• Neverending Math Equation
• Onomatopoeia
• Free Translator
• Mad for Plaid
• Vintage Beauty
• Looking Bright

I created a gallery of the goings-on. Here are some of the dramatic before-and-after shots.

The living and dining room had ill-fitted carpet and dark wood-paneled walls.

Painted walls and laminate floors open up this space.

The kitchen before renovation was cluttered and the cabinets were decades old.

The new kitchen has new cabinets against the back wall and a more spacious feel. The blue walls add a cozy touch.

For more photos of the dramatic changes, see my flickr gallery.

Historical Record (Ignore the coffee stain on it.)

We think this would be a fun idea, but I’m now wondering if naming it after the first guy who lived there really makes any sense. How do houses get their names? Or maybe we could make it the John and Sarah Wood house? I guess we’d have to find out if these people were worthy of having a house named after them.

I suppose we can call it anything we want, since we own it.

I really could have bought a lot of fabric at IKEA, but I only got a yard of this on sale for $4 a yard.

With half of the yard, I made the bag. With the other half, I made this wall hanging.

Truthfully, the wall hanging was what I made first. The bag was an afterthought. The frame for the wall hanging was also purchased at IKEA and was Matthew’s idea.

I don’t see myself jumping headfirst into craftiness. I think a few projects at a time are all I can handle. My next project is going to be curtains for the dining room.

On Monday it was about 60 degrees in the shade. I scraped and painted the floor of our front porch. Our doorway is on the right (the one with the cute home plate mat — which was an engagement gift from Jennifer Myszkowski. We also got a cute new floor mat for our wedding from Alyson and Bill. It has monkeys on it. We are saving that one for when this one wears out. But, enough about the doormats). One of our tenants gave me the news that it was going to rain that night, so I only got to put one coat of paint on the floor. When the weather gets warmer again, we plan to do more painting on the porch.

On Wednesday night, we went to the Rag Shag Parade in Easthampton. I had never heard of such an event,  but it’s basically a chance for kids and parents to walk down the streets of the city, while the police direct traffic away from downtown. The kids are dressed up in their Halloween costumes and there are essentially no spectators, just parade participants. We did not follow the entire parade through town, but Matt tells me they head for some location where they are given free candy. Matt grew up in Easthampton and did this as a kid.

During the day on Wednesday, I spent some time at the Holyoke Mall. What is a week off without at least one pilgrimmage to the Holyoke Mall? I bought a few tops in anticipation of the new job, had my eyes checked at the optometrist and treated myself to a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I finished it Saturday afternoon. Isn’t it pretty?

Jigsaw puzzles are a fruitless activity, which can be a good and a bad thing. On the one hand it’s very zen to focus on something with absolutely no reward except the act itself. On the other hand, it took hours away from my life.

Despite my reputation as a highly organized person, I will often wait to do things until the last minute. One of those things was purchasing a pumpkin for Friday night’s 2nd annual Halloween pumpkin carving extravaganza. As the week progressed I casually noticed that there were fewer and fewer pumpkins available at the Stop and Shop. On Thursday, I drove around Chicopee listening to Winterpills and trying to find a damn pumpkin.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoon when I finally tore myself away from the jigsaw puzzle and drove to Atkins Farms in Amherst. Atkins was out of big pumpkins, but I ended up picking up the last pumpkin at a roadside farmstand in Granby. The guy sold it to me for four bucks. On my way back I shot some photos of the Holyoke Dam area. This shot is of the South Hadley side.

And here is the carved pumpkin, which we ended up naming Barack O’Lantern, because that’s what you do when you are hanging out with a bunch of commies.

I did a lot more activities, including Endless Shrimp on Tuesday night, but I’d rather not talk about that. Our close friend Amy was also in town for the weekend and so we spent some time with her. And just this morning I met up with a few Twitter friends at a Starbucks in Connecticut.

Anyway, more blogging will happen from here on out. It feels like the seal has been broken.

Seriously, the smell was that bad. At first I thought it was cat fart. But when the smell was still in the room when we came back from a wedding Sunday, we knew that SOMETHING was wrong. It kind of smelled like a cross between faint skunk smell and garbage. And garlic.

Just to make sure we weren’t crazy, we turned on the purified all day today while we were at work, but the smell was there when we got home. So, tonight, while we were having dinner at Matt’s mom’s house, we put it in the den. Sure enough, when we got home tonight, the smell was in the den!

In the meantime, we had stripped the sheets and pillowcases, and there is now a rule that no cats can be in the bedroom, on account of my breathing. So, that room is really a sanctuary now. So although I still get dried out from the A/C, it’s not as bad. And the air purifier probably did some kind of purifying during its short stay in our bedroom

Long story for a boring topic.

Anyone have a good recommendation for air cleaners?

I woke up thinking it was going to be one I would just want to get through and be done with. I had an 8:30 appointment at the oral surgeon to look at a spot that has been on my pallette for at least a year. There was the possibility of a biopsy, but I was hopeful that it was nothing and he’d send me on my way. Then there was the memorial service for a friend of Matt’s.

When I got to the doctor’s office, I was wrong about being sent on my way. The doctor called me princess and love and sweetness as he poked novacaine into the roof of my mouth, scraped off the spot and then sewed me back up. A large Tigger stuffed animal sat in a chair staring at me all the while. I really wasn’t expecting that he’d have to order the biopsy. I’ve never felt pain in that area and he even remarked that it looked like it was getting smaller (comparing it to photos my dentist had taken one year and six months ago). When I got out of the doctor’s office, I went into work–this despite the fact that I was handed a prescription for vicodine and told I should take the rest of the day off. Popsicles and crushed ice were also suggested.

I headed home to meet up with Matt and we went to the service. Out of respect, I don’t want to go into details, but I will say that it was beautiful. The sermon was comforting as was the music as performed by many of her friends.

When we got home, we planted a small forsythia in the back. As we dug up the earth, we found rock after rock that we then placed around the plant, which we subsequently named Rocky. We also dug up three holes where we will be planting small lilac transplants after dinner.

It’s nice to sit on our pack porch and see the forsythia out there, surrounded by an imperfect circle of rocks.

Today was important.