Well, hello there, 2016.
So far you look rather gray-ish and not very pretty. Maybe you’ll give us a glimpse of the sun at some point today?
Don got in gear yesterday and cleaned and sorted his part of the shared office space. We grabbed some storage bins and filled them up. So therapeutic! The room is looking much more spacious. When you consider that we had a bed, Don’s desk, two file cabinets, my grandmother’s large trunk, two chairs, 5 guitars, a linen cabinet and Don’s dresser in there, you can see how crowded it was. And why we avoided it like the plague.
Once we got rid of the bed everything changed. By the way, some of you have asked about the hallway. We moved Don’s vintage 30s waterfall dresser into the niche where I had my sewing machine. It actually looks good there. And we moved the pine cabinet that functions as our linen cabinet to the space formerly occupied by the pink cabinet. It makes more sense for the linen cabinet to be in the hall. All in all, it’s working out nicely.
So we made a little trip to the storage facility and dropped off some bins and other things. We made a mad dash to the bank because I had mistakenly torn a check that was sent to me in half. I know. What the ?? I was tearing up some junk mail and somehow the check got torn in half as well. Thank goodness I didn’t tear it into little pieces. The bank teller taped it together and the machine accepted it. Huzzah!
We had a slice of pizza.
Then we stopped by the used record store and came home with:
• A mint album (never opened) of Django Reinhardt (with Stephane Grappelli.) It’s fabulous.
• A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (Harry Nilsson) – one of my favorite albums ever and one I have moldering away in the shed. Needed to be replaced. In mint condition.
• The Ballad of Sally Rose – Emmylou Harris (sealed – never opened.)
• Pete Seeger – American’s Balladeer (sealed – never opened.)
• Follies In Concert (Stephen Sondheim) – I have the album (in the dreaded shed) and the CD. I needed to replace the album because vinyl just sounds better. Hurrah, I did!
• Funny Girl (original Broadway Cast) – again, the album is in the shed. Time to replace it.
We’re having such fun! We came home and listened to a couple of our new finds and then had dinner, watched the New York Philharmonic/Live at Lincoln Center and then watched part of Taken 3 , which was so dreadful we laughed out loud.
Lights out by 11:00.
Today? Who knows?
Happy New Year to one and all. May this year be filled with peace and joy and fulfillment and happiness and love. I’m so grateful for your presence in my life.
Happy Friday.
We have softly falling snow here this morning, Claudia. I looks like big pieces of torn paper! Give Scout a kiss for me.
S
xo
That sounds just beautiful, Sue! I will give Scoutie that kiss – for sure!
Happy New Year Claudia, Don and Scout!
hugs
Happy New Year, Nancy!
Happy New Year Claudia, Don and Scout! My wish is for a wonderful year for all of us. Take care, Doris
Amen! Happy New Year, Doris!
Best wishes for 2016 to you,Don and Scout. May your year be filled with good health, lots of good fortune and much laughter.
Lyn
Thank you, Lyn! Happy New Year to you and yours!
May the New Year welcome and embrace you with gentleness and kindness Claudia,Don and Scout!
Thank you so much, Grace. A happy and healthy and wonderful New Year to you!
Happy New Year and Happy Leap Year. Ahhh a new year fresh and lovely just waiting for us.
I didn’t know it was a leap year! How neat! Happy New Year, Cindy! (The other skein of gray yarn is finally on its way to me!)
yay for your love of the (completed?) office and niche furniture switch! isn’t it nice when ideas and effort work out to make part of life easier/happier/prettier? :)
your efforts are inspiring me to work on my sunroom. calling it that makes it sound more charming than it is and it’s not very sunny for having a northern exposure (though the view is of a lovely church with a tall steeple), but it’s a decent size space for my desk, sewing machine, a cupboard and chairs and supplies to write, knit, sew, cross-stitch, read and dream. those supplies just need a bit of organizing now. thanks for the inspiration!
happy, healthy new year to you, don, scout and the rest of your family.
kathy in iowa
Almost completed. Not quite. But pretty far along! So glad to be a source of a little inspiration, Kathy. Happy New Year!
Sounds like a good day. I had a great dinner with my family and more time with Ashleigh before she heads back to Calif today. A little Christmas and New Year’s Eve all rolled into one. I was in bed before midnight reading. I wanted to finish one more book for 2015!! Today I’m resting and enjoying some quiet time….I really need it.
hugs,
Linda
You most definitely need and deserve it. Sending you lots of love and hugs on this New Year’s Day, Linda. xoxo
May 2016 find peace and joy for all. But, perhaps it is WE who have to seek the peace and the joy… I don’t think a new year can actually do that without our help.
Hope all of you have a wonderful day in the cottage today. We have some sun…. so I will look upon that as a good thing, indeed!
Happy New Year!
No sun here. Sob. But there’s supposed to be sun tomorrow! Happy New Year!
The sun is trying desperately to come out this morning…sort of playing hide and seek! Hoorah…it’s 2016! Wishing you, and Don and all of the readers of of your blog, a very healthy and happy year! ;)
The same to you and yours, Donnamae!
Ha, ha, you and the torn check reminded me that one time I was cleaning out some papers and discovered a $400 check that I had forgot about and never cashed! It had been several years but the bank still cashed it! Was I happy or what? Happy New Year and glad you and Don are having fun. It is always refreshing to change things around.
Wasn’t that nice! Yay for unexpected money! Happy New Year, Susan!
Happy New Year to your family. As usual we stayed home. It’s a beautiful day here, sun shining brightly & after the hottest Cristmas week in 90 years we are expecting a cool down this weekend. Your office space looks so lovely & functional. Nothing cheers me up like changing up a space in our house.
Happy New Year, Janie!
Happy New Year Claudia and crew! It’s warm and sunny here today. The snow is even melting a bit! Wow, it sounds like your space was pretty full with all the items you had in the room. I bet it feels incredibly big right now! Have fun finishing it up. Today, we’re working on purging what will be our formal art studio but with our move, became the place to store boxes. So today is unpacking day and reorganizing so we can get our desks in (they are both in the garage right now), then creating our creative spaces within the space. And a workout zone. It’s going to take weeks I’m sure. But excited to start today. Enjoy your day! Hope the sun comes out.
You’ll have fun, Chy. It will be great to make that into your art studio. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year my dear sister.
Mere
Happy New Year, Meredith!
Happy New Year…to my favorite blogger, Claudia!…Oh and by the way, it’s Friday today!…I am so mixed up, on days too!
I just realized that – Gosh darn it, I’ve been saying it’s Saturday all day long! Happy New Year!
Happy 2016 Claudia! It is grey, damp, windy and 39 degrees here. No walk yesterday (it was even worse!!), but we managed to walk for 1.5 hours in Valley Forge Park this morning. Lots of folks out and about and some walking groups. Almost everyone smiling and saying “Happy New Year” as we walked by each other. A few, unsmiling, not speaking folks…obviously their year is not off to a great start – ha!
What wonderful choices for music. We got rid of our turntable so many years ago and put boxes and boxes of albums in the basement where they didn’t fare very well. Finally put them out at the edge of the street many moons ago. They were GONE within 15 minutes. I miss them. But, I will admit that I do not miss them taking up so much space.
Finished one book this morning, will start the next (The Long Way Home) Louise Penny book soon. Split pea soup is simmering on the stove, barley bread is rising and I will make a pear-cranberry cobbler to come out of the oven while we are having dinner. Home-made whipped cream for the cobbler. I think 2016 is off to a good start!
All the best to you, Don and a big hug and scratch behind the ears to Dame Scout.
You’re making me hungry, Vera! Happy New Year to you and yours!
So cold here on the first day of the new year…35 degrees with a “real feel” as they call it of 24 degrees…very windy and snow flurries on and off…But we are cozy inside and the smell of our new years sauerkraut dinner in the oven is wonderful…Your Cloud Biscuits will be perfect to go with it…Enjoy your quiet and comfy day and all of the great music…Happy New Year Claudia, Don and Scout! Also best wishes for the New Year to everyone out there reading this…
It’s very cold here, too. And it’s windy! Enjoy those cloud biscuits, Nancy. Happy New Year to you and yours.
Happy New Year to you and to Don. Love your new office space by the way, and you have reawakened my interest in Ikea, especially that little desk lamp. The space looks wonderful and I can just imagine how great it feels to finally have a larger space to work. We moved my work space into a corner of my daughters old bedroom this morning….ahhhh, space to breathe and work without feeling cramped. Your spaces are always so sweet and comfy cozy looking. xxoo
Oh thank you, my friend! Happy New Year to you and yours!
I have no used record stores anywhere near me. How much fun it must be to thumb thru vinyl/record albums like in the old days…and to find some that are still shrink wrapped and never opened; wow, amazing to me. I’ve run into this in the secondhand marketplace on Amazon but it’s few and far between, and expensive. Most of the old records have been opened and used, which is no diff from my own. I watched ‘You’ve Got Mail’ again (I love this movie with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan) and they feature Harry Nilsson in the soundtrack.
You know, Claudia, I was in the process of paring down the rest of the blogs that I read and basically removing myself from the web in 2016 but I find I can’t ‘quit you’ and one other; it would be like losing a friendship. You’ve been so patient with my long replies; I’ll keep trying to ‘speak’ in fewer words (after today!) in Comments but I love to come here, read your posts, see what you’re up to, read all the comments from your terrific readers. I think it’s remarkable that you post pretty much every day.
I actually ran errands today and it was marvelous; there were so few people at our chain ‘drug store’ and I took my time, spending wisely (all day, I resisted [successfully] buying more Christmas decor/ornaments at 50% off). I’m excited because tomorrow I have two rolling file “carts” coming…just one drawer, open, that I can pull to me as I gather paper from around the house and organize it into hanging folders. I did a little splurge and got color-coordinated folders to take away from the ugly gray metal of the cart frames. As much as I’ll miss my adorable husband as he returns to work Monday (in these short couple of weeks before his surgery), I’m ready to organize in the quiet of the house, fully concentrated on my task at hand, with no distractions!
I couldn’t believe that in one of the big box stores here, they already have all their Valentine stock out…we went straight from Christmas candy to Valentine’s candy (my gosh, people in my neighborhood still have their green & red holiday lights on their houses and I’m still enjoying my little inside Christmas tree!).
Glad you had a nice couple of days for the new year!
Drives me nuts when stores put out the next holiday’s stock the day they take down the current holiday’s stock. Could we just have some breathing room?