We finally got something to adorn our bedroom wall so we have something beautiful to look at instead of a blank wall. The painting is a canvas print reproduction of The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse. We both love it and find it fits in very well with the colors in the room. It is the right balance of interesting and beautiful to keep from getting old after staring at it for years. Jules’ family has the same painting at home and he has always loved it. (I’m aware that the dimensions are not true to the original, but we also didn’t pay an arm and a leg for it so I’m not going to complain!)

Last week Jules and I took off work so we could spend time with our friends visiting from out of town. We had several different gatherings with friends here in Seattle and took many trips to touristy destinations. Jon and Dave spent a great deal of time helping us with various electric-related issues we’d had with the house (which were beyond Jules’ and my expertise.) Now we have a basement light *and* a back porch light that we can actually turn off, an outlet where there were exposed live wires (which I have caught Roscoe *chewing* on before, for crap’s sake!), a clean bathroom fan, two vent covers where there were previously none, and a pretty new lightswitch cover for Nathaniel’s room. (We also discovered that the sunroom is on the same breaker as the furnace (what?) even though we had the panel totally rewired only a few months ago. The electricians must have missed that one.) Brian was only here for essentially two days so unfortunately he didn’t get much of a chance to see the things he was interested in as we were constantly driving to and from the airport (for a total of 8 trips.) It would have been nice if he got to stay a bit longer.

The guys helped Jules with his arcade cabinet and he was able to finish the control panel to a point where it is playable outside the context of the full cabinet (it is designed to be a fully removable, modular unit.) Evidently the wiring wasn’t too tricky and he was able to do most of it without help.

Both of us are still exhausted from all that excitement. Funny how vacations always seem to leave you more tired than refreshed.

Everyone in our household is now making an attempt to exercise more and eat less. There have been some positive results so far but it hasn’t been easy for some individuals… DDR and walks in the park have been helpful, as has green tea. Yum!