Sunday, August 22, 2010

It's good to have our whole house again.

The living room floor is finished, and enough baseboards are in that we put everything back in the room that belongs there. It's great to be able to use it normally again, as well as see ALL our books and dvds. And I hooked up my Super Nintendo.

We survived having both the annual judo picnic and the annual math bbq on the same day. Brought Snickerdoodle Blondies and buttermilk pie respectively. Sadly, the blondies were experimental and I don't think they make the cut. Too dry. They're great dunked in coffee or tea, but standing alone too dry for me.

A very agile squirrel left this on our (upper floor) windowsill. I wish I could have seen him maneuvering to get up there with it. The apples are almost ripe, so I guess summer must be almost over..

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Home Improvements

Engineered red oak. Cheaper than any of the laminate we liked, maybe a little lighter in color than we were thinking, but looks great in place. We did all the easy parts. Now there's the edge where we have to cut boards lengthwise and the hallway. SO MUCH NICER THAN CARPET.

Vlad likes it. Vlad is also safely off all of his meds - got the bloodwork back this week and he's looking very healthy. Even starting to lose some weight by ineffectively chasing rabbits around the yard. (We have a ton of rabbits this year!)

Gustav also likes the floor.

Yes, this blog is almost entirely an excuse for me to post pictures of my dogs.

We also replaced 5 windows with modern double glazed ones. Including the ones in the bathrooms. I'm so excited about having insulation between me and the outdoors when I shower.

I went to a big statistics conference and gave a talk. I have some ideas for how to have a better time next time I go to a big conference. Luckily it's one where hundreds and hundreds of people give talks, so there were about 5 people in my audience who weren't also speaking that session. It was still pretty scary.

Today I fought in a non-novice division of a judo tournament. Well, 3 non-novice divisions, and the novice division. 8 total fights, won 3. But two where in one division, so I took first in that one. Great fun, no injuries, way less freaked out about fighting black belts in the future.