We have RATS!

Christmas Eve was rather calm and quiet. We did attend the Candlelight Service at our church. It was wonderful. We always look forward to this service. There must have been 1,500 people there, the down stairs was packed and almost all the balcony was full. We sang Christmas Carols, had special music and one of the ladies that plays in the orchestra played the harp and her young daughter played the flute. Mrs. Harp played before the service, then during part of the service she accompanied Little Miss Flute and they played "Jesus Did You Know". It was heavenly.

Christmas Day was another calm, quiet day. We built a big fire, had a very untraditional lunch--grilled salmon, fresh steamed asparagus and red potatoes. We just made a point to rest and relax after months of running and working non-stop, we treated outselves to the luxury of being couch potatoes for the day.

Tomorrow our family (my brother and all his kids, which are all adults) are coming. That menu will be a little more traditional--ham on the Big Green Egg, greenbeans (pickled and regular), mashed potatoes with sour cream and other side dishes that will be supplied by the others that are coming to the party. I don't have a clue what else we will have in the way of veggies.

However, I DO KNOW we are having some good desserts. My Mom has bakes pecan and pumpkin pies, I've made a chocolate cake, well the cake is just yellow cake with my grandmother chocolate frosting recipe. I poked holes in the layers of the cake so all that frosting could just settle down in the cake. Last time I made one everyone was fussing making sure they got their share of the cake. It's going to be wonderful. It is cooling on the kitchen counter and I caught the RATS picketing around the cake. Look at those little beady eyes. They just don't realize they are endangered species, just wait until tomorrow.

The Great Gate/Fence Project is DONE!!!!!

After two months of our lives being consumed by this project we have finally finished.

Our next goal is to get through Christmas, then next spring our next project will be to paint the outside of the house.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Photo right:

Looking to the left coming out the driveway.



Photo below:

Taken from across the road.

Took us three weeks to build these gates, then they were so heavy I could hardly help get them out of the workshop.

I'm posting these photos for those of you that have been here before, during and after the widening of the road. Our little country road is now a four-lane raceway. That 45 mph speed limit sign means absolutely NOTHING! People are flying through here like it's I-75. One of the contractors told me he was driving 65 mph and people were passing him. I've told one of the majors with the county police they could make a mint if they would just set up out here. The major told me they couldn't do that until the state deems the project complete. The speed limit sign is looking to the right standing in our driveway. You can see just how wide the road is now, it's sickening. We are so thankful the house is as far off the road as it is, because we still don't really know there is a road out there once we get back to the house. We do still hear the interstate, even though it is a mile away. The sound carries, especially with it being elevated. We even heard the train in Jonesboro the other day and that's four miles away.

This last photo is looking to the right coming out of the driveway.

We now know where we live. The fence has made all the difference in the world. During the project we didn't recognize our own driveway because of all the tree/brush removal from the right-of-way. Traveling east we have to pass the house, go two streets down the road and make a U-turn and head back west, or we could turn left into the subdivision around us, but those stupid "planters" down the center of the road blocks our view of oncoming traffic and it's too dangerous, so we just drive another 500 feet or so, and make the U-turn.

We have ordered some strap "fake" hinges to go on the front of the gate, hopefully they will be here this week.

We have been working on this since October, so I'm so ready to be FINISHED! I found some beautiful artificial wreaths yesterday, so I'll be working on those to get them up before Christmas.