But really Pittsburgh, -15 with -26 windchill, a bit ridiculous me thinks (as has been this whole winter in fact). Incidentally, none of the foams and caulks and adhesives I need to use to seal up the gaping holes in the third floor eaves can be used in temps below 40, so, so much for beginning to repair the plaster (i.e. my house is cold folks, really, really cold, and my gas bill? We just won't talk about that here). While I'm ranting, I tried to convince my dogs to read my Facebook feed, filled with kindhearted warnings about pets being outside, frostbite and putting booties on your furry friends. My fuzzy gremlins however made me chase them around the yard for 30 minutes in my bathrobe and slippers to get them back inside (-26 folks!), they certainly don't seem to care one iota about my frostbite - typical vain, stubborn shibas, they didn't even put booties on me...
At the moment, blogland is filled with posts about New Years resolutions and such, but I never really even made a Christmas post, so behold, my 10 foot tall Christmas tree (noble fir, like every year), and if you want to be cool like me you'll cover it in rocks and glass owls. Oh, you didn't have a grandfather who was a Navajo-style jeweler and rock-hound with thousands of sliced stones, or an Aunt who sends you stunning glass owls every year (and makes you gorgeous tree skirts)? I'm sad for you...
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obligatory stealth cat shot
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| Fun with curly tailed dogs |
As for New Years, as an awesome friend said, "we rung the shit out of it." Indeed, the schoolbell got quite a workout at midnight, as did our firepit and liquor cabinet. And in a pleasant turn of events, not only did our illegal fireworks (bought when we drove through North Carolina) not get us arrested or burn the house down, they caught the attention of some fantastic neighbors who moved in over the summer (the ones I met in my paint splattered glory up on the scaffold, ahhh summer). I suppose an evening of non-stop Christopher Walken impressions and Cards Against Humanity until 6 in the morning means we hit it off just fine!
I have started finishing the last of the kitchen cabinet painting, i.e. the operating table is fully loaded.
It was going fine until I went to reinstall the worst of the doors today. It had looked like someone switched the direction the door opened, and had patched the original screw holes badly. As it turns out, at some point in it's 80 year lifespan the door must have been broken off both directions it had been installed, leaving sheared off screws in the holes. I broke 4 of my impossible to match antique screws and my favorite drill bit before I wised up. The door's installed, but I need to extract the broken screw shafts and do some patching. So very not happy...
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| the offending door is on the bottom left |
The cabinets should be done by the weekend, so one less thing on the kitchen to-do list, and even better will be getting all the doors out of the way and the hardware installed before it gets lost for good!
