December 20 , 2004  Christmas

Christmas is here - oh joy. Feeling very humbug this year. Just not down with the holidays at all. My family is far away and many of my close friends are scattered around the world and I really miss them. Sooo then, off to Tahoe! I can't wait for the snowboarding season to start. It's so good to get out of the city and to the mountains. It purifies me (I need all the help I can get in the purification dept folks). I think I'm going to do some serious park work this year. Watch Jen faceplant it! I just got a haircut and it makes me look like an adult. Not sure how I feel about that. Ok, someone tell me a joke as I could really use a good laugh right now.

December 14, 2004  Our Patio

We started building our patio out back over the weekend. Take a look here and here is Tom at work. Underneath that clean skreed flat sand is about 30 bags full of crushed rock we laid to make the foundation flat and stable.

We are going to put pots all around on the patio as it is the sunniest spot in the garden. We will need to get a table and chairs as well. Fun!

We had more plumbing issues over the weekend. Apparently the people who worked on the house before we moved in really didn't have a clue of what they were doing. Honestly, I could have gone to the hardware store, grabbed some pipes and silicone and probably done a better job. They hacked everything up. Damn you Steve and Cindy Chen! You suck! Luckily, a lot of the damage is covered under homeowner's warranty insurance. Next thing to check - the furnace.

November 20, 2004  Moving In

There is so much going on and I've been off-line for a while and unable to post. We've officially moved into our new house! It is so amazing! Tom's parents came from England and helped us dig out the whole garden, build a path and lay out a general plan. We spent a lot of time doing this. We are still waiting for the structural engineer to get back to us on the wall we want removed and the changes to the fireplace. I think it will take some time to work this out. Then we are getting the main floor hardwood floors refinished. All of this pretty much has to be completed before we can put furniture down and start unpacking. We have been living mostly downstairs, and in the kitchen and sunroom.

It was great to spend time with the in-laws at the new house. They really loved it and can see all of the potential. They really liked the neighborhood as well, which made me feel much better about it. It's not that I don't like the neighborhood, I am just adjusting to being a little farther out.

We have a LOT of ideas, and to be honest, most of them are not too much of a stretch to do ourselves within a pretty tight budget. The place is so gonna rock!

Pictures to come...

November 11, 2004  Keys

We got the keys to our house! It is really exciting. We have been packing and bringing boxes over every night. There is so much that needs to be done to the house it isn't funny. Contractors still have to come and knock down the wall, refinish the fireplace and fix up the hardwood floors. I'm not even going to mention how gross the kitchen is- we are going to have to wait a while to fix that up. Oh, and the garden is a massive jungle of weeds- heck, at least we know it is furtile!

In other news, the capoeira competition went well. And I got my orange-yellow cord to boot. Yay! I was pretty burned out after the workshops, jogos and batizado, but I am going to get back into training again shortly. I will also start my full-time employment at Macromedia on December 6! I know, I know...crazy cube life. This is what happens when you have a mortgage payment.

October 19, 2004  House Buying

We are still in the process of buying our house. It's a little bit frustrating, but I think it will work out best for us in the end. The sellers have to do some repairs on the house and have the city approve them before we get the keys. Everything else is all lined up and set to go. We even had contractors come in to give us estimates on the floors, taking the wall out and redoing the fireplace. Hopefully we can have all of that done before we move in. Tom's parents are coming to visit from England in a few weeks. We were hoping to at least have the keys by then, but we might not. Too bad- it would have been nice if they could have stayed there (with all those EXTRA bedrooms!).

On top of all of this I am training for the upcoming jogos competition Nov 5th. I'm pretty nervous about it, but I'm just going to try my best. I've been training regularly, but nothing over the top. Really looking forward to Mestre Camisa's workshops as they always get you flowing. They are the Mon-Thurs before the Friday competition. Oh, and Saturday is the batizado too. Like I said, LOTS going on.

I'm also having a pretty big life change work wise. I am accepting a full-time position at one of the companies I have been freelancing at for some time. Looks like I will be living the cube-life (sigh). But it brings a steady paycheck and I already have lots of friends there, so it's really a good thing...just...different.