Our backyard is starting to get colorful:

Guess I’ll be raking next week!

Eric still doesn’t like the color, but he doesn’t do laundry, so I think he’ll live. See what the laundry room looked like before we started.

Putting up the cabinet above the wine fridge proved to be a little more complicated than we expected. We can’t say for sure, but it seems that the back wall was framed for either a door or a window. All this really means is that there are no studs above the electrical outlet. To solve this problem, we found a piece of wood the correct length (what luck!) and had a helpful co-worker cut it in half lengthwise. After painting the wood to match the walls, Eric secured those pieces into the studs on either side of the wall and then we mounted the cabinet directly onto the wood strips.

When we got to work this morning, the grey truck on the right and the red car on the left were already there. The red car is clearly taking up more than its fair share of parking space but spots are so few in this crowded lot that I knew someone would try to park next to him anyway.

Eeeehhhnn! Perfect!

And I was right.

The best part is that in order for the Eclipse driver to get out of the car, they would have to hit the passenger door of the red car. I say that person* deserves all the scrapes they get.

*Anyone who knows me IRL knows I typically use far more colorful language when idiots like this park RIGHTNEXT to my truck especially when they have PLENTY of room on the other side. Hurumph. And for the record, I always stay in between the lines when parking. :)

I put the finishing touches on the laundry room this weekend, so I will post a photo of the completed project soon. I say this because I was waiting to start on our master bathroom until after we got the laundry room finished.

Heh.

Last week, we finally agreed on a wall color and the new floor tile and I am thrilled because it matches the Restoration Hardware towels I picked up on sale!

So, last night I gathered up my materials and got started on tearing down the wallpaper. This is the part where I mention that every other bathroom in this house had strippable wallpaper—except this one.

After tearing out shallow chunks of drywall (down to the brown core, oh yeah), I have resigned myself to the fact that this bathroom redux is going to be a miserable experience for the next week or so. Once I get all the colored bits down I’ll have to sand and patch the walls before priming and painting. This is the first time I’ve been grateful we have a small bathroom. My deadline of having this done before the family visits for Thanksgiving just became a little tighter.

I have about 1/8 of the room done and a lot more peeling in my future. Oh, and a big thanks to Eric and Todd for cutting the screws trapped in the wall with a hacksaw last night. Who uses gigantic metal wall anchors for a toliet paper roll holder? Really!?!

“Starlight” by Muse, first heard on BBC Radio 1 several months ago. You can hear the song on their MySpace page. “Supermassive Black Hole” is also recommended :)

We had our first real frosts this week, so the leaves have started to change colors and our garden is winding down. However, we will have some flowers throughout the winter. For example, our camelia just started blooming:

And this past weekend I ripped out the tired vinca and replaced it with daffodil bulbs and pansies:

The pansies will flower till May or so, after which they’ll be replaced by a sun-loving summer flower (to be determined!).

While Leandra was in Athens this past weekend, I stayed home with Riesling. When we got up on Saturday morning I noticed that she was limping around and favoring her back left paw. Since she was fine the night before I thought she may have slept on it funny, but it got worse as the morning went on. When she wouldn’t stand on her back legs to look out the window I knew it was relatively serious. Since it was a Saturday morning the vet was booked and instead referred me to the emergency vet. After much prodding and examining it seemed that she had an infection between her toes, though it was hard to know since she growled rather menacingly each time the vet tried to look there.

All told, she is on antibiotics for the third time in three months. Also, I couldn’t take her for her normal energy-burning walks until she healed. She didn’t have much interest in walking on Saturday, but the painkillers were definitely working on Sunday, and she really wanted to limp around outside. In the picture above she’s finally worked out her energy (around 8p) after death shaking her gator toy. Dog!

Update: As of Tuesday she seems to be just fine, but we’ll be taking her back to the vet this week to make sure.

I was back to Athens last weekend to attend a baby shower. My friend Kerri flew down from Chicago and we road-tripped over to GA for a weekend of baby talk. Here is the lovely mother-to-be, Alyssa, my friend from college.

There was a wonderful variety of food as we had several vegans and vegetarians present. The hostess also made a gigantic carrot cake.

One highlight was seeing another friend from college, Geoff (and meeting his daughter and wife), who also moved to Athens after Eric and I left.

Overall, I had a great time, met a bunch of new people, and can’t wait to meet baby Lauren in the near future.

Fighting through aches, pains, and two bad hips, my sister finished her first (and last?!?) marathon yesterday.

Her participation in the Chicago marathon was made a little more interesting by the fact that Lauren was one of twenty runners selected to represent the Northside in a Nike sponsored challenge.

Congratulations Lauren, I am very proud of you! :)

A few weeks ago, I found a deal for Dale and Thomas popcorn on Mir’s site. Well, we just received our sample bags and I am being completely honest when I say it is taking every ounce of restraint I possess to not eat the entire bag of this flavor. The other one we got is Dreamy Chocolate DrizzleCorn, which also looks incredibly tasty.

Update: I am sorry to say that the chocolate drizzle isn’t nearly as good as the peanut butter one. Also, there seem to be quite a few unpopped kernels (ouchie) for a bag of gourmet popcorn. Ah well.