Schmoo is one of Madeline’s nicknames.  I don’t know how much her parents still use it, but I thought it was delightfully cute the first time I heard it and I still think of her as Schmoo even though I usually call her Madeline to her face.

As I indicated in yesterday’s post, we have her all day today, overnight, and tomorrow through dinner.  Having Madeline here obviously alters our daily living patterns, which is actually nice for us.  Since she spent last night here we did not go to our usual ham radio club breakfast this morning.  It also meant that we would not get much, if any, work done on our garage project.  Linda is a very good grandmother, and has cared for Madeline by herself for up to five days/nights, so I could get some work done while she is here but I like to interact with her and do not have as many opportunities for that as Linda does.  I managed to do a load a laundry this morning, sneak in a little time to check e-mail, and download photos from Ron & Mary’s Dropbox to our Dropbox, but I did not get to start the Introduction to Linux course.  🙁

Brighton is holding its annual Art and Acoustic Music event this weekend so we decided to check it out after a delicious breakfast of oatmeal with fresh blueberries and red raspberries.  Hacker is closed at Grand River which is down to one lane in each direction for re paving, so we had to negotiate the detour for Hacker Road to Grand River Road via Bendix Road.  We were patient and we eventually got to the heart of downtown Brighton where Main Street was closed from Grand River west for a couple of blocks.  We found a public parking lot south of Main Street that we had not previously been aware of, waited for someone to pull out, and parked.  It was convenient to Hyne Street, which was about the middle of the vendor booths along Main Street.

Madeline takes a stroll at the Brighton at the AAMF.

Madeline was in and out of the stroller for over an hour and got to go for a walk along the Mill Pond where we saw Canadian Geese, Mallard ducks, white ducks, a Great Blue Heron, and Painted Turtles sunning on logs.  We found a very cute sleeveless jumper for Madeline decorated with 3-dimensional Winnie-the-Pooh characters.  It will be her “party dress” for tomorrow.

Madeline on the Brighton Mill Pond boardwalk.

We were back at the house by 12:15 PM, had lunch and got Madeline down for her nap at 1 PM.  She normally naps for 2 – 2.5 hours so we used that time to work in garage.

First we finished insulating the back/north wall of the garage.  We then cut two pieces of 4′ x 8′ drywall to a length of 70″ and installed them horizontally.  We put the lower piece on first using a 2″ x 4″ stud and shims to get the bottom edge the required distance off of the floor and secured it with 1.25″ drywall screws.  We set the bottom edge of the second piece on top of the first piece and Linda held it in while I got a few drywall screws into it.  I was then able to screw it to the studs.  It was getting close to the end of Madeline’s nap so Linda got her up and dressed while I continued to work.  I taped the seams, and then applied drywall compound to the seams, screw dimples, and other blemishes on the new drywall and the section of old drywall from there to the utility closet.

I need to sand down all of the drywall compound, apply a second/finish cost, let that dry, sand it down, and then apply primer to all of the new drywall, the plywood platform, and the exposed 2×12 on the front of the base in the utility closet.  But with Schmoo here and family coming that will have to wait until Monday.

We played with Madeline until dinner time and then had a fun meal.  She’s a good eater and really enjoys mealtime.  We played some more after dinner and read books before finally getting her down for the night.  She is a persistently active and inquisitive child but is often calm in her approach to the world around her.  She is delightful and it is a joy to spend time with her.