Almost finished my storefront!

So there were some delays. I started ripping out my glass and the entire frame around my storefront the week after Christmas. I took a week of vacation to get everything done, and made great headway, until it started raining, and the new glass order was delayed. I was going to try putting my original glass back in place for the big panes, but after breaking one while taking it out (it was under so much pressure in the torqued frame it cracked after I released the first clip) and then trying to cut down the sheets to fit my newly-square and plumb openings without success, I bit the bullet and ordered all new tempered. The pictures are in no particular order, but right here is a night shot after the glass is completely installed, including my lovely new transom windows. To see what it looked like when I started, scroll down a few posts. (And to put this in perspective, the store is 50 feet across, and the top of the transom windows are about 12 ft up.)

Though I still have some painting to do, this essentially took a week and a half of full time work, and less than 2k, including all new glass. Though I've had set backs on my second story window installations, this certainly came in on budget and in time.

I'm still working on my arch. Notice the lovely brick arches that used to float across the front? When the previous owners installed the concrete ripple board over where my transom windows are, they took hammers to those arches so the concrete boards would lie flat against the building. I've build my form along the bottom edge, and will build out a 1.5 " relief that follows the arch profile all the way across. The it will all be painted burgundy.
The inside is much lighter now, and if you recall from earlier views from the inside, the large concrete display ceilings that were sagging and cutting off the light are no more.

From some time in the process.

Me and my baby in her new backpack carrier. She loves it, and will ride there happily for hours as I work or run errands in town.

It's very well designed, all the weight on my hips like a climbing pack.

And our house two blocks up the street. Wiring is done today, roof only waits on the ridge caps, and we're preparing to put the new siding on. Then it's insulation/sheetrock/kitchen/bathroom/paint/trim/floors. Getting there.

#2

Is a Boy!
And Annaliese is 1 today!!
Hurrah!

January 5th, 2009

And I'm too busy to upload pictures here one at a time, so I've posted a bunch here: http://picasaweb.google.com/smartinof4steve/2008ChristmasVacation?authkey=TQoa83-hpMU#

Along with some comments.

A nice 2 weeks off for the holidays, most of which I spent ripping out my storefront and rebuilding it. The frames were all rotten, much of the glass separated, and there was a very heavy layer of unsupported concrete above the glass that was blocking the natural light. The tempered glass order was delayed, and it started to rain near the end of the week, so the final paint is not on, and the glass isn't in place, but it looks a world better, and should be completed in my regular work schedule ( Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday) some time next week.

Our house is coming along, now that the rain has stopped a day here and there. The tin roof is mostly on, the windows are in, the house is wrapped, the electrician is working, the siding is being delivered form the mill, etc. etc.

My girls continue to bring me waves of joy, and remind me that my favorite thing is not so much swinging a wrecking bar, but wandering around in the beautiful outdoors listening to the young and slightly younger ladies of my life yammer on about whatever they're interested in at the moment.

Which doesn't take the pressure off to wrap up some of these projects, but it's a sweet reminder of why.

Saturday night, what's been accomplished.

And Happy birthday to my papa, who's 64 today.

I'll let most of the pictures speak for themselves, but those white corrogated things that used to be on the front of my building, they were not fiberglass as I suspected, but rather some sort of concrete board, in 10 ft sections, weighing several hundred pounds each. They were difficult to get down without smashing the front windows. I'll leave it at that.

Here's a reminder of what the place has looked like since we bought it.

I refinished this door.

This is how the building looks now. Center windows removed, awning and corrugated crap removed.
Paul Parker, 94, used to own my building, and Wade my 82 year old barber.

Paul came by to see what I was doing to his building. He took a tour of the upstairs also, walked up the stairs himself, all the way through the upstairs, down the back stairs, (I supported him on those, they're a bit steep) and then he walked himself home, 3 blocks away. Incredible fellow.

Our friends John and Becky opened their restaurant on Thursday. I went for lunch today, and this is what I ate. It was the best meal I have had out in MS, bar none. Everything is homemade, the flavors were incredible. Incredible dressing on the caesar salad, really tasty crawfish bisque, real mashed potatos, southern style green beans (meaning with-bacon), tasty slim sweet potato fries, and meatloaf. I always try the meatloaf, it's a good measure of a place. Everything was delicious.

Sash, 2 coats of oil based primer.

I did this much last night. Nothing else to do on Halloweeen.

Our new house.

New footings poured.

Footings for the new wrap around porch.

Pictures!

My family has been out of town, visiting family in Virginia. I'm lonely, but work-work-working.
Don't have any new pictures of my sweetie, but there are a few on my phone of Annaliese.

Also, building progress, sash assembly complete and priming underway, mudding of all sheetrock complete, and the progress of our new house. :)

Enjoy.

The healing properties of time.

Or maybe it's the staying power of strong emotion that is lacking. I don't know, and it doesn't seem to matter.

What I'm astounded by is the result. Incredible experiences, gut wrenching, throat closing, blood raising, that leave you curled up on the floor gasping for breath, become easier somehow. At times you may question the validity, or intensity, of the emotion when looking backwards over a great enough distance.

So in theory that's interesting, and even in experience it can be "interesting" with proper perspective.

This comes to mind for several reasons.

I have had a broken heart in my time, possibly more than once. Not the kind that I think I would be subject to if I ever lost little or big A, but decently powerful enough to impact my eating and sleeping habits for months. (Big A would contest this is related to broken pride rather than heart, as I never loved before her. She may be right. In many ways I know she is.)

Anyway, those hurt, and then after a while they didn't.

I have lost a sibling, my big brother, when I was 21 and he was 24. That is an empty like I cannot describe, pressing down for months and years. Waves, each different, as various areas of numbness woke up only to be barraged with what they had been avoiding.

It has been 6 years, and these days I can have large chunks of time go by that are not aware in the moment of this loss. The waves come when triggered, weddings, birthdays, working on cars, seeing other brothers working or playing together; when I am reminded of what I miss, but the missing does not impose itself on every moment.

That's a bit dire, I know, and I don't mean to bring you down with these types of stories. I share these here because I have had time to adjust to these events, so the healing, or fading, I have also had time to adjust to.

It is the most recent experience of this fading, and the accelerated nature of the forgetfulness, that has me in shock.

As you must know, the coming of little A in January of this year started for big A and me a time of sleep deprivation, and sapping of patience. Little A is a strong willed child, was from the moment she appeared, and she knew from hour 1 that she had been far more comfortable in her mama's belly, and saw no reason for trading her cozy pad for the loud, drafty world outside. She was not happy for 3 months. Not colicky, not sick, just generally pissed. It was miserable. Since then we've had about 2 months in the last 9 when we were able to sleep with only a single interruption through the night. For the last 2 months we've been in teething-ville, another unpleasant land of sad little eyes, wailing gums, and ear pulling discomfort. Then of course there's the newly discovered ability to stand up, and the unstoppable urge to do this even in her sleep.

These more recent developments are actually kinda fun, since their coolness is obvious even when we're dead tired.

However, the beginning of this adventure was not nice.

And yet, just the other day, I found myself telling someone it wasn't so bad.

I've lost my memory, or mind, in 6 months.

It might possibly be linked with finding out that big A and I are expecting a new one of these little packages in 7 months.

And now it's October

My word.
But I have lots of Pictures!

Big and Little A, Water Valley elementary school in the background.

New Teeth!

Clapping.

Chicago Airport.

Orvis store, Essex Junction, VT.

Family! Vermont, William's future cabin site. (William's new 4 wheeler.)

Big and Little A!

Me and my papa and my baby.

Natasha and Nathan's wedding, VT.

Bride and Groom.

Natalie and William, William's farm.

Me and Natalie on William's 4 wheeler.

Apple straight from the tree, Vermont.

Jersey cows, Vermont.