SNOWY UPDATE

We've gotten 10 or 12 inches of snow in our neighborhood in the past three days. I haven't minded one bit! As long as there's snow, winter and I are pretty good friends. It snowed all day on Sunday, and that was great because the sore throat I had last week turned into a sore throat with terrible head and body aches that kept me couch-bound all day. That's not the great part. The great part is that the couch just happens to have the best view of the yard and the snow as it falls. So if you have to be sick, you may as well be sick during a beautiful snowfall.

Then it snowed again yesterday, and since it was coming down hard they didn't bother plowing until after lunch. Since my office was closed (SNOWWW DAYYY!), I didn't feel too badly about shutting down the laptop after an hour or two and getting busy on other things like playing with Johnnie, cleaning and working on the house.

Ez and my dad put a lot of hours into the kitchen stairs and railings over the past few weeks. I think (I hope) this is really the last major heavy-duty, thought-provoking project left inside the house -- and it's almost done! Like the table Ez built for my birthday, the newel posts for the stair railing were made with 4x4s. Yesterday I spent almost three hours vibrating my arm to death with an orbital sander trying to get all five of those newel posts smooth and pretty. (I don't know how I end up with these marathon tasks like sanding things, sponging tile and priming, but I guess God didn't make me a patient person for no reason.) I have been worried about how this project is going to turn out given all the weirdness of this quirky corner, but I think it is coming around. It's not something particularly blog-worthy (on mainstream blogs at least) because it's not a flashy or exciting project, but it really feels like a big accomplishment to take a horrendous eyesore and make it look good and normal and unremarkable.

Anyway, I realize this big push to "finish" is when I should be sharing the most updates on the blog, but everything is such a big flurry of tape measures and sawdust so I'm just fitting it in when I can. Also, we're sort of in limbo about the inspection right now... As of now, I don't know what day the inspector is coming. Considering the weather, there's no way the foundation will be bricked or the gutters installed by Christmas. So... I guess we just forge ahead and see what happens. I'll keep you posted!