Colors and a bit of poetry

The exterior's done. The paint is on the walls. Doug & crew are working on the trim.





We might just have half a house by next weekend!

The question is: Will we have a baby too?

We're nine days from the due date. Sarah feels good. She's been off work a week. Good thing, too. She gets tired more easily these days.

Back to the house. The color choices ended up being:

Sumatra for the kitchen.




Olive for our bedroom.



A light cream for the baby's room.



Reef for the bathroom.



And Metro's khaki-colored recycled paint for the hall and mudroom.



Lemme tell ya. For a recycled paint, it looks great.

Doug & crew might have only a week of work left before we all wait for the kitchen cabinets to be delivered. We're gonna miss these guys.


That's Doug with his son-in-law, Paca. Doug just met Paca weeks before Paca married his daughter. Paca came here with his children this summer from Jamaica. Not sure how he met Doug's daughter. But he's now working for her dad.

Nacho continues to be a man of pleasant surprises. Late last week, he walked up to the house with a book of Garcia Lorca poems. The book published Spanish and English versions of each poem side by side. Nacho likes this because he can practice his English, which is already good. These days, however, Nacho says he doesn't get much reading done during his 90 minute bus commute from North Portland to our house. That's because he's found a couple of friends on the bus -- a high school student and a middle-aged woman -- whom he talks to each morning. Doug saw him talking to the woman once and began ribbing him.

"Hey, Nacho! Better hope your wife doesn't find out about that lady friend of yours," Doug said.

Nacho shrugged him off.


(Nacho, his "lady friend" and a book of poems in his hand)

Impressed by Nacho's choice of poetry, I pulled out a similar book of Pablo Neruda love poems and loaned it to him. Doug, almost on cue, stuck his head between us.

"Hey, Nacho. You gonna read some of those to your lady friend?" Doug asked.

"I read them all already," Nacho said. "I read them before I knew my wife."

Turns out he read poetry as a young man to pass the time while selling newspapers on the streets of his Mexican hometown.

That's our Nacho.