Stick Season

I had a long To Do list of all the ambitious projects I wanted to get done today. My reward for completing the list was treating myself to snowboarding tomorrow morning.  I started off bright and early, but unfortunately I only completed the first item.

It took me four hours (and almost an entire bottle of wood glue) to make this stick tree.  A task I thought would take about two.  It still needs a topper because it doesn't seem like I can finish anything lately. I need some focus. I had evergreen boughs and wreaths everywhere last year. I cannot seem to find the holiday spirit this year so I am going with sticks.

I made this wreath over the weekend by simply weaving freshly cut twigs around a wire ring. It took maybe a half hour. I added the red bow to bring some color up from the mantel and tie in with the lanterns.  

Blogging was not on my list and I still accomplished it, even if I used crappy iphone pics. That gives me bonus points and I can still snowboard tomorrow morning right? I am going anyway, just so you know.

Tomorrow's  To Do List

• Snowboard
• Cut posts for headboard
• Sand and shape door handle
• Sand and degloss bathroom shelf
• Assemble lamp shade
• Hang indoor and outdoor lights
• Get a christmas tree
• Finish living room side table
• Fix the hole Casey hacked into our t & g wall

Yeah I might get two of those items done

How's the Water?

A commom question in our house is "How's the Water?". As I explained in the last post. We rely on our wood stove to heat our house and the solar hot water panels to heat our water. If we don't get enough solar hot water we turn on the boiler to bring it up to temperature. However we don't like to do this, so we frequently take less than hot and sometimes very cold showers. Our rating system goes something like this:

180- Glorious- Solar heated (it just feels better when it comes from the sun)  way too hot to touch your body- you actually have to turn it down.
140-120ish -Nice- normal shower temp
120-100- alright- not Lou Reed's alright which really mean excellent, but the alright as in acceptable
100-85- tolerable- you can get your business done but it isn't pleasant and don't even think about shaving your legs, and you most likely won't condition your hair, shampoo is good enough.
below 85- you might cry. I do sometimes.

It does not help that our master bathroom is only about 60 degrees. Since the bathroom downstairs is finally finished we have been showering down there, where it is a balmy 70-75.

By finished I mean that it still needs towel bars and hooks,  shelf, TP holder, art, different vanity knobs, more interesting rubbish can, dual flush conversion knob and an appropriate shower curtain (current one is way too short). It does have a mirror and bathmat- impressive right? (only cause we had guests coming).