The Best Days in the Winter

Every February brings two special days, Valentines Day and Kathy's Birthday. For many of the rest of the gang, October is the big month, but bring on the middle of February and Kathy is in heaven.

This year I traveled back from the U.K. on Valentines Day and we had dinner in New York City. Steak for two and a yummy Brunello. I did bring dark chocolate home with me, so we had dessert for several days.



A few days after Valentines is THE Birthday of the year. No one I know looks forward to a birthday like Kathy - well - maybe our neighbor Tovah, but then she takes a whole month. Octovah. I decided to keep it simple this year and we headed to our favorite local place, Swoon Kitchenbar. Our friends at Swoon take very good care of us. It is said that Jeff only has a few bottles left of a favorite 2004 French Burgundy, Chambolle-Musigny. Thanks to the generosity of his staff we had one of them to make our birthday dinner very special. Thanks Jeff!

Walls!

Despite late day snow last Friday, the guys put up the walls on the guest suite! Today they were hoping to get the ones up on the master bedroom but today's midday snow squall might have inhibited that plan. We have a meeting with Jim at the house tomorrow so we'll see. In any case, the floor joists are in and sturdy enough to walk on, the plumber is working on his stuff, inside framing continues, and things are progressing as fast as ever. The tub gets delivered and installed tomorrow.....yippee!! Don't think I won't use it even though the place is a little unfinished! Oh, and happy birthday to me!!

Well, Well, Well!

Just two weeks of travel have gone by (and an illness or two) and more great things have been done at 271 despite some nasty winter weather while we were gone. We have a new well - nice and deep this time 250 ft vs our original 100 ft one and farther out from the house. See it there on the far left - outside the new master bedroom (beyond where the old mud room was)? First they moved all the ground around with huge dirt/slate moving machines, dug the trench and got things flowing which will help the construction effort. Then they leveled the ground, filled in the holes with all those little bits of dirt and slate, took down those trees that weren't doing well anyway, framed in the floor of the master bedroom and it's starting to feel like it's going to look nice again someday when the topsoil goes back down. They've also now done more of the framing the walls of the guest suite - see that sliding glass door and windows on either side? What a view of the lake for all of you that come to visit from the comfort of your own bedroom! We're taking donations if anyone wants to contribute to the cause ;-)