Stage 1 of the backsplash tiling is done! Today Tom will grout and caulk it, and I should have waited till he was completely finished to share a photo of his work, but I couldn't resist. As I was marveling "This is the fanciest kitchen I have ever had!" Tom brought me back to earth with "No. Your other kitchens had cupboard doors." True, but this backsplash does feel as if we've crossed the line into luxury. So pretty! So washable! Who needs doors?

Actually doors might be in our future. Tom bought a big table saw, and is starting to plan how to close in part of the basement to make a wood shop. In Harmony he had a whole heated building to himself, but city life is cramped. Living in this house can feel like living on a boat. Everything has to be tucked into its own little locker.

While Tom was tiling, I harvested the last cucumbers and green beans and tore out the plants. In their place, I sowed a final fall crop of spinach and arugula. Then, after watering my new shrubs and the new strawberry bed, I sat down at the little outside table and starting working on my Shelley essay. Despite various interruptions from boys, I managed to get a lot done on it. I'm writing about his sonnet "England in 1819," considering its message in its own time, and its links to ours, and also talking about how Shelley managed to structure his outrage in ways that made it so effective as a political statement. I haven't written prose about poetry for quite a while, and I'm enjoying myself. I don't know why I stopped.