I'm right there with ya'll. I ain't quite right either!!! Sorry for the poor quality of the pic. I just can't seem to get a good one of this...I've got 3 different types of clematis growing up this thing. Also, a cabernet grape vine, and a couple of other annual vines. Should be real interesting to see what it looks like in a couple of months..... ~I like my garden just a little on the trashy side....~

A story? Well, one of the first things we did was an exercise out of the Not So Big House books: We made a list of the words we want to describe our house. In our case, we had a lot of words about function: Efficient, energy-efficient, good storage. And a lot of words about the "feel" of the house: Cozy, charming, nostalgic, friendly, inviting, light-filled. And words we don't like: Dramatic, modern, impressive, funky, trendy. That's not a story exactly, but it's kind of like setting a goal for how we want the house to work /feel /look. And we're very clear on what we want: A small (1600-1800 sf) house for the two of us after the children are gone, which will be built on our 45 acres of farmland. We want it to be age-friendly and to have all the everyday living spaces on the main level, and we want it all to be easy to clean and low-maintenance. We want every space on the main level to be used every day. We want to have a small upstairs for guests. We want a great outdoor kitchen with ample seating and a small pool. And we want it all to be mortgage-free. That doesn't feel like a story to me; it feels like a goal. Two comments on this thread with which I can really agree: While I believe in electricity, plumbing and even central air...I do love old houses. So while I would never be considered a 'purist' my perfect home would probably be similar to a car build on "Fast and Loud" LOL. I want it to look vintage, I want it to pay homage to vintage....but I want the car to go fast, stop on a dime and have air conditioning :) and I guess our not-yet-finished house's story would be 1920 meets 2014 technology I like the door picture ... but I'd say it's a cottage door leading to a small, picturesque home.

Pollan's talk was a sold-out event (which is rather unusual around here except for Metal Music and rap like Snoop). The uni here had set one of his books for the Freshman Summer Read, so no doubt there were lots of extra credit opportunities being used. :-) However, there were a lot of community people there as well, and I have to say that it was a pleasure to listen to someone who is a good writer and speaker. Pollan has a great vocabulary and it was wonderful to hear him use words that you don't hear very much. Nothing too fancy, but just really well selected vocab. Lovely. He didn't really talk about his books that much, although there were various selected readings from some of his earlier work (like Second Nature) etc.). Most of his talk was about his path to being a writer (how circuitous it was etc.) and that you never really know what you are going to end up doing, career-wise, in the end. Took loads of questions from the audience and was overall a pretty nice guy. He did thrown in a snippy comment about politics, which was unnecessary, but then, again, if his politics had agreed with mine, I probably wouldn't have minded. :-> Good stuff. I have moved In Defense of Food higher up the TBR pile now... If you ever get the chance to hear him, he is worth the ticket price. Was going to do a lot of reading last night, but took the dog for a walk at the park, it got dark, I dropped my house key somewhere in the park in the dark, and ended up sitting on my door step (avec dog) for 2.5 hours while the Pop-a-Lock people tried to open Fort Knox. (DH is out of town at the mo and I was trying not to let him know I had lost the key AGAIN...) They couldn't open the super-duper special lock we have in the door, and in the end, I had to call DH and admit to losing my key and getting a long-distant friend to come over. Needless, I was cold and tired when I got in, so went to bed. Sigh. Anyone want to come to the park and walk all over the place to see if they can help me find my key? It's yellow.

One day in LA (my only time there), within the span of about 2 hours, we saw Sean Hayes in a diner. I stood 2' away from him while I waited for the (single, unisex) rest room -- DH was in there and when he opened the door I pushed him back in, closed the door, and said much too loudly I'm sure, "OMG you'll never believe who's right outside this door!" I was a babbling idiot. Then we walked down the street to a Starbucks. My DS, who was probably 18 at the time, was standing in line for the rest room behind the musician Ryan Adams. Maybe two months before this, we had taken DS with us to a Ryan Adams concert in Boston, so he recognized him right away. When Ryan came out of the men's room and handed DS the key, DS chatted with him for a few minutes. Ryan was really nice to him. I was outside and knew nothing until DS2 came out to tell me what was happening. I ran in, again like a big idiot, and stood watching while Ryan got a straw for his iced coffee, then I went back outside to wait for him, fully intending to ask him for a photo, but he escaped out the back door. So sad. THEN, in the next store we visited, we saw "Janice" -- Chandler's girlfriend from Friends. This may have been the best day of my life. I am a total dork about celebrities (in case you can't tell). I love, love the singer Lori McKenna. Maybe no one here has heard of her but she is local from MA and does a lot of performing and song writing in Nashville as well. We have seen her in concert probably 12 times. She plays a couple times a year at a very small concert venue in the Boston area, and we always go. The first time I spoke to her it was because we, and our friends, were among the last to leave and Lori came out from backstage to get her guitar. My friend asked if she would take a pic with me, and she did, and we chatted for a minute. The second time I met her, it was at the same concert venue, and I had brought a CD for her to sign. After the show, I managed to be standing right in front of a door she was coming out of, and I asked her to sign my CD. She said 'yes, but a bunch of people are about to come out of there (the concert area), so come with me' -- she grabbed my hand and brought me backstage. She signed my CD, then had her DH take a bunch of pics of us. She was super nice.