Birthdays & Anniversaries

This past weekend we celebrated both Mike's birthday and our one-year anniversary of being in our home in Corso Italia.  One year already??

Friday night we headed out to the local sushi restaurant around the corner - Sushi California. The "New Open" sign in front of their window has been hanging there since we moved in and is looking a tad more weathered after a year.  It also leaves us wondering just how long that sign was up before we moved in!

As with the last time we were there the prices were great, the food was yummy, but the service was very slow. Adam slept through most of the dinner leaving us to enjoy a quiet meal out together and I'm sure we would have been able to make it home before he started to fuss had it not taken so long for everything, including paying the bill. And one very unattractive thing about the restaurant was that when they cleared tables in between patrons, they wiped the tables down with a citrus cleanser that smelled like Lysol. No one wants to be smelling cleaner while they eat their food. We felt like we were suddenly transported into a bathroom as we were enjoying our maki rolls.  Seriously, a definite turn-off.  Good place for pick-up, perhaps not for dine-in.

Saturday we had fun furniture shopping as it was time to spruce up the place.  There were a few things on the list: coffee table, side table, storage bench, desk...We ended up buying a walnut tripod coffee table from Shelter and a side table from EQ3 that matched surprisingly well.  There was also a nice storage bench from West Elm that we might go back for.  A pretty successful morning in all...now we just need a new desk for the office.

Enjoying birthday dessert on our new coffee table

Yesterday we got down to business.  I have a list of things that I've wanted to get done around the house for a while and I was eager to start picking them off one by one. The first was painting the washroom ceiling to cover up some plaster repair last year after installing the exhaust fan. While I was at it I decided to also paint the dividing wall separating our porch from the neighbour's (you can see in the photo below). What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes.  

Mike picked up a shelf so we could organize the closet under the stairs and then also cut the grass - the first time for 2013!  The front and back lawns survived the winter wonderfully and are nice and green. We will need to attack some of the weeds again but it won't be anything like the dandelion infestation and monster weeds we had to deal with when we moved in.   Anyway the warm weather was much appreciated this weekend...it finally feels like spring and of course, the bbq came out of storage. Can't wait for burgers!