Author: Susan

Opposites

BIG woodpile:

Little woodpiles:

And nary a chipper in sight! The first picture is from my parents’ visit (Mom thought I needed a picture with me for scale, since it really was an impressively huge thing). Two yard waste collections later, the difference is rather magical. (Really. Cut the sticks and branches small enough, and it defies logic how much you can fit in those bins. It all starts feeling very Higitus Figitus — reminds me of the Merlin packing away his books in “The Sword in the Stone”.) And I spent this afternoon with the handsaw, making sure that all of the remaining sticks and logs are small enough to fit in the bits without further trimming! I’m feeling very accomplished.

Well worth the money

When we bought the house, we knew that we’d be updating some of the windows at some point. The windows in the bedrooms and master bath are new and gorgeous. No complaints. The windows in the living and dining room are completely attractive, if not heat-retentive. But the windows in the fish room and the family room were old, ugly, leaky and failing. When we were decorating the family room for Christmas, we realized that two of the big windows were actually leaking large amounts of condensation (more than a spongeful, whenever I checked) and so windows suddenly zoomed up the priority list, replacing the attic and crawl space insulation. Out with the 70’s and 80’s brown aluminum crumminess, in with the 2008 vinyl happiness! We still need to repaint and replace the trim in the family room (tbd as soon as we finally choose a paint color). The walls are nearly prepped – I did a coat of primer on the entire room while listening to Super Tuesday results on the radio – and we need to get things painted before the new carpet gets installed on the 27th-ish (our appointment hasn’t been confirmed yet).

So, in the fish room, before:

And after:

(more after: isn’t this window the prettiest ever? I’m delighted. And the old one didn’t open – this will give us a breeze in the summer!)

(Like the moss on our tree? Go, Pacific Northwest! And when that hydrangea blooms?? Wow. Not to mention when we paint the walls. Or break down the quarantine tank and get those buckets and electrical cords out of there! Then it will *really* be classy!)

There are six windows in the family room. The far corner, before:

And after:

The patio corner before:

And after:

The top windows before:

And a long shot from the far side of the room, after:

Aren’t they neat! We’re already impressed at the difference in warmth, and every time I walk into the kitchen area, the fish room window just looks so clean and impressive to me. 🙂 Gorgeous.

Too fun

The other day it got sunny in the late afternoon (a rarity) and without our dense layer of clouds it didn’t get too dark to work outside until about 5:30! Huge progress! I’m still chipping away at the enormous branch pile, so I’ve been outside more days than not in the last week, despite the gloom.

It’s so neat – we’re just now seeing the first signs of Spring. Usually it irks me to no end that Spring starts to appear in February instead of the far more civilized April, but apparently I’ve finally adjusted to the seasons out here because these glimpses seem so welcome and encouraging to me. I have a bunch of theories (more snow this year, looking forward to evenings spent in the yard and on the patio, general attrition…), but regardless of the cause, I am so delighted to present: Crocuses!!

Yay!! And these plants, which I hated in the fall because I had to cull off all of the slimy black leaves that rotted underneath the plant, are now budding. Definitely winning their way into my heart.

I have to say, while the previous owners of the house were incapable of mounting anything (toilet paper holders, electrical outlets, towel bars, etc.) at level, they had a genius for landscape, or hired someone who did. It has been so fun to me to watch our yard change – even through the winter there’s so much going on, and with the number of buds I’m seeing already it seems like the next few months will be genuinely riotous with flowers and color. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

My potted mini daffodils are making an appearance, love the little bulb nubbins:

Other notes: the primrose came back after the snow, happier than ever!

My parents brought three more primroses when they arrived, and they’ve been living in the kitchen window until it gets warm enough to plant them. (I’m almost sure they’d make the transition to outside now, but they look so pretty in the kitchen that I don’t want to risk it.) I wouldn’t have chosen the colors of the one in the rock wall (maroon and gold), but it looks so cheerful from the house that I can’t wait to have more next year. The store up the street just put out a bunch of new colors, including many blues and purples. I may have to swing by tomorrow and pick up a few of them. I think the blues and purples would look so pretty with the yellow that my parents brought, and the pinks and reds would make another great spot.

In less happy news, the bamboo is sending up shoots like mad. Does anyone have advice for getting rid of it? Should I just dig? I’ve been searching online and not coming up with many shortcuts that seem viable…?

Six seams to go!

Here are the 7 strips!

I’ll need to do a little bit of trimming (probably on the kitchen table?) before seaming these guys together. And I’m getting awfully close to needing to figure out batting and whether it will be possible to quilt this.

Regarding quilting, I’m sort of torn. The intense quilting (and the oddly stiff, oddly puffy result) is so much work, difficult on the machine that I have, and really not that attractive to me. YET, people (on the internet, my source of all information) really do seem so happy with and proud of the results. What to do? The cheat answer is to just use knotted embroidery thread to hold everything together. Compelling, but I would like to say that I’ve quilted something. Another thought is to just sew the exterior of some of the squares — easy, not fussy, but not particularly impressive, and I’m concerned that I’ll like the pristine pieced top more than the half-heartedly quilted one. I’m just not a fan of prissy things, and too much of the quilted things I see fall in that camp. It’s like knitted things from the 80s — no appeal. Can anyone offer a good guide to (machine) quilting that’s a little bit more modern?

In other news, Larry gets into WA tomorrow. I’m so excited. And I think I need one of these:

It has been SO GRAY here for the last two weeks, and I (never the up-and-at-em type, even under the best of circumstances) am running out of ideas for actually waking up and getting to work at a respectable hour. It’s funny, the culture out here makes a lot out of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and espresso as a mood disorder treatment during the low-light months, but I don’t find the grey season(s) depressing. The moss and the clouds really are beautiful, and I love the January full-day glimpses of mountains and blue sky. It’s just very, very difficult to get up in the mornings. The cat option makes me laugh. Too bad Kevin’s allergic.

Tang!

I’ve been waiting to post a photo of our new little dude due to superstition. I wanted to give him a few days to make sure he was healthy and coping with the transition to his new home before sharing the photos.

He’s easier to catch on film than our last yellow tang, but still does his fair share of darting away, resulting in photos like the one above. He really doesn’t trust us, but he spends a lot of time, fins flared, dead still despite the current, just watching when we come into view.

I’m totally enamoured with him.

We took my parents to the fish store, and came home with a new xenia and the tang. He didn’t eat for the first two days until we moved the nori clip to the bottom third and back of the tank, at which point he tucked in with enthusiasm. Over the last week, we’ve moved it to the bottom half of the front of the tank, and he’s still eating which is obviously making us cheerful.

We have him on the kitchen counter in the 10 gallon quarantine tank. Some pvc elbows for cover, a 600 maxijet for circulation, a filter with carbon, and a CPR Backpack II skimmer. We’ll keep him there for a month, barring any signs of illness. On day four we started noticing black ich (little pin-points of black – it’s a tubeworm that tangs are very prone to) and some sort of unidentifiable fuzzy, white, fibrous growth by his right tang. We did a pH-adjusted freshwater dip, which seemed to take care of the black ich, and the next morning the white fuzz seemed quite diminished. We’re keeping an eye on him, and he might get another dip soon if the fuzz doesn’t completely disappear. He’s been very active and eating, dealt well with the dip, and doesn’t seem stressed (knock on wood). Here he is careening around the tank while we did a water change after the dip:

Points!

So all of the triangles are seamed into squares and pressed, and I was feeling sort of depressed about the likelihood that they would actually come together into actual squares of the same size. The more I looked at them and the more I pressed the seams flat, they seemed sort of defective and not-square and poorly measured.

So, a few nights off, and then I started sewing these non-squares into rectangles, and it was magical. With the exception of two or three squares that were truly ridiculous and lopsided going in, everything just worked. I have two piles – twenty more seams and the rows are done, and then it’s six more seams and the top is done and ready for straight borders, a back, and quilting.

The points on the seams are lovely. I’m ALL proud. For example:

Like the way that all of those Vs just *join*? The back of the squares are just as neat (I love seeing the wrong sides of quilts – the fronts always end up looking pretty and sort of OCD, but when you look at the back of a pieced square, you can just see exactly how much WORK went into the thing. Love all of those seams…)

Snow

We’ve essentially lost all credibility with our former claim that it never snows in Seattle. I’m really quite sure that in the first three years we lived here, we saw flurries five times. But we’ve had real snow that many times just this winter. The new house is only four miles from the old one, so I doubt that’s the difference…?

In any case, I was so happy that the first day of my parents’ visit was all blue and mountains, and that the third day brought snow that lasted through the night. My mom misses winter now that they’re in Florida, and I thought it was unusually decent of the weather to cooperate.
From her camera, here’s the backyard seen through the living room windows (with tulips in the foreground!):

And she took a picture of the snowy driveway that I just love. Doesn’t it look like it’s black and white? Until you see the headlights, and the brick on the front of the house, and realize that the light out here is just so dim in the winter when it’s cloudy that the color just disappears.

Yay for company

My parents left a series of email and phone messages on Tuesday asking if we had any big plans for the weekend and if it would be alright if they flew out from Florida to visit. So spur of the moment and wonderful. I love looking forward to our visits with family, but having the chance to just make plans on a whim was an unaccustomed treat.

We spent a good portion of the time eating, talking, watching the fish, looking at wedding photos, showing off wedding gifts, and for Kevin and I, enjoying their satisfaction in the new house. I think all four of us are quite proud of it.

Unfortunately, most of the group shots came out blurry. I’m posting some anyway because I love how happy everyone looks. This was dinner at home after strawberry basil martinis and a great conversation that lasted several hours and spanned too many topics to mention. Blurry Dad, Me and Kevin:

And blurry Mom, Kevin and Dad.

Photos

Kevin and I lack photos of us together. Other than the wedding, I only have a handful of us over the last few years, and most of those are special occasions (our first new years in Seattle, the day we got the deed to our house) when we gave up and set up the camera timer. My mom did a good job rectifying that problem while they were here visiting.

The two of us in the kitchen with the pretty tulips (flowers have been SO cheap recently! A great pick-me-up!)

And sitting on the new couch, waiting for Ratatouille to begin…

And in the backyard under the tree…

And finally, sitting in the folding chairs, watching the new little tang acclimate: