Location, Location, Location

This morning was a great reminder of why we wanted to live in this area. In addition to the regular dropping off of children at 7:05, 7:55 and 8:40, we managed to go to Katie's strings concert at 9:00 and still get David to work on time.

She was only playing in a couple of songs with the school orchestra at the strings festival at her school, so we were out by 9:30. (Her school hosts the event each year and 22 middle and high schools from all over the area attend. Mike's was yesterday.)

Location, location, location!

Painting In Progress

Here are a few shots of the kid's rooms in progress. Well, actually Nicholas' is finished except for a bit of touch up. We painted it together so we've got a few trim places to straighten out and thin patches to re-roll.

Katie's room had some problems with the paint sticking, so I have to sand the blue part on one wall today, then redo the trim and give the whole thing a second coat.

Mike's needs a second coat, too, but I may get away without having to redo the trim since David got it on pretty thick the first time.

Snow, finally

Well after several near misses we finally got some snow over the weekend. It was only about two inches or so, but enough to play with. It happened on Friday night so no extra days off for the kids. Fortunately we had planned a painting weekend and I had stocked up on supplies for the kid's rooms, the hallway and the closets at Home Depot while they were having a sale on their Behr. We got Nicholas' room painted a beautiful bright bluish-greenish on Saturday and got the first coat on the other two Sunday evening. Now everyone is back to work and I'm going to see if I can finish up the last two bedrooms. They are dark colors, so I'll need to do a second coat on everything. We skipped today and enjoyed the children's school holiday by being lazy. Tomorrow I'm going to see just how far I can get while everyone is at school.

Our new toilet

Ta-Dah! The local plumbing fairy showed up yesterday and installed our new toilet. I knew you'd all want to see it in all its porcelain glory.

Cats and Toilets

This morning we had two noteworthy events. The first was deciding to call our local plumber to install the new toilet. David's work days are pretty full the rest of this week, and we figured while the plumber was here we can get estimates on replacing the leaky shower fixtures and possibly adding a third bathroom. Hopefully by days end we'll have our lovely new toilet all set up.

The second event was the funniest. Fritz had waited until David went into the utility room and snuck in behind him for breakfast. David closed the door when he left, leaving Fritz in the utility room. A bit later Fritz started meowing and scratching at the door to be let out. David watched as Rosie went to the door, which hadn't latched all the way, and pushed it open to let Fritz out. Maybe they are smarter than we give them credit for....

Toilet Troubles

When we were in the process of looking for a new home we visited several "fixer-uppers" and decided that we didn't have the time and money to invest in renovating them. How thankful we are to have made that decision when we start to realize how much "fixing-upping" goes into almost any house. Our is in great condition, but has a large number of things that need to be repaired, replaced, updated or decorated. (Trust me, we made a list this weekend!)

On Sunday, David decided to do a simple plumbing repair on our toilet to stop it from running all the time. He went to the hardware store, picked up a new refill thingy and began to install it. In the process, the flush valve broke, so it was back to the store to get a new valve. Since the repair would now involve taking the tank off of the bowl, he went ahead and bought new bolts just in case the old ones had to be sawed off. After taking the tank off (the bolts came out fine) he discovered that the tank had a leak that had been patched, but seemed to still be leaking a bit judging by the stuff growing on the back of the toilet. Also, the shut off valve wasn't working so well and there was a steady trickle coming out of the refill hose that he was catching in a bowl. At that point all the stores were closed and we needed to sleep on it, so he put the new refill thingy on the leaky hose, rigged a coat hanger to keep it upright and keep it from leaking and we called it a night.

Monday, he got back to work trying to remove the old valve from the tank. None of the wrenches we own fit the huge nut, so he was thinking about taking another trip to the hardware store to buy a wrench. By that time we took a long look at the situation and decided that since a new toilet was in the future anyway, we would just go ahead and um... take the plunge. We spent our Valentine's morning at Lowe's and Home Depot looking for that perfect toilet. We finally found one that was round bowled and chair height. I've threatened to paint a heart on the inside as a reminder. Then of course we had to find just the right toilet seat. By the time we did all our shopping it was time for David to go to work. Hopefully we will get it installed tomorrow. We will keep you posted!

The Magic Cat Door

We decided that in order to keep it a bit quieter and warmer in the living areas that we should keep the utility room door closed. Since we keep the cat's food, water and litter box in the utility room David and Mike added a cat door so the cats could let themselves in and out. The cat door swings both ways and has a magnet at the bottom that helps hold it closed. Now, one would think that it would be fairly simple for the cats to figure out how the thing works. They have a similar door on their litter box, so this isn't a new concept.

For the last several days we have been watching the Fritz and Rosie show. They will walk up to the door and meow. They will stretch out and pat by the door knob. They will scratch unendingly on the door. They will sniff at the cat door. They will sit huddled together, which is unheard of, and apparently combine all their catly mind powers in an attempt to make the door open for them. They will rarely, however, deign to put their little heads against the thing and push.

Tonight Katie turned the light on in the utility room while both cats were in there. That made it possible to actually watch them from the other side as Rosie kept putting her face up against it. It was a hoot!

They do seem to use it when they get really desperate, but they are fighting it the whole way. Too bad.

Snow, sort of...

Well, we had smatterings of snow for the last several days. The big snow forecasted never showed up, but we did get a dusting. It was pretty funny to look at the radar and see lots of snow in every direction, but nothing over Nashville. It looked like a doughnut and we were the hole. It finally worked up enough Sunday night to keep the kids home Monday, but it had all melted off by about 10 am. Maybe next year...

Snow???

We've had dire warnings the last twenty-four hours about the piles of snow we'll be getting. So far, it has been mostly rain and sleet and just enough heavy snow to coat the power lines and trees. We are snuggled up in front of the fire watching the Olympic opening ceremonies and being thankful for our home.

We've gotten a few more boxes unpacked this week, and I got the craft closet and secretary (desk and hutch) put in their places so I can start unpacking the boxes that hold their treasures. I'm sure that will keep me busy the rest of next week!

Nic's Party

Nicholas had three friends over last night to celebrate his birthday. They came over around five o'clock and David (bless him) took them all to Opry Mills where they played glow golf, ate at Johnny Rocket's and walked around the mall in the hopes that it would tire them out. Nice try.

They got back to the house around nine, and after they ran around a bit I offered them cake, um... trifle, and ice cream. I had two of them take the ice cream and no takers on the cake. Go figure. I thought it was great!

David and I got them semi-settled around midnight and went to bed, after putting in a movie for the boys and setting the TV to turn itself off. When we got up this morning, they boys were all still sleeping hard and stayed that way until almost eleven. When they got up one of them told me they "accidentally" played game cube after the movie and didn't go to sleep until about two-thirty.

I plied them with food and they all stayed until around four o'clock. Now we are having a nice quiet evening and not even thinking about unpacking until tomorrow.

Birthday Trifle

So, remember how we postponed Nicholas' party until tonight? Well, yesterday I made the cake using some of the 15 eggs I broke when I dropped them. (We also had a fritatta for dinner.) Unfortunately the cake layers didn't come out of the pan well. Nicholas was helping and I told him I would be happy to make another cake, or we could make it into a really cool Birthday Trifle. I offered this suggestion with much enthusiasm and no guilt so he decided that having a Strawberry Birthday trifle would be just wonderful. We crumbled up the rest of the cake, zapped the strawberry frosting in the microwave and layered it all in a pretty bowl. Voilå! Everybody's happy.

Buchanan Box Emporium

If a picture paints a thousand words, I just wrote a novel.