Happy Holidays!

New decorations this year - window wreaths to match the door wreaths (so thrilled that Pottery Barn got them back in stock!), and one of those red/green laser lights. Of course with a toddler who loves Christmas lights, we had to put out everything. The lights are mismatched and the application is sloppy but hey it's the twinkle that counts.

Indoors, we moved the tree to the fireplace wall (we rotate every once in a while, it seems) and went with silver ribbons instead of red. We got a new star when the old one decided not to turn on. Most exciting - with our family complete, we all got new stockings thus forever christening us as Mommy and Daddy.

Our village inherited an ice rink (we mostly keep it off because it plays music continuously when on) and our thrilled toddler helped me set the whole thing up and requested "more people" (little does she know that this village is just a small subset of the stuff I keep at my parents' house...). The cats aren't thrilled to lose their window seat but have found other places to sleep for the holiday season, fortunately.

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Dead as a Door...bell

Can you tell the difference between these two pictures? It's more obvious in person:

On the top, our doorbells is glowing. On the bottom, it isn't.

Right around when we were getting the electrical work redone for our new room, our doorbell stopped working. There had been a short - the crew admitted to that. Though they didn't think the two were related.

Well whatever it was, we now have no electrical power to the doorbell, which had magically just worked, emitting a constant glow and chiming an actual manual bell.

Our electrician friend managed to get it working partially - one of the two bell tones seemed permanently fried but the other started working  if the whole unit was loaded up with C batteries. So we got a "ding" instead of a "ding dong." That seemed a decent fix.

 The problem was that it was short-lived. Within a week or two, the doorbell was dead again.

Apparently the constant glow sucks up 4 C batteries in about 10 days. Obviously not something we wanted to sustain.

So we're back to no doorbell. This has not been a bad thing what with a newborn napping at various points of the day. But because it's there and people expect it to work, it has also meant that we haven't always answered for people we actually want to see, like our neighbors (by now I think most of them know it's broken). I probably at least should put a little sign on it or a piece of tape.

The options now are to purchase a fake add-on bell or pay an electrician to fix it, which might involve a whole new unit and new wiring. Neither are great solutions. Since the builders for the new room denied it was related even then, I don't think we can convince them now to come fix it, so we are on our own for whatever costly solution we decide on.

But I miss that glow...

Empty (?) Basement

We briefly tried keeping tools in the garage, once. But separated from the house by 3 locks and a messy breezeway that required shoes to pass through, not to mention a coat, meant that we never wanted to go out there. So we would bring in what we needed - a screwdriver, hammer, etc. - and then it would in the kitchen or otherwise inappropriate spot for weeks before we finally put it back. That got old quick. So when we acquired a fancy tool chest, we agreed we would use it more if it went in the basement.

Now that the garage is so much more accessible to the rest of the house and separated by only a simple toggle lock, we wanted to start making more use of it. And thanks to our new attic over the garage, we've been able to clear out some space. That meant the tool chest could finally migrate to its rightful place.

We love it there, and it makes so much more sense. D even hopes that with better organizing and as we move more upstairs, he can really start to use the work bench area along the back wall. It's already been built, we just have to clear it out.

And that suddenly meant more room in the basement, too. We cleared out the additional drawers (and moved what we couldn't trash out to that oh-so-spacious attic) to create another totally empty basement wall. Plus not having a giant metal tool chest full of sharp tools made the room a lot more child friendly. So what did we do? Immediately buy a gigantic jungle gym.

We don't really intend to make the basement into "the playroom."  We'd rather have the kids playing up on the main floor and don't want the toys stored on a separate floor where we'd have to haul them up and down. But it is a really nice space right now to let her climb and run and spin and get out the energy that, this time of year, she might not be able to exhaust by playing at a playground.

Find new space, fill new space.

We really have to start clearing out from what feels like a massive accumulation phase.