I asked Madeline how old she thought I was. She said "100". I suppose it was a compliment. We then counted from 10 to 36 until we got to the right number.

Things have been busy at home with the renovation of the kitchen. Over the past month the kitchen has been destructed and reconstructed. We are probably a couple of weeks away from having a finished and usable kitchen again. The big shift was to knock down some walls and make doors where there were none. As a result we will have a big kitchen and no dining room (at least it is now integrated). We also no longer have a bathroom that doubles as the back door and can walk from our kitchen to our living room. Along with it we got better insulation, new windows, and replaced appliances. Like all home renovation projects it has a constant scope creep. I added the "we really should add speakers wired in the walls while the walls are open". The front door needing to be re-framed was added because it is slowly falling apart. Somehow landscaping the side yard got attached as a task because it is the right season to do it vs. spring. Painting the rest of the 1st floor got added because we had to hit the living room anyways. We didn't switch the whole house to base board heating although now it is on the radar or swap out all the windows on the first floor... both of which were considered when we thought about our antique radiators taking lots of room and the cold wind that blows through the house.

I had been thrust from sept 15th until the end of October on a mission to help work on a CTSA application as an advisor. I hadn't anticipated how much work it would be to do so but the good news is that the applications all shipped today so I now am a little relaxed given that the due date is done. Among the activities planned is my birthday (actually more Madeline's) this Saturday (a week early) where we are having "Curious Critters" come to entertain the kids, going out swing dancing (which will likely not happen on my birthday due to lack of babysitting), going out for Halloween (I have grown old enough to dread getting a costume), and a trip to Vegas with the boys the first few days of November (which conflicts with a key mgmt. meeting at my company and is causing trouble).

But all is well for now.