We went for a “walk” on Saturday to take pictures of “pretty winter scenes.”

Here is a bush.

This is the only kind of Bush that I like these days. Not that I’m political or anything.


Here is a tree.

Insert obligatory Frost quote here.

Here are some branches with hopeful buds on them.
Grow, hopeful buds! Spring must come!

It was about 10 degrees (or less) out with the wind chill factor, so the “walk” became a “forced march” as we walked along trying to stay warm, on our feet, and not fall on our cameras if we went butt-over-teacups on the icy bike path in the nearby forest preserve.

David was disappointed to find that he had used black and white film in his camera, but then I think he messed his pictures up anyway. I was using the digital, and got black and white and gray photos (mostly) because it was one of those monochromatic days. So, it didn’t really matter in the end at all – it was a completely colorless day. Isssh. So bleak.

After about 10 minutes of arduous, face-freezing photography we went back (very quickly) to the car and turned the heat up high. The final shots were taken from inside the car, almost as if we were on suburban safari.

Well, hey. It was coooooold.

We got about 4″ of snow last night, and more is coming. If this keeps up, we’ll be able to break out the cross-country ski gear and use it for the first time in years – the last couple of winters have been relatively mild. We had a huge amount of snow 3 years ago that stayed on the ground until the end of April, but I got bronchitis as soon as the cold weather came in (consequences of “cold-induced” asthma) and by the time I got rid of it, the snow was no good for skiing.

So this year, maybe, we have hopes of getting out and having a little wintertime fun on the cheap.

DIY Project Update – Day 14 or 15 or Something Like That

We finally got out the “Kilz” (primer) and painted over the little stray bits of orange-red paint that got on the wrong wall and on part of the ceiling. Once it dried, we stood back and realised that we couldn’t tell where the primer ended and the regular paint started (fortunately, the other wall was a bright white).

We’re thinking we won’t have to thaw out the one can of wall paint, because the match is so good. Yep, thaw. It was stored in the garage right next to where the pipe froze. So that project’s done.

(oh, good, with this post my Giggle ranking will go up – any reference to pipes brings ’em in, for some reason).

Shoot, now it’s back to the floor-finishing one. At least the parts of the floor that are done look really good, in spite of my struggles (and the strangled curses directed at the makers, their ancestors, and their progeny unto the seventh generation).

Once I got the damn stuff installed, it actually looked good. But then once it’s done, the hard part – figuring out what furniture to put in there. It’ll make a cozy reading room (the color is actually “Cozy Melon”, isn’t that twee?) but for that to happen, I have to actually find, decide on, and buy the comfy reading chair, lamp, and maybe some bookshelves.

I’m thinking Pier One. Oh hey, let’s go shopping – it’s free to look, right?

Nope, my shopping here is done, nothing grabs me… except maybe the “leather” chair, though I have my doubts about the quality.

Hmm, what about Crate and Barrel…

Nice… but ACK the price

And then there’s Restoration Hardware…

(nice but again with the ACK-the-price with a few AWK-AWK-AWKs thrown in for good measure)

And this is gasp-inducing nice but also too expensive…

Might be headed back to Capaccio Bros. again. It’s the sort of old-fashioned furniture store that doesn’t make you feel like the sales staff are waiting to pounce on you, determine you’re “just looking,” and then mock you behind your back by turns. The quality and the prices seemed good and reasonable, in that order.

Or I might end up at a garage sale, or hauling an old chair home from our road trip to Salt Lake in May. This seems much more likely….hey.

Pop’s old recliner.

It’s the kind without a lever – just notches in sideboards, like a chaise lounge. I think Mom still has it stashed in the basement. Horrible fabric on it now, but it could be recovered maybe. Hmm. I had forgotten about it until Beeg Seester sent me the images the other day.

Maybe it could work. It’s just for an upstairs reading room. Hmm. I know there’s another maple chair Mom would like to dump on me give me that I was planning on using in the second bedroom. I wonder… nah, that recliner chair probably is too messed up to recover in leather, if she still has it.

Guess it’s worth a shot… 😉