Home Improvement

The de Kogel family valiantly pitched in to help Liesbeth set up house in our apartment before I arrived. The last few days, I've been working on the few projects that remained; among them, installing a light fixture in the bathroom, gluing the linoleum in the hallway, and putting up curtain rods in the spare bedroom and my office. My first light installation was a success; there were no house fires. The flooring job isn't perfect, but I think a black marker will cover up the few little problems. (Fortunately, the problem spots occurred on the black squares of the linoleum's checker-square pattern.) The curtain rods are still a work in progress. I'm learning several things. First, drywall is much easier to work with than concrete. Second, novices can be very hard on drill bits (I like to think that concrete can be, too!). I was nearly halfway done when I ran in to a problem with the drill bit; the tip was already pretty well shot, but I thought I'd see how much further I could go, especially since I didn't have any other bits. The going was pretty tough on that particular hole--perhaps I ran into some rebar, which is also hard on bits--and I ended up bending the bit. But this afternoon, I bought a replacement bit for my father-in-law, and another set of bits for me to use. I thought that purchase might be a wise step to prevent abuses of my father-in-law's generosity in lending me tools.
This evening, Liesbeth and I had a date at a delightful little restaurant called Easy Dinner. The entree was tasty, but my favorite was the goat cheese salad. If you come to Holland, you must try something with goat cheese at least once (unless, of course, you have already tried it, and know you don't like it!). Then, Lies and I went to visit Stefan and Margriet (her oldest brother and his wife). Stefan is the Master of Ceremonies for the wedding, which means he is the organizer of everything that happens fourteen days (less than 336 hours!) from now. All is in order, though there are a few details that still need attending to.
Tomorrow, I will likely take a break from the home improvement projects, as I'm preaching in the evening. And this weekend, we will be going to Belgium to visit Liesbeth's sister and her family, as well as Bro. David Eijbersen and his family, the brother who will minister at our wedding.