new and improved

With the arrival of our new chairs, we also welcomed a new floor lamp to the living room. The bookcase has moved to the dining room (at least temporarily) and we rearranged the living room.

thirty-wonderful

Another birthday, another wonderful present for the house - thanks Mom and Dad!

beardless papa

"Oh, geez. I had a mishap."

--Chachi, while shaving last night

Oh geez, indeed. He buzzed off part of his goatee by accident:

And decided shaving off the entire thing was the solution:

Oh geez.

Special thanks to Alyza for the clever title for this post.

more greenery

After two hours at Ikea, Chachi and I hadn't really found much (measuring ahead of time might have been helpful...) but you can't leave Ikea without buying something, so we picked up a new plant in the very last department before the checkout stand.

For now, it will sit in the doorway between the living and dining rooms, to help distract from the baseboard moulding that still needs to be fixed.

another quick visit

Half of the garden guru team was in town for a quick visit, and no visit would be complete without some kind of house-related project.*

Since the flowering plant out front seems intent on taking over half of the block, we decided to remove the other two pairs of plants and find them a happy spot elsewhere. The jade plants ended up in the backyard, where we discovered that the second (dead) cala lily decided to make another appearance:

And the rosey looking ones came inside for now:

I'm not sure if the plant left out front is the kind that will put down new roots when you break off a piece, but we tried it anyway. Stay tuned for the results.

* I'd like to note, for the record, that I do not require this sort of assistance as part of the room and board package here at the Peralta Project. Rather, these folks come practically begging for work to do. After our gardening this time, we spent the afternoon at SF MOMA, followed by a lovely snack at Samovar Tea Lounge.

I'm in love

With my new Cuisinart Mini Prep food processor, to be specific. It's waaaay more quiet than our old food processor, it's super quick, and it hardly takes up any space! With the basil growing out back, it might be time for some pesto soon.

...and in with the new

My expectations for the neighborhood garage sale might have been a bit high, but we found a few good things:

Some books and CDs for Chachi, a nice set of cheese knives for me (and to think I almost paid 3 times as much the night before for a smaller set from Crate & Barrel!), and a chalkboard for Turkey.

belly up to the bar

It's all about the 'mocktails' lately. My latest creation is like an italian soda - sparkling water mixed with leftover syrup from poached pears. Deee-lish.

out with the old...

We're hoping to renovate the bonus room before Turkey arrives, which means we have to clear out all of the stuff that's accumulated down there.

OK, I cheated. That's a photo from the day after we moved in. But it certainly felt like we had that much stuff there just the other day.

Next weekend's neighborhood garage sale provided enough incentive to at least start sorting through the various boxes and milk crates. Granted, this would have been a lot easier if we'd managed to pare down our possessions prior to moving in last year, but nevermind that. We made great progress and now have 15-20 boxes to donate to the neighborhood community center's sale.

Now the kitchenette holds only the boxes we know we're keeping.

Then, we'll shop the other garage sales and find new stuff to bring home.

1 year and counting

July 28 came and went with little fanfare, but we should stop a moment and reflect on how far we've come since we moved into the Peralta Project.

In the last 378+ days, we've:

• Painted 5 rooms and a hallway
• Installed new baseboard moulding
• Cosmetically updated the bathroom
• Completely renovated the kitchen
• Substantially spiffed up the backyard

Nevermind that the "to-do" list is 10 times longer than the "done" list... we're a "glass is half-full" kinda crowd here. Thanks to the many volunteers who've helped us so far!