My pride and joy

So, our kitchen faucet has been leaking for at least the last year. Since we don't know how to fix it, and it didn't seem to be hurting anything, we just let it go, but finally enough was enough! But I am definitely a bit of a DIYer, and with my new-found free time I found a class through the local community ed that taught "home repairs for women." My theory is that, even if I never fix anything by myself, I at least will be able to use the lingo and not have to pay too high of an "ignorance tax" when we hire things out. The first of 3 sessions was on faucets and drains, and after that session, I came home with a burst of confidence at realizing the problem was likely just 2 little o-rings that needed to be replaced, and why call a plumber when you can just fix it yourself? HA!
I quickly found it absolutely impossible to get the faucet apart. I could get pieces off, but could not get to the part I needed to. After having a kitchen faucet in pieces for two weeks, we finally gave in. Our old faucet now looks like this.

 At the end of the day, my faucet that should have cost <$10 for the parts, and maybe $100 for the plumber, end up with $200 price tag for the new faucet, plus all the tools I had to buy (another $70?). After 7 trips to the hardware store, 6 hours of class, and many hours of frustration later, here is my gorgeous new faucet.

Now I just need to remodel the kitchen to match!

I have to give a huge credit to Mike, without whom there would have been a plumber involved. Apparently, while I can handle assembly just fine, I struggle with dismantling. After this three week project, I definitely will not be touching toilets or electricity, the other 2 modules of the class!

Seattle

I had a fantastic trip to Seattle to visit our friends Heather and Paul a few weeks ago. Mike, unfortunately, did not get to join me this time around :-( I didn't get a ton of pictures, but highlights from the trip included a shopping day with the girls, where we were joined by Carrie Householder, a brunch at Heather and Paul's full of Amazonians, lot of great food including fresh dungeness crab, and the inner city transfer station (see picture below)

Dungeness crab at Chinooks, where there were real fishing boats out front including a couple from "The Deadliest Catch." Apparently they winter over here. Also note the majestic Thor. If anyone knows the history of this boat, we are very curious! Paul's brother Mark, who just moved up to Seattle with his wife, was my stand-in date for the night as both of our spouses were out.

 The ferry to Bainbridge. That's Heather and Paul on the left, and me with the space needle in the background on the right. I swear that coat I'm wearing is green. Lime green.

The troll under the bridge and a giant Lenin in Fremont, where we had dinner on my last night. The picture is a little dark, but the troll has just eaten a VW bug. You can see the tire under his hand.

In spite of the troll and the Lenin statue, this wins the award for strangest sighting of the trip. It is half bus, half truck bed and roams Seattle collecting trash, and giving hair cuts. Such a combo! There is an additional sign in the back that says "no asbestos, chemicals, dirt, toilets," but it is unclear whether you cannot get rid of toilets or there is not a restroom in the barber shop. Maybe both?

On the last night, after dinner, we drove across town to buy the perfect eclair. The ordering process went something like this,
Heather - "I'll have a vanilla eclair, please."
Store lady - "No. We close in 10 minutes. We only have creme puffs."
H - "OK. I'll have a cookie cream puff"
SL - "No. We only have cookie cream puffs with green tea filling."
H - "Okay. A plain vanilla cream puff"
Sarah - as the lady goes to get Heather' cream puff, "Make that 2."
SL - "We only have one."
At this point, tired of playing the guessing game, and not really wanting green tea filling (which by default was our only option), we came home with one cream puff and split it among the 3 of us. It was delicious, even though the story may not be as funny in retrospect :-)

Valentines Day Part II

So, I actually did an embarrassing job on my 12 day of Valentines. Mental note for next year - do 10 days of valentines, and take 2 days to plan! A few of the highlights are below.

We made valentines for friends and family. Somehow I missed pictures of this, but we had glitter, construction paper, lace, and everything you would need to make homemade valentines!

I decorated Mike's car

A romantic evening, complete with fire and candles

Sent a box of Valentines goodies to my brother in Estonia (Garrett, if you haven't gotten this yet, there may be a chance it's still sitting in my car!)

Embracing Valentines Day (and my girly side)

 So, I have a distant friend who loves Valentines Day. Years ago I randomly stopped by her house one day on Feb 15ish and it looked like the heart gremlins had puked valentines all over the apartment (or Saint Valentine and his doves had come and scattered romance - you can pick which image appeals to you most :-)) I don't mean that to be derogatory - the place was amazing, covered in red, hearts, more roses than I had seen in my life, chocolates, homemade valentines, candles. It had everything!

I always wished I loved Valentines Day that much. Even though I have someone amazing to celebrate with now, I just can't get over the cheesiness of it all. Red roses, white bears, cupid? But this year I will give in to the hype and try to fall in love with Valentines Day! Every day between now and Feb 14, I will do something to celebrate love. I'll start with changing the background on my blog, and keep you posted here! We'll call it the 12 days of Valentines.

Love to all!

 

p.s. I will do my best to keep my Valentines Day cynicism out!! 

p.s.s. As a previous Valentines Day minimalist, I welcome ideas for celebrations!

Madison

We just spent a weekend in Madison, visiting some old friends. Had we only known all that Madison had to offer, we certainly would have gone to visit much sooner! Here's my top ten list for our trip to Madison.

10. Our wonderful hosts Becky and JP Montufar (who were the real highlight, but so expected they couldn't be at the top)
9. Nap time!
8. Visiting Mike's cousin and meeting the new baby
7.15 year old cheddar
6. Tug of war with Walter and Anabell
5. The Madison Roller Derby (Go Vixens!)
4. Lot's of really good food, most of which would keep even me full for half a day!
3. The International Mustard Museum
2. 40 degree temperatures
1. The taxidermy museum (credit goes to Becky for the pictures below)

This is a Wisconsin Badger. Obviously.

Most of the rodents in the museum were posed into scenes like this.

 

There were over a dozen albino squirrels. Do you think he got them one at a time over his lifetime, or did he find a community of them?

 

The most intricate of all, the bar scene. It was complete with dancers, a piano player, the storyteller fisherman just off the lake, and a squirrel passed out on the bar.

So strange, yet amazing! It may be the only one in the world!

Vacation

At long last, here are some pics from our vacation in December. I will just show the highlights here - there are more on my facebook profile, and if you ask really nicely I'll send a link to our Picasa site! It's a long post, but stick with it. The last picture is worth it!

We started in Chile, where we visited Laurel and Alejandro, friends from grad school. They were amazing hosts! They threw a BBQ in their backyard with some other Domers, toured us around Santiago, took us to their beach house in Valparaiso, and took us on a long weekend trip to Pucon in the south of Chile (not necessarily in that order). All while Laurel was about 8 months pregnant. Here is a picture of the BBQ, where we ate a lot of meat, and had good times with old friends.

After being there about 5 days, we took a mini-excursion to Easter Island. After a 5.5 hour flight, we spent 4 nights and 3 full days touring the island. Highlights of the island were the giant Moai and Mo, who we adopted for an afternoon. You can tell which is which in the pictures below.

From there we traveled to the Lakes district with Laurel and Alejandro. The eight hour drive filled with scarce gas stations, moderately crazy "environmental refugees," and sharkey (aka dried horse meet) was well worth the trip. After a lovely day of hiking through the forest, Mike and Alejandro climbed Villarica, a semi-active volcano, while Laurel and I had a spa day.

Best of all, they got to slide all the way down the mountain on their rear ends, with a pick axe in their hand for a brake! And yes, that steam is actually sulfuric gas from the volcano behind them.

At this point we said goodbye to our friends in Chile and took a flight south to Patagonia. While there, we saw the Magellan penguins in Punta Arena, took a tour of Torres Del Paine National Park (land of the wild Guanacos) and then headed east to Argentina where we saw Perito Moreno Glaciar. One of the coolest sounds in the world is decidedly that of a glaciar calving! We took an afternoon and went for a hike on the glaciar. Crampons and sunglasses were the required tools. We're hard core!

From el Calafate, we went to Buenos Aires to finish up our trip. Buenos Aires is the home of Evita Peron, the tango, and the giant mosquitos, and we saw them all! Okay, only Evita's balcony and tomb, but we saw enough mosquitos to more than make up for it.

We also took a day trip across the river to Uruguay and watched the final championship futbol game. Imagine our surprise when Banfield lost 2-0 to Boca, and then started celebrating with the champion cup. I guess the rules are different in Argentina, where you use the overall standings to determine the champion!

After a wonderful vacation, we came home, ready to begin our next great adventure.

(I know you were wondering why I didn't climb the volcano with the guys :-) )

Scutigera coleoptrata

 

What is this vicious creature, you ask?

I woke up at about 2:00 yesterday morning, and went downstairs to the kitchen. To my horror I spotted this guy, about 3 inches long all in, at the edge of the counter about a 6 inches from where I was working. I jumped back and grabbed a rag off the counter to prepare for battle. I did not want this guy in my kitchen!

As I stared him down and prepared to attack, I felt something tickle my hand. With a quick flick of my wrist this guy's brother was scurrying across the floor. He had crawled into the rag (probably to hide from the light?) and I'm sure was no happier to be picked up than I was to have him crawl across my hand. 

I made a lame attempt to kill the one still on the counter, but decided to let my knight in shining armor take care of them. Apparently, though, knight in shining armor duties do not apply in the middle of the night, unless there is an immediate threat. When I crawled back in bed and told Mike about the kitchen crawling with hideous bugs, his response was, "Did you really just wake me up at 2:00 to tell me about a bug? That's in the kitchen?"

I'm not typically this squeamish around insects, but these guys are creepy! I did some research on my flight out later that morning. House centipedes. It seems they are fairly common, and in spite of the fact that they were in the kitchen, they only eat other bugs, not people food. So now we have to decide if we should wage war on the centipedes or keep them as pets to keep the rest of the bugs and spiders out. I have always found our house curiously insect free.

The centipedes can bite people (it is supposed to be similar to a bee sting), but this is rare. My favorite learning is from a USDA pamphlet published in 1902 "It may often be seen darting across floors with very great speed, occasionally stopping suddenly and remaining absolutely motionless, presently to resume its rapid movements, often darting directly at inmates of the house, particularly women, evidently with a desire to conceal itself beneath their dresses, and thus creating much consternation." It seems not much has changed. I must admit I'm still a little afraid of the kitchen at night!