We had a trifecta of good things this week.

My bike is fixed. I was able to get a couple of pretty good rides in. The bike rides great. Life is better with a bike.

We signed a contract for upgrades on the house. We came to terms practically at the very last minute. If we did not have agreement by Friday, I was going to put our plans on ice until sometime next year, starting with a new contractor search. We will replace all the cabinets in the kitchen. In our master bath, we will convert that huge tub we never use into a larger shower. That will let us put in a more spacious vanity and give us a small closet where the old shower stands now. We will paint the entire first and second floor. And we will fix a few smaller things to bring our upper two floors up to snuff.

The third piece of good news is our cruise. We leave early Friday morning, taking the Amtrak train to Boston. We’ll stay in Boston overnight, then board our ship on Saturday. We stay on the ship 5 weeks, taking Amtrak back to home on August 23. We will visit Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Ireland, Scotland, and a few more places. The Vikings were masters of these waters in 1100. We’ll be nosing around and enjoying how much things have improved since then. Who knows? We might even get to raid an English castle. (Not.) This is Holland America’s most popular itinerary. They only offer this cruise once a year, due to extreme weather conditions outside the summer season.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.