Happy New Year!

It's been a busy few weeks around here, so I have a lot to catch up on! We celebrated our 27th anniversary the week before Christmas. It turned out that we had a church choir rehearsal/party that night, so we went out to eat before the party. I gave DH a new coffee mug...are you hypnotized yet?
Now you can read the outside of the mug! Unfortunately, it is too large to fit in our coffee maker, but I still like it!
DH removed the door off the "water closet" in our master bathroom. We never close the door to the toilet area anyway and the door blocked the light switches just inside the bathroom.
He took off the moulding pieces on the door frame edge and patched where the hinges and plate were. Here is a shot of the moulding on another door frame...
And this is how it looks where DH removed the moulding and hinges - what a great patching job!
DD and I made a couple of batches of peanut butter cookies to give to the orchestra members who played at church on Christmas Eve. Most of them turned out great (although you would never know that those were bell-shaped peanut butter cups that we put on top)...
A few of the cookies in the final batch didn't fare quite as well - I walked away and came back to find little chocolate blobs under the cooling rack! We gave some of the holey cookies to my brother-in-law and told him we'd taken all the calories out of his cookies. :-D I embroidered shirts for myself...
and for DH...
and for DD (DS has a Bah Humbug shirt to wear for Christmas)...
And I got the most awesome gift from DH for Christmas - a Segway!
DD and I spotted these deer behind our house - they only look like they are eating DH's newly- planted grass...
So, on Tuesday I looked out the window and didn't see the hunter's blind behind our house. The chair was still there however, which led me to believe that the blind wasn't gone because the hunter had come back for it - he would have taken his chair too.
So, DD and I took a hike down back to see if we could find the blind. DD spotted it in the pond!
We decided to try and get it out before the temps dropped and the pond froze around the blind. We tried several different sticks that we found lying around, but they all broke.
We finally got it out - DD pushed with a stick from her side and I pulled with a stick from my side. Here it is after we got it out of the water...
We carried the blind and the folding chair up to the driveway so the blind could dry out. I guess if the hunter ever shows up looking for them, he'll have to knock on the door and ask for them.
Have a wonderful 2009!

We have mirrors! And shelves!

It's been a long time coming, but we now have mirrors in our master bathroom! We had to special order the one for over my sink/vanity area, but it finally arrived. DH made frames for them to match the frames on the cabinet doors...

Here is DH's mirror - we'll have to put some artwork up on the blank wall...
DH also built me 2 more shelves in the utility closet across from the powder room. He installed 2 outlets so I can plug in phone/GPS chargers and my sweeper vac.
I managed to get a lot of my house decorating done. The goal was to get it done in time for the church women's dinner party that I hosted last night. I had everything done except for the tree, and it (for us) is still a tad too early to get the tree. I think we'll probably get the tree this weekend. Here is the fireplace with my new wreath over the mantel...
I hung greens around the border of the great room on the valance. I had to get up and down off the ladder every loop in order to move the ladder - it was a good thigh workout! In order to get the swags even, I laid out each section on the floor next to a tape measure and connected a wire ornament hanger to the greens every 3 feet. Then I just had to make sure the bottom of the swag hit the bottom of the valance and there was no need to measure where to hang each hook.
The Santa/Reindeer quilt and nativity are in the entryway...
Underneath the table I put all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, most of them belonging to our kids over the years (and some that even belong to DH and I when we were little).
The stairs were adorned with lights and more greenery...
We set up the tables for my dinner party on Sunday night and I set them and decorated them on Monday. I was expecting 15 guests (plus me) for the third year in a row. There must be something about the number 16 and our women's dinner - they are not the same exact women every year either. Interesting...
Here are the Santa napkins on the table settings - no one wanted to use the napkins for fear of ruining them!
And other place setting...
So, some of the next projects on the list are to find tiles for the backsplash of the beverage area, and to find floor tile for the floor at the bottom of the basement stairs (that we can see when we look down over the stair railing). Here is the beverage area that we want to tile...
I'm thinking I'd like to bring in some of the red color from the adjoining family room. Here is one with very narrow tiles (1/4") in shades of red...
This one has several colors in it which would pull in the colors of the cabinets, counter, and the red from the other room. It seems a little dark to me though, so I'm just not sure. I also have samples of smaller red squares in colors similar to the above tile. Maybe we can combine this tile with some of the red squares, or something...
And in the continuing saga of our hunter...He has never returned - his blind is still down in back of the house, collapsed from the wind. It's very strange...

Grass!

We have grass! It's not all there yet, but it's a start...
We've gotten some rain the past couple of days, so hopefully we'll get some grass in the areas that the sprinklers aren't hitting...
So, I've been working on making some napkins to coordinate with the bowls and plates that I bought the other day. I embroidered leaf outlines on the orange and yellow patterned fabric and backed it with cream fabric.
Here's a close-up...
And another one...
The KD's photographer came today and took a gazillion photos of the kitchen and master bathroom. The KD will use them on his web site or in his store to show to potential clients. The landscapers also stopped by today and took some photos of the patio and deck.

I'll have to take some updated photos of the kitchen now that everything is off the counters!

"One of these things is not like the others..."

The landscapers showed up again on Friday and pressure washed the deck. They also spread the top soil around...
Looks a lot better, even though DH still has a lot of work to do to make it look like a lawn...
DH took Friday off work to work on the lawn some more. He raked, harrowed, mushroom-mulched, and seeded the back yard. We're getting rain right now, but it's rather heavy. I hope the seed doesn't get washed away...
Remember that Sesame Street song - "one of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which one is not like the others, before I finish my song?" Can you tell what doesn't belong in the pool photo below?
Here's a really big hint...

Poor little guy - I'm not sure how long he was in there. DH spotted him this morning from the upstairs window. When I tried to get him out with my hand, he moved away and sat on the pool seat...
I had to get him out with the net. He must have been really pooped - he hopped a couple times and then just sat there for a long time.
Later on he hopped away, so I guess he's fine...
I went to Pier 1 the other night and found these dishes on clearance for a really good price and bought enough for 12 people. I hate serving people out of styrofoam or paper bowls and thought these would work well when needed. The only bowls I have 12 of are my good china dishes and they are the really shallow bowls, which are good for salad but, in my opinion, not always so good for soup or chili. The plates coordinated well and were pretty, so I got those also.
The painter showed up this morning to touch up some spots on the stairs, and in our master bathroom, and some exterior spots. He only ended up doing a bit on the stairs. He said he needed to buy more paint for the bathroom and re-paint the whole room. It looked like they had tried to touch up some spots with paint that wasn't thoroughly mixed, and the touch-ups dried a different color from the rest of the room. I don't know why he didn't do the exterior touch-ups. So, he'll be back...

Uh-oh! No more pavers!

So, the patio still isn't done - so much for my estimate of another half day to finish it! On Tuesday they added another 3 rows, or so...
By Wednesday afternoon, they were down to this small area to finish. DH was fairly certain that they had run out of pavers. We had 4 palettes of pavers and he only saw a few pieces left. When none of the landscapers showed up this morning, we knew DH had been right about them running out of pavers! The other 3 landscapers will be back next week to work on (and hopefully finish!) the deck. I'm not optimistic about the pavers getting done anytime soon - I'm sure they will have to order another whole palette and that will take some time to get delivered.
My sewing studio is done for now. All the boxes are unpacked and I think I've found places for everything to live. Here is the sewing table (which will eventually be replaced by a rectangular table which will support quilt bulk better than the oval table), the computer table (which is behind the sewing table so that when I am embroidering I can see the color changes on the computer instead of wasting paper by printing out the color changes), and in the back is my pressing table (which is actually my portable folding handbell table with a small pressing pad on it - eventually I will have a full-size tabletop that will be covered in batting and muslin).
Here is a better shot of the current pressing table with several tubs of fabric beneath it. A lot of this fabric is only used for church sewing projects (school kits for 3rd world countries, adult bibs for senior citizens, quilts for babies, etc.), so these tubs will either stay where they are with a fabric skirt to hide them, or they may end up in the basement.

Here is my other handbell table which is currently being used for my cutting table/planning area. I need to have a counter-height table and a stool for this area of the sewing studio.
I emptied most of the master bathroom boxes today. I still have this box to empty, but it's good to have most of the boxes gone.
I have 2 more bathroom cabinet drawers that need to have full-extension hinges put on them. The cabinet guy is coming tomorrow morning (at 8am!) to install them.
And I'm hoping that all of this stuff will fit in those 2 drawers, but I'm not going to hold my breath!
The tax lady showed up at the door yesterday to do a tax assessment. So far, we've only been paying taxes on the property. She asked questions about the house and then took measurements on the outside, so I suspect we'll be getting a new tax bill soon. I was happy with just paying for the property, but I knew that had to end. :-D