Yesterday was almost a perfect day.  We spent the morning leisurely reading the NY Times and local paper and actually got through most of it.  Dave spent most of the day doing yard work while I worked on the final version of a manuscript that will be published in January.  (A note on why academic research is slower than the real world.  I collected the data for this paper in '98.  Wrote the paper with my mentor in 2000.  We were accepted for publication in 2001. And it will be publishd in January 2004.)  Yeah.  Good thing technology hasn't really changed much in the last 6 years.  Whoops!  I still think the information and our conclusions are relevant, but the technology we talk about is very different.

Lunch and dinner featured veggies from the garden.  Lunch:  Cheese and tomato sandwich.  Dinner:  Pasta and homemade pesto from the basil bush and a leek salad with a cuke and tomato from the garden. We had dinner on the back deck with a glass of wine and it was just perfect.  That's what I always thought Sunday dinners would be when I grew up.  We then watched Sex and the City and went to bed. 

The "almost" perfect part comes in from 4:00 am to 4:45 am when the devil dog decided to do whatever he could to wake up the house.  We think Scarlett may have been walking through the dining room and hence the bark-o-rama.  But LORD.  We need one of those gerbil habitats for the cats to walk around the house and be safe from the dog. 

Today, we have a second meeting with our potential architects.  Our potential interior designer called and said that she wants to be more involved with the house/garage designing and not just the space planning/ interior decorating.  She has the experience, but doesn't have the architect degree.  It freaks me out a bit trying to make all these decisions.  What the advice books say is that you should have an interior designer work with your architect.  But she wants to do that work herself.  What we need to do is to talk to these folks' references AND walk around our neighborhood and ask people about their own experiences.  I know there's not one "right" way to do this....but I suspect that there is a way which is less costly and pain in the booty-ish.  Does the designer need an architectural degree?  Contractors redesign without an architect--Will that be right for our needs? If anybody has any suggestions or ideas, we are MORE THAN HAPPY to hear about them.   

We also have a landscape contractor coming over to give us an estimate.  We have revised our timeline.  Landscape this fall.  Garage remodel this spring (and hopefully, make a nursery!!).  House remodel in 2-3 years.  Dave may be taking on a class at the business school that in addition to our savings will let us pay for everything up front.  Whew. 

Off to work.

8:06:48 AM