It has been a while. We were all sick last week. I got it from work, then Joel got it, and Anne is just now getting over it. It was a really bad time, especially for being just a cold. Anne's parents and brother were in town over the weekend and it was wonderful to catch up on sleep, be sick and not busy, and to do some house stuff. This picture shows 3 of the projects: Anne's dad taught me some wiring stuff and we added a switch to the wall of the basement and 4 florescent lights to the ceiling. No more wondering in and fishing around blindly for a pull chain! I also made that new door on the crawl space (it even has foamboard insulation). The old one was disintegrating so much that it no longer covered the hole well--and was messy too. Just to the left of the cover handle is the box I added to control whether speaker input goes upstairs or downstairs...in other words, we can listen to whatever is on the stereo from the basement now too. I also tore up a poorly-landscaped part of land and graded the soil from it (by doing so, I discovered a crawlspace vent that was covered with many inches of dirt and leaked like crazy because it was not well graded). I am almost glad I was sick so I could excuse my tired head from dissertationing and get this house work done.

Joel is saying "la" (pretty much) and "da" (almost definitely). He claps. He giggles. He drools like he belongs in Yellowstone. Man, I love that kid.