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Papa and Gram (Joe’s parents) are visiting Philadelphia this week– Gram is busy with a conference, and that leaves Papa to spend time with us!

After lunch at the Dutch Eating Place in Reading Terminal Market, we headed out to the Wissahickon to find some letterboxes.

Papa came across his first letterbox a few years ago, and has been hooked ever since. He likes to find a letterbox in every place he visits. On our recent Thanksgiving trip to the Laurel Highlands, we drove 25 miles into the middle of nowhere just to find one. He came prepared with guides to several in the Philadelphia area, and we picked two in the Andorra section of Fairmount Park.

The first was in an area we just discovered– near Houston Meadow. We parked and started off on the hike, looking for “Wizardland“. We finally arrived to at the lone pine tree, and searched many trees with large holes in them, but we were unsuccessful in locating the wizard! How disappointing! That is the trouble with looking for letterboxes that were placed years ago.

We drove to Bell’s Mills and hoped we’d have better luck. The directions indicated that this letterbox would be a half mile hike from the Bell’s Mills parking lot. Ha! It was over a mile along Forbidden Drive one-way. After realizing that it was so much longer, we thought about turning back, but Lilia had fallen asleep eating her Cheerios, and turning back would have meant interrupting her nap, so we pressed on. We finally located the bench named in the clue, and Joe pulled out the letterbox– Success!! Joe had made two cat stamps for letterboxing purposes, but had never used them before. So Kiss the Mountain Air became our first official letterbox find.

Where is the Wizard??

No Wizard Here!

Philadelphia’s Only Covered Bridge

The Bench We Were Searching For!

Kiss the Mountain Air

We stamped the book (and had to come up with “trail names”).

Lilia missed out on the letterbox find

Today we had the required final inspection for our Philadelphia Home Improvement Loan. We started paperwork for the loan in May (or was it April?) of… 2006!!
With the loan, we got:
A new furnace (December 2006)
6 new windows (January 2007)
Our porch fixed (sorta)
and…
A brand new kitchen! (December 2007)

We are in love with our kitchen! Our contractor has got “mad skills” (or is that mad skillz?). It’s amazing how he was able to transform our 8 foot by 8 foot space into our favorite room in the house!

We bought our appliances from a Philadelphia store called Airs Appliances, and I recommend them highly.
We chose a:

Whirlpool GU2700XTSB Black Dishwasher (good reviews on Consumer Reports, and it does seem quiet– I never had a dishwasher before, so I can’t compare!)

A black Frigidaire range and a Broan range hood

and my favorite appliance:

This LG LRBP1031T Refrigerator

It was love at first sight, and I was happy to see this positive review of it.

The cabinets are from Mid-Continet Cabinetry (style: Concord in Sandalwood Maple). We ordered them through Miller’s Surplus Home Center in Catasauqua, near Allentown. We had great service there.

We used Ikea Pronomen countertop (which is their thin butcher block counter). We also got an Ikea sink (the Domsjo) and faucet.

The finishing touches:
Wall and Floor Tile from Avalon Tile;
This Calphalon Pot Rack;
A new back door with 9 panels– we can see the Philadelphia skyline from our kitchen door;
and
A new light fixture to match our shade from Rejuvenation Hardware.

Click on the picture of Joe’s juicer for the gallery of the kitchen project!

Odd German Proverb:

Don’t point a naked finger at a clothed person.

(Please, tell me what that means!)

My left-hand ring finger has been naked since early fall. I have developed a horrible allergy to my rings! This happened when I was pregnant too, but about a week or so after I gave birth, I put the rings back on, and didn’t have a problem. Until this past fall. And noooo, I am not pregnant again.

I really like my rings. They aren’t gaudy or expensive. My engagement ring is a reproduction of an antique ring in white gold. It’s simple and sweet, with a little diamond (I am amazed at how small the diamond is, but then I look at my mother’s ring, and see that diamonds can be even smaller). We found the ring online at this store http://www.circa1930s.com/ but we drove to New Jersey to see it.

My wedding ring is a plain, matte white gold that matches my husband’s ring. We bought them years before our wedding at Henri David’s Halloween. Both rings are inscribed with a lyric from Kites Are Fun by The Free Design.

I want to be able to wear my rings again! When I wear them, the area that touches the rings turns bright red and horribly itchy. If I don’t take them off immediately, the redness spreads down my palm. When I do take them off, it takes at least a week for the itchy red rash to clear up.

I found this blog with some tips in the comments… says I could try boiling my rings? I may give it a shot– I don’t think it could hurt the rings, could it?

I have also thought about finding a nice ring made out of another material. Something that will not cause me any pain. Any suggestions?

I admit it. Last week, I woke up to an NPR story on The 10th Anniversary of Blogs, and thought, hmm, maybe I could put some ads on a Blog and maybe I’ll make a little money (ha ha).

On New Year’s Day 2008, I added this WordPress gizmo to my website, and remembered that a while ago, I had signed up for Google AdSense (although I had never used it). I did a search of my email, and found the AdSense information… I had signed up for it on New Year’s Day 2007! Obviously, I had made a resolution that I completely forgot about!

Let’s see if I have more luck with this year’s resolution!