A great evening, reuniting with old friends. We called ourselves coworkers once upon a time, over a decade ago… but I’m happy to still call these people friends (and that I am included, in kind).
It’s incredibly difficult to describe, but when we get together – there’s such a sense of warmth and love. These gatherings don’t happen often, but when they do – they are memorable.
A big house day, for me and Liz. The work on the front office has been a long time coming. Before today, there was a considerable amount of work – demo, structural support, and a whole lot of carpentry to open up the turret.
To see the space, fully covered in drywall, primed and painted, was a sight to behold.
Possibly the best day for me, out of the entire year. Several of us gathered in Atlanta, to celebrate Paige’s graduation. And Liz and I got to be there, with Tricia’s family, and with Julie and Bob as well.
It made my heart swell, to see Bob and Audrey together shopping at the shoe store, Sebastian and Julie together at our taco dinner.
The evening found us in Tricia’s kitchen, watching old videos, trading shoes, and for reasons I can’t recall… people trying to lift one another. Looking over this day and over these photos makes my heart swell.
New Fence Install, Day 13: Pickets are Done!
Our backyard fence was a big endeavour. It involved a debilitating back injury for me, and a lot of planning and coordinating once I was able to work again.
Liz and I have had a history of complicated projects. The backyard is fast becoming a place where we can look and see the fruits of all this work together.
Putting the last pickets up was a big last step, on a long project.
Upstairs Drywall, Day 3: Taping, Mudding, Bedroom Relocation, and the Opening of a New Room
Another big house day, with a lot of drywall added to the second floor. We’ve had a lot of the studs exposed for a while now, and today we got everything covered up. Things are taped and mudded, with sanding, primer, and paint still ahead… but already, it’s feeling more like an actual house. More like a home, instead of an in-progress project.
A particularly big moment for today: we opened up an entrance between our main bedroom and the newly created walk-in closet. We had plans for this ages ago, and covered the opening with drywall in anticipation of this day.
Today was the culmination of a lot of planning and coordination, to get new floors installed on our second floor. In addition to all the logistics involved, Liz was working on refinishing two doors. And the whole time, we were scrambling to move literally everything off the second floor.
Today felt like the day before our wedding, and reminded me of a term that I called the crest of the hill. Basically, we had done all we could, and at this point all we had left was to let other people take over and enjoy the ride.
Today was exhilarating and terrifying, turning over our house keys to some strangers, and leaving for a few weeks – with the aim of returning to new floors.
This year saw our second trip to Scotland, with us exploring a few favorite cities and the Isle of Skye. There was so much to share, it was difficult to not fill the entire “Ten Best Days” with Scotland days.
While we had a lot of driving on this trip, our excursion to Rasaay was particularly fun – filled with animals, on both land and sea.
On this trip to Scotland, we planned a series of hikes. Unfortunately, I miscalculated both the strength of the winds and the actual elevations for the hikes planned. So while we attempted several hikes, we never quite finished any.
That said, our journey on the Storr trail was our best showing – we walked a great deal, and continued upwards to a degree that surprised us both. We kept picking a high point on the trail, with a promise to stop and reassess. And we did this over, and over.
We ended the day with another long drive, and a fantastic dinner.
We had a fun few days, hanging out in Indy with my sister and her family. Honestly, our time hanging out with my parents and playing golf was really close to making this list, but I chose this day instead.
We got to hang out at Stacey and Shane’s house, taking things easy. We played a lot of games. And my mom made some Chinese food in the kitchen, while we ordered some Chinese food for delivery. Which felt like a very Chinese (and a very American) thing to do, on Christmas Eve.
First Fire on the Last Day of the Year
We’ve done a lot of work on the house over the years, but the fireplace was always something we deemed more of a luxury. It wasn’t essential, it wasn’t anything core or critical to the house like heating or electrical.
This year, we pulled the trigger on getting help fixing our chimney and making it a workable, wood-burning fireplace.
And tonight, on the last day of the year, we had our first fire.