Curtains and blinds

Yay, we finally got some curtains and window treatments! Only did a few of the windows for now to try out the different vendors we're using and their products, but we're very happy so far. The curtains in the living room are a pretty dramatic red, but I think I like 'em. They're a faux silk material, fully lined, and they helped us pick the curtain rods and finials (did I spell that right?) that they're hanging from. If you look at the upper left hand corner of the first picture you'll see our rear speaker hanging riiiight next to the curtain rod. That's where the wiring is for that speaker and we would have had to move the pre-drilled (and pretty large) hole in order to move the speaker further from the window, which didn't seem to be worth the effort. So we had to work the curtain rod selection around it a bit, but it all worked out. Now the final thing we need to finish off this room is an entertainment unit for the TV and surround sound/stereo components. It's been a really tough search so far because nothing seems to fit both our large TV and W's oversized components, but we'll keep hunting.

The second room to get window treatments was the study. Poor W. was going blind because his desk faces the window and the glare coming through the temporary paper shades was making computer usage pretty hard. On the advice of the window designer lady we got faux woods blinds that are routeless--that is, it doesn't have holes for the strings to pass through so you can more fully block out light when the blinds are closed. The strings wrap around the invidual slats instead. W's loving 'em so far. Still need to get some curtains in here, but the new blinds are a big help for making the room look a little more polished. What would really help though is if we each cleaned up our desks :P

Finally, the last room we did was our bedroom. Here we got double honeycomb shades that you can pull up from the bottom or drop from the top for more privacy. They're like two layers of honeycombs you'd see in a beehive, only hollow, so the air in between actually helps insulate against exterior sound and loss of heat or A/C. The bedroom windows face out to the street so some sound insulation was important to us and anything that helps keep the heating bills down is a good thing. Can't wait to get some pretty curtains in here too to finish off the look. Notice W's very high-end end table, aka my stereo box. His actual end table is currently being used to hold the stereo components in the living room.

Wow, big haircut

I last cut my hair in September just before I left San Francisco (and got a great cut for free because I did one of those hair model things where you let someone practice new techniques on your hair). Five months went by fast and my hair was starting to look a little...just, eh. You know what I mean? So I finally made an appointment with my local hairdresser who I've been going to since college. Even when I moved to S.F. I'd often wait until I came home for visits to get my hair cut by her. So, obviously, I trust her and told her to just do whatever she wanted and to just give me something fun and with lots of layers.

45 minutes later and my hair went from right about at my shoulders to now ending just about where the back of my head meets my neck. And I love it! So fun, so different. No pictures to post, sorry; maybe later. Big changes can be a lot of fun.

Curtains

Yay, the curtains for the living room are coming next week! On Tuesday, actually, so only four more days to wait. They originally told us it could take 6-8 weeks or something like that but it's only been about 3 weeks--hooray! I hope I like 'em once they're in; I wasn't 100% sold on them but W. and the designer convinced me to go with it so we'll see. Even if I don't like them, I will make myself like them given what we spent!

The Secret to Workout Motivation

My husband is a genious. He's figured out the secret to consistently staying motivated to work out:

That's right, play video games *while* you're on the mini home stepper machine :P You can't see it because I couldn't get the pic at an angle where you could see the stepper and the TV, but he is indeed stepping up and down on a little machine "working out" while playing Gran Turismo.

Also pardon the lamp sans lampshade in the pic that's blocking the TV. Still haven't posted a new pic yet of the living room because, as you can see, it's still not totally done. Still need an entertainment unit so the TV can stop resting on my old coffee table and so Willy can have a nightstand again instead of using it to rest all the components on. Obviously still need lampshades to go with the lamps. And we did finally order some curtains for the windows but it'll be a few more weeks before those come in. Who knew, by the way, that curtains could be so expensive! *sigh* but this home and all its accoutrements (did I spell that right?) are what we've been penny pinching for all these years so we have to indulge ourselves a little, right?

For the time being, here's a pic of the table in the eat-in kitchen area. We got a counter-height

table, which is a lot of fun. Like our dining room table, this table also has a hidden butterfly leaf so the table opens up to a big square. We wanted the option of having more seating for all my family if we ever get around to hosting them all at the house. Half the family still hasn't seen our place!

Fun toys

Our favorite new toy is the GPS system my family bought us for Christmas. It's awesome! And definitely a neccesity around crazy roads-based-on-old-cow-paths Boston. We didn't see this gift coming at all; what a great surprise. Thanks, family!

I've definitely made more use of it than W. so far, but then again he seems to have a GPS built into his brain so he doesn't need this as much as I do. We looked at some of the integrated GPS systems when we were still shopping around for a car for me, but those cost about $2000 as an add-on, which is multiples more than the stand-alone units cost. And we can move the stand-alone unit between both our cars, which is nice. Woo-hoo, no more getting lost for me!

56 degrees in Boston...in January....

Today is Jan. 4, 2007 and I am blogging from Boston. It's bright, sunny, and in the mid- to high-50s here. What is wrong with this picture? Better yet, on Saturday it's forecasted to be in the 60s (but raining)! Craziness.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone! Sorry we haven't been around with any updates, but the holidays have been keeping us busy. Lots of fun events with family, visits with old friends, etc. We've probably gained about 10 lbs. each with all the food we've been eating (but I thought there were no calories at Christmastime?).


Here's the infamous tree, all decorated. Well, somewhat decorated anyway. We depended on borrowed ornaments from my family this year since we didn't have any of our own purchased yet. Turned out OK, if a little sparse.

Funny Christmas tree story

I love Christmas! Even though last year was technically our first Christmas together as a married couple, we spent it at my parents' house as usual so we didn't have something that was really "ours" (though it was still a really nice holiday, of course). With the new house this year and all, this really feels like our "first" Christmas together.

On Thursday we went out and bought our first Christmas tree together. So exciting! The only problem was, the store ran out of tree stands but they didn't tell us that until AFTER they tied the tree up and everything. So the guy told us to just leave the tree outside in a bucket of water until the stands came in tomorrow and we could get one then. No problem.

Well, the water froze!

It's been unseasonably warm here for most of November and into December (60s) so we had no idea it was supposed to be so cold overnight and into Friday morning. I took a half day on Friday and when I got home in the afternoon and checked on it, sure enough all 10 gallons or so of water were completely frozen and the bucket was attached to the tree!

We brought it back inside the house and I was soooooo afraid we killed our first tree together! That would have made me sad. But I'm happy to report that since thawing out it's been sucking up water faster than we can replace it so I guess that means it's still living :) Here's a pic of it back in the house but still tied up and still frozen to the bucket:

55 inches

Whoa, a 55" TV is really, really big (you're welcome, E.). Here's our new toy. W. hasn't had a chance to fully set up his components and his new sound system (which he's much more excited about than the TV), but "The Incredibles" looked, well, pretty incredible on that big screen. We also got a PS2 for cheap so we'll be hooking that up and playing on the big screen. Fun, fun!

And, hey, Mr. Tiger Balm, thanks for letting me know someone out there is reading this!

First Snowfall!

I don't want to sound like I'm justifying anything about moving back East from the balmy West Coast, but dang, everything really does look beautiful this morning with the first snowfall of the season! The light dusting of snow on the bare branches of the trees and the still-green lawns was just Christmas-card perfect this morning as I drove on by. It even made me less mad that I had to take my car into the shop AGAIN this morning.

The snow won't last for long though. Already it's sunny and brighter out. On Friday it was about 70 degrees; yep, I'm definitely back in New England where the saying is "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute" since it changes at the drop of a hat :)

W. took some pics of the back yard area this morning. I'll post one later when I get my hands on it. We're going to get our Christmas tree sometimes this week too (the weekend got too busy) and I picked up a bunch of ornaments on loan from my family last night. I helped them decorate their tree then took what was left over. My cheap self is going to buy our own ornaments after Christmas when they're 50-70% off :P Hey, when you just bought a house (and now, it looks like, maybe I do need to buy the new car after all) every little bit you can save counts! OK, maybe that part was a little bit of justification for my spendthrift habits....