Nole and I were doing a perimeter check when this guy hopped out at us.

We woke up at 5am today which is not the kind of progress adjusting to the time zone that we had hoped for. Our internal clocks aren’t reset quite yet. I just woke up from a 3 hour nap (it’s now about 5pm). Not sure if that will help me or hurt me later.

We had some things we wanted to get done around the house today. First was our check of the yard to look at the small trees that have started to grow in our septic mound (bad news and we need to take care of that soon). Then I wanted to work on the basement. I have been inspired by some of the people we have stayed with to turn our basement into a studio apartment. I’m not sure exactly what we will do with it but I’m thinking Airbnb, hosting guests from France, hosting students and maybe an apartment for one or more of the kids as they transition to living away from home. So this morning I went to Menards to get some more packages of the vinyl planks we used when we redid the flooring last year. I figured we might need a few more and we can always return them if we decide not to go through with this project. My drive to Menards was kind of funny because I haven’t driven an automatic in 3 months. First I couldn’t find the parking break and later my foot kept trying to push the imaginary clutch.

Current layout

Ideas for the remodel

Then I worked on cleaning out the room we call the “back-back basement” which was being used for storage. We don’t keep a lot of stuff in the basement but most of what was in this room was stuff we moved here with so most of it went to Goodwill. If we didn’t need it in 6 years, I figured it’s time to let it go. If we make the basement into a studio, this room will be the bathroom.

We are also getting used to the weather here, specifically the humidity. After spending 3 months in France which is relatively dry, Wisconsin feels like the tropics.

Nole also cleaned his car interior. The boys went birthday shopping with Grandma. We thought about going to the YMCA but it didn’t happen. There’s always tomorrow.