The Current State of Things

Something I didn't mention last time about our weekend activities is that my visiting teachers came to help paint the exterior of our house and garage. Not only did they come, but they also rounded up some other ladies to help. They accomplished quite a bit, and it really helped ease the load on me! There is still more to be done because we ran out of paint, but we are much closer now.

Here are some before pictures of the porch.

And after. Ah! Much nicer! (just don't look above the porch roof quite yet.)

Terral and I rearranged our living room a bit last night. It was one of those times where you measure to make sure it will work and then still have to move the heavy things back and forth. So things actually aren't that far from where they started in general, but it made a huge difference to us. Part of it is that I took care of some of the post-move clutter that was still hanging around. Anyway, here's the new layout with our new stairs.

You can see the outline of the old stairs. Now we don't have to duck to miss the beam, the stairs are a little wider, and the landing goes all the way to the opposite wall instead of leaving a gap.

I finished a bit of decorating for Halloween today. I really like how the top of the piano turned out. It doesn't look quite as awesome in the pictures as it does in real life, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it. 

The books I used are The Secret Spring, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.