Survived the storm!

...and it really wasn't bad - no, I wouldn't have wanted to drive anywhere in it, it was definitely a bad blizzard, but we didn't even lose power. As a consequence it didn't even feel like a snow day, Brandon and I both worked from home hoping power would get kicked out and we could goof off and play board games in front of the fire. But no. Ah well, it made for some beautiful snow photos this morning!

Before

After!

Before

After!

Before

After!

Before! 

After!

Something smells good under all this stuff......

The driveway.....

Brody for scale...!

Winter Storm Juno (aka Nor'Beaster)

A big snow storm on the way. We think they're overestimating, since it's really the first major storm we've had this year. But it does look like we'll get some high winds and at least a foot, so power outs are pretty likely. Today was just a beautiful day, warm (40F) and sunny, reminds me of why I love Maine in the winter, everything just looks crisp and clean.

Here are some Pre-Storm photos to compare to later!

House Front, Urn for scale.

Side of the house

Other side of the house, looking to the Little Red Chicken Shed

Chickens got prepped with a little outdoor run time. Even with corn it's hard to get them to venture into the snow, so it was brief. They have this enclosed area plus indoors with plenty of roost space when they don't want to go outside. 

Looking down the garden - that's our wooden planter in the middle. 

Looking down the side of the house, see parts of the garden boxes. 

Guest Bathroom Complete!

Original when we moved in! 

To this with just a coat of green paint.....the pink had to go! 

And from the small sink and contractor quality toilet.....

To the finished product, with new flooring too! 

The sink is WAY better than the old one, much more of a fit for the room. 

Looking out into the hall. It's super nice to have all the trim painted now too, before it was several different shades of white, now, it's just white.

A better size mirror and light fixture makes it complete.

Happy Birthday to my Brandon

I couldn't have wished for anything more amazing to enter my life when you did. Barkley thinks so too.

R
xx

German Lemon Cake

My indoor Meyer lemon tree finally ripened a lemon (we can't remember when it appeared, but it must be over 6 months ago now!). So today I made German Lemon Cake (link here). I actually used a suggestion from one of the comments and instead of rum put in lemon juice and the rind. It was delicious, a very typical dense german cake, but the lemony interior and lemon glaze made it still nice and moist. Who said you can't grow lemons in Maine?

January

So many things happening in January, sorry for the lack of updates! 

Lets see - over the holidays both of our (less than 1 year old) dishwasher and (much older) fridge/freezer died. The dishwasher they refunded and replaced for us, the fridge, well, we finally upgraded to a larger split door model. It's been an expensive January. But for the first time in our kitchen you can now stand in front of the fridge and open it. Before the door of the fridge hit the island, so you'd always have to be to the left of the island to get into the fridge. It's glorious, we love it. And it has water and ice on the front. We feel very fancy. 

Winter finally struck, after a warm, wet and weird December. So there has been much snuggling in front of the fire, and enjoying the glorious snow we get here in Maine. 

And we moved on to Winter Project #2 - finish off the main floor bathroom. When we first moved in we painted (we just couldn't hack the color) but left everything else the same. Over the summer Brandon's parents were emptying one of their sheds, and found an old bathroom cabinet - perfect condition and would fit that bathroom well (larger than the old undersized one). So we bought a new top for it, replaced the toilet, used the same laminate tiles as upstairs, painted all the trim and bought a new light fixture (since we stole the one from in there for the master bath). It's not quite finished yet, but for less than $1000 that bathroom now feels complete! 

First photo is a reminder of what it looked like when we moved in! 

Brandon's parents deliver the bathroom cabinet! 

I missed taking a photo of the tiling - it's the same as upstairs, groutable vinyl tiles, came out pretty well!  

New cabinet and counter top, new toilet and new light fixture! 

The last stage, painting the doors and trim.