Making ourselves at home

After Joe make a very nice, though very filling, anniversary dinner, we headed over to HOM furniture to meet with Linda, our Design Consultant" at HOM furniture.

We met Linda when we stopped at HOM on Saturday. We were just looking around at furniture when I thought to ask a sales person if there was any kind of design consultation service there. Turns out they have this service where the consultant will talk with you about colors and styles, and then come to your home to measure rooms and talk with you more about how you use your space. Linda came to the house on Sunday and spent a lot of time just going from room to room with us.

Last night Linda showed us everything that she thought would work well for us. All-in-all she did pretty good, though there were a couple complete misses and a few things that only one or the other of us liked. We spent over three hours looking a rugs and furniture.

Many of the items she showed us aren't online, but a few are, so I've listed them below.

( Lots of details... )

Updates from China

My Dad (lifecoach) and Mom are in China right now. I've received two e-mails from Dad and I thought I should share them here with you.

E-mail 1, sent Sunday August 26, 2007
Subject: China
Andrew,
would you turn off the water heater the next time you're at the house.
It's Monday morning now and we got back from the wall. I was a little sick
Sunday and exhausted. Mother is doing fine. I'm using Ms Yang's computer
at her home. I could get online to mail anything.

When we got to the airport Ms Yang was there but didn't see us and so she
left. Her assistant said she would come back for home. So we were in the
airport several hours and really got stuck in traffic. Ms Yang only got
one scratch on her mother's car. Her mother has a Buick and had room for
all of our suitcases. The mark the lines on the road and I think the game
is to see how much time you can fit four lanes into three. I don't ever
want to drive in China.

Saturday we went to the Wall, about 300 Miles/Kilometers? so it took quite
a while. then we got to one city and Ms Wang, Ms Yang's partner drove us
to the Wall. We stayed in a hotel (more like a resort) That evening we had
a Mongolian dinner served on a large lazy Susan in a private dining room.
The overall manager, the restaurant manager, Ms Wang, Ms Yang, another
manager, Kathryn, Ms Yang's assistant who is Tibetan and speaks Chinese
and English very well, came along as our intrepretor. She's a 22 year old
student. We had a smorgisbord of food
I'm on an IBM computer and it has me confused and the answers keep coming
up in Chinese.
Love, Dad


E-mail 2, sent Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Subject: on our way
Got on one time and now I can't get on. Mother and I came to the Jin Yun
Hotel so I could get email. I forgot how to get on dreamhost and didn't
bring Dana's email address and i'm not sure i have the right one.

We're heading for Chongqing tomorrow afternoon and will be on the road 15
days. Ms Yang said the hotel in Chongqing may have a connection for my
computer. Otherwise I can only get aabertke@drewan.net. So anything you
send use that account.

Will write more later.

love, mom & dad