Today we had rain for most of the day, so it was a good one to stay inside and get the grouting done on the kitchen tiles. Matt arrived bright and early and the guys got started. This was a whole new experience for me--I didn't realize the amount of work involved in grouting. After the grout is applied, you have to keep wiping the tile to remove the excess grout. This took most of the day as you have to wipe, then let the grout dry a little more, and the wipe again. Matt left a little after noon and John did the last of the wiping himself.

Matt starting to apply the grout

John wiping down tile

While the guys were grouting this morning, I headed up to Sara's for a haircut and by the time I returned home, the project was pretty well finished. John and I spent some time this afternoon getting left over tiles counted and ready to return to HD, putting tools away, and cleaning up the work area. I had library books due today, so I made a run into the library and grocery store for some milk.

John had picked green beans the other day, so this evening we processed them and got them into the freezer. The remainder of our evening was spent watching some baseball and recorded shows. As soon as we get the kitchen cleaned up and everything back in place, I post a photo of our new kitchen.

Today we reached the final step in our kitchen makeover--installing the new tile on the back splash. John had everything ready to go when Matt arrived at 8 a.m. and they got started right away. Matt handled applying the adhesive and putting the tiles on the wall. John was mainly the gofer and took care of cutting tile when needed. I mainly stayed out of their way and followed their progress as the day went on.

Getting the first line of tile started



Tile done and ready to grout

The last tile was put in place a little before three. Matt had to get home so he could take Sam to football practice and Hanna to her first volleyball game. John and I ate an early supper and then headed up to the school for Hanna's game.

Hanna serving

Hanna's team lost their first game, but won the next two, so they had a successful first outing of the season. Hanna even scored the winning point in the third game. We stayed to watch the eight graders play their three games and then headed home. Tomorrow the grouting will get done and then it'll be time to restore order to the house once again.

Our weather continues to be just beautiful--sunny, warm days with nights nice and cool for sleeping. We are beginning to see more signs of the approaching fall. There aren't as many birds around and the Canadian Geese are coming back into the area.

After breakfast John headed down to the shop where he assembled product for most of the morning. I did a couple of loads of laundry and some cleaning up around the house. John checked the garden after lunch and found plenty of pickling cucumbers ready to be picked. Since we had all the necessary ingredients, we decided to spend the afternoon making dill pickles.

This evening I attended a baby shower and John spent his time watching the Phillies game on TV. Tomorrow the tile job begins. Can't wait to get the kitchen finished and back to normal.

This morning we slept in a little later, but unlike last Sunday, we were up early enough to make church on time without having to rush around getting ready.

After lunch, we checked out our tile pattern one more time and found that we had room to add a few additional decorative tiles. So, it was back to HD to pick them up. Before leaving for Bemidji, we checked out our pickle making supplies and found we were short on a few spices and lids. We added these items to our list of things to get and took off out of town.

It didn't take us long to get everything on our list, so before we headed home, John decided to stop at BK for a couple of strawberry milkshakes. We then made one final stop to gas up the Honda and pick up some fresh corn from a roadside stand. Supper tonight was a garden salad (with everything fresh from our garden) and the corn. It was all delicious. While we were en-route home
Matt called and said he had to go bid on a job and fix something for one of his customers tomorrow, so the tiling got pushed back until Tuesday.

John's sister called this evening to let us know how they fared through Irene. They received about seven inches of rain and had high winds, but the power stayed on in their part of town. The creek behind their house flooded the entire lower level of their yard, and they were up all night bailing water out of the basement. Also, all their cut up firewood floated away. But all in all, they were very fortunate--none of their big trees were lost and their neighborhood came through just fine.

Last night we made a tentative plan of what we wanted to get done this morning. We decided that we would haul the old windows from the garage renovation along with quite a few cans of old paint to the landfill. The hours of operation on Saturdays are 8 to 12. We were just finishing up breakfast and getting ready to load the pickup when Matt and Hanna arrived to look at our tile layout and checkout our new sink and counter-top.

After looking over our tile pattern, Matt pointed out a few problems with the layout. We then spent the next hour measuring and trying different ideas. It was decided the six inch square tiles would not work and needed to be returned to Home Depot. They would be replaced by three by six inch tiles and another decorative row. This new design eliminates a lot of tile cutting and works better around the outlets and switches on the back splash area. By the time Matt and Hanna left, it was almost 11:30. So much for going to the landfill--Matt also wanted the old windows, so the main reason for going to the landfill no longer existed.

The tile work is going to commence on Monday morning and we needed to have all the new sized tile here by then. John and I headed off to Bemidji, stopped at BK for a quick lunch, and then headed to the Home Depot. After digging around the shelves of tile, we found two full cases of the size and color we needed for our project. Then it was back home and laying out the new tiles. We think we have finally found what looks good and will work without having to do a lot of cutting.

Our garden is overrun with cucumbers, so this evening we made our first batch of bread and butter pickles. Since we have a glass top stove, we used the burner on our out door grill to process the pickles. It worked out real slick and we didn't have to heat up the house.


We have been watching the progress of Irene as we have friends who live on an island off the New Jersey coast and John's sister lives right outside Philadelphia in South Jersey. He talked to his sister last night and she said they have set a record for rainfall in August and is concerned about the rains and wind coming their way--they have many big trees in their lower yard and the ground is saturated. John learned from his sister that the Jersey shore has been evacuated, so we're sure our friends are safe with their son way inland from the ocean. Hopefully we'll be able to contact them in a few days and see if their house survived the storm.

It was another beautiful day--Matt and John have certainly had a good week for working outside. John left early again this morning, but was back home by 2:30 and reported the job was finally done--that's a good thing as JD told him he got a couple of large orders and will need some help next week. John told him he wouldn't be able to work on Monday as that's the day the tile gets put up in the kitchen. We need to get that done and get the tile up off the living room floor.

With John working such long hours this past week, I have had large blocks of uninterrupted time and have been able to get quite a bit done. Today I managed to get the bed linens changed and give the bedroom a thorough cleaning. This afternoon we made another batch of peach jam and hope to start doing pickles sometime this weekend. Our evening was spent watching some more DVR recorded shows before calling it a night.

Today was pretty much an exact carbon copy of yesterday. John was up and out early to meet Matt and head off to the job site. Good news is they will probably finish this job up tomorrow. I completed the little bit of laundry that was left over from yesterday and also spent an hour or so in the office taking care of some bills. Joanne came to the shop and brought the kids. While she was busy down there, Jenni and I looked through some scrap booking stickers that I didn't need--she picked out a little stack to take home.

Over the past few days I have pretty much figured out when John will walk through the door, so tonight supper was ready when he got home. We're still eating a lot later than usual, but that should end after tomorrow. This evening we watched more of the Little League World Series and a couple of other recorded shows. I'm running out of space on the DVR, so I need to delete a few of the shows to make room for more.