2022 Review

So what were we up to in 2022?

Home Improvemennt

Given that there was not enough drama in our lives, what with the pandemic and all, we decided to undertake a kitchen renovation! When we moved in to this house, we looked at the kitchen and said, "Eh, it's...fine...." As the years went by, the annoyances started to add up

• "So much wasted space in these cabinets!"
• "I really hate our dishwasher"
• "Did you know these cabinets are actually DARK RED, not black?"
• "I really hate our refrigerator"
• "Holy cow, I just dropped a meatball on the counter and now I can't find it!" because, camouflage
• "It's so dark in here!"

Before

With the help of a talented interior architect, we developed a plan, and prepared to host a lot of boxes and contractors.

During

The intial wave of work went great! Our kitchen was soon all done except the backsplash (which Michael designed with Rookwood Pottery). Then one night, as we sat in the living room relaxing and surveying the results, we suddenly heard loud pops and cracks coming from the kitchen. We discovered that the last contractor--the plumber--introduced a slow leak that was seeping under the floor boards and causing them to warp.

So we said au revoir to our brand new island with quartz countertops and entered remediation. Home Depot is great to work with up front, and they did get a remediation company out immediately, but getting the project completed was--to put it mildly--a struggle. The company they hired did a great job with the remediation, but they destroyed parts of the island during the "restoration" part.

After

The happy ending to this story is that we absolutely love our new kitchen! And, we're still married!

We also had the dining room wallpapered.

Looks a lot better without all the boxes, yes?

Michael has a WHAT?!

During our kitchen renovation, Michael had been having some weird symptoms, like pain in his neck, some tingling, and headaches. When Heather saw that his pupils were two different sizes, she insisted he see a doctor. Two days after our remediation, with giant fans running in our tented-off kitchen, the doctor finally told Michael to go to the emergency room. Thirty-six hours and several scary tests (CT with dye! MRI!) they concluded that Michael had a dissection in his carotid artery. Normally a dissection means immediate stent insertion, but this was so close to his brain, it was considered neurosurgery and too risky. We were told these usually "heal on their own" and were sent home with a list of stroke symptoms to watch for!

See the dark area with the lump in the middle of the picture? That's not supposed to be there.

To make a long story short, Michael's dissection did not heal on its own and he ended up having the surgery in the Fall. Everything went as well as it possibly could have gone, and his symptoms have disappeared. He'll be reevaluated in the middle of this year (i.e., they will run a camera through his artery again), and hopefully he'll be able to go off blood thinners so he's not periodically covered in blood even though he has no idea how he cut himself. Neither of us would have bet that bruises could be as large as a dinner plate (or so dark purple), but after sliding down some stairs at the end of last year, Michael has proved us wrong. We'd share pictures to prove it, but that would make this blog NSFW. Instead, can anyone tell me what this Boost button on Michael's bed would have done if we'd been brave enough to push it?

We've Been Married HOW Long?

For our 25th anniversary, we took a trip to New York City.

We Saw the Sights!

Library Hotel

Botanical Gardens

We Ate Great Food!

Kung Fu Little Steamed Buns Ramen!
The name is bigger than the restaurant!

Egg Cream!
Contains neither eggs nor cream!

Cream Tea!
Definitely contained cream!
Not High Tea! Don't even get Heather started!

Schnitzel!
It doesn't get thinner than this!

Daniel Boulud's Le Pavillion
Too refined for all those exclamation marks

We Saw Great Art!

We always try to visit at least one or two small museums in addition to the "big ticket" museums. This trip, we visited the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and the New York Historical Society, which has an amazing display of Tiffany lamps.

This is about 1/10th of the lamps on display...some designs we'd never seen before. We spent most of our museum time at The Met.

We Saw Amazing Shows!

The reason we started planning this trip was because we really wanted to see Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in "The Music Man". This is one of Heather's favorite musicals, and we saw Sutton Foster in her first Broadway appearance...we figured Hugh would probably do a good job, too. ;)

"Islander" was a very cool show where two actresses played all the roles and sang all the parts by looping themselves live. It was fascinating to watch and they did a fantastic job.

We love the way "Moulin Rouge" has continued to bring new pop songs into its score.

Not pictured: Funny Girl. We also saw some great local/regional shows this year (Cinderella, Mean Girls, Christmas Canteen). It was so good to see live theater again! Heather teared up a little at the first show.

Aren't You a Little Old for THAT?

Heather went to Summer School. The Royal School of Needlework (AKA the people who sew all the Queen's gowns) have taught remote classes for the past two years. Heather and a couple friends continued the tradition of booking a Vrbo together "somewhere cooler than Atlanta and Florida in July" to get away for the week of class.

You're Going WHERE?

Michael's chosen birthday trip destination was Buffalo. "Why Buffalo??" you ask (Heather asked the same question).

Big waterfalls!

Big donuts (from Paula's)!

Big beef on weck sandwiches!

Big Frank Lloyd Wright house!

Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House was one of the buildings on Michael's architectural building bucket list so it was awesome that it was so well presented and preserved! There are actually three houses at this one location: One built by the owner ("upper class"), one built for his sister ("middle class") and one built for his gardener ("lower class"). Although Wright exceeded his budget on all three, it was interesting to see where he "economized".

We also enjoyed seeing world-class stained glass in some of Buffalo's grand churches.

That Tiffany guy; he really knew what he was doing.

Michael got in a visit to the Guaranty Building by another architect hero, Louis Sullivan.

We earned "Arts and Crafts enthusiast" points by staying at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora.

Inspired, in part, by the Netflix glass-blowing competition show, "Blown Away", we headed to the middle of New York state to visit the Corning Museum of Glass.

Now one of our favorite museums, it had theaters were you watch master artistians make glass...

Ancient glass...

Tiffany glass..

Modern art glass..

Technology invovations in glass...

Amazingly, we did not tire of all the glass!

Always up for hiking through a natural wonder, we loved Watkins Glen State Park, though we were very glad to have water proof shoes!

Does the year ever end?

Alright, you're ready for us to wrap it up, so let's get to the holiday season.

Thanksgiving

Christmas

Merry Chrima...ah, Happy Valentine's Day!