Today, after almost two years of searching, I found our Loafkeeper flag that Cabol’s old coworkers sent us!
It was cleverly hidden on the top shelf in the office the whole time.
Of course, with my amazing only-knowing-one-knot tying skills, I expect it to last about 1 day before the winds here blow it into the trees.
This weekend I finished caulking the trim in the basement room (the trim that is up, anyways) (don’t use the phrase ‘a little caulk’ around Cabol). We moved the bed, which involved a lot of grunting and groaning and Cabol hurting her wrists.
We still need to:
But hey, we can sleep down there now! And we can move the full bed out of the office and set up the tables to get the seeds started!
Well, I guess I officially live in the country now – this evening my back itched near one of my scars, which is nothing unusual…until I felt a bump. Turns out ticks don’t go dormant in the winter after all, and I had one stuck to me. My first one (that I know of).
Unfortunately, Cabol couldn’t get all of it out, but hopefully nothing bad will come of it.
So I’ve always avoided making Vietnamese food because, like Korean food, I don’t really know much about it so it scares me. Aunt Linda sent us a Vietnamese cookbook, though, so we gave it a whirl. I made caramel chicken (because we had all the ingredients in house), which was surprisingly good and not all that strange. And it gave me an excuse to use part of our big bottle of fish sauce. Which may have gone south, but, really, with fish sauce it’s pretty hard to tell.
So my latest obsession online has been sweepstakes. I stumbled across a sweepstakes site near the end of last December while hunting for information on something, and thought ‘hey, maybe I should try some of those.’ So I started working my way through the single entry ones and the daily and instant winner sweeps. It’s nice because if I don’t do it for a few days, it’s not like I’ve missed much, and since it’s just filling in your name, address, and so on, I can do it while we watch tv.
So far, I’ve won five things (four of which haven’t arrived yet): a Tide pen, a loaf of bread (hehe), a Jelly Belly baseball hat, $100 worth of cream cheese and bagels, and a pair of women’s pajams with one of those little eye masks and a package of licorice. I’ll probably give Cabol the pajamas, although I probably look sexy in a stretchy black tank top.
So no new car or trip to Jamaica yet. That licorice is sure good, though.
We were at the mall today trying to find some new sheets to buy with a gift card we got at Christmas. (Apparently the store only carries lame sheets; you have to order the cool sheets from the catalog.) Right inside the door I saw a fabulous shimmer. It drew me to it. It was purple. And glittery.
Normally I would never buy such wonderfulness, but they were 70% off. I got these bits of baby bling for only $4.79. I hope Kim is proud.
Cabol said we should write down our New Year’s Resolution, I guess so then when we don’t follow through we’ll feel more guilty.
Kenny resolves to do more origami every day. Then he will become an Origami Master and live in a little temple in Japan and catch bees with chopsticks.
Anya resolves to learn to crawl. Then she can find all the hidden bunny poops to eat with her pickle skins.
Andy (me) resolves to go for a walk whenever he feels the need to be snarky to Cabol. I will be ready for a marathon come February.
Cabol resolves not to eat donuts every day, and not to give Anya or me to the gypsies.
Today was Christmas, so I celebrated by priming the basement. It looked like this. Pretty snazzy, huh?
And because I was feeling really ambitious tonight, I decided to put the first coat of paint up (hey, it’s not like I have to work tomorrow! Just take Anya to the doctor’s office and pick Kenny up at the airport!). While we were at the store, trying to pick out just the right green, we went back and forth on many colors. Asparagus. Carolina Parakeet. Pregnant Gecko. We thought we had one we liked, but when we looked at it under the little light box at Lowe’s, it seemed too dark. We like bright. Happy. Cheerful. So we chose another one in the same family. And it’s bright, alright.
I believe the swatch is called Muppet In A Blender.
Many people go to church on Christmas Eve. Some wrap presents for under the tree. Here at the Loafkeeper mansion, we…sand walls. After all, it’s a day off from work, so better take advantage of it. I put some last bits of mud on the wall this morning before we left for errands, and this evening I sanded everything smooth and even.
There is a lot of dust in the basement. My snot looks like cottage cheese. I could possibly be an extra in a mime musical. My eyes are full of grit. But now everything is ready to be primed and painted!
Well, once the dust is cleaned up. From the basement. And the stairs. And the floor around the top of the stairs. And probably the whole house by tomorrow morning.
We’ve been working on mudding and taping the new walls in the basement. By ‘we’, I mean Cabol’s dad. He’s a lot better at that sort of delicate and patient work than I am. So instead, I worked on spackling old nail holes in the window trim since we’ll be painting them when we do the walls.
