It seems like winter came overnight

We had a nice warm sunny fall with almost no snow. The ground was totally clear. Then, all of a sudden, we had almost three feet of snow on the ground. OK, I admit it. We were out of town for a week and a half. When we left it was still fall and there was no snow on the ground. By the time we got home winter had arrived and there was lots of snow everywhere. And that was before the big storm we had for Christmas. We're still digging out.

Back to the out-of-town thing... I was defending my dissertation and finally earning my PhD! Yippee, that is finally over. I put a lot of time into writing my thesis this fall and I am really glad to be done with it and to get on with my life. And my knitting :) I plan to do a bunch of skiing this year to make up for not being able to ski last winter (due to the big bone tumor scare).

Drama is over...Woo-hoo!

Oops, I have taken longer than I meant to to update the blog. It took a while to recover from the emotional roller coaster this year started with. And we've had guests, and other life stuff.

The trip to the orthopedic oncologist went better than we could have imagined. The oncologist disagreed with the local docs and said that my tumor was not a GCT, and was not even serious at all. It is just an Enchondroma, which is a chunk of cartilage and nothing to worry about. All I have to do is get x-rays every six months for a couple of years and make sure it doesn't change. He doesn't think it should even be biopsied! From the beginning, I was told that I would need to have the tumor removed and get a bone graft, no matter what kind of tumor it was. This guy said there is no reason for that. He said I have probably had this thing most of my life, so if the structure of the bone was compromised, I would have broken it by now. I am FINE! Well, I still want to get the meniscus fixed, but for now, I am enjoying the fact that nothing has to be done.

And, Jack's diabetes is coming under control. Of course we have to keep an eye on him, and poke him with needles, but he is doing really well and has regained all the weight he lost.

Life is good!

The Drama of 2008

Well, this year has begun with plenty of drama. Let's hope we are just getting it out of the way early!

My last post was just prior to a trip to the doctor to get my MRI results, which was the beginning of the first drama. The MRI did show the suspected (medial) meniscal tear. It also had a (lateral) surprise. There is a tumor in the head of my fibula (2cm x2cm) just below the knee. Before I get into the details, I want to point out that my tumor is probably not malignant. I went to the orthopedic surgeon, and he took x-rays, scheduled a biopsy, ordered a bone scan, got the results of the bone scan, canceled the biopsy, and referred me to an orthopedic oncologist. There are only 3 orthopedic oncologists in northern California, so it is kind of hard to get in to see them. I'm not sure if it is good or bad news when an oncologist reviews your records and accepts you as a patient, but I have been accepted by the clinic at UCSF. They suspect that I have a Giant Cell Tumor (GCT) which is locally aggressive but rarely spreads elsewhere. The bone scan showed that my tumor is fairly active metabolically, which is why the ortho canceled the biopsy and sent me to the specialist, but doesn't appear to be as aggressive as a cancer. Following the appointment with the specialist, the first week in March, I will have a much better idea of what kind of tumor I have and what the treatment will be. I will need surgery to remove the tumor and bone grafting to fill the hole, which I expect to have by the middle of March. I have no idea how big a deal all of that is and how long the recovery will be.

Concurrently, we started to notice that something was wrong with our bad dog, Jack. We had been very worried about him, because he was terribly ill and had lost significant amounts of weight (muscle). He was heading downhill rapidly, when we found out that he is diabetic. We were thrilled that he had something treatable. Jack has been on insulin for 9 days now and is doing much better. He has even gained back a pound and is up to his old misbehaving tricks. Jack doesn't seem to mind the twice daily insulin shots, and even puts up with the blood glucose monitoring. He'd rather not get his lip pricked for the blood sample, but he really will do anything for food. When I asked the vet, he told me that if left untreated, Jack was days to weeks from dying. Wow. Even if it had been been caught later, he would still have been treatable, but he was a pretty sick dog.

So, yes, we have our share of drama around here.

Happy Skier!

I finally came out of denial and had an MRI on my knee last week and will go get the scoop from the doctor on Monday. So, what have I been doing lately? SKIING!! Maybe the MRI was like a major magnetic therapy session, because the knee isn't bothering me too much, even after skiing the last couple of mornings. Yippee!

I hurt my knee while wake boarding over the summer. It hurt to walk for at least 3 weeks, but eventually felt better. Unfortunately, it would flare up throughout the fall, when I tried to do fun things, like hiking. I really wish I had dealt with it back then. But I didn't. I was in denial. In December, once we had gotten a bunch of snow, it was time to go skiing. It was the Saturday before Christmas, and Homewood was going to operate the brand spanking new lift. The ski area had been open, but not the upper part of the mountain. This was a big day, and I've got pictures of the new lift below. Well, it only took 3 or 4 runs before I started to feel pain in my knee. As I continued to ski, it got worse. It hurt me to walk (a lot) for the next two weeks! It wasn't the walking thing that upset me so much, it was the fear that my ski season was already over. That was when I realized that I had to do something ASAP! I really don't know what's wrong with it, but the doctor suggested that it is likely to be a torn meniscus. With that in mind, Tim and I went skiing yesterday, because I just had too. Well, it hurt on the first turn, which was depressing and worse than the first time I went skiing. Then I started to play with how I made my turns, keeping track of how and when it hurt. I figured I could at least relay this to the doc on Monday. I realized that it hurt when I unweighted my ski, which is consistent with a torn meniscus catching. So, I tried to stay low and not straighten at all. Problem solved, but thighs burn. It felt a little stiff the rest of the day, but no pain that wasn't overcome by the 4 ibuprofen tabs I took when I got home (just to make sure). When it still didn't hurt this morning, I took more prophylactic ibuprofen and went skiing. My knee is no worse and my thighs are working extra hard. Of course we were only out there for an little over an hour. When you have a pass and only live a few blocks from the hill, you don't ski all day. There is no way I could ski powder, bumps or anything very challenging, but at least I can get out there and have a little fun.

I mentioned the new chairlift earlier. It is really quite comfy and very fast. It is even roomier than before. They replaced the old "Quad" chair with a new high speed lift, which they oddly named the "Old Homewood Express". I have a few pretty pictures below:

digging out

The first few storms were disappointing, leaving only 2-4 inches each. The final storm was more respectable. We awoke Thursday morning to a foot of new snow. I think my new indicator of "heavy" snowfall is when the driveway heating gets overwhelmed. The system comes on when it senses precipitation combined with low temperature. When the snowfall is heavy enough, it covers the sensor (despite the heater on the sensor to prevent this) and the system no longer detects the precip. This happened Wednesday night, so we had to get the snowblower out to clean up the driveway on Thursday. Of course we cleaned out the sensor and turned on the driveway, too! We probably have the only dry pavement around! The snowplow came and made one pass down our street yesterday afternoon, and today they came back and cleaned it up wall to wall.

We (Tim) actually thought to cut down our Christmas tree before the biggest storm, so that we didn't make it harder than it needed to be. This tree was picked out due to its location. It blocked the view of the lake from our guest room.
Knitting update:
I have finished the two Christmas projects that I had been working on and will reveal them after gifting. I finished Jamison's 3rd mitten (the match for the size that fit properly) and realized that it was bigger than the first, so I frogged it and started over. I think I must have knit the first rather tightly, because of concern that it would be too big. I'll knit the next one more tightly this time -and keep the other around as a reference so that I can keep on track. This is a risk, because it becomes something that Jack can steal, if not locked up safe in my workroom (where I don't really work that much).

I also joined Ravelry, an online knitting community, which is pretty great. If you are a member, you can see the secret projects there.

Winter has come to the Sierra Nevada!!

After a dismal winter last year, we have been hoping for a big snow year and some good skiing this winter. We had several coatings of snow early (September-October) and it got our hopes up. But then there was nothing. The area was totally dry and ski resorts were having to make snow. Below is a picture of Homewood a few days after Thanksgiving:
Pretty depressing. The patches of snow are man-made. Finally, the winter storms have begun. Our first real winter storm came in on the 6th. It wasn't huge, but was enough to cover the ground and with a good thick coating and begin our base. It also brought the beloved sound of snowplows scraping the roads (indicating significant amounts of snowfall). Here is the bottom of Homewood after that storm:
Now we have a series of storms coming at us. We are currently in the midst of the second storm in a series of 5. The first only gave us a few inches, but today's system is supposed to give us around 10". The winter storm warning for the area says that the storms behind this one may drop an additional 1-2 feet by late Thursday, but that may be at higher elevations. Hopefully we will get a bunch here at lake level! Here's a glimpse of the current conditions:
In light of the power outages in the East, you may think I'm crazy for wanting so much snow, or you may wonder if we don't have a problem with losing power out here. Actually, we lose power a lot in the winter. While that is a part of life here, we have a backup generator, so it won't be too big of a deal. In fact, the electrician installed the transfer switch just yesterday. Our generator can't run the whole house, so we only have selected circuits connected to the backup power. We will not have power for the oven and dishwasher, some of the outlets, some of the lights. We will have the heater, partial lights, internet (and wi-fi), TV and more. We won't be roughing it in an outage.

Trying to get this going again

If anyone even checks this blog anymore, I am going to try and get it going again. September and October were difficult months for me, and then in November, I was so embarrassed about the long dearth of posts, that I put off dealing with it.

Basically, I have been spending a lot of time working on the paper/thesis. In order to focus on it, I have denied myself most fun activities. Without fun activities, I don't have anything interesting to blog about. You would think that the paper/thesis and defense would be done by now (I did), but unfortunately, they aren't (which is rather depressing). My adviser does not seem to be in any hurry at all. He has caused quite a bit of delay as he changes his mind about the discussion section and how to analyze the data. Most recently, I have been the cause of delay, having come down with a terrible cold on my last trip to Seattle and having to come home early. I'm still recuperating, although I head back up to Seattle tomorrow. I have been going up to Seattle every few weeks and staying 3-6 days at a time. Someday, this thing will be finished. My blogging will probably not be that frequent until I finish the PhD. I will, however, try to post regularly. I do let myself do fun things sometimes, so there are some things to post on, other than my science writing.

The long slow writing process has been pretty depressing and hard on me, so I have been trying to include more fun in my life. I have been doing a bit of knitting, for example and some natural dyeing. I currently have 4 knitting projects on the needles:
2 are Christmas gifts, and they are halfway completed, and that's all you get to know about them.
1 is a simple pair of socks in lightweight STR which are a good traveling project for the plane flights
And there is the lizard ridge blanket that I started this summer. That has been on hold ever since Jack decided to get out the skeins of yarn and play with them. I had to move the project basket out of the living room, so it isn't very handy anymore and I need to clean the blond hairs of the skeins.

My Cabinets are in

The cabinets for my workroom finally arrived... and filled the room.
Then we Tim installed them on Wednesday evening...

...while Jack supervised.
Thursday, we picked up a counter top in Reno. Yesterday Tim installed the counter top and I have begun to move in.

Now the room is a disaster area, but it is destined to be a great work space!

We've Got Curtains!

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but I have had a technical problem. I can't seem to take a decent picture. The pictures I have taken of the curtains keep coming out with poor focus. I've tried taking them on several occasions, varying the parameters that I can, and finally just decided that they are blurry curtains, and that I can not photograph them properly. Hopefully, the size of picture here won't even show how bad the pictures are:)

Tim's mom, Barbara, made us these lovely curtains while she and Loren were here visiting at the beginning of the month. I am very pleased with them!

First is my workroom:

I am trying out this cool table, as a desk.

Below are the curtains in our bedroom:
Note that we have proper bedside tables now, instead of the boxes. Actually, We got our new bed, so I'll get some pictures of that up soon.

The Fire is Out

The "Washoe Fire" near Sunnyside was 100% contained at 11pm last night and this morning we can't see any smoke at all. It looks to be out, and apparently it is now just a mop up operation. Local fire crews responded quickly and put up a huge effort yesterday to contain the fire. They were able to keep it to under 15 acres, with only 5 homes lost. It could have been much worse. One of the factors in minimizing the damage from this fire, was the fuel reduction the US Forest Service had recently performed in the area.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) is a bi-state (California and Nevada) regional planning agency created by the federal government in 1969 to protect the Lake Tahoe area. In order to remove a tree from one's property, permission from the TRPA is required (at homeowner's expense). They have a reputation for being rather stingy about it, too. They have been more amenable to tree removal in the last 10-years, but many believe that it is "too little, too late". We now have a basin filled with fuel just waiting for a fire. This week, at the 10th annual Lake Tahoe Forum, US Senators considered declaring an emergency in the area in order to allow the Forest Service to bypass TRPA's control and clean up the forest to reduce fuel. Rumor has it, Senator Diane Feinstein was among the Granlibakken Resort guests who had to be evacuated because of yesterday's fire. While I think she already understood the fire danger problem here, this experience may help underscore the severity of it. Fortunately, the winds blew yesterday's fire towards the US Forest Service land that had undergone fuel reduction work. That is when the fire behavior changed and the firefighters were able to contain it.

I understand that TRPA is concerned about people cutting down too many trees to improve their views. I also get their concern about soil erosion with larger projects and how the run-off could effect lake clarity. I just think that they are being rather short sighted. A large fire in the basin will do way more damage to this area than I can even comprehend. Hopefully the two fires this summer (so far) will encourage the TRPA to be more reasonable and property owners to take action and responsibility for taking care of their land. Myself included.

Another Fire

There is another fire in the Tahoe basin. This one is much closer to home, but not too close. Initial reports put the fire in Meek's Bay and even in the Homewood area, but those were incorrect. The fire is about 5 miles north of us. We've been listening to the fire trucks coming up from the south and watching the helicopters and fixed wing aircraft do their thing all afternoon. I I took this photo from the kitchen window. I don't think we are in any danger from this fire, but this is very close to home. Highway 89, the main road to get anywhere for us, is closed because of the fire. In the last hour, it appears to us that things have improved, so hopefully that is the case.

Spin Day

One of the many reasons I was looking forward to moving here, was to spend more time on my hobbies, especially the fiber activities. There is a spinner/weaver who has a booth at the local Farmer's Market (she has been there for years) and Valerie said she lives here on the West Shore. When I was in Auburn buying Noro Kureyon for my Lizard ridge (yes it is progressing) the shop owner mentioned that she thought there was a spinning guild up here. Or was it Judith McKenzie McCuin who said that at Madrona? Somebody said it, I'm sure. Well, I went to the first Farmer's Market this summer in search of fresh veggies and a spinning contact. I had spoken to her (and bought something) years ago, but didn't really remember her. Pat is a blast! She told me that there is no guild, but that a group of spinners get together once a month at her house and call it Spin Day. The Spin-Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) has been held at Granlibakken Resort, not far from here many times in the past, including last fall. The Spin Day group took a field trip and went to the marketplace together last year, so that is probably how the whole guild rumor got started. Judith McKenzie McCuin was teaching at the 2006 SOAR, so maybe she was the source...

I was unable to go to the July Spin Day, but I did get to go to the August one, which was on Sunday. Pat makes a living selling her homespun yarn and her woven goods. She also does something with printing. She has a gorgeous (brand-new) studio with 4 looms and her printing press along with all the goodies that go with them. The attic above the studio is called the Candy Store, and contains her stash (which I got to see). Her husband, Erik, also spins and he bakes goodies for Spin Day. Three other ladies, besides myself and Pat and Erik, came to spin. They brought their dogs to play with the resident chocolate labs. I'll spare them my dogs until I'm in good :) It was really great to get to know these fun people and to get some spinning done. I hadn't used my wheel since we moved into the house in June, as my work room is not ready yet and all my stuff is in boxes. That isn't a good excuse, because the wheel isn't in a box, and my un-spun fiber stash is one of the few things that has been organized and put away and is accessible. I have had a lot of other stuff to do though. I decided to finish up the red stuff, as I had two full bobbins and the third was 1/4 full. I was able to fill up that final bobbin at Spin Day, and then began plying it last night. This is my first attempt at 3-ply, so it was a little trickier than 2-ply. I am quite pleased with the yarn I have made though.

Even though I don't have a Local Yarn Store, I do have a local fiber source, as Pat gets stuff wholesale from Ashland Bay and stocks a fair amount of fiber.

Unfinished Spaces

Here is our bedroom. Note the bedside tables (a matching set)! We bought a new bed for this bedroom, because it is big enough for a California King, which is big enough for Tim. First we tried a tempur-pedic mattress, which we didn't like, then we got a traditional mattress and boxspring. We were waiting to get a bedframe, depending on the type of mattress that we ended up with. Now that we've settle on the mattress, we have ordered a bed and matching bedside tables, that are made of wood rather than cardboard.
We also have makeshift curtains. The moon was shining in to our eyes, so Tim nailed up some old blackout curtains that we had. We looped them up during the day to get air to flow in.
Fabric has been purchased and proper drapes are being made by Tim's mom, Barbara. It should look like a proper bedroom soon!Below, is my work room, and the fabric I bought to make into curtains for this room. I haven't been able to get settled much, because we are waiting for the cabinets that we ordered to cover one wall. The room is basically a box storage room these days. I am very happy to have access to most of my stash, though!

August Views of the House

There have been requests for pictures of the hose, all settled. Not all of the rooms look settled yet, but here are pics of rooms that are.So there are some pictures of relatively settled rooms. The last one is a spare bedroom, sort of overflow guests or whatever. This room will probably change as we continue to settle. Stay tuned for upcoming pictures of the unfinished/settled spaces.

I'm a slacker...

as a blog author. Well, there are more important things to do... like wake boarding. So, blame my dad for the nice birthday present! Actually, I hurt my knee that first day, and it hurt quite a bit for a couple of weeks ( even went to a doctor), so I waited for my knee to get better before I let Tim drag me behind the boat again. It's better now and we've been having fun playing in the water!

This blog is supposed to be about progress, and well, there hasn't been much of that. I have been working on the paper, which will be most of my doctoral thesis, but that isn't so exciting to blog about. For example, I went to Seattle in July, to pow-wow with my adviser, Dan, and it went quite well. I'm flying back up there next week, so there is real progress there. Who wants to hear that we've switched back to EndNote to manage the references? Dan wanted to use something else (web-based) that he thought was better, so we were using that, but then he realized that it wasn't as good as advertised, so now we are back to EndNote. I've added a bunch of references to the EndNote library for the paper. Whoop di doo. Are you fascinated to hear that when I was up in Seattle I got some info from my lab notebooks, so I was able to increase the detail on construction of a particular plasmid in the "Materials and Methods" section? And we've got a lot of data analyzed. Aren't you glad I haven't been blogging on this stuff? Most of all, writing a scientific paper just doesn't really make for good pictures.

The house is almost done, but things have been slow. I hear that is how it is at the end of a project. We finally got our front door, which was kind of a big deal, but I haven't got a picture of that yet. Now it is time for some decorating, which is happening slowly. I promise pictures of that soon.

Festivities

I felt like a kid on my 40th birthday (last week). My dad came over in the morning with a gift that couldn't wait until we had dinner together that night. It was a wakeboard to go with our boat! You can see me trying it on, while trying not to damage any furniture with it's fins, or vice versa.
Well, we had to go out and try it so Dad, Val, Tim and I went down to the boat and gave it a try. I don't have any pictures to prove that I actually was wake boarding (for the second time in my life -the first was ~10 years ago), you'll just have to believe me on that. The wake board is totally girlie, as you can see from the photo below:

We have had friends in town visiting for the 4th and related festivities, so we've been busy. There were fireworks on the West Shore on the 5th, and we had an excellent view right from our deck!

Once again, the Lake Tahoe basin is filled with smoke from a wildfire. This time it is the Plumas County Fire up north towards Susanville. It isn't so unusual to get smoke from wild fires sitting in the basin, but it is unusual to have them so frequent. Hopefully the whole summer won't be like this! My eyes sting a wee bit from the smoke, and I just kind of prefer the nice fresh mountain air that we usually have.

Pretty Kitchen

Fire Update: It is now 44% contained. The weather today was a bit breezy, which greatly improved our air quality. We were able to see the shoreline out the window again and very little ash rained down today. It seems like the fire didn't completely behave itself today, which added to the concerns of those down in South Lake Tahoe. The real concern is that the fire will move east (away from us) which could endanger that community. I am still convinced that this fire does not threaten us. Geography and wind direction are on our side.

Now it is time to start catching up on all the house pictures that I took, but wasn't able to post until DSL came back. The tile guys came to finally finish the kitchen tile. The accent tiles finally came in and they are pretty. I really like the way it all turned out.
here's a close up of the tile:

The painters are coming tomorrow to finish painting. They plan to repaint our bedroom and bath, and touch up a bunch of stuff. Painting our bedroom will be a big step. We have been waiting for this, before we settle in. So, after tomorrow we can do just that. Really settle in.

After paint, we still need the electricians to finish their thing. We are also waiting for our front door and some of the door hardware. We passed inspection for everything except the fireplace. We have to install the glass doors on it for code. I drove down to South Shore last week (right next to where the fire is now) and picked up the glass, so we will probably get that done in the next few days. It is a good thing I got it last week, because now the road is closed!

Knitting Catch-Up

I have been busy moving in and working on the house in general but obviously not posting on the blog, however I have managed to knit a few things.

I knit a pair of pedicure socks for Annika out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts(BMFA) heavyweight Socks That Rock(STR) in "Backstabber" (which I could not find on their website), however I forgot to get a picture before I gave them to her, so you'll just have to trust me on that. They were basic stockinette socks, without the toe, and about an inch of 1x1 ribbing on each end.

I also finished the toe up socks using Wendy's pattern that I showed ages ago. For those I also used BMFA STR. These were mediumweight in "Fire on the Mountain". That name seems so apropos today! These were for me and I love them, because they are so soft and comfortable. I was a little annoyed with the pooling on the leg part, but I'm pretty much over that, cuz they are so snugly.

It took me a while to obtain the yarn for my Lizard Ridge afghan. Since Kureyon can be so variable, I really wanted to get it in person, which is hard to do when there is no local yarn store (no LYS!!! how sad). I went to Jimmy Bean's in Reno, but they were phasing out all of their Noro yarns, and had no Kureyon. I eventually bought a bunch of one colorway in Auburn when I was down there last month on a paint errand. I was thinking I would just use one colorway, but it was a little too blah, because I was using a colorway with a lot of earth tones and light colors. So then I got brave and ordered 3 more colorways online, getting colors that would fit with my earth tone plus blue and green plan, while adding more contrast and personality to the piece. They arrived while I was down in the Bay Area a week ago, and I promptly got started. I'm very happy with it now.
By the way, I had to wipe the ash off of the ottoman before laying my knitting on it. Maybe it is time to close the windows? My eyes are stinging from the smoke.

With this afghan, I plan to bring together the colors that I have put into the blue room our guestroom. I'm not totally sure about the color we painted it. I think I was a bit tired from all of the decisions on the house when I decided to paint the room light blue. I wanted some color, but I didn't want to paint it yellow, which seems to be the "in" color in the mountains these days (or is that the case everywhere?). I also didn't want to paint it in "coffee house colors" like sage green. I thought blue would be relaxing and soothing for our guests... like a retreat. I think there is a chance that I pull it together, but the room needs some help to make the color work. So... the Lizard Ridge, which I really wanted to knit anyway.

Fire

I finally got the DSL hooked up, just in time to leave town for several days of family get-togethers. And then once I got back, I was pretty busy with house stuff. So, sorry for the dearth of posts.

You may have noticed on the news, there is a big fire burning in the Tahoe Basin. The basin has a lot of very dry timber, and we fear that we are at risk for a devastating fire, which makes this particularly scary. Fortunately, we do not appear to be in any danger. The fire is down at South Shore, and we are on the West Shore. The winds are generally to the East here, which should encourage the fire away from us, rather than towards us. The winds have calmed down considerably today, helping the firefighting efforts, so hopefully this fire will will not threaten anyone for much longer.

Sunday afternoon, we heard a lot of fire engines going by, all afternoon long, and we figured that something was going on. We got the details from the news and knew where to look as we drove toward the North Shore for our dinner plans.the entire south and east shores were covered in smoke (it was an absolutely cloudless day).
On Sunday, the winds were quite strong as well as gusty, which kept the smoke heading east, and most of it was going over the Carson Range and beyond the Tahoe Basin. This morning, the winds had mostly died down , which is great for fighting the fire, but the smoke began to settle in the basin. It is hazy with the smoke, and I've seen a bit of ash floating around. Tim took the picture below from the boat as I drove north to pick up some friends for a cruise.
For those who have expressed concern, thank you for thinking of us. We are fine and do not appear to be threatened at all by this fire. It does remind us of the danger of living on the edge of the wilderness.

Updates:
-At a press conference around noon, it was anounced that this fire is only 5% contained. Officials feel that they have two days to get it contained, because the wind is forcasted to kick up again on Wednesday.
-The calm winds that I thought would help firefighters are good and bad. The smoke is sitting in the basin making things hazy and the lack of visibilty has kept the tankers and helicopters out of the mix today.

Moving Day at last!

Today we moved our furniture and the rest of our stuff in to the house. It was snowing! As I write this, I am sitting on my couch, which I haven't seen since January. I really missed this couch. We have a dining table again, too! yeah! Maybe some of the boxes will yield silverware, glasses and plates!