Howdy, Happy New Year, Happy Valentines day and happy almost Spring

I was reading over my posts in December, and like a lot of my plans and intentions, I bit off more than I could chew.  Planning Christmas, packing, moving and doing all of the footwork as a general contractor for our new home remodel really had me tied up.  I did cook a few more meals after the ones posted, and we had a great Christmas brunch... but my family revolted big time!  I had to break down and buy food, even though there was PLENTY to eat in the house.  So my experiment was an epic fail...  However the Spaniard and I are working away at the food stores.  We have a teeny tiny refrigerator and freezer on loan from our daughters boyfriend that is a little larger than a bar fridge, which holds much less than an average fridge.  It is crammed to bursting with a lot of things left over from the other house...  It never seems to go down.  Don't tell the Spaniard, but I may throw away some items while he is on a business trip just to have a little more room in the fridge.  and we REALLY won't tell him about all that I threw away in the trash at the old house that never even made the trip...

Here is a look at the front of our new house...  Smurf Blue.  All original 1943 amenities... and we LOVE it.  We had an interesting discussion on perspective the other day when my Spaniard was Skypeing with his family in Spain...  He was showing them the house, and they were commenting on how big it was.  Compared to their apartments, it is quite big.  But by American standards, its a really small house at just over 800 sq ft,  We are finding it is big enough for our needs actually the way it is... and have debated over whether or not to do the remodel...  But we have decided to go ahead and do it.  The electrical keeps blowing fuses, we only have 80 amps in the whole house...  the plumbing is shot, the pipes corroded and the water tastes funny so we are drinking bottled water.  We are looking at camping out in the garage this spring as an adventure.  We will see how that actually goes.

My plan is to document the process here... the good, the bad and the ugly of remodeling while living in the home..  Thank GOD we live in wine country.  And a double thank God to the fact that the Napa Valley has a Napa Neighbors program that gives Valley residents free wine tastings at over 200 wineries up and down the valley!  So guess what we do every weekend we are home?  Yep, wine tasting, and other touristic things in our new town.  I do rate all the places we go on Trip Advisor, you can check me out there for more detailed reviews of the places we visit.

My goal this year, I say goal cause I don't know that I will actually attain it, is to post at least twice a week with various upcycling, lifestyle, travel and home improvement tips...  Lets see if I can actually do it.

In the meantime... here are some photos from the last couple of lovely sunny weekends we have had here in the valley...