BEHOLD! The mighty corkboard is complete! Sincere thanks to all those who contributed, especially to Grandma Ditchman, who donated her vast and thorough collection of Charles Shaw wine corks right at the end there. I had to line the bottom gap of the board with those oversized champagne corks that were vexing the precise symmetry of the project (not shown) and low and behold: I was one cork short! So we popped some bubbly, celebrated the finished work, dated the cork and glued it on. Beautiful.

I found it interesting that everyone who sent me a bag of corks had at least one bottle that they were particularly fond of, but on some reflection I suspect it was the price of the bottle that they were fond of. I was going to list the wines here, but then I figured it might embarrass us. That's not to say that I and my wine-drinking friends are cheap! Ho no! There are more than a couple hundred-dollar corks up there on the board. Anyway, come on over and gaze in awe at the glory of the feat.

Over 1100 corks in all. That's a lot of wine.

I will still be saving my corks. I suspect someone else will ask me for them some day. They're all yours.

Took the Little Digger to the doctor yesterday, as if we hadn't had enough of that lately. Seems he has a blocked tear duct. Now, before you lay the whole how-lucky-you-are-that-he-can't-cry nonsense on us, I assure you that it doesn't work that way. Anyhow, he's fine. Except for the additional lingering illness, which our doctor suggested might be the rotavirus, which is one that hadn't occurred to any of us yet. The Little Digger hasn't been quite himself in the past few weeks (whatever that means -he's only five weeks old) so we're going to get some tests done. Today we will collect stool specimens, in the comfort of our home. How fun. Maybe we'll make a family project out of it, with an accompanying lesson to boot.

I have been informed that we are not getting a robot vacuum until the robot technology traverses the stair-cleaning hurdle. It was a perfectly valid point, and one well taken, as cleaning the damn stairs is a pain in the stool-chute. There's no easy way to do it. Suggestions welcome.

In other news, the Little Digger is beginning to produce some legitimate smiles, which brings joy to all the house. This is great, because we could use that around here -but what, exactly, the little guy has to smile about is beyond me. His mother's dedicated ardor, I suppose, but it could be anything. I have to admit that when it was announced yesterday that we would be taking stool samples, I smiled too. It's possible he's laughing at us. So it begins.


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