Monday, April 25, 2022

Weekend

 I think everyone has been complaining about the snow, but this weekend, the temperatures went up a bit. 

Friday night, we had to run up to Levi and Mattie's to pick up some posts. On the way up, I said, "You know what we should do? Pick up slushes for everyone!" 

Tim agreed. Since Amish don't have freezers, this would be a nice treat. We started calculating: 8 kids. 2 adults. We can't forget grandma. Tim mentioned that Levi had taken on a hired man. That is how I found myself bouncing up a hill, balancing 12 slushes in my lap. 

We made it. 

We pulled in the driveway. Mattie and Grandma were planting trees with a crew of children. The youngers were playing with the dog. The sawmill was running full bore. Tim called out the truck window: "We're going to need a few kids over here!" They came running from all directions. They carefully carried the box of 8, and another carried a car carrier with 4 more. Mattie sent one down to the sawmill to find out what flavors they wanted, while the others waited for permission to take make their own choices. When it finally came, eager hands went to work.

I said, "Come on, Grandma, there's one for you in here." 

She explained that Levi had a hired man. 

I explained we'd bought one for him too. 

They were suitably impressed by my math skills. 

Saturday, we did some work on the renovation, and Sunday, I did nothing. I purposely did not one thing. 

Well, besides help Tim. We bought a cast iron bathtub. The seller had left one little factoid out of his online description. We were not aware that it was cast iron, until we got there to pick it up and realized the blessed thing weighed 350 pounds. 

The bathroom it was intended for is tiny, and trying to get a bathtub that weighs that much, into a space that tight was asking for trouble. I know this because maybe 10 years ago, we actually got a cast iron bathtub stuck in a stairwell. Wrestling it out of there, I threw my back out, and discovered the amazing world of muscle relaxers. 

Neither one of us was anxious to have that experience again. We had driven quite a way though, and it was a beautiful tub, a Kohler. So we wrestled it on the truck with the idea that it will go into the new build. It can be put in place and the bathroom built around it. 

Once home, Tim discovered it was a $1300 tub that we'd gotten for $100, so he's quite thrilled with life and Sunday, we drove that tub up to the retirement property to be stored until such a time that we begin building a house worthy of such a bathtub. 

Helping him with the bathtub was the only useful thing I did Sunday besides cooking dinner and washing the dishes. 

The temperatures reached 81 degrees, and it was glorious. When we went to bed that night, for the first time this year, we slept with our bedroom windows open. 

25 comments:

  1. Not much compares to that feeling when you snag a bargain ... and the first warm sunny day of Spring.

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    1. Bargains make us feel warm all over. Just like spring.

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  2. Building a house around a bathtub is not something I have ever heard before so it must be quite the tub!

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  3. It's always so nice to sleep with the windows open. An excellent deal on that tub and you will have a place for it which is wonderful. I imagine the guy sold it so cheap, just to get someone to move it. I know I would.

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    1. The first open window night always seems special, doesn't it?

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  4. Ed - slightest bit of hyperbole there. But once the house is built, we would not enclose the bathroom until the tub is installed. This allows people to stand on the outside of the studs to help maneuver the heavy tub into place. Having people on 3 sides of it will make things much easier...and safer.

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  5. I didn'tknow that Amish folk socialised with others from outside their community. We once spent some time being shown round an Amhish community and were fascinated

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    1. I imagine some sects are stricter than others. We were invited up for Christmas Eve. Mattie and I and 'the girls' are going to a community yard sale on Saturday.

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  6. That was a great idea to bring them the slushies. 81 degrees, wow! I sleep with my window open all year but not wide open. I like a cold room for sleeping. In the summer (on super hot days) with my heat pump, I have to close the window which makes me unhappy. I would love to see a photo of that tub!

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  7. The tub is just a tub really, with maybe an extra curve at the top. What makes it expensive is the cast iron.

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  8. Community yard sale? Now that sounds great.

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    1. You would be in your element, Northsider - lots of walking and treasure everywhere!

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  9. You could have slept in the new tub outside! You two are so adventurous that you might want to think of other big items for your retirement house and store those too, to build around them. Your definition of doing nothing is busier than mine. Linda in Kansas

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    1. You're preaching to the choir, sister. We have custom hickory cabinets, a butcher block from a landmark restaurant, leaded glass windows (a triptych) of a sun rise for the sun porch, a stained glass window from a church. Every time Tim finds good windows on sale at Lowe's, he snaps them up. We have an old farm house sink. And now a tub. Probably more. It is very hard to keep track.

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  10. It is starting to get a bit fresh here - actually had my gear together to go for a walk this morning "wind willing" - well, the wind was howling so small yoga stretches including patting myself on the back for the codicil and the walking gear is out for when the wind decides to die down a little.
    Glad that you enjoyed the "day off" - and lovely to have cold respite on a hot day.

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    1. Well, Jeanie, if I would have been there, I would have been patting you on the back too!

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  11. She is a special person indeed who describes handling a 350-lb bathtub, cooking dinner and washing dishes as "nothing!"

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  12. Lol. Bob, Tim fixed his truck. I lazed.

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  13. Glad you got it home and stored. When you said cast iron I thought of my childhood tub and wondered how much it weighed.

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  14. Good job on the slushy math! I'm amused that you "did not one thing" on Sunday -- except wrestle a 350-pound bathtub. That would be a HUGE day for me. LOL!

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    1. ...which did not take nearly close to the whole day.

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  15. From my den window last evening, I could hear people and kids out on th street until 8 when it was dark and also started raining. It is a sound that I haven’t heard for awhile. Unfortunately, it may snow tomorrow.

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  16. Anonymous, it is supposed to snow here tomorrow. I don't know where you are, but the sound of weeping you hear from your den window tomorrow might just be me.

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