sunday, colder.

woke at 5:50 again, and di and i got right up, somehow. she went for a run, while i walked seth up to central street for a chai. di came to find us while we were walking back, on her way home from the run. once home, we decided to hit a hardware store for a soil-testing kit and some bolts, so i could fix the broken joists we've found in the basement ceiling. i looked online to check the hours of the old man hardware store in wilmette (since i know the evanston one is closed on sundays) and found a different store out on linden, right near the end of the purple line train. we decided to ride bikes over there, and selected the fixed-gears. rode over to the store, discovering a new route across the channel at bryant(?) street. parked our bikes and swooned at seeing this great looking tiny coffee shop (closed sundays) across the street. di will come back and check this out during the week. stopped in a small, old grocery store to pick up various things, such as dog and suds rootbeer, then finally went into the hardware store,which was everything we were hoping for: cramped, shelves towering to the ceiling, small aisles, and old men working there, laughing with the other customers. we found what we wanted (bolts, soil test kit, doorbell buttons/bell/transformer), rode to panera to get di some coffee, and rode home, wandering through back streets.

[gary just told me he's reading my blog, which freaks me out a bit - i think that means there are six people here now. hi!]

at home, i tore out the diagonal struts holding the joists square, screwed in some 6 foot long 2 x 8's, and then bolted the whole thing together, five bolts in each of the two broken joists. the house was built in 1913, and has not been impeccably maintained. tore a bit of other stuff out of the basement, while di was in the garden weeding. chopped some stout bushes out which are growing up *in* the fence along the side of the house, tapping into our waste line to the street - the neighbors must have thought i was nuts, apparently swinging my axe into the chain link fence. i cooked chicken sausages and put them on hot dog buns, and di and i ate on the front steps, with seth watching us very very closely. we went in, showered, and i dressed in clean clothes for the first time in a week.

i started a fire in the wood stove, and set to updating the website. accidentally posted the complete set of the blue planet prints before i meant to, and got about ten order in the first ten minutes. fixed it, went to expressobeans to see what was up, hilarity ensued. i finished the updates, the prints went live, and we sold a bunch of them. hi gary.

now going to draw.