Skating Party: Cheryl and Judy

Obviously Cheryl has been avoiding me these last couple of months, due to the fact that she's afraid that I'll kick her ass again in Euchre. So it was really good to see her and Judy at the Skating party again this year.

I'm telling you, it's like the Skating Party is just a one stop, try to catch up with everyone kind of place.

T Skating Party: Andrea and Julie

As always, Julie and Andrea are looking fabulous at the Skating Party. Andrea and Tim brought Tim's parents to hang out for a bit. And Julie was there to see the gang.

I still miss Julie at work :(

T Skating Party: Tim and Family

See it's a family thing.

Tim and Andrea Whittaker, since they're off to Geneva for several months in the next couple of days has their family in town and Xmas hosting responsibilities.

However, next year the expectation is that both Tim and Andrea will skate. Although that might require Tim buying a $500 pair of skates, since I can't see him wearing the rinks rentals.

T Skating Party: Jason and Amber

We've been so busy with the basement and running around, a lot of our friends we have just not seen in the last couple of months. We were thrilled that Jason and Amber could run by and say hello.

One thing I'm liking about the skating party is that more people are coming just to hang out - forget the skating bit - which is totally cool with us.

Skating Party: Cookies

I really need to calculate one of these days how many total calories are on the cookie table for the skating party each year. Between Mom, Julie, Sherry, and Cheryl - there is just a ridiculous amount of them. And this year they were pretty much gone.

Also need to do a Xmas Cookie Cookbook one of these years.

Basement: Painting Done

Probably crappy photo quality, but you can kind of see the color that we did for the basement - 'saffron' from Restoration Hardware. Big fan of all their colors, but they can run a bit high. Of course, you can do what I do - get the color swatches from Restoration Hardware, and then just have Lowe's do a color match.

I also did the other common decorating trick - painted the ceiling two shades lighter.

Mom's Birthday

Aren't I a good son?

Realizing that my mother is still in her mimimalist phase, and doesn't want more stuff. I went with the standard birthday gift of flowers from D&Z gifts - awesome place on 49th and Illinois. The pink roses looked a bit pathetic when I first picked them up, but they soaked up some water and ended up stunning.

Need to remind myself to use that place more often.

Basement: Drywall done

QUESTION: What prevents a divorce more than anything else?
ANSWER: A drywaller

After advice from several people who have finished a room, all suggested you hire a professional drywaller. And it was evident about 10 minutes into the exercise that Patrick and I would have been divorced in less time, if we had attempted to drywall this room ourselves.

In all it took 2 and a half days to for two guys to drywall two rooms and a ceiling. Granted they weren't the best in the cleanup, and we still have a bit of finish work to do - but as you can from this small corner - it already looks 100% better.

I think now we're in the home stretch, we need to paint, finish out the lighting and stereo wiring, and then put in the floor.

Mont D'Or

Ah, perhaps my favorite cheese of winter - Mont D'or.

Pick this one up from Emmanuelle Frohlich, while we were both in England a couple of weeks ago. As I've said before, this is about as close as the french come to fast food. Wrap this cheese in foil (round wooden box and all), throw in a little wine, and throw it in the oven with some potatoes until you can smell it.

Basement: Wiring Done

Ah, the never ending basement project has reached another milestone with the completion of the electrical wiring. It always helps when you have a deadline to work towards, and in this case the drywallers are showing up on Saturday.

I think there are more electrical outlets in this 15' X 20' basement than the entire second floor of our house. And in case you're wondering - all those extra wires are for speakers and cables.