more restaurant gift cards. There were two reasons for this, one, no kitchen, so for the next couple of weeks we will be dining out fairly often and two, they were offering 4x fuel points. So the $100 spent equated to 400 points or an additional 40¢ off a gallon of gas above what we normally get from our weekly shopping.
A big disappointment was that they didn’t have any DD cards, because we eat there at least twice a week we burn through those $15 cards pretty quickly. As we were checking out I suggested that take out twenty in cash too as I only had two dollars in my wallet. Donna agreed. As I was going through the motions of checking out, Donna asked the employee manning the area did they have any Dunkin Donut gift cards in the back or somewhere. I paused and waited until the attendant got back, empty-handed, to finish checking out. I gathered up the gift cards and their accompanying bits of paperwork and we left.
This morning when we got to work Donna asked for a dollar so she could go to the machine and get a hot chocolate. When I opened my wallet to give it to her all that was in there was just two dollars. Uh, oh, I instantly knew what happened. I was so caught up in the DD card process that I never grabbed the twenty out of the dispenser. Dumbass!
Donna saved the day by calling the store, and lucky us the cashier noticed the lonely twenty dollar bill and turned it in to the service desk. Retrieving the money after dinner this evening was quite an adventure and if I get around to it, a post in of itself.
Work has started on the remodel. Donna asked that the contractor use some plastic to seal around the door from the kitchen to the dining room and he did. As a bonus he cut out a temporary little window for us to poke our head in and see what is going on. Each day, as long as the project is going on and there is progress, I’m going to take a photo through the “window.” The yellow tile counter top is no more and the upper cabinets on one side are down.
We have cleaned everything out of the soon to be operated on kitchen. So here are some photos of the room naked and prepped for rejuvenation surgery.
*Blatant ploy for search engine generated hits.
We got up early this morning and took a long walk in my sister-in-law’s neighborhood. While on the loop we found a couple of caches. Donna found both. The first one she walked right up to and made the find. On the second I looked and looked and didn’t see it. Donna stepped in right after I gave up on a spot and took one look. She immediately said, “I got it.”
As we were signing the log a older couple who were walking their dogs passed by and asked what we were up to. We told them about caching and the man said I’ve got something to tell you and he said:
A man is dining in a fancy restaurant, and there is a gorgeous redhead sitting at the next table. Suddenly she sneezes, and her glass eye comes flying out of its socket towards the man. He reflexively reaches out, grabs it out of the air, and hands it back.
“Oh my, I am sooo sorry,” the woman says as she pops her eye back in place. “Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you,” she says.
They enjoy a wonderful dinner together and afterwards the theater, followed by drinks. They talk, they laugh; she shares her deepest dreams, and he shares his. She listens.
After paying for everything, she asks him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap… and stay for breakfast the next morning. The next morning, she cooks a gourmet meal with all the trimmings.
The guy is amazed. Everything had been incredible. “You know,” he said, “you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?”
“No, she replies, “You just happened to catch my eye.”
I sighed at the pun, but Donna had the last laugh, as she said to him, “I thought you were going to tell us that is how you meet your wife.”
As soon as we got into Florida we took the second exit off I-95 and got on A1A heading east towards the ocean where we had a picnic lunch on the beach in the city of Fernandina Beach. Because we were not in any hurry we just stayed right on A1A all the way to Daytona Beach Shores where we are spending the night over looking the Atlantic Ocean from the sixth floor of the Holiday Inn Express (mmm, cinnamon buns.)
In the early part of the trip along the coast we get a very short (0.9 mile) ferry ride across the St Johns River between Fort George Island and Mayport Village. It departs every 30 minutes on the 1/4 & 3/4 hour and costs a whopping six bucks. We arrived, pulling up behind 2 waiting cars, with 6 minutes to sailing, talk about great timing.
Just north of Daytona Beach the Purple Whale passed the 29,000 mile mark.
Dumpster Day is Friday. It’ll be placed in front of the garage for ease of use, so if we want to use the Miata during the BKR it needs to spend a month outside. To keep the neighborhood felines from leaving footprints or anything else behind on car I decided to buy a nice little car cover. As long as it doesn’t get to dirty or damaged I should be able to recoup around 50% of my purchase price by selling it once the dumpster is gone.
