Believe it or not, we have had the first snow of the year already! It happened two days ago, on Saturday, and it wasn't the little granular stuff, either. They were big flakes! Nothing stuck to the ground, but it lasted about twenty minutes and really came down. Here's the best picture I could get, but it doesn't show up that well.
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Over the last two months, we have been making some big changes in the Living Room. This is the original part of the house, with a beam that runs down the middle to separate about one third of the room from the other, though it is all one large room. We have the wood stove in there, as well as two leather sofas, a coffee table, cabinet, hutch, trunk, etc. On one of the four walls is a pair of French doors leading the Front Room, on another wall are two doors leading the Computer/Sewing Room, the third wall has two more doors which lead into the Kitchen, and the last wall has two large three-panel windows in them looking out into the yard and the bird feeding area. All that said, there isn't much wall space at all. We like to have friends over to watch old movies. Up to now, our Library has been the only spot in the house with a TV (see previous posts for pictures of that room). There are a lot of bonuses to having your television upstairs and at the very back of the house --- like it's not the first thing anyone sees when they walk in. You don't see the road or traffic at night while watching. The noise stays up there and not all over the house, etc. On the other hand, you have to go up our tiny little stairwell to get there. You're very far from the kitchen and food/food preparation. You can't have the TV on when you're doing other things like sewing, etc. Well, the pros of having one downstairs seemed too good to ignore, especially when we were able to get the exact same Panasonic Viera Plasma screen that we have upstairs on Craig's List for $50.00. All we had to was order a wall mount and get going . . . and pick which of the two wall options we wanted for the new television. Here is a picture showing the wall in question in our Living Room as it has looked for a couple of years now. The first step was to remove all of the art from the wall. It's always easier to take it down than to put it up! Here is the room with the new TV wall mounted and put in place. It stayed like that for some weeks, because we decided that Pop should build a shelf to mount on the wall above the television. So, he bought the lumber and got to work! Finally, just yesterday, we brought in the finished shelf inside and mounted it! It really looks amazing, and we've all been enjoying just staring at it. The photo above shows the finished thing. All of the fish in display cases are wood carvings that Pop has made in the last few years. You can click the photos below to see them at full size.
Here is a quick update on our cleaned-out, rearranged TV room/Library upstairs. This is the room where the majority of our books are stored (though there are about 2,000 more spread in some other rooms), plus our main television. As of this Summer, we have installed a wall-mounted TV in the Living Room downstairs, as it makes having friends over to watch movies a lot nicer. Also, it's in the room with the wood stove, which will make winter much better. We were able to dismantle two old chairs that had really worn out, and we got the burgundy chair a few weeks ago. Right now, the room has been turned into a temporary home for Henry the Kitten, but he had his first introduction into the whole house yesterday and should soon be out of this room. Click on Pictures to Enlarge. This is the room where we do all of our sewing, felting and hobbies. Well, hand sewing. Machines are downstairs in the old dining room, which is now a sewing and computer room.
I'm working on taking pictures in each room, and hope to add a tour of the whole house later this year! The little kitten is now inside the house, and we're calling him "Henry". In fact, we brought him inside two weeks ago, just one day after the last blog post. The weather turned and started getting very cold at night, so there was no choice but to bring him in. It was just too cold outside. Mom called Aunt Lori (who fosters kittens and knows a lot about this kind of thing) and was able to ask all kinds of questions. There was no way he could be near our three cats, because he still had a couple fleas . . . though we had been combing him in the garage and gotten a lot off. He also was still in the middle of the de-worming process, so the big cats can't afford to catch that either. Aunt Lori told Mom just how to bring him in and give a kitten flea bath. It was a cold and rainy day, so we had to be all ready to do it and get him warmed up right away. We had just finished cleaning out and rearranging the back room upstairs, which is great, because that room (with its walk-in closet and full bathroom) is half of the upstairs of the house --- and we can close it off with just one door from the rest of the house and the other cats. No problem. The big cat tree house is even up there, so we just got out some cat toys, made a few little beds around, turned the electric heaters on and closed the door. Putting a litter box and food bowls in the bathroom up there was easy, and everything was ready for Henry.
As soon as Henry adjusts to food, we'll let him out into the house to see if he can mesh with the other three cats. If they all like each other, that will be great. If they can't be happy together, then we'll find a good home for Henry. It all really depends on the cats and how they do. They've all met a couple times in the back room. Oliver doesn't mind him. Max thinks he might be okay --- as long as the kitten stays out of his face. Sammy, on the other hand, is petrified. Twenty-five pounds of cat is scared to death of a three-pound kitten!
So, that is the biggest news going on around here. We will have to wait a bit longer to know for sure if Henry is here to stay, but he's been lots of fun to have, either way.
We've all been a little preoccupied around here since Friday. Why? We have had a little feline visitor. Some nasty person dropped him off at our corner on Friday (a neighbor thinks they saw someone throw him out the vehicle window), and this little orange male kitten appeared in our bushes around five o'clock. His eyes haven't even totally finished changing color yet (still blue rims!), and from his other looks, he can't be eight weeks old. When he came, his nose was all skinned up and his eyes were crusted up, so we've been giving him antibiotic drops, went to the vet and got wormer for him, etc. It's amazing, today being only Tuesday, how much better he has gotten! He is the cutest, sweetest, friendliest, smartest kitten you'll ever see. Extremely right-pawed. He's totally a "people lover", and very "indoors". We've made a home for him in the garage while we try to find a real home for him. Thankfully, we were really blessed to find a kitten-sized tree house on Saturday at a garage sale, so he even has something to play on. His favorite toy is a shiny/furry green plush ball! But the little red heart-shaped toy is the one he takes to bed with him every night! He loves to be held, brushed and petted. And he purrs any time you might pay attention to him. We have to sneak out via the front door to get to the back yard to hang clothes outside, because he wakes up at the first sound of the back door opening or someone even walking near the garage. This little kitten really enjoys playing. He's a very indoor fellow, but he came outside in the yard for a bit today to play. Traffic unnerves him, but he could run right back in the garage if he needed to! So, you can see why we've all been preoccupied. :) Aside from the kitten, we have been doing to re-arranging in the TV room upstairs. The two old recliners that were up there had really seen their day, so we were on the look out for one non-reclining chair to replace them. Well, the perfect thing was at a garage sale on Saturday for $25.00. So, we actually dismantled the recliners last night (recycling or reusing the various parts and pieces) and are going to finish rearranging today. Photos to come later of that . . . and more.
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SAMWISE: MY HONEY-POT
Colossians 2:8:
See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. BEATRICE: MY HONEY-BEE
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Edward James Eliot
My "favorite" member of the Clapham Sect. Not very much is known about him, but what is preserved keeps a beautiful memory alive of an exemplary Christian man. William Wilberforce Quote:
May I look to Him for wisdom and strength and the power of persuasion, and may I surrender myself to Him as to the event with perfect submission, and ascribe to Him all the praise if I succeed, and if I fail say from the heart thy will be done. For you Jesus Christ came into the world. For you he lived and showed God’s love. For you he suffered the darkness of Calvary and cried at the last, ‘It is accomplished.’ For you he triumphed over death and rose to new life. For you he reigns at God’s right hand. All this he did for you, though you do not know it yet.
Where there is one, there is a majority of one; and when the rights of the majority take away from the rights of the one, then the many will themselves suffer.
~Henry David Thoreau~ I often think of Bag End. I miss my books, and my armchair, and my garden. You see, that's where I belong. That's home. That's why I came back, because you don't have one. A home. It was taken from you. But I will help you take it back if I can.
~ Bilbo Baggins ~ FAVORITE BOOKS & FILMS
Gone With the Wind (Mitchell) Genesis of a Legacy (K. Ham) Prisoner of Zenda (Hope) Scaramouche (Sabatini) Amazing Grace (2007) Bertie & Elizabeth (2002) Farmer's Daughter (1947) Ride Clear of Diablo (1954) Secondhand Lions (2003) Sweethearts (1938) SCARAMOUCHE QUOTES
He was born with a gift of laughter & a sense that the world was mad. The future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Man never changes. PRIDE & PREJUDICE:
A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. PRIDE & PREJUDICE:
Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. WINSTON CHURCHILL ON
KING GEORGE VI "His conduct on the Throne may well be a model & a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today & also in future generations." "For 15 years George VI was King. Never at any moment in all the perplexities at home & abroad, in public or in private, did he fail in his duties." |