birthday week

Sometimes I wish I had a birthday every week. 
We had a really nice time over the weekend with Ryan and his girlfriend. The weather cleared up and we enjoyed a beautiful day on the beach – a rarity around here this time of year. Saturday night there was crab for dinner and a great surprise of a yummy cranberry pie for dessert. The weekend ended all too soon; its a nice thing to get to know someone over a couple of days.

No sooner than they left, the next evening Justin drove out and stayed for a couple nights.For breakfast Justin made a blueberry dutch baby  That evening he took us to dinner at what used to be an okay place. Unfortunately things have either slipped, or maybe just gotten stale. the food was okay, but the atmosphere was annoying (courtesy of a ‘musical balloon’ which kept singing, again, and again…..) Luckily the company was good. 
Thursday we went to dinner with friends at the Depot. It was fabulous – my only regret is that we didn’t take Justin there. He would have enjoyed it so much more. I had a  crab macaroni & cheese, and Richard had a gnocci and wild boar dish that was divine. 

During and between all the company, its been storm after storm. We lost power last night for a few hours, and there’s a call for a bigger storm arriving on Sunday. I was looking around this morning and I couldn’t figure out where this pile of ‘ice’ was from – it was nearly 50 degrees out.    Then Richard noticed what was missing from the deck:      the glass top from the table. Somehow the wind -which never got over 50 mph- picked it up and lifted it over the bbq and sent it crashing into the fence down below. There is a bazillion pieces of safety glass to clean up – maybe with a shop vac???
Needless to say I’m nervous as to what might happen on Sunday with a much bigger storm on the way. We won’t be here though, as we leave for Seattle in the morning.   Little Richard arrives into SeaTac on Monday morning. We may stay the night, and drive back home here on Tuesday. There is orientation at the school on Wednesday, and he’ll start on the following Monday. 
Life here is about to get a lot different. 

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 I’m enjoying a day of quiet as all of the Richards are taking a day drip to Mount St. Helens.  The Richards arrived here a couple days early, on Sunday, so things have been somewhat hectic around here. 

And (my) Richard has for the most part finished the water project. After two whole days, the acid neutralizer and iron filter ( which also filters out a bunch of other unwanted stuff ) tanks are in place and plumbed in.  There are a couple things that he need to do to finish it, but as of yesterday we had better than bottled water quality with nearly normal ph levels. So, yay! Maybe the rust staining and the weird smell will end now.

We also had another company come and measure for just windows for the whole house, and when the bid comes in we’ll make a decision on which direction to go. The new doors – all five sliders – will be installed just after we return from the San Diego trip. And, the fireplace guy came to measure for the new insert. If all goes according to my plan, we’ll have the fireplace insert ready to burn before we need it – by mid September!
We began to pressure wash the house on Sunday – using a cleaning agent – and wow, it worked so well, that I kinda can’t wait to do the rest of it.  Oh, and to begin painting. 

Tomorrow, I’ll drive into Seattle, spend the night and pick up Lauri and Aidan from the airport and drive back here on Saturday. Today I have to finish some sewing, then I’m set to go. 
And, Happy Birthday

don_quixote

   !

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one more year

I love looking at markers. Where were you a year ago today? I like that about livejournal in that you can go back and see. I like to be able to count/see/measure change from any given point.         Today is Richard’s birthday. I’ll give him a couple of small gifts and take him to dinner. Last year on this day, he was here at the house moving a load of stuff. I was in Santee, and the For Sale sign had just gone up. What a year.  Seems like a lot has happened – I guess a lot has happened. 

This morning Deb and the kids left ( well – young adults – Brenden and his girlfriend, and a friend of his who’s here from Germany ). We had a great time, and the weather was in our favor for sightseeing  and walking yesterday. Today it is grey out. 
I am so grateful to be nearer to my family again. 

We now have two weeks until young Richard & little Richard ( henceforth known as ‘the Richards’) arrive. They’ll be here for a few days before Lauri & Aidan arrive. At that point we’ll officially have a full house. The Richards will be here for about six days or so, before driving back. Lauri and Aidan will be here for a week before we take them back to Seattle to fly home. This house will see a lot of excitement for a week. 

We’re still waiting on parts for the water system, so it looks like we will resume work on the fireplace. But before we do, we need a couple new chisels for the airhammer, and we have to come up with a better system for curtaining off the work area. I know that no matter what it will still be dusty, but I have to minimize it as much as possible. 

I like the idea that a year from now, the messy fireplace demo will be just a memory. And as a bonus there will be one space in the living room in which I can hang a picture larger than 8×10 inches! 
 

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a good start.

I’ve decided that this new year will begin with my birthday this past Saturday. 

Mom returned with me, and on Saturday Ryan and Justin drove out.  We had a wonderful dinner of fresh crab & artichokes – which has got to be one of my favorite meals. For dessert Ryan made a pavlova – a light as air meringue topped with whipped cream and blueberries ( that he picked here over the summer and were in my freezer )  yum. 
On Saturday Richard hung the new light in the stairwell replacing this:    lovely seventies number, with this:     . It casts a pretty, orang-ish glow. If anyone is interested in the old fixture, speak up quick, as it is headed to the thrift store. There will be a houseful of similar ‘period’ lights there by the time we’re finished.  
The other big thing that happened while the guys were here is that Justin worked ( for way too long ) to solve my router issue, and now I am back to wireless – Yay! – no more pile of cables and cords in the corner of the living room.
When everyone left on Sunday, we took a long walk into town, (I had ice cream, while he had soup )and soaked up the rare sunny afternoon. 
It rained and blew hard for most of yesterday and all night long. We walked this afternoon, and discovered a couple more trees down on the dead end behind us. Looks like there will be no shortage of firewood this year. 
The new bathroom vanity was delivered on Friday, so today saw the beginning of the demolition of the upstairs bathroom.  I am making a vow to myself to stay patient about this project, knowing it will take three times longer to finish than I plan for it to. While Richard worked on that, I spent a second day working on stuff for the CA client. There is at least a full week’s worth of work there, and I am ready to have it gone.

I spoke with my old neighbor in Santee this afternoon, and was amazed at how dior the real estate market is there. I am sooo grateful that we were fortunate enough to get the house sold. I took a look, and oh my god, how things have gone really south. I feel for anyone who is trying to sell. Tough times.

Looks like we are in for a few clear and chilly days here – a nice break from the past few rainy weeks.

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h.b.d. to me!

 I am hoping that this birthday will bring me the ability to remember to spell – check ( see previous post – yipes!).  I know I could go back and correct it, but I think I need it to keep me humble.

We had a great time at the theater the other night: Jersey Boys was a lot of fun, even though a lot of the music I remember from childhood rather than teen years. The staging was excellent, and all of the cast had wonderful voices. The only thing I didn’t like was a few too many stale one-liners. But it was a good time.
The next night Justin & Megan took me and mom to dinner at the Snappy Dragon – I think we all ate until we were too full – it was sooo good. There are things I miss about living in or near the city – and the availability of a choice in good food is one of them.  I don’t miss the giant sized supermarkets much, as I think they’re mostly full of ‘prepared’ and frozen food which we don’t eat; but I did have a list of ‘get it in the city’ items that I needed while I was in Seattle.  The restaurants here leave a lot to be desired, though.

Today Ryan is driving out, and I think Justin and possibly Megan are coming with for the weekend.  This will be nice to be surrounded by family for my birthday.  
The weather is a mix of sun and rain this morning – the look of the rain dripping off of the branches is so pretty when the sun catches it.

Here’s a couple of pics we took last weekend – someone has put a swing down on the beach out at the end of their property in the dune, and then built a little driftwood fort.

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kid stuff

We went to dinner at a Mexican resturaunt the other night, and while we were sipping margaritas and waiting for our food, I saw a family  – a young mother and father near 30-ish with a woman ( this would be grandma ?) who appeared to be my age eating dinner a few tables away from us. next to them in a stroller sat a 2 year old, and in the top half of the stroller was an infant in a baby carrier. Odd thing was, on the table top facing the toddler was a personal DVD player with a disney cartoon playing. The child was zoned out watching it ( which was obviously the point ) and throughout the entire meal none of the adults ever even looked at him ( or the baby )!    A few tables away there was a big extended Latino family that was celebrating someone’s birthday and there were several children with the group of 12 or so, who were quite obviously  the highlight of the table, mixing with everyone – especially the dad and grandpa – while behaving themselves. Talk about ‘family values’ –  my heart went out for the little boy in the stroller, who I thought must spend most of his time in a similar situation – there was no attempt to include him with the family – no food, nothing but the dvd.      I read in the paper today that two children have died in the past two days from being left in hot cars. One of them by his grandmother while she ‘visited’ a boyfriend and fell asleep; and the other by his 18 year old uncle ” he wanted to play in his mom’s car” while I visited my friend.  How can people be so f*#&^! up????

It is still hot here. No surprise.  And pretty humid as well. Bleh. 
I found a small hand-held steam cleaner really cheap on Craigslist the other day to use on the tile. I spent the other day steam cleaning all of the tile in the kitchen – floor and counter tops, as well as the tile in both of the bathrooms. If it wasn’t hot and humid enough already I sure added to it. But it was worth it, because it worked great.   Today I did a ‘refinish’ of our bedroom floor. Richard has the carport cleaned out and the fence next to it rebuilt. I will paint it during the week. He needs to pressure wash the under side of the carport cover, as well as the floor. Problem is, there is a little bird nest on a beam in the middle of the ceiling – with three baby birdies in it ( little finches ). It will be a week or two before they are out of there ( I think ). What to do? 
I have an appraiser scheduled for Thursday morning.  Richard and a friend of his are leaving on Wednesday to make the next trip. The trailer is full.  I’m happy that I don’t have to go, but bummed because I don’t get to go. Not like I have nothing to do here. Richard’s birthday will be while he is on the return trip, which makes me a little sad.

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lemonade………..

Well, it had to end. After nearly a month off, the phone rang at about 10:15 pm. Suddenly there is stuff needed for V.Mars that is urgent, so, this morning I went to the studio to pick up a pile ( guess they had been saving it up until there was something urgent ) of stuff. I need to have a couple pieces done and returned there by this afternoon.  Not a big deal.  The rest of the things aren’t needed until next week. 

When life hands you lemons…… well, you know the rest. But in my case, I have several dozen of them, all handed to me by a couple of neighbors.   So, tomorrow I will juice a bunch of them, and freeze some of that juice in ice cube trays to save for a later date, and my plan is to make a few batches of lemon curd ( I found a recipie that can be frozen ) , and try to make some candied citrus peel. Beyond that I don’t know what else to do with them. Any suggestions??   ‘Tis the season, as I see them on the ground everywhere around here when we’re walking in the morning. Our poor little dwarf Meyer lemon ( sweeter type ) tree only managed to carry two pieces of fruit to term this year for some reason, which I will pick tomorrow. Next to that, we have a dwarf blood orange tree that is five or so years old, and never even blossomed until this year, and it is loaded with fruit ( I counted 27 the other day) that is nearly perfectly ripe. Not sure what to do with those, either. 

Richard surprised me this morning with a gift of $$ to go and purchase the psp that I have been pining for ( he knows what a deal shopper I am).  Along with that, he is having a portrait done of Sunny (painted by Julie’s boyfriend) for me that I am sooo excited about. Craig has done some truly amazing dog paintings, that you would have to see to believe, and has been wanting to do one of Sunny for quite a while. Julie said yesterday that it will be another week or so before it’s finished “he’s very meticulous” ( I’ll post pics of it ) I can hardly wait . I also recieved some really interesting yarn from my sister, Debbie – kind of a do-it-yourself-surprise-kit.  cool. And we’ll be going to dinner tonight. 
It is shaping up to be a wonderful birthday.

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