The headboard is finished! Diane deemed the bedroom to be complete! That doesn’t mean there is rest in my near future, but that we are now eligible to move on to the next room, Diane’s bathroom. Since that room had the most work done, prior to the bedroom, I think its unfair to all the other rooms that have been waiting years for a facelift. But, they’re going to have to wait a bit. Mostly, the bathroom just needs new paint. And baseboards. Using the last projects as a measuring stick, I should be done with that job in about 5 months, or so.

Back to the headboard. This is what it looks like.

Not very fancy, considering all the work I put into it, but converting twin headboards into a king headboard was a challenge for me. For others, probably not much of a challenge. Oddly, less of a challenge was rigging a way to connect the two twin frames to the headboard in such a way that allows Diane to swing the beds out from the bottom so each bed can be made independently. Pretty tricky, I thought. I amazed myself that I figured it all out by myself. Part of the figuring required me to resurrect my knowledge of the Pythagorean theory. Interestingly enough, I remembered it and all my computations were good. I won’t go into detail for my reasoning because when Diane returned home, from the store, she told me it all looked good and to leave it as is. So, I threw away all my fine diagrams and measurements and called it a day.

I meant to share with you about the magnets that came to visit me last Saturday. Jennie showed up with Lydia, Brianna, and Alyssa in tow for a visit in the afternoon. Brianna rushed to me with her hands full of magnets and presented them to me stating that she read my last blog about magnets, and knew how much I liked them. So, she gathered up all of her younger brother’s, Colin’s, magnets and brought them to me. How nice. We didn’t discuss how Colin felt about it but the presumption was he didn’t know. I must admit that it was a stunning array of magnets, but I just didn’t feel right about keeping them. So, when they left, I gave them back to Bree. The hardest to part with was the glob of buckyballs. I’ve never seen any previously and they are just fun to play with.

The next day at church I asked Colin what he thought about Brianna giving away all of her magnets. He admitted he was unaware, but also stated that he thought most of them were hers anyway. Funny. So, no harm done, and I got to play with buckyballs.

Now I’m going back to last Wednesday, May 22nd. That’s Jeff’s birthday. Our son. He’s 41 now. Diane don’t know how he got so old. My birthday was Monday, the 20th. I’m not old at all.

Anyway, stepping up to the frugal side of life, Diane reserved the back room at Zhen’s Chinese Restaurant, formerly Lucky Inn, in St. Helens, so she could throw a party for both Jeff and me.

Regarding for former Lucky Inn – it’s our understanding that the cook bought the place. He renovated it, and the food got better. We liked it before, now we love it. One entrée is enough to feed a normal person for three meals. Most Chinese restaurants are that way, but Zhen’s is better. Really.

Here’s who was at the party, in numerical order: Jean, Jack, Wynette, Me, Diane, Jeff, Heather, Daniel,  Jennifer, Logan, Cedric, Lydia, Brianna, Jeran, Gilligan, Baylee, and little Jerrie. I don’t think I missed anyone.

Like normal, at most Chinese restaurants, we got tea. But, we didn’t get spoons. Measuring sugar for the tea was a challenge for most of us, but not Jack, who overcome this deficiency by adding a fork full of sugar to his tea. As you can see, it’s not always neat, but it works. Some of the sugar escaped.

I, however, also got involved by devising a way to stir my tea without a spoon. I tried it with the other end of the fork, first, but it didn’t accomplish much. This works better.

That’s Heather, by the way. It’s hard to get a picture of her because she always hides.

Below are the oldest 3 people at the party. I was also at the table sitting in the very spot from which this photo was taken. Odd.

You know those little bowls of egg flower soup you get before the meal. Little did I know that you could actually make a meal of the soup. Apparently Lydia did, as did Jack & Wynette. That’s a lot of egg flower soup.

To my right I saw these people – Heather, Jerrie, Jeff, Diane, Gilligan, Cedric, Lydia, and Brianna. I don’t have a picture of the other folks. Jennie took one of everyone, but I can’t find it.

Now, Diane is off to her WELCA meeting, leaving me all alone again. Think I’ll go play with some electricity and see what happens.