happy new year!

I could get used to this!

hey, I could get used to this life of leisure!

we just celebrated Christmas at our house. my brother and niece came up and my brother-in-law came over. we supped on Italian-seasoned turkey breast tenderloin with red potatoes and broccoli, and my brother brought up some yummy cupcakes for dessert. nice day was had by all. our 2 pups played together well in the back yard.

I worked my last day this past Friday, December 21, 2018 and I'm now on holiday 'til the 31st, my official retirement date!

we have no special travel plans but do have some joint honey-do lists to prep the house for some planned updates. we recently did update phase I where we replaced our 8' sliding glass door leading to our back yard, and the front entry / storm doors. the slider door replacement was born of necessity as it opened fine but was becoming increasingly harder to shut. we knew we had some water damage and had a builder recommended to me by my coworker Joe check it out. he ended up saying he could replace the front door at the same time if I liked (as I'd mentioned it was a future project waiting to happen), so we got both done at the same time. and THEN, he included 2 color painting and had to replace some trim, and I mentioned that I'd been planning to beef up the trim to more Craftsman style, and AGAIN he said we might as well do it while he had to replace some ... so the project just kept growing. he ended up painting the great room and entry hall and replaced the door trim on 3 doors (front, slider, and our bedroom entry). we'd had all vanilla white walls but splurged on color on the walls - using Sherwin-Williams' zero voc egg shell in 7527 Nantucket Dune and Benjamin Moore's semi gloss in SW7012 creamy white. it looks t'riffic! next mini project - install garage outdoor lighting and replace the rest ... but that's a story for another day!