all the news that isn't

A few days before Halloween Adrienne and I went over to Montclair (two towns over) and checked out their ‘Garden Aglow’, with jack-o-lanterns lighting up the Iris Gardens. Actually, the jack-o-lanterns didn’t do too much in terms of lighting up, because they had huge security-type lights that took away any sort of atmosphere and proper lighting. Oh well. Some of the carved pumpkins were still kinda cool.

The cooler weather means the furballs are sometimes wanting more warmth:

And just last night Adrienne and I finally got around to having somewhat of a Housewarming party. More like a one-year anniversary (in the house)  party at this point. Fourteen friends and neighbors stopped by to enjoy good food and conversation. As we prepped Saturday morning, I asked Adrienne if she was planning any sort of special decoration. She said no. Then an hour or two later our doorbell rang and a florist delivered a beautiful centerpiece, thanks to Mom and Dad!

Happy Weekend!

And I’m not talking about Charlie…

Adrienne and I walked the couple blocks to the Oakside Cultural Center here in Bloomfield to check out a Mandolin Orchestra concert this afternoon. (The Bloomfield Mandolin Orchestra has been around for 70 years now, and is one of the many community music groups that operate in Bloomfield–pretty cool even if the quality isn’t quite top notch, or even middle at times…) The concert featured Italian and Neapolitan songs, and pretty much ended up being a sing-along for the crowd of mostly older Italian types. It was still enjoyable enough, and a nice little diversion from the many chores on our weekend list!

On the way home, we again saw more wild turkeys just hanging out in front yards. An odd site for what I consider to be quite urban suburbs, but still kinda cool! Gobble gobble.

We’re finally getting our sided-over stained glass windows opened up. We have one on each side of the fireplace and one by the stairs on the opposite wall. Here’s an old photo of the two by the fireplace:

Ok, so it was night out and thus a bad comparison, but those two windows are sided over – no light! And here’s a photo from today:

Detail:

Other side:

Not only do they look cool, but they let more light into our dark-ish living room. Only problem is the one on the right side of the fireplace has a crack and hole in it. We were hoping we could remove the whole window so the stained glass place could fix it, but that seems like it’s not going to happen. So there’s more work to be done.

Also today, we got ready for winter:

No, I didn’t cut and split all that. We buy our wood here in the ‘burbs… but I did pile it. That’s a half-cord. So I feel productive, and all we did was spend money!

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Edit:

Here’s a better photo of the stained glass windows sided-over.

And I was able to get the window out with some coaxing and minor breaking, so I’ll be taking it to the stained glass place tomorrow and hoping they can work wonders for cheap!

While living in Jersey City, Adrienne and I went to some ‘movies in the park’ that were a regular summer series in one of the nearby parks. Not exactly the same, but the Montclair (2 towns/5 minute drive over) Film Festival shows a couple open-air films throughout the summer, shutting down a commerce street so we can bring out chairs and blankets. Adrienne had never seen ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ all the way through, so we picked up some Quizno’s and enjoyed a nice night out.

Looks like David has caved on taking in a third cat, as seen in the previous post.  Any ideas for names?  I’m thinking that something that plays on its long hair or small size might be nice but am open to other ideas.

Our mac mini up and died a while back – bad logic board – but David was finally quick enough to snag a refurb from the Apple store. So we’re back up and running thanks to migration assistant. Anyway, the ‘our friend’ doesn’t refer to the mini but one (the runt) of four kittens we’ve discovered in our neighborhood. This very skinny kitten with A LOT of fur (including the ears) is especially friendly since Adrienne fed it a couple times. We were getting ready for bed and Adrienne announced ‘our friend’ was outside. I’m afraid where this is going, but at least you can enjoy some cute cat pics.

Whipped up a batch of lemon bars with lemons from the lemon tree in my boss’s yard (in California):

That’s a lemon leaf sugar pattern from one of the leaves that came with the lemons!

Adrienne also (unknown to David) fed a stray kitten – one of 4 that we just recently discovered – that was trying to stay cool in our yard.

Nothing but trouble there…  David then mowed the yard – not looking too great in the above pic, but the rest of it isn’t too bad!

We learned every little town has their own (little) Memorial Day Parade, so we walked the couple blocks (just the other side of the college) to check it out. David kinda wishes the towns would consolidate so we could get a better parade going, but we’ll take what we can get. Click on photos for bigger version and commentary.

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A couple photos from the weekend so far: enlarged hole allows for successful path to second floor office for CAT6 and coax wiring (the project started with brother Doug); Applegate Farms homemade ice cream, just shy of a 5-mile bike ride away, determined to not be as good as Jersey City favorite Torico’s; and wall jack in kitchen wired with CAT6.

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After tomorrow I should have Bloomfield Memorial Day parade pics and completed citrus blast-painted sunroom pics to share!

Icemaker fixed:

Craigslist chair picked up:

It was made in 1950. It’s in pretty good shape, having had a very-ugly cover on it for quite some time, but it likely needs a professional upholstery cleaning to help get rid of the musty smell.

Adrienne falls on her butt and gets huge bruise:

It’s about the size of your closed fist!

Other non-photographed tasks/events: grass mowed, hedge trimmed, mirror re-attached to Adrienne’s 100-year-old dresser, bean pods and leaves completely eaten off of garden plants 🙁 , The Shining watched (really not that scary, I don’t get it), tennis played. Gonna start prepping for a little grill out, looks like the rain may hold off. Happy Sunday!