Your Local A&P

Ahhh, Progress!

Saturday we did the Home Depot dance: got our heinies there after lunchtime, wandered around looking baffled for a while, bought some string, and then left. We were looking for specific sizes of wood with which to build our magnificent pergola. Not defeated, we went home and looked up a local lumber yard, went there, and had a wonderful experience. We found everything we needed plus the guy helped us figure out how to build a more economical structure and agreed to do two separate deliveries on our schedule. I'm working on a sketch of the future appearance of that little corner of the yard -- maybe I'll post it later. Okay, onward! So Saturday night we went to The Bite of Oregon with a friend Karl. We all got BBQ meat from the 'Central Oregon' area, @ Jackie's Ribs. Who knew Central Oregon was known for their barbecue? After that, Alpenrose ice cream (little known fact: they have a velodrome on their farm!). Then we joined the crowed around the Iron Chef Oregon tent to watch the final Iron Chef contest. The theme ingredient was.... Lamb Chops! Paul said, "That's too easy!" The commentator reported that the semi-final secret food was rhubarb. Not so easy... The guys had to make just one entre and a side in a 1/2-hour. They were chefs from the local restaurants Oba! and Carslyle. After that ended, all of us felt pretty bagged. Paul & I had done three substantial runs over Friday and Saturday. Bedtime!

On Sunday we did more stuff - can you believe it?! I felt so useful & productive. After breakfast we went outside and started whacking our deck apart - half of it anyway. The neighbors gave us some history on it - told us that the former owners had contracted someone to build it, so that meant it was built in the last 8 years. Sorry guys. The neighbors also told us that there was a basement window covered up by the deck siding. A secret window. The deck builders did good - it was tough to get apart! I'm still sore. After about 4 hours we had removed all the screws, piled the planks and the framing behind the shed, leveled the dirt, and put a new border up around the new edge. It's ready for the next step: posts. We hope the old oil tank buried in that area doesn't interfere with that part. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Oh yeah, there was still time that evening for some stitching, sipping, and gaming, viewable on Flickr.

-A