Shaker box

Got an unexpected box of Shaker goodies from Mom the other day. She went down to visit Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in Harrodsburg, Ky., recently with a couple of friends. Included in the package were handmade soap and soap dish, peppermint foot powder, moth repellant, pot scrubber, whisk broom, bookmark and jar scrapers.

The best part was a counted cross stitch needlepoint kit of the Mary Payne sampler. The original sampler, which hung in our house while I was growing up, was donated to Shakertown by my grandmother and her two surviving brothers in the 1970s. They were the grandchildren of Mary Payne, who was born in 1860 and lived with the Shakers into her teen years before settling in Washington County, Ind.

Had Mary Payne stayed with the Shakers, there would be no Grandma, Mom, me or a slew of other relatives since the Shakers believed in celibacy (the men and women, even married couples, lived and worked in separate quarters) and eventually died off.

The kit has been around for years; I've just never made it a priority to get one. And in case you're wondering, I am not learning yet another craft. I'll leave the counted cross stitch to the pros; just have to find someone who can stitch it for me.

Seems like spring

We've had our fair share of pleasant weather lately, with temps in the 50s and sunshine. The dogs have enjoyed getting out frolicking in the sun, which there hadn't been a lot of since we got to town.

The forecast calls for more sun and highs well into the 50s for my weekend (Sunday & Monday). Woo-hoo!



Welcome wagon

Our 5-year-old neighbor Ryleigh came over with her mom last night to bring us a homemade Valentine. Unfortunately, I was at work and missed all the cuteness. We had met our neighbors a few days ago, and we suspect her ulterior motive in bringing the Valentine was to get some more QT with the Chihuahuas.

Template

Depending on which browswer you use, my blog may look better or worse. That's always been the case, but with the new template, I notice there is more funky spacing when I view the blog on Internet Explorer. Our home browser is Mozilla Firefox, which gives the view as I see it.

Happy anniversary!

Today's the first Feb. 14 we've lived in Oregon since we got married in 2004, so to mark the occasion, we walked over to our little wedding chapel, Oaks Pioneer Church, for a photo op.

Luckily, a couple marking their fifth anniversary were also there and snapped a picture for us.

I'm working tonight, so we'll celebrate with dinner Monday.

Oh, and, incidentally, it's also Oregon's birthday (statehood Feb. 14, 1859), as Michael is fond of noting.

New look

I decided to update my blog template after noticing the "older posts" link at the bottom of some friends' blogs. It seems easier than having to go into the archive every time to read a past entry. I poked around Blogger to find out how to get the link, and it was simply a matter of switching to an updated layout. Not sure if I'll stick with this template or use another one, but that's the reason for the change.

Our castle & our keep

Here's our house, in the middle of our street. Not so much a castle as a cute little bungalow that we intend to inhabit until our lease is up in a year, then we will assess.

One of our favorite features is the working fireplace, which we've put to good use on several occasions so far. Oh, and I've always been a fan of the front door with the little cutout windows and always wanted to have one.

The walls are still mostly bare; we have much less wall space here than in Denver so haven't figured all that out yet, but it will definitely add a lot to the place one we get to hanging.

Our landlord told us we have a certain kind of plaster that doesn't like holes in the wall too much, and he suggested we use only the nails already in place or use straight pins to hang stuff. As if! In Denver we were able to use picture molding for much of the art; unfortunately, the molding here is only decorative and won't accommodate hooks.

Oregon Chihuahuas

Laugh if you must, but at least now they don't stop to shake off the rain every 5 feet along the way.