Working on the House

We spent the last two weekends painting and cleaning up the house. The house itself is 19 years old and had two previous owners before us, the last of which had the fashion sense of a lump of brown goop -- the master bedroom had pink carpet and bold flowery wallpaper that made my eyes sore, and the master bath came in a deep red & green Christmas wrapping paper. There was more wallpaper in the other bedrooms, kitchen, foyer, etc... but we removed most of it over the past year. Yes, it took that long, mainly because I didn't know about wallpaper steamers.

Now the living room is a nice "Bermuda Sand" color, and the paint job looks very professional with a base coat of primer and two coats of Olympic paint. The master bedroom also has been completely primed and painted in a "Vanilla Brandy" color. Now if we could just easily change the carpet and some of the creaky underlying floorboards, as well as the baseboard moldings... The kitchen, foyer, and dining room all need to be painted, though.

In other news, my sister and her fiance are in the process of driving from Cleveland to San Francisco, with their Husky. I had to send them something to greet them on their arrival...

And we have a pumpkin in the backyard, about the size of a basketball already!

A Small Start

I thought I'd actually start a blog, but unfortunately I probably won't be updating it on a regular basis, what with work, travel, and myriad other demands on my time.

Currently I'm reading Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe. If you're amused by the European (plural) way of doing things, you'll like the book. My previous reading material was picked up in a small bookstore in Pennsylvania Station, and I rather shamefacedly admit was Richard Marcinko's Vengeance: Rogue Warrior. It was a quick, fun read, but not very believable. I'm not sure it was worth the cost.