The house next door is undergoing a rehab. Sort of. The long time residents (more then 50 years) passed away several years ago. The house was sold to a developer who had big plans for it but instead sold it to another developer. The new guy started work on it about a year ago. They tore most of it out, leaving just three feet of the outside walls and the basement floor and walls. Everything else went. Over the months they have framed it up, turning it into a two story, 6 bedroom and I don't remember if it's 4 or 5 baths. But most of the inside work is just framed up, nothing is finished. Then they started putting up a fake brick facade. They are less then halfway done and the work stopped. The guy in charge told me they were waiting for more brick. Additional brick arrived and is stacked in the back yard. That was last summer. I saw the developer at that time and he told me he expected the work to be done by the end of September. The construction guy me they were having a dispute with the village about a plumbing issue. I don't need to tell you who is going to win that argument. In January a plumbing crew showed up and dug up the front yard and I'm assuming replaced the sewer. No work being done since. Yesterday a For Sale sign popped up in the front yard. Much work remains to be done and I'm assuming some things might have to be redone to conform to the village building code. When it comes to the building code they are pricks and don't budge. Somebody is taking a bath on that house, maybe several people, I think there is a group of investors bankrolling it.

So, who wants to buy a "fixer up"? I bet you can get a good deal!

1. Do you make your bed everyday? Yes

2. What's your favorite number? Don’t know

3. What is your dream job? Being an actor on a successful sitcom. I think pulling in up to a million dollars an episode would be a lot of fun.

4. If you could, would you go back to school? Not at this point in my life.

5. Can you parallel park? Of course.

6. Name a job you had which people would be shocked to know you had. Drawing a blank on this.

7. Do you think aliens are real? If the question is do I think aliens have visited Earth, absolutely not. They may be out there, or maybe had existed at one time or may exist at some point in the future, but the likelihood of them existing at the same point in time as us and the ability to travel the incredible vast distances of space pretty much makes it improbable. (Hears a high pitched whirling noise and sees a bright light outside as I levitate in the air, oh no, not this shit again.........)

8. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes.

9. What is your guilty pleasure? Baked goods and candy.

10. What's your dream car? So many, but I guess it would be a 1968 Ford Mustang.

11. Do you talk to yourself? I have brilliant conversations with myself.

12. Do you like doing puzzles? Only if I can solve them.

13. Favorite music? I like a lot of different kinds, really can’t narrow it down.

14. Coffee or tea? Either as long as it’s decaf.

15. Do you hit the snooze button? A snooze button? That’s something they put on alarm clocks, right? Alright now, what’s an alarm clock?

16. Love or money? Not a valid question, the choice is never between love or money. You can have both or you can have neither. But, and this is important as it is true, if you have money it is easier for someone to love you. Not an absolute requirement, of course not, just makes it easier.

17. Pets? Have no pets.

18. First thing you remember you wanted to be growing up? Mmmm, this a hard one, I think an ancient Roman soldier. I liked the idea of chucking a spear at my enemies. When I grew up, I found there were no openings in that field.

This is really cool. Click the link.

[url]https://vimeo.com/245581179[/url]

There are a lot of pic thieves out there. I'm not talking about the idiots who post nudes from other sites. I'm talking about Mr or Mrs Bakers. Not their real names. Let me explain. I occasionally post pics of food I make on food sites, where I got the recipe for said dish. Several years ago I posted a pic of a cake I baked. Just out of curiosity today I did a reverse search on the pic. Son of a bitch, I found the same exact image on a half dozen or more cooking sites. I know it's the exact image I posted because of smudges on the decoration on my cake. So, I wonder, are there people out there pretending to be bakers who really aren't? Or are they just too lazy to pull out their camera and snap a pic of their own cake? Or did theirs not turn out as attractive? Or are my photographic skills superior to theirs and they wanted to show the best example? I'll never know as I'm not going to investigate any further. It's actually kind of funny.

It's been a while since I've blogged. Today's topic is my tomato garden. For a number of years now I've been growing my tomatoes in containers. It's been working out pretty good but I think this year might be the best yet. The season is just starting but the early results are very promising.

In the middle of May I planted 2 containers, each one having 2 tomatoes and one herb (parsley and basil).



I've been harvesting tomatoes for about 7-10 days but now they are ripening in large numbers. These are mostly the small early tomatoes. The standard size tomato will ripen a little later.

This is today's harvest.



As you can see, the basil is getting overgrown. That is from a single plant.

The other day was cookie day. I made Oat Raisin, Acorn and Noel Nut Balls.

I added some dark and white chocolate chips to the Oat Raisin cookies. The Acorn cookies are flavored with Hazelnut flavoring and the Noel Nut Balls get a rich flavor from honey and bourbon.

With Christmas fast approaching I have to get some baking done. Both, for my daily needs as well as the holiday itself. So today was bread day.

I pulled out my oat wheat recipe (recipe is in one of my blogs if you want to dig down for it) and made a few sandwich buns, a small braided loaf and a loaf of raisin bread.



And a Stollen shaped like a wreath (or a giant doughnut if you prefer, lol). Stollen is a traditional German fruited bread that is served during the Christmas season. I'm not German but one doesn't have to be to enjoy it.



I'm thinking tomorrow will be cookie day.

I'm offering enough nudles so you can get a one month premium membership. If you are interested just post in the comments on this blog. I will pull names from a hat. There will be more than one winner but I haven't decided on the exact number.

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Edit, this is open to members who are not currently premium.

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Edit, the offer is now closed. 4 premiums were given.

The work is finally done. A total of five rain out days. The roofers put the finishing touches on the project this morning. No more waking up to the sounds of construction noise, I can finally get a good mornings sleep again beginning tomorrow.

The color of the new brick is lighter than the old, but I knew it would be when this project began. It's something I really had to do as the garage was too far along for any more patches. It all has to do with a builders mistake when they used too narrow cap stones 65 years ago. That let water into the bricks, which made it's was down to the lintels and eventually rusted them. When metal rusts, it expands thus pushing up on the brick and further exasperating the problem. Add to the problem a dumbass tuck pointer along the way who didn't understand the different functions of cement v mortar.

So, new lintels, bricks, capstones and topped off with a new roof. This company paid attention to a lot of small details that should make this repair last a long time. I'm glad it's done.

After a three day rain delay, work resumed Monday. Two walls are mostly done. Still to do are installation of two more lintels, two walls, new capstones, roof and some miscellaneous items.