Gorgeous day
Sunny and 55 today. It is absolutely gorgeous outside. I planted this pussy willow many years ago, 'temporary' at the south side of the house. It is in a terrible spot and needs to be moved.
February 18, 2010
February 15, 2010
A little something for G and I
G and I stayed home and had a very low-effort evening. I made little chocolate cakes for us. He went to the store and bought ice cream. It was very nice after yesterday's Chinese New Year meal.
October 10, 2009
Ladybug
October 7, 2009
I had more food than clothes in my luggage
A super fast trip to California (flickr set) ... on the trip home In my luggage was - 1lbs of freshly roasted Peets Coffee, 1 tin of Licorice Piglets, 2 wrapped rice, 1 beef tongue burrito, 1 wheel of Aged Red Hawk cheese, a few oz of Pata Cabra, 1 moon cake, (ok no. I did not purchase all of that ;) and clothes for 1.5 days. There was more food than clothes. Er.
As this state of interviewing drags on ... stress level continues to raise... my ability to manage budget has decrease. "Not good". Time to refocus and buckle up.
September 8, 2009
Non-labor day
G and I packed up the fuzzies and headed to P & S's new house for the Labor Day weekend. (flickr set) On our last driving trip back from Cali, we stopped by for a night.They invited us and the fuzzies to come visit anytime.They have a free standing garage with a complete studio that is just perfect - with fuzzies.
We packed up the fuzzies and head out after a lazy Saturday morning. I did a quick search on 'food' options and decided on Burgerville. (oh oh Sweet Potato Fries! ) I've seen Burgerville in the Vancouver area and found one in Centralia - mid point of the drive. We arrived and settled the fuzzies in for a couple day's stay. I helped S with some side dishes - guacamole, saute mushrooms, and rhubarb crisp to accompany nummy burgers and potato salad.
The next day we went to see J's newly finished house. It rained off and on, perfect for just hanging out... Sunday evening and S mentioned those scrubbie that seems to be keep coming up. ( MiL and I were talking about them in the last trip to Kalispell ) . She grabbed her stash and we whipped up a couple :)
Fun filled weekend! I am always happy to go and happy to come back.
September 4, 2009
I am repeating myself ...
... another trip to Cali. (Flickr set) This time, I drove and flew back. My schedule was really loose and messed up. I ended up staying 2 nights with J+W, and four nights with the parents. I only selected a few activities to keep me sane. And spent the rest of the time at home and focused on my tasks at hand.
No news, just more of the same job hunting, a bit more tired, and took advantage of the trip to spend time with parents and some friends.
August 26, 2009
Another trip ... to Bay Area
this time.. it is because I need a job. After so many months of hunting ... I am more than stress and anxious and and and ... and there seems to be more opportunities in the Bay Area. I have applying for them for a few months now. I believe I hurt my chance last time when I was not there in person when in the second round. This time, to stack the odds with me ... ( and to feel like I've done everything possible ) I headed to the Bay Area for a few days. I also took advantage of the solo trip to do the things that G dislike - driving all over the place, yarn store ... (flickr set)
August 10, 2009
The best things in life
A couple of weeks ago, we took a drive to the Bay Area to visit my parents and attend W+J's wedding. (photos set on Flickr). I have not made this drive in over ten years. (Oh, the bright side of time vs money) We left on a triple digit hot day in the Seattle area, enjoyed a few days of cool Bay Area, and returned to the comfort of a normal high 60s/low 70s summer here. The best things in life - Family, Friends, and Food.
February 20, 2009
Silver Lake and Mt St Helens
Pretending to be in the leisure class has some advantages ... such as taking a driving trip off-season and during a weekday. We took the fuzzies to Mt St Helens via 504 to Elk Rock view point.
December 28, 2008
"Food for twenty"
N and J came over to play boardgames last night. They brought food for twenty (food detail on flickr). We played a few rounds of Carcassonne (next game purchase will be expansions), attempted to play Thurn and Taxi but gave up (guess game of the year doesn't guarantee our interest!) , then ended the evening with a few more rounds of the bean game. Woot! So happy to have N + J back, yay boardgames :D
December 25, 2008
Snacks and dinner
mmm.. table full of snacks. Our friends N+J came over for Christmas dinner. (welcome back!) They braved crazy nutty slush and more slush to share Christmas with us. They brought lots of goodies - sweet peppers, marinated peppers and garlic, nummy breads, drinks, and their cheerful selves! (details of fud on flickr). May this be the first of many wonderful fud we will share :) The fuzzies mostly behaved themselves. (Hi Kooler! She is hiding on the right side on the table. Winter spent a lot of time under the table and attacked J's bread in her bag! ).
December 24, 2008
Snow and more snow ... and G
on 16th of December... G was diagnosis with kidney failure and we checked him into Swedish Hospital emergency room in Seattle around 10am in the morning. He stayed in intensive care for two days, and general / Nephrology for another two days. He came home on the 19th. He is on a special diet while he is on dialysis - low potassium, low phosphorous, no add'l salt, high protein, and various changes. He is going through the treatment process and will find out what's waiting on the other side.
At the same time, we have consecutive snow storms since about the 14th. I did not grow up around snow, and usually stay home in this weather. According to all the weather and news reports, this area has not seen snow like this. Needless to say, it has been quite frightful between G and this weather ...
December 14, 2008
The first step is ..
... to acknowledge the problem.
I was pulling cookies off the cookie sheet. I realized I was stacking them in their shapes. As soon as I realized I was doing that. I stopped.
Chilly
It is cold. The snow and the cold artic air the weather serivce have been talking about arrived yesterday. The fuzzies love it. They keep asking to go outside. But I am inside with coffee + (homemade) eggnog instead.
December 13, 2008
Is it snowing?
Snow (and weather in general) is news around here. Go figure. :) "They" have been talking about it for the entire week. Well, if you look really closely, in the dark (cause it is still dark at 6:30am), you can see the grass has an ever so slight dusting. (Actually, the National Weather Service rescinded the snow advisory yesterday morning. ) It is 36, and feels like 32 outside.
And this is about how I feel. I burnt some butter cookies last night. And this particular little one made a face at me! (I woke G up from his pre-dinner nap to decorated the cookies.) Getting to know the new oven and a new recipe.
December 6, 2008
Chocolate trifle
My first trifle - triple chocolate trifle ala Martha Stewart. The candy canes didnt work out. If I get around to get more today, I will sprinkle them on. I also goofed the layering of the dark chocolate pudding and white chocolate mouse. It was not enough to layer correctly, and I noticed too late that the pic shows both, alternating, in the same layer. Whoops! It is messier looking than I would like. Otherwise, this is good enough to go out the door. I tasted the extra pieces (I had to trim the 8" cake to fit in the bowl) last night and I just about fell over. Oye. Too rich for me. *the condensation is from the layers resting in the fridge overnight
November 27, 2008
Thanksgiving meal
October 26, 2008
Cakes in cups
Simple chocolate cakes in cups. No added flavor for the puriest Sh.
September 22, 2008
Pike's place market
This guy's expresion in this photo and the way he talked reminded me of the quote, "It will put the conditioner on it's skin" by Buffalo Bill in the book "The Red Dragon". He was actually asking if we wanted salmon chips.
Pioneer Square
We took a stroll through Pioneer Square while Craig was on the phone busy fending off plumbing issues at home. This is Seattle's memorial to the heroic efforts displayed by the men & women on 9/11 in New York city.
July 13, 2008
Blueberry crisp
Nutritious fruit :) for grilling with the Davis Go check out their rent-a-goat(s) . So cute!
Concrete counter tops
Counter tops were replaced and put in mid-june. We made punch list with contractor today - 25 items. Not too bad. The house is not all unpacked yet. We still have a dozen or so lingering boxes that we either haven't, or waiting on some project. However, I was a little anxious to do a some comparison ... just to remind myself.
May 7, 2008
Butcher Blocktop
The 6 month marathon to get a butcher blocktop for the counter is finally over, we have a complete countertop installed. This marathon started when I originally ordered an end-grain walnut and cherry mix butcher blocktop from a company located in Michigan, you would think with the economy being somewhat stressed there that it would be delivered quick and be correct. But no, that is not what occured, it took 6 weeks before we finally received it and when we opened the packing crate we found that an long-grain counter top had been built. I called the company and they were willing to correct the problem and I took them up on the offer. 4 weeks later I called them and they told me that it was shipped the previous day but they would verify and call me back the next day, after calling them a week later I find out that in fact the top had not shipped and they had no idea when they would have walnut in stock to begin assembling my butcher block top, needless to say I cancelled the order after sharing a few of my thoughts about their business model. We ended up using a company here in Washington that provided the end product you see here.
April 26, 2008
A little progress .. butcher block
The butcher block for the island and bar top arrived early this week. G opened the crates today .. and woola! The walnut is a little red, but very purty. The guy did exactly the opposite and put the grain the long way, instead of the short way so the seam is noticeable. I took the photo from the kitchen looking towards the liv/din room. You can see the pile of boxes, still. We are waiting on him to fix the upper cab and finish the corners, and counter. Contractor has made so little progress for the last four week that G had a really 'nice' chat with him. We will see if that helped.
April 20, 2008
April snow shower
Crazy weather... snow and hail for dayssssss.... This morning I woke up to "thump" sound and thought .. squirrels? ... nope. it was wet snow falling off the trees
April 4, 2008
Wahoo!
Finally, I've have this new hosting platform and it's taken me 6 weeks between niggling house projects/moving in and working through the 'net security to get off the dependencies with my servers and actually upload content directly to the site. Here is one of the first images when we moved in, it's not sized correctly since I'm testing that my process actually works. The last 6 weeks of photos will be posted soon.
February 13, 2008
Arbor
The outside arbor is much bigger then I was envisioning.
February 4, 2008
Say cheese ...
Yesterday (Sunday) morning I was IM'ing with J ...
J: "what are you doing for Superbowl?"
me: "we are going to Doug's... but I don't know what to make! what are you making?"
J: "salad, gotta make sure they get their veggies"
me: "er. salad won't go over in this crowd"
J: "(in less than 2 seconds) http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/007126super_bowl_recipes.php"
And there you have it. This is the plate of 'leftover' from yesterday. I can feel my artery clogging. :)
February 3, 2008
The wall of glass
There has been some slippage in the project timeline, but it's still coming along nicely. Staining and laquering is nearly complete. I am really happy with the way the folding doors turned turned out and with Eda's choice of stain color.
January 31, 2008
New site design
After hours and hours, wailing, and much gnashing of teeth the new muonio.org website design is complete and implemented. I've been meaning to redesign this for a few years now, but like everything else the priority keeps slipping. I'd be interested in hearing feedback through the comments section about what people think.
January 28, 2008
We like snow
The fuzzies woke me up this morning. They wanted to play in snow.. If it was up to Kooler, it would snow everyday :)
January 19, 2008
Schedule.. what schedule?
Doors for the folding wall and cabinet doors (see the single panel unfinished white oak amongst the stuff?), most of the appliances and mbath plumbing fixtures were delivered in the last two weeks.
It has been a little bit of wait, wait, wait some more, and see... this is the phase where the 'schuff' doesn't arrive on time, wrong 'schuff'.. We ordered red knobs for the cook top and black ones arrived. We ordered a plain undermount kitchen sink and a apron front showed up. Kitchen fixtures along with the dishwasher is MIA.
Anyhoo... you can see contractor guy installing two of the five doors and what it feels like with the folding wall completely opened.
We may have a couple more change orders coming for misc finishes.oh, and a pic of the floor!. All the photos courtesy of my phone's camera. Sad to say that moving in at the end of Jan is not going to happen. I am now reset to plan for mid-feb move in.
January 6, 2008
Holiday slog.
The holidays have really slowed the finishing work down. I have to stop myself from becoming impatient and let the contractors do their work.
January 1, 2008
What to do with left over pulla and artisan bread ...
Well.. bread pudding .. with creme anglaise. of course! and I quote "I knew that was bad for me when I smelled it.." er. right. but he ate it :) I have to say this is my finest bread pudding to date. I am not sure what I did that made it good, but it was tasty. Happy New Year!
December 29, 2007
Beginning cabinet installation
The drywall is complete, the wood floors have been installed. Everything is happening very quickly now with cabinet installation, floor finishing and painting beginning.
December 25, 2007
Christmas '07
We spent christmas as John & Gina's for the second year in a row. Paul & Shari were also able to make it there for the holidays. It was nice to be with family, visiting and laughing late into the night.
More photos...
Rook aftermath...
I just had to take a picture of John's kitchen after the Rook bloodbath. I have never heard so much whining, sniveling, smack-talking, and no-game as John & Gina went 0-fer the night. 3 moonshots still could not over-come their losses. This image looks far more peaceful then it did about 12 hours before.
December 21, 2007
Mud, mud, everywhere some mud.
Like Christmas trees, Mistletoe, and Wreaths the sheetrock has been hung, then mudded, hopefully it stays that way.
December 16, 2007
Insulation is going in.
The insulation has been installed and will be inspected monday. This begins the final leg of our remodel, everything is finishing work once the sheetrock is complete.
I also shipped the refrigerator and stove today thru uShip. I have to give the shipping providers the benefit of the doubt since they are from Michigan and have have a good history on uShip. I was skeptical when they showed up with a pickup and are going to transport these items across country to my folks house (I can't see how thay make a profit on this shipment as I know gas costs more then I paid them). We'll see how this works out.
December 8, 2007
The beginning of inspections.
This week marks the beginning of plumbing, electrical, and framing inspections. Our next round of pictures should have everything sheetrocked.
November 25, 2007
An afternoon at Cami & Byron's
We spent Sunday afternoon with friends and family.
November 23, 2007
Henry Ford Museum
We took the opportunity to view all the historical vehicles in the musuem.
November 22, 2007
Detroit Thanksgiving day parade
We spent a cold, crisp morning enjoying the Detroit Thanksgiving parade. It's funny how you have to move away from an area before you finally take the time and attend these events (it was my first time).
November 17, 2007
Vaulted Ceiling
The framing for the vaulted ceiling is complete, we're waiting on inspection now. The ceiling is projected to be finished (sheet-rocked and insulated) by the time we get back from our thanksgiving trip back to Michigan. In the foreground you can see E demonstrating her point to the contractor, her hand was moving so fast the camera just picked up a blur.
Paw
Paw print we encountered on trail.. Winter's paw for comparison.
Pony walls
I am learning a whole lot of new vocabulary - today's word is Pony wall. That's that little section between original wall and the new ceiling. Here is a closer look at the beam
November 10, 2007
Site visit - beam and samples
We spent a lot of time looking up when we went on site meeting today. Look carefully ... the 31' beam is amazing see the calculation from eng. DC said it is 500lb+. (notes on Flickr). They got it up with just 2 people.
November 3, 2007
Quick look at outside
We did lots of house stuff today. At the end of the day, we stopped by the house to get something and drop off a black marble sample for our DC ( dear contractor ;-) ) They had a slow week while we worked out the co's (change orders).. They did manage to template the stoop for the pavers outside...
October 27, 2007
Point of no return
Our first site meeting. If you look closely, you will see the framing for the new kitchen window and some of the folding doors. This is where the woodstove was ...
October 22, 2007
Empty house
We moved out of our house on October 22. We will return after the new years to a [hopefully] better house. This empty room will be our new living room. The silly wall will be gone and ...
January 11, 2007
Winter ... the snowy kind
This morning ...
oh snow :) and Kooler ..
and .. on the trail ...
then after the sun comes out ..
November 21, 2006
Snow days
We returned home to a few inches of snow. It was a good time to break out the sweaters and long coat. The fuzzies loved it.
November 9, 2006
Jaywalker socks
Jaywalker socks with gift yarn from J.
September 7, 2006
Baby Sweater
Baby Sweater - Trellis from Knitty
May 21, 2006
Birthday cake challenge
Everyyear, G dreams up a birthday cake. This year, he wants a white cake with strawberries, blueberries ... I found a 'lighter' pound cake style recipe w/o egg yolks, used a lemon syrup, a lemon cream cheese/whipped cream frosting. It is buttery, nummy, and 'good' for you. Here is a view of the layers.
May 14, 2006
Family visit
April 30, 2006
What's for dinner?
I saw oven fried onion rings on Cooking for Engineers. I couldnt resist. How good were they? well... Here is dinner (noticed no greens were harmed!) and here is what's left.
April 23, 2006
A new leaf
Lots of new leaves. Garden is coming alive with the warm weather. I took a new startegy with the ferns - instead of waiting till the new leaves are out, and the old ones brown out. I am trimming all the old ones bit earlier. We will see how it goes.
March 29, 2006
Bamboo top
Knitted in Classic Elite Yarn Bam Boo. It has technical issues which I will deal with ... some other point in the future.
December 25, 2005
Hand knitted socks
Hand knitted socks for G.
December 6, 2005
SF/Oakland - Day 4
We ended the weekend with a slow day. G slept in while I tried to figure out how to pack everyone back into the same bag.
SF/Oakland - Day 3
SF/Oakland - Day 1 & 2
G and I took a quick trip home to visit family. We were there from saturaday dec 3 to tuesday dec 6.
October 9, 2005
more Gackle, ND
We went to church on Sunday. The church hasnt change. And this is the spot Dick and Marcia met 41 years ago. We visited the family cemetry - Glen, Craig and Dick paid their respect. We also drove by the homestead.
November 28, 2004
Americana Express - View of Smithsonian Castle
Americana Express - View of the Monument and the Capitol building
View of the Washington Monument from the middle of The Mall. The Capitol building to the North.
Americana Express - US Bureau of Engraving and Printing
US Bureau of Engraving and Printing - the Color of Money.
November 27, 2004
Americana Express - Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Americana Express - National WWII Memorial
Americana Express - Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Next stop is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Americana Express - Washington Monument
Directly across the Consitution Garden is the Washington Monument.
Americana Express - Lincoln Memorial
We began the day at Lincoln Memorial. This is one of the sight Glen really wanted to see.
October 25, 2004
bhuppies working on their site
A conversation with puppies.
October 23, 2004
Let me help ...
September 9, 2004
Glen talking to puppies
Winter, if you don�t stop digging, you�ll be eating your food at an animal shelter for the rest of your days.
So cease now!
Winter�s selective hearing;
September 8, 2004
Avatar
A beloved writer made this for me ...
August 29, 2004
"Indie"
August 3, 2004
so rice ...
I've been eyeing the Z since it came out. I talked to a couple of people at work about this car. Another resident car junkie Ryan sent me this ...
It is a modified Z built for racing in Japan. Not available in the US.
Nissan's official photo
I ran across the 2003 only Brickyard color....hrmph.
March 10, 2004
Dear Serta
March 1, 2004
Sunny Monterey
August 30, 2003
Kooler in the Mud
July 26, 2003
Troll
Glen, Joanne, Will & Puppies
Kooler, Glen, Joanne, Winter and Will
Will & Joanne at Salish Lodge
Joanne and Will with Salish Lodge and the Hydro-Electricity plant behind them.
Salish Lodge
Salish Lodge, overlooking hydro-electricity plant.
Eda & Glen at Salish Lodge
Mmm. Salish Lodge has the best Country Breakfast. This was taken before the five course breakfast.
October 13, 2002
Paul, John, Byron & Glen
Paul, John, Byron & Glen
Front yard of Paul's house.