Snow Ponies

A snow storm rolled into our area earlier this weekend. The roads were clear enough this afternoon for us to safely venture out to the homebuilding site. Builder Mike is making great progress. Wiring activities are almost finished. All of the floors have been thoroughly swept of accumulated construction debris. A new concrete pad in the garage was a welcomed sight.
 

After our brief visit, we saw these horses basking in the winter sun. The handsome creatures are part of a large herd that live about a half a mile down the road from our soon-to-be cottage. I hope that you don’t get tired of seeing their pictures!

Blog Challenge: The Best of 2009

After a long absence, I am back in the The Brenda Photo Challenge! Life got in the way during November because of our packing and moving activities. And then the Challenge took a little vacation during the holiday season. But it's back to business now! Be sure to click on the challenge link above so that you can see the photographs by other participants.

The current theme is The Best of 2009. Of course, the highlight of the year was the sale of rambling country cottage! Though it was our wonderful home for 17 years, it was time to say farewell so that we could get on with our downsizing and retirement plans. The photo was taken at f/9, 1/250 second, and ISO 400.

I have to be honest and confess that I will not remember the year with complete fondness. Much of the time it was difficult for me to amble around. I hobbled the first part of the year with a bum knee and then spent the second part recovering from a total knee replacement. Despite the physical setbacks, we were able to enjoy a few journeys!

The first was a short trip was to the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You know that I am really enamored with altered digital images. So I couldn’t resist making an antique version of a view from the Newfoundland Gap. The camera settings were f/8, 1/80 second, and ISO 200.

The next journey was to Colonial Williamsburg as spring was awakening. I was able to get around thanks to a fresh cortisone shot, LOL, and lots of assistance from my husband. I remember that my knee pretty much went downhill afterwards, but images like this made the trip worthwhile. We hope to go back later on this year! The photo was taken at f/11, 1/80 second, and ISO 200.

In late fall, I was finally recovered enough to attempt a short jaunt to the picturesque area of Franklin, Tennessee. This is “Rusty”, a recycled metal sculpture who stands 20 feet tall at The Factory of Franklin. This fellow weighs in at 6400 pounds and took 2500 hours to build over 6 years! The camera settings were f/11, 1/125 second, and ISO 200.

And finally, we had friends join us this year for a Thanksgiving celebration in middle Kentucky. Here is my sweet baboo, waving to me and holding his camera, in the great halls of the Centre Family Dwelling at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. The photo was taken at f/7.1, 1/50 second, and ISO 800.

This picture also serves as a wave "goodbye" to the year that was 2009!  We are grateful that it had a happy ending!

300th Post Celebration!

(Yes, this is a picture of mini-me.)

My 2-year blogging anniversary was just a few weeks ago. But I need to celebrate once again because I have hit my 300th post! You know what that means, don’t you? Yes, it’s time for another giveaway, this time for two lucky readers!

The craft and sewing supplies are tucked away in long-term storage boxes right now. So I went out and stocked up on some paper materials to make some handmade cards. I will be giving away a two sets of four cards each, along with peel-to-seal envelopes. Each card features one of my altered photographs on white cardstock with multi-colored flecks. These cards would be perfect for a valentines, birthdays, or thank you notes.

Marty is anxious for you to join the celebration by entering to win one of these card sets! Here’s how to get your name in the hat:

• 
  
  Leave a comment on this post and tell me your favorite post since May 2009, when I had my 200th blog celebration.
• 
  
  If you enter and follow my blog, your name will get entered twice!
• 
  
  Entries outside the U.S. will be accepted. However, only entries from bloggers with active web sites will be eligible. If you are “anonymous” or don’t routinely post on your blog, your entry will be deleted.

The last day to enter is Tuesday, February 2. I’ll announce the winner on the 3rd. Thank you, my blogging friends!

A Roof for the Rain

May you always have walls for the winds,

a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,

laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,

and all your heart might desire.

~Irish Blessing~

A long rainy spell settled in the past couple of weeks here in eastern Tennessee. So we were relieved to see a roof completed over our new cottage this past Friday. The rough-in plumbing is completed; electrical and heat/air rough-ins are underway. Security/integrated wiring will begin toward the end of the week. The inside is no longer broom tidy, but that is the nature of this phase! It won’t be long now for the exterior to dramatically change. Brick and siding work will soon commence.

And speak of roofs, I couldn’t resist tampering a bit with the photograph of the cupola that crowns Governor’s Palace. I applied a section of a textured background to the image, ensuring that the shadows were placed at only the top and left-hand sides. I believe I like this better than the original shown in the previous post! I hope that you like it too.

Colonial Williamsbug - Governor's Palace

Do you remember our April trip to Colonial Williamsburg last year? (Yes, yes. You have been patiently waiting for some pictures from this journey. You know how I tend to get sidetracked!) To help shoo away the winter blues, let’s go on a little armchair visit of this historical park and mentally immerse ourselves in some beautiful spring weather!

This is the Governor’s Palace at Colonial Williamsburg. It is the grandest structure at the historical site, and located on the northern end of the Palace Green. The Palace has a long and storied history, beginning with its construction period of 16 years. When Williamsburg was the Capital of the Virginia Colony, this was the home of many governors, including Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson.

The main building was destroyed by a fire in 1791. Surviving outbuildings were demolished during the Civil War. Colonial Williamsburg reconstructed the Palace, opening it up for exhibition in 1934. Extensive furnishing efforts have been underway ever since that time. Further details of the history of the Governor's Palace are available on the Colonial Williamsburg web site.

The highlight of our visit to the Palace was its beautiful garden area. A large collection of sculpted evergreens echo the formality and grandeur of the structure.

And we were lucky in the timing of our visit to see a rainbow of colors from the blooming tulips. There are several benches located in the garden area, and we took advantage of them to rest our legs and enjoy the spectacular views!

Ah! Now, wasn’t that refreshing?

Turkey Love

We were at our homebuilding site this morning, taking care of important installation business with Builder Mike. It was a beehive of activity and everyone seemed to have an adequate supply of caffeine in their system. We got a brief introduction to our HVAC subcontractor and confirmed placement for the registers and air return vents. We also discussed a few details with another sub on the central vacuum system piping.

The main event was conducting a pre-electrical wiring walk-through. Builder Mike skillfully orchestrated our meeting with the dynamic duo of Randy and Joe, the electricians, and effervescent Emily, our electrical supplier. We got through the copious discussions in short order, with smiles and laughter all around.

My sweet baboo and I are getting through this building experience so far with our humors intact and no further loss of our sanities. On the trip through the countryside back to our rental home, we spotted some wild turkeys in a nearby field. My camera was handy and I snapped several images, including this one of a pair strolling side by side. Turkey love endures!

Windows and Plumbing, Oh My

Our new cottage was getting outfitted with its windows today. Here is the triple window set for the guest bedroom on the second floor.

And the plumbing crew was hard at work, putting in water piping and connections at various locations. The upstairs shower/tub unit was temporarily resting in the driveway this morning, waiting for its installation before the end of the day. Below is the piping for the powder room on the first floor.

Amid the bustling activity, outlines for the cabinets will be marked tomorrow and electrical markups are Thursday. We’re suddenly busy this week doing walk-throughs to confirm placements and progress!  Whew!

The Framing is Done!

The framing for our new home finished up this past week! It’s hard to believe that there were just stacks of concrete blocks two short weeks ago. Check out the pictures below to see the exterior progress since my January 13th post.

January 13 – Roof framing and interior work continues.
The front porch roof is starting to take shape.

A little eave is added to the front dormer on the left-hand side.

January 14 – Roof sheathing is installed.

The front porch roof is finished.

An eave is constructed over the garage door opening.

January 16 – Roof sheathing is completed.

The outside it tidied up and the interior is broom cleaned.

This is going to be our new country cottage!

On the main level is located my office (the room on the left), dining room (in the middle), great room, screened-in porch, kitchen and breakfast room, utility room (behind the little window), and master suite. With completion of the roughed-in stairway, we were able to see our second floor layout for the first time yesterday. Our guest bedroom (big window) and bath, hubby’s office, and my studio room (over the garage) are all going to be located on this level. I will be showing interior photos in the days ahead, so please be looking for those!

Builder Mike says that the next tasks are roofing and installation of windows and exterior doors. We are really pleased with the quality construction and progress achieved so far. Our contract calls for completion to be done by May 31. But at the rate that it is going, we are optimistic that we can move in before that date!

So Long, Landline Phone!

We cut the cord and we’re not missing it a bit! When we sold our country home in late November, we cancelled our landline telephone. Goodbye, nasty bills! We had a bare minimum account, and 60% of the monthly charge was for stupid taxes and government-required fees (which are disguised taxes)!

We have two cell phones and they will do quite nicely for us in the years ahead. The government and AT&T can pucker up and kiss Marty’s fuzzy tail!

Framed UP!

Exciting things have been happening at our homebuilding site since the end of the Christmas and New Year holidays! The framing has being going UP at a record pace! Below is a pictorial chronology.

January 5 – The first level flooring is already installed

and work begins on the outside walls.

Stacks of lumber are being delivered.

January 6 – With the exterior walls completed,
work moves on to building the interior walls
and the trey ceiling in the great room.

January 9 – Second level flooring has been completed

and framing begins for the upstairs walls.

Work is progressing, despite the freezing weather conditions.

January 11 – The framing for the roof begins!
As soon as lumber supplies get low, more arrive.

January 12 – More roof framing is completed.
You can now see the basic shape of our new home!

We have counted 11 workers in this great framing crew, and Builder Mike tells us that it is a double team. Everyone is anxious to get the roof on and begin to close up the structure. And we’re now going to get a break of warmer temperatures, so improved weather will help the efforts!

We were able to walk through the first floor layout this past weekend, and it was a surreal experience. The architectural plans for our home are flipped from the model home that we saw about a year ago. So we are still adjusting to seeing everything “backwards” from the visual images in our noggins. The wooded views looking out the back windows are beautiful, which will give us the feel of seclusion even though the home is located in a planned unit development.

Stand by for more homebuilding adventures!

Headed to the Barn

Here’s a little eye candy for you, while you patiently wait for the latest pictures from our homebuilding project. Right down the road from our new property is a farm with some lovely horse neighbors. As we were driving past, the late afternoon sun begged for a photo opportunity. This charming fellow was headed back to the barn, with a little killdeer bird leading the way. A textured background was applied to the image, courtesy of ShadowHouse Creations.

An Announcement by Marty

Are you ready to hear who won my anniversary giveaway? Marty, the irrepressible furball, helped me put all the entrant names in a little pottery bowl and mix them up.  Then he grabbed the winning slip in-between munches of his breakfast carrot sticks.

The winner of a gorgeous polymer clay pen
by Jackie of The Pleasant Pheasant is
Nita Jo of Little Grey Gardens!

Congratulations, Nita Jo, and thank you for being such a wonderful blogging friend! I’ll purchase your favorite pen (which happened to be the one pictures in my previous post) and send it right out to you!

And to everyone else, thank you so much for your kind comments and good wishes!

It's My 2-Year Anniversary!

My word! As of January 1, two years of blogging have come and gone. I look back every now and then and reread my older posts. What sweet memories! Along the way, I hope that I have entertained you, inspired you, and cheered you. This blog has been a labor of love. And I am very grateful to have made a lot of friends across the globe. Isn’t it all so magical?

Marty, my cheeky blog greeter, has been hopping up and down, annoying me nonstop to hold an anniversary giveaway. All right already! Sheesh, he can be such a pest. To appease him and show gratitude to my faithful readers, I have arranged to purchase a beautiful, handmade prize. Hold on to your underwear!

A sweet friend of mine recently opened an etsy shop. Her name is Jackie and she is a very talented polymer clay artist. Lovely pens are included in her offerings. Since all of you are busy writing up your new year’s resolutions, you really need a special pen to keep on task! I am a self-confessed “penoholic”. I have glasses and crocks filled with them all around the house. And special pens are reserved for special uses.

photo courtesy of Jackie at The Pleasant Pheasant

So the winner of this giveaway will get to select a gorgeous pen on Jackie’s etsy site, The Pleasant Pheasant! Here are the rules for entering:

• Visit Jackie’s etsy site first, and then leave a comment on this post, telling me your favorite pen.
• Don’t try to bribe Marty with extra carrots. It’s a waste of time and vegetables. He’s a rascal and won’t put in a good word for you. He’ll just eat your carrots.
• If you enter and follow my blog, your name will get put in the hat twice!
• Entries outside the U.S. will be accepted. However, only entries from bloggers with active web sites will be eligible. If you are “anonymous” or don’t routinely post on your blog, your entry will be deleted.

This is a quick giveaway. The last day to enter is Wednesday, January 6. Good luck everyone, and thank you for cheering me on the past two years!

January - A Look Ahead

2010 - it’s time everyone to hang up a new calendar! And look at what I did! I created the graphic as part of a monthly series this year on my blog. Using Photoshop, I combined a few textures (thanks to Shadowhouse Creations), text, and some cool brush sets. I hope you will enjoy these visual treats throughout 2010.

And I want to happily announce that this is my 2-Year Blogging Anniversary! Can you believe it? It has been quite an adventure. I have grown in the process and made incredible friends. I have done pretty well in keeping it up, despite some time constraints and life detours along the way. It’s funny to see that I published 144 posts in each of the past two years, an average of 12 per month! Talk about consistency! Please come back to visit me again in a couple of days because I have plans for a special anniversary giveaway. Okay?

Now, what’s in store for this month? Not surprisingly, the top priority is our homebuilding project! We have been incredibly busy this past month, meeting with terrific subcontractors and making countless decisions, large and small, to create our new home. We have been dutifully checking off our ‘to-do” list for selecting plumbing fixtures, electrical fixtures, appliances, cabinets, countertops, tile, paint colors, and security/audio. Whew! And it has been great fun! Only a few more decisions are left to finalize.

This month will find us primarily monitoring the building process; answering any questions posed to us by Builder Mike; and dutifully writing out the checks to pay the bills. We can’t wait to see the structure rise up and take shape. Of course, I will be sharing many snapshots with you along the way! Ah, I won’t bore you exclusively with the project, and I'll make sure that I include some pretty travel photos too!

Hubby and I are, once again, immersing ourselves in learning Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Elements 7. I feel a bit schizophrenic going back and forth between these two programs. I know how to do many things in Elements and haven’t learned how to do the same techniques on CS4. It’s a wee bit frustrating, LOL. To help us learn various techniques and tricks quicker, we are currently using a free one-month trial access of training videos on lynda.com, thanks to our purchase of CS4. The videos are a cruel reminder to me that I know virtually nothing about how to use these powerful digital imaging programs to their full advantage. I still feel low on the learning curve. Before our trial period is over, we may very well decide to upgrade to a paid account and continue with our studies. I know that I take pretty good technical photographs, but I want to learn how to make my images even more special!

Ah, so now you are probably fidgeting in your chair, wondering when I am going to talk about travel plans this year. Yeah, yeah. I haven’t forgotten! We’re pouring over travel brochures and web sites now! With the homebuilding project running through the end of May, we are not going to take any long trips in the first half of the year. We might take a small jaunt in early spring if the construction progress and Builder Mike do not need our attention. In the second half of the year, we plan to take a tour or two. We were looking at international travel options, but the recent security failures and imminent terrorism threats made those thoughts fly right out the window. So we’re setting our sights on U.S. trips. Where, you ask? We don’t know, but we’ll figure it out!

One of our long-term goals is to lose weight and get in better shape. Life has settled down for us a bit, and we’re heading back to the fitness center. Now if I can just quit putting food in my mouth…

To wrap it all up, we’re going to be hunkered down in general this month at our rental home. We will be overseeing the homebuilding project and engrossing ourselves in some personal learning and health improvements. And perhaps we will make some decisions for this year’s travel adventures. Sounds like a plan, huh?