Our New Year: Digging Out, Home Improvement and Puzzlemania

It's been a quiet New Year in Sedillo. On New Year's Eve we woke to clear skies and 32" of snow. We took the picture above as we started out on our morning walk on December 31, 2006.

This is what the road up to the top of our ridge looked like on Sunday morning. Great for walking, but horrible for driving, although our friend K. did drive it with his 4-wheel drive vehicle. Most of Central and Northern New Mexico was like this. We decided on a quiet New Year's Eve at home. As of today (January 3, 2007), the city of Albuquerque is still digging out.

We did not lack for things to do while waiting for the snowplow. We are putting in a new tub for the master bathroom. On New Year's Eve,we

moved the tub into the bedroom so that DH would have an easier time making measurements for the plumbing and the tile. The bathtub is still in the bedroom tonight because of difficulties with the cutting of tile. It breaks every time that my husband touches it with a drill. He says he'll need to call in a tile expert. And I have relatives coming in less than 48 hours! Oy vey iz mir!

DH says that we'll move the tub back to the garage and he will get everything else ready to go. We will then deal with it AbM (After the Bar Mitzvah. I can clean tomorrow.

We have already spent a good deal of energy on this weekend (?) project.
It has been four (4) weeks since the old bathtub was taken out. Here is DH working on cutting the tile in order to fit the new bathtub. That job and the using a rented jack-hammer to cut the concrete in order to accomodate the new plumbing created so much dust that I had to vacuum twice--and wash every towel and piece of clothing in the bathroom. It will be worth it when we get the new tub up and running. I am just wondering when that will be....

DH has big cracks in his hands from the drying effect of the concrete dust, the wood, and the tile.

My bathroom looks pretty bad at the moment. But I have been promised that I can get in there and clean tomorrow.

We have had other amusements over the New Year holiday, however.

N. received three different puzzles for Hannukah and his birthday. He is a great fan of puzzles and his current wish-list includes a three dimensional puzzle (and a snow board). He set us his new map of the world puzzle on the coffee table in the living room on his birthday. Since there was no place else to go (Let it snow!) we all had a hand in working the puzzle on New Years Eve. Here is DH and our dog Zoey supervising while N. finds a piece of Greenland.

We all helped at one time or another, although N. has done the bulk of the work. This puzzle is really cool because there is no picture, so N. has had to learn the geography of the world in order to put the puzzle together. On the oceans, he used longitude and latitude lines as well an piecing together geography facts that are printed on the ocean pieces in order to find the right pieces. To the right is the puzzle as it looked at 12 AM, January 1, 2007. It is now nearly finished. This is good because I need my coffee table back! Tomorrow! As my contribution to the puzzlemania that has overtaken the family (my DD helped yesterday), I bought a puzzle map that rolls up around a central pillar so that the puzzle can be rolled up rather than be taken apart. (Target, $5.95). This has been our sole non-Bar Mitzvah educational activity in the past 3 weeks.

N. did not take a winter break yet--we have been too busy with all of the learning surrounding the Bar Mitzvah. We are going to take next week off. Monday and Tuesday we will be accompanying relatives to old town, and other interesting places. Wednesday-Friday we will be resting. We will start schooling again on Monday, January 16.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!