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It’s a good thing I made an effort Friday night on the yard, because otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten anything done this weekend. The rain was pretty much gone by 11:00 AM yesterday, but by then I had already worn myself out shopping at Costco, the new Ace Hardware at Oxbridge, and Big Lots. This morning it was raining again when I woke up, which was fine with me considering I’m a touch hungover from dinner with David & Ginny last night. Three bottles of wine between us will have that affect on a guy.

Dinner was wonderful. We started the evening with a bottle of Bella Sera Pinot Grigio while Ginny and I prepared the veggies for the grill. The wine was nice and light. Ginny found a technique for cooking corn on the cob in a magazine, so we tried it. It’s a quicker version of the old wrap the ear in foil and grill technique (basically you soak the corn and then use a foil pan on the grill). I’m not sure how well it worked, because I didn’t have any of it. The potatoes, though unevenly cooked, were very good. Again, the cooking method was pretty simple: microwave for 10 minutes (to do the heavy lifting), drizzle with Italian dressing, and put them in a foil pan on the grill. I should have pulled out my grill wok for the potatoes, but I didn’t think about it until it was too late.

With our meal I opened the Shiraz from Rosemont Estate that I picked up at Costco. It was perfect. Nice and fruity, but still dry and weighty. The conversation over the meal was as good as the food.

We sat around the table long after we were done eating and finally opened up a Cabernet Sauvingon that David brought. Of the three wines we had it was the least impressive… thin and insubstantial, though it did compliment the chocolate silk pie I made from a box for desert very nicely (which really isn’t the underhanded comment it sounds like).

Ginny made an awesome little valance type thing for the window in the downstairs bathroom. The fabric pattern is very cool and I’d love to find more of it.

If I could get my hands on a few yards of this stuff I’d get rid of the prepackaged shower curtain and make one from scratch.

David and I also talked through a small home improvement project I have in mind. I love the open cathedral ceiling, but I’d love to have a little more of a loft upstairs, too.

The idea is to pull out the short angled wall that is the left side of the stairs and replace it with a wall that goes as high as the little balcony to the left of the chimney. Then extend the floor across the chimney (where John Coltrane is right now) to the existing balcony and create a larger loft like space. If I use the same sort of guardrail as is already up there I’d still be able to put up a huge piece of art that could be seen from the living room floor. Underneath the loft, on the chimney, I’d put a flat screen tv. I’m going to see if I can find some sort of 3D home remodeling software to render my plan. David and I are pretty confident that we could do the construction ourselves. In the end, the space only ends up being about 24 sq. ft., but I think it would be like a cherry on top of a bannana split.