Mon, Jun 22 2009 by Vanessa.

I’ve never taken a sabbatical before.  In fact, I’ve always thought of “going on sabbatical” as more of an academic exercise than anything.  However, I find myself in the beginning days of my own sabbatical and I have one fear … I could get used to this!

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Thu, May 21 2009 by Vanessa.

So a couple weekends ago several houses in our community joined together to have a community wide garage sale.  The HOA kindly posted an advertisement in the local newspaper, I placed several ads on Craigslist in the days leading up to the affair and oh my Lord …. I had no idea.  I might remember my mom having a garage sale … maybe two, when I was young.  It could just be a vague memory of a dream I had when I was 5 as well.  Anyway, I think it safe to say that I found myself in completely new territory with no “real” garage sale experience.  Who needs experience?  Maybe in this case, ignorance was truly bliss.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Tue, Apr 28 2009 by Vanessa.

The last two weekends managed to turn into magic warp time zone thingies.  What were those darn things called in Mario Brothers games?  Warp Zones?  Hmmm…can’t remember.  Anyway, over the last two weekends we have found ourselves  removing/loosening all of our counter tops so the Granite company could template (templating took place on April 22),  purchasing a cooktop in Denver (which my mom and brother are going to deliver next week!!!!!), finalizing our sink selections for the upstairs guest bathroom and our bathroom, removing the see-through cabinets that were above our kitchen sink, removing a wall that kept those same cabinets installed, purchasing faucets for the guest bathroom sinks, master bathroom sinks and kitchen sink, buying an antique pedestal tub from 1922 and putting the last coat of paint on our guest bathroom cabinets.  I think that’s it.  I’m not sure really.

Things really feel like they’re coming along and it’s time to post some more photos!!!

Here’s the kitchen cabinets we removed.

And here’s John getting ready for demolition.

No more cabinets!

And here’s our fearless project manager ….

Here’s a sample of the old kitchen wallpaper that someone painted over. I see why they got the paint out!

And here’s the pretty new tub … except it really is bright white!!!

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Fri, Apr 17 2009 by Vanessa.

About a year ago, our new life began.  We were just walking into the amusement park named Section 2.  We bought our tickets, we milled around for several months trying to find just the right ride, scoping out all our options, fighting through the crowd, finally deciding on a roller coaster.  We stood in line for a while and I guess about the middle of last fall we finally made our way to the front of the line, hopped into our seats, belted ourselves in and sat waiting, patiently, for the coaster to move.  Toward the end of 2008 the coaster lurched forward and started creeping slowly out of the gate.  We’ve been inching forward ever since and around the beginning of March I think we started to feel a slight change in angle as the roller coaster changed position from a completely horizontal rail to an incline.  Now we find ourselves creeping up this incline, knowing that soon … soon … we will reach the peak, change direction again and fly down the rails with incredible speed and excitement.  If only I knew how long this incline will be!

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Tue, Apr 14 2009 by John.

In order to monitor and plan the power use requirements for the RV, I bought a Watts Up Pro unit.  It is very much like the much cheaper Kill-A-Watt except it has a USB port, software suite, and API.  I wanted the ability to keep onboard log that can be exported to a standard format.  Read the rest of this entry »

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