27 June - Changing bulbs

The light fixtures in the basement hall look nice, but have been designed so that it's weirdly difficult to change the bulbs... you practically have to take the things apart in order to get access to the bulbs. Also, they don't match any of the other fixtures in the house (as far as color and design), so odds are good we'll be replacing them eventually. For now, they work pretty well in that space... ( but the awkwardness combined with the fixtures being overhead does mean that Rackham has to be the one to change bulbs. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.

28 June - Unexpected Mustache Art

On Saturday, we drove down to the Olympia area to visit rackham's aunt and uncle, but also to finish off one of the best puzzle caches we've ever done, The Di Gital Code. So worth it! The puzzles are interesting, but solvable and there are some fun stages to the cache (including two Chirps... but we thankfully have a Chirp-enabled GPS) and the final was a nearly hour-long hike through the woods (where we ended up only going about a mile, total) with no trail plus lots of rainforest undergrowth and fallen trees. But I gotta tell you, there was a definite sense of triumph when we finally laid eyes on the cache and got to sign the logbook. Wow. If you're in the area, this one is worth it, but it will really eat up your time.

Anyway, while on the drive down, we got caught in some heavy traffic through Tacoma and I happened to glance over to the right ( just in time to see this... and burst out laughing. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.

29 June - Moving dead palm trees

When we first bought the house there were four palm trees in the yard, but three of them were dead (and, as near as we can tell, probably never grew after they were planted, since they were in areas with very little drainage and had likely drowned). The fourth is still thriving and, in fact, seems to be growing since we gave it some palm tree fertilizer earlier this year... but a few months ago, we went out front to discover that one of the dead palms had fallen over. So, we hauled it down to the carport and rackham checked out the next one in line, only to discover that it fell over easily with just a slight shove. He gave me the opportunity to do the same with the last dead palm and it went over just as easily. So, three dead palm trees stacked up in the carport... and it occurred to us on Sunday afternoon that if we moved them out of the carport and over to the other side of the house, we'd have covered parking for our two cars AND my in-laws' car.

( Palm tree trunks are surprisingly heavy. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.

30 June - Recharging the solar batteries

One of the things our cats seem to absolutely love about this house is all the windows. Not just because it gives them even more places to view the outside world (which in Numfar's case means not just watching the birds at the birdfeeder, but also growling at anyone who walks or drives by the front of the house), but because it means there are lots of random patches of sunlight, at least on sunny days.

( Zoë enjoying the sun. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.

1 July - Elephant!

Yes!!! I am now officially caught up on photos again! Yay!!

For lunch today, I rode with my in-laws up to meet rackham and his brother at the main Microsoft campus so we could go to the Commons (which is sort of a private mall with mostly restaurants, just for Microsoft employees and guests). In one of the buildings, we ended up walking past this fine fellow, and I just had to grab a photo (and I'm really hoping I haven't posted one before... I'm fairly certain I haven't and I can't find one in my archives, but it keeps tickling the back of my brain that I might have).

( Indoor elephant. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.