The deep clean begins. I expect over the next three months my house will be cleaner, tidier, more polished, and perhaps a bit emptier. The stacks are growing again. And it’s time for some well-managed deep clean.
On Saturday I took antique oil to most of the old wooden things in the house. The dining room table is gleaming. And the front door is quite nice now that it’s been cleaned and oiled.

An Arts & Crafts style, century-old home on Lawn Place in Saint Louis.
My home office is now the Kawai grand piano. I teach all of my lessons from here, and lead the weekly master class.
Plenty of light illuminates my face for the computer’s camera, and I read music from the iPad. The external mic and headphones give me better sonics.
It’s not perfect, but some teaching/learning is happening!
For meetings, I move to the dining room table, where I have more room to write and for files. Plus, it’s a decent change of pace and a different view.
The cooking continues. Saturday was a full homemade dinner. Plus homemade bread. And these sweet/salty/spicy pecans:
Look closely for the opossum, spotted on Friday as she (he?) was stealthy, sticking close to the flower beds and the fronts of the homes across the street:
The City of Saint Louis Forestry division was busy last week at the north end of my street:
Thanks to the kindness of friends with chickens, I have a dozen fresh eggs, gratefully received.
Getting older is hard.
Dealing with an older house is hard.
Woe is me.
Seriously, this has been a double-whammy week.
I’ve been feeling some overly-sensitive sensations in one of my molars for the last couple of months, and a dentist visit this week confirmed what I had surmised: a teenage-years amalgam filling is finally giving way. The tooth needs a crown. Even with insurance, this is expensive.
And then . . . for several years I’ve been aware that my back-porch addition flat roof needed replacing. Calls to several roofers have gone unheeded; they just don’t show up to even bid on a job! And these are people that have been recommended to me.
Well, my neighbors hired Miguel and his son Brandon to work on their roofing needs, and they are very happy. And I watched these guys work over the last couple of weeks. So I asked them for a bid.
Miguel showed me photos of the shoddy workmanship — no flashing, no sealing around the AC lines as they enter the house — and the cracked roofing material on my porch roof. Here goes a quick grand…. But it needs to be done, and there’s no time like the present.
And as I update this post before publishing, the roof is now complete. Rarely have been happier to spend $1000 than I am right now. These guys were just super!
I am missing photos of the places I lived during the summers of 1981 and 1982, as I worked in Missouri between college semesters. Summer 1981 was at Southwest Baptist University in the Admissions office; Summer 1982, in Tarkio as a summer missionary.
1986. I am missing a photo of the house I rented in Bolivar while I was Director of Admissions at Southwest Baptist University. The building has subsequently been demolished.
1999. I am missing a photo of my townhouse in Owensboro, Kentucky, where I taught college for one year.
And then I bought my own dream home in November 2008. And I’ve been here ever since, with one dog and then another. I like it here.
Here’s a bonus: my elementary school in Lee’s Summit.
Random photos from this past week!
Busy week on Lawn Place.
21 has apparently sold for an extraordinary amount of money, which helps all of us on home value as the comps rise. This is good news indeed!
The house south of me has some foundation repairs in the offing. (How I tremble when I remember my own foundation issues five years ago.)
The house to the north of me is getting all new windows, with ensuing banging of hammers &c.
And my own new windows arrive next week.
Renewal is a good thing.
