It *moved*!

I got to work this morning to find the big crane had apparently gone for a bit of a walk over the weekend. It's now on the north side of the construction area. I suppose that means they're making more progress. What it means to me is that I now have NOTHING to watch outside my window. The crane is now out of my frame of view, so I can't watch the crane hoisting stuff up to the top anymore. I kinda wish I'd been able to see the crane crawling around. That would have been cool.

I did get to watch the backhoe on the right side of the picture drive over a big pile of dirt for no apparent reason other than "It was there", which is just about as good a reason as you can get with a big pile of dirt and a backhoe. I'd have done it too.

Knitting group:
I went to the local knitting group meeting tonight. Met four very nice ladies, none of whose names I can remember. One lady was knitting a shrug for her grand niece, another was knitting fingerless gloves for a friend with carpal tunnel syndrome, the third was working on a dishcloth and the fourth just chatted, but didn't get out her knitting that I saw. The lady with the dishcloth is planning a trip to NC to ride a steam train near Dillsboro and was getting info from the lady knitting the shrug. I did a lot of listening in as I'm looking for day trip and weekend trip ideas myself. The Dillsboro area sounds like a good candidate. The Shrug Lady also recommended a trip to Kentucky to visit the Adsmore Manor. Now I feel the urge to plan something for Columbus Day weekend, but I want to get my house cleaned up and put away first. The lady knitting the fingerless gloves taught my boss how to knit. My boss has a schedule conflict though and can't come to the knitting group meetings. Oh well...

Kitchen!
Here's the final view of the kitchen. I even managed to get it cleaned up and get things put away. There are still a few boxes under the sink, but that's going to take a bit of sorting through. At least half of the kitchen table is now usable space for dining which is new.













My next "project" will be fixing the leak around the plumbing vent pipe flashing and then getting rid of the mice in the attic. I suppose I ought to then put some additional insulation in the attic since I suspect I'll be losing some insulation to the mouse body removal program. There are enough mouse tunnels in the insulation I don't know how effective it is anyway. I hate to think about how many nests there are up there.

The outside project to do next will be re-grading the fence gate area so that the gate actually opens. Then I'll re-grade the front sidewalk area to get ride of the moat/puddle. I have already dug some shallow channels to move the water away. They don't go far enough into the yard to actually drain water *to* any place useful, but it does allow the water to run off the sidewalk and diminishes the puddle size. Those projects are going to be extremely low cost (labor only) and I think playing in the mud is fun anyway.

Baking goodies!
I made peanut butter cookies last night. Apparently they are the favorite cookie of a number of people at work. The container, which was full this morning, (and is visible in the kitchen table photo) was about 1/4 empty when I left today. I figure it'll be completely empty by the end of Thursday. The public health reps all got told that the cookie and animal cracker jars are fair game too, so that'll help dispense with the goodies. Next week I think I'll make Snickerdoodles.

Tomorrow is birthday lunch day. I'm bringing Waldorf Salad. I put raisins in it, but I think it would be better with grapes. I'll have to try that next time. It tastes pretty good how it is though. Apples, walnuts, mayo, lemon juice, sugar, celery, raisins. Sweet and crunchy goodness.

Food Food Food!
I was a good girl today. I had oatmeal for breakfast (well, at least some of it before I ran out of time), plus toast and some V-8 juice. At lunch, I took a salad with a fresh tomato and some yogurt. Dinner was a bean burrito from Taco Bell. I only had two cookies at work and no other junk food that I recall. I didn't have the time to walk at lunch, but I will try to walk tomorrow. I already have my walking shoes at work waiting for me. I'll take my pedometer too. W00t!