Day Nineteen 2011

The red, white and blue on this woodpecker and blue jay made for some patriotic bird feeders this afternoon. The picture doesn't do their vivid colors justice but thought I'd share it anyway.

Day Eighteen 2011

Today was one of those raindrops keep falling on my head kind of days here in the middle of Tennessee. But I kind of like it better than snow at the moment. The Farmer's Almanac suggested that our winter would be warm and wet. They got one half of their prediction correct. Looks like more wet on the way in the form of snow by week's end.

Day Seventeen 2011

As I've said before, I'm a collector, not a hoarder--except when it comes to light bulbs, especially 100 watt light bulbs. Ever since the light bulb police announced they are phasing out incandescent bulbs, I have been buying them every chance I get. I tried those compact fluorescent bulbs once, discovered they are difficult to read by, and promptly got rid of it. Don't tell anybody, but I did not follow the 8 page EPA guideline when I disposed of the bulb. I'm sure it's in the landfill, leaching mercury into the ground water even as we speak. And there lies the inherent trouble with the fluorescent bulbs--they pose a major environmental hazard if they happen to break. I don't like them and I really don't like being told what kind of light bulb I can read by. So I hoard. Let there be light!

Day Sixteen 2011

The ceiling in our living room is finally undergoing a long overdue renovation. Hubby Neil spent several hours this afternoon pulling down ceiling tiles from the 1970s and exposing bead board (or tongue in groove) from the 1920s. It's not a pretty sight to say the least. We've considered several options such as sanding and painting, Sheetrock and re-tiling. We're tilting toward installing ceiling tiles which will be the easiest and least messy. Stay tuned.

Day Fifteen 2011

"And here is the key
To a house far away
Where I used to live
As a child.
They tore down the building
When I moved away
And left the key unreconciled" ~~ Dan Fogelberg, 'Souvenirs'

I can't help thinking of these lines from Dan Fogelberg's song Souvenirs whenever I come across old keys at the flea market, especially skeleton keys, which I recently started collecting. They once opened the door to some one's home, and now here they sit gathering dust in some old box. The second key from the left used to be our house key when we first bought this old 1920's home back in 1983. We didn't tear down the building but we did change the locks, leaving the key 'unreconciled' as Dan put it. And although I always have notions of putting them to use in some project some day, like most of my collections, these keys will probably stay unreconciled.