birthday alert!

dracula says: happy birthday teena. i have sugar plum mices for lunch.
where ever do you find sugar plum mices, dracula?
in my naps.



rabbit says: these people are crazy.

saturday superfluities

well, we decided to clutter up our place a bit. so many boxes downstairs with who knows what in them, so unpack, unwrap, and display whatever it is we have thought enough of to bring with us to the new place. turns out it was mostly books and pictures.

the mint plant finds a new home...

the winter storm continues... greg... post-shoveling.


as for myself, i finally took my winter winter coat and my winter winter boots out of storage.

greg... post-hat-on-his-head...

the snowy outdoors. snowless paths do not last for long.

i think i will spend a toasty day indoors doing what else.... homework... and then maybe a little bit of homework... and then... possibly a bit more homework... and then... i think i'll top the evening off with some homework. isn't it fun to have work that you can do at home? to leave one school or the other... one job or another... and say... you know what? i'm going to take this work home and enjoy it there! homework... never-ending fun!

talked about for days...

but still, it appeared all of a sudden...


our winter storm.


It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.
~Bruce Barton

illsbee

poor littlest has been sick with a cold for days...

40's!

it was 42 degrees today! soon... soon it's going to be green... and the only white will come from swell cats... or dandy lions... something like that....

and the garden... that snow covered lifeless plot (well, the voles... i'm sure they're thriving in there somewhere) will soon be green... isn't that exciting... to think of the garden being green! to think of food growing in it once again!
and we're probably not going to go with the morning glories this year, so if someone has a tip for a wonderful vining flower, let us know!
also... i wonder if our mum is okay... i just realized that we never covered it up after the ground froze... uh oh.

winter garden

a busy weekend, yes, but finally one in the positive double digits. it's 20 degrees out... what a nice reprieve.

hard to believe that in 3 (ugh... maybe 2) short months this place will be green...

our pile of leaves, sitting cold, wondering what we're going to do with them.

it's going to be a busy weekend...

blue wall, cold season

i don't remember what color blue i was using as a visual aid to the paint on the wall... i don't think it was this one... it doesn't match...

is this one any closer? no... too green. maybe this? no. this? wait.. is this the same one i used above? well anyway, you don't need the font anymore because you've got the pictures. so this is the last of the four colors.

i don't like how stark the window looks up there, so here's a photo from awhile back in the daylight. sometimes the sky is blue like the paint....

lately though it's been gray, or even if it is sunny, it does virtually nothing to warm up this chilly month in wisconsin. i will officially be tired of winter in 2 weeks. i'm willing to give this cold another 2 weeks, but then, enough is enough.
i have a feeling i'm not alone. did you hear about how drivers were stuck on a road in pennsylvania for 20 hours! 20! and passengers were stuck on a plane for 9 hours! all because of this winter weather... (and what sounds like some poor planning on the part of state and airline officials).
anyhow, the frustrating thing: in wisconsin, winter lasts straight through to april. we might get a break here and there, but i swear, those last few weeks of winter last for months. don't ask me how, because i don't know how, but it's true. winter is the most stubborn season of all up here.
sigh.

sundance 6897

the yellow wall with new mirror...

this color came after we picked out the clock wall's color, which came after we picked out the kitchen's color, which came before we picked out the last color.

this is a lovely mobile guitar monkey brought back from costa rica. thanks guitar monkey!

our new plant! a weeping fig. apparently these can be found in office buildings and malls around the country and they lose their leaves from the slightest change of scenery, but ours only lost a few leaves, so apparently our house isn't much different than a plant store.

pantry roost

up now: the pantry. i couldn't capture it as well as i'd like to, but if you want the in-person effect, you will have to visit. visits will also force us to unpack more quickly. i'm starting to wonder if we're going to open up those boxes fifty years from now and say, "hey! remember this?! i wonder how much an antique store would give us for it..." it's sort of a shame that winter and school(s) have to continue on as if we don't have much unpacking to do.


anyhow, we are quickly getting used to the new place. especially now that the rooster clock is up and running. (somehow it made it out from the depths of the basement... or perhaps it was fortunate enough to never get lost down there in the first place.)

lantern light yellow

the kitchen, at different times of the day, on different days, from different angles, with different camera settings and different editing... same overall concept...

on the first night of the move, our basement became like a gaming cinema/lamp factory

the mrs.

the 100th post!

as you can read, this is my 100th post. so much has happened since the 99th. namely, we moved into our own real place (and the colts won, and guiatar monkey and tim shared another birthday and others had momentous birthdays as well... pictures may be coming soon). i know many of you are hoping for pictures of the place... but... you will have to wait for the 101st post as unfortunately, this has to be a quick one. the new era will start next time... until then, see photos of bygone days. and through the magic of differently colored text, get an idea of the colors we put up on our walls.

a winter wedding...

we ventured to faraway milwaukee a few weekends ago to see greg's cousin get married... here are the pictures...

geoffina severwile...

the bride and groom...

mom and son

i... don't know who this is... but, i figured if everyone else was taking a picture of him...maybe i should too...

quasi-not-quite-but-perhaps-someday-sisters-in-law

through the eyes of one who wears glasses....

parents-in-law

mother and bride

grandsons and grandmother

a new kind of dance...

little cousins...

the dancefloor kids...

bride and groom sharing a dance

the next morning... wintry wisconsin conditions...

the view from the car on the way home...

greg, in a desperate attempt to avoid snow blindness...

some winter views...

oh alright... here's the new laundry room... before we moved in and made it messy...