Today I took a vacation day.

There were no real house projects (I re-stained part of a bench). I didn’t do any homework. Spouse and I drove into Frisco for the BBQ Challenge – Big Hoss had the best sauce, fyi. I started to rain as we were leaving, so we came home and couched watching movies.

The Wrestler was good, as predicted. I think the creepiest part about it is that Mickey Roarke’s own career has to feel very much like the character, making it less like acting and more like voyeurism. We also caught most of the latest X-files movie on cable. It was… strange. Good strange but not really what I was expecting. Spouse likened it to a much longer X-files episode. Pretty accurate and ultimately satisfying. One can never have too much Scully.

I was unsuccesful seeing The Proposal. In fact, I completely forgot about it until we were halfway over the mountain. I think the plan is to make it part of Spouse’s vacation week.

Tomorrow, life returns to normal. Work, then homework. Rinse and repeat for Monday.

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End of the week roundup

The inside upstairs paint projects are DONE. That includes touch ups where we changed lighting fixtures. There’s a guy outside right now hanging a gutter on the back of the house because they old owners didn’t have one. Gutters are the last home improvement for (at a minimum) the next year, if not more.

In terms of current home improvements, I painted the front deck post and have started painting the front deck bench. The benches were a gift from my in-laws for our wedding. When they’re pushed together and the backs are flattened, they become a picnic table. Very cool, but also makes restaining a challenge. I’m going to do it in two parts. :)

All that remains is the railing on the back deck and the back deck bench. I’m very happy at the prospect of being DONE for a while.

In related news, I got an 83 on my exam which I’m pretty happy about. First exams suck because you’re never quite sure what the test is going to look like. I’m excited about class time in July.

With any luck, our plans today will include a trip to Frisco for BBQ and maybe seeing The Proposal.

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Mission accomplished!

I’ve successfully made reservations for our anniversary dinner. It’s going to require a trip over to Vail, but 40 minutes isn’t a bad drive for good food. Not only that, but we’re in the off-season so we’ll be able to take advantage of some pretty sweet deals.

I’m waiting for Spouse’s new phone to arrive and then running some errands before he’s done wth work.

Have pretty much finalized house painting colors and a decorating plan for the basement. We’ll need an area rug for the kitchen but all in all we’re in good shape. The new sliding door arrives this weekend and I’ve just got to contact my guy to put it in. We’re inordinately excited about it for reasons I’ll elaborate later.

Our anniversary gifts are working out fantatsically and I’m going to update with some more Santa Fe details later.

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Mostly AWOL

I’ve been NotPosting because I’ve been trying to get things sorted out with our house sale – not fun and definitely not anything I wanted to blog about. Still have some things to add about Santa Fe but I’m also making a trip to Michigan this week. In related news, I’m also working on a different hosting solution for the blog so we’ll see how that shakes out.

With any luck, posting returns to normal this week!

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Delayed posting due to slackage

We spent a lovely weekend in Santa Fe. I’ve been catching up on various things and getting back on work schedule. I’ve also figured out what classes I’m registering for in the summer session and I’m looking forward to a more regular schedule again.

I’m going to leave my TV and yoga natters for the end of the week (for the most part) and I’m going to post my Santa Fe pics instead!

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We have returned from Santa Fe

One more way in which Leadville is superior to Saginaw: when we got home, one of our neighbors had plowed our driveway for us. Out of the goodness of their heart, without being asked. In the entire 8 years we lived in Saginaw, nobody ever even OFFERED – including when Spouse threw his back out and I was stuck outside shoveling 12 inches of snow off our entire driveway. I love this place.

Santa Fe was very nice and very relaxing. While I’m in the process of uploading pictures, I will leave you with this hilarious dog story.

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In case you haven’t been watching the news

We’re supposed to be in the midst of snowpocalypse out here. I could point out the irony of said snowpocalype in a place reknowned for its snow but, la.

Ironically, up in the mountains it’s not as bad as it was on the I-70 corridor. In point of fact, I had a perfectly uneventful trip to Frisco for a haircut and various errands and didn’t realize, until calling to speak to Spouse, that the roads were supposed to be in any way disastrous.

When I left at about 11 am, there was about 6 inches of snow on my car. It was overcast but not snowing, so it didn’t even occur to me to call 511 for the road update. Once I was over the Fremont Pass (upon which there was virtually NO blowing snow) and about halfway to Coppper, the visibility deterioriated. I have a couple of great pictures on my camera (to be uploaded later).

There was more snow on I-70 than usual and the visibility was such that you almost had to take it on faith that you were, in fact, merging onto I-70, but other than that it was okay.

In related news, if you were the douchebag in a red Land Rover who decided to just put their brakes on as though they were going to stop in the middle of the highway, you can eat a bag of dicks.

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More photos

My trip to Salida on the 26th. When I left Leadville it was snowing but in the pics you can see it clears off before Buena Vista. Leaving Salida, I took an inadvertant detour to Monarch before realizing and coming back. 

Photos here.

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Home again.

Today’s trip to Edwards/Avon was more productive than expected. After dropping off Spouse, I drove to the optical center I’d googled (Vail Vision) and picked out new glasses. The website is kind of crap but the facility is great and, should you need glasses in the Eagle-Vail Valley, you should totally go there and ask for Daniel. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 5 and this was the absolutely LEAST painful glasses shopping experience of my life. He got a sense of what I liked and actually WENT AND FOUND THINGS FOR ME. Not only that, he was honest about how he thought they looked. I had a new pair of glasses in something like 10 minutes, which is a world’s record. And I love them. Daniel, you totally rocked it!

After that I made a trip to Avon for Home Depot and picked up supplies for the basement and windows. I picked up whitewash for the basement walls as well as window shades (bamboo) for the windows downstairs, in the kitchen, and in the master bath. I’m pretty excited about how the basement is going to look when we get done tweaking it. I’m REALLY excited about replacing the window coverings in the master bath and kitchen. My weekend work will be cut out for me, as Spouse is leaving town on Saturday.

Interesting fun fact: I believe that there is not a single house located in Avon. There are many, many townhomes and condos but I didn’t see a single house. Very weird. Also, they put a Walmart Supercenter and the Home Depot into what used to be airplane hangers. They are the very largest incarnations of their particular chains that I have ever seen, ever.

Piper got to make several trips into stores (because Colorado is awesome!) and met a French Bulldog. And when I was coming out of the furniture consignment shop, I was telling her where we were going to go next when I looked up and there was a couple standing there. Don’t mind me, I just talk to my pet like a crazy person. Piper didn’t mind the conversation. She DID mind the car wash and having to sit in the car while I was in the bookstore and grocery store. Luckily, being Piper, she got over it the next time I looked at her.

My goal tomorrow is to take (and post) a mess of Before photos so that I’ve got them done. And then there is unpacking, window treatmenting, and potential whitewashing.

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Here again, gone again.

But just for the afternoon. Spouse has another meeting out of town and I’m going to ride along because there’s a Home Depot. Home Depot = bar shelves (possibly). I’m also measuring the last of the windows for covering. Then I’ll probably spend all weekend putting up window coverings and bar shelves. I swear this house is going to be done very soon. Mostly because I’m getting tired of tinkering with it.

Still not obtained: tropical wall mural.

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