And the bedroom is painted!

We finished painting in fours hours, thanks to Bob. Not only is he fast, but he's so skilled that even moving like lightening, he did a much better job than I did.

Isn't it beautiful?
We spent yesterday Friday getting ready to paint. Saturday we did the painting, and on Sunday we put the bedroom back together.

I am utterly delighted with how it came out. (So is Rod. Every time he walks into the room -- even when he thinks I'm sleeping-- he says "This room is so pretty.")

It seems to me that the chocolate walls make the frilly, girly, "Pre-Rod" decor less girly than it was with red walls. That and the good solid 1950s bedroom suit add a decided masculine touch. Dontchathink?

The original plan had a subtle tone-on-tone stripe, but Bob recommends that we wait a few weeks for the base coat to cure before we tape off for the stripe.

I'm happy to do that because this looks just lovely the way it is. I still need some more art--this room is much bigger than the last couple of bedrooms I've had and the art that filled them up nicely looks pretty paltry in this one. Ahh, well, something will turn up, I know.

Now the major areas feel like home. Not bad for three years residence, eh? *grin*

Of course, there are still areas that could use attention -- like the peeling wall paper in the foyer (that has to be bad feng shui, doesn't it?) and the no longer possible to clean upstairs bathroom walls. But that's part of the fun of being a homeowner -- and the smaller rooms are less daunting. Painting them doesn't require that the house be thrown into disarray.

Oh, and through all of this, we played round robin with the flu, which I believe I mentioned in an incoherent post yesterday. We're all better, though none of us are back to optimal just yet.

Snow day!

The snow has stopped and the time had come to clear it away enough that we could get the cars out of the garage and out onto the street.

The boys got all rugged up.

Jack was ready to go!

But, clearly, Rod needs a better hat for this job!

My hard-working boys spent over an hour shoveling snow -- and this year, jack is actually able to make a dent in the snow piles!

Then Jack played in the snow for another hour - -and looked very pleased with the experience!

Dreaming of a White...

Yule.

I got home to this yesterday evening! I don't think we got this much snow all winter last year.

Hurray! But we definitely have to get out there today and make sure the critters have access to some food.

More when the coffee kicks in.

The rest of what we did today

Thanks to our friend John, who not only helped put the garden to bed, but then was sweet enough to record the leaf raking for posterity!

Signs of Autumn

I took this photo last night.

I absolutely love out beautiful sugar maple this time of year! Though by today, half of those beautiful red leaves are sitting on the ground waiting to be raked up and jumped into!

But notice, too, the bright orange flag in the grass...it has companions up and down the street and interesting blue and green paint marks to coordinate with it.

I have a very bad feeling about what it means for access to our driveway, but I have no idea when this will happen...