Update

I am sitting at the kitchen table using the laptop on borrowed wi-fi. Because DH has been refinishing the home office floor, all our computer gear is all over the dining room, unplugged. Little One unknowingly tried to use the Internet here on the laptop last week, and behold! she got signal!! So we have blithely used it all weekend.

While he has done those floors, I have been working to complete her room. Here is what remains:
Finish painting the nightstand and line the drawers
Paint bookshelves (dread this...it is taller than I am...)
Make the duvet (putting this off as she has changed her mind twice about border fabric. Hoping to outwait her decision making skills so we can have "final product" when we do it)
Recover seat and back of desk chair
Make floor cushions for sitting with friends / listening to music
Make various bed pillows

Not too much remains. Aside from the dreaded bookshelf, it could all be completed in a day or two.

DH is pickling the twin beds to place in the room beside LO's. It was his idea but the pickling stain dries so quickly he hates every minute of it. He is also building floating shelves for keyboard and monitor -- will take pics of these when he finishes. Funny note: Our 92-yr-old neighbor was quite the collector, insert word "garbage" in there -- and DH need some angle-iron for shelf brackets. Went digging in neighbor's yard and came up with bedrails covered in mud and English Ivy. DH took 'em to work, sandblasted them, welded them, and now they are lovely shelf brackets bolted to the wall. Neighbor is in the Home but would want DH to have them, we are confident of that, so we just saved his family the trouble of digging them up later. lol.

On another note, family has been enjoying the neighborhood pool this summer and last. We did not join in years past but once we discovered its charm and family atmosphere, could not get enough of it. The pool was built about 45 years ago and has a large concrete deck, a showerhouse with snack bar, side yards and small playground. It is so well-kept that you'd think the facility was new. One has to buy stock to join, then there is an annual charge. The pool is open 11am to 8pm every day and is always populated with happy kids and Isometimes tired) patient parents. Sunday night is cookout night and thankfully they always have veggie burgers on hand. Families sign up to be the host one Sunday and you pay a nominal fee for your dinner: $2 to $4 per plate with a $15 max for a family. On Thursdays moms often chip in to buy pizza delivered and stay to eat rather than going home and scrambling to fix something. Rarely do you see kids come without parents, in fact I'm not sure it's even allowed, but families often bring a kid who is not a member to let them have some swim time. Lessons are offered in the mornings and the lifeguards are A1. The pool keeps floaties and noodles on hand so all you really have to bring is your kids and towels. They get snacks from Sam's Club and you pay only what they paid. Kids can get a sweet for a quarter and they love that. We usually take the rolling cooler with Capri Sun or Gatorade and some string cheese and such as Little One eats like a horse when she swims. With all the diving in and climbing out she does, it's no wonder. No leisurely lapping about for her! It's all about the Dive with her!!....although she has worked hard on her butterfly. It is quite beautiful to watch. Most of her friends have attended Swim Camp at Chapel Hill this summer; some are there this week, and those who have already returned seem to have really learned quite a bit there. We will try to send her next year.

So that's life here, painting, staining, floors, and a dip in the pool.

More Pics

No longer Maggie's Folly, Phase I of the park is now fully funded with Phases II and III only a thousand or two dollars away. Madam Mayor mentioned on Saturday, "...and I still need to make my contribution." I suspect lots of folks intend to chip in and have just not done so yet.















The event included a host of demo's, storytellers, musicians, and performers throughout the day down in the park. Spectators stood nearby or sat amphitheater-style on the sledding hill.


"Yes, I can break ground...in heels!" she proudly stated. I like that about her.

The trolley rides were a big hit. The History & Architecture Tours at 11:30 and 1:30 filled up immediately. If we had it to do over again, we would schedule FOUR of them rather than two.

They look like they are working hard, but the ground was actually pre-dug so it would be butter to dig at the event. Notice gold shovels. Nice touch. Once again, the Parks dept at work. From left to right: Parks Director helping the little guy; Little Guy who is 4th generation in Neighborhood; Madam Mayor; DGF who convinced me to "go forward" with the vision; and the 84 year old neighbor who was born in the house where she lives, and has lived continuously. She is a TROUPER. Serves on the neighborhood board and only recently retired from Small Town Symphony. DH gets violin lessons from her and insists he's never had such a good teacher.

Whew. There are scads more but maybe another day.....

Pics as Promised

I believe I have raved about our Parks & Rec Dept here before. If not, consider myself raving now. All 4 P&R managers came to the Centennial Celebration on Saturday (Saturday!) and one of them took a zillion pics while there. She emailed me to the effect that she had burned 4 or 5 CDs of the pics and wanted to deliver them to my house for my enjoyment and to share with my friends, where do I live so she can drop them by? >>>I call that *service*.

I (finally) got the email -- we have been incommunicado for acouple of days due to switching to TW Cable for phone/ISP/digital cable and she ran them by today. The CD has 126 pics on it, all of them good. Posting some below. Happy viewing...



Little One and her DGF selling drinks

















SmallTown's finest. Thanks for coming, guys.
















This is a Fine Art. This gal's dad is the one who donated his land for Phases II and III of the park. The land he donated is the part with the creek, a very cool portion of the park design.














This child is one of four generations of a family who all live in the neighborhood. Isn't he gorgeous? He helped break ground for the park, symbolizing "Family," one of the values of the neighborhood. He is only 2 but boy, he knew how to dig. Only an hour earlier he was at the DocinaBox being diagnosed with an ear infection. I knew he was better when I asked about his ear and he could only point to the fire trucks. Check out the pic of him digging in.

The Big Hunt

Never before have I been sitting at the computer and had something funny happen so that I said, "I'll blog that right now." Just now it did, but don't expect roll-in-the-floor humor. It was only mildly funny.
Now that I have lowered your expectations, I'll share the story.
On Sunday, I prepared two packages for mailing: a package of neighborhood information, vintage photos, and paver information for the adult son of our 92-year-old neighbor,and a package for the InLaws with Little One's dvd from the Choral Concert and a photo, and notes from myself and from Little One. I addressed the two packages, minus the InLaws' zip code, and stamped both. It seems after ten years, I still have to confirm their zip code with DH. So I set the packages on the end of the island to wait for DH to come home for that confirmation.
On Monday I arose to find the island bare. Thinking maybe DH had taken them to mail them, I kept on with the day. When DH came home, I asked if he had taken them. "No," he replied. I began searching in earnest. No packages.
This morning, I raised the alarm. "We must find the packages!!!!" DH took this to heart. He looked and looked and LOOKED. He looked upstairs. He looked downstairs. I heard my car open and close in the garage. I heard my trunk open and close. Finally, he looked in the recycling.
DH appeared in the doorway. WITH the packages. "Where'd you find them?" I asked.
He opened his mouth and closed it and walked out. "It's not good for your heart to keep things in like that. You should say what you think," I chided him.
There in the doorway, he said, "When you get in the mood to throw things out, you THROW THEM OUT. There could be something you bought yesterday with the $100 price tag still on it, but if you are in the cleaning frenzy, OUT it goes."
(He's exaggerating a tad here, but it's not too far from the truth.)

"When I looked in the recycling," he continued, "and saw you had thrown out Smithsonian magazines," (he's right, I almost never let one go) I knew I was on the right trail. I kept digging and there they were."

Note to inlaws: in the mail today. :)

Happy Hundredth

Yesterday we held a festival in the streets for our little neighborhood, in celebration of its 100th birthday. The first property of the subdivision was sold in June, 1906. It was a "streetcar" subdivision and, being 3/4 mile out of town, was advertised as having "cleaner air."

So many folks in town have grown up or lived in our neighborhood, and they all have very sentimental feelings about it. I am still not quite sure why this neighborhood evokes such emotion in people; maybe because the houses are soooo close together, we really feel close! Whatever the reason, we had people from many states, and many ages, come to the celebration and share memories with the others who were there.

We held the groundbreaking for the park at 11am and selected four people to use the shovels: a neighbor who is 84 yrs old who was born in the house where she still lives; the Mayor of our small town; my DGF who convinced me to stop dreaming about a park and start working to make it reality; and a 2-yr-old who is one of four generations of his family living at the neighborhood, all alive today.

The day began with a 5k race that wound through the neighborhood. Little One ran it with her BF and I was so proud.

I took a zillion pics but our new digicam does not talk to this old decrepit computer. We have a new Dell in the box awaiting our office makeover. Now that Centennial planning is over, we will effect that makeover this week and I should be able to post the additional pics later this week. The few I am posting here are courtesy of a neighbor who emailed them yesterday evening.

Blue

At about 4pm today a DGF stopped by with her two boys and said if I would knock out the trim, she'd come over at 8 after tuckins to help with the blue wall paint for Little One's room.

So I bailed it in and got the white trim done. DH helped and we knocked it out. There is some muntin detail to be done but I can do that later. Everything that touches wall was complete when she showed up with a glass of wine and a big smile.

We set in and she worked hard. At 10:30 she called her hubby and said she'd be home in an hour. At 12:15 he called and said he was concerned about her coming alone so late, so she finished up and headed home, leaving instructions as she left that I needed to roll on just one more coat of blue. So I did, and then I touched up the white where blue had touched. Then I touched up the blue where white had touched. And so on. You get the picture.

I believe the blue is sort of beautiful in a blue sort of way, and I am anxious for LO to see it in the morning. I have washed all the brushes and thrown away the disposable stuff, and I did invest in quite a bit of disposable stuff, as I just HATE cleaning paint stuff. Disposable drop cloths and paint tray liners and such.

I even painted the dowels I am using for window treatments. Optimally we can load the room on Sunday or Monday at the latest.

DS1 called this afternoon and they will try to visit tomorrow afternoon. We are having a hoedown at the church tomorrow evening, and they might go with us if everyone feels like it. It ends just as the outdoors Symphony Concert begins across the way from the church. We will take camping chairs and a cooler and listen to the Symphony under the stars. I hope DGD can hold out as if she can, it will be awesome.