fidean.net

In the very busy summer we have going on (as usual), i thought i’d jot down a few things before we forget…

Fiona is talking more and more, and more clearly all the time. We figured out over the weekend that her first words were either “Swing me!” or “my turn!”, but that was at least a month ago, and she says more now. “Water” sounds a lot like she’s saying “cracker”, but she definitely means water. She’ll ask to get down, and pull my arm and say “down!” when she wants me to swing her. Swinging by her arms is about her favorite thing in the world. She’s very close to doing the monkey bars by herself. The thing she’s saying most lately though is “kitty”, because she’s utterly obsessed with Hello Kitty. Fiona is still quite a climber, and has been very interested in bikes, climbing on the tricycle and getting around the driveway even though she can barely reach the pedals.

Ella has been quite the artist this summer, cranking out drawings and coloring pictures at a huge rate. She is drawing really good faces and bodies by herself, and is creating increasingly complex story pictures with lots of detail (”that’s the jewel in her necklace”). She’s also been busy with summer classes at the Science Museum (Lots of Rocks, Dino Mania), Como Zoo (Butterflies), and community ed (gynmastics & swimming). She’s also had fun putting on dance performances and performing Cinderella as a play with her mom and sister filling in the rest of the roles. Ella is getting better at t-ball, getting some great hits in and has a good throw too. She has been riding her bike to t-ball practices, about 8 blocks away, and is having more fun with it. I don’t know if the training wheels will come off this year, but she’s getting pretty fast when she forgets the fear of hitting bumps and cruises along.

Autumn joined the County Cycles triathlon team recently, when she discovered that she was more than qualified to do so, and could get a discount on the tri suit she’d had her eye on. The major sponsor is also our favorite bike shop, so that was a factor too. She placed in the top 10 of her first long-course triathlon (the Heart of Lakes race in Annandale, MN, 7/17/05) on a nasty 90-something degree day.

I’ve been working on the house (see kitchen project posting) and riding my bike. I’m on the verge of 1,000 miles for the year, hoping for 2,000 before it’s too cold to ride more. I’ve been havin a lot of fun on the Raleigh 3-speed the girls got me for father’s day. I’ve ridden it to work several times and around the neighborhood, about 45 miles total. It’s been a fun project, and it’s a nice bike to ride. I also worked one evening as a volunteer at the Sibley Bike Depot, a non-profit bike shop, where i fixed a bike and helped pile up about 1,000 lbs worth of broken and bent bike frames for scrap. I’ll definitely do it again, lots of fun to tinker and talk bikes.

Over the weekend, we replaced the base cabinet in our kitchen. Since we only have one base cabinet, it wasn’t so bad, but it did have the sink in it…

The old cabinet was old and the frame was broken in a couple of places, so i had a couple of wood blocks supporting the front (so the doors would stay closed). Last month we had a plumbing leak when the u-bend rusted out, and it got wet under there, and we decided it was finally time to get rid of it.

We’d been thinking about this for a while, and after some looking around and looking at the budget, we decided on the Ikea route. It seems like we’ll be more likely to be able to match things, should we continue to replace and add cabinets later. Plus, the price was good enough that we could spend a little more and get a hardwood counter (and even that was pretty cheap, really).

The old unit came out pretty easily, and predictably, somewhat fell apart in the process. I helped it along by sawing it in pieces. Very satisfying. We simplified the job by reusing the old sink and faucet, even though they’re also old and less than fantastic, with the idea that we’ll probably replace them within the next year anyway. It did help keep the project moving along, only a 1/2″ of pipe trimming when it went back together.

Once the old unit was out, there were 2 interesting things. One was that there was some linoleum tile below it. I don’t know the color, i didn’t clean it to find out. When we bought the house though, the floor was very dark wood, matching the rest of the house. so the cabinet was installed when there was good tile there, then the tile came out, then the floors got old and dark. It must have been quite old.

Second was that the water lines originally came straight out of the wall to the sink, though they’re now routed down through the sink cabinet in the more modern arrangement. We were somewhat tempted to restore this supply, because it would look fantastic with a farm-style enamel sink, but we wanted to be able to wash our hands before monday and stuck to the plan.

The new Ikea cabinets went together very nicely, the only problem is that there were no overall kitchen installation instructions *as indicated* on the DVD and in the catalog. I asked at the store, and they simply don’t exist. So, a little more measuring and testing than i’d planned on, but it went well.

I found out that it’s really hard work to cut out a sink hole from a hardwood counter. The 200-year-old jigsaw was doing about an inch every 5 minutes, even with a new blade, so i dropped $16 for a nice, new, sharp handsaw and got it done in about 1/10 the time it would have taken with the jigsaw.

Anyway, pictures coming soon, once we get the various knobs on and stuff put away again. The new unit is very solid, the drawers and hinges work very nicely, and there’s more usable space overall for storage because of the frameless design. Overall, a great project. Phase 2 will probably be to replace the upper cabinets, probably this winter or next year.

Autumn might post more about this, but in case anyone hasn’t heard (and for posterity), she got 3rd place in her Athena category (beating 32 others) in the Minneman Triathlon at Lake George Regional Park today.

She has not been training a ton the last couple of weeks, having just finished the Bjorkland half marathon in Duluth, but she still had an awesome race. After the race, she said that after she got moving and settled in on the bike leg, she looked down and was surprised to be going like 23 mph - pretty quick! She looked great at the finish, had a nice sprint, holding her own right down to the finish:

We’ve very proud of her, it’s a great accomplishment in just her second year of triathlons. Plus, as a prize, she got a nice glass mug and transition duffel bag from the race, useful for the dirty clothes and the post-race margarita.

The kicker is that it was a HOT weekend, and later that day, we went backpacking with the girls. We stayed 2 nights at Wild River state park, Autumn carrying Fiona and some gear 2.5 miles to our site on post-race legs. Needless to say, we all had a quiet and lazy day the next day and caught up on some rest. Some pictures of the race and the camping weekend are here:
http://www.fidean.net/pix/july4th/july4th.html