Uhh...what's for dinner?

It's always a little awkward to be watched while you eat.

The Morso trials

Finally, the wood stove is in. Unfortunately it keeps setting off the smoke detector...so there must be a leak somewhere.Blackboard slate that it sits on, courtesy of Todd...

Put That In Your Pipe and...Thaw it?

Is that how the old saying goes?

Well, guess what. Frozen Pipe. Again.

I got up this morning to find no water running in the kitchen sink...and spent the next 4 hours with my head in the cabinet trying to heat it up with a hair dryer.

Did we not tell the contractors there wasn't enough insulation in the wall?

For those of you not familiar with our contractors...this happened last year resulting in ruined floors and sheetrock.

So they're back. It took them an hour and a half to come to the conclusion that: Dah Dah Da..... the pipe is frozen.

Conclusion? Two new holes in my bedroom ceiling....

And a hair dryer stuck up the hole to thaw it out.
Now they're stuffing as much insulation as they can get up there...but is anyone out there convinced this is the last time this will happen?

Tree Talk

In case anyone is curious what the twig planted outside the house might look like if it survives the winter...It can grow to more than 60 feet tall!And lots of tiny leaves to make my neighbors crazy.
Small blooms and one of the last trees to start up in the spring.

Now the neighbors can't watch us sleep.

Back on Thanksgiving my mom gave me a load of my great-grandmother's handmade linen shades. They were originally made to be on a roller but 2 of them fit the back doors perfectly--so I attached ribbon to the top to hang them...Back in the day when they knew how to really do things....all by hand. Sheesh.
Puts my sewing to shame....

One the 10th day of Christmas

The City Gave to Me... (C'mon everyone sing along!)
A Coooooffeeeeee Espressooooo Tree.

Yeah, that's what it's called.

I didn't make that up.

Small Progress

I finally got around the scraping...priming...and painting the front basement gate--so that it doesn't rot during the winter.Why is everything I do at least a 3 day process? And only one thing to cross off the list?