A Special Blend: February 2006

Personal DNA

Thanks Jill, that was fun.
I did a test also.
Here are my results.

He's Still At It

The more glamorous of Mark's current projects is this tiny side table that he made special, to squeeze next to our new couch.

Slightly less sexy, but equally exciting to me, is the potting bench he's working on. The picture's a bit of a jumble, because the saw horses (to the right) look about the same as the potting bench (center). But you can pick out the basic structure. I'll be sure to send more pics when he gets farther along.

A Sight for Sore Eyes

Look what's popping up in my backyard,

I planted these last fall with Bonnie's help.

They've been about this big for a week or so. A couple of "warm" days coaxed them out. Then we had some pretty cold weather (with a freak snow shower one day). But today the sun was out and it was warmer again (aside from the chilling wind). Hopefully it will be nice tomorrow.

I'm a cook?

I've been feeling pretty adventurous in the kitchen lately...I even tried starting from scratch with dried beans:

It was my first try. Didn't turn out so well. I cooked them up with a bunch of vegetables (which tasted delicious!), but I didn't realized the beans were still crunchy. Eww...they were kind of like nuts (so I kept telling myself to try and keep eating), but in the end they were like very undercooked beans. Maybe I'll try again. Maybe I'll just stick to cans of beans.

Cut Flowers of the Week

(does anyone know what these are called?)

This is a new vase from IKEA.

When the Dog Bites, When the Bee Stings...

These are a few of my favorite things...

Images like these, around my house, cheer me up.

Nothing really bad has happened, in fact I'm quite happy. But I do find that little things like this help me relax more quickly, rejuvenate, refresh, and they generally give me more energy to keep active, work harder, and take on more risks. I very much like to look at pleasing things like this around my house, but these images offer even more than that.

The bowls of potpourri were bought on a wonderful trip to IKEA (1 of 2 in just 2 weeks! yipee!). I love them. They are that little something that my bathroom needed to tip the scales from plain old bathroom to pseudo-spa bathroom. Plus I love spending/saving money at IKEA. $0.50/bowl. $1.00/potpourri!

The book, spread open at the top of the stack, is a book of Latin poetry. Well, that sort of says it all, doesn't it? But there's more. Those are Mark's books, in Mark's office. He is now incorporating a Latin poet/philosopher into his dissertation. While he mostly relies on two English translations to read the poetry, sometimes he likes to go straight to the original, Latin text--particularly when he means to quote a part of the poem. That is where I come in. It is my greatest joy when Mark calls me in to help him find certain words in the Latin text or even better when he is trying to decipher which English translation is more accurate to quote. I get to translate the Latin (seriously, the joy of my life!) and for an actual purpose! We talk about the literal translation and what the parts of speech are doing, and how the poetic grammar can lend itself to both of his English translations, or how one of them really took a leap from the original text.

And, to top it all off, I now have Julie Andrews singing in my head...
"I simply remember my favorite thiiiiiiiiings, and then I don't feeeeeel, so bad!"

Cleaning Up the Snow

Mark worked so hard yesterday. He shovelled the entire alley from our garage down, so I could be sure to get to work this morning. He also shovelled our front walk and our backyard.

I was in charge of the camera. I also followed behind with a little red dixi cup of snow salt, sprinkling it behind him as he shovelled along :)

(the face of a true stinker)
Actually, I did try to shovel for a while, but my back has been really sore and I just couldn't manage for long. Besides, Mark swore he was actually having fun.

Look how well my super cool Target boots (that I absolutely LOVE) held up to the snow and puddles. Mark and I tramped through the same snow, but mine are hardly wet and his are soaked through. I'm loving Target right about now.

Cleaning Up the Snow

Mark worked so hard yesterday. He shovelled the entire alley from our garage down, so I could be sure to get to work this morning. He also shovelled our front walk and our backyard.

I was in charge of the camera. I also followed behind with a little red dixi cup of snow salt, sprinkling it behind him as he shovelled along :)

(the face of a true stinker)
Actually, I did try to shovel for a while, but my back has been really sore and I just couldn't manage for long. Besides, Mark swore he was actually having fun.

Look how well my super cool Target boots (that I absolutely LOVE) held up to the snow and puddles. Mark and I tramped through the same snow, but mine are hardly wet and his are soaked through. I'm loving Target right about now.

Winter Wonderland

Waking up this morning...

Snow and Cool Tricks

Here's that same snow storm, several hours later. Still going...

The super cool thing is that these were both night pictures that come out looking like this:

A littl Photoshop magic, and...voila! I'm too cool for school! :)
So, if you have any dark pictures that you were really hoping would turn out...well, I might be able to save them for you. But please don't send me any weird surprises :)

The Finished Product

The random fuzzy spots in the pictures are the beginning of a snow storm. This is our first one since November this winter.

The entire fence does not lean. Just the photographer. :)

Look! Look!

Look at my new gate (and the fence in the works)...okay, OUR new gate...and even more fair would be to say: Mark's new gate. But I love, it I love it, I love it, so I can't help but cling on to it and say "Mine!" :)

Doesn't it look perfect? Oh, I love it! For those of you who already have fenced in backyards (and always have had one) can you at least imagine what it must be like to have an open backyard (open to the alley!) and how truly wonderful this long-awaited fencing-in is?

The master craftsman himself:

If you're wondering why there is a random diagonal two-by-four and some superfluous hinges, you have stumbled across something interesting:

When we decided to build the fence, we contacted the owner of our neighbors' home. She said she was delighted to have a fence, but that when she tried in the past, the contractor explained to her that she would never be able to move large appliances in or out of her house if there was a fence--the fence would have to be removed for that sort of transport. Mark and I, determined to have the fence, came up with a new plan: one section of the fence would essentially be a gigantic gate. Appliance transporters will have to come into our backyard (because our entry gate is much wider with the angle there) and then go through the fence/gate. It should look just like the rest of the fence once we add the fence boards to it.
Cool, huh?

A Painting

I painted a painting this weekend to represent our house. It is painted with all of the leftover paints from the rooms we've redecorated. You can't see it now (since I've painted over it), but this painting even represents the basement, because it was slightly stained in the flood :)

The inspiration for this painting was twofold: 1) we needed some piece of art to hang in the upstairs hallway; and 2) I kept finding myself looking and house-paint-colored abstract art in different home decorating magazines and realized, Hey, I've got house-paint colors! And so it was born.

A Snap Shot: My Life from the Livingroom

As I was enjoying my Saturday morning, sitting in the oversize chair at this end of the livingroom (right by the front window), I realized that this view tells a pretty clear picture of my current life:

Not sure how clear the words will post, so here they are more clearly:

BLANKETS: I've been sick and lying on the couch a lot.
STUFF ALL OVER THE DINING TABLE: Post Christmas mess, projects in waiting, rescued items from the sewage flood. (In short: house is under constant state of disorder as it is under construction.)
VASE FULL OF WATER: Our shower leaks into our livingroom via a lovely hole in the drywall.
PROP PILLOW & XBOX CONTROLLER: Mark sits with me, playing video games while I rest, stretched out on the couch. (Such a sweetie.)
SLIPPERS: It's cold. It's winter.

So after gazing over this picture long enough to be roused to action, I cleaned the whole house (floors mostly), put all the slippers and pillows and blankets and XBox controllers away, re-grouted the cracked spots in our shower tile, went grocery shopping with a strict budget (new thing for me), AND made dinner (this new spaghetti where I actually let the meat sauce simmer for almost an hour and it actually tastes like good food that you would normally find in someone elses kitchen)!
And now I'm quite proud of myself.

And, I'm starting to realize that I don't know how to sit still anymore. My idea of a relaxing weekend is to tell myself on Friday that I'm not going to do any work all weekend. That way, when I wake up on Saturday with no pressure to do anything, I realize I don't really have anything else I want to do so I just pick up a project and start projecting. It's really weird.

Salvaged Sketches

When our basement flooded, Mark was able to move most of our stored items out of harms way. Unfortunately, a box was overlooked, and even more unfortunate: it was the box holding all of my painting and sketch books. The paintings were all fine, though mildly discolored.

The sketch books were pretty soggy. Luckily they were not mucky--their cardboard box/shell saved them from that doom.

I spent sometime this last weekend peeling the sketches apart and laying them out to dry. It was fun to see them all again. (And I felt a little like I was in "Titanic," with my art being discovered and salavaged.) :)