We are going to have a very full house on Christmas Day due to the weather snowing some locals in and not being able to travel far. We have a "state of emergency" here in Portland, which basically means snow but very little real removal machinery to take care of it on the roads. Public transit was severly delayed today and many routes didn't run. Many of my coworkers were on outage duty at PGE today as well due to many downed lines and other ice-related problems. I need to get into work tomorrow because I made cookies and MY PEEPS NEED COOKIES! If Les Schwab is open, there is one on my route. Hopefully they can show me how to chain up, as I've never done it before. Otherwise I have to figure out which bus route to take (updated: my old Jetta's chains fit Jeremy's car, so he was able to take me in on his way to work). I have plenty of things to do to make the house people ready. Here's my short list including party prep: Plan menu Grocery store run Organize pantry Clean refrigerator to make room Get table leaf out of garage Move around furniture to accomodate large table Clean floors Clean bedrooms Clean bathrooms Make pies (Christmas Eve) Wrap presents Organize closet Hang photos As an update to the last post, I found the "Rutherford" duvet cover on eBay for $140 including shipping (its new and not irregular) . That's less than half the price of Macy's, so I decided to go for it! Here's some close-up shots of the fabric:

Why can I not find any reasonably priced bedding that will match our bedroom theme? We found the perfect rugs but the bedding will not cooperate. I have purchased and taken back about 5 different comforters so far because they just didn't work. Here's the room before we moved the furniture in a few weeks ago: I'm looking for something with embroidery of some sort, but not frou-frou or french. Everything I find seems to be obnoxiously paisley or damask. I want something that seems sort of period appropriate, but not country or overly traditional and has to fit with the colors of our rug: sage green/beige, copper, plum, turquiose. It's a tall order. Here's a similar rug to the one in our room: This is the front-runner so far, minus all the pillows and such: Ralph Lauren "Rutherford." I checked it out in person at Macy's and it looks like a heavily aged tapestry and the colors match our scheme. However, at $299 for the duvet cover alone, its a bit over my $200 maximum. I could buy off eBay, but I never know until its in the room, and I want the option to return it. I would love an Ann Wallace or Dianne Ayers set, but I think with the embroidery, the price would be over my budget as well. The Candiff set from Target is pretty, but its out of stock, doesn't have any turquiose or plums, and the pattern is a bit busy, but more in the British arts & crafts vein: Then there's a more simple "Rosa" collection from Macy's. However, I didn't see this one in the store. THe embroidery looks gorgeous without being over the top. I'm not sure if I should do a solid color without any green or accent shades visible: Any ideas?

This is the site in my kitchen as of late: It may be hard to believe, but it actually looks worse than that now as we brought even more dishes in from the garage yesterday. How do I own so many freaking dishes? I suppose a better question is, how did I live without so many dishes for the last 6+ months and why do I need them all again now? To showcase some beauty, here are my custom leaded glass cabinet inserts. I made the small ones with leaded glass tape from Van Dykes Restorers. I used the same pattern as in our original attic windows. I picked out the wavy glass from Cline Glass and had them cut it to fit. The center window is a custom stained glass piece from Middlefield Glass. I designed it on their website and I LOVE IT! It was broken the first time I received it and I had to send it back, but it was fine the second time around. Jeremy also assembled a cute kitchen island/cart that I bought to match our cabinets since we couldn't fit a permanent island in the kitchen. I love it! The other shot shows our kitchen swinging door we salvaged from the ReBuilding Center and had dipped, then painstakingly refinished. The grain is soo beautiful. It fit perfectly in the original frame too. Lastly, here are my pretty boys looking sweet as well.

Do any of my loyal blog readers use Twitter? I need some more peeps to follow! Twitter me timbers!

Just returned from a week's vacation back to Minnesota. Jeremy did the photography at his friend's wedding (which was beautiful by the way). In the meantime, I saw some friends and family, but not as many as I would've liked. I was trying to keep the vacation low-key and low-stress and not rushing from place to place as I've done on previous trips back. The most running around I did in a day was from Lakeville to Owatonna to the back road of nowheresville (WHOOPS got on the wrong road) then back tracked to the RIGHT road to get to Rochester and then back to Owatonna and Lakeville. Oh there was another day where I went from Lakeville to Owatonna to Medford to Morristown to Faribault to Medford to Morristown to Mankato to Lakeville. Ah I filled up the gas tank about 4 times this week and that was WITHOUT seeing everyone I wanted to. There are so many miles separating people and not enough time in the day! A favorite find on my trip was a beautiful victorian sconce at City Salvage in Minneapolis. I technically didn't need anymore sconces but I couldn't resist! I also purchased a couple art-deco style light fixtures for a steal at an antique shop. I'll post pictures soon. I've come to a realization (maybe because of the deplorable weather there) that I didn't feel any need to move back there anytime soon. I did get a bit nostalgic while in Mankato because I missed going to university and having those fun times, but not enough to move back there and get paid student-level wages. In most areas are boxy homes with no discernable style sporting vinyl siding in the same shades of grey, beige, pale yellow, or while. BORING. Sure, I envy the housing prices in the non-metro areas, but my friends there don't get paid near what they deserve! Even with more impending remodeling work, I sure did miss my true home — Portland! MUAH!

Wishing everyone a great holiday!

I'm excited! Also we're going to Napa for New Years weekend! I reserved a tour on New Years Eve at Castello Di Amorosa, as recommended by fellow House Blogger, Becky over at Casa Caudill. Of course, we will be spending quite a bit of time antiquing and going to the sister location, V. Sattui in St. Helena which is one of my faves and probably drive back into the city for some night-life activities. It will be a bit of relaxation prior to ripping the whole house open a week later!

This is definitely a step up from what I would be doing on New Years otherwise: Either stripping fireplace bricks or stripping trim. Oh boy, those are fun times!

The water main burst outside of our next door neighbor's house today! I came outside to this view:

Thankfully, it was running down the street into the other drains. I just hope they can take the load. I was able to get to work, but am not sure if they've shut off the valves yet. There was a bunch of tech's standing around waiting for instructions for about 30 minutes. SHUT IT OFF ALREADY!

Our basement was dry as a bone. I just pray it stays that way! Here's hoping we have water service tonight.

and to all a good night! Wait, that's not it. Anyway, enjoy Celebrity Bric-a-Brac Theatre!

Our resident spokeskitty poses next to a matching jack-o-lantern.

He was a human for Halloween and hated every second of wearing his kitty shirt. Luckily it was only for this short photo-op.