Mira and her dad

Dave and Mira like to hang out by the window and watch all the little birds at the feeder. We have a bunch of little yellow fiches that provide some great entertainment for us right now.

More Misc Mira

A study in contrasts. Sometimes happy, sometimes not so happy.

Dave’s Best Tunes of 2011

Every year I put together a playlist of my favorite tunes from the year. Most of the tunes are from the two song-of-the-day podcasts I subscribe to (KEXP and The Current). 2011 seemed like a really good year for music, it was easy to pick a CD’s worth of favorite tunes.

My favorite 2011 tunes are below, in the YouTube clips. Some of the clips aren’t the album versions – either because I couldn’t find the album version on YouTube, or the video version stinks for a variety of reasons. Most of the tunes are available on iTunes or amazon.com, with a couple exceptions: the Pickwick tune is only available on their website, and the Gotye song is only available on iTunes. If you like any of the songs, consider buying ‘em. Enjoy!

From the ashes of Pela, one of my favorite bands of all times, comes We Are Augustines:

Try not to dance or sway, I dare you:

So far, three of the four top 2011 tunes have female singers. A good year for the ladies:

A little band from Seattle with a cool tune:

Best drum song of the year. Period. And the drummer sings! These guys look like they’re having a blast. And the album version is just as good:

A great singer. Cool lyrics too:

The album version has a female singer providing caterwauling off-key harmonies heavy in the mix. Not good. I like this version better. Am not a big fan of the Decemberists, but this tune works for me:

A wall of sound. Cool tune, trippy video:

Of course:

I had to chop this tune down from its original eight or so minutes. The last few minutes of the original tune, the non-radio version, is a heavy metal musical masturbation outro that just doesn’t work for me. You can get a taste for it in the last minute of the video. But the first half of the tune is cool. I chopped the tune down to the radio version length using a program called Audacity. The audacity of me to do that!

The band is a three piece. I can’t imagine how they pull this song off live without using overdubs or synthesizers:

Very cool tune. Sounds like Peter Gabriel to me. Careful, it’ll stick in your head. Video kinda sucks:

I dig the double drums, but I don’t dig the heavy processing on the vocals. The album version doesn’t have as much processing:

This would be a great group to see live, methinks. The song starts proper at 0:54:

Am a big fan of Wilco. They played a whole set on Letterman last fall. Here’s a tune from that set, one of my favorites off their new album:

A peppy tune with amazing guitar. The video is pretty awesome, too:

The album version of this tune is only five minutes. A great song, nice vocals:

Play time

Mira has started to really enjoy hanging out on her play mat…it is going to get extra fun when she can intentionally reach her toys but for now I get to play with her.

Misc Mira

Here’s some miscellaneous shots of Miss Mira. Enjoy!

Mira has been slobbering a lot lately. Dunno why, but it seems natural enough, so we're not concerned. Morgan dressed her up in this tomato bib to catch the spittle. Pretty cute!

This morning we went for a walk to breakfast. On the way back home, we saw an apartment complex with an urban homestead chicken farming thing going on. So Portland.

Hanging out in her gingerbread man outfit.

A New Kitchen

Last year we remodeled our kitchen, and yup, we’re just now getting around to blah blah blahing about it. Construction started in August last year, and was finished in early October.

When we were considering buying our house, both Morgan and I looked at the kitchen and thought, “Dag, we’re gonna have to remodel that noise.” The kitchen had just one drawer, and some crazy features that made certain areas tough to use at best, and downright dangerous at worst. We bought the house anyway, and figured we’d get around to remodeling the kitchen sometime in the next five years.

Things got a bit more urgent when we got pregnant, about a year ago. We thought that if we don’t remodel it now, it’ll be tough to do after the baby comes. So we put pen and pencil to paper, I learned how to use Google SketchUp (an awesome program), we selected applianced, hired contractors, and away we went.

Overall, the remodel project went great. There were only a couple minor bumps, and those didn’t cause too many delays. For most people that have been involved in their own kitchen remodels, the first word out of their mouth when talking about the remodel is “Ugh”. I’m happy to say that we didn’t have that experience. The schedule stayed on track, the design worked out great, and the contractors were awesome.

Speaking of contractors, I can’t say enough good things about the ones we used. Phil Manley is a good friend as well as a handy dude who owns his own general contracting business. He did the heavy work – the demo, rough in, floor patching, reroute of the gas flue, window installation, door wrangling, all that fun stuff – and did an awesome job of it. We hired George Ramos to build our cabinets, and he did a beautiful job. He built them out of reclaimed doug fir, and added some really nice details. If you’re looking for recommendations on kitchen contractors, look no further!

But hey, enough of my yakking. On to the photos! The old is on the left, the new is on the right, in case you couldn’t tell. To get a bigger view, click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

We got rid of the unused door between the kitchen and the second bedroom. More space for Eartha. We also moved the pantry wall out by 8" or so to make more room, you can see the new piece of wood on the floor in the photo on the right. We added a door between the kitchen and the living room, to close it when griling onions and that sort of thing.

We added a new exterior window, to let a little more light in, increase the ventilation in the kitchen, and to overlook the back yard with all the raised garden beds. We also moved the removed door to the top of the basement stairs - y'know, toddlers.

The 'downright dangerous' part of the old kitchen is shown on the left. Look at that crazy corner with the microwave shelf. Good luck getting spices out of the bottom cabinets and not bumping your head on the shelf on the way out of that corner!

The new lights over the island add a little period flair to the kitchen. Morgan is glad to be rid of the old light, which she called the 'prison light' since it made the kitchen look rather gloomy when it was the only light on. Also, one of our goals for the project was to create a seating area in the kitchen. The sheer cost of punching through the exterior wall and adding a kitchen nook eliminated that particular idea, so we designed the island to accommodate four chairs. It works great!

 

We have drawers! We're drawer people, and the old kitchen had one drawer, and it was a shabby one at that. See if you can find it in the photo. Aren't the new cabinets beautiful? George did a great job. Also, the plan is to replace the two remaining windows on the left side of the photo with new ones similar to the one we installed as part of the remodel.

All smiles

Mira is smiling more and more these days. Still not much chatting, though, we really have to tickle her good to coax sounds out of her. But we’ve been enjoying the smiles. They typically happen in the morning. I like to think it’s not because I’ve left for work, but that she’s more of a morning person at this point.

Shiny, happy person

This one is kind of a wink-nostril flare smile

Out for a little jaunt

Mira and I joined our friends Jennifer and her daughter Eliana to the Chinese Garden this morning. The garden is free for the week and I have never been so we agreed we had to go! It was a gorgeous sunny day in Portland today, a little chilly, but nothing a good jacket and hat couldn’t combat. After exploring the garden Mira had a quick lunch in the car and then we were off to Powell’s bookstore then to sushi for lunch. I am pretty proud of myself for eating sushi with chopsticks while having my other hand in Mira’s mouth (sucking) and I only got soy sauce on her once! To top of the day we went to Ben and Jerry’s to have an ice cream cone. It was a really nice way to spend the day and it is great to break out of our den and visit our little city with some good friends.

Looking across the pond...I can see why so many people get married here

Mira napped the entire time...I guess she found the Chinese garden very relaxing

Chinese Tea House

A quiet little path

Such a lovely sunny day

Happy to be home again!

 

Nap time

Mira, Biff, and I took a nice long nap together this afternoon

Christmas 2011, and other miscellany

We rented a Christmas tree this year. That’s right, rented one. Instead of heading up to the hills to chop one down, or buying one from a local Boy Scout troop or some such place, we decided to rent a tree this year, which seems like a very Portland thing to do. Y’know, we feel guilty about killing a tree just to stare at it for a couple weeks, so we found a nearby nursery that rents Christmas trees. You use it for a couple of weeks, and then return it to the store for them to sell. I don’t think we saved any money by renting one, in fact it seems like a pretty good business model for a nursery, but our guilt was somewhat assuaged. And isn’t that what the holidays are all about, minimizing that guilty feeling?

Our lovely, rented Christmas tree. It's a cypress. We liked the Dr. Seuss / Grinch look of the tree, with droopy limbs and plenty of space inbetween.

We spent Christmas morning at our house. Linda (Morgan’s Mom) and Purity (Morgan’s Mom’s dog) came over. We made a mess of pancakes, a heap of bacon, tore into all that, then tore into our presents. We had a great time. And to top it off, it was a beautiful morning, with sun streaming in through the windows.

In true Christmas tradition, Purity found her present under the tree all by herself, and opened it all by herself. Check it out:

 

Mira was dressed in the Christmas spirit. Christmas was the first time that Mira looked like a girl to me, due to the dress. Up until now, she’s been dressed in gender-neutral attire, namely onesies. But she looked really cute in her festive dress.

Mira striking a pose in her festive dress

It looks like she's belting out a Christmas carol, but I think she was just yawning.

OK, one more, just to prove that, yes, she does have hands.

On Christmas evening we headed over to the Thomason’s (my sister’s family). They live here in Portland, and we went over to participate in the opening of the wonderball. It’s a German tradition, I think, that involves the parents wrapping up a bunch of small, wrapped, anonymous gifts (to: name, no from: name) in crepe paper on Christmas eve, and then unwrapping it on Christmas night. The wonderball ends up being a tightly-wrapped sphere about a foot in diameter, and this year was no exception. Highlights this year included Chicklets, little chocolate candies, fake plastic gag teeth, a whoopee cushion, and other assorted candies and funny gifts. It was a great time.

Kate unwrapping the Wonderball and dishing out the goods, Matt in the background providing color commentary, and nephews Leo and Bennett looking on in anticipation.

In other Mira news, she’s been rocking a mullet ever since birth, and we’ve been enjoying it immensely.

The mullet. Let's hope it sticks - lifetime mullet!

We’ve also been enjoying playing monkey toes with her. That involves pressing the base of one of her middle toes, and seeing the rest of her toes curl around your finger. Hours of fun! Check it out:\