Month: November 2008

Family visiting

The phone lines were all lighting up earlier this week with the news that my great aunt and uncle would be in town. Their son (and my mom’s cousin), Robert, lives on Bainbridge Island. Kevin and I were both delighted, and we managed to skip out of work early to race to the ferry on Wednesday. We made the 5:30 ferry with minutes and minutes to spare (yay!) and Robert’s kids were able to make it, too, so it was quite the dinner party. Irene made us all Chicken Paprikash for dinner – a great meal and a fun family tie as that’s one of the recipes that Mom copied from Irene in the early 80’s, and I copied from Mom when I moved out to Seattle. After dinner, we went through some of the photos my mom had recently sent of the Denver Crew. I’d gone through all of the photos and culled ones with the family from 1979-82. There was lots of exclaiming over old girlfriends, mustaches, how young everyone was, and how old I am now compared to the baby photos. 🙂

Perhaps after four-plus years on the West Coast I’m particularly starved for family contact, but I do have to say that it is a treat to have an evening with family and to revel in all of those shared connections. Despite not having had that much contact over the years, I still feel like they were a known presence when we were growing up. It’s amazing how quickly everyone settles into family mode – that certain mix of shared stories and catching up and belonging. I can never get over how much Uncle Bob reminds me of Papa (my grandfather). I hope that when I’m that age people can talk to me and know without a doubt that I’m related to my siblings, even if we haven’t always lived in the same place. That would be a great thing.

I made the mistake of taking out the camera late, and then only taking photos when people were talking over decaf and wine, instead of asking them to stop and smile. Oops. Hopefully you’ll get the sense of all of us enjoying gabbing away about so many subjects, from family history to current activities, to all of the recent energy and financial issues.

And one with Robert in it. 🙂

One of the exciting pieces of the night was that I finally got Bob to sign my painting. We have two of his paintings – one of the San Juan Mountains near Pagosa Springs that Bob and Irene gifted us for our wedding, and one that Bob painted on an autumn visit to my grandparents in MA. My grandparents gave me the Fall painting in 2003 when I moved into my new apartment in Boston. It was my first real art. 🙂 I’ve always loved it, but it wasn’t signed, and now it finally is.

🙂 Wonderful.

New Pets?

There’s a DL at work for home owners – it’s high traffic but I enjoy reading it. A month or so ago, there was a thread about moles, with photos of the little molehills, and since then I’ve been noticing them everywhere at work and around our neighbourhood.

Yesterday morning I woke up and thought that certain parts of the landscape looked unusual…? I didn’t get out to photograph them until after the blower/pine needle roof fest, so these photos are a bit obfuscated by pineneedles, but they’re freshly-dug dirt, classic circles, flat-top volcanos, etc. I’m thinking moles?

I know that this is supposed to be one of the major stressors of lawn care, but so far (knock on wood) I think they’re kind of cute and unexpected. We shall see. Given that all of the “mole” googling that I’ve done quickly devolves into rants about lethal poison and major explosives, my live-and-let-live sense of things is growing. Our squirrel vs. birdfeeder fight was so chastising (they didn’t even NOTICE the horseradish!!) that I’m loath to tread where so many others have failed. I’m more just hoping they find greener pastures in our neighbours’ yards. 🙂

Productive Sunday

We got up early-ish for a Sunday (10, to listen to the Eagles game). I worked on un-taping the MBR, which quickly spread to vacuuming, and then all out cleaning. Kevin helped me get the bed and mattress back in shape, and assembled our new coffee table (pictures soon!!).

The bright and sunny morning deteriorated around 1, so Kevin went out to work on the the roof and gutters before the rains came, and I went out to rake the lawn. The skies held and we got hours of yard cleanup in before it got dark.

My raking:

The leaves are only half down, but it makes such a difference to have the patio and grass clear!

We still have tons of wood on the patio (a co-worker may be picking it up) — perhaps it will kill some of that moss?? In the meantime, here’s the Sunrise Circle Jacket progress:

I’ve had to redo the math on the sleeves, and I didn’t have a chance to get to the math on the jacket fronts before I needed some mindless knitting, so I put the first sleeve on a holder for the moment and started the second.

The purple in these photos is still way brighter than the yarn — think more of an eggplant.

Here’s Kevin up on the roof, happy with his blower.

Isn’t this photo sort of deja vu?? Amazing how all of the needles pile up in just a few weeks.

I’m glad that we did all of the work — we’re about halfway through the leaf and needle season, but it’s too dark to do any of this after work, and we’ll be gone for most of the Thanksgiving week. I’d rather leave knowing that our gutters are clear and the lawn is happy, especially after all of the rain we’ve been having. 🙂

More Painting Progress

Way back in December of ’07, I painted two of the master bedroom walls blue. We were planning to paint the remaining walls white (since they were shoddily painted and some of the walls needed repair), but then we had a series of guests to stay and lost momentum. With our house’s first anniversary, I gained a lot of momentum on stalled projects, and painting the rest of our bedroom was pretty much top billing.

Kevin had flag football at 9, so I got up when he did (early for a saturday for me!!), we moved the bed, mattress and box spring, and I was done the edging and walls by noon. Not terrible, even if white-on-white painting has to be one of the least rewarding things ever.

And another great thing to have off the list.

Mirror

The mirror that was in the bathroom was, realistically, a heavy, ugly behemoth.

But, somehow, when I was taking it down from the wall it struck me as having potential. Turns out that it is the perfect size for the MBR closet wall, so we may be saving ourselves money by reusing it. (My favourite option was a gorgeous glass mosaic mirror of a field of birches on Etsy, but $700 was definitely too steep. Major sigh.)

One coat of brown enamel spray paint, plus one coat of black:

Not the fanciest option and we’re both opposed to wall anchors (we repaired about forty of them after moving in here), but it’s still about perfect for the money. 🙂 Now we just need a nice bureau and a fancy glass vase to put in front of it and we’ll be a class act!

Ready to sign up for next year!

We got our final CSA bag this week! On one hand, it’s disappointing to be at the end of a great 22 weeks, but on the other hand we will still be working on squash and turnips and apples and tomatoes and plums for ages, so it feels a bit premature to be sad.

Several people have written to ask what a CSA is. CSA = Community Supported Agriculture. Basically, you buy a stake in a farm’s crop at the beginning of the growing season, and each week you get a big bag of produce. There are lots of different programs in the Seattle area, and all of the details are different. We went with Tiny’s Organic. (Organic was a moot point to us, but we liked that the bags were about ½ fruit instead of all vegetables. Most of the options are geared to about 4 people, and it’s easier to make it through an entire week’s bag when some of it can be used for baking, waffle & ice cream toppings, etc.) We paid about $40 a week upfront, and picked up a bag each week at a bookstore about five minutes away. There were lots of heirloom varieties of things, and we tried many vegetables for the first time. (Fava beans were a big hit, and we’ve loved the different kinds of arugula and herbs (esp cilantro). I’m so sold on winter squash, now, too.)

They included around 10 recipes each week – a major benefit especially when cooking something for the first time. We both loved unpacking the bag – it felt like a gift each week, and there was a fun element of surprise. Little things in life, but I love not having to pick out summer fruit at the grocery store (almost always disappointing) – just having delicious, healthy things appear was a treat. We probably broke even or saved about $5 a week on vegetables and fruit, so it wasn’t a major cost savings, but the only things we bought week to week were mushrooms, and tomatoes until August. Not bad. 🙂 And when we’re left to our own devices we tend to be a week of shopping and cooking/week of cheese sandwiches and pasta sort of people. It’s nice to have the fruit and non-frozen veggies just appear and beg to be used.

It wasn’t a total success – we couldn’t really keep up with the cucumbers or melons (a minor source of stress). Next year I’ll try making pickles and maybe we’ll just gift the melons to amenable friends. 🙂 We both wished for more beans, peas, broccoli, etc, though those crops were apparently a particular challenge with the weird growing weather this year. And I am still a bit baffled by turnips and beets – I buy that they’re great for you but I’m confused whether you can eat the greens and I need more recipes. Something to research in the off season, I suppose.

November

I’ve been noticing many of the quilt and craft bloggers organizing their fabric stash and it seemed like such an appealing idea that I couldn’t help but emulate.

I love that pretty shoebox – it’s the perfect spot for all of it. Sorry for the slightly off-focus shot – the camera seemed drawn to my curtains and new coffee mug. (I love the blue/aqua/brown leaves. Kevin has a orange/red/brown one that makes him just as happy. It’s nice when we both get to win on color schemes.)

Here’s a bright closeup!

I waited until the very brightest part of the afternoon to take photos, but bright in Seattle in November is a laughable concept. We are in DEEP cloud season, and it’s been raining so much that all of the nearby rivers are flooding. So I had to use the flash, but the colors are still cheerful and so neatly folded. 🙂

Another step in the right direction

Our new vanity is here!! I went to pick it up yesterday, and now it’s happily hanging out with the fish. Cherry, finish color, door style, and sturdiness are perfect.

(Please ignore the paint collection at left and the assorted fishtank buckets at right. I didn’t think to move them before taking photos or frame the shot differently. Oops. At least it’s representative of our decor.)

Here’s the inside – you can see our pretty drawers and their upgraded tracks with their awesome glide.

Any opinions on what paint color would be perfect for the walls around this?

Pillows!

I finished the two pillows for my room! JoAnn Fabrics had 24″ square pillow forms on sale (only $8!) a year ago, and though they seemed large it also seemed like a good back support for reading or watching tv on the daybed in my office.

When I started the quilt I did two sample squares to test out the pattern. I decided to tweak the size of the strips, so I couldn’t use them in the quilt itself but I wanted to used them in coordinating pillows. The best way seemed to be to add sequential borders. I’m fine with the diagonal pink pillow, but I really like the square red one (much better proportions and color contrast). Fun. 🙂

I also like the ¼” flower detail on the back of each strip. I used my sewing machine attachment to make button holes (with the buttons facing in so that they wouldn’t scrape against the wall or catch on the bed frame) – a fun detail and the cases are staying in place well.

I’m about 90% satisfied with these. The pillows are about 6″ too big visually (though they are very nice to sit against) and the patterns are fine but not my favourites. But still – a project off the long, long list!! Hooray!

House Progress

Yesterday was one of those success stories that you fantasize about. Both of us were sick of having had certain home renovation items on our list for OVER a year. We’d done research, we’d saved money, the holes were punched in the wall, and yet the project was still “in the planning stages”. There are actually several projects that fit this description, so with 49 minutes until the relevant stores started to close, we chose the two most dire (lights for the dining & living room, and a vanity for the main bathroom), and in a moment of wild decision-making headed north to the cabinet store. This apparently set off a chain reaction of shopping & home improvement awesomeness.

I’d been a bit hesitant about this store because the prices were so, so low. (One of those “don’t test it in case it’s not true” scenarios.) It’s a tiny minimal operation on a dead-end warehouse sort of road, which could either be awesome or horrendous. We were really impressed with the quality of the cabinets when we saw them in person, and the one we chose (it was perfect) was about ½ of our budget and about 40% of the prices of any of the other reasonable alternative options I’d found. Cherry, perfect door detailing, and nice glides on the cabinet drawers. Awesome. We were offered granite countertops with undermount sinks for $300, but the colors weren’t great so we decided to wait on that piece of things.

We tried Home Depot and Lowes for countertops – expensive and really crummy. I’m glad we checked so that we can enthusiastically cross them off the list. I know of a bunch of stone /granite places, esp south of Seattle, so we’ll try there before we jump for anything.

A break: We stopped at Pete’s Wine in Bellevue – missed the tasting but still were able to stock up on plenty of fun bottles. It was a good pause (and right next to our wedding ring store – always good for karma), and for the first time we were able to use our new, free 6-botttle bag from QFC for our purchases – a fine addition to our “green” canvas shopping bag collection. 🙂

The standard bathroom remodel seems to require matching your mirror and your cabinet. Our place didn’t do mirrors. I’m really happy about that. I don’t tend to love the standard “matching” mirror styles, and they are wildly expensive for what they are (four small pieces of wood and a mirror for $200+? Really?). I’d found a few mirrors that seemed possible at Pier 1 Imports (of all places!), and one of them turned out not only to be perfect but to be $20 off. We’ll take it! (And how amazing to have something that’s a bit more creative and fancy-free.)

At home (in my room for the moment), from 8 feet away:

The more I look at it, the more I love it. (Both photos and in person – it keeps getting happier.) The leaves are enameled, so it there’s a silhouette from afar and a great color interest close-up – it’s an interesting effect as this can be seen from our entryway/the main crossroads of the house (at 18 feet away).

From 3 feet away, with all of the color:

What’s left for the bathroom?

  • The vanity top.
  • New lights.
  • A toilet paper holder.
  • Actually installing the vanity, plumbing, etc. (My uncle/ godfather sent the most wonderful anniversary card in June that basically joked if you can paint a home without divorcing, you’re probably in it forever. That one stayed on the kitchen counter for months and months. My guess is x2 for installing your own bathroom sink without total meltdown.)
  • Paint (somewhere in the cream or yellow range) once we’re done the drywall repairs.
  • And hopefully, someone to refinish the tile and tub – goodbye to the hellacious aqua?

The goal is still to do a sub-$2000 remodel, and we’re on our way, especially with the potentially woah-expensive vanity + mirror costing less than $575 with tax. Woohoo! If we can bring a 1980s bathroom up to snuff without going over that budget I’m going to be very pleased.