My alarm is set pretty early these days so I may get up and write a little bit before work.  I’ve been trying to do more than post this blog, and this morning I was working on a story that was submitted to a magazine over a year ago.  The piece is one about my Pappaw, and the local newspaper where he lives liked it, but decided to come out and interview him themselves using quotes from the story, and that resulting article gained wide notoriety in the region and Pappaw is set to be the Grand Marshall of this year’s Christmas parade.  My dad, uncle and brother are leading the parade in red, white, and blue pickup trucks with the generations from Pappaw all the way down to Addair riding together.

I’m proud of my Pappaw, and I’m not bringing any of this up to take any credit because he inspired me to write in the first place, but I’m wondering now how to get that story tweaked into something printable this time, because it should be.  He is a grand fellow.  Better than I can say in as few words needed for a newspaper.

I got an early Trick or Treat this morning when I found Addair cuddled up next to me and both of us lying in warm pee.  It was very early, unmentionably early, and I’ll pay for this when we load the pallet of 4×8′ OSB sheets into the third story attic.  I will also mention that it was, in fact Addair’s pee and not my own.  But it inspired me to get out of bed and write.

As you can see we have been moving past the tear out phase of Scott’s attic job.  These little 2x4s have supported us for weeks and when the sheetrock was under them we though nothing of walking across them.  Not now, but they had to go anyway.

The new LVLs are set with our floor joists tied into it.  Yesterday we cut one side of the staircase and the geometry that goes into building stairs is more difficult than one would suspect.  Especially with a man who takes his carpentry seriously.  Get it level, plumb, flush and square.  Okay, nail it.

Sometimes you can caulk it up and hit it with paint.  Not stairs.  But I’m just a painter and we started a paint job around the corner yesterday, too.

If you’re an Old North Knoxvillian, you know this one.  All the he green is going away, so are the concrete tiles on the roof.  And maybe, just maybe, even the shakes.

photo by Daniel Aisenbrey

Yep, that’s poplar siding under there.  The green will start disappearing as soon as today.  We’ll go down to the local Sherwin Williams store and get samples this afternoon, when all the scraping and priming is done.

If you want to know the color, well I guess you’ll just have to come back and see.

Meanwhile Scott and I are going to be leaf cutter ants for Halloween.