Dandelions In the Cold

Hey, y'all, it's quarantine time!

Dandelion Fields Forever

Well, we don't have any bluebonnet fields handy, but we do have...

....ooooodles of dandelions!

Nickie's Visit

I finally got around to processing some long overdue photos tonight.

It feels like only last week that I looked out on this driveway, a driveway just beckoning me to come bite it on a steeply sloped sheet of ice.  Today?

Today is lush, green warmth and blooming flowers.  David found me fuschia!

I really like fuschia.  It's one of those flowers that looks nice from a distance, but up close has the power to blow you away.  If I hadn't believed in flower fairies before I met fuschia, I certainly did after.

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My sister Nickie came for a visit awhile back (2 months ago, yeesh).  It was so awesome to get to spend some real time together!

It was still cold then, but at least the snow was gone.  She and Dave and I walked the property and found some treasures.

 We visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 And shopped the Westside Market.

 Don't get me wrong, the bakers and butchers and produce sellers are where it's at, but I just love the tile artistry in this old building!

 And we got in a hike at the Hinckley Reservation just down the road from the house.

Nickie and I also hit up the Goodwill and found a $10 cherry tray-top table.

Nickie did all of the stripping while I cut a new lower shelf for the little beauty; then together we worked on painting the legs with white milk paint.  It's not finished yet...with the workshop being my priority for the moment, it stands patiently waiting.

Judging by the speed I'm getting things done around here, it may be done around Christmas.  Fingers crossed that that's an exaggeration!

The View From the Hill

When the outside looks like this,

it is so good to have an inside that looks like this:

The Floors, or How To Do Hardwood the Hardest Way Possible

Before we bought our new/old Farmhouse, I spent a good bit of time looking for advice on how to do this whole buy-a-house-and-move thing.  One piece of advice was to put up curtains before you do anything else (for privacy, I'm assuming).  Another tip was to implement a landscape plan before the ground freezes (do it first thing and enjoy mature trees and bushes the rest of your time in that house ==> makes sense).  Other people said you ought to start with a house-wide smudging and spiritual cleansing (...).  For us, though, we determined that the first thing we'd have to make happen was refinishing the upstairs hardwood floors, which includes all four bedrooms and a sizable landing/hallway.

For one thing, the finish had worn away to bare wood in many places in just about every room, not to mention sections of deep gouges and rough sock-catchers scattered liberally throughout.

For another thing,

A Moving Update

An awful lot has been happening around here.  We spent a chunk of last week in Pittsburgh...which is its own post that may never happen, but long story short: my mother-in-law Kathy had a stroke, spent way too long in the hospital, and is now finally recovering in an intensive therapy unit.  It's kind of a long story.  I'm SO glad we got to spend that time with her, even under such sad and scary circumstances.  The therapists say she'll be swallowing on her own (and drinking Pepsi again) in a week, which is perfectly amazing given the week she's had.

Today is September First, and we are officially out of our old house.

Our first house.  The house I moved to immediately after the honeymoon.

Bought It!

Picked up the keys this evening!  We'll be moved in by the end of the month!  YEAH, BABY!

We've Signed!

Today (now I guess it's yesterday) we signed!
Tomorrow we send a lot of money to some people, and on Monday -

- we get keys!