May 31, 2026 Sunday

Greetings!

Was a really hot week in the low 90s.  If I opened the window Allie disappeared in a flash!

She did quit hiding in the studio and went to "her" chair to pout.

But I knew that her bottomless love of her new cat couch would beckon to her and I hoped it would win over her unreasonable fear of the wind coming through the screen.  It did.  

But it took her two days until she could actually sleep up there and not be sitting on alert during her precious afternoon naps--lol!  She's okay with the window being open now.  Silly cat.  

Last weekend Dagan and Leah came down and put together the new wall shelf unit.  It is the same as the old one.  But, much like the tall skinny drawer units from Ikea, it is not the same color.  Doesn't matter to me.

We need the long metal brackets to attach it to the wall.  We have the one half on the back of the old one, but the other half is packed away somewhere.  Leah was going to pick up two of them this last week, but I forgot to ask her if she did.  We cancelled any work down here for this weekend.  Well, I did.  Ian had been sick with a fever and it seemed like a good idea for us to isolate (don't want t get sick if I can help it) and Dagan and Leah have been good about coming down every weekend to work on my apartment so I told them they could use a weekend off, too.  We shall continue next weekend.

We'll hang the two shelf units and then move some other things around.  The two paper shelves we got off of Facebook marketplace were just shoved into the bottoms of the hutches.

I want them in the bookcase next to the door.

In the narrower bookcases in the corner of the room...

...I hope to fit all the art, craft and calligraphy books and binders.  Most of them are currently stacked in boxes right outside of my bathroom door.

There's a lot to move around and many shelves to install.  I could use the help, that's for sure.  But this weekend was a weekend off.  :)

Wild Card of the week.

We didn't have a real "hometown" with a main street or a downtown.  I grew up in a sprawling new suburb of Minneapolis called Fridley.  The thing I appreciate now that we had when we were kids was the freedom to roam (run wild) all over the neighborhood.  People didn't lock their doors.  All the moms kept an eye on all the kids.  We didn't have to be home until dusk and knew all the kids in the neighborhood.  We had our favorite TV shows before and after school but when they weren't on we were either outside or in our rooms doing or making something.  In the evenings when you only had the one TV the parents decided what to watch...and there were only 5 channels to pick from--lol!  

By the time I was in senior high that world had changed and my dad had the Vietnam War on the news every night while we were eating dinner.  The world got smaller.  The draft hung over the boys in school.  Yes, in grade school we did the curl up under your desk A-bomb drills, but I was too young to truly realize what they really meant and they just seemed so foolish.  Even I knew if a bomb landed on you being under your desk wasn't going to save you--lol!  I think I liked it better when the world seemed larger and less scary, to be honest.  That's what I appreciate now.

Meanwhile, I will be making some beef, bean, and veggie soup in the crock pot.  Finished laundry.  Ian is feeling better and we're hoping no one else gets it, whatever it was.  Allie has accepted the North Dakota wind.  I am feeling pretty good...at least no worse.  The one eye issue still slows me down in some areas, but I am doing okay.  Won't be too long and I will be deep into unpacking and organizing.  Life is good.  Till next week.  Love and hugs from Fargo!