In the Face Lift pages, we'll share with you our experience of remodeling an older home.....nothing is square LOL. When we remodeled the kitchen, we had to level the floor....which then made the ceiling look crooked. We were glad to get the new ceiling tiles up....but then the window looked crooked.....the fun never ends with an older home, that's for sure.

Last summer (1998), we started ripping out the closets between our bedroom and the laundry room....the beginning of some really major remodeling. You can read about our remodeling adventure.... here (it's a 3 part series)....and photos of our progress thus far can be found... here and here . Just to let you know, we just signed the loan papers on the consolidation last month.

Two summers ago, we spent the greatest share of time relandscaping the back yard. The Garden pages will outline all the fun we had and how we did it. Besides the pond construction, we layed patio block between the ramp and pond and surrounded the garden with landscaping timbers...we were one big sweat ball by the time we finished! However, atleast we can keep the garden neat looking; we can mow right over the top of the timbers. We also built a lower deck between the ramp and the house. We had a graduation that year and the second deck came in handy. Our children keep making fun of us with each new addition to our yard. But hey! Our youngest graduates in the year 2007....by that time we ought to have a yard that old people can mow. I can handle a few pathways!

The Pond pages are full of information we've gathered over the last few years on pond construction. Hopefully, if you're interested in having your own pond, you'll be able to find everything you need here. Our one regret is that space needs dictated the smaller size of our pond. Well, you see we have a very nice periennial flower garden just behind the pond and didn't want to dig it up....for now atleast. Who knows maybe we'll throw caution to the wind and build a second, connecting pond where the flowers are some day....

Actually, we did add a second pond this year (1999). Originally, the side of our house was always a baseball diamond....ya ya, you read right. We don't regret it, but just try to grow grass on trumped down packed dirt. When we added on to the east side of the house, we thought it would be the perfect time to give new grass-life to that side of the yard as well. Gary borrowed a friend's bobcat and he moved piles of dirt....brought in new top soil....moved more piles of dirt....planted more seed....NADA. No little green stuff. So what do you do with a front/side yard that doesn't want to look green? Our answer was to add a pond to the space. Last winter, Gary was looking through his woodworking magazines....can't remember which one was the culprit....and saw a flour mill with a working water wheel. Sooooo, the working wheels of his mind started turning and voila. It's actually pretty cool. We pulled all the plants out from along side the house (hostas are so much fun....just pull them out of the ground and put them someplace else) and planted them around the pond....along with a bird bath, and plastic rabbits and a wood duck. Here and here are a couple photos of the finished landscaping project. The liner we used is 45 mil and extremely heavy duty. The ground around the pond is covered with small chips of tree bark.

Hubby does a way cool job at woodworking. Between him and a family friend, they create some pretty awesome wood craft items. They are currently getting ready for a huge craft show that's held in the spring. They produce scrollwork items, but their newest projects are called Intarsia. I will attempt to give you an idea of exactly what it is, except you'll just have to look at it yourself. To say that it is similiar looking to a tray puzzle, just doesn't cut it.

If time and space permits, we'd also like to share our experience on bird and squirrell watching. There are several bird feeders on our deck, as well as a 'T' tower in the yard which holds several feeders. The highlight of the morning is watching the blue jays and squirrells fight over the contents of the feeders....usually the blue jays win! The blackbirds were having a great time scooping out all the birdseed onto our deck; so Gary nailed a 4 by 8 foot tray to deck railing to slow them down.

The New York Times featured an article about GeoCities. The headline being: GeoCities'Cyberworld Is Vibrant, but Can It Make Money?. The article was written by Saul Hansell and he was nice enough to include a photo of our kitchen computer. We had a lot of fun with the Associated Press photographer, Scott Cohen, when he took the photos. It's easy to register with the New York Times and read their on-line version of the daily paper.

One other concideration....I tried to limit the pages to 5 or 6 pictures each, but they still seem to download slowly. I'm sorry for that, but hope you understand and let the pages load before reading the material. Thanks for stopping by and sign the guestbook if you found something useful or just want to say 'HI'.

Bordered Background Sets

Bees

Baby

Friends

Violets

Garden Gate

Iris

Iris Black

Picketfence

Motif

Quilt

WaterLily

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