Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Happy 20th Anniversary R&M
BTW - for those of you wondering if that's a real fire - yes, yes it is. My FIL has an obsession with it.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Christmas 2006
Good tidings to all of you out there in the blogosphere. Sorry for the lack of posts lately but I've been busy eating Christmas cookies and thinking very hard about how (really truly) I will (absolutely without doubt) start working out more in 2007.
While I'm in such a reflective mood, I thought I'd take some time to share a little list of things that have brought me great joy and comfort during this holiday season:
- All members of my family are safe and (relatively) healthy.
- My little brother and his lovely girlfriend got engaged.
- They also announced that in 7 months or so they will be supplying my parents with their first grandchild. (Wooo! Way to take the pressure off. Thanks R and H!)
- My dear friend Amy got engaged to a really fantastic guy that makes her smile like no other.
- The TEN PAIRS OF SHOES that I got at the Last Chance Nordstrom store in Phoenix. Every one of them a smokin' deal. (Hmmm, seriously considering moving that up to #1, but that's wrong, right?)
- The three warm desert sunsets that I have enjoyed here in Scottsdale with my gorgeous husband.
- The very special gift of a family heirloom that was given to me by my MIL while we were here with her for Christmas.
- Finally got some time to catch up with some of my favorite girlfriends for shopping/dinner.
- Got to meet little baby Andrews.
- The Bears vs. Packers Game at home at Soldier Field was moved to Sunday Night.
- I also received not one, but TWO, beautiful cashmere sweaters for Christmas. (Clearly I was good this year.)
- Even while a work-in-progress, my new house looks really cute at Christmas
- Did I mention Christmas cookies? Especially little almond tea cookies covered with sugar crystals. Mmmmm.
I hope your Christmas brought equal joy to you and yours.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Glogg!
Our next warm adult beverage is Glonz Vin Glogg.
JLA: 4.5 out of 5. "Reminds me of Mr. Anderson - sweet, swedish and you can call it honey."
JHA: only 3.5 out of 5. "It's good, but maybe too sweet." (OK, he's a dude, and dudes just don't like sweet honey wine as much, I guess.)
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Photos for a lazy winter afternoon
The weasels see snow fall for the first time...
The next morning...
Look! Icycles on the house...
This Yahoo slideshow on our snowfall has some local pictures.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Welcome to Winter
Our lovely warm fall weather ended abruptly last night. In the course of just 10 hours the temperature dropped 50 degrees and we were hit with seven inches of fat wet snow. Here at home I spent those ten hours quietly freaking out about how I was going to drive to work. I've never ever driven in snow before -- let alone a blizzard, so the morning commute had me terrified.
My lovely husband prepped me well -- drive slow, don't brake too fast, stay in your lane if possible, etc. It was all helpful advice. (Although the one thing he didn't mention was that the brake lights on the dashboard we're going to go off -- which made my heart stop for a second.) Anyway, it took an hour and a half, and I only screamed once (when a truck blew by me and the entire car was *splatted* with a heavy smack of muddy slush), but you'll be proud to know that I managed to get to work in one piece. The car's in one piece too - if you don't count the nail marks in the steering wheel.
With the day being filled with frazzled nerves and heavy snow, I thought this might be a good night to start the 2006 Anderson Mulled Wine Ratings. (I know those of you familiar with the 2003 Anderson Cheese Chart are excited -- we certainly have a history of brilliant epicurean evaluations, don't we? I believe our top cheese won on a rating of "MMMMmmmmmmmm".)
Alrighty. Our first contender is a traditional mulled wine, from The Bay Tree, sold last year through Crate and Barrel. I steeped the little bag in a cheapy bottle of Black Swan Shiraz/Cabernet.
I'm giving it a 3 out of 5. It's lovely and traditional, but maybe a little too clovey. So it's a little dry. And my tongue went puffy. So there you go... -2 points for needing to push your tongue against the roof of your mouth to make sure it's not *actually* getting bigger.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Green!
We took advantage of the (likely last) good weather and painted the garage to match the house. Now all we need is some electricity so we can open the garage door.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Holiday toy season
Last night I kicked off the holiday season by updating my online Wish List. This, however, will not be on it:
Wow. This Fanga Aquapet likes monkeys and requires 2 AAA batteries. Ages 5 and up. How did they get through the design meetings on this one?
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
More quotes from my (fully-grown, adult) husband
At 6:52 am this morning...
JHA: You know how people are re-inventing old toys now? Like the pogo stick that can bounce you 10 feet?
JLA: No
JHA: I've seen the video. It's impressive. And I want one.
JLA: (silence)
JHA: Anyway, so listen, I'm going to investigate current sledding technology.
JLA: Current sledding technology?
JHA: Yeah. I want to get a really super fast sled. Or two.
JLA: Two?
JHA: Yeah, don't you want to race?
JLA: I don't think we need two sleds.
JHA: Don't you want to have a sledding party? We can invite people over to go sledding. And we can drink warm drinks.
JLA: Um, I'm a little worried about breaking something -- like a limb.
JHA: Oh come on. It's not a good party unless someone goes to the emergency room.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Almost there!
I hope the neighbors are paying attention. Particularly the guy who lives across from our backyard. He currently likes to park his mini-van in the alley... and that's gotta change, buddy.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
If you are visiting from Plano, TX...
Yes you. You know who you are. You are not welcome here. Please stop visiting this site, which is intended for friends and family only.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Happy day
Mr. and Mrs. J. Anderson would like to announce the marriage of their cat, Ringo, to the lovely, Ms. Pad-warmed-by-the-radiator-and-sun.
Ringo and his new bride look forward to a long life together.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Silver Lining
The Bears completely disappointed us this afternoon. But the tailgating was terrific as usual. Behold how the NFL's greatest fans in the greatest football city express their love for the greatest game...
1) It's not just a port-a-potty, it's a Ditka port-a-potty.
2) Look! Is that... Kyle Orton??! Well, given how loaded he is, he must think the Bears have another bye week.
3) Oh my. Look at this... this is worth the extra click to enlarge... and, know that the car is actually a Hearse.... Seriously.
4) Man down.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Important moment in cat history
Guess which two west coast cats just figured out how radiators work?
Halloween Stats
At Work:
22 Pairs of Halloween earrings
5 Halloween Sweaters
2 Pairs of Halloween socks
2 Lara Crofts (Seriously. Is that office appropriate?)
1 Mrs. Robinson (From "The Graduate". Hmmmm....)
1 Guy in a Gorilla suit
At Home:
150 Pieces of candy distributed in 1 hour.
1 Emergency candy run.
My friend Deborah keeps much better stats on her blog. She got one mom looking for candy on behalf of her toddler. I must say, there's something not right about moms with candy bags. We got a few of those at our door as well. And some didn't even bother with half-baked excuses like, "it's for my sick child... (yadda yadda)" One set in particular came back to our door *twice* with no costumes, no excuses -- just grocery bags outstretched. I'm soooo on to those two. I'm saving special treats for them next year.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
It's Halloween morning.
Our annual traditions have begun...
1) Shut down the house, turn off the lights, lower the shades, and pull in all decorations -- just in case we're not home from work in time for the trick or treaters.
2) Drive to work wondering just how many holiday sweaters, earrings, socks and scrunchies you'll be seeing at the office today.
Yeeee!
Monday, October 30, 2006
Awwwwh
Years ago, when my mom and dad remodeled their home in LA, they etched their names in the concrete outside. Every time I ever looked at it I couldn't help but smile a little.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
How we're getting rid of the wood
I doubt the people who designed the patio chimenea ever imagined one would ever take on just this much wood. 
But those people never met my FIL, R.
Those of you who do know R will immediately recognize this as a classic display of his pyromania God-given fire-building talent.
(Hey guys -- I'm not sure the flames are actually supposed to shoot out the top.)
In any case, in order to speed up progress on cleaning up our yard next weekend we're going to haul the giant heap of un-salvageable barn lumber and leftover trunk and tree bits to Homer G. and light up a proper bonfire in the woods.
My FIL is pledging it will be the biggest of the season. Which means the fine citizens of the HG (and its fire department) should consider themselves warned.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!
(I couldn't resist)
But seriously -- greetings and salutations to the person in the American Consulate in Vietnam that's enjoying the blog.
Don't know how you found us, or why you're here, but welcome.
As far as the person goes who found us using the search term "herman the german crane" I hope you got the answer you were looking for.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
What did Ringo do?
So we had an enormous storm last night. A storm so big it was one for the record books.
While the rain pounded down outside, we were curled up in front of the tv for a little Monday Night Football.
BAM!!!
At about 10 pm the we were jolted out of our seats by an enormous crash from the back of the house. The floors shook. The sound thudded in my chest. The rush of adrenaline hit me and thought "Earthquake!" (Hey, 30 years+ in LA will do that to a girl.)
I looked at Mr. A. He looked at me. And we both thought it. What in god's name could Ringo have just done? Did he knock over the fridge for Christ's sake?
In the kitchen everything was fine. I told J to check the back sun porch (half expecting that the thing had fallen off the house.) He swung the door open and everything looked fine... until...
a flash of lightening hit.
HOLY SHIT.
In brief glimpse of lightning we could see it: the beautiful old giant tree from next door -- flatly laid across our yard. Squashing everything in its wake.
A few minutes later we lost power.
Later we came to realize it took out a little chunk of our roof. And the patio furniture. And our grill.
In a situation like that there's only one thing you can do -- crack open a bottle of wine. Or two.
Truth be told that grill sorta sucked anyway.
More photos of the scene on Flickr.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
I'm irrationally in love...
with this pattern from Sarah Cihat.
Reclaimed, random, yet cute, sorta like my kitchen.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Temp Kitchen
When we decided to put off doing the kitchen overhaul for a year I began to strategize on how to create a workable temp kitchen. I've learned this is a right of passage for many rehabbers, so I tried to look at it as a challenge. Keep the costs low and see how creative you can get with what you have. In the end, we ended up surprising ourselves -- it's actually (dare we say it?) cute!
Here's a shot of the kitchen before. Not a great shot, but oh my lordy, get a look at that trim near the ceiling. And treasure the pot rack in front of the window. I can only imagine what the P.O. was thinking... "I know, if we block the little light with POTS and PANS no one will notice that the kitchen doesn't have a fridge! Brilliant!" 
So before we could actually begin, we had structural guys come in and reinforce the floors under the kitchen. Apparently this is why the P.O. didn't have a fridge in the kitchen -- the floors couldn't support the weight. Welcome oh great metal support post!
As you'll recall my dear sweet husband ripped out the old-lady-blue floor tiles that just plain grossed out his wife...
The floor was refinished. We steamed off the trim. Then we broke out a left-over can of Berkshire Beige paint. We squished in some cheapy-but-energy-efficient appliances, and put up some shelves.... and viola!
Not a lot of counter space, but good storage, and nice floors. When we properly re-do the kitchen the fridge will move to the basement and we'll get ourselves something that actually holds more than my wine and diet coke.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
A Canadian shoat oat
I'm in Toronno (that's how they say it here) on business but I wanted to make sure to say Happy Birthday to my little sister.
I love you Cheryl! Happy Birthday, eh?
Sunday, September 17, 2006
The view from the porch
One of the unexpected joys of the new house is our lovely front porch. Lately on warm nights Mr. Anderson and I have enjoyed having a nice chat out on the porch with a glass of wine. It's a wonderful way to unwind -- at least for us. For Ringo its the most aggrevating time of the day. Between him and us is just a single screen door with (thank goodness) an extra industrial-strength pet shield. 
I'm thinking we're going to need to order replacement shields by the dozen.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
(Long Overdue) Barn Update
I use the word "barn" because that's our new friend Bill, the garage contractor, shared with us when he came over a couple weeks ago. What he said was, "Ma'am, I don't think that's a garage you got there. I think that's a barn. There are a few left in this area and occasionally I see one. Yea, I think it's a 1-horse barn."
Alrighty. Pursuant to our orders from Allstate, the barn had to go. (Incidentally when we told our neighbor it was coming down she said, "Let me know when so I can enjoy a glass of wine and watch." *That's* how good our barn was looking these days.)
First Mr. Anderson and his dad removed the siding and sheathing from the walls. At least the walls they could reach (the south side of the barn was covered with weeds and protected by yellow jackets.)
Then my FIL brought out the love of his life, his chainsaw, to prep the posts for falling.
In the center of the barn was a lally column. For those of you not familiar that's a single column that jacks the whole structure up when the poor sad thing can't support itself. Pull it out or take a wack at it and the whole thing goes down. At least theoretically. The guys tried pulling it with a rope. Nothing happened. Then they decided to try wacking it (via a plank) with a sledgehammer.
Hahahahaa. So the lally column was kicked out, but the thing still stood! Only one way it was going to go down...
One might question whether it was worth it. In the end the guys were filthy, exhausted, sore, and the truth is we could have paid someone to do it for very little dough. But look at the smiles on theses faces...
Thursday, August 31, 2006
That must be new math
First off, let me say, Mr. Anderson, your weed wacker rocks.
But you are a two-faced toad.
I seem to recall a conversation last winter that went like something like this, "Babe, you are not going to believe this, but I found the black boots I wanted on sale for 35% off at Fields, and then I had a coupon! So they ended up being half off! And with all that savings, these new sandals were basically, like, free! Isn't that amazing?")
Your reaction at the time went like this, "Don't you have some sandals?"
So if I were a catty wife, I'd be tempted to ask you, "Honey, don't you have a saw?" But *I* understand these things. There's nothing like the euphoria of a great bargain.
PS: Honey, if you're a smart man tonight you'll tell me how frickin hot my sandals are.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Amazon Math
Those of you who check in regularly already know that I'm in the middle of wrecking our "garage." Needless to say, there's no better excuse for buying a reciprocating saw, a must-have for every DIYer.
Now consider the fact that the wife and I are longtime Amazon Prime members. No sales tax, no shipping costs. And as if that weren't enough, Amazon is currently offering a $25 instant discount on any purchase of $199 or more from their tool and hardware store. (You can see where this is going.)
Feeling like a contestant on The Price Is Right, I set out to hit that magic threshold of $199. And I nailed it, baby.
To paraphrase Martin Landau from last week's Entourage: If I were to tell you that you could have a Milwaukee Super Sawzall...
And a mini-hacksaw (I'll need this to cut off protruding nails when I fix the siding next weekend)...
And a coping saw (I'll need this, uh, when I install the baseboards in the master bedroom and kitchen)...
AND a Black and Decker electric weed trimmer (nicely starched landscaping outfit not included)...
...for $179, delivered in two days: Would that be something you'd be interested in?
Yes, I believe it would. I do believe it would.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The roof. The roof. The roof is on...
...my lawn.
Just so we're completely clear: This is an actual unretouched photo of my backyard. With a roof sitting on it.
To further clarify: Until this afternoon, said roof was sitting on top of our "garage," AKA "barn." Which my dad was kind enough to come over and help me destroy.
I'll leave it to the wife to share all the gory details - I'm sure she had a much more interesting perspective on the whole operation than I did - but suffice to say, that garage now knows who's its daddy.
Here's a more artistic pic from after the demolition:
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Hello girls
We're in. The place is an utter mess but already we feel at home. I can't bring myself to post pictures yet, but I did want to introduce you to my new best friends... Doris and Winnifred
I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
While packing you have to make tough calls about what is best left for the dumpster.
Ummm. Yea. This is not a tough call.
Behold the tragic casualty of the cruel mistress known as "house staging".
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Elvis Night at the Cell
Many of you know I've always wanted to see the flying Elvi.
Well on Friday night, I finally fufilled my dream.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
What do last night's sox game and our newly finished floors have in common?
Both were tremendous victories.
Here are a couple pictures of the new floors:
Pictures of the game to come.
Friday, August 04, 2006
A new look for the master bathroom
I couldn't take the red. I just couldn't. So my awesome husband agreed to a little project scope creep -- we cleaned up the bathroom and installed a new sink. Now I won't look like a lobster when I get ready in the morning. 
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