Month: December 2007

Motivated

Kevin’s family is coming to see us for Christmas (I’m sure this isn’t the first time that I’ve mentioned this) and we are busy bees trying to get things polished for their arrival. It’s such a gift – not only do we not have to be the ones to fly and endure the jetlag (I’m not an early riser in the best of circumstances, and that west-to-east transition is always even harder when 10:00 EST on a weekend is considered “sleeping in”), but we get to show off the new house, wedding gifts, and projects. And, best of all, we actually get to host a holiday. I’m delighted. Each year out here, we’ve gotten a tree and then made the call whether it would burn the place down during our week out east. This year, it’s the real deal. So exciting.

That said, we have a project or two left to finish before they arrive. No surprise. Procrastinator heaven.

So, Kevin’s been drywalling like a champ. Here he is midway through the first round of joint compound.

Two rounds to go and then we can start priming.

And I’ve been trying to get reengaged with my quilt. I was making great, rapid progress and then we put in the offer on our house and everything ground to a halt about a week before we closed. Now that Kevin’s family is coming, the finished quilt is actually quite important. We have three twin-sized warm covers (a comforter and two quilts), which will work well for me and Kevin (on the daybed and trundle in my office), and his sister on either the blowup mattress, one of the couches, or the futon. But if we take those covers, there’s no warm cover for our queen bed unless I finish up.

No pressure.

You may remember that I’d sewn the mountain squares into diagonal strips, charted out the three final multicolor squares, and bought new fabric for the mountain base. It took a long time to reconstruct the progress two months later.

Once I was ready to sew again, I made it partway through the last three solid squares. (I’ll cut them in half and use the triangles to form a straight bottom edge.)

December catch-up

Oops, didn’t mean to vanish. It’s been just busy here and Kevin seems to take his camera to work on the days I’m determined to post, and so I fell off the blogging wagon.

A summary of the last week and a half:

  • Everyone in hats: it’s so warm when the furnace blows, but so bitter cold 5 minutes later. I can’t bear to turn it up (all of that money just goes straight into the SKY), and so we’ve been sporting layers and stylish hoods for the last month or so. I call the insulation people a few times a week, but apparently everyone in the Seattle area is as cold as we are and it’s the “busy season”, so we’re just breaking out the lap blankets and being patient.
  • It REALLY snowed!

    We spent all Saturday watching it flurry and then it started snowing in earnest. A gorgeous twilight, though still not that bright snow blue that you see in New England. I read Robert Frost and played with mortgage calculators all night – a wonderful evening.

    Some pictures: a lacy tree in the front yard (don’t the pine trees just LOOM?)

    You could see the snow-laden branches over the driveway from my desk until the light became too dim:

    It was so fun to sit there and watch it accumulate while listening to all of the snow falling off the pines onto the roof.

    And an early shot of the backyard (ferns look so odd in the snow):

  • Water heater drama: we’re stuck in the sixth circle of customer support hell. It’s a LONG story, but at this point I’m tempted to cancel the whole thing and start from scratch.
  • Family room progress: the carpet is ordered, the couches get here next Wednesday, and the drywall is ALL UP. Hurrah! Now to tape, spackle with joint compound three times, prime, and paint before Kevin’s family arrives in 8 days… Perhaps this is why two scheduling-optimistic people shouldn’t manage the same project?
    We’re also looking at paint. (I have to wonder who’s job it is to name these colors? “Eiffel Tower”, “Stormy Weather”, “Tattered Sail”? Hmm…?)

    The (green) couch fabric sample looks different in almost every light, and we won’t have a carpet sample until next week. Very hard to choose!

  • Kevin’s room progress: it’s (mostly) clean and put-away, and the new desk is all set up! AND, Kevin spent time in the crawl space, so the room is now also all CAT5e-wired for internet (with 4 connections for the room). Kevin’s thinking about paint and a little area rug for the floor, but those can wait until after the holidays. Pictures to follow. 🙂
  • Flat Stanley: my cousin sent me a “Flat Stanley” cutout – they’re reading the book in school and he chose me to escort the paper doll around for a few days and send back a letter about what we saw. It’s been so fun to think of things in the area that are worth showing, though the request for photos of Flat Stanley is hard – I haven’t printed paper copies of digital photos since 2000. ???
  • Back yard progress. The whole time I was raking, I had “ but a crop is a crop / and who’s to say /where the harvest will stop?” stuck in my head. Thank you Mr. Walker, and thank you Robert Frost. Search for “Gathering Leaves”, for those who still have leaves in their yard or gutters… Those lines have always worked for me for snow, too, though perhaps the first ten lines of “Our Singing Strength” are better?

Tomorrow: hopefully a real post with more recent pictures?

Week Fourteen

Wow! Rock on! A 79-74 win! So now I get to play Court – he’s my ex-boss, and we have a storied fantasy football past. It should be a good game and tensions are already high.

This was such a hot and cold week. I appreciate LT’s contribution, and Marion Barber is clearly a man who understands the meaning of “fantasy football championships”. Stallworth and Smith (and for that matter, my beloved kicker, Stover): not as much.

I ended up benching Brees, since we were up by 5 and I’m still bitter about his last Monday night football performance (-2, causing a loss to the aforementioned Court). He played for 26 points – I’m hoping he still has some momentum for next week.

QB
— 0
RUNNING BACKS
RB LaDainian Tomlinson, SD 29
RB Marion Barber, Dal 28
RECEIVERS
WR Deion Branch, Sea 11
WR Donte’ Stallworth, NE 0
TE L.J. Smith, Phi 0
DEFENSE
D/ST Patriots 8
KICKER
K Matt Stover, Bal 2
BENCH
QB Drew Brees, NO 26
QB Jason Campbell, Was 4
RB Ron Dayne, Hou 2
WR Reggie Brown, Phi 7
WR Muhsin Muhammad, Chi 2
WR Nate Burleson, Sea 11
WR Drew Bennett, StL 0
TE Alex Smith, TB 3
K Stephen Gostkowski, NE 11

Week Thirteen

This was supposed to be the week that I lost, and then didn’t go to the playoffs because I was in a three-way face off. But, then ALL of us lost (my game was 75-101 against #1 in the league), and so the deciding factor defaulted to total season points where I turned out to be quite a bit ahead. Nice! So championships it is!

But still, great job to LT, and ouch to everyone else. Hopefully this counts as a fantasy bye week across the board?

QB
QB Drew Brees, NO 14
RUNNING BACKS
RB LaDainian Tomlinson, SD 32
RB Marion Barber, Dal 8
RECEIVERS
WR Deion Branch, Sea 4
WR Donte’ Stallworth, NE 6
TE L.J. Smith, Phi 2
DEFENSE
D/ST Patriots 3
KICKER
K Matt Stover, Bal 6
BENCH
QB Jason Campbell, Was 1
RB Ron Dayne, Hou 16
WR Reggie Brown, Phi 2
WR Muhsin Muhammad, Chi 5
WR Nate Burleson, Sea 15
WR Drew Bennett, StL 3
TE Alex Smith, TB 1
K Stephen Gostkowski, NE 9

And here’s a photo of Kevin, in his hat, concentrating on making patch cables for the cable box.