The Hearth & Beyond...

As interior spaces go, the kitchen is the weakest room in the house--greatly in need of remodeling. The bedrooms are small and the closet space is nearly non-existent, typical of early 20th century houses. Thank goodness someone before me decided to convert the closet in this bottom picture to a "California closet," saving me the effort.

You may have noticed the empty wine glass on the kitchen counter--recently drained of a delicious Italian sangiovese, Il Poggione Rosso di Montalcino 2004 (Tuscany). This wine, as with all sangioveses I've had is very food-friendly. It's medium-bodied with cherry notes, well-balanced, no excessive tannins or acidity. Also smooth enough to enjoy as a sipping wine. Like a good book, I was sorry to reach the end of that bottle, as it was my last one. I'll just have to fall in love all over again with a new wine...

Road Trip to the State Capitol

Today was Library Legislative Day and last night we had 10 inches of snow dumped across the region, but that didn't stop us from going and lobbying our State legislators this morning, even if it did take nearly twice as long as it should have (normally a 90 minute trip)... I had appointments with seven State Representatives and Senators, and saw not a single elected official--I got stuck in "staffer" mode all day long--so typical. They always say "I'll be sure to share this with ______," -- yeah, right!! Well, at any rate, it was a beautiful day, even if the roads this morning were atrocious. Coming back at the end of the day was much better. Here are a few pics of the rotunda, dome, and exterior--very similar in style to our beautiful Central Library. We will return to the House Tour in the next posting--I thought we were due for a little break--I don't want anyone to get cabin fever :)

On to the dining room...

I have the same dining set as in Seattle. It traveled fairly well during the move but was slightly damaged. I made a claim against the moving company and was able to have the cost to repair it fully covered. The furniture restoration place sent a technician to my home, who did an excellent job on the repair. You can't even tell that the finish was ever chipped. The trio of ceramic plaques on the right wall came from a starving artist sale at a local college (decoded-these were a bargain not to be missed). The fan is my answer for a littly privacy from the house next door without having to go all out with a full window treatment...though I'm not sure how much it really helps--hopefully this new neighbor will invite me over some day and I can find out for sure!

Tour Continues...

Living room: My Mom will inherit the loveseat for her new apartment at the lovely independent living facility so that I can receive delivery on a new sectional that will add a lot more color to the space.

House Tour Begins...

This is the beginning of a tour (a few pics at a time) that starts in the foyer, then living room, dining room, kitchen, basement, bedrooms, then on to the rooms upstairs (den, study, studio). Ignore the odd item on the drafting table--a christmas gift that was never mailed... So you can see there is plenty of room for friends to visit :) Once I figure out how to put a slideshow on my blog, then all the pics will be posted at once. Until then, keep hitting on this page to see the latest batch of photos.

Free the Grapes!!

Below you will find an excerpt from the mission statement page of the Free the Grapes!! organization. I can't tell you dear freinds how frustrated I've been since leaving Seattle about not being able to get my favorite wines from WA State vintners. I'm still on a number of winery mailing lists and when I called DeLille Cellars to try to order some of the Summer 2007 releases, they were very sorry to inform me that they were prohibited from shipping to me directly here in Wisconsin. Wisconsin's Governor Doyle vetoed language in the Budget Bill last October that would have replaced Wisconsin’s ‘reciprocal’ direct shipping language with a permit-style system working successfully for wineries and consumers throughout the U.S. Also, because of this, Oregon wineries will cut-off direct shipments to Wisconsin consumers in January, when Oregon’s new permit-style law goes into effect. So as it is now, if the wine I want isn't distributed to local wine retailers, I'm out of luck. This is extremely disheartening. To raise awareness about this issue, please help me spread the word about Free the Grapes!! so that I and other wine lovers around the country can enjoy our wines of choice--I will never be able to bring back enough of the wines I want on my flights out of Seattle. You, my dear friends, and the fabulous Washington wine industry are the two things I miss the most. See below for the excerpt I mentioned above.

Begin quote:
Free the Grapes! supports augmenting, not replacing, the three-tier system with the controls and regulations necessary to respect local laws, to avoid underage access and to provide provisions to make tax payments. We think it's wrong that wholesalers are telling consumers which wines they can and cannot enjoy. America's 4,000+ wineries produce over 10,000 new wines each vintage, more wines than distributors or retailers can logistically can stock and sell. And less than 5% of wine production is ever likely to be shipped directly to consumers. (snip) Free the Grapes! is energizing all lovers of the grape to contact their legislators and to sign-up to receive the Free the Grapes! email newsletter.
End quote

Go to http://www.freethegrapes.org/ for more information.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers!!

Winter Wonderland

I thought I'd better share these winter pics before all of the snow melts completely. It's been in the 40's the last couple of days, going into the 50's tomorrow and most of it's already gone. Unbelievable what a difference a few days makes. The last snow storm was a classic, with the most beautiful scenes of snow-draped trees, branches, firs, shrubs, roofs, signs, anything that will hold a snowflake. It was the ultimate in flocking, something you only see in paintings. At night, some of the flocked trees were dramatically lit from beneath creating that sense of romance and visual poetry that no words can articulate. We've had an incredibly beautiful winter so far, with a previous storm creating snowflakes like I've never seen before, not even during all the childhood winters I spent here--they were the size of feathers, too large to call flakes. Everyone at work was looking out the windows to watch this spectacle--it was literally like the skies were filled with feathers from a massive pillow fight happening somewhere above. It was mesmerizing to watch--I don't expect I'll ever see anything like it again. I wish I'd had my camera that day, but I hope you'll enjoy these too.