By now you’ve all read about our adventures with the car that we purchased. I’ve now posted pictures of it in Picasa.
Archive for August, 2007
Today Gavin and I had to fill up our little Matrix — again. I was a little shocked it needed ot be filled up so soon, after all, we had filled it up on Tuesday of last week! How did we go through so much fuel in a week?!
Gavin looked at the receipts –which I’ve been keeping and writing the milage on (all both of them). We filled it up the first time around 300 miles, and this time it was just over 600. The good news is according to Gavin’s rough mental math we’re averaging about 30 mpg.
My next question was, how did we do 300 miles in a week?!
“Well we did drive to Berkeley and back,” Gavin pointed out.
“But it wasn’t THAT far,” I insisted. “It’s not all that much further away than Galveston or Rice Village.”
Google map says 55 miles to the Berkeley Campus — give or take (although we didn’t go to the campus, we went to Crate & Barrel and the IKEA in Emeryville), and we did drive to Santa Rosa several times over the weekend, and then we went off exploring to Rohnert Park this afternoon (next time we’re bringing a map), so I guess that all adds up to about 300 miles?
That or my sense of time/travel distance is skewed by living in Houston… or both.
During our first few days in the townhouse I have noticed a large number of cats prancing and lounging around the townhouse complex. One brazenly walked through our open front door, inspected our kitchen, and scampered out through the garage.
This afternoon a little back cat wandered into our back yard. It sat near our rose bush and cleaned itself. I don’t mind them visiting, I just hope they don’t use our back garden for much more than an occasional visit.
Occasionally during the night we can hear the cats discuss their territory. Fortunately they are all small, and fairly well matched. I am grateful that Thomas is at home with my parents, he’s easily twice the size of the largest cat I’ve seen around here.
Today we drove down to Emeryville and visited IKEA and Crate & Barrel. We’d been eyeing a hutch for our dining room for extra storage space and as a possible replacement for our alternative open storage bookcase.
IKEA is always an adventure. This time, after going through Kitchen and dining solutions, we finally found the hutch we wanted, somewhat hidden on the far side of a column. The directions to retrieve the hutch from the warehouse were only in Spanish, so we had to find an associate and explain our dilemma.
The hutch was not in the grab-it-yourself part of the warehouse, so we had to get a print out and go to the check out counter with just the little piece of paper, from there, we went to the furniture pickup and wait.
The box was just over six feet long and fit nicely in our little car. We dropped one of the back seats and the passenger seat, so Gavin had to sit (rather uncomfortably) behind me. The fold-down seats have really been useful on our recent trips, they’ve folded-down to fit the table, the chairs, on our drive up to Sebastopol for the first time with all our luggage, the Matrix really is a versatile little car.
After IKEA we went to Crate & Barrel where some of our gift cards went towards a very nice leather tote to hold throws, pillows and magazines for the living room, some candles and some kebab-stickemthings for the BBQ that Gavin finally finished assembling.
When we got home, Gavin and I assembled the first part of the hutch, then while Gavin took a break, I assembled the doors. Gavin marveled at how they were “wife proof” in that I could put on certain features only one way (hinges), or that they were totally reversible and could go in any way (the little door pulls).
Once the doors were assembled, Gavin hung them on the hinges, I took some more photos, and then proceeded to empty the bookcase of food. Our new hutch holds more than I anticipated and it looks like there will be plenty of room for my baking endeavors.
So, more photos have been added to our Townhouse in Sebastopol pictures.
Today Gavin and I drove into Santa Rosa to run some errands, visit Trader Joe’s and return something at CompUSA. We also stopped by and picked up our new dining room table and remaining chair. The table slid nicely into the back of our Matrix and the chair was secured across the back as well.
After lunch we assembled our new table. For the first time we will have a complete matching set of dining room chairs, quite a change from our mix-match look in Boston where we had a Crate & Barrel chair with “a scratch” and a floor room sample from a Harvard-area furniture store, not to mention the lovely 1950s molded-fiberglass chairs in emergency cone orange (slip covered), and some directors chairs for the last resort.
While we originally had our hearts set on the Pivot Table from Crate and Barrel, we found this table at Scandinavian Designs for far less and the matching chairs were comfortable, and the table fit better in the space. The C&B gift cards will have to wait for another day.
Photos from our move have been uploaded. From the kitchen clear-out, to the NStar jack-hammering, all the excitment, fun and adventure of trying to leave Somerville on July 23, 2007.
Photos from our new Townhouse have also been uploaded. Granted, all our stuff is still trucking across the country, but here are some pictures of what we’ve done so far. Thanks to Dulce for finding the only slightly-questionable warehouse sale of furniture on Craig’s List — we got a sofa and console table (cash only, no questions), and for the great finds in the storage unit — some great lamps and tables. We’re also adding a new dining room table and chairs and we’ve gotten several other great contributions from others as well.
This morning Gavin had to be at work by 7:00 am so he could carpool to a meeting in some city that I have since forgotten the name of (it’s about 90 minutes from here).
When we left the house at 6:45, it was 52 degrees out, over cast and misty/foggy. It has been like this every morning since we arrived in Sebastopol, and so far, every afternoon it has burned off and been beautiful.
While it does not make for the most inspiring weather to wake up to, it is rather fun to drive in (as long as it’s not too dense). The headlights glow, everything is covered in dew and shrouded in mist and fog. I took the back roads and the way the mist/fog hung around the trees in the distance was slightly eerie in a Legend of Sleepy Hollow sort of way.
There is a local cemetery near our home, it is well maintained, small and neat. Once the mist settles, most of it appears hidden from view and its look eerily still and slightly foreboding.
Gavin explained there are different kinds of fog, and eventually I’ll be able to tell them apart. I just know that for now the overcast skies first thing in the morning inspire me to snuggle deeper under the covers, although I must confess it is nicer than bright sunshine streaming into the bedroom at 4:00 am.
We’ve moved into our new townhouse and we’re waiting for our things to show up (hopefully next week). Until such time as they do, you too can have fun at becomeanmm.com
