Where I've been

Well, busy living life mostly.

Don't think for a minute that I didn't miss all of you (I did!), but I really needed to step away and just 'be'.

I'm sure you've all been there at some point.

Anyway, I didn't mean to be gone so long, but time got away from me and I neglected this poor blog and all of you, so for that I apologize.

I truly do.

So, what exactly has been going on here?

Well, we watched the leaves change....

then fall...

had our first snow...

and I lit the first fire of the season.

Annie and I celebrated our birthdays in November.

I can't believe she's 21!

For the occasion, my mom, my brother, his wife, Annie and I all went to Las Vegas.

We were so busy that all I managed to take were these awful pictures of the views from our rooms...

and the two outfits I wore to dinner.

Thank goodness for my sister-in-law that managed to take quite a few photos of our adventures while we were there:

We also carved pumpkins.

and I spent time with friends.

What about Bubba?

 Well, he did a lot of sleeping...

and begging ;)

And these days Mini mostly sleeps.

Poor old girl.

There were beautiful sunrises...

and lovely full moons.

We've trimmed the tree...

and now we're waiting for Santa.

And I'm ready to ring in the New Year with a new hairdo ;)

So that's what I've been up to :)

How about all of you?

I'll be checking in on you very soon.

xo

rue

A window tale

Once upon a time, a lovely woman built a darling cottage.

For some reason, years later, she had to sell the cottage.

A family bought it.

Now, this family was probably a very nice family, but there were these evil people that would go door to door convincing neighbor after neighbor that old windows needed to be replaced. Even though some windows had been on their old homes for over a hundred years and had nary a problem, they agreed to change them out.

 Eventually, the evil window people came upon the little cottage where the family lived and convinced them that the little cottage's wooden framed windows weren't good enough.

Unknowingly, the family fell into the trap, like their neighbors, and agreed to replace the windows with some that wouldn't last more than ten or twenty years.

Some years later the family sold the house to a couple.

Now this couple wasn't very nice.

They had plans to destroy the cottage on the inside, but before doing that they decided to paint the entire outside, including the window trim, brown.

Not only that, but they used latex paint over oil based paint without sanding it.

About five years later, there fell upon the world a great recession and the couple had to sell the little cottage, so their evil plan was foiled.

Along came a woman that immediately fell in love with the little cottage and she bought it.

Soon she started undoing all the bad things that were done, but discovered that some things were going to have to be replaced professionally.

Boys and girls, do you know what that would be?

Why yes, Susie! It is the windows.

Well, all except the four original windows downstairs, that escaped the evil window replacers, that you guessed it... have nary a problem, except they too have to have the latex paint scraped off.

Not only are the metal window replacements failing, because of moisture between the glass, the wood window trim is rotting, because of the latex paint pulling off from the oil based paint and the leaks that come from improper window replacement.

And this kids, is what happens when you do that...

So, the woman that loves the little cottage knows that she'll have to replace not only this window, but eventually ALL of the ones that were replaced by the evil window people.

For now though, she has scraped all the latex paint off and has done some patching with wood putty until she can get someone that knows what they're doing to replace them.

There's also another sad window tale, involving some not too bright person building a staircase in front of a window.

But the woman will deal with that eventually too.

Just like she has when changing the outside from this...

To this...

It's a slow process and the woman has much more to do, but the little cottage knows she's trying and is very very happy that someone finally cares again.

To be continued...

Eventually.

;)

xo

rue

P.S.

For information on old windows go 'here'.

Please read it before you get angry about replacement windows.

Decisions

I've showed this view of my sewing room/office/library many times.

Do you know why you never see the other parts of this room?

Because it's scary!

It's a place where things are put, until I can either get rid of them or find a place for them to go, and it's become a mess.

I was thinking that if I show you this horror, that maybe it'll motivate me to do something about it.

So, here we go...

The desk where I blog from and pay bills:

Not your typical "Where Bloggers Create" space, huh? ;)

You can see that I need to paint the walls towards the ceiling, but moving that desk will not be easy. I've been told it's either German or English and from the early 1800s, but all I know for sure is that it's a beast to move, because it's so heavy.

The reason for the weird paint is that I had shelves (not original to the house) removed, to fit it on that wall, since it's the only place in my house that it would work. 

And I wasn't going to get rid of it. 

No siree Bob! 

I love that old desk, heavy or not :)

Oh and that white thing next to my chair?

The only air-conditioner on the main level, besides the one in Annie's room. It's an ugly necessity during the Summer, because as I've mentioned before...

I don't have central air.

Now you know why I want Fall to get here. 

For all those that said they didn't want that... I'll be happy to send my 90 degree and above heatwave your way, but you have to turn off your central air first :p 

Moving on to the other side of the room:

This is the bane of my existence.

See all those book and pictures?

I'll have to take all of that stuff down in order to paint the shelves.

A daunting task.

And I would know since I'm the one that unpacked the boxes and put it all up there.

Also, imagine the mess it'll create in the rest of my house.

Ugh.

So now that you know what the rest of the room looks like, here's my inspiration pictures.

Remember, it's more the colors and the feel than anything else.

The green shelf inspiration...

I'm leaning toward these colors...

The black shelf inspiration...

And finally, 1929 inspiration...

All these images can be found on my pinterest. 

I can't make up my mind.

I want the room to feel warm, cozy and somewhat dark, but not too dark, if that makes sense. 

The problem is that you can see it from the dining room, which will probably have yellow walls eventually...

and also from the kitchen, which you can kind of see here...

So I don't want it look odd.

My guess is the green shelves would be best, with either a soft yellow or a lighter green on the walls than on the shelves or the drapes, which for some reason always look grey in pictures, but in fact they're sage green.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm curious, what would you do?

Not that I'll listen ;)

xo

rue

Twilight

"The time just after sunset, when the light is half-faded, but the world is not yet totally dark, is twilight."

Even the dictionary is romantic about my favorite time of day.

As I was watering, I looked up into the sky and noticed the moon was playing peek-a-boo in the clouds.

And I noticed the soft glow coming from inside my home.

When I was finished watering, I said goodnight to the squirrel that kept me company...

goodnight to the bird feeder, that feeds my little friends all day...

goodnight to the playful moon...

and walked back into the glowing comfort awaiting me...

to watch the darkness settle from my window.

Have a wonderful weekend, my friends. 

And don't forget to enjoy the beauty of the days ahead, because every single day is precious, especially at twilight ;)

xo

rue