Upgrades

Well, the biggest thing in my life is that hopefully I'll be getting a new bathroom floor soon. I live a sad life, I know... Ever since I moved into this house (about 4 years ago) I've noticed a smell coming from the bathroom. I chalked it up to the former renter, who had a small boy child who probably learned his toileting skills in my bathroom. No matter how many times I tried to clean the carpet, the smell never came out. It is especially bad whenever it rains, or it is humid. It reeks! Anyway, I finally got up enough guts last week to call the owners of the house, and ask whether they would be willing to pull out the carpet, and replace it with linoleum. First of all, I'm not sure why anyone would want carpet in the bathroom (or in the kitchen, for that matter--I'm sure I'll have to wait several more years before they will replace that!), but the owner was surprised that I wouldn't want to replace it with carpet again! I don't care if they just put a remnant of linoleum in there, it doesn't need to match anything, but I do want LINOLEUM!!! Anyway, while I was in NE visiting my family, the owners came in and inspected the carpeting and bathroom situation. They called to tell me early Thursday morning that the problem was worse than expected, and was I still gone? Nope, I was at home. "Oh, we really were hoping you were still gone, so we could come over and fix the problem. You see, the toilet isn't set right, and everything that is going in the stool, is coming on the carpet, and the wood underneath...."



YUCK!



I told the landlord that I would be happy for them to come fix it as soon as possible, and that I know plenty of people here in Marion who would let me use their toilet and shower while mine was out of commission. That was last Thursday, and I have yet to see anyone coming to fix it. We'll see how long it all takes...the owners are notorius for not fixing anything in my house. The garage door didn't work when I moved in, and it just got fixed about 2 months ago. I may be falling through the rotted floor before anything happens.



In other news...I've been doing a lot of cooking in the past few days. The farm family sent me home with 2 gallons of great farm milk, so I'm slowly enjoying one gallon, and will probably make the 2nd gallon into mozzarella. Mom and Dad came for dinner on Friday night to pick up their gallon of milk, and I made grilled salmon with basil butter, grilled broccoli and cauliflower, roasted zucchini spears, and then homemade chocolate gelato for dessert. Mom and Dad also benefited from my zwiebach and jam making at the farm. After dinner, we (Dad mainly) dug a hole in my back yard, and poured concrete for my new collapsable clothesline. During clean up Mom and Dad noticed my neighbor's apricot tree. The terrible renters have moved out and the house is unoccupied, so Mom and Dad thought I needed to pick up all the rotten apricots on the ground and turn them into apricot jam. I did that yesterday morning after working at the clinic, and spent the rest of the day cutting apricots, and making jam. I made 2 recipes yesterday, and I'm working on batches 3 and 4 today.











Last night I went out to Julie and Quinn's for a fish fry--good catfish, and grilled striper. Lots of people, lots of great food and laughter. I had a wonderful time, and the weather was actually cool enough to sit outside and not sweat to death. I even had to ask Julie for a sweatshirt when the sun went down!