Friday, June 22, 2007

Household Accomplishments

It's been a busy summer and June has flown by.
We got a new roof put on! It looks so much better--a very dark grey (almost black), much better than the blah pale color that it was before. And the leaks in the flashing should be halted now.

I got the wallpapering in the dining room finished! Hooray! I should have thought to take more "before" pictures, but I did take this close up before we started painting. The "stripes" on the previous wallpaper were various shades of grey, blue and pink. Didn't suit my fancy at all.

Then here are a couple of "after" shots. The first is pretty blurry--I mostly wanted to get a picture of Katya in her white dress before it got all wrinkled in the carseat on the way to church, but this gives a general idea of what the new wallpapering/paint look like. After church Brent wanted to take some more pictures outside, so that's why we have so many pictures of Katya in her white dress.

The second picture shows the wallpaper a little better, I think.


Having the living room and dining rooms completed is such a good feeling. I'm finally starting to feel like we really live in this house.

I wanted to show this little pot I have growing by the back door. (And Katya in her white dress again.) Look! A fuschia and impatients in south central Idaho! As summer started, I realized that we had a spot that might be perfect for these shade happy plants: north facing, a dose of sun in the morning, then shade the rest of the day. So far, they're doing really well. I like having a spot of color in this concrete-y area.


And finally, last weekend I went strawberry picking in Jerome. I look forward to this all winter. My next door neighbor wanted to go too, so we set out early one morning, before the day started getting hot, and found our way there. Of course, the back road we wanted to take was closed, but we were able to navigate our way across the grid system. I got six gallons picked. I've frozen about 20 cups. (Another accomplishment: we bought a freezer!) We've been in strawberry heaven. Strawberry shortcake, two loaves of strawberry bread, strawberry-lemon muffins, strawberries on our cereal every morning, strawberry milkshakes, and strawberry pie. I love my strawberry pie recipe. It has a double crust and the berry flavor is so sweet and strong.
As Katya watched me take this picture, she said "Smile, strawberries!"
I think strawberries are a smile, don't you?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Katya looks very cute in her white dress. Does it actually stay clean while she wears it? I'm afraid for Audrey to wear all white - am I just a chicken? The walls look great. I don't seem to have enough ambition to tackle such a big project. Wow, that is a lot of strawberries that you picked - how long did that take? How much of the strawberries did you end up freezing? That will be yummy in the winter!