The front of our house has two half-round windows. Each of them sit above three vertical windows, and they bump out of the roofline in two barrel shapes. Both of those windows are in the rooms assigned to my mother, her sitting room and bedroom.
I wouldn’t presume to tell my mother how to decorate her rooms. Besides, she has better taste in decorating than I have. However, it was important to me that the two windows present the same appearance outside. Mother first chose verticle blinds to cover the bottom windows and then she selected honeycomb Duette fans to fill in the half rounds. Those fans are a pale raspberry color. The final touch was a layer of lace curtains with a swag in the center, over the verticle blinds.
I would NEVER have though of combining those three styles, but she made it work. Her decor is very Victorian, and though she’s used modern textures, she’s created a very feminine room that’s faithful to Victorian style.

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I’m delighted to say that we no longer have to boil our water. TEN days after the boil order was put into effect, we have finally been told that our water is safe again. The city tests in thirty-three places and until seven days ago, two of those tests each day would come in positive for coliform bacteria. Friday and Saturday all the readings were clear, but they held off until Sunday afternoon to announce the relaxation of the restrictions.
Thursday and Friday we ate out. I was so sure that the boil order would be lifted that I delayed doing dishes Saturday. Finally, on Sunday morning, I couldn’t stand it any more. I emptied the dish washer and soaked the dishes in bleach water for 60 seconds and set them out to air dry. I bleached the counters and loaded up the dishwasher again. I did about six loads of laundry, fixed lunch, and repeated the entire process with the dishwasher again. Then I started working on dinner. Just about that time they phoned to say it was all clear.
So, after we finished cleaning up from dinner and bleaching the counters one more time, I cleaned and bleached all the screens in the faucets. I ran the ice cube maker to purge the system, and we ran hot water through the kitchen to clean out the lines. Oddly, the instructions in the newspaper were much less detailed than the original information on what to do following a boil order. I wonder if the situation was less serious than they originally expected.
At any rate, I’m damned happy we’re done with that!

It’s glorious out this morning. We started the day with the lightest of snow flurries, and they have passed through leaving us with mostly clear sky and almost blinding light. It’s quite a change from the gray we’ve had.
There are icicles hanging from the gutter outside the window of my office, and they are dripping at a fast pace. The sun on the dark shingles must be melting the snow cover on the roof.
This morning I was getting ready to feed the birds, and looked out the window. What birds? Just a few moments earlier the feeders had been busy, and now there wasn’t a bird in sight. Of course, that means there’s a hawk nearby. The hawks are having the same problem finding food that plagues the little birds. The chipmunks and voles and mice must all be hibernating.
The hawk had landed in a tree about thirty feet from the feeder. He was absolutely still, and if you looked from the wrong angle, he really blended into his surroundings. But, the smaller birds weren’t conned. They all left for safer places. As I walked out the door to fill the feeders, the hawk took off, flying south through the grove. He’s a beauty, but I’m glad he didn’t get any of our little friends.
We have blue jays, cardinals, mourning doves, Eastern starlings, juncos, nuthatches, chicadees, finches, sparrows, downy, hairy and red-breasted woodpeckers, fox and gray squirrels, rabbits, a possum and deer, that we know of, and probably more who come to our feeders this time of the year. I hope Mr. Hawk continues to find his dinners elsewhere.

This is another of those entries that are hard to categorize. It could be “Off the Bookshelves,” but it’s not just a book review, so I’ve tossed it into Def-y’s.
I just finished J.D. Robb’s “Divided in Death.” Robb is a nome de plume for Nora Roberts, who is very probably the premier romance writer of the past two decades. In addition to the scads of romance books she has written, she has also penned a series of 18 hard-edged, gory mystery/detective books, with one more book due in August, 2004. The main character is Eve Dallas, a police lieutenant in New York City, in 2059. Her husband, Roarke, is an Irishman of uncommon beauty, who has made his wealth and position through a number of shady deals in the past. Roarke has gone (almost) straight for her, and uses advanced technology created by his companies to help her crack her cases.
All of the books are good. The gore is there, and it is not a wise choice for the impressionable reader. With each passing story, we learn more about their relationship, and of those who people their world. I highly recommend this series to all of you, not just to fans of Roberts or the romance genre. Guys will enjoy her plotting to overcome the bad guys, as much as her vision of the future.

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Every home owner learns that there are a plethora of repairs that have to be done if you wish to own a home. Things wear out and things break. If you are not an innate do-it-yourselfer, then you are wise to begin collecting the phone numbers of those repairmen you can trust to do a businesslike job, and not scalp you in the process.

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No, this is not a cooking entry. Unfortunately, the city in which I live has announced that we are to boil our water for drinking, brushing teeth, cooking, making ice and any other use where we are likely to imbibe the water.
Friday night, in the middle of quilting bee, all the phones in the house rang. DH answered one of the lines, and it was a recorded message telling us to boil the water for the next two days. Since then, the boil order has been extened to “sometime” this week.
Do you know how something like that can disrupt the running of a household? You have to bring the water to a boil and continue to boil it for five minutes for it to be safe to drink. Then, the water has to cool before you can transfer it to plastic jugs. I purchased six gallons of drinking water on Saturday morning, and we’ve used part of that water, and keep refiling the empty jugs.
I had to call to see whether the dishwasher was an acceptable way to wash our dishes. I couldn’t figure out how to rinse the dishes in boiling water with out hurting my hands. They said the dishwasher was safe, but that I should let my water run first to raise the temp of the water going into the dishwasher. Actually….that sounded rather stupid to me, but I was desperate.

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I think that music is the determining factor in whether I like a movie or not. In fact, my favorite movies are those with great music.
I have a DVD/VHS player at the table where I piece my quilts. I realized the other day that I choose the same movies over and over as I piece. I thought at first that it was because I was listening to them, and could follow without having to watch the screen. But it occured to me, as I walked through the house singing phrases from the movies, that it’s the music that draws me in.

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This evening DH decided to call it quits early. Tomorrow he will have to take the trash down the drive, so it means that he will need to be up earlier than his usual 4:30 a.m. He organized some of the recyclables and walked the dog. On his way in, he commented that they had startled deer in the back yard.
Once you’ve startled the deer, there’s no point in looking for them. They sprint and bound and take off hither and yon. They are a joy to see, when you can catch a glimpse of them.
So, I walked down the hallway to the bedroom, intending to turn back the covers, and the door to the guest room was open. It looks out over the south lawn, and there was one of the deer, standing as still as a statue. I moved so the light from the kitchen was not behind me. I stood and watched that deer for some time, and it never moved. I slipped out of the guestroom and into my bedroom, finished turning back the covers, and looked once more. The deer was still there, checking to make sure that it was safe for the herd to follow.

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I know, I know…..it’s already Groundhog Day and I haven’t posted in February yet. All the hoo-haw over the Super Bowl bummed me out. First, I really don’t care for football. Second, I don’t like the entire idea of the Super Bowl being the highlight of winter. I was ticked that Beyonce was invited to do the National Anthem, but she was delightful compared to the goings on at the Halftime.
When did we get so far away from simple, wholesome entertainment? I’ve probably missed the past ten Super Bowls because the commercials received more attention than the competition. Unfortunately, the Super Bowl was on, here, at least for the first half. I noticed that the game was interrupted about every ten minutes for more commercials. I bet the football players just love that their momentum is interrupted every ten minutes. Wait…..what am I saying?? I bet they get a cut of the cost to air those commercials, so who gives a rip about the game?
DH left the room to get some work done, and I was washing dishes. I went to turn the TV off and saw that Janet Jackson was performing at the halftime. Had I stayed just a moment longer, I would have been treated to the sight of her breast. I guess I was lucky. I shut the TV off and went on with my dishwashing, blissfully unaware of the furor.
Personally, I think the entire halftime performance was inappropriate, not just Janet’s baring. The style of dance, the style of clothing, the words to the songs…..it’s all simply inappropriate. Apologies from CBS are a waste. As the network responsible for the show, they should have known what was planned. I can’t believe they thought that MTV would produce a show appropriate for prime time TV on a Sunday night. And furthermore….most of the commercials were just as inappropriate.
Looking over my entry, I suppose this should have been categorized as “On the Soapbox.” It’s one thing to push the envelope. It’s another to totally disregard guidelines that have been put in place for good reasons. Who knows? Perhaps Janet felt she needed to draw some attention away from her brother. Or, maybe she felt her career needed a boost. Maybe she is feeling the competition from the kiddies moving up the ladder behind her, or maybe she’s learned from Madonna how to keep a sagging career going.
I don’t know the whys and wherefores behind the decision to flash what should have been kept covered, but I’m really glad my TV was turned off at the right time last night.
Grow up, Janet. And while you are at it, find some good taste and talent.

I was visiting at Parkway Rest Stop’s new home on MT. (I hope I got the link right, Jim.) While I was away he finally got fed up with Blogspot, and a friend settled him onto Moveable Type. This is one of the sites he’s posted:

create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide