December 26, 2011

Probably my last post of 2011.  It is amazing to think another year has come and gone.  Lot's of changes for us this year, but still all-in-all a very good year.  We are both much less stressed with work, especially since I don't work any longer.  Our house is coming together with the construction completed and a fair amount of the house painted, although there are lots of that to still finish.  We made a quick trip to Madison last Saturday since Jo's two sisters and brother were in town for our nephew's graduation.  It was fun to hear all the stories from each of the siblings and how no two of them ever seem to be the same.  Sunday we lazed around the house catching up on missed sleep from the week.

My parents came to visit for Christmas week.  They had a smooth flight in and besides a small mishap with my Dad's cellphone at the Milwaukee airport a quick drive home.  We enjoyed getting to cook for more people.  The house was all decorated for the season and the weather nicely cooperated by not being too bitterly cold, although my Mom might disagree.  We did pay a short visit to the Potawatami casino so Mom and Dad could try their hand at the local slots as they try to play their way across America.  My sister came up on the train from Chicago on Christmas Eve.  Christmas day we did the traditional present opening where Santa was very good to everyone.  A large amount of UW Badger wear was exchanged this year, even a Badger Snuggie (from our niece in Az.).  We then had our turkey dinner and then spent the afternoon sorting through the gifts.

Jo has today off from work and her primary interest was to goof-off.  She started a challenging jigsaw puzzle over the weekend and I think that is all she will be doing today.  The weather is nice and warm so we are planning a walk for later in the afternoon.  Hope you have a great New Year's celebration and remember on January 2 - go Badgers in the Rose Bowl.

December 17, 2011

We woke this morning to the first snowfall that has accumulated.  It wasn't a lot of snow, but it was nice to see the world all covered in a white blanket.  My run was peaceful and quiet as snowflakes slowly trickled down.  I always like the first few snowfalls - although by late February I know it will start to get old.  Unfortunately, it isn't predicted to last as our temperatures are expected to get up in the low 40's later today.

Busy week for Jo as she had dinner engagements two nights of the week and work is experiencing the usual end of the year rush as everyone tries to clear their to-do lists to enjoy the holidays.  We did sneak in a little fun though as the Trans Siberian Orchestra was in town to play their Christmas special.  The show was fantastic with great songs, singing, music, and the light show.  We have seen this show 6-8 times and it always is a delight.  Jo's sister, Kathy, joined us for the show and we had dinner with her son and his girlfriend before hand.  They were both just done with finals at Marquette, so were tired but happy to have another semester behind them.  On Friday, Kathy and I trekked to the local City Market for a cinnamon roll and either coffee (Kathy) or milk (me).  We are working on making this a tradition whenever she is in town overnight.  Friday night was a Northwestern Mutual holiday event at the CEO's home.  Quite a place since the basement was easily larger than our first house.  It was good to meet more of the people that Jo works with and their significant others (aren't I politically correct) although keeping all the names straight is a challenge.

On the home front, I completed painting the upstairs hallway and replacing many of the aged light switches and outlets in the house.  So it was another busy week on the ladder and with a paint brush for me.  Painting is now on hold to after the holidays so the house isn't all paint smelling while we have visitors.  Also I need to focus some energy on making Christmas cookies as I'm behind on them this year.

Hope everyone is ready for the holiday season as it is just around the corner.

December 13, 2011

Well it is finally accomplished, our bright red (I like to call it bordello red) back hallway is now a subtle shade of cream.  I also painted the first floor powder room so besides a few closets and two hallways, the first floor is almost done.  This week I've started on the upstairs hallway.  We are also at the end of our renovation project.  While the cardboard floor protectors still need to be removed and a final mirror needs to be installed, the project is effectively done.  The new bathrooms are great and having the laundry on the second floor saves trekking the laundry downstairs and then back upstairs.  Additionally, we are glad to be able to finally start moving our stuff back into place.  It seems we having been living in transition since we got to Milwaukee.  We spent a large portion of the weekend organizing our two studies.  My desk is set back up and I finally have all my clothes out of storage in the third floor and unpacked into my study.  It is nice to finally have access to my sweaters and turtlenecks especially with winter setting in.

Last weekend besides the unpacking mentioned above, we did a little Christmas shopping on Friday at a local mall and then enjoyed dinner out.  Then Saturday night we went to a one man play at the Marcus Theater downtown, "Kodachrome Christmas", along with Tim and Rosalie (Jo works with Tim).  The evening started with dinner at Zarletti's - Italian food with lots of garlic - and then off to the play which was a great performance and hilarious.  Sunday we finished decorating the house for Christmas.  It was nice to have the tree decorated and lit up.  We certainly enjoyed reminiscing about the trips we had taken where we picked up a lot of our ornaments. 

Then it was off for another week of work - Jo at the office, me with a paint brush.  Just remember only 11 more days of shopping before Christmas.

December 3, 2011

Happy December.  Another year starting to wind down and it has been an amazing year of changes for Jo and I.  Feel free to browse back through the postings for the year to see them all, but we are both still spinning with the changes involved in moving, retiring/changing jobs, and our new/old house.  All for the best but it has been pretty stressful at times.

I thought I would get a jump on my weekly post since it was a rainy day today and we are stuck inside for the most part.  The big news this week is that our renovation is almost completely done.  Especially since this past week we passed the milestone where we have lived in the house longer while it is being renovated than we did without renovations happening.  Needless to say, we are ready to have our house back, no construction guys running around it, and  the clutter cleared away.  Anyway, the new carpet went in this week and looks great and a lot of the little, last minute items were completed.  All we are really waiting for at this point is our bathroom mirrors and some electrical work.  The exciting portion for the week was the discovery of a tile floor underneath the family room carpet.  Unfortunately it wasn't in particularly nice shape so we choose to cover it back over with the new carpet as we originally planned.  On the painting front (what would be this weekly blog this year without a comment on painting), I patched and repainted the third floor attic space after the various marks and nicks made during the renovation.  Nothing like having to redo a space that was already done.  This week I start the hallways - especially our red back hallway.

Jo took Friday off from work and we hit the Mayfair mall to complete some of our Christmas shopping and made a great dent in it.  Besides needing a few small things for the missus, I'm pretty well done.  While at the mall we enjoyed lunch at 5 Guys and a Burger - probably not good for the arteries, but they do make a great hamburger!   On the way home we veered over to Woodman's for a grocery trip at our favorite grocery store in the area and then picked up our Christmas tree and wreath.  A lot of stops and we were gone most of the day but we had a lot of fun together and settled in for the night to pizza and a movie. 

Today we took advantage of the rainy weather to start finally unboxing our winter clothes from the move.  Since we have our new furniture pieces we have a place to finally put all these.  This involved making some hard decisions on what to donate and what to keep - something that causes no end of stress for Jo.  But we got most of it in place and it helps us start to feel a little more settled in.  Jo then went off to get a library card to the Milwaukee public library so she can download books to her Ipad.  Tonight we will be rooting on the Badgers as they attempt to win the Big Ten championship and a trip to the Rose Bowl - GO BADGERS!!  Tomorrow we are planning to unbox all the Christmas decorations and get started on our tree.

November 27, 2011

We did our usual trip to Madison for the Thanksgiving weekend to spend the time with Jo's sister.  It was nice this year to be able to drive and not have to hassle with winter weather while flying.  We both enjoyed relaxing getting in some quality reading and napping time.  Along with chowing down on a delicious turkey dinner on Thanksgiving day.  Also hit the stores on the Wednesday before to get still good sales without all the crowds.  I even went along and picked up a couple of Christmas gifts.  The other big highlight was attending the final home game for the Wisconsin Badgers this season.  This was a key game as it determined if Wisconsin would get to play Michigan State in the playoffs for the Big Ten title.   Although it was a dreary day with drizzly rain throughout the game, we all had a lot of fun since Wisconsin beat Penn State - quite handily (sorry Dad).  Then it was home to dry out, warm up, eat some of our favorite Madison pizza before getting in the car for the trip back to Milwaukee.

The only other big news to report, as mentioned before, last Tuesday we had our new clothing cabinets delivered and set up.  These are meant to help address the shortage of closet space - at least compared to what we are used to having.  These are now in my study and should allow me to keep a healthy amount of sweaters - and most importantly - turtlenecks.  We also had a gas fireplace insert installed on Tuesday.  Which as you can tell from the photo required a crane to allow them to insert the necessary piping down the chimney.  We are looking forward to enjoying that on the cold days during the oncoming winter.

Today we are taking care of a couple of overdue chores since we have been on the road for the last week and getting ourselves ready for another week.  Also, need to start decorating the house for the Christmas season.

November 25, 2011

We've been busy since the last post.  On the 13th we took in an Admirals game at the Bradley Center.  The Admirals are a farm team for the National Hockey League.  It was amazing to watch how fluently the players could skate and fortunately only one fight in the game.  It still seems that hockey would be improved by removing the fights.  The one interesting feature was instead of racing sausages, like the Milwaukee Brewers have, we had racing cheese spreads.  Only in Wisconsin. 

The week was the usual, although not much happened on the house last week.  We did get our new washer and dryer delivered so no more having to trek all the way to the basement to do the laundry.  Plus the new units hold more clothes so it is a few less loads to do each week.  Last weekend we headed to Madison to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with Jo's family.  Her sister and husband, Mary and Mike, traveled in from Omaha along with our nephew and fiance, Chris and Angela, from Milwaukee, so we enjoyed catching up with everyone.  Got to hear a lot of stories of the three sisters growing up on the farm and the interesting fact that they never seem to remember a story in the same way (which is why the game of telephone is so much fun).  We arrived back in Milwaukee on Sunday in the evening, with a few chores to do, before bedtime, to keep our place running. 

The short week this week was nice.  I'm still on hiatus from painting although I will need to start again next week.  With any bit of luck our house renovation project will be finishing next week - keep your fingers crossed.  Our new clothing cabinets for my study were delivered this week - pictures of those in the next posting.  They are a lot larger than we anticipated, but the dimensions we had selected.  I guess we didn't really appreciate how big something those dimensions would look once constructed.  Oh well, another learning to add to our book of life.

Christmas Letter

Happy Holidays from Wisconsin!

We are posting our Christmas letter for anyone that didn't receive it in the mail.  With all the moves this year, we aren't sure everyone received it.

Jet Skiing on Lake Geneva

Our New Milwaukee Home

This was a year of big changes for us as we both left Pfizer.  As you may recall, we had bought a house a number of years ago in Madison with the plans to retire back to Badger-land once we were ready to leave the corporate world.  Well...we didn't quite get to Madison - and we didn't both leave the corporate world - but we have taken steps closer to both.  We now live in Milwaukee - just an hour and 1/2 east of Madison.  Jo took a job as the head of HR at Northwestern Mutual, a financial services company, and has been spending her time learning her new industry and role.  While it's a lot smaller than Pfizer, she's enjoying leading the whole function for the first time.  Eric has spent his time transitioning into semi-retirement, meaning he has spent a little time consulting in the pharmaceutical industry but most of his time taking care of our transition to our new city and things on the home front.  This has turned out to be more than a full time job as we purchased an old home for the first time in our lives.  With every other home we have owned, we have been the first residents, so our home improvements have been adding new things to new things - e.g., finishing the basement, adding a porch or patio.  With our new-old house (new to us but almost 100 years old to the world), we have had to update some parts, remove multiple layers of wallpaper in other parts, and we have learned the pleasures and challenges of an old home with character.  Most of the time the character is charming but sometimes it can be frustrating, like when the door knob fell off of the door one day, just like it does in the movies (how cliché, right?)  Since we've moved in, Eric has been chief in charge of everything in the home and that has kept him more than busy.

Jo with our Great-Niece, Maggie

Go Badgers!

A big benefit of being back in the Midwest is the ability to reconnect with family members plus old friends.  Jo's sister, Kathy, lives in Madison so we can conveniently see her and Badger sports at the same time.  Eric's sister, Cheryl, lives in Chicago so it's an easy train ride to see her with the added benefit that Eric's parents can visit Cheryl and us each time they fly back to the Midwest.  In fact, that is their plan for Christmas this year.  We also have two nephews who currently live in the city and we've enjoyed spending time with them and their girlfriends.  Finally, we've reconnected with other friends from when we last lived in the Midwest and are genuinely enjoying our time back in the heartland. 

Visiting Trosa, Sweden

With our move, we have needed to find new places to run and a new gym for weights and other activities.  We've found lots of fun running routes given we are a block from Lake Michigan and there are many paths in the area.  Our house is in a city block with great sidewalks that give us lots of new neighborhoods to explore as well.  The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is just three blocks away, so we've joined their gym and lift weights with the college co-eds.  Talk about an interesting experience - did we ever look that young?

Fried Clams in New London, CT

Even with our move, we've had the chance to take a few nice vacations.  We celebrated our 30th anniversary with a trip to Sweden.  We met up with a former colleague of Jo's from Pfizer, which gave us a sense of Sweden from a local's viewpoint.  We've also arranged trips around a few conferences that Jo has attended - one to Phoenix in which we stayed with Chris, Dan and our great-niece Maggie, and another to Boston which we linked with a visit back to Connecticut to see our Pfizer friends.  We also fit in a trip to Omaha to visit with Jo’s sister and family and got to see our great-nephew for the first time.   

We hope you have a great holiday and a wonderful 2012!

November 13, 2011

It is official, winter has come to Wisconsin.  We had our first snowfall of the season.  It wasn't a lot and it didn't stay around, but we had snow coming down for about 2 hours this week.  There just isn't any kidding ourselves that it isn't about to get really cold and white here.  Not as bad as in some other areas of the country, say Wyoming for instance, but enough to get out the really cold weather running gear.  Speaking of our cold weather gear, one problem we both are having is all of our winter sweaters and other winter clothes are still in boxes in the attic.  We didn't unpack them when we moved in since we knew we were doing the renovation work.  We had figured all of that work would be done prior to needing our winter woolies - Oops.

We both had a nice week at our respective jobs.  Jo pulled down here usual mix of meetings, talks, and minor crisis.  I focused on finishing off another room.  This week it was our guest bedroom although I also managed to start priming our bordello red hallway.  It is now a lovely shade of pink since the white primer wasn't quite enough to hide all the red.  Jo and I also worked on reorganizing what furniture is going back into each room.  The key driver was deciding to actually use our guest bedroom, as a guest bedroom.  This meant placing our double bed in that room (instead of Jo's study).  Once that happened a whole lot of other changes just seemed to make sense.  The end result of which was a lot of change, which meant moving a lot of our furniture - fortunately, a lot of that had to be moved anyway.  We now have our two back bedrooms completely painted and are starting to set them up.  It feels really good to start to have our house back to a livable state, even if it will be another couple of weeks before everything will be done.

For the weekend,  Friday night we made pizza at home and then snuggled together to watch some TV.  Saturday morning after our morning run on a beautiful, crisp fall (or winter if you read the first paragraph) morning we hit the gym and then went out to stimulate the economy.  We purchased a flat screen TV to replace our family room 36 inch cathode ray tube TV (which weighs in at about 300 lbs!).  It felt good to finally be buying technology from 2001.  We are not what you might call early adapters - I personally blame it on my cheapness, which is genetically gifted to me from my Dad (but that is a story for another venue).  Now all we need is some help from our renovation crew to get the massive old TV out of the room.  After watching the WI Badgers win over Minnesota, we went to our Chris and Angela's (nephew and fiance) apartment for dinner.  Very tasty dinner and dessert and it was such fun to hear about all the exciting things they have been up to recently.  Oh to be in my 20's again, although it is really nice to have the financial resources of my 50's.  This afternoon we have tickets to a hockey game, the Admiral's which is a farm team for the pros.  Other than that today, it will be some reading and a few miscellaneous chores. 

November 6, 2011

Trying to be a little better this week and get my posting up on time.  Also means I don't have as much to write about since I was late last week.  Starting with the house, we are finally entering the final days of our renovation (yipee).  The majority of the electrical and plumbing work was completed this week and we had the floors refinished in two of the rooms.  One of these we had pulled up an old carpet to reveal the lovely maple floors underneath - well they were lovely once we had them sanded and coated.  This was the same room that I completed painting this week, so once the floor finish dries we are ready to finally get the furniture out of the hallway.  The only major items left is getting our washer and dryer installed on the second floor and having the new carpet installed. 

We spent Friday night and Saturday in Madison with Jo's sister.  Saturday morning we got up for a nice brisk early morning run and then headed out to do our bit for the economy.  We are looking for a new TV for our family room and also went to Target to pick up some odds and ends we needed.   Then it was back to pick up Kathy and head for a tailgate party.  We enjoyed brats and tailgate food (aka, food that is really bad for you, but you love to eat) before heading over to the Badger stadium.  We enjoyed a beautiful sunny day to watch the Badgers defeat Purdue.  Apparently, when we attend games the Badgers do really well, so no last minute hail-mary passes for a loss this week.  Also, in case you are comparing camera angles from our various Badger football game photos - we sat in the same seats as the Indiana game.  Afterwards, we picked up my favorite pizza in Madison - Rocky Roccoco's for dinner (in case you were curious, the best pizza remains Papa Del's at the Univ. of Illinois - at least for me).  We then headed home to enjoy an extra hour of sleep with the time change.

Today, we plan to laze around the house with a few small chores to do - one of which is figuring out which flat screen TV to buy from the hundreds of choices.  Then it is off to another week of work for Jo and another week of painting for me.

November 3, 2011

I'm a little behind in my posting for this week since I was too lazy on Sunday to write and this week has been busy with working on the house.  The weather has been relatively warm, at least for Wisconsin, and so far we haven't experience any snowfall.  Unlike other parts of the country, especially our last house in CT.  Jo and I are mentally preparing ourselves for the cold winter and are working on getting a gas fireplace insert installed so we can warm up quickly on those days the cold winds get the better of us.

We had several visitors this last weekend.  Friday night, John and Linda stopped by, on their way to Lake Geneva, for dinner and to see the latest in our house renovations - more on that below.  It was a fun evening as we got caught up on the latest news for all their kids.  Saturday, my Mom and sister came up from Chicago, mostly to give the merchants in Chicago a little time to restock all their shelves as my Mom had been visiting my sister for several days by that point.  But also to see us.  We toured the Impressionist exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum - really worth a visit, but it does really help to tour the exhibit with an artist who understands some of the explanations.  Also, if you do go, check out the signs by the paintings.  Whomever wrote them must have been seeing if they could use every arcane word they knew - I think they succeeded - but it did make reading all the signs fun.  After wearing out our feet, we stopped for lunch at the City Market in Shorewood, before heading home to - yes you guessed it - see the progress on our house.  Quite the theme.  Mom had gotten an IPod Touch and she wanted some games loaded, especially Angry Birds.  When she started playing, it just seemed like a great photo moment - so that's her, playing Angry Birds (ain't technology and advertising great).

Sunday was a cold and drizzly day, so after our morning exercising we tinkered around the house.  Most of the our efforts went towards getting my study painting started since the floor is being refinished in that room (in fact, it is happening as I type this, talk about noise).  The afternoon was filled with kids trick or treating, as Milwaukee decided to have Halloween on Sunday afternoon.  It was the first time in 10 years we had actually had anyone come by for candy so it was quite the treat to see all the costumes.  Fortunately, we bought entirely too much candy so there is some left over for us. 

One the home renovation front, I finished painting the kitchen last week and spent this week on my study.  We are nearing the end of the renovation (not the painting), as we finally have a functioning bathroom on the second floor.  No more having to go all the way to the third floor in the middle of the night.  The tiling is finished and our vanities were installed at the end of last week.  Just a few more items to finish up and we can finally start to declutter the house.  While we thought we had hit our maximum clutter a week ago, I was wrong.  We now have furniture in the hallway since we had to completely empty two of the bedrooms to get the floors redone. One of the upcoming weeks, I 'll devote the entire picture spread to shots of the various projects that are now done.

October 23, 2011

Our week was the usual exciting week that we always have.  I painted, Jo went to work, we exercised, and a little bit more of our house renovation was completed.  My big job for the week was painting the family room.  This was the one room we are changing the least.  So the only major painting was to redo the ceiling.  We had several recessed lights added to provide more light and I needed to prime around the lights and then repaint the entire ceiling.  Other than that, there was just a few places to touch up where we removed some doors and other nicks and bangs.  After that, I started to prepare my study for painting once the construction efforts move out of that area. 

On Jo's work front, she had several evening affairs and had to travel to Washington DC for a quick trip in on Thursday and home on Friday.  As this got her on a plane and a stay in a hotel, she was a happy camper.  She was attending the Executive Leadership Council (I think that was what it was called) and during the evening dinner got to hear Diana Ross sing.  She had a great time and also managed to catch up with some old Pfizer colleagues who were attending the same meeting.

Our renovation made a big jump forward as the bathroom vanities where installed in all three of the bathrooms.  They look great and are starting to make it feel like this project might actually be coming to an end.  However, our house has reached its peak messiness, in our opinion.  As anyone who knows, I deal with this much clutter oh so well.  However, we can finally start to see the end in sight.  In case you are keeping track on the tiling, while we have tile on the floors, it remains to be grouted and no progress on the showers.  This is one slow tile guy.  Hopefully, by the end of the next week we will have all the tile installed, that is a big hope.  We aren't sure when the granite counter tops will be ready which will dictate the final finishing touches.  Hopefully only another 2-3 weeks before we have a functioning second floor bathroom.

We had a nice active weekend with some new friends in Milwaukee.  Friday night we went to Adam and Sarah's condo down in the historic third ward.  They just moved in at the beginning of October and have a lovely view of the river and downtown.  We enjoyed a delicious lasagna dinner while discussing settling in to Milwaukee as they moved here about the same time we did.  Saturday night we went to dinner and a play with Tim and Rosalie, once again in the third ward (it is the happening place in Milwaukee - at least according to us).  Dinner was at Swig's, where we had taken my sister before, and it once again excellent.  The play was "Gorgons" at the Broadway Theater.  A great performance by the two actors although we were expecting a comedy and it was a bit more dramatic, plus the plot twist at the end was unexpected (now you'll have to see it to know what the plot twist was).  Today after our morning exercising we caught up on some sleep and reading.  All ready for another week - painting the kitchen is up for me.

October 18, 2011

Our big event last week was celebrating another birthday milestone for Jo.  We started with dinner at the Lake Park Bistro which has a beautiful view of Lake Michigan and then drove over to Madison to enjoy some home made birthday cake with Jo's sister.  Saturday morning after our morning run we bundled up and headed to Camp Randall stadium to enjoy watching our alma mater Badgers.  The weather was perfect for a fall football game.  Plus, the Badgers were on their game and beat Indiana.  We stayed for the fifth quarter and really enjoyed the WI marching band's antics.  We walked through the campus a bit reminiscing about our time on the UW campus.  Afterwards we headed back to rake a view of Kathy's leaves and enjoy a movie before heading home to Milwaukee.

To continue our sports theme for the weekend, Jo managed to get us invited to use the Northwestern Mutual suite at Miller stadium.  This was the first time I had ever been to a baseball playoff game.  It would have been much more enjoyable if our Milwaukee Brewers had played better and won the game, but it was still a nice evening out.  We were pretty tired from our weekend and looked forward to our work week to relax a little. 

I was hoping to post pictures our newly tiled bathrooms.  However, the tile guy is working slow so that will have to wait until a future posting.

October 9, 2011



Amazing how fast the time flies by. We flew to Boston last Friday and then spent five days visiting old friends

Cider doughnuts - Yum

in the Connecticut area.We stayed with our good friends, Sheri and Bruno, along with their two cats and dog. This meant allergy medicine for me, but Jo got a little caught up on her cat petting time that she needs to have every year. We went out for apple cider and cider doughnuts and then to make up for eating all those calories hiked Barn Island. We also made sure that we found time to visit our favorite lobster shack for some hot, buttery lobster rolls and clam shack for fried clams. Not good for the arteries but oh so good for the soul. So as you can see the visit was as much about seeing friends as it was about eating a lot. We then drove back up to Boston for Jo to attend an HR conference while I toured some of the sites.





Fried clams - Yum

We had great weather in Boston and I enjoyed seeing the Science museum and Aquarium.  I hadn't been to either as our previous Boston visits focused primarily on the historical sites.  The Science museum was great with lots of interactive displays and a great show on electricity - can't ever go wrong shooting large bolts of electricity across the room.  I also revisited Bunker Hill and Paul Revere's house since they are two of my favorite Boston sites.  Always amazing how battles were fought back in the Revolutionary days.  Not sure I could have walked bravely across an open field with people firing at me.

Lobster rolls - Yum

Jo's conference finished on Thursday and we spent Friday doing a mini-vacation in Boston.  We toured the MIT museum which was fascinating and well worth a visit anytime someone is in Boston.  It highlights the accomplishments of MIT professors, students and alumni.  And as you might imagine they have had some pretty famous people pass through their doors.  We also walked around the campus to check out the architecture.  We both agreed that the University of Illinois campus in Champagne is more architecturally attractive - although we are a bit biased.  We finished our day with a ferry ride around Boston's harbor and dinner at an Italian restaurant in the North end.  All in all a great day, plus informative with the museum visit (we really liked the T-shirt at the museum that had on the front of it: E/c2, square root of -1, and PV/nR - figure it out).  Saturday it was time to board the airplane and return home to see the progress on our house, but that is the subject for next week.

September 30, 2011

I had planned to post this during our recent vacation, but alas the technology on Jo's new IPad wasn't consistent with that required by Google to publish on their blogging site.  So this was delayed until our return.  To continue the recent theme on our bathroom renovation.  We moved from having walls to having painted walls this week.  Since I'm doing all the painting, it felt like quite the accomplishment to finish off the three bathrooms (along with our new second floor laundry closet and one of the bedroom closets) this week.  In case you are keeping a tally here is what has been repainted so far: living room, dining room, third floor living space, one of the bedrooms, and now all three bathrooms.  Still a lot of the house to go though - ugh!  Next up in our bathrooms is the tiling.  Stay tuned.

Nothing else too exciting for the week besides Jo traveling to Lake Geneva for some business meetings.  I held down the fort at home with the usual evening excercising and reading.  I've several good books backed up right now and I'm looking forward to getting through them.  At the end of the week we were off to the Northeast to visit friends in Connecticut and for Jo to attend a conference in Boston.

September 26, 2011





Just the studs

We have walls.  Our bathrooms were drywalled this last week so they are starting to begin to look like official rooms.  We still have a long way to go but it helps a lot to begin to visualize what our bathrooms will look like once finished.  It was fun to watch them bring the drywall in through the second floor bathroom window.  The crane had a wireless remote control that allowed the operator to adjust it while looking out the 2nd floor window - I so want one!  With the drywalling finishing, it means I get to get in and paint the bathrooms.  After coordinating with all the other contractors, of course.  Speaking of painting, my major painting task this last week was the living room.  I'm happy to say that after several intense and long days that our living room decor now matches the dining room.  Two of the big first floor rooms down.  Next up, as mentioned above, is hopefully the bathrooms.  If not, I have a back up project of starting to prep the back hallways - although I won't probably paint any of that until all the construction is complete.



With walls - YEAH!

Jo was in Utah at an HR conference for several days.  She was happy to be back on the road traveling for once since her job doesn't require much travel any longer.  She really misses being stuck in airports waiting for delayed and cancelled flights, eating out all the time, and carbon copy hotel rooms.  I'm serious, she really misses all that stuff - never could figure her out.  Anyway, she had a great time at the conference and it gave her several ideas to try out and to think about.  The rest of her week was the usual mix of meetings and dealing with HR crisis that always seem to arise.

Friday night we went out shopping and then had dinner at a sports bar where we watched the beginning of the Brewer's game.  This was the key game where they clinched their division - Yeah!  Then we came home to make an appetizer and dessert for her sister's retirement party.  That was our Saturday adventure.  After our morning run and lift we packed up our nephew and treats and headed to Madison to help Kathy celebrate being, like me, retired.  She had a party at a neighbor's house with her non-work friends.  Kathy is adjusting well to not having to go to work every day, although the lack of routine has been somewhat of a struggle for her - personally, I think that is the biggest benefit of not working.  We stayed over Saturday night and on Sunday we all went to watch the Wisconsin women's volleyball team take on Illinois.  Jo and I were split on who to rout for, but since Illinois is ranked #3 it seemed the safest bet.  After the game (which Illinois won in 3 straight sets), we headed home to get a few things taken care of on the house and ready ourselves for another week.

September 18, 2011

I'm just back from a trip to the warmer climates in the Southwest.  I spent several days visiting with my parents outside of Albuquerque, NM.  It was nice to have days back in the 80's and to enjoy the excellent Mexican food available down there.  Also good to catch up on my parents activities since it has been quite a while since my last visit.  I got in several runs in the morning although, as usual, I struggled a bit with the lack of oxygen and the hills there.  We enjoyed the Balloon Museum and watching several movies in the evening (I realize I should have taken a photo or two in the museum - oh well, maybe next time).  Also took our shot at winning some money from the casino but no success there - not real surprising.  A final bonus was that my flights both going there and coming home all went smoothly.  A real rarity for me.

Jo managed to secure tickets to the Milwaukee Brewers for the evening I returned home.  So I picked her up on the way from the airport along with our nephew to enjoy an evening of America's pastime.  While we enjoyed the hot dogs and great seats (7 rows back, right by home plate), the Brewers where not having their best night and lost the game.  But we did get to see the sausage's race - only in WI!  Waking up on Thursday morning, I found all the painting still waiting for me.  While the five days off in NM where nice, the house unfortunately didn't decide to paint itself.  So it was back to my painting chores - I tackled getting the primer on the hallway and started prepping the living room.  Stay tuned for the pictures there. 

The construction works continues as we now have plumbing in the bathrooms and the electric work has started.  Although the first floor bathroom was demolished this week so we are down to one functioning bathroom on the third floor of the house.  Quite a walk, but we will manage (at least that is what we keep telling ourselves).  For the weekend, we spent0 Friday grilling some chicken on the grill and just staying in.  Saturday after our morning workouts we had massages and then took care of some work around the house before attending the Swan Ball.  The Swan Ball is a charity event for abused children.  Nice dinner but it was tough to hear about these poor children whose parents abuse them.  What a world.  Today was rainy so a great day for some reading and catching up on things in the computer world.   

September 5, 2011

We have now reached the "official" end of the summer and it now time to begin to get ready for chilly nights and falling leaves.  However, Milwaukee is trying to get all these things in early.  It was 50 degrees when we woke up this morning and, due to the low rainfall this year, our trees are all dropping their leaves already.  I'm trying to get my mind around getting ready for Wisconsin winters again (and more importantly my body).

We had a bustly week as Jo was very busy with work and I worked to finish the painting in the dining room.  As you can see, after the multiple layers of wall paper were removed the walls we painted green at one point and had some kind of framing around all the walls.  It makes for an interesting historical considerations as you peel back all these layers.  After some patching, priming, and then paint on the walls, ceiling and trim the dining room is officially finished and put back together.  I also painted our front door this week so we no longer have a lovely purple door which has been replaced with a dark green shade that blends in a bit nicer in the neighborhood.  Next up is either the hallways or the living room.  I haven't completely decided which.  Will depend on which works best around the contractors.  Speaking of which, progress continues on our bathroom renovations.  The one bathroom now has roughed in plumbing and lights.  We are still months away from finishing, but the first month is behind us.  Unfortunately we are going to lose our first floor bathroom this week which means we only have a bathroom on the third floor.  Going to be a lot stair climbing for the next 8 weeks.

On Saturday, after our morning exercises we did a few minor chores around the house before settling in for some reading and .... yep... naps.  I did finish my re-read of the Harry Potter series (still keeps me riveted).  That evening we had our nephews and their girlfriends over for dinner.  It was a lot of fun for Jo and I to catch up on their activities. Made us jealous all the energy and things they are involved in.  Especially as our one nephew and his girlfriend enter their senior year of college.  Oh to be young and just starting out again.  But then, it is awfully nice to be more financially secure than we were back then.  Everyone was doing great, and for Jo's sister, fruits and vegetables were provided for stocking up the home refrigerators!

On Sunday, we biked down to the downtown Harley Davidson Museum.  It also happened to be a "Hog Rally" at the museum so not only did we get to enjoy all the museum exhibits but also the hundreds of personal motorcycles in the parking lots of the museum.  It was very interesting to read about the history of this Milwaukee business that started here.  Seemed like a similar story to Hewlett Packard in that it started in a small garage in back of one of their parents homes.  After touring the museum we rode to the North Park Bistro on the shore of Lake Michigan for a sandwich while watching the waves roll in.  Then it was home for rest and relaxation.

We had originally planned to go to Lake Geneva today, but Jo is behind on her work and needed a day to catch up on things before work starts again tomorrow.  Me, I'm never behind at work anymore.  But I try not to rub that in with the significant other.

August 28, 2011

We are enjoying a beautiful weekend as hurricane/tropical storm Irene pummels our former state.  Our thoughts are with all our friends living in CT and hopefully any damage caused by the storm is minor.  Although, we do have to admit to being somewhat glad we are not living in our forest with trees just feet from all the windows on our former house.

We both had a nice week as the weather in Milwaukee has been almost perfect.  In the 70's during the day and cooling down to the low 60's at night.  This has made our evening workouts and walks very pleasurable and is almost perfect sleeping weather.  It is hard to believe that summer is already coming to a close especially as the nights get darker so soon now.  On the home front, I continued the pursuit of repainting the entire house by finishing the first coats of paint in the dining room.  This looks quite different as it was wallpapered before with a relatively dark brown patterned paper.  The room looks much brighter now, although I still need to tackle the relatively complicated trim painting which might just defeat my patience.

For the weekend, we biked to a local restaurant on Friday and enjoyed sitting outside enjoying a few drinks and a nice dinner.  In honor of the end of summer, I enjoyed a Pimms (something I learned from my British friends) and managed to stay upright on my bike all the way home.  Although we did encounter our first flat tire on the bike.  After our dinner we returned to our bikes to find my front tire completely flat.  Fortunately, it held enough air after a quick pump-up to get us home.  It was a quick fix once home, but did make me glad I carry an air pump and spare inner tube with me.

Saturday we went out sailing with Kathy and John leaving from Manitowoc, WI.  The weather was perfect although a bit windy.  This meant the boat really flew through the water and there were some not to gentle waves to run through.  You can see I contributed by staying away from touching anything and instead found a comfortable spot where I could rest my eyes and enjoy the sun's rays.  You couldn't ask for a nicer time and it was great enjoying lunch out on the water in the peace and quiet with only the sound of the wind and lapping waves.  John proved to be a great pilot (sailor?) and managed to keep us all dry and delivered us back to the pier right on time to have time at the local ice cream shop for a quick couple of scoops of ice cream and a photo op with their large cow out front.

Saturday evening we headed to a party welcoming us to Milwaukee hosted by Jo's boss.  It was just up the street a bit so we walked over and I got to meet a lot of the people that Jo works with.  A really nice group of people and since the house sits right on the lake front, spectacular views.  Today consisted of our morning exercising and then catching up on some reading and blogging.

August 21, 2011



Amazing how fast time flies by. Already, I'm behind on this post and it just seems like yesterday that I posted last. So to catch up. Two weekends ago we enjoyed a visit by Joann's ex-boss from Pfizer, Sylvia, along with her husband. They stopped by on their way to a canoe trip in Canada. It was nice catching up since we hadn't seen them in quite a while and we certainly did spend a fair amount of time discussing our old work place, certainly in light of the recent Fortune article. 



Cow Judging

Then on Sunday, Kathy and John joined us for a day at the WI State Fair. We saw all the animals so that Jo and Kathy could relive their agricultural roots (or at least their perceived roots since they grew up in a city like I did) and did enjoy watching the judging of the cows and pigs (not sure how you train to be a professional cow or pig judge, but someone does). Unfortunately, we weren't able to see any sheep since they seemed to all have gone home already. And as with any State Fair we sampled the many tasty foods - Jo and I shared a hamburger with a Krispy Kreme doughnut as the bun. It was an interesting mix of sweet and burger - and while quite tasty not something I would need to eat again for a while. This was coupled with a cream puff - a State Fair speciality - and giant "Suzy Q" like dessert. We had all had our fill and while I didn't get a corn dog, I'll always have next year.



Cream Puffs in Preparation

We saw continued destruction of our two bathrooms and they are now just about completely gutted. They started doing a small amount of reconstruction on one of the bathrooms - mostly just laying in a temporary floor so they don't land up falling through into the kitchen. It was quite interested to see the 100 year's worth of work that was underneath the walls and to try and guess the purpose of all it. This week the plan is to start getting the framing in place. It will be nice not having all trash hauled through the house all day. Needless to say, the house is in a complete state of mess, and for those that know us, you can imagine how well we are dealing with it.



The Master Bath Destruction

To add to the overall mess and feeling of destruction, I started the repainting of the dining room (this was mostly as this was the only room that didn't have someone traisping through it on a regular basis). The first step of which was my favorite chore, removing the wall paper. While the outer layer of wall paper came down fairly easily, the wall paper layer under is proving a bit more challenging. But the job is on its way and hopefully paint will be going on the walls by the end of the coming week.



Master Bath Destruction Almost Done

This weekend was our first without major plans or visitors since early June. We took the time to catch up on some local shopping we needed to do and relaxation which is always nice. We had a beautiful Sunday morning today so we hopped on our bikes and toured a local bike trail for 2 hours and then home to a robust lunch since we had worked up quite the appetite. Next up is some naps and then getting ready for another exciting week.