Progress!

We've still a lot to do~but the decking is down! Our next step is a trip to the sawmill to purchase cedar boards to cover the 'skinny' porch posts. Then the railings. Then, the ceiling. And steps. Can't forget steps~they'll be next, I hope.


Right now we're using hillbilly steps~the aluminum ladder you see in the picture!

The cats, of course, think that we built the porch for them.


Pumpkin is especially fond of the old swing hubby

brought out of storage. I'm not sure how much she'll like it once it's hung.


Poppy? He can't be bothered with silly things like swings.









Speaking of 'next steps'~do y'all think I ought to paint the swing? I can't decide. I'm thinking if I do, I'll paint it red or a very dark green.


Back to work,

R~Mary

Projects in Progress

With fall approaching, I have been making a list of all the projects that I would like to finish up before winter. I don't really like anything other than 'hand projects' in the winter. Things like cross-stitch, piecing quilts, etc. Those are all fine for winter, but I like my house to be 'in order'.

That brings me to my wall. My wall of tongue and groove pine is about 15 feet long and 14 feet high. My goal is to finish framing and hanging old family pictures (from my family and hubby's) that were taken in the 1800s and early 1900s. I have a lot of it done. But, not all of it. Okay, maybe half of it. (And I have been working on this for months!).

There is a mirror hanging in the middle of the wall and over it will be a tin punch sign that says FAMILY. I have it ready to punch, but haven't done it. And then there's the frame for it. Hubby will have to make that. I have in mind something very, very simple. (I can tell he doesn't believe the 'simple' part). I'm thinking maybe I can make it myself with the help of either daughter.

I'm doing a lot more 'thinking' than 'doing', as you can tell. I blamed the hot weather, even though it is cool inside. And now that it is unusually cool for August, well, I guess I have to blame myself, LOL!

I'll let you know when I make some progress.

Do any of you have projects that you've been working on for a long time and just can't seem to get finished?

R~Mary

Monday Morning

My friend Sue, over at Country Pleasures is having a great giveaway~so get on over there and register! While you're there, check out all of the decorating she is doing in her new house. You'll love her red kitchen and all of the great country collectibles she has on display. And her craft room that she is in the process of finishing up is wonderful.

R~Mary

Rainy Afternoon

We've had several days of rain lately and it has been much appreciated. My favorite rainy day activity is curling up with a good book. Especially a good mystery. Lately I've been re-reading some of my old favorites, including a few Mary Roberts Rinehart.

Mary Roberts Rinehart (August 12, 1876-September 22, 1958) was a prolific author often called the American Agatha Christie. "Dorothy B. Hughes, crime critic and novelist, says she 'has been and continues to be' the most important American woman mystery writer." She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase herself, and also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing. (Wikipedia)

What are you reading these days?

R~Mary

Summer

Not much is happening around the home place this week. We've had a nice few days of rain~along with some cooler temperatures. I even had all my windows open for a day. Almost unheard of in August.

We don't have a rain gauge, but we've had others tell us they've had anywhere from 8 to 10 inches since Saturday! However much we've received, it has been welcome.

It seems that summer has virtually flown by~I can't believe we are already to the middle of August (almost). Soon the golden rod and wild asters will be blooming and other signs of fall will be in sight. The transition from summer to fall is rather long for us and we have stretches of sometimes hot, sometimes cool days, all mixed together. But those cool fall days are still a few weeks away and our hot temperatures are on their way back.

Have a great day,

R~Mary

I'd like to leave this hot summer weather behind and traipse with Alice through Wonderland for a nice break! Every time I see this lovely garden ornament, a little bit of me wishes that it was mine, so I always take time to 'visit' Alice when I am at Silver Dollar City. We haven't had a chance to make it up there this season, but I'm hoping we might squeeze in a visit this fall.

We have a chance of rain today! When our wet summer left us behind, she left us high and dry~everything is quite 'crispy' right now, so even a few drops will be welcome.

Have a great day,

R~Mary

Reading

This is a meme that I saw on my friend Marlene's blog--Stitchin' by the Lake. How many of these books have you read? (The National Endowment for the Arts believes that the majority of adults have read only 6 of these books--Yikes!!) I have bolded (okay, so bolded is not really a word) the books I've read and italicized them if I especially loved them! I still have so many to go!

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2.The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7 . Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 . The Complete works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit --J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (I've read most of this book--Dickens can be tedious!)
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 .The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 . Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (I would like to add that I DID NOT like this book)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune- Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (I absolutely LOVE this book!)
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town like Alice- Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet- William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I would also add Christy and Shepherd of the Hills to this list.

I'm also disappointed that no Mark Twain books were named on this list! I would add most of his writing.

Happy Reading,

R~Mary

And The Heat Goes On. . .

Oh my, it is hot out there today! Our heat index should reach 110 degrees. I'm not sure what it will reach on Sunday, when our expected high is 105. We usually have low humidity with these kind of temps, but this time it's decided to stick around.

Our work on the porch is going rather slowly. Some of the boards still need to dry out and the heat makes it hard to work out there very long, anyway. I am looking forward to sitting out there when the weather cools down in a few months. I still haven't taken a peek at our porch swing we have stored away up in the barn~sure hope it is still in good enough condition to use.

I've enjoyed watching the dragonflies in the evenings lately. They are such friendly little things--always flying around us, curious as to what we are. They drift from plant to plant as leisurely as possible--and there we are banging away at a bunch of boards. I'm sure they think we have some sort of problem!

Stay cool!

R~Mary