About the 10th person to chime in with an endorsement of the new equipment and insulation plan. Sounds like a good deal at the right time.

The last vacation day has been delightful. I swam for about an hour. Got a bit of a sunburn! Ooops. Cooked a bunch of stuff to eat all week including my best chili ever according to DH. Which is cool since it was veggie and neither he nor Bobby realized the meaty stuff was soy. Then we went for a nice boat ride and saw a bunch of manatees. Brandy went along and was a very happy doggie.

Do it

but I will tell you not to insulate the exterior walls -- Older houses are hard to do properly and if there isn't enough air circulation it can lead to the evil sick making black mold.

I am back. Lovely neighbours made me drink an entire bottle of wine. Also, we had a game of Trivial Pursuit, blokes against girlies, and girlies won because I knew that John Major slept with Edwina Currie and River Phoenix died outside Johnny Depp's nightclub. More quizzes should be all nineties all the time.

Erin, the insulation plan sounds good. We had our new house insulated on a government scheme recently - we think it's saved us a lot of money on heating.

I have to go to bed now.

I just broke my vague rule of giving business to someone with a really garish and omg~autoplayingmusic~omg website. In my defense, they quoted a fair price and are doing it today.

They honestly had me at fair price. Doing it today and the guy clearly explaining what a windshield repair would and would not do was bonus. I already knew the latter but give him huge props for explaining upfront and before the sale. Speaks to integrity.

Only bad thing is that the dude didn't take my number so I hope he had caller id. My parking space number is not my unit number...

Still miles better than the quotes that were two and a half times too high.

went out and got socks a a few other important things. Doing errands on the weekend is a little scary

I have uploaded photos!! They're chronologically backwards, though.

[link]

A few faves:

Me and bro doing shots of CITRUS fernet! Did you know it existed? I didn't! But I introduced the bar to drinking it with gingerale.

this church clock is just GORGEOUS

You're only allowed to wish here once--Guess what I wished for?

this stained glass window was done by Alphonse Mucha who I adore.

This stuff was so delicious we had it two nights in a row! Nom nom nom. I kept calling it "turducken" because I couldn't remember the name.

And me and Budapest! (that's the parliament building, I believe, in the background)

This energy converstation did remind me to finally swap out the screen on my door for the solid window. Onerous task FTW!

I made a chore chart for us. Not so sure how much buy in I have from Matt, but since it still has me doing most of the work it should be doable. ( i still will be working/driving less than he does ) and easy to double up with out throwing everything out of whack.

the hardest part, we don't do much by schedule

Still haven't gone to the grocery store, but I can see parts of my coffee table now.

erin o, I also vote to go for it.

Looks like a great trip, meara! I'm a fiend for Mucha and have been ever since I hit double digits. However, I didn't know he'd designed a stained glass window.

Forced myself to start sewing again late last night. Took me 'til about 1pm to get started again today. Lurching slowly closer to the finish line. If I don't finish it, I can always fudge it with safety pins now because all the stuff that shows is finished. But I'd rather do it properly.

Still struggling with an instant sense of fullness & pain which lasts for hours after eating even a small snack. I sure hope I can get a doctor's appt when I'm up in Berkeley.