Between Two Pheasants...

Happy New Year! I've been reading a lot of posts on Facebook about how 2016 was a really tough year for a lot of people. It was tough for me too. I'm still struggling to accept the results of November's election and am scared for my friends and family that will be impacted by the actions and policies of the Trump Administration. Particularly, I'm fearful for immigrants, the LGBT community, women rights (and access to healthcare), and not to mention the impact on our energy, environment, healthcare, and international policies. I won't go as far to say that I'm cautiously optimistic, but I am hoping for the best. With all that said, my year has been busy, hard, rewarding, comical, and full of love. At work, I welcomed two new "bosses" (I have a dual reporting line) all while adjusting to a new routine for Cinderella as she headed off to kindergarten (proud mama). Then there is The Babe doing what The Babe does best (not sleeping, sleeping, waking up ea

Folks, we are feeling mighty fine. We are legit. We live in a house with real heat, because we have a brand new furnace. That's right! Last month, we said "Sayonara" to our 101-year old, original furnace. As much as we are trying to preserve the house, we definitely need to live in a comfortable home and last winter, the space heaters weren't cutting it. In fact, they were tripping all our electrical breakers. Eek! But, how cool that this house has had the same furnace this whole time. They just don't make them like they used to. Here's a pic of the old guy below. Attached on the top is insulation full of asbestos and there were five metal ducts coming out. One duct was completely turned off because it developed a big split in in sometime over the years before we moved in. Another duct was crunched, allegedly by a home inspector when a previous potential buyer came before us. Anyway, here's the big old boy:

I remember a moment when we were walking through the house with our realtor thinking, "a french door really should go where this window is so people in the house can access the backyard." At that time, I had hoped these hypothetical people would be us and we are! We people are the proud owners of a new french door (as of August)! The door is from Home Depot (Orepac is the brand, I believe) and it was not cheap, but it was about 1/2 the price of Andersen which the price of a small car. We had a real handyman/Jesus' sidekick, Ricardo, install it for us. The door is fiberglass and has a real wood grain texture. Since it is in a fairly sunny location, we opted for something that was a little more indestructible than wood. The hardware is also from Home Depot. Now that it's here and we have a glorious view to our outdoor fireplace, I'm dying to put in a deck. That's going to be a project for 2017 and hopefully sooner rather than later. Side no