Welcome to my fixer-upper

For the five people in the blogging universe who don't read Boomama's site, here's the deal: She invited everyone to take photos of their homes and then link to her Tour of Homes post. The idea is that those of us who have been reading each other's blogs for a while can get a better idea of what it's like in each other's real lives.

So here we go. First let me explain Roy and I have owned for lo these six years, a Fixer-Upper. We got a lot done the first couple of years, then what with kids and jobs and my general aversion to painting, things slowed way down. Until recently. Roy's been working on our garage. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's a view from the street. Perhaps I shouldn't include a street-view shot of the house for fear of ninjas lying in wait, but I've lived in this town long enough, if someone really wants to know where I live, they can ask the lady at the grocery store. I'll just have to trust if someone comes here with evil intent, they will know what Jonathan Edwards meant when he referred to sinners in the hands of an angry God. And, yes, the grass needs cutting. And there's something resembling a partial, dried-out mote near the front door. Eventually (Mr. Man promises me) there will be a covered veranda there.


Living room/dining room.


Uhm. Kitchen. Don't really know what to say. It's no showplace now, but you should have seen it when we bought the place. Yech.


I love going into someone's house and checking out their refrigerator. Refrigerators and bookshelves say a lot about people. So what does this one say about us? Well, that's me in the blue dress with a very dear friend. I'm about six months pregnant with Madeline. That's a bottle of champagne in my hand and a cigar in my mouth. I didn't drink any; I didn't smoke it. But I love the picture. Below that (next to me in the WW I biplane) is Roy with his best friend; Roy's face is partially obscured by cigar smoke. He wasn't pregnant (and he rarely indulges anyway). The magnets are from England, New York, D.C. and Luckenbach, Texas. One of my favorites is a gift from Elise. It's a Davy Crockett quote: "You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." Perhaps not the warmest sentiment (hell notwithstanding), but if I'm going to be generally reviled for being a Texan, I may as well earn it.


Bedroom/office/blogging central. At the opposite end of the room, are the built-in bookshelves and window seat Roy built. Mad and Connor have their own rooms, but I figured I'd better draw the line somewhere with all these pictures. You might notice our windows aren't framed-out (same with the windows behind the living room sofa). They used to be, but we recently had most of our windows replaced, and that's work still to be done. The joys of a house built in the '30s.

OK. I mentioned Roy is working on the garage, which is connected to the back side of our house by a screened-in porch (a MUST here in Texas). He's resided/painted half of it.

So that's about it. Thanks for stopping by.

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