Celia spent the morning standing on a chair by the window singing to the snow. Then she went the whole day without eating a single pack of fruit snacks or watching a minute of Curious George. After her short nap (thanks to the snowplow), she woke up happy, which also never happens. I brought her back upstairs, she got back on her chair with her three bears, held them each up to the window and said: "Bear? Snow." "Bear? Snow." "Bear? Snow." Now they've all been officially introduced and we've had a perfect day. I think I like the snow.

First Real Snow

We got our first real snow last night here in Smaown. It's beautiful. Here's the view from our window. Yes, we have a view of the water just past those trees. Things are gorgeous up here. And the cool thing about the winter is that the sun stays really low in the sky, so it always looks like its rising or setting. Makes for great pictures and very cool colors in the sky all day.

Alaska should still be Russia

I guess Russia should have kept us. Apparently we're no good for America according to economists. Read the article here.

Before and After

Okay folks. We're finally done painting the upstairs. So here ya go with befores and afters.
Here's the kitchen. Just getting all of their *stuff* out of here was most helpful. But painting off the spongepainted green also helped. We painted the whole upstairs a gray with warm undertones. It's really nice. And if our stuff doesn't add enough color to the space, we'll add some accent walls too... but for now, it's nice to have a clean slate. Next order of business: knock down that curly piece of wood above the shelf. gag.


Here's the living room. The bead board needed to go. You can't tell in the first picture because my real estate agent is sitting in front of it (say "hi" Mike!... on a sidenote, Mike has the awesomest overdone sweaters. Next ugly sweater party... ask to borrow one. You'll win the awards.), but it abruptly ended at the edge of that window. And you also can't really tell the nastiness that was the spongepainted green of the entire upstairs (hallway and stairwell have also been neutralized). Next order of business: get our stuff! Put in new baseboards. And take down the ceiling fans in both the living room and the master bedroom. Ceiling fans in Alaska? Really? It's 19 degrees outside!


And here's the lovely Master bedroom. You can't tell, but it was also spongepainted... but pink... my favorite color (not!)... obviously we had to paint the pink away first. We also replaced their his and hers airbeds for a queen airbed we borrowed from TTS. Thanks guys. And that attractive light fixture above their heads they left for us because somehow it was attached to the drywall, so we had to patch that whole thing up as well. Next order of business: get all the paint off of the doorframes, windowsills, and kitchen cabinets that the previous owners got all over because they either didn't tape or they taped really poorly.

So now we're just waiting for all of our stuff to arrive in the next week. And now we're ready.

Car Ordeal

Okay, first off, I realize the name of the company should have tipped me off. "All 48 States Auto Transport" and they promised to truck my car to Alaska, the 49th state. And they promised to do it in record time. They picked it up at the door, no problem. And then as soon as the car was gone, they called to tell us that we owed them another $100 for some sales tax. And now, two weeks after the car was promised and a full 19 days after they picked it up, it's here. At least the car made it and the stuff inside wasn't stolen either. But I don't recommend them. They have almost a nonexistent web presence and when you call the phone number, you get a generic message that says: "Please leave a message for 71...." Really? Can't you at least brand your answering machine message? How unprofessional. And Windy, the CSR, has much better people skills than Marlon, the company's owner. And there's very little communication in the company. So I don't recommend them. And that's my review. Maybe it is all a scam and they do steal people's cars, but since I called them at least four times a day, they gave me my car to get me off their back...? Whatever works.

Celia Dailies

- Last night Celia accidentally knocked a box off the stairs. Then she said "Oh, dear."

- This morning I stood up and Celia said "Mommy dances!" and started jumping up and down.

Celia's Funny

Here are some things that Celia did over the past two days that are hilarious and I want to remember:

- Yesterday, she picked up her bowl of Cheerios and started lightly sloshing it around and then she said "Cheerios... dancing!"

- On our way to see the cousins, we asked Celia if she was excited to see their dog, Stella. She got really excited, then got really quiet, put on her angry face and said "No. Stella, down Stella" and then happy again "Good Stella." She was practicing. What's funny is that we think she only heard my cousin say this once.

- Also yesterday, all of us were upstairs at TTS's (this is my cousins). Then we realized Celia had been gone for about ten minutes. So Tom went to check on where she was. He came back in and said "she's just lining up all the lemons." We all went over to see her and sure enough, all of the lemons from the bowl were lined up neatly in a line. She held one up to us and said "Lemon!"... any other kid would have hung themselves by then... or at least touched the lit candle that was right next to the lemon bowl. Celia just had to arrange the fruit.

- A few days ago, she took some clean painting rollers and held them both up to her eyes and said "I see you"... then she took the little roller, held it up to her doll's eye and said "I see you."

- She played "peek-a-boo" with the full moon last night in the car. Everytime the moon would go behind a building or a tree while we were driving, she would say "Peek-a-boo Moon"... and then when she would see it again, she would get really excited and say "Peek-a-boo!"

- This morning, when I got out of the shower, she handed me my Oregon Ducks t-shirt and said "Duck. On?" I guess my days of picking out my own clothes are over too.