Christmas was positively wonderful, but I won't bore you with the details.
What I will bore you with, however, are the details of our first and only (so far) spooky house occurrence. V was doing some tidying up when our doorbell rang. This doorbell is original to the house...has a lever that you push down with your thumb, which in turn rings the bell. No big deal, right? Right, until you consider that the thumb mechanism is seized up and frozen in place, which means that bell does not ring. It wasn't until after V started walking toward the door that he thought "Hmmmm, that doorbell doesn't work. How on earth did it ring?" At first he thought maybe one of the cats had bumped it. Not likely unless one of them managed to grow a foot in height. Then he thought maybe something had rattled the door, in turn rattling the doorbell enough to ding it. But it had made an entire rrrrrrrrring.
Incidentally, there was no one at the door. Thank goodness.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Merry Christmas! Hand me a hammer.
With Christmas just around the corner, it seems only right that we should have some decorations up. Thanks to V, we do! I came home one night to lovely wreaths on the door(s) and twinkling lights inside.
We decided this year to cut our own tree. What an experience! We decided to go on our way home from my folks' annual holiday party. V rightfully noted that I was not exactly dressed for cutting down a tree, what with my cashmere coat, my Burberry scarf, and my high-heeled boots (I'm not a fashionista, I swear I'm not. That coat and scarf are warm and soft!!! They're practical! I have no excuse for the boots.). Be that as it may, we headed out into the forest to cut down our tree. Well, actually what we did was walk through the many rows of pine trees they had, look at so many we could no longer differentiate them, and finally decide to "just cut one." Luckily for us, we were inspired to this rash decision while standing directly in front of a great tree.
Next year, we think we'll buy a living tree and plant it after Christmas. We wanted to do that this year but thought of it far too late. Next year we'll plan ahead and dig the hole so it's all ready to make a comfy new home for our little pine. :)
One other thing we (more like it, V) managed to do over the past few days is to put up our various paintings, prints, and photos. Thank goodness for him. I never think of things like that, even though, when they're up, I love the result. Must be missing some sort of "decor" chip or something. Anyway, he hung all of our prints from Spain, our ceramics, the painting I bought for his birthday, and scads of family photos. Our house feels like a home now!
Plaster is awesome stuff. We had plaster walls in one of our previous houses and just loved them. It's such a superior material to drywall. One drawback--removing nails from plaster is h-a-r-d! We tried to use existing nails where we could just so we didn't have to remove them all. And I'm sure we didn't get every last one. There were a LOT of things hanging up in this house when we bought it.
We decided this year to cut our own tree. What an experience! We decided to go on our way home from my folks' annual holiday party. V rightfully noted that I was not exactly dressed for cutting down a tree, what with my cashmere coat, my Burberry scarf, and my high-heeled boots (I'm not a fashionista, I swear I'm not. That coat and scarf are warm and soft!!! They're practical! I have no excuse for the boots.). Be that as it may, we headed out into the forest to cut down our tree. Well, actually what we did was walk through the many rows of pine trees they had, look at so many we could no longer differentiate them, and finally decide to "just cut one." Luckily for us, we were inspired to this rash decision while standing directly in front of a great tree.
Next year, we think we'll buy a living tree and plant it after Christmas. We wanted to do that this year but thought of it far too late. Next year we'll plan ahead and dig the hole so it's all ready to make a comfy new home for our little pine. :)
One other thing we (more like it, V) managed to do over the past few days is to put up our various paintings, prints, and photos. Thank goodness for him. I never think of things like that, even though, when they're up, I love the result. Must be missing some sort of "decor" chip or something. Anyway, he hung all of our prints from Spain, our ceramics, the painting I bought for his birthday, and scads of family photos. Our house feels like a home now!
Plaster is awesome stuff. We had plaster walls in one of our previous houses and just loved them. It's such a superior material to drywall. One drawback--removing nails from plaster is h-a-r-d! We tried to use existing nails where we could just so we didn't have to remove them all. And I'm sure we didn't get every last one. There were a LOT of things hanging up in this house when we bought it.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Down to one mortgage, folks!
Look, I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but I've had my reasons. For one, we have been trying to sell house #1--no easy task since it's fairly small and located in a transitional neighborhood. Secondly, this has been one seriously busy time at work. Gack!
For the above reasons, among others, it gives me tremendous pleasure to say that WE CLOSED ON THE SALE OF HOUSE #1 TODAY!!!! We were afraid we'd jinx ourselves if we rejoiced too soon, but now the papers are signed and all's well that ends well. The buyer seems very nice, and he has friends in the neighborhood, so he'll probably love it. All told, it's not a bad neighborhood, but it was a bit more than V and I were prepared to take on. We've done the urban pioneer thing, but now we're ready for our nice quaint farmhouse in the country. Ahhhh, acreage. :)
That means we're now officially only paying for one home. One. Happy, happy, happy! Now we can be our own little family all under one roof again!
For the above reasons, among others, it gives me tremendous pleasure to say that WE CLOSED ON THE SALE OF HOUSE #1 TODAY!!!! We were afraid we'd jinx ourselves if we rejoiced too soon, but now the papers are signed and all's well that ends well. The buyer seems very nice, and he has friends in the neighborhood, so he'll probably love it. All told, it's not a bad neighborhood, but it was a bit more than V and I were prepared to take on. We've done the urban pioneer thing, but now we're ready for our nice quaint farmhouse in the country. Ahhhh, acreage. :)
That means we're now officially only paying for one home. One. Happy, happy, happy! Now we can be our own little family all under one roof again!
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