finishing touches

Little bits and pieces of the house are starting to really look finished, like normal people live here who don't rip down walls and have dumpsters in the driveway for months on end.

Don's parents have been breathlessly awaiting the chance to give us The Plant, which has been residing in their dining room for several years. The Plant originally belonged to Don's older brother, who is in the Navy and away from home for long periods of time. After one such stint, he came home to see that The Plant had gotten rather dusty. Being a logical sort of fellow, he did what he did with most things that got dusty in his home: he vacuumed it. It didn't work out so well. Eventually he asked my mother-in-law if she could resuscitate it, and the somewhat worse for wear plant relocated to my in-laws' house.

When Don and I moved in together, into a small apartment with a friend of ours, we took The Plant. Don liked it, it seemed decorative and homey, and it looked lovely in our living room. Then we got a cat. The cat was convinced that The Plant was eminently scratchable, and we came home eventually to discover that a large percentage of its leaves had been turned into fringe. The cat stayed - even though she also ate a bamboo plant down to the roots and had many other misadventures, some chronicled right here in this blog - and The Plant went back to my mother-in-law, to nurse its wounds. In the seven years since, the cat has become a little more sedate (not much), but more importantly, The Plant has grown at least a foot, putting even its bottom leaves out of reach of certain members of this household. So it has finally moved to its new home:


Welcome home, Plant. Thanks for making our house feel a little more finished.

father's day brunch

Last weekend we hosted a Father's Day brunch for Don's family (my dad, alas, lives in Seattle, which is a little far to travel for brunch). We had eight people total, adults and children, which was down some from the numbers we hosted on Mother's Day, which required an additional table to be set out.


All this entertaining is really emphasizing our need for more permanent dining room furniture. (The need to remodel the kitchen is already a given!)

nothing to report

Family emergencies (on his side), work overload (on my side) and a bad cold (both of us) prevented anything getting done on the house this weekend. Figures. Scheduling is once again up in the air; we know what we'll be doing next but we just need to find the time to do it.

In the meantime, I'll be lying here in bed with a box of tissues and a vat of cough syrup, watching the cat ignore me because the new bay windows? With squirrels outside? SO much more fun than being petted or snuggled. Or so I've heard.

true baltimorons

Am swamped at work and valiantly trying to recover from a bad cold that put me totally out of commission for several days. Only have time to post this positive proof that Don's family are in fact true Baltimore natives:


Because a house isn't a home without a Natty Boh sticker in the window.

just call us house delinquents

We snuck off to New Jersey again this weekend instead of doing more work on the house. It was totally worth it. Brazilian barbeque, meeting new people, lunch with the grandparents, spending time with the Cutest Baby Ever, and of course enjoying the luxury of walls and electricity and real floors. Awesome.

Cute story: My cousin was perusing the blog (hi Felise!) and came across this post. She called the Cutest Baby Ever over to the computer, and said, "What is that on the screen?" He paused for a moment to think about it and then answered: "KITTEH!"

all too brief

We had a free weekend for once this past weekend, right before Christmas, so we took the opportunity to sneak off for a brief visit to New Jersey, where we played with the cutest baby ever and enjoyed the luxury of my cousin's finished, luxurious house. Ahhh, comfort.



Now it's back to the grind, of course. Don and his dad are at Home Depot as I type, getting the supplies to build a chute from the upstairs window to the dumpster in preparation for Demolition Day (January 5th! You're still invited!).

not exactly a zen sanctuary

I must admit that I'd kind of hoped for better when we finally had guests stay at the house. I pictured a calm, peaceful, and most of all comfortable guest room, with a comfy bed and everything a guest could want or need to have a nice stay. I suppose someday that will happen, but for now this is what we've got. This is our family room (or at least the bare bones of it), where my sister is staying for the next week. At least I got the comfy bed down -- and it comes with a pair of fuzzy warm socks and petting priviledges to one dumb but cute and occasionally cuddly cat. Also, an oil heater borrowed from Don's parents, placed at the foot of the bed and (hopefully) warming things up a bit. We set up a garment rack, since there's not exactly any closet space, so she can hang up any of her clothes that she wants to.

My sister got here last night, and she seems perfectly cheerful about the whole situation -- but then again, my sister got her degree in archaeology, and has spent whole summers living in tents in the deserts of the Southwest or the jungles of Belize. So I guess an aerobed won't kill her. Hopefully by the next time she visits that zen sanctuary will be ready.

normal day

Don said this morning that today is our only normal day in quite a while. He's right, and it made it REALLY hard not to stay home and enjoy it! For the last several weeks, and for several in the future, either we've had company or he's been gone or we've had social engagements to be at. It's not that I don't love that feeling, mind you -- the holidays are one of my favorite times of the year, because I love always being busy with friends and family, and having company, and being able to entertain people -- but the sheer volume of it this year is a little daunting when you add Don's recent and planned business trips.

Today we're in between a business trip and a family visit -- Don got back from California this weekend and my sister arrives for a weeklong visit tomorrow (about which we are SO PUMPED, because we never get to see her). So today is our only normal day in quite a while. Which, of course, we're using to frantically clean, grocery shop, etc. But that's no different from our usual pace of life. ;)

Over the weekend we had the opportunity to go with some friends to the Johns Hopkins Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's 9th. It was quite good, although I'm afraid that large parts of it went totally unnoticed while we tried to control our hysterical giggling over the young man in front of us who was consistently falling asleep -- on Don's knee. Don was not amused, but the rest of us were. It was a nice break from our usual house-related flailing.

Speaking of the flailing, Don is attempting to curtail it by coming up with a schedule for house stuff for the next couple of months. We all know how well THOSE work around here. Nevertheless, he's come up with a fairly definite date for the upstairs demolition (again) -- so if you're free January 5th and want to pick up a sledgehammer, let us know. I'll post further information as we figure it out.

not a bloggy time of year for me

The holidays are a serious danger to my blogging. This is always the time of year when things start to lapse around here, internet-wise. Last year it was a surgery -- this year it's work, work, work! We've been slammed at the office, churning out proposals as fast as we can and working a lot of overtime.

And the holiday weekend, unfortunately, was NOT a break for me!


We were vendors at Darkover 2007 all weekend -- setup started Friday at 11 AM and the show ended Sunday at about 4 PM. The picture above is of me taking down our booth on Sunday (I'm sorting rocks!). Lindley's full set is here. It was fun -- our first real convention, and successful enough to merit going back next year -- but it's definitely work to be a seller at these sorts of things, and more work after three weeks of full-tilt proposal writing plus a long Thanksgiving day over at Chez Brinkley was pretty wearing. (It didn't help that I had to be up at five AM Sunday morning to take Don to the airport in the middle of all of this!) By the end of the weekend I was ready to sleep sleep sleep. But of course I didn't get to, because my mom and I had arranged to spend Monday Christmas shopping together. Most of my list is crossed off after a successful day (and a few online orders in the evening), but I woke up on Tuesday running a fever, aching, and exhausted. My body just wanted to finally shut down. I called in and said I was staying home to rest, but not more than an hour later I got an emergency assignment from work that HAD to be done, and had to be done fast. By me. Sigh. No rest accomplished.

Then it was back to work yesterday, for another extra-long day, and more of the same for the rest of the week. I'm hoping that this weekend I can FINALLY relax a little bit -- and maybe clean up the disaster area that is my house after three weeks of coming home late with no time to clean, plus Anapurna displays and inventory strewn wherever we put them after unloading the car Sunday night, plus the detritus of family visits (in addition to my mom this past weekend, my dad and grandparents were here the weekend before that -- and my sister is coming to visit on Tuesday! Augh!) -- restaurant leftovers, empty boxes, souvenirs from Dad's trip to Greece, a box of Grandma's cookies (Don LOVES them), bags and bits from shopping trips and crafty discussions with Mom, and all the other things that build up when people come over.

So, uh, maybe not so much relaxation. Just cleaning. Lots of cleaning.

a recipe for you, from my mom

My mom is pretty awesome, guys. I mean, awesome in general, but also specifically awesome. A few days ago I emailed her this recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, with a note that mentioned that it was full of things that His Pickiness Don doesn't eat (i.e. vegetables) but hey, didn't it look awesome. This is the email I got back late last night.

From: mommy@mommy.com
To: jamaila@thisisntmyemailaddress.com
Subj: food glorious food

I am slowly feeling better. Two nights ago when I was really sick I made banana chocolate chip muffins, which are, of course, known throughout the realm for their curative powers. They are also low fat - although not if you eat three of them before falling into a feverish stupor.

Tonight I took the stuffed pepper recipe you linked to and improvised. I stuffed grilled eggplant slices, but I bet the recipe would work fine in the peppers. [Sister] came over to eat them, and she is going to make them, but maybe chop the grilled eggplant and hide it in the couscous for taking to work potluck. They're a meat and potatoes group at [sister's workplace]. Of course, the filling no longer really resembles the stuffed pepper recipe - but it is sublime:

COUSCOUS WITH PISTACHIOS AND GOAT CHEESE (for stuffing or pilaf)

1 1/4 cup vegetable or chicken broth
2/3 cup couscous
2 long carrots
1/2 large onion
1/2 yellow pepper (or other color)
cooking spray (preferably olive oil)
1 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shelled unsalted pistachios (crushed)
1/2 cup raisins, preferably golden
4 oz goat cheese


pour 1.25 cups boiling vegetable or chicken broth over 2/3 cup couscous, cover (I made the couscous in the bowl I was going to mix it in and covered it with a plate.)

grate 2 long carrots, 1/2 large onion, and 1/2 a yellow (or probably any color) pepper. Spray a large frying pan with olive oil spray and heat over a medium heat. Add carrot mixture and cook 10 - 15 minutes stirring frequently or until vegetables are soft. Sprinkle 1 tsp marjoram and 1/2 tsp salt over the vegetable mix and stir in.

Add the vegetable mix to the couscous. Add 1/2 cup shelled unsalted crushed pistachios, 1/2 cup raisins (I'd prefer golden raisins, but I didn't have them), and 4 oz crumbled goat cheese. Mix together well.

Stuff whatever you are going to stuff. We stuffed the grilled eggplant rolls (10 of them) and still had half the couscous mix left - but I think maybe peppers are bigger. We baked the rolls for 20 minutes at 350 in a covered cooking spray greased pan - really just to heat them. The peppers could be baked however peppers are baked. If you just made it as pilaf, you could bake it covered for 10 miniutes or so - or it might be hot enough right after mixing. We dawdled a lot.

There should be no alien vegetables in this that Don doesn't like.

news of note

Don got a job; he starts work on October 15th in a development position with one of the Big Two -- a major defense contractor. It's full time, so it puts our original plan into total disarray. But we're used to that sort of thing by now. So the money situation will be mostly resolved in about a month, when he starts getting his paychecks.

The Anapurna Girls will be at the Darkover convention over Thanksgiving weekend; if you haven't made plans and are interested in fantasy and science fiction, consider going. And, you know, buying stuff from us.

The HVAC is still not done. The guy came on Friday and spent some time downstairs doing SOMETHING, although I'm not sure what, since nothing appears to have changed. We thought he was supposed to come back Monday; needless to say, he didn't. We finally got hold of him yesterday and he said he'd call us back today. Sure thing. [For those counting, we started this whole nonsense on JULY NINTH. This has been THREE WHOLE MONTHS of nonsense for a job that should have taken a week.]

The holidays are coming up, and with them a slew of family visits. Don's whole family lives relatively nearby -- the furthest away is his brother in Norfolk -- but mine is strewn about all over the country. So getting to see them is often a treat. My father and grandparents will be coming down from New Jersey the weekend before Thanksgiving; my mother will be flying out from Washington for Thanksgiving proper; and my sister is coming to visit for a whole week in December. Very exciting!

finding history

This weekend, Don and his dad cleared out the big crawlspace under the kitchen, in preparation for the HVAC guys (who need to go in there to put a few ducts in). I was at the bead show the whole time, but Don made sure to save everything for me to photograph when I got home. We found some amazing family history -- everything from Don's dad's childhood homemade "go-kart" (pictured below) to the old family sauerkraut-making pot, plus some great old soda bottles ("Sun Spot: Bottled Sunshine"). There were also like six lawnmowers under there -- it was like a museum of lawn care, going from an ancient rotary mower all the way up to a more recent powered one. Anyway, if you're interested, photos are in the "stuff we found in our house set" on flickr.

but a really excited space cadet

Don is yelling at me because he wants me to post something here so he'll have something to read at work. Unfortunately, I am sort of a space cadet and for the last four days I have consistently forgotten to transfer the photos I took this past weekend off of my camera and up onto Flickr -- and I'm sort of out of filler material! I don't have time for the research that a real estate roundup would take right now, as I'm in the middle of a proposal, and likewise my time for hunting down other interesting things is limited just now. Sorry!

Anyway, the big news is that my big brother and his wife and son (he's not actually my brother but it's much too complicated to explain) are moving! From California to North Carolina! And let me tell you, North Carolina is a lot closer to here than California (also, gas = cheaper than plane tickets [for now]). So it's sort of needless to say, but I'm so! freaking! excited!

The exclamation points will probably clue you in.

why you shouldn't renovate with kids

Because your kids will grow up thinking that living in a house under construction is totally the norm, and just as you are almost done with your own house and ready to relax, they will call you up and say, "Hey! Want to come over and work on my house now?" And then they will give you all the hard, dirty jobs, like taking out the expansion tank from the radiator system, and while you are doing that their spouse will take pictures of you and post them on the internet.


A big thank you to Don's dad for all of his help with our projects, even if he did say he's going to start charging me for all the pictures I post of him.

where i come from

I went to visit my mom in January, as I mentioned yesterday. While I was there, I took a few pictures of her house, since I thought you all might like to see it. See, when I was in elementary school, my parents got it into their heads to build their dream house. They found some property on a mountainside with one of the best views in the city:


The view is a better on a clear day, but hello, I was there in the middle of January. Behind that cloudbank at the back of the picture is basically the entire city of Spokane (downtown is on the right, suburbs to the left). It's pretty amazing -- and the sunsets are worth paying for. As you can tell by the bit of roof in the corner of the picture, this was taken on the upper balcony of the house, which is right off of my sister's room. When we were in high school we used to climb over the safety rail and go tan naked on the roof. Country living has its benefits.

Anyway, my parents are generally pretty awesome people, and they have some pretty awesome ideas about design. So in the middle of the house is this:


Yes, it's a three story atrium with a gothic arch. And skylights. You can also see my mom's collection of rugs -- she brought them home from Afghanistan and India (feel free to ask about this sort of thing -- my mom lurks in the comments here and can answer any questions you have!). At the bottom of the atrium is the basement courtyard, which has a cool feature inspired by the back room in this store in Seattle's U District: the brick floor is not mortared or grouted or even sanded, just laid in loose, so that when you walk on it the bricks crinkle together and make a beautiful musical sound. It's really cool.

The whole house has a warm, earthy vibe, though it's filled with light from the huge windows built to maximize sunset-viewing. Part of this is because my parents chose their materials carefully; the kitchen floor is tiled in a warm red terra cotta tile, and the front hallway was done in this incredible slate:


Note that they chose to pull the slate up onto the stair risers, too -- at the time it was a fairly revolutionary design idea.