Surprise snow too, which is my favorite kind. I find the various permutations of “Will it snow” exhausting. (Though there are many fewer permutations now that I mostly work from home.)
I enjoyed how the snow coated the catio.
And you can see that there was a lot of it!
Matt and I made ice cream snow to celebrate. Matt says he’s not had ice cream snow before. I’m not sure if that’s true. But we both enjoyed it.
Matt and I really enjoyed the world premiere of Young Americans by Lauren Yee and directed by Desdemona Chiang.
The then-and-now road trips were engaging. The first was with Joe (Danny Bernardo) and Jenny (Marielle Young). Jenny has flown to Washington D.C. to meet with Joe as part of an arranged marriage. When she finds out how far away their home in Portland, Oregon, is from Washington D.C., she’s annoyed that Joe had her fly to the other side of the country. Joe wanted her to see as much of her new home as he could show here in a cross country trip.
The second trip took place a few decades later with Joe surprising his daughter Lucy in Washington D.C. as she returned from visiting the country where she was born.
As these two trips alternated, it was interesting to see the conversations the young (as in new) Americans and young (as in not-old) Americans had.
I also really enjoyed the car that the cast drove as they made there way across the landscape. It swiveled and turned so the audience had differing views.
This play was enjoyable and left me with a lot to think about.
I love these little solders that stand at attention on top of the fenceposts long after the other snow has abandoned the fence. (Plus, bonus icicle!)
They stood at attention all down the fence.
Here’s one. Mike Bennett had a popup shop near the Living Room Theaters and I bought this cute little ornament that has the old PDX airport carpet on it.
And the card holder has filled up nicely, though I know more are to come. When your card senders are teachers, often the cards aren’t dealt with until winter break begins.
And that’s it. Perhaps next year the decorations can start to appear again.
Here is our new dishwasher. I don’t love that we’ve been buying during a period of stainless steel popularity. It’s hard to keep up with the fingerprints and I find the industrial look to not be very homey. But still, I’m excited to have a functional appliance.
I’m also excited for this separate silverware rack. No more forks getting tangled in the basket.
The old dishwasher was indeed leaking. I had to remove things from the under-sink cabinet for this install, and I could see where the wood warped due to water exposure. It also warped the cabinet wood in the next cabinet over, too.
Aside from a new dishwasher, we also welcomed a new microwave and range hood. I’ve long wanted a better range hood. The one that came with the house never seemed to work, and the handywoman who installed the cat door told me it was probably too far away to do any good. By filling the space with the microwave that was probably always intended, we can lower the fan much closer to the burners.
Less exciting (and super frustrating) is the fact that when we bought this unit in August, the salesperson neglected to tell us that we would need to have an outlet to plug the unit into. Had we been told in August, we could have gotten on the electrician’s list and it would have been installed by delivery time. Instead, we have this workaround. And an electrician appointment in March.
In August, when the stove died, we also bought a dishwasher because ours was making a lot of concerning sounds and we learned with the stove that if you need to buy something today your choices are limited. So we have waited nearly four months for the arrival of said dishwasher, but the day has nearly arrived and the new dishwasher will be delivered tomorrow!
In late September, the floorboards in the front room started to warp. I thought about it for about a week or so before I put together the small amount of water that sometime appeared at the foot of the dishwasher with the fact that perhaps even more water was coming from the dishwasher and getting under the floorboards. So we stopped using the dishwasher for a two-week trial.
And the floors went down a little, so we just kept hand washing the dishes. Talk about a chore that is thankless! I remembered why, in my pre-dishwasher days, I only kept four forks available.
This was the dishwasher that came with the house and it’s showing its age. Matt got tired of having to carefully place the silverware in the basket to avoid the holes and he bought us a new basked a few years ago. But the rest has done hard work getting our dishes clean for 15 years. You can see how some of the prongs on the racks have broken off and become rusty.
While I think 15 years is a bit on the low side…[pause for googling]…No, and Consumer Reports says 10 years is how long many dishwasher last. So we got an extra 5 years out of ours. Thanks dishwasher, for all your cleaning power!
Plus some fudge.
Working my way through the America’s Test Kitchen Best Ever Christmas Cookies, we have Maple-Pecan Swirls, Lemon Snowflakes, and Vanilla Icebox Cookies. These were shipped off to far-flung locales, and given as presents.
I enjoy a good vanilla icebox cookie. I liked the subtle flavor of the maple-pecan swirls and the lemon bite of the snowflakes.
The fudge was a bit crumbly, but still good.
My first two cards featured snowmen. That was a fun happenstance.
After many years of taping birthday and Christmas cards to the wall and then taping them again to the wall when they fell off, I finally googled “card holder” and found Barrington Butik’s shop on Etsy. She offers a long list of customizable colors for the rod and the macramé. I chose gray and yellow. Voila! My macramé arrived just in time to show off my birthday cards.
It’s going to be great for Christmas cards and will also look nice hanging there without cards.
Matt has had this Order of the Stick notepad for many years. He finally made it available for taking notes and we’ve come to the last sheet. Matt posed with it for posterity’s sake.
