Sunday, December 31, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The Cottage House
On Saturday after her last swimming lesson, Quinn and I went to McRae park in Minneapolis in hopes of seeing Santa without the hectic crowds and lines that we'd likely find at a mall. Unfortunately we missed Santa by 10 minutes. Apparently Santa had to leave early for an emergency at the North Pole.
Since we had time to kill, mom suggested we go shopping. She has been raving about a shop down the street from her house for several months now and has been encouraging me to check it out. The shop is in a house that a group of antique dealers rent out to sell their wares once a month. I went in the store with doubts that I'd find anything I'd like. However, to my surprise, I had an armful of stuff within a few minutes including a turtle quilt, Pele lunch box, a Christmas dress and doll for Quinn, and some ornaments. A piece of furniture also caught my eye so after calling David to get the okay, I came home with an antique desk and bench for our entry way.
If you would like to check out the shop for yourself, they are open the second weekend of each month from Thursday through Sunday.
The Cottage House
4304 Chicago Ave.
Minneapolis
612-825-4934
Since we had time to kill, mom suggested we go shopping. She has been raving about a shop down the street from her house for several months now and has been encouraging me to check it out. The shop is in a house that a group of antique dealers rent out to sell their wares once a month. I went in the store with doubts that I'd find anything I'd like. However, to my surprise, I had an armful of stuff within a few minutes including a turtle quilt, Pele lunch box, a Christmas dress and doll for Quinn, and some ornaments. A piece of furniture also caught my eye so after calling David to get the okay, I came home with an antique desk and bench for our entry way.
If you would like to check out the shop for yourself, they are open the second weekend of each month from Thursday through Sunday.
The Cottage House
4304 Chicago Ave.
Minneapolis
612-825-4934
Monday, December 18, 2006
The aftermath
Well the weekend wasn't quite as social as expected. Still, it was nice to get caught up.
Friday did result in dinner with Andy. Heather, Quinn, and I met him at Yarusso's after he was done with work. Apparently we were a bit tardy, as Andy had already had a few before we got there. By the end of the meal Andy was doing an impression of Quinn, spilling food and wine all over his shirt. Before we called it a night, Heather was given the task of helping Andy with his portion of the bill and talking him down from a 90% tip to a more realistic 50%.
On Saturday, our plans to attend Tim's (and wife's) party went astray when the sandman came early and put all three of us to sleep well before the 7:00 start time. So all of our chatter about the last NASCAR season will have to wait until we invite them over to our place.
Sunday was reserved for Matt, but apparently Matt was thinking Saturday and told us of such, assuming that we check our voice mail on a regular basis. So we chatted Sunday, and postponed anything productive until Tuesday when he gets off work.
Nevertheless, our downtime over the weekend allowed us some needed house keeping; something that one must be diligent about with a little one throwing her saliva-soaked toys all over the place. So the trade off can still be called a good thing. I believe I had mentioned something about promising photos in the last post. I failed at this. But I assure you that by not seeing Andy in the state he was in, you are not missing much.
Friday did result in dinner with Andy. Heather, Quinn, and I met him at Yarusso's after he was done with work. Apparently we were a bit tardy, as Andy had already had a few before we got there. By the end of the meal Andy was doing an impression of Quinn, spilling food and wine all over his shirt. Before we called it a night, Heather was given the task of helping Andy with his portion of the bill and talking him down from a 90% tip to a more realistic 50%.
On Saturday, our plans to attend Tim's (and wife's) party went astray when the sandman came early and put all three of us to sleep well before the 7:00 start time. So all of our chatter about the last NASCAR season will have to wait until we invite them over to our place.
Sunday was reserved for Matt, but apparently Matt was thinking Saturday and told us of such, assuming that we check our voice mail on a regular basis. So we chatted Sunday, and postponed anything productive until Tuesday when he gets off work.
Nevertheless, our downtime over the weekend allowed us some needed house keeping; something that one must be diligent about with a little one throwing her saliva-soaked toys all over the place. So the trade off can still be called a good thing. I believe I had mentioned something about promising photos in the last post. I failed at this. But I assure you that by not seeing Andy in the state he was in, you are not missing much.
Friday, December 15, 2006
The missing details
The great thing about procrastinating is that it can be forgivable to encapsulate three or more weeks of activities into one long run on sentence. This is something that I (David) figured I should probably get around to doing since a very social (and thus, blogable) weekend appears to be coming up, and adding such details would detract from any good stories that might come from this weekend. Not only is there dinner with Andy tonight, and biking with Matt at some point this weekend, there is also the potential to attend a party hosted by an egotistical racer that I know (and his girlfriend, Susie.... sorry, did I get the name wrong?).
Anyway, on to the re-capping: When we last left off, I was working at night, watching Quinn during the day, and occasionally taking a nap. From there, I took a 6 day weekend in order to get the warm weather projects completed, worked some more, attended a variety of community council obligations and volunteered to take on some tasks for the organization (something I've managed to actually find time to start on), worked some more – using my down time to look for different, more enjoyable work, which I may soon find out if I've succeeded in doing – and purchased a Christmas tree; a task for which the photos I have yet to upload, but then you can just conjure up memories of the photo(s) from two years ago in which I had made the same trek up the longest hill in St. Paul hauling a tree in my trailer.
And there we go. Give or take lots of details, that brings us up to date. Let the social hour begin. I'll make sure to take notes for the next entry.
Anyway, on to the re-capping: When we last left off, I was working at night, watching Quinn during the day, and occasionally taking a nap. From there, I took a 6 day weekend in order to get the warm weather projects completed, worked some more, attended a variety of community council obligations and volunteered to take on some tasks for the organization (something I've managed to actually find time to start on), worked some more – using my down time to look for different, more enjoyable work, which I may soon find out if I've succeeded in doing – and purchased a Christmas tree; a task for which the photos I have yet to upload, but then you can just conjure up memories of the photo(s) from two years ago in which I had made the same trek up the longest hill in St. Paul hauling a tree in my trailer.
And there we go. Give or take lots of details, that brings us up to date. Let the social hour begin. I'll make sure to take notes for the next entry.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Got Water?
The other night, the city put notices on the doors of the houses on our block that our water would be shut off from 8am to 6pm today. One would think this was pretty short notice but compared to a couple weeks ago David awoke to find no water in our pipes and the fire hydrant on the corner spewing out it's entire contents into the street. There was no notice nor were there any city workers to be found. That led David to call the St. Paul Police Department in hopes that they could contact someone to get our water turned back on. A short while later we had water again. At least we had time to prepare this time. Tubs and sinks were filled, food was prepared in advance, and Quinn spent the day in daycare as it was assumed that construction noise outside would prevent David from getting a sufficient nap in. Apart from having to move the car by the short notice deadline given by the city, all went off without a glitch.