The builders are back and they are framing up a storm in our basement. The new spare bedroom is framed out to the right in this photo: Spare bedroom again, with the door frame showing. It looks a bit like a cage now 🙂 sorry guests, I promise it will truly look like a bedroom by the time one of you stays in there. How to make an inherently crooked house straight: lots of shims. Look at the 2×4 below that runs horizontally under the joists then stops to create a level ceiling. More shims. This is going to be…

Indiana Sand Dunes is always a pretty location in winter, so myself, Cindy and Miles went down today (Liam was at a friends birthday party). Lovely to see the receding snow there too Miles leaving a trail of foot steps through the snow and sand

As the days get longer and the sun gets higher, the perma-layer of snow and ice is beginning to recede, already half way cleared. Let’s hope we’re 100% clear by the start of april (or at least not re-smothered in another foot or so)

Here's a picture of us at Crust toasting to Liam's success in getting into Whitney Young High School! Congratulations Liam! You can check out the school at http://www.wyoung.org/ and note that WY has many distinguished alumni, including Michelle Obama! WY is easy to get to from our house, Liam will take the Chicago bus to Ashland, then the Ashland bus south abut 10 minutes to Whitney. The other great news is that Ellen G. also got into WY so they will be back in school together for the first time since preschool!

Here's the new floors after they put in the sealant, very exciting, especially with the heated floors that keep your feet so toasty!

The basement floor has now been acid stained. The brown color will really come up once the sealant is put on–which will be later this week.

I got some blood oranges at Stanley’s last week–and went back for more the next day. Beautiful and delicious.

I always remark on this and finally got a picture. The trees along I-80 are permanently bent from the wind that blows from the west.

We love visiting the dells area at Matthieson. 

Ice at Matthieson State Park