time for my quarterly post, apparently

i'm trying to think of really good excuses why i haven't blogged in THREE WHOLE MONTHS, but they just aren't coming. well, maybe we've been a little bit busy?

first, there was christmas, new year's, epiphany, etc. then, my mom came for a fantastic, too-brief visit, and we were too busy skiing, eating, and watching the inauguration.

then, there was hawaii - four days on kauai, including a stay in a treehouse-like cabin up in the hills, and an incredible hike on the na pali coast, where we encountered i guy who'd been hunting overpopulated goats all day with his bow and arrow:

after that, we had a visit from dear san francisco friends - again with the skiing and eating.

and there was this, our gorgeous new downstairs bath, courtesy of one drew derrick (i was no help at all on this project, or any other of late, thanks to a frozen shoulder and other, ahem, developments:

for a moment, i ask you to recall the "before" photos of this space (before we even moved in), and shudder:

and then drew's parents came. you guessed it; more skiing and eating, especially since betsy cooked up a storm the whole time they were here. they left this morning, and we're pretty sure we no longer know how to shop for our groceries, cook our own meals, or do our own laundry. and the house is totally transformed, thanks to their industry - new french doors in the kitchen, lots of installed woodwork and trim, and even a bit of exterior painting. while they were here, we spent a couple of days at a forest service cabin in the shadow of mt. adams, in washington state. it's a 2.5 mile ski in to this rustic little place with propane lights and no running water. lots of fun topography to explore, including a series of collapsed lava tubes and ice caves. a highlight was discovering just how much huck enjoys woodstoves. he'd literally stand with his head nearly IN the stove, until his eyes must have felt like raisins and he was too hot to touch. heaven for a skinny guy like him, i guess.

now we've got no more (planned) visitors, and we're on to one of our biggest and most exciting projects, the complete overhaul of the kitchen. no big whup.

should be painting, not blogging about painting

we're leaving in three days for spain and this is what the "master suite" looks like:

note lack of viable flooring and other amenities, like doors. we were supposed to be done with this phase pre-spain, but my back and time were not interested in collaborating. also, i'm not so sure about the color(s), but we're not going back now. the floors will be painted a glossy white....

in other news, it will be three years tomorrow since this:

it's totally hackneyed, but three years really do fly when you get to spend every day with your best friend. here's to us, love.

just.so.ready.to.be.DONE

it's a sign of the times, i guess, that i started this post long before i took these pictures, long before we'd gotten as close as we are now to being done, and i STILL feel this way. but looky here, things are definitely coming along:

all the major fixtures are installed, except for the shower riser and ring, and they WORK. like, we've been using them and everything. drew gets all the credit for this acheivement.

this was our first tiling job ever. it's a little, ahem, uneven in spots, but mostly where it doesn't count, like under the tub. good thing drew talked me out of cutting each of these puppies down to subway-tile size, or I would have had exponentially more opportunities to bungle things.

the shower riser will be installed post-inspection. don't tell the inspector.

and that shower curtain is a placeholder until our 'custom' blind arrives.

next up: install the pocket door and trim it out, install the stained glass transoms, and finish installing towel bars, etc. then onward and upward with finishing the rest of upstairs, hopefully before we leave for spain in September.

in other (better) news, both drew's parents and my mom and her hub were here this week. so much fun to have them here when portland was at its summery finest. of course it's that much harder to be apart from them when they leave.

oh, huck!

we have a new family member. beatrice is not so sure about him.

i live in portland now

and as of thursday, drew will, too. it's been a whirlwind year, and we're only barely into february. to recap, in images and a few scant words:

we celebrated christmas

and new year's eve.

we drove across the country via chattanooga, st, louis (that's the arch!), kansas city, and the wilds of kansas, colorado, wyoming, idaho and oregon.

at times it was unbelievably cold and windy, like being on the moon. but we made it. and then drew had to fly back to baltimore, and now he, bea and rick are somewhere back in idaho, driving across the country again.

recapping october

wowzer it's been a long time since i've written. of course lots has happened in the past month or so, including two weddings. in early october we flew to san diego for d's cousin tiff's wedding. we were there for five days or so, and able to visit the insanely wonderful san diego zoo, home of the free-range peacock and other anomalies. we also took a behind-the-scenes tour of sea world, where tiff works, and met some fairly awe-inspiring beluga whales.

lastly, but not chronologically, we went to san diego mission, which is pretty much ground zero of western american catholicism. it's a gorgeous place. i probably shouldn't mention the cigars we got in old town san diego for tiff's wedding party; they ended in ignominy for some of us who shall remain nameless. suffice to say, anise-flavored tobacco and an open bar are an unhappy combination for the novice cigar-smoker.

ok, then my mom got married. for those of you keeping score at home, that's three weddings in 13 months for the women of my family - me, my grandmother and my mother. it was a spectacular, moving weekend full of good people, good food, good fun. and e and p were blissfully happy and gorgeous throughout. and i'm happy to report that she is recovering nicely from her baltimore separation anxiety. i go next week to visit them in chattanooga, after another stop in portland.

and that's about it. as for last night's leftovers, they are a sagey turkey meatloaf that i adapted from "joy of cooking" (the edition before this 75th anniversary edition that's just come out), sauteed red cabbage with golden raisins, and pan-fried confetti potatoes with rosemary and lemon juice. not bad for a tuesday night comfort food meal.

debacle

i've been feeling even more star-crossed this week than usual. the other night, for example, as i was heating up leftover turkey sloppy joes for dinner (heavy into the american comfort foods right now - last weekend it was glorified baked beans, this week the joes - both straight out of my grandmother's old crock-pot cookbook) i managed to spill absolutely everything before I could get it to the plate. sloppy joes on the counter. salad dressing in the crevice between the stove and the counter (yuck). grape tomatoes skidding across the floor. a real boon for bea. not so much for me.

so should i have been surprised when, upon leaving stained glass class last night, i got a message from my cousin t, with whom i'm supposed to meet up in the bahamas this weekend, saying that, while i was flying to freeport, the other three were flying to nassau? and the two were nowhere near each other? and i might have to fly between them? and that would cost loads and get me there very late at night? guess not.

needless to say, a breakdown ensued. spent almost two hours on the phone with orbitz and american airlines when i got home - during which time BOTH of our home phones went on the fritz in the middle of a transaction with the elusive customer service reps. and the upshot is $154 and i don't get to nassau until 10 pm (vs. mid-afternoon for everyone else - but to do that would have cost $400). so much for a quick, cheap getaway with the cousines.

and what's really weird is that i KNEW we were going to freeport. nassau was NEVER in my mind as our destination. and i was completely, expensively WRONG.

now, about that stained glass class. this was the first of 8, and as i told d, i'm definitely not a glass prodigy. last night we learned the basics of cutting the glass with a little tool that has a steel wheel at its tip and is completely awkward to hold and to use. we practiced cutting out basic-seeming shapes - leaves, fish, moons - with this implement, and the result, at least in my case, only vaguely resembled the original design. i'm told we'll get better. i'm told there are ways to smooth out all those jaggedy edges. most of all, i'm told i'll learn to respect the glass, without being afraid of being cut by it. because "the glass knows when you fear it." and all this time, i thought fear of flying glass shards was a smart instinct.