We have had unusually nice weather here in Seattle this week. It pretty much started right after the holiday weekend (of course) and yesterday we tied the record high of 87 degrees. Jeramy and I went with his tattoo artist Dave for a motorcycle ride to Alki last night and had a late dinner at a place called Bamboo. It was definitely a great night to be out on the bike, but getting home at 11pm is not something that I can manage all the time. Yes, I'm pretty lame for 29 years old...but in my defense I do get up for work at 4:30am every morning.
Also, we did get all of the cabinet doors up over the weekend but not pictures yet. The overachieving perfectionist side of me is coming out, and I don't want to take them until the kitchen looks spotlessly clean. And that hasn't happened given the beautiful weather and motorcycle rides. Well and maybe a little laziness too.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Starting to look like we have a kitchen again
A quick update on the kitchen re-modeling. Jeramy has been busy hanging cabinet doors. We have all of the doors on the window side of the kitchen up as you can see below!
While he has been doing that, I've been putting new contact paper down to line the shelves. While Jeramy made this process look easy with the first couple of shelves, it turns out that contact paper and I simply do not get along. First there is the matter of cutting it in a straight line. My "straight" lines are always curvier leaving lovely gaps around the edges. Then there is the task of peeling off the backing. When I do this the backing either rips or in my effort to get I accidentally fold the sticky sides of the contact paper together creating a horrible mess. And then once I actually get the paper down, I end up with massive air bubbles and creases. The end result is not very pretty, but luckily we've got lots of junk to stick on those shelves to cover that ugliness up.
While he has been doing that, I've been putting new contact paper down to line the shelves. While Jeramy made this process look easy with the first couple of shelves, it turns out that contact paper and I simply do not get along. First there is the matter of cutting it in a straight line. My "straight" lines are always curvier leaving lovely gaps around the edges. Then there is the task of peeling off the backing. When I do this the backing either rips or in my effort to get I accidentally fold the sticky sides of the contact paper together creating a horrible mess. And then once I actually get the paper down, I end up with massive air bubbles and creases. The end result is not very pretty, but luckily we've got lots of junk to stick on those shelves to cover that ugliness up.
Friday, May 18, 2007
My Husband...Carpentry Genius
This picture is evidence of my husband's carpentry genius. This revelation is only more extraordinary, given that he is a pipefitter by trade and not a carpenter. Long story short, he figured out a way to install a panel to match the new cabinets and fill in the large square hole from the old light fixture without having to put nails through the front of the pretty new panel. I realize that this all looks and sounds unimpressive...but really you had to be there. He had already thought of and solved the situation before I even managed to identify the problem.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Post-Travel Crankiness
Nothing precipitates my crankiness like getting home after traveling. I don't know whether it was returning to work or running a bunch of errands afterwards or trying to get the checking account to balance out. But regardless, I was a serious grump last night. Just ask Jeramy.
Despite my crankiness, he managed to get the drawer fronts installed in the kitchen. I'm very happy with how they turned out.
Despite my crankiness, he managed to get the drawer fronts installed in the kitchen. I'm very happy with how they turned out.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
An Arkansas Adventure
Jeramy and I had a great trip to Arkansas for his Grandma Harris' funeral. I got to meet a lot of family members that I had not met before...many of whom Jeramy had also never met or hadn't seen since he was 12. Anyhow, here is a quick recap (okay a rather long recap) of the trip.
Friday
After sleeping overnight in either an airport (me) or plane (Jeramy) we groggily arrived at the Little Rock airport around 9:00am. Apparently, the girl at the car rental place pegged Jeramy instantly, and offered us an upgrade to a Mustang for only $7 per day. We were more than happy to fork over that relatively small sum to get out of a Chevy Aveo and into a much funner (okay faster) car.
After stopping at the Harley dealership in Little Rock to buy T-shirts, we drove about 2 hours to the Northwest to where Aunt Betty lives outside of Lamar. They live in the foothills of the Ozarks, which reminded me a lot of the scenery from the Alabama countryside when we drive from my grandparents' house in Decatur to Smith Lake: rolling hills, green grass and trees, winding country roads, lots of small churches with their cemetaries decorated in flowers, farm animals and houses ranging in condition from delapidated to astonishing. The temperature was similar too...hot and humid with the temperature just being on verge of what the locals felt required air conditioning. As a Seattleite, I probably would have turned on the a/c weeks ago.
We spent the rest of the day was spent having lunch and dinner and catching up with family. We stayed both that night and the next at Jeramy's cousin Bud's house just down the street from his Aunt Betty's.
Saturday
We started out the day with a mini-road trip because Jeramy heard there was a Harley dealership about an hour away in Fort Smith. After picking up some T-shirts there, we drove a few more miles to the Oklahoma border so that I could say that I had visited another state. Of course all that I saw of the state was a casino, liquor store and adult video store. But why be picky???
When we got back to his Aunt Betty's we learned that Jeramy's Aunt Em and cousin Judy from California had gotten caught up in Thunderstorms in Atlanta and wouldn't make it in time for the service. Everybody agreed that we should push the service and burial back to 5:00pm when Em and Judy could be there too. So the whole group had a late lunch at his cousin Luke's house and then after Em and Judy got there we laid Grandma Harris to rest. The service was in a very old chapel without air conditioning, power or bathrooms across the street from the cemetary. The family was completely responsible for the service and all aspects of the burial, which was very different from was I'm used to at home. Afterwards, we went back to Luke's for dinner.
Here is a great picture taken of Aunt Betty with her youngest great-grandson Bryer and Jeramy's niece (her great-niece) Julia.
Sunday
Since it was Mother's Day and the last time everybody would be there, we started off with a big breakfast at a small cafe in Dover. Luckily we got there early when there was still room because we took up half the restaurant. After breakfast, Jeramy and his cousin Judy (who was in Arkansas less than 24 hours thanks to those Atlanta T-storms) left for the airport in Little Rock. I went with Mark, Dee and Julia up to Branson, Missouri. Julia had started to run a fever that morning, but we decided to go ahead with the trip figuring it would be just as easy to take care of her in Branson as it would anywhere.
First we went at the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Mansfield, Missouri. I am a huge fan of the Little House books and have read them all many, many times. The museum is at the house that Laura and Almanzo started building after they moved from South Dakota to Missouri in 1894 and finally finished in 1913. It is the house that Laura lived in until she died in 1957 and everything had been preserved to be as it was at that point in time. It was very cool to see all of the handmade items in the house, learn more about the family's history and see things referenced in the books like Pa's fiddle. Here is a picture of me standing in front of the house and some of the Amish people we saw on the way to Mansfield:
When Dee and I got back to the car, we found out that Julia's temperature had escalated to 104 degrees. We immediately decided to drive to Springfield and go to the emergency room where Julia was diagnosed with an early case of Pnemonia. Luckily, we were able to get in and out of the ER relatively quickly, and they let us leave with a prescription for antibiotics.
Around the same time, Jeramy found out that his flight from Little Rock to Dallas was canceled due to T-storms in Dallas, and the earliest flight he could get on was Monday night. So we decided he should just stay with the rest of us and leave early Tuesday morning. He rented a car (a black Mustang this time) and then drove 4 hours to Branson getting there just before midnight.
Monday
Julia's temperature had gone down a little by Monday morning, but she was still not feeling well. So Dee and Mark decided that they would just skip Branson and head down to Little Rock early. As Jeramy and I aren't really the dinner show types, we decided instead to do a tour of Harley dealerships in southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas. We put about 450 miles on the mustang as we drove to dealerships in Springfield, MO; Joplin, MO; and Rogers, AR. Along the way we also saw the largest Precious Moments gift shop in Carthage, MO and Bentonville, AR where our "favorite" store Wal-Mart began (note the sarcasm here) among other things.
We then took the more scenic backroads down to Knoxville, where we met up with Jeramy's cousin Becky and Aunts Em and Betty for dinner. Then we drove to the hotel where Dee and Mark were staying in Little Rock, to get a little sleep before our 5am flights the next morning. It was honestly one of the funnest days that Jeramy and I have ever had together, and it turns out that his flight cancellation was really the best thing that could have happened during the trip
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:
Jeramy in Mustang #2...
Me at the Precious Moments chapel and gift store
The Pig Trail Harley Davidson store in Rogers. It was the biggest one we saw...must be all that Wal-Mart money coming in from nearby Bentonville.
A place along the side of the road called the "Hillbilly Cabin". It certainly lives up to its name.
Tuesday
Dee, Mark, Julia, Uncle John and I had to catch a 5:10am flight on Continental and Jeramy had a 5:40am flight on American. Jeramy was supposed to get in later than us because he had a 3 hour layover in Dallas, but he barely managed to get on a flight to Seattle that left much earlier (we're talking sliding into the plane just before they shut the door). So he got in just after 9am but had to wait at SeaTac until I arrived at 10:30am since he didn't have house keys. Exhausted, we went home and had a big nap before going to Jim's to pick up a very excited Cujo.
In the end it was a really fun if sometimes chaotic trip. But in the end, we had a lot of fun even though things did not always go as planned.
Friday
After sleeping overnight in either an airport (me) or plane (Jeramy) we groggily arrived at the Little Rock airport around 9:00am. Apparently, the girl at the car rental place pegged Jeramy instantly, and offered us an upgrade to a Mustang for only $7 per day. We were more than happy to fork over that relatively small sum to get out of a Chevy Aveo and into a much funner (okay faster) car.
After stopping at the Harley dealership in Little Rock to buy T-shirts, we drove about 2 hours to the Northwest to where Aunt Betty lives outside of Lamar. They live in the foothills of the Ozarks, which reminded me a lot of the scenery from the Alabama countryside when we drive from my grandparents' house in Decatur to Smith Lake: rolling hills, green grass and trees, winding country roads, lots of small churches with their cemetaries decorated in flowers, farm animals and houses ranging in condition from delapidated to astonishing. The temperature was similar too...hot and humid with the temperature just being on verge of what the locals felt required air conditioning. As a Seattleite, I probably would have turned on the a/c weeks ago.
We spent the rest of the day was spent having lunch and dinner and catching up with family. We stayed both that night and the next at Jeramy's cousin Bud's house just down the street from his Aunt Betty's.
Saturday
We started out the day with a mini-road trip because Jeramy heard there was a Harley dealership about an hour away in Fort Smith. After picking up some T-shirts there, we drove a few more miles to the Oklahoma border so that I could say that I had visited another state. Of course all that I saw of the state was a casino, liquor store and adult video store. But why be picky???
When we got back to his Aunt Betty's we learned that Jeramy's Aunt Em and cousin Judy from California had gotten caught up in Thunderstorms in Atlanta and wouldn't make it in time for the service. Everybody agreed that we should push the service and burial back to 5:00pm when Em and Judy could be there too. So the whole group had a late lunch at his cousin Luke's house and then after Em and Judy got there we laid Grandma Harris to rest. The service was in a very old chapel without air conditioning, power or bathrooms across the street from the cemetary. The family was completely responsible for the service and all aspects of the burial, which was very different from was I'm used to at home. Afterwards, we went back to Luke's for dinner.
Here is a great picture taken of Aunt Betty with her youngest great-grandson Bryer and Jeramy's niece (her great-niece) Julia.
Sunday
Since it was Mother's Day and the last time everybody would be there, we started off with a big breakfast at a small cafe in Dover. Luckily we got there early when there was still room because we took up half the restaurant. After breakfast, Jeramy and his cousin Judy (who was in Arkansas less than 24 hours thanks to those Atlanta T-storms) left for the airport in Little Rock. I went with Mark, Dee and Julia up to Branson, Missouri. Julia had started to run a fever that morning, but we decided to go ahead with the trip figuring it would be just as easy to take care of her in Branson as it would anywhere.
First we went at the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Mansfield, Missouri. I am a huge fan of the Little House books and have read them all many, many times. The museum is at the house that Laura and Almanzo started building after they moved from South Dakota to Missouri in 1894 and finally finished in 1913. It is the house that Laura lived in until she died in 1957 and everything had been preserved to be as it was at that point in time. It was very cool to see all of the handmade items in the house, learn more about the family's history and see things referenced in the books like Pa's fiddle. Here is a picture of me standing in front of the house and some of the Amish people we saw on the way to Mansfield:
When Dee and I got back to the car, we found out that Julia's temperature had escalated to 104 degrees. We immediately decided to drive to Springfield and go to the emergency room where Julia was diagnosed with an early case of Pnemonia. Luckily, we were able to get in and out of the ER relatively quickly, and they let us leave with a prescription for antibiotics.
Around the same time, Jeramy found out that his flight from Little Rock to Dallas was canceled due to T-storms in Dallas, and the earliest flight he could get on was Monday night. So we decided he should just stay with the rest of us and leave early Tuesday morning. He rented a car (a black Mustang this time) and then drove 4 hours to Branson getting there just before midnight.
Monday
Julia's temperature had gone down a little by Monday morning, but she was still not feeling well. So Dee and Mark decided that they would just skip Branson and head down to Little Rock early. As Jeramy and I aren't really the dinner show types, we decided instead to do a tour of Harley dealerships in southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas. We put about 450 miles on the mustang as we drove to dealerships in Springfield, MO; Joplin, MO; and Rogers, AR. Along the way we also saw the largest Precious Moments gift shop in Carthage, MO and Bentonville, AR where our "favorite" store Wal-Mart began (note the sarcasm here) among other things.
We then took the more scenic backroads down to Knoxville, where we met up with Jeramy's cousin Becky and Aunts Em and Betty for dinner. Then we drove to the hotel where Dee and Mark were staying in Little Rock, to get a little sleep before our 5am flights the next morning. It was honestly one of the funnest days that Jeramy and I have ever had together, and it turns out that his flight cancellation was really the best thing that could have happened during the trip
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day:
Jeramy in Mustang #2...
Me at the Precious Moments chapel and gift store
The Pig Trail Harley Davidson store in Rogers. It was the biggest one we saw...must be all that Wal-Mart money coming in from nearby Bentonville.
A place along the side of the road called the "Hillbilly Cabin". It certainly lives up to its name.
Tuesday
Dee, Mark, Julia, Uncle John and I had to catch a 5:10am flight on Continental and Jeramy had a 5:40am flight on American. Jeramy was supposed to get in later than us because he had a 3 hour layover in Dallas, but he barely managed to get on a flight to Seattle that left much earlier (we're talking sliding into the plane just before they shut the door). So he got in just after 9am but had to wait at SeaTac until I arrived at 10:30am since he didn't have house keys. Exhausted, we went home and had a big nap before going to Jim's to pick up a very excited Cujo.
In the end it was a really fun if sometimes chaotic trip. But in the end, we had a lot of fun even though things did not always go as planned.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
A Kitchen Re-modeling Machine
When Jeramy starts something, apparently he doesn't take a break until he's finished. Or at least that is how it has been going with this kitchen re-model. I would have been ecstatic with just having the counters installed before going to Arkansas. But last night, Jeramy (with a little help from me) worked until after 10pm last night to get the floor installed too. We get up at 4:30am so that's pretty late for us.
I think it's looking pretty good....
I think it's looking pretty good....
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
He's a Journeyman
Jeramy found out yesterday that after five years of being an apprentice, he is now officially a journeyman pipefitter. Needless to say we are pretty excited!
Monday, May 7, 2007
Kitchen Counters
The kitchen counters arrived Sunday night. Jeramy went to work right away, even though he'd just gotten back from spending the weekend in Wenatchee. They'll be about 1/2 inch higher than our old ones (an inch if you include the fact the the floors are now lower) which feels surprisingly weird.
Also, Jenny came over on Saturday, and we got the rest of the painting done. Well except for touch ups. Oh and by the light fixture above the sink. Oh and around where we'll be putting the new light fixture. Does painting ever truly feel "done"? Heck, I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever reach a point where the kitchen feels "done"!
Also, Jenny came over on Saturday, and we got the rest of the painting done. Well except for touch ups. Oh and by the light fixture above the sink. Oh and around where we'll be putting the new light fixture. Does painting ever truly feel "done"? Heck, I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever reach a point where the kitchen feels "done"!
Friday, May 4, 2007
Halibut Fishing
We went Halibut fishing with Jeramy's mom and stepdad yesterday and it was a great time. We left Wednesday night after work and stayed the night in Westport. Then we had to be at the boat at 4am, which was way too early even by my standards. It took about 3 hours to get out to the fishing grounds, and somehow I managed to hold my lunch in (but I was a bit quesy the entire time and even today). I was the first on the boat to catch a Halibut, and so I was sure to obnoxiously rub in the fact that I am always first since I was also first on the charter we took in Homer. Dee and Mark go pretty good sized fish, and then after getting a couple smaller fish Jeramy landed a 55 pounder! The weather held up too and was sunny for most of the day.
Then we went bottom fishing in a little shallower waters (about 150 feet versus the 700 feet for Halibut). I caught 3 Rockfish and 1 Lingcod, and Jeramy caught 4 Rockfish and a Lingcod. In all, we did even better than we did in Alaska and now have a freezer full of fish. All in all it was a fun albeit long day, and I was glad to get home and enjoy my own bed.
Below are a few of my favorite pics from the day...
Then we went bottom fishing in a little shallower waters (about 150 feet versus the 700 feet for Halibut). I caught 3 Rockfish and 1 Lingcod, and Jeramy caught 4 Rockfish and a Lingcod. In all, we did even better than we did in Alaska and now have a freezer full of fish. All in all it was a fun albeit long day, and I was glad to get home and enjoy my own bed.
Below are a few of my favorite pics from the day...
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Cujo's Excited about Remodeling the Kitchen
Just had to share Cujo's take on the whole kitchen re-modeling project. But we won't be working on for the next couple of days, because tonight we're off to Westport to go Halibut fishing. Then Jeramy will go to Wenatchee for the Apple Blossom festival, and I'll stay home and get some much needed housework done. Jenny said she'd come over and help me paint on Saturday, so that we can start working on the counters next week.
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