Cheryl on the Web

Tim and I have finally gotten .. somewhere .. with the house! Our first family visitors are here this weekend, Tim’s parents Paul and Els. All our work is paying off as we relax in the livingroom and hang on the bar in the kitchen. We’ve pretty much finished up the things we need to do on the house, less than 4 weeks since we moved in. That’s thanks to Tim, who finished off a huge load of home improvement chores in record time. What are we going to do now with all our free time?

We are still having a discussion about what to do with the 2 remaining moving boxes, hidden behind my office door. Guess what’s in them? Better question: what would be in your last 2 moving boxes that you hadn’t unpacked?? :) Well, in our boxes is a VCR and about 30 videos on VCR tapes. Tim doesn’t really want to part but I’ve never been one for sentiment. Votes, anyone?

Tonight the saga of the bar lamp continued. You might remember from my kitchen post that the lamp to be hung over the bar was broken. Well, it turned out not actually to be broken (ah-hem) … there was a loose wire in our creative extension wiring, and when we fixed that, the light suddenly worked! Go figure. Of course, once the light worked, I had one look at it and decided it was way too ugly to hang up.

So tonight we went light shopping again - traded the old bar lamp for a new one - only when we got home and started hanging up the light, it was metal on metal. Tim’s stone drill bit was ripped to shreds, so we discovered the hard way that at least one of the holes we need to drill to hang the new light up is positioned right on the metal beam that must run above the bar. Sigh. By then it was 10pm so we decided the neighbors would probably come blow us up if we continued trying to drill through the beam.

Tomorrow we are going to fill the holes from the first lamp, fill the hole that is positioned close to the beam, and drill a few new holes that hopefully won’t hit metal so quickly. Of course, first I’m going to go stock up on drill bits at the hardware store. Wish us luck! If it’s a success I’ll post pictures ;)

Plenty of common phrases today have roots in old truths, customs, and common oddities. This was re-emphasized to me today by the email forward my mom sent me. I don’t know the author of this forward, so if anyone knows please tell me so we can give credit where credit is due or observe any copyrights… that said, enjoy reading about why we have, among other things, phrases like “bring home the bacon”.
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The kitchen is installed and working! Amazing the things you can take for granted until you don’t have them for 3 weeks, and then they suddenly return, even better than they were before.

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Bet you non-Germany-dwellers wonder what the title of this post means! That’s the German word for Carnival, which culminates next week in Rose Monday, Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. The only things I know about this celebration is that it’s primarily Catholic and that on Wednesday we start the countdown to Easter. Can anyone else tell me more? What’s the big deal about “Fasching”?

I’m so excited! Just 2 more days to survive without a kitchen. They deliver it tomorrow and install it on Wednesday. I spent most of tonight looking up pictures of the refrigerator, dishwasher, and oven - typical woman thing I suppose, it’s not just the shopping that’s exciting but also the anticipation.

I’m beginning to wonder now how long it will take them to install the kitchen on Wednesday. I’ve got the day off work, and if the installation finishes early, I’ve got a list of things I’m planning to do in town. I’ll be sure to let you know how long it took afterward! But if you already have an idea, do tell…

Yesterday Tim and I made serious progress in the bathroom, which up until now was the lone room with a moving box still in it. Besides the moving box, there was nothing hung up in the bathroom yet - no shelves, no cupboards, no mirrors. Check out how it looks now:

With a lot of skill and a little luck, Tim managed to get everything hung up with no broken tiles! I am the happiest woman in the world. Doesn’t it look nice? (more…)