Elf-ed

Too cute! Take a gander here!

Stupid Cat

She's not looking at anything; she's asleep! The cat has found the heat rising from the basement wood stove to be a real enticement. She likes to be near the vent where the heat rises into the living room. On the floor, on the sofa, on the arm of the sofa, as long as she's near the heat, she's very happy. So I thought she was just looking at the floor while enjoying the heat. But no; I nudged her head and she didn't move. She was totally asleep! Amazing. The other shot is from below. You can just make out her face between the arm of the sofa and the wood top of the side table. I expected to see a trail of drool dribbling from the corner of her mouth!

Christmas Party

We kind of missed doing a party for Eli's birthday, so we made up by doing a Christmas party with several of his buds. They played with Legos, watched "Fire House Dog" and decorated cookies. A lunch of hot dogs and chips completed the day. Here are some photos. Merry Christmas to Sam F., Matt B., and Ian K. from all of us!

Christmas decorations

Here are some shots from around the house
with our decorations up. Libby says the wreath
is probably her best one yet. The house looks
very nice at night with single white candles
in each window (very Richmond) and the
front stoop lit up. I'll try to get a picture of
that later. We also have stockings yet to hang,
so I'll get that later too. We got our own
tree this year from a farm (Doug Harrell near Spruce Pine, NC); it's nearly 8 feet tall.

At last

Painting's done. Including the little hallway in the upstairs. The same weekend I finished the painting, I built this bookcase. It did it in between coats of paint upstairs. I tried some mitred edges on the trim of the bookcase. One of the four actually met and looks nice, the others needed a little bit of wood putty. Hate the orange color; it's supposed to be maple. But in the basement it will be fine. Notice it's already pretty much full!

Lazy weekend

Eli had a sleepover Friday night with his buddy Sam F. Nobody's talking, but we're guessing there wasn't a whole lot of sleep at the sleepover. Eli had a second get together at Ian K.'s house Saturday afternoon and night; it was to have been another sleepover, but Eli pooped out about 9 PM. This is him Sunday afternoon. Thank goodness Monday is a school holiday. Briggs has had a cold this week and it was really kicking his butt this weekend. Lots of quality time in front of the TV.

Last bit of painting

I finally have been able to work on painting the stairwell. It took two weekends, but I managed to avoid buying any new equipment. It only felt like it was 75 feet up! You think this photo is dizzying; imagine being 10 up a ladder with brush and pan in hand, cantilevered across the abyss to reach the trim! We used a lighter shade from the living room color palette for the upper reaches of the stairway walls, and then the same trim shade as in the entry and living room. That's a total of three shades of yellow. Fun to look at, but a bitch to clean brushes for each color! The new colors really, really brighten up the stairs. The new fixture we bought months ago now can actually do some good instead of competing against the dark paneling.

That's it; everything's now been painted on the main floors. Nothing to do now but start touching-up the scratches we've inflicted the past 10 months.