![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
 |
June 13, 2010 [AFTER] - Back Wall Finally Achieved! After approximately 3 months of hard work, the back wall of the garage is finally visible. Note the absence of historic cast iron stove. It used to be in the center of the picture under the black circle, which is actually a rusted nub of stovepipe sticking out of the 2-story chimney. |
 |
May 9 [BEFORE] - Back Wall Sighted The back wall is behind the old wood stove, which is not even visible in this picture. See the black thing hanging out of the wall just to the left of the window? That's the rusted remains of the stove pipe emerging from the chimney. The stove is direclty under that. Trust me, it's there. |
 |
June 13, 2010 - Metal Man hits jackpot Here's the stove, finally extricated from the garage and ignominiously chucked into the alley for Metal Man to pick up. Counting the auxiliary pieces piled to the side, this must be at least 75 pounds of solid iron. We put it out on Sunday night. It was still there Monday night, but gone by Tuesday morning. It amazes me how quiet and discreet Metal Man is. The Minneapolis recycling truck makes more noise than a Transformer battle. But Metal Man slips in on little cat feet and makes all our unwanted metal quietly disappear. |
LJ Catchup Post - bits and pieces
Jun. 13th, 2010 12:50 pm----
Memorial Day: had a lovely time with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minnehahaK pedaling around Lakewood Cemetery. I do this pretty much every Memorial Day, but have never managed to make it to the chapel when it was open. This year, minnehaha remembered that it was the chapel's 100-year anniversary and made sure we got there in time to take a quick tour before it closed. OMG, it is stunning! It's a lovely building on the outside and it is on the Historic Register, but I had no idea what was inside! (Hint: think 10 MILLION ceramic tiles). We also had other adventures: visiting the Lake Harriet Elfenheim, Sonny's ice cream, and (most amazing of all) spontaneously deciding to clean the scary playhouse in DreamPark's backyard. This developed from the garage cleaning obsession - I needed someplace to stow umpteen cans of half-dried up paint while they completed the drying up process so they could be legally tossed in the garbage and minnehaha brilliantly suggested the playhouse, since it's up in the air and nobody ever goes there. I was relieved to find that nobody was living in the playhouse, not even raccoons. Not surprised to find all that old furniture or the dust-covered Ouija board. But I was a little nonplussed by the full set of bocce balls. Lots of old candles and matches, and a few more disreputable items I'd rather not think about. (Oh, ambertatge, what were you and your friends doing up here?)
-----
Garage cleaning continues - almost every weekend I haul out a full trash can of debris and several offerings for Metal Man. Missed last weekend, but there is a full can of trash out there that I intend to get to as soon as I post this. Not only that - I have finally worked my way back to the rusted old wood stove at the very back of the garage. I kind of hate to throw it away, but some of the moving parts have rusted to immovability so it is probably of no interest to anybody except scrap metal scavengers at this point. *sigh*
-----
Continuing to work on exercise program for SI joint and related musculature. It's slow and frustrating. I need to build up strength in back and core, but every time I do anything challenging enough to actually do that (e.g., an exercise class or ice skating) my back is sore for days. I had been planning to skate twice a week and do one or two Pilates classes, but that's way too much. It looks like the most I can handle at this point is two classes or skating sessions per week. On off days I try to walk or do a little light biking, but can't always fit it in. My skating classes started up again last Monday. I skated for an hour and actually did fairly well. Not exactly PROGRESS, but I was almost back to where I had been when classes stopped in March: front crossovers easy, left back crossover easy, right back crossover challenging but doable, RFO 3-turns passable but sloppy. Felt pretty good. But my back was sore for the next 3 days, so I didn't even try to repeat the Wednesday Pilates class that did me in the week before. By Thursday I felt pretty good, and tried a different core strengthening class called BOSU. I liked it a lot. Felt GREAT afterwards. Next day my back hurt again, and even more on Saturday. Today back has unclenched enough that I could do another class, but if I did that my back would be too sore for skating tomorrow. So I'm planning to compromise with an easy workout and swimming at the Blaisdell Y.
----
Started deep cleaning of bedroom yesterday. Goal is to clean off the dresser so I can unearth and discard the enormous old tube-based tuner under all the clutter. It's been years since it worked well enough to be worth turning on. I managed to get down to the bare dresser top by yesterday evening, but I now have 3 boxes of little bottles, handkerchiefs, feather masks, travel toothbrushes, etc. etc. that need to be sorted. One of the last things I unearthed was a long-dried up bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap (Peppermint Castille), which segued nicely to the next item.
----
Last night Richard and I watched an obscure documentary on Dr. Bronner himself ("Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox"). As anyone who has ever seen a bottle of the Magic Soap has long ago realized, the good doctor was pretty nuts. He was, however, a master soap maker from a family that had been manufacturing soap in Germany for 7 generations until the family business was destroyed by the Nazis (along with both of Dr. Bronner's parents). Young Emil had already emigrated to America and had been trying to get his parents to join him as the Nazis were coming to power but they wouldn't leave Germany and their family business. It's not clear if the slaughter of his family is what pushed him over the edge or if it was other family tragedies, but he descended into a kind of gentle madness based on an intense desire to found a world religion based on peace and organic aromatic soap products. Although he was hardly the model father, somehow his sons and grandsons stuck with the family business and they are still at it. It's a strange tale, balanced somewhere between inspirational and disturbing. It also made me remember what a remarkable substance that soap really is. I think it's time to buy another bottle.
Memorial Day: had a lovely time with
minnehahaK pedaling around Lakewood Cemetery. I do this pretty much every Memorial Day, but have never managed to make it to the chapel when it was open. This year, minnehaha remembered that it was the chapel's 100-year anniversary and made sure we got there in time to take a quick tour before it closed. OMG, it is stunning! It's a lovely building on the outside and it is on the Historic Register, but I had no idea what was inside! (Hint: think 10 MILLION ceramic tiles). We also had other adventures: visiting the Lake Harriet Elfenheim, Sonny's ice cream, and (most amazing of all) spontaneously deciding to clean the scary playhouse in DreamPark's backyard. This developed from the garage cleaning obsession - I needed someplace to stow umpteen cans of half-dried up paint while they completed the drying up process so they could be legally tossed in the garbage and minnehaha brilliantly suggested the playhouse, since it's up in the air and nobody ever goes there. I was relieved to find that nobody was living in the playhouse, not even raccoons. Not surprised to find all that old furniture or the dust-covered Ouija board. But I was a little nonplussed by the full set of bocce balls. Lots of old candles and matches, and a few more disreputable items I'd rather not think about. (Oh, ambertatge, what were you and your friends doing up here?)-----
Garage cleaning continues - almost every weekend I haul out a full trash can of debris and several offerings for Metal Man. Missed last weekend, but there is a full can of trash out there that I intend to get to as soon as I post this. Not only that - I have finally worked my way back to the rusted old wood stove at the very back of the garage. I kind of hate to throw it away, but some of the moving parts have rusted to immovability so it is probably of no interest to anybody except scrap metal scavengers at this point. *sigh*
-----
Continuing to work on exercise program for SI joint and related musculature. It's slow and frustrating. I need to build up strength in back and core, but every time I do anything challenging enough to actually do that (e.g., an exercise class or ice skating) my back is sore for days. I had been planning to skate twice a week and do one or two Pilates classes, but that's way too much. It looks like the most I can handle at this point is two classes or skating sessions per week. On off days I try to walk or do a little light biking, but can't always fit it in. My skating classes started up again last Monday. I skated for an hour and actually did fairly well. Not exactly PROGRESS, but I was almost back to where I had been when classes stopped in March: front crossovers easy, left back crossover easy, right back crossover challenging but doable, RFO 3-turns passable but sloppy. Felt pretty good. But my back was sore for the next 3 days, so I didn't even try to repeat the Wednesday Pilates class that did me in the week before. By Thursday I felt pretty good, and tried a different core strengthening class called BOSU. I liked it a lot. Felt GREAT afterwards. Next day my back hurt again, and even more on Saturday. Today back has unclenched enough that I could do another class, but if I did that my back would be too sore for skating tomorrow. So I'm planning to compromise with an easy workout and swimming at the Blaisdell Y.
----
Started deep cleaning of bedroom yesterday. Goal is to clean off the dresser so I can unearth and discard the enormous old tube-based tuner under all the clutter. It's been years since it worked well enough to be worth turning on. I managed to get down to the bare dresser top by yesterday evening, but I now have 3 boxes of little bottles, handkerchiefs, feather masks, travel toothbrushes, etc. etc. that need to be sorted. One of the last things I unearthed was a long-dried up bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap (Peppermint Castille), which segued nicely to the next item.
----
Last night Richard and I watched an obscure documentary on Dr. Bronner himself ("Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox"). As anyone who has ever seen a bottle of the Magic Soap has long ago realized, the good doctor was pretty nuts. He was, however, a master soap maker from a family that had been manufacturing soap in Germany for 7 generations until the family business was destroyed by the Nazis (along with both of Dr. Bronner's parents). Young Emil had already emigrated to America and had been trying to get his parents to join him as the Nazis were coming to power but they wouldn't leave Germany and their family business. It's not clear if the slaughter of his family is what pushed him over the edge or if it was other family tragedies, but he descended into a kind of gentle madness based on an intense desire to found a world religion based on peace and organic aromatic soap products. Although he was hardly the model father, somehow his sons and grandsons stuck with the family business and they are still at it. It's a strange tale, balanced somewhere between inspirational and disturbing. It also made me remember what a remarkable substance that soap really is. I think it's time to buy another bottle.
The Herculean Labors
May. 10th, 2010 10:29 pmHaving finally gotten tired of talking about my lunch, I thought I'd talk about my garage for a while. My plan for the summer is to clean it.
{C}
{C}
( Read more... )
{C}
 |
This is The Garage This is an old picture, but the size and shape hasn't changed since this was taken in 1997. As you can see, this thing is the size of a small house. And yet... we don't have enough free space inside it right now for one car. |
{C}
( Read more... )