Almost as soon as we moved into our new home last summer, so did an uninvited guest—a bat. He (though it might have been a she) took up residence under our screened porch. The underside of the porch has open support beams beneath its deck flooring. In one corner near […]
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Blessings and Hope As the Pandemic Rages On
After my rant last week about having to cook, which I admit is a trifling complaint in the face of everything else happening in the world, I decided I needed a countervailing positive post. Because, really, I shouldn’t complain about my life. A few months ago, I posted a list […]
Continue readingThings I Like About Our New House
It’s hard to believe my husband and I have been in our new home over three months now. Some days it feels like we’ve been here forever. Some days it feels like we’ll never get settled. It felt like home when I walked into the house after we traveled out […]
Continue readingMrs. Birdsong’s Bell Pull
My husband and I are starting to think about what to hang on the walls in our new house. Before we moved, our daughter told me, “Mother, if you don’t hang your pictures within a week after you move, you’ll never do it.” I disagreed with her then, and I […]
Continue readingRemembering the Old House: My Son’s Perspective
While he was visiting recently, my son posted a series of photos on Instagram with his memories of the house he grew up in. I took screenshots of his Instagram posts, asked his permission to put them on this blog, he agreed, so here they are. He had a child’s […]
Continue readingRemembering the Old House When It Was New: Wallpapers
On a spur-of-the-moment Fourth of July visit, my son appointed himself my assignments editor for this blog and requested a post about what our current house looked like when we moved in. He was two-and-a-half at that time and has only vague memories of the home we lived in before […]
Continue readingConfession: I Kill Plants
One of the downsides of listing our house for sale has been the need to keep it beautiful. Our realtor has been very helpful in staging each room to show it as advantageously as possible, but the items she has used make it feel like it isn’t our home. Brand […]
Continue readingWhen Lightning Struck
A lot goes on in our family in May. Our daughter’s birthday. Mother’s Day. And, in years past, there was often a graduation or First Communion or Confirmation thrown in as well. My parents tried to visit in May to celebrate one or more of these occasions—they preferred May travel […]
Continue readingOn Casings and Crowns: The Minutiae of Building a New House
Building a new house has taught me all sorts of esoteric terms. Our online construction schedule tells me we’ve already been through damproofing and we are headed toward prebatt tubs. Those words mean nothing to me, but I don’t think I’m expected to understand them—I don’t have to sign off […]
Continue readingAn Update on Our New House—I’m Trusting the Process
Our new home is still not much more than a hole in the ground. The foundation walls were poured in mid-December. By Christmas, some backfilling around the walls had been done. As of January 8, the garage hole had been filled in. (Did you know that garage floors can be […]
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