respublica

Perfect

Surprised not surprised

It seems as though Housing, the surprise of the pandemic is leading the economy out of the recession.  Single family home starts were 9.5 percent higher than last year at this time. There are several guesses as to why this is, including the low interest rates (3 percent!), stimulus checks, and millennials getting to the age where they begin wanting out of rentals and into their own home.

It's also true that this pandemic, with more people stuck at home, are wanting to have work done on the homes they own. Anyone deciding to, for example, wanting a new fence put up, or a roof, or even a tree cut down would find themselves on quite the waiting list. Occupations which do much of the work outdoors or in empty spaces were busy.

It's amazed me how many items we needed for the house, even as simple as a filter for the shop vac, were sold out. I learned this lesson as we went looking to replace our stove and dryer. People everywhere were buying home improvement things constantly.

The fact that all this has helped the economy is one good thing to come out of it.

A little bit of the seminary in our basement

I've mentioned before that Dale has been obsessed with redoing part of the basement to house his office and books. That effort included using old windows which had been removed during renovations of the seminary faculty homes. As these windows were headed for large dumpsters, Dale was out there rescuing them and stacking them up everywhere. These windows were most likely put in when the homes were built in the mid-1920's and are made of solid wood, oak, I'm sure, and weigh a ton. I admit to thinking he'd lost his mind.

But he has turned them into doors for all the new bookshelves he's built in our Collinsville basement. It's not finished yet but huge progress has been made and I spent all day yesterday scrubbing that area of the basement floor, cleaning each pane on the windows. It's not perfect or finished yet but we can see it's going to be comfortable and rather attractive. The floors need work, but we may have professionals come in and do something with them, at least in this area.

When we lived in the campus house I dreaded having to clean those windows, there are so many panes it used to take forever, and I believed I would never have to do it again. Wrong. The bookshelves on the left still have to have windows put on, probably this weekend.

Catching up on the road falls

Mattresses 45

Ladders 55

Ladders are really pulling away right now, must be because of all the construction work going on.

Another last

One thing I like about an earlier sunset is it means we're moving on toward maybe a much better year.

It's all about the daily struggle

What times we're in right now. While most of us are still trying to get by day by day with a virus which will not go away, the political class is obsessing over the coming election. Frankly, while I normally rather enjoy most election years, this one just seems as crazy as the life we have to put up with.

News media of all types are fully engaged in reporting every darn thing that is said or done by candidates and their supporters. They're even analyzing each party's digital media group. All the political back and forth is just so much like the sounds and orchestra makes while warming up.

Some wag made a joke about '2020' being the new curse word. "What the 2020 are you talking about?" And so on. Substitute 2020 for your favorite swear word. Totally acceptable.

Doorbell tunes

Quite a few years ago our doorbell was disconnected during some home improvement work and we never replaced it. It just seemed unnecessary and also more work than we had the energy to do. So the bell's push button on the outside wall by the front door stayed there having no benefit.

But after we moved back here I was kind of determined to get a doorbell up and running again. It amazed me how different these things are now. There is no need to hot wire the mechanism to an inside wall. Doorbells are wireless now and as easy to install as popping a cap off a bottle of soda. I did a bit of research online and found one which had a lot of good recommendations and was quite cheap.

I got that thing up and running in about ten minutes and the surprise and fun part was we had a choice of 52 different ring tones. I scrolled through all 52, laughing at the variety of dings, dongs, melodies, and even classical music. And believe me that thing is loud. Even Dale, who was largely apathetic about a doorbell, pushes the button each time he comes in the front door.

Old voters

Today is the 100th anniversary of the right for women to vote. As amazing as it seems at this point in time, this was as controversial back in 1920 as many issues going on today. Maybe more.

Take this pamphlet for example, click to enlarge

Oddly, The National Association OPPOSED to Woman Suffrage, was headed up by a woman, Josephine Dodge. She believed that allowing women to vote would would decrease women’s work in communities and their ability to effect societal reforms.

And get this pamphlet also opposing the right of women to vote. The point of this is that voting would not improve women's daily life in the same way cleaning things would. To help women see this, they give many helpful cleaning hints. I rather like the idea of cleaning wallpaper with fresh bread. Click to enlarge again.

Also oddly, men at that time must have been ok with women voting since they were the only ones to vote on this amendment.

Maryland flags and crabs

You really should be reading Haley's blog. She's in Maryland via St. Louis and her posts describing her eating and tourist experiences in Baltimore are a great read. The most recent describes her visit to the Mary Pickersgill house, the woman who sewed the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the National Anthem.

Plus, her first experience eating oysters and crabs. All good, fun, writing.

One more unexpected 2020 crazy

8 counties in New Jersey have been put under an additional quarantine due to an invasion of an exotic and invasive insect known as the spotted lanternfly. Sounds like a benign kind of bug, right? Not so fast. The insect, native to China and South Korea, poses a risk to more than 70 plant species, including fruit trees, vegetables and vines.

People in those counties have to stay put because these bugs tend to prefer hopping on cars which means traveling out of the areas means they will spread. The Lanternfly is an excellent hitchhiker.  They also, ironically, prefer the Tree of Heaven to roost in.

Residents are asked to stomp these guys out whenever they see them. Sounds like fun times.

Too bad something so destructive can look rather pretty...for a bug.