Much better than several of Katherine Paterson's post Jacob books, though not nearly touching even Master Puppeteer. Set in Vermont in 1899, its narrator was named Robbie, for Robert Burns, but he also felt a lot like Robert Newton Peck's Rob, both of Soup and A Day No Pigs Would Die--possibly because I can't tell fin-de-siècle from the Depression.
We did not tile. Instead we were as Murkan as Murkan can be and shopped on a Saturday: drawer organizers for the wide drawer, a new garbage can for the kitchen (stainless steel of course, and oval instead of round, very hip), new yard and camp chairs, a wedding present, mason jars for coffee, a cage for the sponge that suctions to the side of the sink, a spool for paper towel (the one disadvantage of undercabinet lighting is that it precludes undercabinet paper towel), and two sets of new sheets.
I read Ulysses during a brief rainstorm; raked up months of sunflower husks to start a new lasagne mulch; satisfied my whitehead-popping, sunburn-peeling itch by grooming the neighbor's easement of bindweed (when you pull a tendril out from under groundcloth and wind up with a handful? I love that); unpacked more kitchen and organized it; and watched "Big Fish."
It was a good day.