A farewell luncheon - and the lumber is going up!!!!!

Grandma Holton would just love the china, the flowers .... the pretty cookies .... seeing the abundance of the flower gardens .... the sweet little calico kitten .... I can see her smiling and hear her making comments in her sweet voice.  She would be happy to see Mom's (her oldest daughter) little luncheon dishes being used.  She would probably be helping us prepare while dressed in her tiny high heel shoes and dainty little dress!!!!

And Grandpa Holton - the builder of those cabins and small houses in the forests of Upstate New York - my but he would be enjoying the construction of this house!  I remember he came to our house in Indiana when I was a teenager and helped build the big screened porch to the back of Mom and Dad's house.

 First of all - a farewell luncheon for a friend of one of my daughters.  The friend is moving back to Minnesota.

Flowers from Knitting Daughter's yard - dainty and vibrant at each place setting (with a little seed packet for Forget-me-not flowers) .... and delicious sugar cookies baked by one of my most favorite people - a sweet niece who recently moved here from Ohio.  She is an extremely talented baker who makes not only beautiful cookies, but extremely tasty ones too!

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Next, a quiet, rainy (one of those nice steady full drops type of rains) afternoon spent at Beekeeper Daughter's home.  I finished a sewing project on her kitchen table .... but couldn't resist a photo or two of the table on her screened-in porch.  She took flowers from her gardens (now she has a very green thumb) and placed them in antique bottles of all kinds and put all of it in a wire basket on the table.  My son-in-law picks up old bottles that he finds in his travels and cleans them up - making delightful containers for wild flowers or small garden blooms.  So pretty.  Around the side of her house, she has flowers in bloom that especially enjoy shade. 

Of course as I was puttering around ironing and sewing, Ripley (the tiny calico kitty) was trying to nap in an empty box top that she claims as one of her 'beds.'  I had to laugh as she slept with her head totally bunched into a corner of the box!

More of Beekeeper Daughter's roses - my they are lush!  Took these photos before the rains came!

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Next on today's agenda - progress on the house.  I am so excited I can hardly stand myself!!!!  The lumber is going up - just look at this!!!!!!  Basement supports and preparations for the flooring ..... partitions, openings for the stairs.  Piles of fresh lumber.

I will stop by there tonight and take more photos.  The lead man on this framing crew is a man named Rick. He commented to me that they are trying to do this as quickly as possible before additional rains come tonight or tomorrow.  The quality and the safety of these men is primarily important to me, but he assured me they would work to do as much as possible soon.  When I said this house was a delight to me, he said, "This will be a very nice house." .... I left feeling so blessed.  Wish Grandpa Holton could see it!

Stay tuned.

Janet