Behold The Weekend

We have been out of town the last two weekends. I'm so happy to stay home this weekend and get my regular morning routine on. It's nothing special, consisting of 2 cups of coffee and catching up on the week's shows via DVR while the hubs sleeps in, but it's my routine and it makes my Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday though, I am headed out with a few friends to have a little of this.

Yes, an all you can eat and drink Oyster Roast. Plenty of beer and loads of oysters. LOVE.

On Sunday, I plan on getting back out in the yard and doing some mulching in these flower beds that I planted tons of bulbs in and cleaning up an area that we have planned for use as a big vegetable garden. I did not get any vegetables last year as we moved in June, leaving no time to plant tomatoes.

I was thrilled to see that the people that owned the house before us did have a little love for Spring flowers. We have daffodils blooming right now and crocus. I've also seen little tulips popping up in a few places that I actually did not plant any. Very Exciting.

Happy Weekend!!

Happy New Year!

WOW. Is it me, or did 2011 fly by in a matter of minutes? I can not believe it is over already. I wish I could find the secret to slowing the months down. Maybe I'll make it my personal goal of 2012 and then share that secret with everyone.

While I took a break (I know, shocker) from blogging over the Christmas and New Year holiday, I was busy lazy with laptop on couch reading all my regular favorites. I loved reading the recaps of favorite posts of 2011, and the New Years Resolutions here and there. I am working on mine right now and will post it later this week. Commitment phobe, right here.

We were actually busy on the 30th and 31st preparing for the 6th annual New Year's Eve dinner party with close friends, which we hosted at our new house this year. In the past, we've had a theme and each couple makes a dish and pairs a wine and presents it to the group in a friendly competition. This year we pared it down and had teams and you could choose not to enter the competition. The theme was Hawaiian and the food was great. We have some really competitive and accomplished chefs in our group of friends.

Of the seven dishes, four completed. To change up the competition this year, we added a Chopped/Iron Chef element. Competing teams had to use one or more of the following secret ingredients: Pineapple, banana leaves, ginger, macadamia nuts, Taro, Sugar, Seaweed, Puna Goat Cheese, Fish: ahi, shutome, opah, or opakapaka OR [wait for it] SPAM!!

We ended up with 3 appetizers (all entering the competition): 1) a rumaki, 2) a spam sushi roll with tuna poke and 3) a pineapple risotto with tempura shrimp and Spam), an Ox Tail soup, Salad with papaya and avocado, Entree of Kalua Pig with pineapple and Spam rice and Dessert of grilled pineapple with vanilla ice cream, macadamia nuts and a rum sauce (also in the competition). While the Spam was no one's favorite, it came out surprisingly well.

Setting a table for 21 was a bit challenging when it came to using what we had. There was definitely a Hodge Podge of differing lace tableclothes, 3 styles of napkin rings, 2 different sets of dishes, 2 different sets of flatware, 21 wine glasses, 21 napkins, 21 champagne glasses. All in all in still looked nice. Three dishwasher loads full and an awesome time had by all.



One of the three appetizers being plated for presentation, which took 2nd place to Dessert.

 

Salad preparations (YES, on my new bench cushion!)



Life at the Speed of Light

That title is what it feels like in my life right now. On June 10th we closed (on schedule!) on our new house, then we cleaned it FOR. TWO. DAYS, moved in on the 13th (with movers, , unpacked, cleaned The Old House, unpacked some more, then packed clothes and headed to Edisto Beach, SC for a week of vacation. We are back -- for almost a week. We leave this Friday for Emerald Isle, NC for the July 4th week.

Needless to say, there has not been much time for any type of projects. Those will come. One day.

But in the meantime, here are a few pictures of the clean empty new house. I thought I would take many more, but I was too exhausted to keep the camera in my mind! Luckily for us, my mom came up and stayed with us for a week - Sat. to Sat. to help us clean and unpack. That is the sole reason we are not still living out of boxes. Moms Rock. I came home from work on Friday to find our entire laundry/utility room cleaned and organized.

Masterbath

Masterbath

Master Bedroom

Living Room Looking in from Den

Kitchen

Kitchen

From my viewpoint, there is not a lot that needs to be done to this house. There are no obnoxious paint colors that are slapping us in the face. This is a nice change from The Old House. This time around we can change colors slowly as we start to decorate the rooms. After my next vacation (and perhaps some picture hanging), I will take some after shots of the rooms with furnishings. There are more 'before' shots but they are just bedrooms and kind of boring. I think they'll have more wow factor if I put them against the 'finished' room. Finished meaning "this is what we have to work with right now, but does not mean it's permanent."

I'll be back after our July 4th vacation!!

Massive News - An Update of Sorts

SOOO. We've been pretty busy at NW&TOH. If you read this post a few weeks ago, consider this an update. If you've not visited in a while, well I can't blame you as I've been pretty lame and weak in posting.

This picture should explain it all (or the post link above)!

That's right, The Old House is rented.

And in MORE news, we close on this beauty on June 10th!!
We're so excited and have so much to do. I will take pictures of the empty house when we get in there!

What She Said...

My friend Carol over at The Antique Texan wrote the most profound words. They moved me to share them here as well. Take a look here.

I just found out this AM about the death of bin laden and I was so happy. On the radio was much happiness in the report and it cut to the people outside the White House singing and chants of U-S-A! in the stands at the Phillies game. I haven't had much time to read articles on the major news sites today, but it is so concerning to me that there may be AMERICANS badmouthing any part of what went down. Have you forgotten the images of that day in September 10 years ago? If so you should go back and take a look. They are etched in my memories forever.

HUGE changes around "The Old House"?

If you've been a follower or have read my 'about me' blurb, you know that Mr. NW&TOH and I have been saving diligentily to buy our 'OUR House'. The [not so] Newlyweds are officially in the market!! With a down payment saved up and rental ads posted for 'The Old House', we are on our way to being homeowners, thrice (You did not think I could sell her did you? And his former house is also a rental.) The Old House and I have been together since 1998. I fell in love with her almost instantly, for various and sundry reasons, including...

...stained glass windows, ...her huge master bath,

...the creative artistic features added to some of the rooms,

the large rooms, high ceilings. But mostly, I could see the HUGE potential she had, even through ALL the work she needed. For now, the time has come for us to part ways at least as far as us living together. I hope she knows I will still be here to take care of her and I hope her our new tenants will love her and call her home the way I have for the last 13 years.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

We (or in some cases "I") have looked at 9 houses in the past 2 months and will see 5 on Sunday. We've really liked 3 of them. We were not really prepared to make an offer on the 1st two we saw (hadn't pre-qualified & hadn't prepared our rental listing). We did make an offer on the last one we've seen together but we lowballed it (it'd been on the market for 85 days) and asked for closing costs. However, another offer came in when our did and we REFUSE to get into a bidding war in the this market.

I'm a little sad. The house had a pool and was in a great neighborhood but it had no garage and was 300 square feet smaller than our smallest SF criteria. Oh well. So about the only luck we've had is for the sellers. If you're a seller in the Richmond market, you should invite us to see your home. If we like it, it seems to sell before we can do anything about it.

On the other hand, if you know anyone in the Richmond area looking to rent, send them over here. Here are the websites where they can find the listing:


http://www.findmyroof.com/ad/82179

http://www.forrentbyowner.com/?showpage=/classifieds/detail/&i=514666

http://www.realrentals.com/house-for-rent/?list_id=052418474

http://richmond.craigslist.org/apa/2332325260.html

Kinder, Gentler Winter?

I grew up in the South. Hand in hand with that was the arrival of the annual Farmer's Almanac. I remember my dad bringing home several copies from work. It was a given that the almanac would be at local businesses for distribution every year. What blows my mind is that this thing is still in publication and has been every year since 1818; and many farmer's still rely on this information when planting their crops.

I recently heard on a radio news report that the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a milder winter than last year. That only seems expected considering the amount of snow fall we had last year from New England all the wall down to Florida. Heck, I have pictures of my parents' beach house with snow on the beach. Snow on the Beach! It sounds like some kind of crazy concoction with ice cream that you could order at your favorite neighborhood bar!










Last year's almanac "predicted that February would bring widespread snowfall, including many blizzards. That prediction proved all too accurate, with snow blanketing states as far south as Florida and a beast of a storm – dubbed “Snowmageddon” by President Obama – shutting entire cities down throughout the Mid-Atlantic region."

In further reading the 2011 Winter Outlook, it is predicted that Old Man Winter will have a Split-Personality this year with colder than normal temperatures for those of us on in the East (even down to FL), milder than normal in the West and near normal for the middle of the country. There is also a prediction for 3 major storm systems. "In terms of precipitation, three storm tracks are expected to predominate during this upcoming winter season. One will be across the Gulf Coast and Southeast, delivering copious amounts of precipitation from lower Texas across the South (Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia) into the Mid-Atlantic region. A second storm track will be oriented across southwestern Canada into the Great Lakes, producing a procession of fast-moving “Alberta Clipper” systems that will bring snowier-than-normal conditions to parts of the Northern and Central Plains, and to the Ohio River and Great Lakes region. As these clipper systems move off the Atlantic Coast, colder-than normal conditions will move into much of the East. Disturbances sweeping in from the Pacific are expected to bring above-normal precipitation to parts of the Pacific Northwest. All things considered, when comparisons to last year are made, we believe that for most, it will turn out to be a “kinder and gentler” winter overall."

There are a lot of other fun things in the almanac like zodiac and astronomy AND they have stepped into this century and actually have a website. Here is a link if you are interested in ordering the hard copy or poking around the site.

To sum it up, the radio did not have it exactly right, unless you live on the West Coast. Looks like we here in the East will be in for another cold winter. I would like to see at least one snowfall. Only this time it would be great if it happened during the week so I might miss work instead of the weekends! After all, it IS an anomaly to get that much snow in central Virginia and so everyone does get out and take pictures and snowboard down snowy streets, and do things that make us look like tourists in a northern city.