Depends on Your Idea of Fun

I have now received two emails asking me where I have been and telling me they hope I am enjoying my summer.  Well, I am here and 'enjoying' depends on your idea of 'enjoyment'.

Personally, I am having an unusual summer in that I have planned no vacations, have no job to go to, have no children to shuttle around, no school  -- Wow, that has not happened in more than 25 years.  Hey, more than like in forever.

My big summer project:  Paint the outside of my house.  My house has gone from this:

To this:

Originally, my house was stained some red color my husband picked out with dark brown trim.  TADA!  1981

I never liked the red, but looking back I guess it was close to Cherokee Red of FLWright.  Later the house became tan and then a taupe color.  It became all the rage in the sub to paint the houses all one color.  I did that but kept the gutters and overhangs dark. 

Now I decided to paint it to match the new vinyl trim and gutters, a sort of 'clay' color that I had custom-mixed.  And I still like the dark brown my neighbor and I came up with in 2003, so we had Home Depot make up some of that from a sample we kept.

So, I am done painting except for the two side peaks and the chimney.  And someone will be helping me with that.  One, I do not own a tall enough ladder and two, I don't do roofs.  Since I have a fireplace in the middle of the room, I have a chimney in the middle of my roof.  Nuf said.

And that red door?  It stays.  Another attempt to match a color sample and work with the brick I have never liked.  Guess who picked that out.

Oh, and that front lawn in the 1981 photo?  Gone last year.  The new look from the street:

Maybe I'll get to sit in one of the 20 seats I have outside, sometime before summer is over.