The day after we got back from Christmas, we bought this coffee table during a huge sale at Nowell’s Furniture. That would be January 3, 2008; we were hoping to have it for the Superbowl.

We just picked it up yesterday.

The furniture store called to say it was going to be an extra few weeks, but it took four months. Granted, the delay wasn’t entirely their fault, but they could have made more of an effort to ease the frustration. Like, say, free delivery? Instead, we got excuses, shrugging and transfer of blame. Because of this, I’ll definitely think twice before buying any big ticket items from them in the future.

With that out of the way, look at our new coffee table! Hooray!

We have been looking forever for a small glass coffee table (under 24 inches in diameter) that would fit with our sectional couch. The nice part about this one is that it swivels out to reveal three levels of glass that more than doubles the amount of table space when we need it.

And Eric says it makes the living room look bigger. :)

I’ve been eying a new receiver for our home theater for the last year, and after a good bit of research, I decided to get an Onkyo (TX-SR705). Of course, I needed to get a good deal on it, so for the past two months I’ve been watching a number of websites for deals and discounts. This past Tuesday I saw a price I liked at Circuit City and brought my new baby home!

Leandra helped me with the initial install last night (she’s getting quite good at cable stripping) and I’ve got all the major parts working. It sounds good already, but I’m sure I can get it better with a bit of tweaking and optimization.

Unfortunately, this upgrade means our our master Harmony 880 remote is temporarily out-of-sync, so we have to use individual remotes until I get a chance re-program. I’d forgotten how much the Harmony remote had automated things and I can’t wait to make it the only remote again!

We had to turn the heat on for the first time in months when we returned from Florida as the house was a cool 62 degrees in the middle of the afternoon. Eric is the designated “pilot-light-turner-on-er” as I refuse to crawl under the house because it looks like this…

The furnace is in the middle of the house, which I’m sure helps the heating process, but it also means one has to crawl for a bit to turn the darn thing on. I’ve been under there exactly once to help Eric clear out some decaying wood that was left under there along with about a case of empty beer cans. Ick.

When we first moved in, it was March and the house was freezing, I think it was about 50 degrees inside. For some reason, the previous owners let the pilot light go out under the house, but we had no idea and just thought the heat wasn’t working. In a mild panic, we called them and they casually told us what to do. Easier said than done… poor Eric had to light the furnace with a taper candle and a flashlight in the dark. I’ve since bought him an automatic lighter. :)

We have an adjustable thermostat so that we can save money by keeping the house a little cooler during the day. This means that I have to wear socks and pup finds other ways to keep warm.

August was a very hot month with the most sustained heat I’ve ever experienced. Several weeks of 90°F+ days (many of them 100°F+), low humidity, and only one short thunderstorm in the past 7 weeks have lead to quite a drought, and our yard and garden are feeling the effects. I haven’t mowed the lawn since mid-July (since it isn’t growing) and most of our shrubs and small trees are drooping. Even the big trees are feeling it- below are the leaves from our big tulip poplar:

pre-cleanup and post-cleanup

Raking isn’t much fun to begin with, but raking in the summer is just plain wrong! We’re hoping for a break in this drought soon, but it will probably take something like a small tropical depression to make a dent at this point. Foo.

One night while Eric was in San Diego, I stenciled a quote onto the wall in our living room. We have been meaning to put something above the futon for a while now and I thought this would be a creative (and cheap!) solution.

Here’s a close-up view of the quote by St. Augustine… “the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

I think it fits us perfectly!

This post is to thank WRAL, the CBS affiliate in the RTP area, for our free antenna. I learned about their giveaway promotion in February, and after finding out that it was a legitamate offer, applied.

Why would we need an antenna when we already have a satellite system? For one, our Dish HD system only carries the local ABC and NBC stations in HD. We’ve been using an indoor antenna for CBS and FOX, and while it works most of the time, whenever it gets windy we have problems. And of course it always gets windy when you actually want to watch a certain show. An antenna also provides a backup for times when our satellite reception is interrupted by thunderstorms. Third, HD seems to look better over-the-air (probably due to lower compression) and we can pickup alternate digital channels that cable and satellite generally don’t transmit. For example, during March madness CBS transmits all the games on its over-the-air digital channels. All in all, with digital broadcasts there are a lot of good reasons to have an antenna.

So a few weeks later I came home to a large box on our porch- our new antenna (a Channel Master 4228)! Over Easter my dad helped me install it in our attic. We’re now receiving a near perfect signal for both CBS and FOX, and a more stable backup signal for NBC and ABC too.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we haven’t had much luck with the tomatoes and peppers in the garden behind the garage or the raised bed we built last spring. The only place in our backyard that gets full sun all day in the summer is the deck, and since we already spent a few years growing things in pots (and coming home at lunch on the hottest days to re-water plants), we needed another solution.

Eric suggested building a raised garden just off the deck that we could use for tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and herbs. After a trip to Home Depot for sixteen 2″ x 4″ x 8′ planks cut into 3′ x 5′ pieces, we were in business.

It took us an afternoon, but the result looks great. All the weekend rain has soaked the soil through, so we will be ready to plant shortly!

After the wood weathers a bit, we’ll be staining it to match the existing deck. More photos of the building process on Flickr.

We’ve been searching for a new office desk for some time that was a) bigger, b) reasonably priced, and c) not super-cheap particle board. The most challenging obstacles turned out to be b and c.

We’ve moved with Leandra’s old desk three times (two apartments in Georgia, one apartment in NC, and finally our house) and it was time to upgrade.

Back in Februrary we found a modular desk at Nowell’s in Cary (sidenote: I think we were lucky to get out of there with only the desk, as they had some really cool Scandanavian-style furniture—and some internally-lit room divider panels and orange lamps that Leandra really liked).

The desk was delivered faster than expected a few weeks ago, and I’ve been rearanging the computers and electronics in the office ever since.

PS- our old one was sold on craigslist.

Two years ago this week, we moved into our very first home. At last we had a yard, a garage, and could play music as loud as we wanted. We also got three wallpapered bathooms (no more!), old kitchen appliances, and a strangely wired circuit box. Fortunately, the good greatly outweighs the bad.

Let’s see… I’ve redone all three bathrooms, the laundry room, and both bedrooms. Eric and I repainted the office and living room, powerwashed (and stained) the deck, and built the first of two raised beds in our backyard (second raised bed coming soon!) We’ve also replaced both the fridge and the stove.

Wow, I’m exhausted just reading that list!

Eric got a new (huge!) cherry wood desk for the office, I hung curtains and a new light fixture in the spare bedroom, and we put up a new ceiling fan in the living room on Sunday… so we’ll get photos of those additions up soon.

After several days of phone calls we finally got the roof fixed this morning. Thankfully we never had rain and there was no permanant damage. We dodged a bullet!

While the roof was being repaired Riesling barked herself silly. She gave up after about an hour and looked pretty exhausted by the time everything was complete. Of course, she’s probably napping the afternoon away now. Lucky dog…