I promised myself heading into March that I wouldn’t let this month be as abysmal for posting as February was. March 1, boom. Post was up. Good start. Now it’s March 9 and… Second post. Hmmm… Thing is, we’ve been and continue to be very busy. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

I’ve yet to finish processing my pictures from Scottsdale. There aren’t that many – less than 300. I was hoping to get to it this weekend, but before we knew it, both days got away from us.

Saturday, we arose early, had some breakfast and then went to the travel clinic for our third and final shot which covers us for life against Hepatitis A and B. The Twinrix vaccination is a six month process that guards against two incurable diseases often contracted in holiday locales. Feels good to have it done.

Later that morning we visited a local paint shop to get on with what has been 4 months of planning, plotting and intrigue as to the colors we want to paint our house. Some of you will recall that our condo in Victoria was “Nursing Home” peach for the longest time before my wife introduced three bright and fun colors to bring it to life. This time around, given the architectural curiosities of our current home, we/she faced a more challenging canvas. To start though, we were particularly interested in recovering (literally and figuratively) the master bedroom. The master bed is on the north-facing side of the house. It is the darkest room in our house, despite having six windows, two doors, a balcony and a 12′ cathedral ceiling. For reasons we will never know, this room was painted chocolate brown. We were beginning to feel that, in these most trying days at the end of a long winter, this color was unacceptable and needed to be changed. In choosing the actual paint we knew we were after low- or no-VOC paints (Volatile Organic Compounds), which, even after the paint has dried, contribute to decisively poor indoor air quality in pretty much every household. A great article describing VOCs in paint can be found here. Little wonder we feel refreshed outdoors and often tired, stuffy or otherwise improper indoors. So as it were, our locally owned paint shop is a Benjamin Moore store. We did some research and found the Aura line of paints from BM. The marketing is rather compelling and I’m a big fan of what is up to 8 times less VOCs. We taped on Saturday afternoon and put two coats on yesterday.

Saturday evening we coordinated with my parents, rented a truck and moved some of their furniture to our house. Balancing a house in Calgary and another on Vancouver Island, they have two homes’ worth of furniture that they want to pare down to one, as they complete their retirement to the west coast. My wife and I were happy to provide a home for some very nice pieces.

But now, here we are, Monday morning, and my hands are achy, my joints stiff and my muscles sore. We have another coat to put on the bedroom tonight, which will complete that room. I suspect we’ll take the rest of the week off before starting another room. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to edit my photos.