We survived the week of Vivian’s fourth birthday.
Actually, it all went very well. We had the grandparents over for cake on Monday, and then on Tuesday went over to Vivian’s school for the in-school celebration. Finally, on Wednesday, came the day of the four-year-old party, with about eight kids rampaging around the house. Erin was brilliant in coming up with a plan to keep the kids entertained. Among other things, the kids worked together making Vivian’s popular rainbow cupcakes (which we’d happened to take to school the day before, so they were very popular). The kids had fun putting food colouring in bowls of cake mix, even if they abandoned the project early, forcing the parents to finish the mixing and the filling of the cupcake cups.
Now it’s all over and the place has returned to relative normality. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Now we have to wait until next year.
The kitchen renovations are also coming to a close. We had electricians come to our house to string a new wire for our dishwasher. Home-Pro Electric not only installed a proper line to a new element in our fuse box, they did a thorough investigation to ensure that our wiring was up to code. For the most part it was, although they uncovered an infuriating bit of bad wiring resulting from the installation of our central air conditioner. When we named the company who had installed our central air, the electricians weren’t surprised. They gave us the background we needed to hit up the company for a re-wiring that, this time, is up to code.
It got pretty crowded in our kitchen, there, for at the same time as the electricians were working, we called in a service rep to repair a leak in our refrigerator’s water supply (fortunately under warranty), which caused a lot of water to slip under and soak into the new laminate flooring. The leak is fixed and the floor is dry. The laminate itself has had its edges raised a little bit by the moisture, and we’re debating whether or not we need to replace that part of the flooring. On the plus side, it’ll be easy to get into the corner. On the minus side, one of those laminate boards is under the new cabinets we’ve just installed (and which are now fixed to the walls).
So, we now have a dishwasher. The model, a Frigidaire, works very well, and we’re already wondering how we managed our evenings before we had one of these babies working for us. We also have a fridge with a working water dispenser and an ice maker, and that has also been getting a lot of use.
As I write this, I’ve just received an instant message from a reader asking me when my next blog post will be. I have to admit that it has gotten harder and harder keeping up the pace on this blog. Fortunately, I have been spending time writing. The battle between the zombies and the ornithopters continues apace. Sorrow’s Knot retains a commanding lead of 12000 words, to Icarus Down’s 8000. I am catching up, but Erin retains a stronger sense of what her story is about, while I’m still discovering the world and the characters in it.
Finally, congratulations to Toronto for winning the right to host the 2015 PanAm Games. I have to admit to a bit of home town pride, here, although my hope is that, by winning the 2015 games, the burning desire to host the Olympics will be sated, at least temporarily. It’s not the Commonwealth Games, but it’s still a significant sporting event that should enliven the community, and give us something to shoot for in the years to come. There’s nothing like a hard and fast deadline to help get some stuff done.
More of Vivian’s birthday photographs can be found here.