Celebrating

Six or seven years ago I made a new year's resolution to drink more champagne. Not for boozy reasons, but rather in the spirit of celebrating small things. So I have a small number of corks from momentous times (getting accepted to grad school, my reveal, Greg moving in . . . ) and no good way to really display them.

I grabbed an Ikea Ribba frame, the 9x9 one with the recessed mat.

I drew a grid on the back so the corks would be equally spaced.

I put nails through the back of the frame where the grid lines crossed.

Then I put the corks on the nails and labeled the occasion they marked.

I think a different color paper would look better, no? I'm not sure I like it yet but an excuse to drink more champagne is never a bad thing.

Moving day!

The movers left, we ate our victory burritos, and then we started unpacking.

Then a dude in a blue Camaro came screeching around the corner and hit
the back of the boy's truck and took off.

So yeah, his first hour in the house included a visit from the
Portland police. Luckily there wasn't much damage to his car.

Later we drank champagne and all was right with the world. :)

Snow falling on Brussels sprouts

Brussels sprouts are evergreen, if you neglect them all winter.

Just, you know, FYI.

My whole house looks like this right now.

It's making me crazy. Where's my hammer? Maybe in the bathroom?

Who knows!

The daphne is blooming!

The blooms are hot pink and they smell like heaven.

I love spring.

Things I'm thinking about

Refinishing the kitchen cabinets. It's not on the list of 2011 resolutions but Rustoleum just came out with a new cabinet system that requires no stripping or sanding.

Maybe a nice unglazed linen finish?

But then I would want to regrout the countertops and finally put in baseboards, and paint the kitchen door . . . and you see where I'm going with this. But it's tempting. Anybody have any great ideas for what color I could do that would go with both the floor and the countertops?

Garden therapy

I had an absolutely terrible day but the sun was out and it wasn't raining so I pruned the roses. I have TWENTY FIVE of them in the front yard and my sweet neighbor has been taking care of them for years. She came to me last spring and told me how much she loves those roses, and how she took care of them when my house was abandoned for four years, and oh-by-the-way, she wouldn't be taking care of them anymore. She was cutting me off.

I rewarded her years of selfless volunteerism by not pruning them and letting them get leggy and unruly this summer. It was bad.

I made up for lost time by doing a hard prune. Really hard. I checked out a book from my library and downloaded a guide from the Portland Rose Society, all of which was too much to read, so I just tried to make them look like the pictures.

And everyone on Facebook was like, "They'll be great! Roses love that!" so I'm sure everything will be fine.