3 houses in 4 days

Well, we are in our new house, but it's not the one we thought we'd be in. We moved Sunday and Monday into this giant old victorian that was getting remodeled. The remodel didn't go so well, to put it mildly. Tons of things were wrong with the house; broken furnace, old rusty pipes, leaky pipes, leaky toilet, carbon monoxide leaking from furnace. windows installed wrong, fucked up kitchen cabinets, and polyurethane reeking smell from everywhere!

We stayed 2 nights, one without heat because the furnace repair men said the furnace wasn't safe. We spent 2 days dealing with 6 sets of repair men, and by that time we decided that we didn't want to live in someone else's money pit. We called another place that we had seen a month ago that we really wanted, and it was still available. So we moved into a cute bungalow on Wednesday and Thursday. We were able to get out of our lease no problem at the money pit, and are trying to figure out how to get all of our money back from the first house.

We're almost done dealing with the moving hell of 2007, thank goodness. But the new house is great, we love the neighborhood, and the dogs have a great big yard to run around in!

new art for the new house

Even though I'm in the midst of packing and thoroughly unmotivated to box up all our wares, I purchased some inspiration to get me through the next week. My sis turned me on to all these design blogs on the interwebs, and I found this great poster from WWII (I think) in England, for sale from one blogger/designer in SF. Not sure where it will live in the new digs, but it will most definitely make me smile every time I see it.

first freeze

It's supposed to freeze tonight, so I have to drag all the plants in after work so they don't croak. Good thing we have lots of surface area with all the boxes around the house from packing up for our new digs.

Approaching Halloween in Rock Creek Park

Hillary O'Lantern


O&G in the woods

Farmer's Market harvest

Fall bounty at Dupont Farmer's Market. Hopefully next year, we'll have our own backyard bounty again!

cheddar cauliflower and pumpkins



pretty colors in fruit and flower





uptight grocer!

Seeing Double

Dan's sister Anne had twins two weeks ago. Everyone is happy healthy and very cute. Jackson and Sarah for all to admire.

still martha after all these years

went to lowe's this morning to pick out paint for our new house. We couldn't go totally upscale this time, since it's not on our dime, but we were nevertheless determined to find some nice colors for the house. Oh, and most importantly, the contractors are painting, not us! Hurray. The colors we found at Home Depot last week were too bright and reminiscent of our old house in Seattle, and I just wasn't feeling it. I remembered when we were living in Minneapolis 10 years ago the Martha paints at KMart rocked, and were super cheap prices for good quality paint. Well Martha and KMart are no more, and I had long since upgraded to Benjamin Moore. But I discovered Martha's new paints at Lowe's, so off we went. We will now have a house covered in silly named colors like "Flying Jib," "Tin Pail" "Andiron" and "Birds Nest." Can't wait

Hopefully they look awesome, and the silly names will fade away into the night!

on the move

We're moving to Mt. Rainier next month. No, not that Mt. Rainier, this one. We love our current neighborhood, but it's really hard to find what we want in Mt. Pleasant, so we're moving on.

We found a great, big, old east coast Victorian house, with a sunny yard for the dogs and the garden. Since we only got 2 or 3 tomatoes all summer long, it's definitely tine for a sunnier yard. Mt Rainier is a few blocks over the city line in MD, so we get to vote again and have federal representation, which makes us ecstatic. And we get to live in a town that was founded by Washingtonians, so that makes us feel a little bit closer to Seattle. Plus, you don't get to live in a town famous for the Exorcist every day!

We're packing up and moving next month, but now we're helping our new landlord decide where to put walls and what colors to paint the house. He's totally remodeling the place, so we get to move into a brand, spanking newly renovated place. We'll have lots more room, and a good yard for the mutts and garden. I get to grow seeds in the basement all winter, and can't wait!

pictures soon.

sacrilege

it's october 18 and we have the air conditioner on! I'm outraged!

islands in the stream

I've decided that fake celebrity sitings are just as much fun as seeing the real thing. It's especially fun after a few pints of beer in the middle of a Saturday in NYC. We saw fake Kenny Rogers in NY recently. Now it was hard to tell him from the real thing because Kenny Rogers has had so much fucking plastic surgery, I could barely recognize him on American Idol last season. That's right, he made the rounds of shameful Idol self promotion. I guess he's gotta pay the bills. Anyway, this guy really looked like the new and shiny Kenny Rogers, not the old sexy one from the 70's singing duets with Dolly and everyone else.