Painting The Kitchen II

I am writing today from our newly created attic games room, recovering from the mammoth task of painting the kitchen. The kitchen involved more fiddly bits and walls, and we prepared for this by buying a roller on a longer stick to cope:

However, soon, the kitchen was a bit of a mess, and we were driven closer to despair by the many fiddly corners and edges:

Soon, the stress of painting, and the paint fumes, drove me feral:

However, we triumphed in the end, and now our kitchen looks lovely:

Snow Day

It snow a lot yesterday! It took me 1.5 hours to get home, and this involved some back road excitement. The snow continued, and this is the sight that greeted us this morning:

Currently, we have shovelled out one car, with one more to go!

Painting the Dinning Room

This weekend, Sarah and I began painting our Dinning Room. More precisely, Sarah began painting, with me in a 'helping' role.

Here is me 'helping'.

Soon, we were finished with our first pot of paint. This does lead me to the question of what you do with an empty pot of paint?

We put on two coats, and soon, our Dinning Room was looking lovely:

As I write this, Sarah and I are using our fire for the first time, celebrating our initial adventure in DIY. This is also to combat the cold which has descended on the area, and to make good use of the packing paper we moved house with, which makes excellent kindling.

This exercise in pre-Internet living makes me realize how wonderful central heating is. The fire, wonderful and warming as it is, requires quite a lot of effort to keep going, and I cannot see it heating the house.

Running Photo's: Exercise in Randomness

So, two weeks ago, I realized I can use my phone to take photo's as I am running. I experimented whilst running around the lake near our house during the snow. The results were mixed, as I don't believe in stopping whilst running, but do highlight how cold and frozen over our local landscape was.

The countryside is less snow covered now, but the lake is still frozen. The coolest thing is the path the ducks have waddled from the shore to the melted region in the center of the lake.

Icy Morning

Woke up this morning to find everything outside coated in 1/2 an inch of ice! Have just de-iced the car before having a cup of coffee and heading in to work (which is late opening due to weather).

The hardest part was breaking the ice to open our car doors and turn the engine on to heat the car up.

Luckily, the roads all look clear - mainly the pavements and cars which are frozen over....

Annapolis

This weekend, whilst visiting family in Maryland, we took a detour to see Annapolis. Annapolis is the state capital of Maryland, where all the local politicians go to politic, and it has some impressive civic architecture, and many flags:

The town itself reminded me of little English towns by the water, like Henley. It has lots of small shops and little alleys, and lots of very expensive boats (we looked at a shop for these, and some were scarily much more expensive than our house). This did mean I got to see the Chesapeake:

It was very cold, as proven by the glass-like water, which is nearly, but not quite, too salty to freeze:

One of the coolest things about Annapolis is the Naval Academy there. Yesterday, the Naval trainees (Midshipmen?) were on leave, and wandering around the town as college students tend to. They were, however, doing this in full military dress; I liked this - it gave the place a very Hogwarts-y feel:

Next week - to painting. We have settled on the Embellished Blue, and only need 15 - 20 tester paint pots to finish the wall, based on previous progress.

Capitals vs Panthers

Yesterday, after beginning our home improvement spree, Sarah and I headed into DC to watch a hockey game.

Before the game, we arrived a little early and went to see the Elvis at 21 exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. It was a really interesting exhibit, and good to see pictures of Elvis before he reached the crazy Jumpsuit stage. I really like the National Portrait Gallery -its right next to the Verizon Centre and the American History Museum, and has some fun exhibits. One of my favourites is Americans Now, with pictures of famous Americans alive now.

After having a lovely dinner at a local Mexican, we went to see the game. I was wearing my Christmas present from Jim and Kristine, which I think is rather fetching (thanks again guys):

The game was against the Florida Panthers, from Sunshine Florida (?). The game got off to a poor start, with a lacklustre performance at the beginning and the Caps going doing 1-0 in the first period. They improved a little in the second period, and seemed to start trying in the third, eventually winning 3-2. A good game, although a little slow at the start, and rather lacking in checks or fights....*

Decisions: Painting the Kitchen

So, we are going to be painting the kitchen soon(ish). This filled me with excitement, as based on my specialist skills, I was not allowed to go near paint on large surfaces as a child. Today, I was allowed to help paint four test squares, got to hold the brush, and only got through two changes of paint-spattered clothing.

The colo(u)rs to choose from are below:

Left: Velvet Leaf

Mid Top: Green Myth

Mid Bottom: Embellished Blue

Right: Asparagus

So far, Embellished Blue is my favourite....

Happy New Year 2011

Happy New Year!

Sarah and I got back late from Florida last night, and celebrated the New Year on English time, with Pizza and Champagne in the new house, before crashing into bed early.

This morning, to walk off the extra food - we headed off for a drive and found a local park to walk around, getting slightly lost in the process. We still have a lot of exploring to do.

Last year was an amazing and busy year - and am so grateful for all the help of everyone who helped us move and settle into America.

Happy New Year all.

Winter in Germantown

As the New Year rolls around; I wanted to post some photo's from just before Christmas, when Andy and Marion came to visit us in the snow. We had a light shower the week before Christmas, which luckily cleared in time for us to head off to Florida.

This is the two of them on a path towards the lake:

Here is me on our deck:

And Sarah, showing the snow on the street:

One cool thing, on the night before Christmas Eve, we heard a wailing of sirens and beeping of horns. As we looked out of our window, we saw Santa driving by on the back of a Fire Engine, accompanied by two ambulances: