Oh how nice you are. Ingrid, I have admired the lovely photos of your garden, thank you for your comments. There is one bush in my little garden that I am watching for a couple of years to see if it is staying. Thank you Jennie, I like to see a garden instead of just close-ups...but I love them to. Thanks Jeff. The fence came in sections from Lowe's I paint everything the same mossy green color. It was black originally. Rosefolly, I appreciate the kind comments from someone with so much knowledge...the trees are quite mature. The background was recently marred by Alabama Power deciding that a lush fig tree posed some danger to them. that's what caused the weird mess on the right corner. (fig trees are tough. It's regrowing.) kay

Your cabin is charming! I wouldn't change a thing in the original living/dining room and loft. I would take out the kitchen and square off the space...or add french doors and make that the play room. Since the driveway is on the right side of the house...have you considered 'flipping' the kitchen/family area and master bedroom? I'd rather have the driveway off the closet/bath and the view off the kitchen/family room. Then, you could put the screened porch on the left side and have easy access to the kitchen...and great views out the back of the house. As for the kids' rooms, I think they work well as is, but if you need a bedroom closer to the master...then I'd put it in between the living/dining and master area (as you have it now) but eventually turn that into a guest room/study. Can the kids go upstairs, eventually? That loft would make a great bedroom or playroom area :)

Today was an awesome day. Bob got up early with me and we went out to pick up our order of Tangelos and on to the Mennonite Market... Did a little shopping and then back home again.. I sorted through some old coffee mugs and will be putting them in the spring yard sale for the Hope Fund at church..I know I will have tons more too. Christmas stuff especially.. I have waaaaay too much in the way of Christmas ornies.. I just keep the ones with sentimental value to them like some hand painted ornies my mom did and little gifts of ornies from a lot of really nice online friends I have met over the years.. Carolyn, It is so amazing when you can get more order in your life by purging what is just not working to the good in your life.... Hanging on to what is doing absolutely nothing but draining you either financially or physically or spiritually is not worth it... Kick it to the curb or give it away or sell it or donate it... but yeah.. don't let it drag you down.. sometimes things can act as an albatross around you neck..and will keep you from doing other things that really are worth while... besides, if you give it away or donate or so... then someone else may garner a really great blessing from it.. and guess what... your blessings will increase too..Just because you remove something from your life that is doing you no good, doesn't mean it doesn't have value.. to someone else it may be just fantastic.. It is turning cold for the next week, so walking will be brisk.. and not really long treks.. just a mile and a half.. and that's it.. toes get cold after that.. lol So ar this year I have walked every day.. and still watching my intake of calories.. so it's all good. Keep on keeping on folks.. and thanks for the squeezy hugs Dee.. we always can use a hug or two.. Stay well everyone.. CS

Maddie and Besh - thank you for the compliments! I feel like a million dollars after seeing those. Besh I am happy your sister is doing well. Keeping good thoughts coming your way. And a puppy! OMG I love puppies. Give her a big kiss for me. Lucky girl you are. I will be on and offline - my laptop died big time, DH set me up on his other laptop normally used for work...but I've also been busy finally making curtains for my spare room after sorting the junk out. The weather is playing nice again - we have running around to do along with getting me a new laptop. I balked at the idea and asked if I could just get a refurbished one. Dave wants me to have a new one because I use it for everything, we are not subscribing to TV since moving out here and use the laptop for reading news, watching TV online etc. It's our social life when we sit down and work beasts for both of us. There are some really good ones out there that are rated high for performance and COOLING under $500. My old HP sucked on cooling - my hardware in the machine just got slower and slower, things started stalling this week until it gave up completely yesterday. Boo. We're looking at a Toshiba Satellite. I had a Toshiba before and wore that sucker right out and I'm using an old Toshiba right now (DH's work laptop). It's also a much older machine too but still working well. Sometimes I wonder if the ground we have built on is cursed. Since our homebuild went wrong, lots of other things around here go wrong. Even our contractor said things that have been challenging just never happen on other sites. And get this, EXACTLY to the day we left Ottawa last year to be homeless in a trailer on site, we had a lightning strike on a tree in our field. It traveled to the house, damaged/killed our modem, wi-fi equipment, an outdoor outlet and possibly the start switch on DH's table saw (it was plugged into an extension cord from the house) which got zapped (circuit breaker went off). Because we have a $1K deductible on our insurance to keep costs down, it doesn't look like we've past that on damages to bother with it. Honestly I just don't know sometimes. There was a huge BANG and we both swear we saw an arc around our woodstove - which luckily the attached fan was still plugged in so it was grounded. Given the trees around the house and the fact we are on a hill top we are now thinking of getting a lightening rod installed. I don't want to say "what next". If we won the lottery we'd be gone tomorrow from here - not kidding. This has not turned into our dream home - it's a house on slab which we've been told will be hard to sell, the value is not as high as it could be because of the slab (supposed to be our walk out basement). Sigh. But we march on. Never dull although I would not mind some "dull" these days. So excuse me if I'm not online much over the next few days and maybe not until next week. It's Canada Day weekend too and we will be busy with family. I hope you are enjoying some fine weather, getting outside and taking care of yourself. Drink some water and try and have a walk! Cheers, Peggy