Cold Spaghetti

Pausing from his “work” (see the wand in his arm?) to point out the “airplane!” flying overhead.

Will: all wet and lovin’ it!

After devouring dinner (some mashed potatoes, peas, and meatloaf brought back from Granna’s house) we decided Will was up for a treat. Here Will chows down on Mom’s famous Triple C’s, playing for the camera with every bite!

Have I mentioned that we have one expressive, entertaining kid?

Will hams it up for the camera.

Scout did a great job supervising the door project from his perch on the mattresses above Paul’s shoulder.

It’s not sanded, stained, or poly-ed, but it’s exterior has been successfully removed, much faster as had been gloomly estimated earlier. The change in tune, according to Paul, is due to a “breakthrough” in the development of a new “technique” that he’s very proud of… you’ll have to ask him for details, as my intrepretation of the technique is leaving the stripper on the wood for a few minutes before trying to pry it up. Technique-Shmecknique, he’s done a great job and I can’t wait to see what the door will finally look like once it’s cleaned, sanded, stained, and has those oh-so-important coats of poly. These days, I’m either strapped to a chair or a kid, so I don’t know how much of this endeavour I’ll enjoy first-hand. But it is so exciting to know it is getting done!

It’s this or we just paint the door white. In this picture, the top of the door is about completely stripped; it’s quite beautiful. There is something about the thought of “restoring” it that makes us feel like we’re doing the right thing. But maybe we are just gluttons for punishment?

Work took a little hiatus this afternoon while Paul re-graded the side yard and put in this barrier wall. (We’re calling it the Schneskey Levy.) The drama of the side yard is this:

The beautiful side yard that was once in the lot next door to us is now the location of a newly built home. The new house was built a wee bit too high and is now the source of many drainage problems. New Orleans, being a city very sensitive to water and drainage, takes this type of offense Very Seriously. And so do we. (When we bought this house, the inspector and realtor were shocked to learn that it had only settled 7/8 of an inch in a city where 3 inches is average and 6 inches is considered normal. In other words, the foundation was *rock* solid.) Water pooling at the base, as it is now doing due to improper drainage from the construction next door, seriously compromises that. Although we’ve talked ourselves hoarse for several months to the builder over the issue, it was really not addressed to our satisfaction. (Despite the great inconveniences we’ve dealt with over the past 10 months… the not-quite empty beer and paint cans tossed in our recycling, trash in our yard, paint splashed on our brand-new walkway, cement dribbled on our freshly painted fence, repeated use of our water, dust all over everything, early morning disturbances, and on and on…. anyway.) The choice was for *us* pay $100 for gravel to be laid on both sides of the yard. But when the work began this morning, Paul noticed they weren’t grading it properly. So, he decided to nix our take on the gravel and went to work. He moved the sand from our neighbor’s side, leveled it for the gravel, and built up our side, complete with a small wall made out of the bricks we dug up earlier. (The landscaping crew should love Paul for leveling out the other side for him… what a guy.) We’ll put sod down sometime in the future. The bottom line is that it should be great for both houses. Water will have a good two inches of gravel to hang out in and while it will still seep down through into the sand on our side, it won’t flood under our house the way it had been previously. Yee-haw! Go Paul for a job well done!