Deer in our front yard

Two mating opossums…

…tried to make a home in our window well this afternoon.  We scared them away… today.  I hope they don’t come back.  Is this strange or what?

The Most Peaceful View

This is the most peaceful sight in the world for me.  Every time I’m at my kitchen sink and look out my kitchen window (which is pretty often, since I make almost everything from scratch), this is what I see.  I love it.

At our last house, my view was the neighbor’s backyard.  In the distance, I could see another street too.  Sometimes I would even see neighbors’ dogs in my yard.  I hated living in a subdivision!

This is the whole reason why I loved this house – a big backyard, with plenty of space for the kids to play.  My children always hated playing in the backyard of our old house, since the yard consisted of nothing but grass.  Here we have 1.1 acres of trees, woods, and even a great hill for winter sledding.

If you know me at all, you know I hate winter.  If you’ve talked to me recently, you know I was in a small car accident Sunday because of the ice and snow.  Still, I can’t help but look outside and love this view.  It is a beautiful and peaceful view.

 

Sidenote:  Smiles and I were returning from religious education Sunday morning, and I was hit by a car, sliding out of control down an icy, hilly street near my home.  He hit the side of the car, right where Smiles was sitting.  He was going very fast.  One onlooker said he was “barreling down Plum Street”.  He drove off the road, almost hit a police officer and several other onlookers standing on the sidewalk, then came back on the road, went over the center line, and hit me.  Amazing, my Toyota Sienna sustained only minor damage.

A police officer was among the onlookers because a previous accident had just occurred in the exact same spot only minutes before I arrived.  She also was in the same type of accident:  A side-impact crash at a decent speed.  However, her Subaru was crumpled on the driver’s side (Luckily she was not hurt), while my Sienna looks good (it is still even driveable).  The Toyota Sienna is a great car!

Master Bedroom

During the month of January, I’ve spent three of the four weekends doing nothing except removing wallpaper and painting.  I work all day Saturday and a half day Sunday.  It sounds a little boring, but, for some strange reason, I actually enjoy it. 

Currently, I’m working on the master bedroom.  It is the biggest project I’ve undertaken so far.  The room has two layers of wallpaper, plus the top layer of wallpaper was painted brown.  And, the bottom layer of wallpaper has been particularly difficult to remove. 

Adding to the difficulty, our master bedroom just isn’t big enough to work on all the walls at once.  So, I am working on half the room at a time.  In fact, I just took two pictures of the master bedroom.  Look at these pictures:  Can you believe that they were both taken in the same room?

Here’s a wall in progress:

Here’s the half that’s finished: 

Amazing, isn’t it?

UPDATE:  After five grueling weekends, and many late weeknights, the master bedroom is finally done!  We hung the valances and pictures on February 20th.  Now I have begun work on The Naturalist’s bedroom.