Decrepitness (is that a word?)

I had my annual-only-if-they-insist eye exam yesterday. He prescribed me bifocals. I am mortified.

That's the last time I go to THAT eye doctor!

(Just kidding, Dr. Rixen.)

Arrrrrrrr!

September 19th. Talk Like a Pirate Day. I've waited months for this.

Today's Woot: A very cool coffee-related toy

I confess, I am a sucker for a fun coffee-related gadget. We have tried out more types of coffee brewing machines than most families, including several styles of French presses, and we have, I must also confess, a corner of the basement reserved for a coffee maker morgue. At present we are using a Cuisinart Grind-n-Brew (also a Woot! purchase) on days when someone will be around to drink that much coffee, or a glass French press from IKEA on days when we are all grabbing a quick cup before heading off in various directions.

Today, Woot! is selling a really neato coffee maker. It's a Keurig single-cup coffee maker. And no, it's not a sized-down normal drip coffee maker. Wayne and Roseann have a Keurig, so I've gotten to try it, and it has a nice big reservoir, then you pop a little Green Mountain (or knockoff) coffee packet into a slot, put your mug under the spout, and push a button. The Keurig quick-heats water, forces it at high pressure through the coffee packet and into your mug, in about 2 minutes max. This is really good, really HOT coffee! It was great fun.

For budgetary reasons, and because of the morgue, I am not allowed to buy today's Woot!, but if you do, then I can enjoy it vicariously through you.

Now if Woot! ever sells a coffee roaster, we'll be first in line. We still don't have one of those. We might not use it as often as we think we would, but we love the idea of roasting our own beans.

Hey, that's what Cuisinart needs to work on now! A Cuisinart Roast-n-Grind-n-Brew. Raw beans to cuppa in about 10 minutes. Yeah, I'd buy that.

FAQ

The most frequently asked question lately seems to be, "Why aren't you updating your blog?"

And here I thought nobody was reading it but me. :)

The Whited Sepulchre

The second-most frequently asked question is, "How is the house coming along?"

Sure, it looks great from the outside, but inside...

Right now we're struggling to get all that black icky stuff you see in the photo scraped off the dining room floor. It's a nice old maple floor, but to find it, first we pulled off the ugly grey indoor-outdoor carpet, then a layer of linoleum squares, then a layer of sheet linoleum, and finally here is this black stuff. Barry thinks it may be tar paper. Anyway, it glued itself pretty thoroughly to the floor, and the only real way to get it off is by scraping, scraping and scraping.

It's the new punishment/threat in the house. Kids having a fight? "If you kids don't settle this you're ALL GOING TO SCRAPE THE FLOOR!" Kids want to stay up past bedtime? "Sure, if you're staying up to SCRAPE THE FLOOR!"

Actually it's resulted in some rather nice "family moments," when we all sprawl on the floor with our scrapers, hacking away at gunk, and share our innermost thoughts (the most often voiced one being, "I sure wish this floor was done"). And we really are making progress. We only have a few square feet to go.

Then we get to rent the floor sander, sand the floor, and somehow get a finish on it without a) walking on it ourselves or b) having the cat walk through and get stuck in it.

First Day of School

It was a day of firsts for us: Miss B started high school, Master K. started middle school and Little Miss A. started kindergarten!

Here is Little Miss A. standing next to her brand new DESK.

And here she is with the beautiful, talented and all-knowing Ms. Lubahn and a classmate.


Things are off to a good start. And Mommy only cried a little on the walk back home alone from dropping Miss A. at kindergarten.

At Pap and Grandma's House

Sweet Baby E and her mom and dad joined us. Here she is with Miss B.

And the blueberries were ripe, so we all gorged ourselves. Pap even sent a huge bucket home with us on ice.

Roadside America

On our drive from Staten Island to Westmoreland County, Barry stopped at a little place not too far from Stroudsburg, PA, that he remembered visiting as a little boy. It is Roadside America, an amazing model railroad setup that is still operated as a tourist attraction by the descendants of the man who set it all up. (He died in 1963.) It's just one big room with walkways around the edge so that you can see the whole setup.

It's hard to describe, but it's worth the stop if you're ever around the area. It's hokey and mushy and cute. Every half hour they make everybody come sit on risers and watch as they make "night" come to the railroad village; the room lights dim, tiny street lights come on, homes light up, then as the room becomes darker, the house lights go out once more and the landscape sleeps except for the trains which go on and on. Come "morning," the street lights come off, house lights come on, and the "sky" begins to lighten up with daybreak.

Two cute little old ladies were running the place when we arrived. If I understand it correctly, one of them is the daughter of the gentleman who built the display.