How to get How to get to Sodium Street...

(To the tune of the Sesame Street song)



Sundberg Day

Sweepin' the clouds away

On my way

To where the air is sweet

Can you tell me how to get

How to get to Sodium Street?





As you can see by the photo it’s a Sundberg Family Christmas on Sodium Street (a.k.a Sodium Manor), with a few non-Sundbergs thrown in for good measure. Just to be clear Tammy's a (nee Sundberg). Ah, but is there a Grinch in this Sundberg clan? A Cindy Lou Who? It’s up to you to determine for yourselves and remember: Only YOU can prevent forest fires. Notice Jake and Sarah are almost as tall as their mom in the middle. Time flies. We had an excellent Christmas Eve gala at our place with plenty of great food and great people. I heard the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day. Now it’s the new year and I’m calling forth a year of creation and wide-eyed wonderment. Um, yeah, so let’s blog all over this cat house.


Most of you already know that Tammy and I have been spending a lot of time at Home Depot. What you may not know is how different the experience is for each of us. Often times one of us will pop into a Depot (we have several in the area to choose from) on the fly to pick something up. That is where the similarity ends. Here is how the experience goes for Tammy when she enters a Home Depot alone, or with me bringing up the rear so to speak. In she walks and the aisles seem to part for her, everywhere she goes men are falling all over themselves asking her if she needs anything, can they help in any way? Heck, they place their orange aprons over melting snow puddles so she can cross the floor. Rose petals magically appear floating softly from above and angelic music coos all around. Only a small exaggeration, trust me. I’ve witnessed it with my own two peepers. It’s quite fascinating from a sociological standpoint. You’d think these guys just got off a deserted island or something. She says its creepy (I hear tell it’s one of the downsides of being hot. LOL). It’s kind of funny because Tammy is actually quite handy and can use practically all power tools and has done so numerous times including saw-like thingees, ratchety doohickees, and mega drills. She installed her own invisible fencing with Nancy Dexter’s help at her old house, and created and laid her own tiled fire pit another time, etc. So when she goes in Home Depot, she is no helpless Nell looking for Dudley Dooright to save her. Although the guys there seem to think that is exactly what she needs, or else as my theory says, they just want to get close enough to slip their telephone numbers into her coat pocket.

Cut to me. I AM Polly Purebread looking for Underdog to help me. Our new dishwasher came the other day and we needed a longer steel braided cable than what was used in the old one, so I agreed to stop at the Depot on my way home from work. When I enter a Home Depot alone? Picture this: The workers scatter like cockroaches. You can hear the echo of my boots as I wander toward the plumbing department. Crickets begin to chirp loudly in the background, and I think I can sometimes hear paint drying. My HelloOOooOOooos bounce off tiers of scaffolded product with no reply. I am the only human left on the planet. Well, it seems that way anyway. I keep looking around for the floating eyeball and Rod Serling to announce I just stepped into The Twilight Zone. This time, after wandering for a bit I found the plumbing department, desolate of course. I did espy a couple of worker bees near the flooring row but as soon as I saw them, they saw me and buzzed off to somewhere else. I found the aisle where I think the braided tubing loiters, and an old fuddy duddy worker meandered by in slo-mo, and saw me perusing the items, clearly concentrating and carrying a bit of trepidation. I glanced at him. He picked up his phone from his belt and made a personal call, walking away from me. Seriously, were my cooties showing? Annoyed at this point I think to myself, hey, I’m no dummy, I can figure this out. Let’s see, here’s the braided tubing, but I need at least 8 feet and these are only 6 feet long. Hmm, I must need a brass coupler, now where would those be? I was close. I could smell it. But close wasn’t going to cut it, so I left the aisle on a mission to find Grandpa Walton and force him to help me at pencil point. He was hiding (he claims picking up a loose screw) in the electrical wiring aisle. He saw me. I pounced. I dragged him by the ear to come and help me, and he got me squared away after I suggested a coupler to him and he agreed (eyeroll). Anyway, that’s how different our Home Depot lives appear.

Short story long, we spent NYE weekend sanding and painting the kitchen cupboards (Irish Mist- a white with gray undertone) in preparation of the new granite counter tops that will be arriving soon. We still have some cupboard doors to finish but everything else is done and new contact paper has been laid, and the kitchen put back together. By week’s end doors will all be back on and it will be looking good. We are picking up new handles and hinges tonight.

On a side note as many of you also know, it is colder than a fart in a dead polar bear up here right now, and yesterday we took Sarah and her friend shopping in Maple Grove as her Xmas gift cards weren’t getting any younger. So while we were waiting for them to meet us at Pot Belly’s, we enjoyed a sandwich and did some people watching. It was maybe 4 degrees outside, -11 with wind chill or something. What do we see? A woman in FLIP FLOPS. Not a girl. Not a teen or tween. A full grown 30-something woman sporting flip flops. I swear only in Minnesota. On the way home I bet we saw a total of about 15 snow mobiles tooling around. No flip flops on them however, just on the woman shopping. Seriously...

Guess that's it for now. This weekend we get to hang with Cathy and Andrea and I'm thinking there may be a lasagna in our future with garlic bread and salad. Hmm... Until next time, I love you all and Happy New Year to YOU!