The Egg or the Potato?

I FEEL LIKE CHICKEN TONIGHT...CHICKEN TONIGHT...CHICKEN TONIGHT

How do you thank a chicken? I mean besides not cooking her for dinner. They get themselves into the cutest little predicaments and scream "take the picture now!" Like say maybe she's in the clay pot ruining pansies....

Maybe she and her best girlfriend are on the window ledge passing time just ruining a window box...

Or maybe she just laid an egg the size of a potato and lived to eat out of the dog's dish another day.

Miss Henny Penny you're all that!

The Vineyard

Am I really that person who knows there's got to be another destination on the annual vacation other than Ocean City MD? Hey, it's been working for 45 years...why the big rush into some vast unknown? I could learn something very new, thus forfeiting a cherished and all too familiar sweatpants feel of a night strolling the boards...

Is every vacation meant to be me trying to get the fantastic action shot of either Liv or Francis enjoying Trimper's Rides to the fullest?

Or maybe I was meant for more sophisticated surroundings...surely if it's good enough fro Barack and Michelle, I should fit right in.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD

OK, SO THIS IS THE REALLY CLASSY EXPENSIVE PART, we didn't stay there but...we did stay on island--as opposed to off island. Here is our darling little cottage.

Oh so just kidding! I actually forgot to take a picture of our charming little cottage except for the window.

So this is how; with the help of a friend, I finally broke the bonds of Ocean City, MD

THANK YOU DONNA!

Little Miss Henny Penny is taking a dirt bath in a pot that should have some lovely pansies in it but instead she's probably trying to lay an egg in it.

The cutting garden is full bloom. It's mostly cosmos and some other orange flower which I forgot I even planted. I did have sunflowers but they're all gone now.

OK, I give up. How do you delete a pictue after it's been posted?

But Why Can't I Live in a Stone House?

I don't know the exact day or year even when I became this person with superior taste. Only a house made of stone will make me truly happy. Big and grand as it is, Cannondale is only a lowly brick house. The stone foundation, stone steps and stone wall out front are only a reminder of what I don't have. A stone house.

More About That Dining Room

The floors have been stained and polyed. I've moved the farm table forom the kitchen to the dining room and put a mishmash of dining chairs around it. Happily painted the mantel black (thanks Donna!).

Olivia Conquers Broadway

My daughter Olivia is an absolute star. Here she is with her tall friend Morgan (Witch #3). Olivia performed the part of Witch #2 with an unbelievable amount of believability in The Elk Ridge School production of Macbeth. The talent and dedication she and the entire cast put forth were truly admirable. Well Done All!

The dining room in fabulous Cannondale has two personalities. The first and most domineering side of him (her) is regal and commands respect. "I have a corner fireplace, my ceiling is 10 feet and am in possession of two large sash windows" Now the flip side to that two-faced little witch...floors are an unholy mess and what floors there are--are sloped at an alarming angle. It faces north and the wind howls fierce and shakes the windows. And sunlight, there's not enough.

So in an effort to tame this shrewish side of Cannondale's Dining Room, I've commissioned floor boards from the repurposed lumber of the Oxford Water Authority Covered Bridge plained and sanded. I had Rueben and Levi fit the boards. Now apparently its up to me to sand and refinish.
Here are some before and after photos. Good luck figuring which is which!

So I've painted the library with Farrow and Ball Pavillion Gray and used Hardwick White for the trim and fireplace, still not sure what color the bookcases will be....

Working on the library.