Of Thanksgiving

  • Yes friends of Middle Earth the season is upon us.

We celebrated Thanksgiving this past week here in the states. Truly a wonderful holiday. Just get together with family and friends and enjoy a meal together….and give thanks for all we have. So simple. So nice. So much to be thankful for.

Georgia and Ethan were away and of course we missed the two of them. They both shared a Thanksgiving feast with their friends overseas. It was interesting to hear them talk about how none of their friends have a Thanksgiving celebration in their home countries. I think they enjoyed bringing such a nice American tradition to their respective countries. Missed you guys here for sure.

So as I was saying the season is upon us. (You know, the Christmas season. In case you were wondering.) The Editor has been bitten by the decorating bug early this year and was for some reason determined to put up the fake tree this weekend. We always do a real tree and just started putting up a second tree downstairs a few years back (i.e. the fake one.).  So I was busy and Terence got the call to help his mother get the fake tree down from the attic. As usual I needed to get the cattle prod out to help him find his motivation. I mean listen to this exchange.

Editor: Terence can you come over to the attic  so I can pass down the tree and ornaments to you?

Terence: Yeah. Just one second. I just want to finish one more math problem.

I’m listening to this and saying to myself, “This is the guy who just spent an hour watching the Matrix for the eightieth time!!!!” Now all of a sudden his homework is on super high priority mode. I’m going to have to crack him one real soon.

Oh yeah, and just for those of you who are keeping score I got rid of that huge tree branch in my backyard by myself this weekend. That’s Dad 3 – Son Terence zero.

But I digress.

Had to go to a wedding this weekend down in Jersey. If I had to give it a title it would be something like, “The Hobbit Meets the Jersey Shore.” This friend of mine whose daughter was getting married pulled all the stops out on this one. Put it to you this way, there was so much stuff at the Viennese hour it could have been called the Viennese  Day! Hobbits love their desserts. No complaints here just not enough time to try everything.

So the whole wedding thing put a twist into our weekend plans over at the house. We did manage to get a few things done. So that was great.

I’ll just run though what we accomplished quick. The main thing I wanted to do was install the living room skylight. This one is definitely a two man job so I wanted to try and get it in while Terence was available. Jude was home for the holiday as well so the two of them came over around 11.

I had Jude start by finishing off the spray foam insulation detail around all of the windows on the outside of the house. If you remember Terence started this detail on the inside of the window. You can’t really get all the spray foam where you want it in one shot though. And I didn’t want to do it without the one side not being completely dry. Here he is having at it.

Jude finishing the spray foam around the windows.
Jude finishing the spray foam around the windows.

Once everything is dry we’ll trim off any overspray.

Terence gave me a hand setting up the framing for the skylight.

Terence nailing off the skylight plywood.
Terence nailing off the skylight plywood.
Jude and Terence prepping the skylight for installation.
Jude and Terence prepping the skylight for installation.

I forgot to take a picture when we were done up close. Here’s one I took from across the street before I left for Jersey.

Living Room skylight installed.
Living Room skylight installed.

Getting there people. Getting there.

With any luck I’ll finish the skylight install next weekend.

See you all next week.

Jim

PS: A couple of pictures from London and Cambridge if you’re interested.

Someone explain to me how they did that please.
Someone explain to me how they did that please.
Terence and the Editor outside of Westminster Abbey.
Terence and the Editor outside of Westminster Abbey.
This is the entryway to the grounds of Kings College Chapel. Cambridge,England. Remarkable.
This is the entryway to the grounds of Kings College Chapel. Cambridge,England. Remarkable.

 

 

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