"I'm a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house." - Zsa Zsa Gabor

That truck is a transporter. The Vette was on the tracks over the cab. Somebody's in trouble.

One of the many things I learned on vacation has to do with windows. I'd been calling them transom windows but the correct term is clear story window. A transom window is attached to the window (or door) below it, whereas a clear story, or clerestory window has a space of wall between. It's defined as a window above eye level designed to admit light or fresh air. We'll use plenty of them in our tiny house where line of sight is critical to increasing the sense of space.

I read an article today on the least and most expensive states for car ownership and was surprised to see Michigan came in as the most expensive, with an average of $4,678 per year. California has the highest gas prices, due in part to the crazy taxes on each gallon.

The plan is to list the house one month from today, and I leave for Costa Rica one month from tomorrow. That means I've got to be diligent about getting tasks done to be ready for both and today set the tone.

By 4 a.m. I was working on the slides for the first session of the Intro seminar and by 6:00 I'd sent the presentation off to Alonso who will do the translation and make sure transitions all work. (I created it in Keynote, then exported it as a PowerPoint presentation, which is what he uses.)

Next up, starting the process of finishing the bed boards for the truck. Eight long boards and eight short corner boards (two in each corner) all get four coats of spar varnish. But I can only do one side at a time so it will happen over two days. I had everything set up and discovered I didn't have any mineral spirits for cleaning my brush. A trip to Home Depot and back to apply the first coat. Today's humidity - 30% with a dew point of 64 - extends drying time to the max, but at this end of the day the bottom, ends, and sides of all 16 boards are done. Monday I'll do the tops.

Weed the rose garden. Half done.

While I was at Home Depot this morning I got the eight 1x4 clear pine boards for the storage bed face frames. Just before lunch I went down to the wood shop and used the radial arm saw and jointer to cut and surface them. After lunch and another coat of varnish I used my Kreg jig to put four pocket holes in the rails, all 18 of them. Tomorrow I'll attach the rails to the stiles, do some sanding, and have the two face frames for the storage bed.

This afternoon I drove over to Sun City West and paid a guy $32 dollars for a pickup load of collapsed boxes. He just moved here from Delaware, put the boxes on Craig'sList, and I decided to buy them even though it's a bit early. I found several people giving them away but they were all in Gilbert or Mesa, and hour away. I'd spend the same money on gas, never mind the time.

Today is my younger brother's birthday so we celebrated by going out for GF pizza. He's in Seattle so he couldn't come, but we decided that shouldn't stop us.

If you never read A Tale of Two Cities, I understand. It's a good book and I'd never discourage anyone from reading it, but typical of anything written by Charles Dickens it's challenging. There's a reason something especially tough is a "Dickens of a _____."
So read The Scarlet Pimpernel instead. I reread it on vacation - it took me two days - and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's also set during the French Revolution so you get some history, and if you don't worry about pronouncing the name of the French guy it's easy and engaging. I had a paperback edition and gave it to Pam when I was done, and she liked it, too.
I'll bet it's free for Kindle.

So, what do A Scarlet Pimpernel, the Democratic Party, and Rotary Club have in common?
We'll get to that in the next post. For now...I'm wasted.