Jericho is One!

Jericho wears her hat proudly as she reads a book. Books are one of her favorite toys now, besides the necklace beads from Grandmother (Christmas present) and her Melissa and Doug standard size blocks from Mama and Papa (Happy Birthday coconut!).

Jericho looks up to her friend Jonny. They bonded last Spring when Jericho spent each weekday at Jonny's house. "Jericha," as he lovingly calls her, seems perfectly at home there, even now!

A mother-daughter moment.

Cynthia and Jericho get along great. Jericho watches Cynthia very closely and is always curious.

Lorelei can fly! Also wearing the B-day hat loud and proud.

Craft time!

Jericho's first-birthday cupcake: applesauce cinnamon with buttercream frosting! Jericho didn't know how to blow out the candle, but Jonny did, and was happy to oblige. What a pal!

The David Akers Story

Sometimes you don't know what you've really got until its gone. Great story from Rick Reilly at ESPN.
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7446366/rick-reilly-david-akers-amazing-year

Finishing the Kitchen

Sharpening a stick, on both ends...

Let the haters show their true colors. Here in Steeler country, I can already feel the rumbling in the woods. If Tim Tebow was slightly annoying with his smug Jesus stuff, he is positively unbearable now. Jesus himself is unbearable in many homes tonight!

I haven't looked on Twitter, or talked to a single Pittsburg fan yet this Sunday evening, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if I'm not right. Go Pats! Right?

 

 

Fun With Jericho

Jericho thinks, "Once Mamma and Papa are finished builidng a new kitchen and bathroom, maybe they will have more time to go outside with me!"

Fun with big cousin Erin at Thanksgiving!

FOOD!

Jericho picks a Christmas Tree.

Jericho loves to share her food. Just ask!

Putting It All Together

Our contractor Nick was faced with a serious challenge piecing new flooring together with the old. This area of the floor is where the basement stairs used to be.

Here is the finished work, with some heavy sanding completed as Steve and I prepare to finish the floor.

A useful trick my father taught me was to number everything that you take apart. When I took out the flooring from this closet turned stairway I did just that, making the process of piecing a portion of it back together a lot easier.

The stained glass windows are in! Pictures of the final product are to come, but here Laura and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather we had in November to paint outside.

I can't remember if I posted pictures of our two new trees. Thanks to the City of York, York Country Rotary, our neighbors, and the State Conservation.

More Fun at Madison

Here's another picture of the new shower. As you can see, there is a large window on one side of the shower. There are two panes of stained glass that go in that window. Rather than sacrifice the historical character, our contractor buit this all weather window which can be wet on a regular basis but will seal the stained glass.

 Fun in the closet!

The time... is now.

The place... your whole house.

The problem... DUST!

An Overdue Update: The "Almost Finished" Bathroom

Thanks for following along as we continue this long and tortured re-model of the our new old house! The bathroom is fully functioning and almost complete, save some caulking, a switch plate, and the re-installation of the stained glass windows behind the all-weather plexiglass.
It's hard to imagine that the work shown in the pictures below happened in September!

Laura was the sous-chef for the tiling project

while I did the mounting and cutting with the wet saw.

We have successfully fooled almost every new guest

to the bathroom with our vinyl flooring.

A good picture of the tiling going up. These hard plastic spacers were easier to use than the spongy x-shaped type. They had a tendency to fall out repeatedly with the tiniest shift, but were so easy to put back and remove at the end. 

The Experience Trap

The WSJ ran an interesting article today examining the problem U.S. companies are having finding qualified employees for a variety of jobs. The author hones in on what can be described as an "experience gap." Prospective employees are ineligible for open positions because they lack experience, yet no one is willing to hire them and give them that experience. Unpaid internships are fiercely competitive as a result. I have personally been frustrated by the dearth of "entry level positions" in previous job hunts. To a certain extent, this is not a new problem.

A few thoughts:

Notice in the graphic that "drivers" moved up from number 7 in "hardest jobs for U.S. employers to fill" to number 4. Changes in laws about commercial licensing may be the culprit in this case. Anecdotal evidence from here in York, PA suggests that obtaining and maintaining  a license for a school bus has become so cumbersome that bus companies are turning away work for lack of drivers.

Similarly, one has to suspect that federal NCLB requirements are behind the sudden appearance of teachers in the top ten list for 2011. While most school systems are cutting jobs and doing more with less, the "highly qualified" designation is now mandatory. As the job of a public school teacher gets more difficult, and pay fails to keep pace, this job will become increasingly difficult to sell.

At the same time, I find the overall premise of the article slightly hard to believe. Are U.S companies really that short-sighted? I tend to think that if it really made economic sense to train the necessary workforce companies would do it. Every employer is going to wish for the ideal candidate, fully trained and ready to work for an entry level wage. If at some point these companies found that robust training programs were worthwhile, I think they would have them up and running in a heartbeat. The truth is, despite complaints, there are plenty of good fish in the sea.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576596630897409182.html

My Cement Sandbox

This was bathroom demo weekend! We're finally moving full steam ahead on the house.

Our contractor spent all day Friday pulling out plumbing, and my Pop Phil, Mike, and I spent a combined total of 23 man-hours Saturday and Sunday tearing out walls, ceiling, and tiling. For such a small room, look how much trash we made!

But my favorite part of this job was the floors. Underneath the tile was a couple inches of cement backing which pried up fairly easily. Beneath the tile and backing was approximately 6 inches of concrete cinders filling the space in between each floor beam. The cinders had to be smashed and hammered into pieces and then scooped out (a garden hand spade proved the best tool for this!). Notice how the beams have been beveled- from all appearances- by hand.