Blogging from Springfield...

Mmmmm DSL... :)

Look at it! Marvel at the beautiful art I made for Papa! You're all in it & I have to call The Southerners to make this come true. Click on it!

I'm pretty proud of it. :)

Happy Birthday tooooo You

HAP-py BIRTH-day toooo youuuu...
Happy BIRTHday deaaaaar Papa...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! :)

Happy Halloween!

Boy lots of stuff backed up to post about, but for today let's just show a lovely series of pictures of Caesar's outfit!

AWWWW what a cute little sheep-dog! :)

And here's a nice spiderweb that Jim & I made (mostly Jim) for Halloween out of tomato twine on the side of the house. I "sharpened" this in photoshop so you could see it better, even so you may need to blow it up... IMAGINE THE SPIDER!

May you all have a lovely Halloween. We're gonna hole up and watch scarey movies on TV tonight after I get some more work done - drowning a little over here.

Don't forget what tomorrow is! =)

Caitlin's Chickenerrarium

Photos taken this very evening. I tells ya, these little buggers will be going outside this weekend - I started prepping the pen for them wednesday but found it just wasn't a one-afternoon job, so they are still inna basement! :)

Altogether now, to the "Jaws" theme...

Da-dump

Da-dump Da-dump

Da-dump Da-dump Da-dump...

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!

Aren't they just adorables? :)

Stuff been going on round heah.

Well Hello there! :) Lots of crazy business, lots of work to do around here and not enough time to do it in. I've been fighting a cold for days but so far I'm winning, and the harvest is in and I was just too busy working to make dilly beans this year. You'll all have to settle for cheaty store boughten beans I'll dill later this year. :)

Papa & Jim preparing to install a window a couple weeks back, hopefully it'll get done this weekend. It's getting cold, and that plastic bag we taped up just isn't working that well to keep out the breezes!

Cute blond points at daylight streaming through wall.




JimE's pirate beard. Sorry no photos of the pirate getups - we forgot our camera.
Maybe we can get one from a friend later.






The banties, this last Saturday. Look at the cuties! There's some frizzy looking craaaazy white ones, and some little silky poofy tail ones with green beaks, and little tiny gray ones, and more!



Banties!



The full size chickens. Starting to be all feathered out. The barred rocks are the least timid, but this whole batch freaks out more than the banties whenever I feed them. They look more varied at first, but I find myself gravitating to watch the little ones, with their giant snowshoe feather feet and cute little faces. Plus the feather hats are coming in on the full size ones and boy they do look nuts. :)

Bleah.

What a sucky week. This time of year is hard on many of my readers. I think we're all trying to spare one another by dancing around that giant white elephant in the room, the big empty space left by our missing family member. That's right Brendan, I called you a giant white elephant, what're you going to do about it??? =)

Anyway, it sucks. Natalie and Dan and Jim & I are going to bake Brendan a birthday cake tonight, and then eat it for him. Like the Priests do for Buddha I guess, someone eats those offerings and it isn't the Buddha statue. Well, maybe the Hindu statues do: click here. Natalie proposed we ought to also buy presents and then keep them for ourselves, but I'm afraid my emergency gift supply doesn't have anything in it I fancy or I would already have kept it. Maybe we'll watch Rat Race, or XXX with Vin Diesel, or the Boondock Saints (yuck), all movies Brendan particularly enjoyed. And almost certainly, we will gripe about the way we all had something precious cruelly stolen from us, and we're all pretty bitter about it. Damn it.

In more positive news, look how cute these babies are!!!
They arrived this morning to distract me from my doldrums, adorable as anything and very hungry and thirsty, and I had to go out after these photos were taken to get another set of food/water holders so I could separate out the teeny tiny banty chicks. into the second tank I think I got some chicks that are going to have the crazy feather hats I was hoping for, I'll post a good pic of those a little later. That green stuff is "grow gel" a vitamin supplement to offer after they get out of the shipping container.

A letter from 1995

Oof, I've got so much work to do & I'm just not making any progress! I have a play data with Nate & Ciara tonight which I have to go pick them up for right now. This weekend I have every intention of cleaning the garage *and* preparing for the chicks I am expecting next week. Eek! :)

Anyway, I was cleaning last night and found some really adorable old letters.
Here is one from 1995 (I can tell 'cause that's when Toy Story came out.)

Whose the cutie? Who is it? It's YOU!

Natalie and William when we went to see Harry Potter. Didja notice that Natalie and I look very much alike when you take our hair out of the equation? (Except I'm not usually making a sourpuss.) William, on the other hand, is just adorables. :)

We Prognosticate your Progeny

The Coughlin sisters foretell the future.

Alexe's future that is. :)

Week 12.
So beautiful, and dainty, too.

Week 24
(a couple hundred bowls of grits later)

Week 36.
Pickles & grits, 100 jars of nutella and a 9 lb baby later.


:)
*love*, us.

Proof that You Southerners were in the new kitchen

Also incidentally proof that Jim empties the garbage. Sorry Sweetie! :)
Oof, I've been overwhelmed with work and not getting out in my garden enough. This week is going to be cooler - it's been hot, hit 92 one day but I didn't notice I was in my office where it was 76 - but this weeks' going to be in the 70s, perfect for weeding my beans that are just sprouting. We don't have Mississippi gardening weather up North, but on the plus side, we don't have Mississippi weather.

Alexe showing yet? :)
*hugs n kisses!*

Compare & Contrast

Jim spent a lot of the weekend in the attic, all sweaty & hot... and hooked up the ductwork for the hood! Yay Jim!

Before

After

I say, it's coming along nicely, eh old fruit?

Hi Kittens :)

How is everyone doing? I'm working a lot, & I've been cranky, which turned out to be helped a lot by a deep cleaning of the house. I spend a lot of time in here, and when my house is not in order, it affects my mood. Evidently. :)

Naughty Romni! Watch where you throw that thing, I mean, just look at Caesar's feet! :)

Two of these things... are not where they should be...

Glorious Sunset, April 30th.

This photo has not been retouched in any way.

Cabinets going in...

Mmm, photos are worth a thousand words.
What do you think? :)

Mmm, Island hood. Mmm, new ceiling.

Mmm, new ceiling. Note also the hood, which was a royal pain to level.

Mmm, the hood. those post-its were to help me level it, and say things like "low" or "high" or "good". Those two little ones under the lip say "No!" because the power is ON but the blowers are NOT vented to the outdoors yet. So, no touchy. You'll never guess who turned one on by accident and got dust all over the island a couple days ago ;)

Oh & while there was no island under it, William walked right into the corner making a beeline for the sink. Then he told me about it later, and he was pointing at the corner he walked into, and there was a little sprout of hair stuck to it! CSI Vermont! My response? "You better not have knocked it out of level! - I mean, are you OK?" :)

My goodness, you look familiar. Have we met before?

Seriously, you even smell familiar.

Didn't I murder you the other night?

Well shoot, I guess I'll have to do it again later.

Now, how to knock this over...

The floor goes in...

It's adorable Kagan, the way you think Natalie might want to help with annoying kitchen remodeling tasks. How amusing. =)

She did help a little bit with the rip out.

New 1/4 inch subfloor... We did NOT do our own floor, that was done by a nice guy named Randy that subs for Main Street Flooring in Essex. They were pretty good even though there was a giant delay in getting samples and thus it set everything else back, that's not really their fault.

Long view of the subfloor

Mmmmm, blue. This is a really nice floor y'all will see when you visit, and not at all too dark because the light bounces all around the cabinets and counters and doesn't have a chance to get sucked up by the floor. Which I polished until it shines like the top of the Chrysler building.

Grrr.

Grrrrrrrr.

Yikes.