Happy Halloween!

Halloween in the new 'hood is GREAT. I'm happy. Hope yours was good too!

Boo!

The neighborhood kids are having a great time "Boo-ing" each other. I don't know where it started, but you get Boo-ed after dark. At our house it came with a loud banging on the door (our doorbell is broken) and then a panic by the dogs. When we opened the door, no one was there... but there was a package with a poem about getting boo-ed and a bag of candy and a boo sign to put on the door to show the world we'd been boo-ed. Luke enjoyed it a lot. So much so that he re-boo-ed the neighbors and was re-boo-ed too. It's nice living in a neighborhood where you get boo-ed.

Six

Finally, we have a yard worthy of a spectacular birthday party. Makes it all worth it. Two ponies trailing around through the magic garden, taking the kids for a thrilling jump up and over the little hill between the holly and the ivy. Then a cowboy cook out with the new firepit. Boys playing Power Rangers under the fir canopy, and more climbing the old magnolia. I think it might just have been the most perfect day. Certainly a perfect birthday.

Ebay Find

I won this great old bird cage on Ebay for $5.00. Eventually, I'd like 3 or 4 of them in various designs to put on the buffet by the window. For now it's sitting here as a strange halloween decoration. Oh, and notice the antique shelf thingys behind it on the wall - I'm not sure where they are going to go, but I love their rusty scrolls.

Autumn

I don't know why it took me a year to realize the potential in this lamp post. Inspired by my recent trip to New Hampshire:



My new dogwood which cost less than the big pot of colorful Mums I intented to purchase and will look great this winter with it's red stems:

What's in a Name?

If you've visited recently, you probably noticed I had another name at the top of this blog. And a little bit before that a different one. And I think another one before that even. I forget them all now. Why can't I pick out a name for this place? It shouldn't matter, but there I go changing it again. And I'll bet I do it again.

Little Cottage By The Sea - hmn... not that little, really. Not that by-the-sea either. Though when I stepped out of the house the other morning I did get hit with a mist that carried the scent of low tide right up to my doorstep. So I can smell the sea, but not see it (unless I stand on the roof or out at the road).

Modern Cottage - is that an oxymoron? Or just moronic? I am trying to wrap my mind about putting modern in this old-fashioned home. It's me - mixing the old with the new and making it fresh... but it seems disloyal to the house somehow.

What else did I have? What should it be. I think the house wants a name too. I wish it would tell me what it was though. Home should be enough, really, because that's what it is... or is becoming... finally.

Master of Nothing

These would have to qualify as "before" shots, though I have no idea what the "after" is going to be. I don't even have a hint of a direction. I did... but then we got this bed that goes with... nothing we own. It's beautiful though isn't it? Even if it was not the bed I went into the store to buy. I don't think... it would really look all that good with the purple walls I was about to paint.



Here, I'm trying to pretend I like the green and work with it. But I've decided, as I already knew, that I don't. Except I would like to try some red in there before I totally call it a day.



I'm thinking... so maybe I do have a hint of a direction... that this might look nice, I don't know though. It's a little... too white?

So Easy...

I did this - I covered the icky chair seats! If I'd only known how easy it was... I would have done it years ago. Now they match my walls.

Whisperings of a Powder Room

Could it be true? Are we really this close to having a second bath in? Will it happen before Luke's big birthday party? It's really to soon to say...

Yes, this is good

Just need to paint those triangles that I can't reach and I'm calling it good enough. It's better than good enough though, I love it.





PS. Want to know a secret? It was Frank, of all people, that hit on the color. We were driving down the highway and I was complaining that all these yellows kept being too yellow - even when I thought they were mostly tan or off-yellow... and he said "Why don't you try that color over there - that dead grass color." I said, "You mean that golden wheat color?" And that solved the problem, wheat/camel/dead grass... whatever, it works.

Devonshire

by Ralph Lauren. I think this is it.