Happy New Year!

The century is a decade old. The year eleven makes the head math a little more difficult, so I've decided to only look forward and treat this as year one.
But we have to look back just a little, no math involved. Last night we were colder than both NY and Skagway. Yep. We went below 30. Around here that is called a hard freeze. The bridges were treated with chemicals to prevent icing. Snow fell all the way down to the valley. We have desert plants that had to be covered, and the water pipes had to be insulated. The wind was the worst. It makes things go bump in the night and blows the blankets off the covered plants.
After a few days of hunkering down in our wonderfully restored house, we are getting ready to venture out today. We have the long underwear on, the parkas are out of mothballs, and we have found the wolf-fur mittens. NOT!
We do have to run some errands, pick up a few cases of booze for the annual brawl tonight, restock the larder for the next few cold days, and NOT prepare our classrooms for the next semester. That is the best part. We do have a lot of fun, but the things we DON'T DO still bring joy, also. We only have a few boxes remaining to be emptied. We will take down Christmas stuff, then we can decide where to hang art. Drive those nails, baby.

Happy Birthday, Peggie

The big 60.

Peggie slept in today. It is only fitting to do so on one's birthday.

At 11:00 a masseuse showed up to deliver one of Peggie's Christmas presents. So it was nice to get a double gift. Casey and I made ourselves scarce so it would be peaceful and quiet for the massage.

The fat quarter campaign is and has been amazingly successful. She has fabric from NY, Sitka, Skagway, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as local finds. Thank you heartily for all the thought and love that went into your choices. We look forward to those which, for whatever reason, will arrive later. Keep 'em coming!

What time is it?

It is the 21st century.

So we had Christmas with our children and granddaughter. We had a great time taking turns opening presents. It is fun watching Ariana (almost three) sit calmly to open her gifts, then show it to everyone, then wait while others open gifts. Not the hurry-up we were used to with multiple children. We sipped coffee, ate scones and had a good time. When all the gifts were open, except for a few for Ariana, she was tired and ready for a nap. So we said goodbye, turned off the computer and straightened up. Yes, it is 2010. Casey was at our house in person. Greg, Tomoko and Ariana were virtually present via Skype. We are truly blessed to have this technology just when we have loved ones living 2500 miles away. We have skyped before, but usually it is like a video phone call. This was a virtual visit. We loved it. It was a new experience. More personal than I thought, and it felt much more real. Well, it was real, but maybe if you are near my age you know what I mean. If not.....

Today is the day after Christmas. Peggie is still suffering from her cold. Casey and I went to Nikki's(niece) to meet her new baby, Adam. Fearing we might carry germs, we did not touch him, but agreed he is a cutie. We were able to visit with relatives and had a good time. Peggie will have to arrange another visit when she feels better.

Yesterday, to make it easier on me fixing dinner (Peggie is sick, ya know) we changed our menu to Bill's chili and tamales instead of ham with all the usual fixin's. Smythes came over as per usual and we had a great time as per usual including breaking open Casey's new Apples to Apples game. Peggie was able to concoct a marvelous pitcher of marguaritas. Holiday cheer.

Peggie's birthday is the day after tomorrow. The fat quarters are pouring in. Pretty soon she may have several yards of fabric. If she can figure out a way to put it all together, that is. Perhaps a quilt or two. They are often constructed from several small pieces, aren't they?

In other news, tonight;

Casey has gently chastised us for ignoring the rest of our lives.

So here is other news.
On the 19th, thanks to our children, we attended the final concert on "The Final Encore" tour of the Judds. In 1991 we attended the final show of their "Farewell Tour." At that show, Vince Gill was one of the opening acts. In the current show, there was no opening act. Just two and a half hours of Judds. It was very enjoyable as they sang some old favorites, Wynona did a solo session, and they closed with Christmas songs, including a breathtaking acappella version of Ave Maria by Wynona.
We went to Mesa early in the day to deliver the old hoosier to Casey's new apartment in Dobson Ranch. We helped her empty some boxes and Peggie put together her kitchen. Then we went to a Park and Ride garage, parked, and rode the light rail "Metro" over to Phoenix for the concert. It was held at US Airways Arena, where the Suns play, not at Wells Fargo Arena, where the Sun Devils play, and where Casey's commencement was held. We ate a nice dinner at Majerlie's and walked the two blocks. When the concert was over we joined others on the full train back to Mesa. We were happy not to be in the after event traffic. Except for the whole middle-of-the-night thing, midnight is a very good time to travel I-10, since fewer people are on the road with you. And it is a good excuse to stop for middle-of-the-night breakfast at an Eloy truck stop.
Thank you to all who have sent Peggie a fat quarter or two. This is making her birthday really special. It is fun to get the mail everyday. Some people have delivered in person, and anyone else who wants to do that is more than welcome to. I am starting to think she may actually receive 60 by the time this is over. For me, this is the most fun since I got her all 31 Baskin Robbins flavors 29 years ago. Or the time she threw me a surprise 40th the year I was (honestly) 39.
We also managed to stay awake after midnight to sit in the spa and watch the lunar eclipse. We didn't sit in the spa for the entire 3 1/2 hours. We only watched the beginning until the moon was almost covered. Then we went to bed. We've seen other lunar eclipses. They always happen when sane people are asleep. Whoever schedules these things should have made it on the 19th when we were on the road at that time of night anyway.
This week Peggie has been down with a terrible cold. We hope she will be much better by Christmas. I am sure I will catch the cold and have my turn with it next week. But I hope not.

Are we there yet?

Just twenty more minutes.
That phrase is older than our marriage. It has become our standard joke answer since a trip we took during college and I underestimated the time for the trip by a considerable amount.
Anyway, we are all finished except for putting everything back. The work is done. The ceilings are textured plaster, not sprayed popcorn. The walls are freshly painted in southwest tones. The floors are in and looking beautiful. The venetian blinds are installed. (And they are PERFECT)
As I type this, the floor crew has dropped by to patch some chips made by the furniture movers, the murphy bed company is trying to schedule a crew to straighten out the poor job movers did on the re-install, the carpet cleaners are coming tomorrow to clean the stairs, and about half the boxes are empty and our shelves and cabinets are filling back up. Since we have a lot of very old wood furniture, we are re-oiling each piece, one at a time before we refill it. The famous dry heat is hard on wood.
Very soon, I will drive the first nail to rehang some art. Scary prospect. As you all know, getting it right the first time is not my forte.
So, in sewing terms, "it is all done but the hem"....and the buttons and button holes, and then it has to be washed and ironed before you can wear it.
It will be about twenty more minutes (days).

Casey S. Thomas, B.A., M.Ed.

Casey was hooded and conferred and recognized at two ceremonies at America West Arena over the last two days. Her proud parents attended both.
We stayed overnight at a Best Western so we could spend the day with her on Thursday prior to the evening event. We planned to do some shopping, both for our newly redecorated house and for Christmas, then spend the afternoon hanging out at her "old" apartment while she readied herself for the commencement. However, this blog is titled "Peggie & Bill--Adventures!" so the plan had to be altered. It was the first day of rain in many weeks, we had a timeline to meet, so it was the perfect time for car trouble. Leaving the last store on our route, the Jeep decided not to start. It didn't seem like a dead battery, but getting a jump still seemed like a good idea. That didn't work, because the problem wasn't a dead battery. Luckily, we had taken out a road service policy with Good Sam prior to heading for Alaska. So a phone call and 45 minutes later, a tow truck shows up. The policy will pay to tow us to the nearest repair facility, which happens to be a Jeep dealer. The truck's cab will not accomodate all of us, so Peggie and Casey ride in the Jeep as it is loaded and driven to the shop. We wait through two episodes of "King of the Hill" while Casey is getting nervous. She thought her days of sharing our adventures were a thing of the past. HA!
The problem was a loose connector on the wires between the battery and the starter, nothing major, and when I went to check on a free shuttle ride for Casey, so she could get ready, they said the Jeep was ready to go. The mechanic thought the problem was caused during original assembly and was just waiting for the right time to fail. It only cost the price of labor and tax. This is just the kind of thing that could have happened in the boonies somewhere, sometime, or when we were actually on our way to something with no time to waste. Serendipity.
In the interest of leaving no loose threads, Casey got some things for her new apartment, we got some things for our "new" house, and some of you will be receiving packages for Christmas.

The fat lady sang...

...but we still have a curtain call to sit through.
THE FLOORS ARE BEAUTIFUL !!!!!
Yesterday, on purpose, Peggie arranged a day out. I arranged for the movers to return and replace all of our furniture from the storage pod. I had drawn a schematic so I would know where everything went. The following things were put where they had been before: the phone booth, the dining room table, the four dining chairs, the dining room chest, the murphy bed. Everything else has been rearranged. When Peggie got home, she actually agreed with my placements.
We will post pictures after we decide where to hang our artworks.
We have not moved all of our boxed items back onto shelves and cabinets yet either. There will be a slight delay while we go to Tempe for Casey's commencement activities. (She has her Masters of Education)
The curtain call has to do with some final touch-ups to the paint and a couple of chips in the floor.
So now we have Christmas to get ready for and a bedroom to empty so Casey has a place to sleep when she comes. Oh, and the new window blinds we discovered we needed. And the new cable outlet because we moved the TV and computer.
And....I believe I mentioned once before that there would be things we didn't anticipate. So whatever those are. THEN this episode will be over.

Happy Birthday, Tomoko!

The girls have dibbs on December Birthdays in this family! We hope you're having a great day--a little rest, a little relaxing and a whole lot of celebrating.

Mother Nature's Mischievous Niece

Mother nature has cooperated most generously with our redecorating schedule. Sunshine, 70's, no wind. Windows and doors have had to be wide open so paint and floor stain can dry. Nighttime temps have been just low enough to require a quilt. And we just happen to have a few.
But, Mother Nature's mischievous niece, Disease, has shown up. The floor crew, two guys, have been sick with some virus. One of them has missed three days, and the other is working short days while he sneezes, coughs, and blows his nose. So, we are now a day behind schedule.
But today they are applying the final sealer. Tomorrow, the painters will do touch up. Just in case, I postponed the movers to Tuesday. Then it will be done.
HA!!
Then we can start putting things back on shelves and in cabinets. Perhaps we will have the guest room livable by the time Casey comes for Chistmas. We might even have time to set up the tree.
Peggie has really been living in her studio. She has turned the old so-far-unused cabinet into a talavera (sp?) type. It will go in the main hall for shoes.
I have been supervising the workers from an old recliner on the patio. I have caught up on all my magazines and three novels. I only have to move the recliner three or four times a day to find shade or sunshine as required. I have come to know several local birds who frequent our yard, and developed a real sympathy for the poor dog next door, who gets ignored a lot.
Does anybody know why a cactus wren would want to spend his days chasing a phainopepla around from tree to tree all the time? This is quite an obsession on the part of the wren. The phainopepla seems to be a tease. He whistles his whereabouts until the wren chases him again. They do occasionally pause to eat seeds from the rhus lancia, almost civilly, then the chase is back on.
Okay, I have to go back to the recliner now. That book won't read itself, and I hate to leave Lt. Dallas with an unsolved case. You know how she loses sleep.

Happy Birthday, Casey

We went out to breakfast, continuing the tradition which began 25 years ago when Laurie, Greg, and I went out while Peggie and Casey recovered in TMC.
The final coat will go on the floor today. But first, we have to decide how large to make the segments. They will use chalk lines to give us visuals so we can decide.
Yesterday I bought one new door knob set and one switchplate to see how we liked them. We did. So how few can we get away with so as not to completely blow the bank?

Einstein was right,

Time is relative.
If you look at a calendar, it was one week ago that our remodel began inauspiciously with a warped storage pod. Now, it is two months later, by our internal clocks, and we are halfway there. We are managing to live upstairs, in the studio, and on the patio. Thank God for the good weather.
Now the floor people have started. The carpet is out and the echo in the empty house is amazing. We had Truly Nolen come in to spray for termites on the advice of someone (we can't remember who) who discovered large cracks in their floor when carpet was removed. The problem, according to the termite guy, is when the crack is large and extends to the outside edge of the house. So he drilled 38 holes and poured 12 gallons of chemicals into them. The holes were "shoelaced" along the crack. That is alternating from side to side.
The colors on the walls are perfect. Peggie's color sense, no surprise, was accurate. We love the new textured ceiling.
This week, which will last another two months, we are living like true rednecks. The appliances are on the porch (patio), and the yard is littered with tools and equipment that look like "yard art" in Appalachia.
But the workmen continue to be reliable. They always arrive within an hour of when they say they will. The workmanship is adequate, once we point out where it needs to be redone. Our fingers are cramping from being continously crossed, hoping the final product will be worth the time and money.
Money. Did you know that those innocuous plastic outlet and light switch covers look dingy after you repaint? Did you know that doorknobs aren't invisible? Once you put new paint on doors and walls, these things suddenly look old. Nickels and dimes add up to dollars very quickly.
We already mentioned the new window coverings and the stair carpet.
Oh, and of course, the wood railings on the stairs, which have always been fine, are now all scratched and need to be sanded and refinished. Remember when Percy (the cat) was young, and liked to walk on them? Cat claws are hard on wood.
Painters don't seem to notice that when they wash out brushes and rollers on the rocks, that the rocks change color.
Peggie missed yoga this morning. But our mantra remains....
Life is good.
Life is good.
Life is good.

The colors are bold and it's like a new house.

New pictures added to the remodel folder.

Color Color Everywhere and we love it! We're really having a good time watching the changes occur. At one point today we really wondered if two walls that were to be the same color were two different colors. Later, with the changing light and artificial lighting it was clear they were the same. The wall by the front door and the hallway are lighter than the rest but they looked the same...for a while. Tomorrow the last of the colors will go on the walls and then everything will be draped and the ceilings will be primed and painted--swiss coffee which really looks like white. Then fine tuning will occur as they touch up spots that don't look so great.

Monday morning the floor guys will start by taking out the carpet and the vinyl flooring. The termite guy will come by in the afternoon in case there are cracks in the concrete that need treatment.

Bill has been busy supervising and drawing floorplans rearranging furniture and artwork. I've been painting the cabinet we got in Jerome a few years ago that will house our shoes. The cabinet will have a base color of a periwinkle purple but it gets crazier from there. I'm adding decoupaged fabric to the doors and then painting folk art designs everywhere else. I'll post pictures when finished. Trust me, it's going to be great but it's not for the faint of heart. Good thing I'm married to a strong of heart although he did have some reservations at first.

Estimates for new window coverings came in and we took the plunge. We'll have faux wood blinds in most of the windows and a track system of stacking panels on the patio door. Bill chose the fabric and it really ties the red and the ginger together.

A little bit of gin and tonic and we'll be ready for another day!

I Know Why We Didn't Do This Before!

Because--mess, mess, mess, mess. Yikes, what a mess!!

Check out the Remodel Album on Peggie's Photo Gallery.

As Bill posted, on Day 1, Monday, we got the pod loaded with furniture and went to a movie. What a relaxing afternoon.

On Day 2, Tuesday, while the guys were removing the popcorn ceiling (plastic, water, and ceiling goop everywhere) another guy began painting the laundry room and bathroom. Bill supervised by sitting on the patio reading and I went to yoga and coffee and then spent the afternoon in my studio. All good. Daytime temps were great while record lows were forecast for Wednesday morning. We had to re-cover the plants so they wouldn't freeze. Of course we didn't think about that until 10 p.m. while we were soaking in the hot tub!!

Our two main colors are Ginger Palm and Prennial Gold (What is prennial? Is it a misspelling of perennial or something entirely different?) The idea is that the lighter color will go in the darker hallway and laundry room and the darker color will go on the other walls and with all of our light and angles they will appear to be the same color at times and different colors at other times. Boy, the bathroom (the darker) is semi-gloss and sure looks like butterscotch! Did I choose the right color?????? I think so....I hope so....it sure is going to be on a lot of walls (in eggshell, not semi-gloss) so I think it will be okay. I hope it will be okay because walls that go up 24 feet are not in my re-painting ability.

On Day 3, the ceilings were re-textured with hock and trowel finish and the second coat of paint was applied to the bathroom. I like the color but I'm not crazy about the semi-gloss but I guess it's necessary for a bathroom. Painter boss comes over and we decide to do baseboards, doorframes and doors in eggshell instead of semi-gloss. By the end of the day I really wasn't happy with the clean-up job in the bathroom and the paint that was left splattered on the vanity, fixtures and mirror. A few other things made Bill and I decide we needed to be supervising more closely.

Day 4, today-Thursday, painter guys are painting the hallway and closet (lighter color) and the office--formerly known as Greg's room (darker color). Bill and I removed all the mini-blinds and set up cleaning and drying stations outside with frequent breaks to check on things and ask questions. We agreed we couldn't have asked for better weather--very little breeze and temps hit 80 degrees. While I'm getting estimates on new blinds the reality is that we'll probably re-hang our VERY VERY CLEAN blinds even though they are the wrong color. The texture guys finished the hock and trowel work and patched all holes and cracks throughout. Bill asked one of the guys to come put some of the darker color on the wall by the stairs so he could be reassured that it was the color we wanted. Whew! It is. Bill turned to me and said, "You're so good with colors!" Whew! Maybe I'll sleep better tonight and not dream of big butterscotch blobs. It definitely has less butterscotch and more tan appearance in the eggshell finish and in the light.

The Plan tomorrow is to move the Ginger Palm color into the family room and begin painting the accent wall in the office and the accent walls in the family room the deep rust terra cotta color. They may begin the green in the kitchen. More pictures to follow.

Ah...hot tub is on the agenda tonight.