Thursday, July 3, 2025
The hot tub came over today. We started with the idea that we would leave it next door until Rob and Maren were ready to move theirs over from their old house. Since they are not selling but renting, we had no definite timeline. Then we got over here and where to put the hot tub was a new game for us. We might want to expand the deck; we might want a roof over the hot tub (like we had); we might not want a hot tub anymore (okay, not really, but I did think we should think about it). Since there were so many thoughts to have and decisions to make, we just blocked it out of our minds and forgot about it. Until last Friday. The renter lady (who initially wanted to buy their hot tub) said she wouldn’t move in July 1 if the hot tub was still there (empty, covered, and unplugged). Ooookaaaay. Rob organized some guys to move both of the hot tubs today.
I pulled weeds outside in the 85-degree heat until they started bringing parts over. I was done with the hot and obviously had to run away (just like I did when the original guys brought it) and hide because making people do physical labor for me just weirds me out to no end. It really didn’t take long. They really knew what they were doing. It is temporarily on the pavers in back – not the right place for it, but it is all we had. There is no electricity for it yet either, so it’s not very fun right now.
We are having Chicago dogs tomorrow – well, any kind of hot dog a person might want to have. I have ketchup, mustard, sweet relish, chopped onion, caramelized onions, celery salt, tomatoes, dill pickle spears, sport peppers, chili, cheese sauce, macaroni and cheese, and shredded cheese. The thing I did NOT have was poppy seed buns. Keith and I spent more than half an hour searching for poppy seed buns via the internet and the phone yesterday. They are important to the Chicago dog creation. We finally figured out that we had to make our own! I read a bunch of recipes and decided we could do it. Yay us! I was checking the recipe online one last time to make sure what kind of yeast was recommended when I hit the wrong recipe. The one that popped up said buy buns, wash them with egg, sprinkle poppy seeds, bake for 5 minutes.
Mmmm. That seemed very, very easy.
We went for it. It was amazingly simple and therefore, hugely fun. After I attempt to steam them tomorrow, I will let you know how they are.
Keith finally hung up the TV in the living room. It has been sitting on the donk-onk (that is the name of the piece of furniture now below the TV). Now it is mounted on the wall and there are no visible cords. WooOooOooo
The picture of the day is of a wilting flower on our peace lily. Keith thought it looked like a hummingbird. I thought that was fun.
It DOES look like a hummingbird! That’s the first thing I thought of (really!!!) when I saw it. So, per yesterday’s photo, Keith must have been measuring where he was going to make an outlet happen to plug in the TV – or was it to mount the hanger? It looks REALLY nice!
I was putting up the mounting brackets for the TV. It’s a Samsung FrameTV, designed to look like art on the wall when turned off (and it does–I think it’s pretty cool, although Alexander keeps reminding me that it’s just a screensaver, but part of it is the soft matte screen and the art collection). Part of the effect is that it’s extremely thin and mounts very close to the wall with thin mounting brackets that set into the back of the TV. You can also buy frames for it (from Samsung and others) or make your own. There is a separate box (maybe 12x3x4 inches) that is in the cabinet below it and there is only one very thin wire that runs between the box and the TV (which I buried in the wall). So, no outlet behind the TV–just a hole to run the one wire and a hole behind the cabinet for it to come back out to connect to the box (that plugs into the conveniently pre-existing outlet behind the cabinet).
It does look like a bird! First I thought it was one, and then I thought it was an art piece depicting a bird. It took me a while to realize it was a plant at all, and I hadn’t thought of a peace lily before I got to the explanation. We had a huge peace lily for years, and now we have a small one, but neither of them have ever done anything this artistic. 🙂
This plant was from my dad’s funeral, so we’ve had it just over 20 years, and this is its first art!