...must go take a shower in a few minutes--right after maia and i read some fairy tales and i do some general straightening.
yesterday
afternoon, maia and i went to lowes for paint and i started painting
the front porch. i got all the lattice work done yesterday before it
was time to make dinner. this morning after we came back from walking
the dogs i polished off the rest of the porch. i am SO GLAD this task
is done.
it
was imperative to be done in spring, otherwise i would have to step in
flowers and kill them to do it. the spring we moved in, the porch
wasn't too bad and there were too many other things to do having just
moved in. last spring i was all ready to paint and then construction
began on the house next door which consisted of sending great billowing
clouds of dust onto my house and porch so it wasn't possible. by this
spring the front porch needed to be painted and could NOT be delayed
any farther.
i forgot to take pictures early on, so i took one of the steps of the front porch to get the 'before' shot

i
only had two steps left when i remembered to take that.here is the
'after' shot. using my cell phone to take the pic (as usual) required
that i stay pretty close to the porch. if you are wondering what that
thing is on the left hand window, it's this sign that has our last name
on it that the mother-in-law passed off to us. the paint is still wet
in some spots as i took this picture about 15 minutes after i finished.

with
luck, the bricks will receive their cleaning sometime this year BEFORE
winter =) (if only i had the ladders to do that myself!)
while
i painted yesterday, the kids polished off the last of the chocolate
chip cookies...so today, while missy was over for lunch, i whipped
these up:

it's similar to shortbread, but with a sweeter rather than a buttery taste.