Red Check Marks

There has never been a time during our life together thus far, where there weren't at least 5 projects dangling over our heads, hogging up our weekends with their task-like tentacles enveloping most of our so-called 'leisurely' hours. There were, of course, days that we ignored their constant presence, and put life on the front burner. Yet as I think over it, the endless projects often invited the help of family, friends and neighbors, and through them relationships were built or knit tighter. Thus, life does happen in the midst of progressing projects. Life was on the 'front burner' all along.

What kind of project person are you?

If you have had any steady contact with any other human being on this planet, you will most certainly recognize that there are various approaches.

Mine is this: Lets make it look good, as quickly as we can and as in little time possible. If it's not done perfectly, who cares? Are there inspector's dropping by? As long as the overall aesthetic effect has been achieved (within 3 hours, to MAX 3 days), I am satisfied.

His is: Sequences, my dear, sequences. You cannot catapult to "D" when "B" hasn't been properly completed. And since this is the first time I've done this task, you will need to take into account 20 extra trips to Home Depot to buy, return, buy and return some more. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Let's just say, it is good he does the projects around here, and it is equally good when i choose to be patient (which is not my forte). Let me make it very clear to those who want to slap me right now for even hinting that I might be even a tiny bit impatient when i have such a studly handy man: You are right. I do not not know how good I have it, and yet as much as I can, I do not take this man for granted at all-differences included! He never ceases to amaze my limited self!

While I am not the perfectionist he is, a good part of my personality appreciates efficiency and productivity quite deeply. This weekend was one of those rare weekends where the red Sharpie marker finally sheds the dust off it's barrel and finds itself marking off little boxes that have been left unchecked for weekend upon weekend upon weekend. Oh be still my Choleric heart...we can stand back, stare at the little red check marks on our almost-completed list and bask in the productivity it represents!

This post represents MANY weekends in which multiple small 'sequences' were accomplished by a handy man, while his little wifey-poo scurried around the house, wondering why she ever took leisurely weekends for granted back in the day.

As for our young adult chickies, their life is full of leisure...

...and now there coop sweet coop is clean and ready for action in the straw (ie: nice, big brown eggs)! We have only one rooster, and he's been through the "Love and Respect" series for foul relationships, so we have high hopes that he'll be on the 'up and up' with the ladies, with little to no hanky panky! 19 chickens is plenty.

Saturday morning spent outside in her nightie and sister's new flip flops.
(She might be the source of all my eventual white hair,

but she couldn't have been cuter while doing it!)

A rare gift indeed: My stepson and I headed out early Saturday morning for yard sales in a darling little town nearby. A woman I greatly admire (you should most definitely visit her blog here) put her own charming twist on her 'moving sale', and even though there is not one person within my immediate or extended family that would fit into these boots, I could not resist! Everything about the presentation radiated 'Be of Good Cheer!". And I was as I brought them into my home.God will bring a perfect small-footed person to wear this colorful pair!

Here he is, putting the finishing touches on to the project that has flooded my heart with relief and gratitude: a completely fenced in portion of our back yard/driveway!

I exaggerate not one ounce when I say that my entire mind and body relaxed at the completion of this enclosed perimeter that will help keep little feet from so easily escaping my line of sight.

All you melancholies out there will grow dizzy with envy and ecstasy when you see what my mellow man did in our shed. I like the look, certainly...but if your personality desires perfection, this is better than...well, you fill in the blank!


A sight my heart treasures. Deeply.


And now, for the one item that didn't make the 'list': removing a gorgeous, antique hutch that our dear friends and former-dwellers of this home very generously left for us from a wall in the barn to the wall in my little 'sun room'.

It required quite a bit of sweat and muscle (of three men), but they got it done.
Please excuse the excessive pictures, but I am just tickled pink. I filled it with things I already had and a few of which I purchased along with those darling rain boots!



This is a tea cup collection that a very special lady whom I have known and loved all my life gave to me at my wedding. I always wanted the perfect place to display them, and the time has now come. Thank you, Vickie~

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

~Thomas Edison

The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.

~Sarah Brown

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

~Robert Louis Stevenson

Thank you, my friend, for dropping by and caring to read what we checked off in red this weekend! I hope you're red Sharpie was-or will be-warm with use too!