Bottle Day

Ok, I've looked but can't find that I have used this phrase before.  But I can tell you, I have used this phrase so many times while taking little bike trips with Werner.

A "Bottle Day"  is a day to save.  I say it because of an old Jim Croce song: If I Could Save Time in a Bottle..  His "Bottle Days" have to do with his young family.  Mine have to do with special times that Werner and I have on sunny days taking bike rides that are so perfect, you just want to put them in a bottle and save them forever and go back a visit them again and again.

So, today.

I had a Zoom meeting, he had a Zoom meeting and we've been putting off the beginning of the bath re-do and said we'd start this afternoon.  But, I looked at the weather and today was supposed to be not only lovely and wonderful, but the last lovely and wonderful day for at least another week!  Let's have a picnic!  Let's nap in the sunshine!  

Ok, the man says.

And we did.  Not a long trip - only 6 k to the banks of the Lesum for the lunch stop.

Yummy lunch - tomato and cucumber salad, boiled eggs, little sandwiches, chips.  We sat on a bench with the river to our backs and a little lake to look at. 

We live on a busy street and we're used to the constant traffic noise, but what a relief to sit and enjoy the quiet.  The birds chirped, the frogs croaked, bikers whooshed by, skaters did their thing.  

As lovely as it was, there was still a coolish breeze, so after lunch we went to the other side of the dike where it was a bit more protected, spread the cloth and took a little nap.  In the warm sunshine.  

The geese on the little island were talking to each other a lot !!  Perhaps trading parenting ideas for all the babes they were raising. (I know it's impossible to see, but there are lots of goslings out there.)

Then we got our our books out, but Werner has a hard time sitting on the ground, so he went back to the bench and I stayed on the dike and succumbed again to the warm sunshine.  My view.

 Then it was time to go back.  I wish I had pictures, but we were too busy trying to just stay on our bikes!! We took a trail we weren't familiar with to get back to the river and it was a challenge.  About a quarter of the way in, we met two young guys coming from the other direction who said, It's a bit fun up there!  Just be prepared!  We decided to soldier on, but they were right!  So much water!!  We pushed the bikes through the first two slightly flooded areas but then decided the narrow path was good enough to not get stuck in, so we just kept on.  It worked!  But our feet and our pedals got wet more than once and my quads got a workout (that's good!). 

Fun!

There's always another path to take, another way to explore, another  day to enjoy.  I can't remember that we've ever taken time to sit and read and nap and soak in the sun.  

Bottle day for sure.  It will have to last a bit.  

Puzzles

 We've been in and out of various levels of lockdown for more than a year, and though we don't - or didn't - have much trouble entertaining ourselves before that dreadful day, it seemed we needed another teeny distraction.

I have done puzzles of all sorts for a while.  It started not so very early - maybe was 11 and for some reason I had a crossword puzzle magazine.  My friend Donna and I tried to figure out this and that and had some success here and there but not much.  Then her dad took the magazine and filled in all kinds of blanks and I was incensed!  Jealous!  I wanted to do it, too!  

I played around here and there and took it up again in college.  Gradually, I got better at them but never great, but it was fun.  Crostics, crosswords, Jumbles, cryptics (they were challenging).

Then the ooooohhhhh lockdown.  Werner and I decided to start the puzzles that were published daily in our newspaper.  At first we saved them, thinking we'd do them while travelling (when we could still do that last summer.)  Lunchtime was good for puzzling.  And it was great for me!  Vocabulary practice, even a bit of grammar practice! 

Here's a puzzle they call a crossword, but there is a definite disassociation between German and English here. 

First of all, they put the clues IN the puzzle.  Sometimes two letters will be together that have nothing to do with each other or the puzzle. And there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the blank spaces.  

OK.  It's Germany.  I am getting used to it and I'M GETTING BETTER!!  I still can't come up with German composers who died in 1845 or the name of the leftovers from thrashing, but every little bit helps.  

But we are getting behind.

Project

I thought I could give it a number, this project, but what? Where did I start and were there other numbers? Or give it a name?  OK, let's give it a name: New Step Stool. But maybe it's confusing because there were lots of stools - for the little kids, for friends and neighbors, even for us.

Our favorite stools were the ones for the grands, mostly used to reach the sink in the bathroom.  Here's the one for Hayden. That was a great one, for sure - FSU colors, all the sports.

My kitchen stool is about the same height and when I was taller, that was enough to comfortably reach the pans hanging from the ceiling.  The motif was copied from a porcelain pitcher we bought on vacation on the Baltic Sea.  Fun cat!

But I got older and I got shorter.  A lot!! So now my stool is not high enough.  

Werner? Do you need a project?  

Of course he does. We looked at all kinds of stools on the internet. Some were really crude, some were really sophisticated, but we found one that was OK for us in terms of looks and skill level required and tools that one would need. We don't exactly have a fully-equipped workshop in our little house.

There was a piece of wood that had been in the attic when we moved in. Lord knows how old it is. Or what it is.  But it is dark and pretty.  So, steps.  Werner made drawings and took measurements and made an appointment with the home improvement store to buy the stuff he needed. (In these pandemic times, we still have to make appointments in most shops to go in and shop.)

Early frame work.

Positioning the steps.

First coat of paint.

And before you know it, it's done!

The steps are a lovely dark and the dowels that hold them in place are a nice contrast.  Stable!  High enough!  And a pleasing addition to our little house.  

Thanks Werner!