Cabinets and Carol Burnett

End of April.

I can't let more than a couple of posts go by without some new construction news. Our latest project is getting the ginormous new maple bookcases for the living room stained and finished. There are two bookcases, 8ft tall x 3ft wide that will pretty much cover the entire back wall of our living room. We will build them in and build a few more shelves on to one side to create a library environment. We ordered the shelves from a local unfinished furniture place and they were built by an Amish furniture maker in Pennsylvania.

Now back to more play...........we had the great opportunity to go see Carol Burnett live at our local auditorium about a week ago. What a treat to see one of my favorite entertainers of my life. She was one of my idols when I was growing up. I remember watching her show with my family every Friday night as a child. Hysterically funny! They just don't make them like her any more. This stage show was done in the question and answer style just like she used to do at the beginning of her TV show. The audience got to ask her questions and she showed some of her favorite clips from the funniest skits on her show. Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner, Vicky Lawrence......all so hysterical. When she did the Tarzan yell live in the auditorium, it brought the house down. Such a joy to see that at 79 years old, she is still as sharp as a tack and extremely funny. I wish I could have taken photos during the show (we were only 18 rows back from the stage), but photography was not allowed. Here is a photo of the program:

Here are a couple of YouTube links to my favorite skits:

Gone with the wind- (just the stair scene)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6bOpJ5elW8&feature=related

The Dentist-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9T8i4FkNVo&feature=related

You can go to YouTube and find bunches of her old sketches. Good for a belly laugh :o)

If you remember watching her when you were younger, we highly recommend that you go see her if she comes to your town. What a real treat!

We are back to cooking in the next post!

Sister Act

Late news from mid April

We had lots of action happening here in early spring as my sister Patty arrived from Seattle for a weeks visit. It has been about 7 years since her last visit so we had lots of new developments to go over. Both of us have had house remodels since then as our lives keep moving forward. We had a GREAT time going to the opera, doing a little local sightseeing, walking the neighborhoods and breaking ground on the spring garden. Sis was a HUGE help getting the iris, herbs, and lettuce planted. Not to mention getting the nails, concrete, rocks, wood chips, etc. cleaned out of the very construction damaged soil in the garden beds. We removed quite a few inches of debris and sticky clay soil before the new top soil was added. We went out and purchased a new tiller to make our job easier. Amazingly, we were both able to get out of bed then next morning :o) The hot tub at the YMCA late that afternoon must have helped too!

We slipped my sis right into Rowans 'couch potato' fleece lounging suit soon after her arrival. Thanks to our dear friend Nina, who turned us on to this piece of lounging heaven, we can now pamper our guests with the slip on sleeping bag. And, it makes one look so perfectly ridiculous that it is always good for a laugh.

No, this is not me, it is my sister. It's WACKY how much we look alike when she is wearing my clothes. Here she is as we were trying to move some of the clay out so we could add some good top soil to plant the iris.

Here are a bunch of the iris we had dug up out of the yard before the construction. We packed them in straw over the winter and here they are now planted in front of the new porch. We are not expecting many to bloom this year, but hope we can give you a beautiful picture of them next spring.

My sis at it again in the side garden bed mixing in some of the new top soil.

Here I am setting the blocks that will be the foundation for our rain barrels.

My sis again, this time preparing and planting the herb pots. These and the lettuce, onions, kale, tomatoes, etc. will be the only things growing in our yard until we get the house painted. The rest of the yard comes LAST!

The beautiful bed of lettuce and kale.

We really had a great time visiting, eating (never a shortage of that!), exercising, sightseeing going to the FABULOUS new opera 'Vincent' at out opera house and just relaxing and catching up on life.