Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 

fried dead tomatoes

I got a little overzealous with my new cold frames and totally fried my tomato plants. I actually know better than to take the plants directly outside and put them in the hot sun, but that’s what I did anyway. In my defense, my planting schedule got screwed up when I had to travel for my new job. When I got back, it was past the time to transplant the tomatoes into pots. Still, they looked OK at that point. But a week later, they were looking a little scary. So, in a fit of brilliance, I put them in the cold frames and now they are just about history. I’m still holding out in the hope that they might sprout some new leaves and it won’t be a total loss, but the more likely scenario is that I’ll be buying my plants this year.

I have to travel again soon, so I should be frying my peppers in about two weeks.

a plethora of booze

Today started off by heading to Virginia wine country at 9am with our parents. We drove to the Leesburg area and hit Tarara Winery first. We did a tasting there and then had a picnic lunch on their deck while enjoying the entertainment they had for the day. Brian and I went to this winery once before, years ago, so we knew it would be a good place to start.

After that, we drove around for a bit and ended up at Village Winery in Waterford. This winery was new to me. Heck, it wasn’t even on the winery map I had for the area. Unfortunately, it was also the least favorite winery of the day.

Then we returned to one we found on last year’s winery trip, Doukenie Winery. This happened to be everyone’s favorite winery of the day, so it more than made up for our previous stop.

Next up was a new one that looked pretty good, Hillsborough Winery. The wine here was good. But, the only thing I didn’t like about it was that most (or was it all?) of their wines were blends and I generally stay away from blends for some reason.

And as if that wasn’t enough for the day, we were invited to a tequila party (in honor of Cinco de Mayo) at my former manager’s house. His parties are not one to miss, so I wasn’t about to miss this one even if we were going to be late for it. After we got home and got things settled, Brian made a layered dip to take to the party (the food theme was Mexican, of course) while I got cleaned up and ready to go. I had such a good time at the party that my face hurts from smiling/laughing so much (those particular face muscles don’t normally get such a workout). I was tired from the day’s trip so I hadn’t planned on staying at the party long, but I was having such a good time, so we didn’t get home until after 11:00. I think the dogs might hate us, but what can you do?

It was a good day.

hurt

This is the funniest thing I have seen since I don’t know when.

I didn’t like this song when NIN did it. I liked it when Johnny Cash covered it. But, Kermit nailed it.

another day, another project

As if we don’t have enough stuff going on around the house, we’re now in the midst of remodeling Jake’s room. I use the term ‘remodeling’ loosely. I mean, remodeling a bedroom isn’t exactly the same thing as remodeling a bathroom or kitchen, you know? Anyway, the kid’s room has been a complete mess for at least a few years–mostly due to lack of storage space. I found a really nice desk/wall unit that would be perfect for his room and should clear up the clutter. And, I’ve been meaning to get new carpeting in there for the past year. But, if we’re going to replace the carpeting, we need to replace the trim. And, if we’re going to replace the trim, we might as well paint first. And, if we’re replacing the trim, we also need new doors. So, you can see why I’m calling it a remodel.

Today, we removed a bunch of items from the room so we’d have room to work and then we ripped out the trim and doors. We took a break at one point and went to REC Carpeting in Tire Hill and picked out new carpeting. After all of that was done, we ran to Home Depot and bought some paint.

Unfortunately for Brian, the floor trim needs to be installed before the carpet can go in. It’ll be a few weeks until the carpet will be installed so he has a little time. But, I’ve been waiting 7 years (and counting) for trim in my living room and dining room, so this will be quite a feat for him. The only issue that needs to be worked out is that he is also building the doors for the bedroom. Obviously there is not enough time to do this before the carpet goes in so it will be tricky installing the floor trim without having the doors installed. Hopefully we can find a way around that.

Tomorrow I need to prep the walls for painting. If we got them painted that would be a definite plus, but I’m not counting on that at this point because I have too much other stuff to do.