Year: 2008

Jeremy spent the day at IKEA trying to buy a kitchen. We are trying to convert our basement into an apartment to rent out. After getting a bunch of quotes from various contractors for sums of money which would take us 5 years of rent to recoup, we figured we would try and do a lot of it ourselves (famous last words, I’m sure).

Jeremy is designer extraordinaire, he has spent many hours drawing, measuring, redrawing, looking at IKEA catalogs, looking at higher end catalogs and then returning to the IKEA catalog. His actual hands-on experience is a little bit lacking. (Jeremy’s a theorist.)

My background in building stems from watching my parents put in basements in our various childhood homes. I also spent a summer working for Habitat for Humanity in Austin where I apprenticed for a plumber who helped me learn all about indoor plumbing (PVC pipes and vents and soldering and sewer lines and city inspections and gas lines). I would like the kitchen to look nice, but I’m not going to spend any a lot of extra time thinking about colors and/or design. (I’m decidedly not a theorist.)

So armed with nothing more than youtube videos, my dad’s expertise and suggestings and a jigsaw, hopefully, the kitchen will be put in sometime soon. We had an original deadline of Dec 31, 2008. Well I’m pretty sure we are not going to make this deadline as the trip to IKEA revealed that they did not have what we needed in stock, so we are waiting another 2-3 weeks until they have it delivered.

The hip thing in professional photography these days is flare! I do troll wedding photographers’ blogs and everyone loves the flare. (Vince is a little grumpy and underexposed.)

We are trying out a new routine in the house. Usually Jeremy and I both put the kids to bed together, which usually means that all 4 of us are in the family bed – which is fine, it’s actually great, but it also means that both Jeremy and I secretly hope the other adult person will get the sippy cup of water for Edda or get Vince to floss his teeth while we both try and surf the web for: political analysis, industrial tricycles, or kid’s pants on ebay. So this meant that bedtime often crept from 7:30 to 9:30 pm. We were not being efficient.

So now we are trying it a different way. Since Jeremy gets the kids up and dressed in the morning, I’m going to be in charge of the night time routine. So tonight, the whole thing from putting Edda in the bath to tucking Vincent in was 45 very short and efficient minutes.

Last night, we headed off to Southern MD for an informal gathering of local girls afflicted with Rett Syndrome and their families. There was a pizza and conversation and also a lot of snuggling.

Looking down:

Looking up!

Fridays are my favorite days! I love the idea that the weekend is coming more than I actually like the weekends – mainly because I still like the routine of the weekdays plus the added anticipation of not going to work the next day.

Somehow this Friday evening is off to a rocky start. Jeremy and I got into an argument as soon as we met to bike home together after the subway ride home, which is the main reason that this Friday is off to a rocky start, but I’ve just discovered that many of Vince’s new winter pants are totally worn through the butt and the knees and it’s only November and also that his first adult tooth is coming in behind a baby tooth that is refusing to fall out and pointing kind of backwards toward the base of his brain.

All I can think about is the cost of new pants and also the cost of straightening out that first insanely crooked tooth! Oh, of course, the house is also a mess – as usual.

I don’t know why I’m in a funk, this is actually a great, great week!

While I was at the ballet gala, Jeremy and the kids went for a bike ride to the town center for some hamburgers.

I wanted to highlight the transformation of Donald’s high school bike. Note the yellow milk crate attached to the back of the bike with flashing lights bungee corded to the outside of the milk crate. He is saving his pennies to buy fenders for his beloved commuting bicycle. Jeremy has actually gone grocery shopping with his crazy bicycle. We are still commuting back and forth to the Metro on our bikes, it’s my one source of exercise, my 10 minute bike ride.

Well… I suppose it was quite an exhillarating night. I know all y’all are east coasties, but I thought I would share some of the going ons over here in Cali-forn-i-a. Most of you are spared from the insanity that are the California Proposistions, but somehow, somewhere, the politicians decided it would be wise to let the public vote directly on laws. Of course, it’s not like californians really understand the impact of the laws that they are vote for/against. What’s 10 billion in bond payments for a high speed rail system?

Anyhow I’ll make two comments here…

1) Sadly, Prop 8 seems to have passed by a 52-47 margin. I don’t know how gay marriage affects any straight person’s lives… So I was surprised that it passed.

2) SF has it’s own propositions too. Here’s a funny one. Complete with arguments/rebuttals. Ha. It was defeated 70-30. 🙂

Last Saturday night, I went to the ballet school gala (I did wear the burgundy dress). I had a nice time – I wanted to showcase Christine’s centerpieces:

As I said before, I had never gone to a gala before. I went mainly because I wanted to support the effort that went into making the centerpieces, but also I wanted to spy on a gala and see what it was all about. I learned that cool lighting can really change a room – that a live auction is pretty fun if you have a couple hundred or maybe a thousand dollars to spend on stuff. (I did win a bud vase at the silent auction, which was much, much less than a thousand dollars. Woo hoo for me!)