Winter Weather

I checked the weather this morning when I woke up: cold. Nothing about snow. Why then, was my trip up the NE extension a blizard mess? What is normally a 2 hour trip to Selinsgrove turning into 2.5 hours b/c of the snow.

This winter has been a weird one. Lots of ice and rain, not much snow. Still, the ice has played nasty on my travels. In December I had to cancel a trip to Williamsport b/c of ice. This week I had another trip to Williamsport canceled for the same reason. I was looking back at my calendar from last year and realized that I did a lot of traveling in SE PA. I must have been using my mind back then: go along I 80 and weather could play a factor.

In the next few weeks I'll be going to communities generally in the SE part of the state. It wasn't for planning, just luck. In feb I'll be doing a trip to Susquehanna Depot, a dangerous plan, and several trips to Ashland. We'll see if I live to regret that.

Some Down Time

My last road trip was December 23rd to Harrisburg for staff meetings. I won't be on the road again until Jan 7th when I go to Williamsport, Selinsgrove and then to Harrisburg again.

I'm not taking vacation time this year. Instead I'm going to use Monday, Tuesday and a 1/2 day on Weds to clean my office, do some reports and start crafting a legislative calendar for the 2009-2010 session. I don't anticipate many interuptions so I'm hoping to get a lot done.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and are able to reflect on the hopes that come with a New Year. Be safe in your travels, joyous in your celebrations and gracious in your giving and love.

Finished

I've finished my living room and dining room. Here are the completed pictures. I'm really getting good at this stuff. I'll paint everything this spring when it's warm enough to open the windows.



The living room.

From the living room, looking into the dining room.

From the front hall, looking into the dining room.

The floors!

Pictures

THE doors--they're gone now. This is from the living room, front wall. Picture taken when I bought the place






The doors. This is from the dining room/kitchen door. This was also taken when I bought the place.






That's me after ripping the doors out. Little fuzzy. I can just touch both sides, so the opening is a little smaller than 6'. I've also since I bought the house installed a light in the dining room.








Part of sanding is dealing with the dust. This is a film of dust in the kitchen. It travels. I've since vaccumed this room.





This is the molding in the dining room covered with dust.





The floor, stripped bare and vaccumed.






First coat of finish being applied.








First coat of finished being applied.

At it again

The Friday after Thanksgiving is usually reserved for shopping. Not for me! I went bonkers and started my next home improvement project: restoring the living room and dining room to their spender.

Some background. When I bought the house, some yahoo had done bad things. First, they insisted on installing double doors to seperate the rooms. See the picture. Not sure what was going on with their thinking. The doors went right away. The filler I had to keep b/c the carpet was installed around it. Second, somebody installed carpet over wood floors. A sin. It was decent carpet, but in this house, covering the wood floors is just dumb.

My task was to remove the carpet and sub floor, sand the floors to bare wood and apply finish. For the doorway, my task was to simply go nuts and break things. I spent two days ripping up the carpet and the subfloor. The carpet was easy. The subfloor was nailed down in no less than 64 places on each sheet of plywood (that's not an exageration). This past Saturday, I rented two floor sanders and enrolled the help of my parents to spend a full day just-a-sandin'. Sunday we came back and applied the first coat of finish. The last we'll apply on Saturday and come back Sunday to put the furnature back in the room (it's scattered about the house--dining room set in the bathroom, futon in the hall, chairs in closets).

Shameless Self-Promotion

This upcoming Tuesday I will be a guest-panelist on WDIY at 6pm. The topic will be "Put Your $$$ Where Your House is: Why Should I Buy Local This Holiday Season." The other panelists will be Brian Pitcher, the owner of Baby Gift Clouds in Easton and Kim Schaffer of Organic Clothesline in Bethlehem. Lanita Lum of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce will be the moderator.

The event will be broadcast live at the Bethlehem Brew Works and is open to anybody who likes beer, conversations about policy... or both. You can also listen online at wdiyfm.org.

UPDATE: with the fire at the Main Street Commons this past weekend, the Policy and Pints Panel will be postponed until early next year.

Images of the Holidays

A cool storefront in Selinsgrove. The snowmen were sitting in a bowl that had small snowflakes streaming down on them. Very cool sight.




Another nice storefront in Selinsgrove, that had all kinds of festive decorations




Selinsgrove Commons, all decorated with trees and lights. I need a better camera.

Pottstown, docorated with greens and lights.

A nice surprise in Lewisburg. Nothing says "welcome" like a greeting that encourages you to call a town "home".