Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weather. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Kitchen Conundrum: Moving On, Moving In

We spent the past weekend cleaning (and cleaning and cleaning!) the kitchen, finishing the paint touch-ups, and finally moving back in. It was fine to be stuck inside doing these things, since we woke up to a white world on Saturday.

Our front yard:


Lincoln Park a few blocks to the south:


Another reason to feel glad about the arrival of winter is the excuse to make warm, stew-y food. Our first real meal to cook in our new kitchen was beef short ribs braised in red wine. Yum.


More pics to come of the new , complete kitchen soon, right after all the odds and ends find homes. For now, it's so nice to eat food that doesn't come out of the microwave. Hurrah!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Kitchen Conundrum: Over the Weekend

We worked hard on the kitchen over the weekend, but what we did (sanding, caulking, priming) doesn't make too much visual impact. Here it is anyway:



Today we were graced by some white stuff outside too:


The Professionals are back tomorrow for what we all hope is one last go-round. Then we can finish up with the painting, cleaning, and moving back in!

(Lesson learned: if you have the opportunity to paint your kitchen BEFORE the cabinets go up, do it. All that cutting in gets old fast.)

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Goodnight Irene, Goodnight

Last night we survived our first hurricane (after living through a tropical depression or two while going to college in Houston). Here's what our preparation looked like:

We pulled all of our outdoor stuff (hand-me-down patio furniture, trash cans, grill, compost pails) under our back porch and piled sand bags against the basement door. Here's Mr. MJ sweeping up debris around the storm drain.



We also moved all of our container garden into the back porch.



Kind of looks like a makeshift green house. Otherwise, we battened down every hatch we could find and bought one of the last packs of D batteries in the city (seemingly), along with bread, cheese, crackers, and bottled water.

Our neighbors across the alley prepared by cutting down a big old catalpa tree in their back yard (if you squint you can see the worker strapped to the trunk; sad to see that one go...it made amazing looking seed pods). You can see the storm clouds moving in beyond the houses.



And this morning, we woke up to electricity and a dry house. Hurrah! We consider ourselves very lucky in this regard. Here's the tail end of Irene moving on out. I'll see you in my dreams, old girl!