Friendly visit

Our Japanese friends came to visit us this week.  Bob says they're not Japanese; I say that since they live in Japan, that makes them at least temporarily Japanese.  He says that using that logic, I was Scottish for 10 months back in 1995-96.  Exactly!   I'm glad he sees my logic.*

*(He doesn't see my logic.)

Anyway, these are old friends from when we lived in South Carolina and Merry-land.  Yes, both places!  Keep up.  They were in the country for a family wedding and swung by (6 hours out of their way) to see us.  We love them. 

We showed off the house progress (of course).   The last time they visited we only had about 4 courses of logs up.  Joanne's pushing for a climbing wall in the living room.  Ummm, no.

The boys laid out scrap wood trails through the house and had some sort of adventure...

 ... and stuck their hands in the lake and announced that it wasn't too cold and they might jump in. 

 Trust me.  It's too cold. 

And the girls wore matching party skirts and ran around outside.

Four days and 600 bottles of wine later, we said goodbye on Saturday and tried to think how fast a year or two will go by until we see them again.   Althouuuuugh...  they might just move to the North Country in another 4 or 5 years.  Good.   Cranky Anne could use more friends around me who remember my fun, younger self.  Hey!  There was a time....   

Fungus on a Thursday

Just... aaaah

Barnum Pond, Franklin County, NY

Driving Route 30 in Franklin County is a treat, pure and simple. 

Well, in good weather anyway. 

More Walls!

The Hubs came home tonight sporting THREE new pix for me of the new walls they framed up today.  Hallelujah!  Amen.

Partial dividing wall between front hall and staircase

Hallway from front of house to back.

Dining room on immediate left, then spare bedroom on left and across from that on the right is the bathroom; to the immediate right is the kitchen.

Standing in the hallway looking through the new wall into the dining room. 

Bob the Builder's list

I am a list maker.  The Husband is oh-so-decidely not.  I find extensive lists to be helpful in organizing my day, avoiding forgetting appointments, and bringing some structure to my otherwise haphazard and disorganized life.  The Husband figures if it's important, he'll remember it and it'll get done; and if not:  meh.  But I finally discovered the type of list Bob will make:

The list of building materials written on scrap lumber.  

Classic.

Bob the Builder's playground

While The Husband and I hashed out the new layout in the basement and he explained where walls will end and where doorways will be, the kids ran amok.  Well, not really 'amok,' but I like the look of that word.  And, truthfully, our children are quite wild.

They hammered nails into odds and ends of wood... right over our heads as we were in the basement.  They played hide and seek.  They dashed between wall studs pretending...  well, something I never could quite overhear enough of to understand.  I probably don't want to, frankly. 

And Baby M. expressed fear over the whatchamacallit saw:

So Daddy explained it all, very kindly, until she wriggled down and ran away to play.  Nice try, hon.

Little G. thought he might dash up and down the ladders --  until he got to the top and his inherited neuroses kicked in and he slowly backed down with shaky legs:

I can't tell if the kids' impatience and general craziness lengthened our decision-making conversation or if it cut it short.  Either way we all ran away a little frazzled.

And consoled ourselves with Pizza Hut.

Decisions, decisions

A little prooogress!  *sing-song* 

 New electrical sockets:

The wall between the spare bedroom and hallway will have side-by-side closets, one accessible from the room and one from the hallway.  This is the footprint of the wall:

We needed to hash out a few details of walls and wiring and ...oh where the rooms in the basement will be.  We had a plan.  It seemed like a good plan.  We realized it wasn't a good plan.  We had to totally change the configuration of the basement rooms.  I think it'll be a great new layout.  

What's not so good is that my grand plan in the crucial matter of the wall between the living room and dining room is kaput.  I thought it would be a great idea to have either french doors or solid pocket doors between the living and dining rooms so that the space can be opened up for large family gatherings.  You know -- so there's no second-class citizens at Thanksgiving.  Alas, it's not do-able.   Nuts.  There's going to be a half-wall instead, so it's visually open while still being physically separate.  Why have any wall at all, you ask?  *sigh*  Well, here's the thing:  I am not a fan of the open floor plan.  I like walls.  I like doors and doorways.  I don't like cutting through one room to get to another and walking around furniture.   I don't think you get more space, I think you get the same amount of space, only furniture is just hanging out in the middle of a big room and you lose wall space for bookshelves and framed photos.   So there's my spiel. 

We made some decisions and hopefully we're off and running now!   Or, jogging.  Or at least a brisk walk. 

Not logs. Again.

Sorry loggy folks.  Sorry buildy folks.  Sorry...   well, everyone else.  There's just been a HUGE hiatus in the house build.  I'm prodding, but the winter brings down lots of trees in the woods and the Hubs and FIL just gotta chop 'em up for firewood before they rot.  Oh, and the church fans needed removing and rewiring or something.  Blah Blah Blah.  It's all interfering with my new log house getting built.  

So, instead you get some pix of my sweet little bairns having fun at North Country Community College's Celebration of the Arts (at the Malone Campus) today.  It was COLD, dang cold and rainy for the first hour we were there and then the sun came out, but so did the wind, so I almost lost the little one in a strong gust, but she's plump and didn't quite get airborne.  Anyway.  We listened to stories, got balloon swords from a clown, ate free hotdogs (thanks, Jrecks), inspected a cool 'collection sculpture' installation in the stairwell made of empty creamer cups, clambored around a firetruck, and bounced in the bounce house and obstacle course.

(In short, everything but the art activities. I tried.)  But the favorite activity of the day? 

Throwing sticks in the river and watching them get carried away by the water.  I had to drag them away from the river-watching, after about a 1/2 hour of gazing and tossing and staring and pointing and looking and shrieking.  (Hey!  This mama was cold!)

Followed closely by a short stint in a huge puddle. 

With a plastic firefighter's hat, of course.