Tuesday, January 13, 2015

the week underway

Just jotting down a few brief notes to share
before the week gets away from me completely!

Pliny ~ leftclick to embiggen! (BL, Harley 2677 f.1)

1) Did you notice the new badge at the top of the sidebar? I'll be participating in the third annual Grow Your Blog Party, hosted by lovely Vicki of Two Bags Full. The first Party prompted me to start Comptonia, so this will mark my second Blogiversary as well! I will have another little giveaway, open to all, so I do hope all my regular readers will visit and leave a comment on the 25th  :)

2) In other sidebar news, I've added a countdown for Tsuga's possible due date. If she's pregnant, that is.


Fingers crossed, please, everyone!
Just think: we may have kid pictures in only 98 more days!



3) The carpenters came back today to begin the interior finish work; the picky stuff that takes time and Must Look Right.


All the window and door jambs were begun and finished today, and I'm very pleased. Tomorrow: sills, brackets and high shelf, possibly some trim. The carpentry work is very nearly finished!

4) Also re: the porch project, I finally admitted (to myself; no one was arguing with me) that I cannot hold a paintbrush long enough to polyurethane the walls. The painter I hoped to hire for the ceiling visited today and I asked him to add the walls to his estimate.
He's hired.

5) It's Real Winter now, no two ways about it. Frequent snow, biting cold, cutting wind. Fortunately, I've discovered the best cheerer-upper ever:


Turns out there's a huge advantage to putting up a tree on Christmas Eve: it stays green and aromatic well into the bitter throes of January, when - I don't know about you other Northern Hemisphere folk - I really appreciate a mood-elevator. During evening chores when I'm hauling buckets of water across the snow-crusted ground, or distributing hay in icy paddocks, or feeling my fingers beginning to ache with cold inside my gloves...whenever I happen to glance toward the house, the glorious sight of those tree lights reflected in the porch windows makes me feel happy, truly happy, every time.

Every.Single.Time.

I don't know how much longer the tree will be here. 
But it's not coming down tonight, that's for sure.

~~~

And that's it for the Comptonia update!
How's things in your neck of the woods?
~~~~~