Kingfisher Cove

Decking the Harstine Halls!

Put up the tree last night and how cool was THAT!!?? I haven’t actually put the tree up the past two Christmases (just haven’t been in the mood, and I’m sure that 99.9% of that was because I knew that Nate wouldn’t be around for the holidays). Makes all the difference knowing that the kiddo WILL be around this year, even if it’s after the actual holiday. (But not by much).

But this is a first: Christmas tree at Harstine! Wow! Kind of figured the tree might be dwarfed here in the [cavernous] Harstine house, but it’s just fine. Yeah, a big ol’ tree would be dramatic and probably fitting, but I just wouldn’t want to deal with SCAFFOLD to decorate the damned thing. 7-1/2 feet tall is perfectly A-OK.

And here it is!

The very instant that we set the tree up and turned on the lights to make sure they worked, look who all had to check it out!

And once the ornaments were up, MOJO had to slap around his favorite, which is a furry teddy bear that he has slapped around since he was a kitten! What a character.

Guess what my favorite ornament is? (heh heh)

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It snowed a little bit this morning! For a while, we wondered what we might be in for as it was coming down, but it ended up less than an inch (which was perfectly fine by us!)

Then it got purdy!!

Helen and Ron came over this afternoon and we had SUCH A GREAT TIME. We were so busy yapping our faces off and eating Cougar Gold cheese and drinking wine and did I mention yapping our faces off that I didn’t even think to take any photos. I feel just sick about that! Crap! I can’t believe that it didn’t even occur to me. But we really did have a ball. Helen hadn’t seen the house since just before the 4th of July (and John hadn’t even begun to assemble or install the kitchen cabinetry then). Her husband hadn’t been here since they spent the night on top the tent deck under the stars one summer weekend, which had to be at least 3 or 4 years ago!  Way before the trees started coming down to make room for the house.

SUCH A FUN DAY!!!!

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I did a little more decorating this evening.

Santas!!!

And, the other side of the dining room:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kind of a leisurely day (this morning especially) since no cooking was necessary. (I know, don’t hate me). I packed up some things to take to Harstine tomorrow morning (including some kitchen stuff to MOVE down there for once and for all) while John worked in the garage on his sluice! Yep, for gold panning. He has designed a “high-banker” combination sluice and dredge and he is machining every element of it. (He’s definitely got the bug! And it’s a nice distraction from finishing up the house). (He is retired, after all!)

He ALSO loaded up the truck with all of the Christmas stuff. ALL OF IT. (Holy crap). I’m excited, though, because for the first time in two years, I’m putting the tree up, and how cool will it be to have it up at Harstine! (I imagine that tree will look small in that cavernous space). It’ll be fun. And I’ll have a lot of choices as to what extent I want to decorate. There are some limitations since there’s no shelving and no mantel, but I should be able to make it cheerful. That is, after I clean the floors again.

                                                       

We met my dad and Cathy, and my brother, sister-in-law, and niece at a nice restaurant just south of Everett for dinner late this afternoon —Emery’s on Silver Lake. Of course, we couldn’t see the lake because it was DARK.

It had pluses and minuses:

Pluses

• Overall, the food was really good. You could choose a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner or else a number of other items from the menu. (John and I both had the turkey dinner; my brother had a great looking steak).
• Best pumpkin pie I’ve ever had. (I realize that I’ve had mostly store-bought pumpkin pie over the last several years and I should never do that ever again. This was absolutely sublime).
• They also had a cranberry relish dish that was sooooo gooood! And I don’t normally like cranberry relish (and especially that godawful canned slop…) but this had a nice hit of cinnamon that made it a party in my mouth! John really liked it, too.
• The restaurant was attractive (timber framed, not hoity-toity) and the service was really great. I felt sorry for the wait staff, because it was BUSY in there. Plus, they had to work on Thanksgiving. (I tipped well!)
• The restaurant was an open concept, so the regular “eating” part opened into the “bar” part with no barrier. We were in the bar side, which was great because we had access to several big screen TVs playing the Thanksgiving Seahawks game against the 49ers. It was fun because every once in a while the crowd would holler and clap  and carry on and it was festive!
• Great to see my family!

Minuses

• No choice for dark meat turkey. (I don’t *hate* white meat, but it’s not my preference. And, to be fair, for white meat it was really good and they were generous with it).
• The dressing/stuffing was a huge disappointment! I love dressing and John doesn’t so I look forward to it once a year. It was honestly nothing more than relatively large chunks of bread that had been soaked in turkey broth with a tiny bit of sage sprinkled on it. Blech. Shame on them.
• With the timber frame architecture (plus the busy-ness of the restaurant), it was extremely noisy. The acoustics pretty much sucked in there and it was really difficult to carry on a conversation with anyone.

But it was still fun, and I enjoyed chatting (hollering!) with my sister-in-law who sat next to me. Good to see my dad, although I worry about him.

It was dim (and crowded) in there, so I didn’t capture a decent picture. (I tried, but the two I got are really bad). I’m hoping my brother got a half-way decent one! And there was no way I was going to ask our server to take a photo. That would have have been cruel.

AND (fanfare…) – SEAHAWKS WON!!!! Woohoo!!!!

Ahhhh…

For the first time in…forever? I’ve had a heckuva mild work week (although traffic has sucked, which surprised me because I figured it would be a traffic-light work week, but no). And a short work week at that! Chucklehead and the misogynist CEO were out of the office (Chucklehead in another office so that others can deal with his buffoonery, and the CEO in Aruba or some-such-place sending pool-side photos to our office manager to rub it in) and their absence has been divine. Plus, no killer deadlines for once! By the way, three out of three of the last killer proposals/deadlines I did were WINNERS—each multi-million $$$ winners! Not that I’ll see any of it aside from my regular paycheck, but winning is still good.

I left at noon today and headed to Fred Meyer to pick up some but not all of the items I’ll need for this weekend at Harstine. We’ll head down Friday morning. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, we’ll meet up with my brother and my dad and family at a nice restaurant in Everett, but not until later in the afternoon (which means we’ll miss the Seahawks game! Bummer!) (John’s going to record it, though. And it may not be worth watching! But, just in case!)

After Fred Meyer, I finally had my hair appointment with the new gal with curly hair experience! I love how close her salon is to home (Des Moines), but now I wish I could pack her up and move her down to Shelton (or at least Olympia) in close proximity to Harstine. It was wonderful. I liked her a lot personally, and I loved that she uses the same products that I do (and even gave me a sample of a new product they’ve come out with). She totally “gets” it. She cut my hair dry to follow the curl pattern (my previous stylist refused to do that and had never heard of such a thing), she didn’t towel-dry my hair (in fact, just let it drip—best thing ever for curly hair), and let me replicate her hand at twirling hair strands after applying the gel and also inserting the clips on top to prevent flat-top (a bane of curly girls). I’ve been trying the clips, but never got the hang of it. She taught me how! I’m also really happy with the color (and man did I need it! Hated all the gray showing every-damned-where!) The thing I learned and liked maybe best of all was that instead of using the diffuser on a hair dryer, she stuck me under the BIG DRYER for about 20-25 minutes and I realized that’s the way to go. (God I hate diffusing). She said even a relatively cheapy hard-bonnet hair dryer would be the ticket, and I found one on Amazon for only about $40. I’ll just need to figure out how to situate it so that I can be under it while I do my makeup in the morning so I’m not wasting time.

She just trimmed my hair (it was in really good shape so didn’t require more than that), except she did cut some layering at the top—something my previous stylist balked at doing. (I don’t know why!) I knew it needed that! Not having some layering up there was causing the top of my hair to flatten something fierce. As typical with color, it was a l-o-n-g appointment, but I knew it would be. And it was definitely expensive. Youch. With curly hair, I don’t have to go in as often, though. So here we are!

Red Letter Weekend!

Yesterday, John removed the construction paper that has covered most of the hardwood floors for many many months (the entire living room and big ol’ entryway). He’d removed the kitchen paper once it was pretty much completed in there, and then the dining area paper once we got the dining set. But we’ve traipsed on the paper everywhere else—that was sun-bleached and had spots from construction matter and critter remnants (thanks to Mojo and Wylie…) since way back early last spring right after he’d finished installing the hardwood. IT WAS EYE-OPENING. It’s looking like a HOUSE instead of a construction site! We are getting there! (Still lots to do in the master bathroom). But wow. And another kind of wow when that paper was removed because it was amazing how much construction dust and otherwise-dust had seeped down beneath all of that (double-thick!) paper.

John went over what he could with the shop vac (note: bring down the Dyson next weekend!) and then I got to work swiffering and heavy-duty mopping. It felt like ACRES. I had to do it in sections and allow areas to dry first so DOGS AND CATS didn’t walk across the wet mopped floors. (Still happened a couple of times). I felt a leeeeetle bit of panic about what I’m in for. Sure looks nice when it’s clean and gleaming, though.

(The first photo below is a pano [panorama] so be sure to click it to see it much bigger):

 

The 29-year-old Lazy Boy rocker/recliner I bought just before Nate was born.** Pretty lonesome!

You can see Wylie’s butt in this one:

In addition to hand-mopping, I’d also used my little robot mop yesterday (which does a good job, but the volume of flooring is a bit much for it) and it freaked out Wylie. For some reason she thinks it’s hiding under the chair and she has continuously approached that chair with an abundance of caution. Cracks me up.

Below is looking down the entryway from the dining area. Those wicked looking black “blades” are the structures to hold up eventual shelving (both sides of the entry hall) to display some of my glass and John’s woodwork (plus possibly some books and other fun things). So, no, it’s really not a chamber of horrors.

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Margaret posted this photo on Facebook after I’d posted the chair picture; she is sitting IN THAT VERY CHAIR holding NEWBORN NATE! Within a couple of weeks, she gave birth to her first daughter! The photo made me all teary! It’s still a pretty great chair after all of these years.

I love how baby Nate is “winking” at her.

Bummed!

I had been looking so forward to my hair appointment this evening (scheduled early last week) with a new stylist who totally “gets” curly hair, but she left a message with me today that she was sick. I feel bad for her (she sounded really punk on my voice mail), but I’m sure hoping she can get me in next week (before Thanksgiving!!) as MY GRAY ROOTS ARE DRIVING ME BATSHIT CRAZY.

My last visit to my regular stylist who I’d been going to for the past 15 years (!) made me realize it was time to break up with her. She was obviously clueless about curly hair, which I’d decided to embrace this past summer. And what really did it for me was her condescending attitude about all of the things I’d learned about caring for curly hair, which is so different from caring for non-curly hair, and she basically just rolled her eyes. Things like cutting curly hair dry so that the curl pattern is evident. And using sulfate-free and silicone-free products to prevent frizz—the bane of curly girls. Or special methods of diffuser drying; squeeze-drying the hair with microfiber towels or t-shirts instead of terry cloth (again, to prevent frizz). She had no time or patience for any of that, and so I started looking around for salons who specialized in curly hair. And one JUST OPENED UP here near Des Moines (she’d relocated from somewhere else).

The “new” gal told me when I made the appointment that the day I came in I needed to NOT use any products on my hair so she could see my natural state. Jesus, did I ever gulp. I rely on my made-for-curly-hair products to define the curl so I don’t look like a wild woman! At work! So, today, I looked like a wild woman. And then it turned out I did so for no good reason, and I “get” to do that all over again. (But yes, of course I do feel bad for her for being sick!)

Defined curls:

Wild (frizzy) undefined curls:

At least the frizz somewhat masks my gray roots.

P.S. This is the longest my hair has been in a really long time.

Back to Idiotville

I swear weekends are on spin cycle. The time flies by so damned fast between arriving to Harstine Friday night and then finding my butt in my cubicle chair on Monday morning (having to face Chucklehead the moron) that I have to physically shake my head like a cartoon character (you know, like after the anvil hits Wile E. Coyote).

At least WYLIE (da kitty, named because she survived a night amongst coyotes when John found her near the construction dumpster at Harstine last fall) caught the bus home this time. I really missed the lil’ shit (our other name for her) last week, and I’m very glad to have her company again. I think John enjoyed having BOTH cats with him at Harstine last week, though. (Mojo’s kind of a butt to her).

It was a beautiful weekend, gorgeous and sunny, but veddy cold. (19° Sunday morning). John had been in the studio (our current “bedroom”) and emerged saying, “Wow! A Blue Heron just landed in that tree out there!” It was right off the deck, and what a sight! They are such gigantic birds, and yet they are extremely light-weight (all feathers, apparently!) because the branch hardly moved. I started out taking some photos from inside through the deck doors, and then decided to risk him flying off and ventured out onto the deck. There, I took a bunch! He spent a lot of time grooming himself, and peering around, and for as close as I really was, he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Be sure to click to embiggen. (The zoom on our cheapy little digital camera did great!)

Pretty cool, huh?

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John worked solidly all weekend on the kitchen backsplash tile, and OMG. We are soooo happy with it. It took a lot of doing just to find the tile that went well with the granite. In fact, he had begun to install a different tile a while back, and when he sent me photos, I was not at all jazzed. I hated to say anything about it (didn’t want to be a diva), but it was a mix of different colored and textured squares that seemed to go with the granite OK, but just looked checker-boardy. The strangest thing happened, though: he’d applied a small section of it to the primered backsplash wall, and it all fell off! The adhesive refused to play nice with the primer! I was secretly happy about that, although he later had to go back and paint that backsplash to lay down a decent foundation. And then we discussed going a different route (i.e., never mind about the checkerboard tile) and find something that went better. My feeling was that since the granite (and the kitchen as a whole) was pretty darned awesome, the backsplash needed to be, too. And he totally agreed. And…he finally found it.

See what I mean, jelly bean?

And while that picture (above) really does show how perfect of a complementary match it all is, the final pics kind of don’t. The camera just doesn’t capture how well it all goes as it tends to overly highlight the lighter pieces, making it look “busy.” But trust me. It looks astounding.

(Be sure to embiggen the one above so you can see the aqua glass accent strip—which is awesome!)

Tonight’s Post No. Deux! Pics of Navy Nate!

I captured these off his ship’s post of photos on Facebook depicting the retirement of a fellow sonar tech. At first I thought the retiree had died (with the folded flag and long serious face), but no.

I’ve always thought sailors’ uniforms were so cuuuute! (Yeah, sorry, Nate. I meant coooool!)

Pretty Sick of Humanity

No, not you.

(My 3 or 4 readers don’t fall in that category, so rest assured).

But here’s the thing:

• The company’s board met this week, composed of 6 or 7 old crony buddies of the firm’s retired founder (also an old crony) who all flew in on First Class from places like Palm Beach, hired a limo to drive them to the office from the airport, ordered the WOMEN around to meet their whims (like, you know, “get me a more comfortable chair” and “bring me some real cream for my coffee”) and then they charged the company thousands of dollars for high-end meals at high-end Seattle restaurants complete with several-hundred-dollar bottles of wine and top-shelf booze. (But, they can’t be bothered to pay our receptionist benefits).
• While I was BEYOND my eyeballs today cranking on yet another proposal with yet another impossible deadline, Chucklehead decided to perch his (increasing) bulk fatitude beside me and ‘splain some banal, abstract pie-in-the-sky concept that I couldn’t care two cents about (plus didn’t pertain to anything I do), while spitting on me, slapping my shoulder, and again with that “Right? Right? Right?” crap. Jesus, the buffoonery. All I can do is arrange my face into a neutral expression and stare blankly. Otherwise…
• (Otherwise I’d commit murder).
• (I was imagining what I could do with the fork I keep in my drawer. But because he is one of those creeps who invades personal space, I knew the effect of using that fork would result in an awfully gross mess all over my person.)
• Yes, I’ve been reading murder mysteries. Plus, a new Stephen King novel.
• I did a positive thing today: I “unfriended” a number of people on Facebook. I was *done* with threats against President Obama, posts of cartoons of him being lynched, and people blaming the First Lady of “forcing” their precious child to eat a corn dog at school. Yeah. A corn dog. Really. (Now, broccoli might be encouraged, but certainly not “forced.” But a corn dog? I’m sure Fox News was the source of that!)

Idiots. This country is run amok with them.

Bitterly Cold

But you wouldn’t know it by looking at a thermometer. Yeah, 42° is rather chilly, and 36° is getting a little winterish (and the anticipated 28° tonight will be bordering on pretty damned frigid), but it’s the WIND on top of that range of temperatures that is kicking butts. It’s a constant, relentless “breeze” at all times with frequent breath-sapping gusts that turn your eyes and nose into faucets and bend you over at the waist even though you’re wearing your winter coat with a thick fluffy scarf all spiraled around your neck and heavy-duty tights beneath your go-to-work pants. That wind is from the east, ricocheting off icebergs that must have mosied their way down into America’s heartland from the Arctic and taken up residence in their Polar Vortex. I swear that wind drives molecules of invisible ice through the layers of clothing and feasts on the bloodstream, meanwhile flipping the bird at thermometers. “Fooled ya!”

Hell, it’s been miserable! Beautiful, if you’re peering out a window. Miserable if you’re out in it.

We aren’t accustomed to this! We have had pretty much 9 solid months of above-average temperatures (and one of the warmest and most delightful summers ever), PLUS the warmest October on record! And this long-lasting wind is just weird. Lots of trees down, lots of power outages. Even as I “speak,” I’m hearing the constant grating shriek of branches against the back windows and it’s damned creepy because I’m home alone.

I’m feeling fortunate the power hasn’t gone out here, but the flickering lights make me really nervous.

I suppose I ought to stop whining; Portland, OR is supposed to get 6 inches of snow tonight!

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I have NEWS!!! Because my iPhone has all sorts of issues (since the last iOS upgrade) and one of those issues is I’m no longer getting the audible alerts from text messages and calendar reminders regardless what I do to fix it, I discovered late Sunday that Nate had sent me a message.

“Hey! Sandra and I have leave for December 29th – January 9th!!!!! We’re driving up in the truck! Bringing the dogs, too, if that’s OK! lol Love you!”

I had honestly given up hope of seeing him over the holidays, and especially the both of them—it just didn’t sound possible that they would be able to get leave at the same time. It’s a shame it can’t be over Christmas, but who says Christmas has to fall on December 24th/25th? I suspect they won’t actually get here until…the 31st? New Years Eve? Which might mean he/they will prefer to “party” with his buddies here in Des Moines. As you can see, I’m not sure what the logistics will be, and we will likely be at Harstine, not in Des Moines. (Have no desire whatsoever to be in Des Moines…) I’m trying not to worry too much about things, but I will want to take some time off from work, and I need to figure out when that best time would be (considering that some of it would be without pay because the company is so damned shitty). Should I do some Christmas decorating at Harstine? (Yeah, that’s a no-brainer. I’d been planning to do at least a little of that anyway! Including the TREE!) But will they come down there and spend some time with us, considering that it’s a fair distance away from Nate’s friends? Things are far enough along in the house now to accommodate them (guest bedroom is done and the guest bathroom is 99.9% done!) And I’ve also got a pretty decent kitchen.

And…dogS?? I knew Sandra had a dog, but I didn’t realize there was more than one…?

We need to at least move the couch down there.

(I also need to have a conversation with my kiddo and figure some things out).

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John got the guest bathroom shower tile all grouted and all the “appurtances” installed! (Huge job. Everything is!)

Wylie “missed the bus” Sunday night and so I’ve been catless all week. Oh man, do I ever miss that little shit. I miss Mojo, too, but I’ve grown accustomed to him being gone during the work-week now (I don’t think he’s been away from Harstine since…July?) Looking so forward to THIS week (and every week…) being over so I can spend my blink-of-an-eye weekend back in paradise.

A Sheen of Construction Dust

Grrrr.

At least I was forewarned. (Well, and I would have expected it anyway, as it was on its way to happening last weekend). John had to do a fair amount of grinding sheetrock on the fireplace to flatten areas for tile and that dust just coats everything. I do believe that there will be no additional sheetrock grinding, thank-you-very-much.

But this is what greeted me when we arrived to Harstine:

 

The kitchen was just as bad, plus it had dried splashed “something” all over the place.

So, I got busy today with a combination of the Swiffer, the robot mop, the Roomba, and my manual mop and bucket. (I am looking forward to the time when we pull up the rest of all this construction paper, but I’m also…dreading it. Jeeze).

Hours later, I’m a much happier Tonya.

The biggest challenge is KEEPING THE DOGS OFF THE WET FLOOR. I don’t know how many times I had to go back over where they had left doggie footprints. ARGH! They are like Velcro to me here.

As for the fireplace, lookie here!

He plans to build the mantel out of curly maple. (That will come later).

His major effort this week has been the guest bathroom tile. Oh, does it ever look nice in there!!

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We’ve never seen them here before, but there was an apparent sailboat race through Peale Passage today. It’s a nice, calm, and sunny(ish) day for a change (after so much wind and rain), so this was a soothing view to behold! (click ‘em to embiggen).

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Update: I just had to add our neighbor, Rich’s, spectacular sunset photo from this evening (I completely missed the sunset!) He said he laid on his belly on the beach and held the camera above the water a couple of inches to capture the reflection. It’s amazing. Makes me think of space nebula. Be sure to click to enlarge.