HSH Interior Renovation Update

A beautiful, warm and sunny day in Dublin, GA today. Put up some Christmas lights today and yesterday. Not quite done with decorating the exterior of the house but it is beginning to look like Christmas- the cold and snow :)...John finished painting the interior of the tub. The tub is completely done! All that it needs is new hardware, which will be installed tomorrow. The tub looks brand new. John did a wonderful job refinishing it. He is very good at restoration, painting, repairs, woodworking, plumbing and even car repairs! He even acts, plays tennis, is an near computer expert, teaches accounting, does income tax preparation for individuals, small businesses and corporations and is a CPA. He loves to travel and will once again breed Doberman Pinchers. Max will be a daddy one day. Talk about multi-talented!!

I primed the utility closet tonight until I ran out of primer. The painting in the bathroom should be completed by the end of the week in between the work the contractors have to do. Tomorrow will be a busy day for us and the contractors. All the plumbing upgrades in the bathroom will be done. The shower will be functional. We will have a new toilet and sink. All the cabinetry should be installed by tomorrow. The base trimwork needs to be done as well as some crown molding near the shower. A heat light needs to be installed above the shower. I look forward to taking a long, nice, HOT, relaxing shower in my house and walking on a floor with clean, beautiful porcelin hexagon tiles. Within the next two weeks, just over 20 days, all the purchasing and installation to have a functional, working, modern, up to date house will be accomplished!

No more living like campers. John even removed the portable camping heater and propane tank that we used for taking hot showers. It worked great. It served its purpose. Now, it is time to put it away and use it for our next camping adventure! We plan to have white plantation shutters installed for the 2 bathroom windows. Eventually, all the windows in the house will have white plantation shutters installed because they fit the interior/exterior decor, are practical, easy to clean/care for and have great curbside appeal. Alot of homes of this type or similar architecture have them. It gets very hot here in the summer. It almost feels like Florida heat and humidity.

A kitchen designer will be out here tuesday to help us choose and set up a basic, functional kitchen so we can get electrical and appliances installed and hopefully new flooring too. A friend of John's will be doing the kitchen plumbing. I look forward to cooking real meals again. We plan to have stairs installed in the back of the house so we can use the space above the kitchen as an attic to store stuff and move everything out of the GWTW room. The house is 3000 square feet so we might as well utilitize all the space we can. One of the upstairs bedrooms will be converted into closet space and sitting room.

The day is about to come to a close to a long Thanksgiving weekend. Tomorrow is a new day and the start of a new week and tuesday, the first day of December. Enjoy the pictures from today and keep checking my blog for updates as the house continues to modernize.

HSH Interior Renovation Update

A beautiful, sunny, cool, breezy day in Dublin today. Been doing some domestic work today. No more laundry mat except things too big to put in the washer I have. The underside of the cast iron claw bathtub has been primed and painted underneath. The gold feet look perfect. John plans to paint the inside of the tub sometime this weekend.

The plumbers did not come today to do the bathroom because they wanted to take the day off to spend with their families after Thanksgiving. They will be here on monday to complete the bathroom. Gives John more time to get the bathtub and other things he needs to get done in the bathroom. John built some shelving to put all his tools on in the back storage area. He is cleaning and organizing so things from the GWTW room can be moved to the back storage room and the stuff that is there now can be moved to the attic above. Our plan is to have the GWTW room cleared out except Christmas stuff we plan to use in decorating this season.

Yesterday, we worked around the house, picked up pecans, relocated the pile of dirt where the trench was dug for the electric, showered then went out for a nice Thanksgiving meal. One of John's friends came by the house yesteday afternoon and we chatted for awhile. Tomorrow or sometime this weekend, we will be going to Home Depot to start plans for the kitchen, pick up all the ceiling fans and lights for the bathroom. Some time this week, I anticipate making a trip to Atlanta to pick up the last two lighting fixtures. We will be testing the white lights on the house this weekend. We plan to start putting up Christmas decorations this weekend to be completed in time for our official Capt Hardy Smith open house.

Next week, the plan is to begin the wiring for the back part of the house; the kitchen, temporary storage area, hallway and the back part of the breezeway. The guest bedroom that was completed but the floor boards torn out for installation of the electrical outlets, will be repaired and furniture will be moved in and decorated to welcome our first guest(s) for Christmas.

Max has this guilty look on his face, sitting on old sofa that will be going to the dump. The mattress and boxspring may be headed for the dump too. All the beer bottles will be put in storage.

Enjoy pictures taken yesterday and today. Keep checking my blog for updates.

HSH Interior Renovation Update

Another cloudy, cool, dampish day in Dublin. It is about 61 degrees right now with a slight breeze. Two guys from rebath came about 8am today to finish the bathroom floor tile. The laying this type of tile was extremely time consuming and difficult but the end result once dried will be almost perfection. The grout looks dark because it needs to dry. In 6-8 hours it will be safe to walk on. The porcelein tile just shines and glistens. Absolutely beautiful! The 1920s are coming back 21st century style at the Hardy Smith House!

John finished grinding down the cast iron tub and feet. The nasty rust from the underside of the tub is gone, so the priming will start next. Once the priming is done, the underside will be painted white. After drying, the tub will be flipped over, grinded down, primed and painted. The entire tub will be painted porcelin white with gold feet. With John doing the work himself, he has saved over $1000.00. It may have taken him longer to do it, but it is a labor of love for him.

Gary, our electrician, came by to get the telephone pole out of the front yard that we had used to plug the orange cords into so we could get electric into the house. As a send off, Gary loaded up the pole in his truck and took it home with him. Good bye, ugly telephone pole. The only reminder now, is a small hole in the ground that will eventually be covered over when we redo the yard next spring.

I am still under the weather so under John's orders, I must take it easy today, meaning no yard or house work. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for living in this beautiful house with a wonderful man in an southern historic town near the ocean! What more could a woman ask for.

Friday, the plumbing will be completed in the bathroom. THE SHOWER WILL WORK, we will have a brand new, beautiful pedestal SINK and a new HIGH quality toilet! The cabinetry will be installed above the toilet and sink. The shelving will be installed in the utility closet with a divider separating the hot water heater from the washer and dryer. Speaking of hot water, our propane tank that we have used for taking hot showers is now empty. The tub has been pulled out of the bathroom to be refinished. We are showering at a friend's house in case you wondered. We still have a working toilet until it is replaced with the sparkling new one friday!

Enjoy the pictures from today. Keep checking my blog for updates.

HSH Interior Renovation Update

Cloudy, cool day in Dublin. The re-bath guys got here around 8am and worked until about 8:30 or 9:00pm. There were 3-4 guys working in installing the white hexagon tile. Painstaking work as you can see, but they got it done and it looks gorgeous! Tomorrow, they will be returning to put the grout in and around all the little tiles. It will be grayish in color. Notice how the light hits the tile in the close up shot of it. You can even see a slight reflection of the window near the toilet area. Just wait until I mop the floors, it will shine like what a beautiful floor should be. The ordering of these tiles were very difficult to get, which set back the work about a week but the wait was well worth it. I would presume another long day tomorrow. Friday, the plumbing will be completed, hopefully, following the installation of the sink, new toilet, shower head, hot water heater and the washer and dryer. The bathroom is almost done!!! Still waiting for the call/email for the 2 remaining lighting fixtures we need to get for the interior of the house which will require another trip to Atlanta. Next, focus, on the back part of the house, kitchen, storage area. I have been a little under the weather the past 3 days so this entry will be short. Enjoy some pictures I took of the bathroom today. Thanks for visiting and ceck back for updates to my blog.

HSH Interior Renovation Update

The past two days in Dublin have been picture perfect, weatherwise. You could feel the warm sun but you could feel the nip in the air as a reminder that it is late fall in Georgia. Spent yesterday, blowing leaves out of the front yard, picking up pecans, updating my genealogy on ancestry.com and watching Georgia Power dig the trench, put the cable in the ground, removing the meter, re-attaching it to the side of the house and seeing the rest of the electric being attached to a pole to connect to the rest of the world! Bye, Bye orange cords! Notice in the picture, that the orange cords are gone along with the meter! Check out the front hall. John needed a woman's touch, so I thought putting two fall wreaths on the front doors would be perfect for this beautiful house. I cannot wait until Christmas, when I get to decorate the inside and outside of the house! It will rival the Page House in its own way! We have electric at the Hardy Smith house! I turned on all the lights just as the sun was going down. Such a warm, beautiful, inviting glow. This house has not seen electric in probably 30-40 years. This house went from virtual abandonment to nearly being torn down due to lack of funds from the restoration committee to being a loving home again! John was estastic when he saw all the lights on, especially the front porch. We went out to grab quick bite to eat, then ran the dogs, showered and settled in for the night. Today, the heating and air guys came out to turn on the heating and air. It works beautifully. We have the cadillac of units outside to keep us comfortable. John took out the air conditioning units in the bathroom and his office yesterday. The one in the bedroom will come out shortly. Don't need it anymore! The thermastat is electronic. Pretty fancy if you ask me. It is not voice activated though! Darn it! I was going to tell it to set the bedroom at 71 degrees! Jamie from rebath came out to fix a trim issue in the bathroom..Done...All that is really left in the front part of the house is completing the work in the bathroom, installing the lighting fixtures, new toilet and sink. The back part of the house is not 'electrified yet' but the central air and heat are done. Stairs need to be installed to the 'attic' above the kitchen for storage. Then the focus will be the kitchen, with the installation of appliances, lighting fixtures, sink, cabinets and tile. All is progressing well and John is very pleased with the results so far. Just a little FYI, I would not crawl under the house if I were you, if you have any plans to play a prank on us, because if you do, you will be met with our secret under the house security system, brown recluse and black widow spiders! The brown recluse cause nasty necrosis, potential permanent scaring not to mention pain, nausea for days or even weeks! There is no anti-venom for either spider, so stay away! Just kidding, friends are welcome at the Hardy Smith House! Seriously, though, we have those spiders under the house, creepy! The dogs love the new upgrades too. They know change has taken place. Hey!, how did this picture get in here? Uh oh, Max, bad dog, I cannot even turn my back to blog and he comes in the bedroom, jumps on the bed, makes himself at home and reasserts himself by looking down at Lady. That little stinker! I will have to watch him closer next time, won't I? He especially likes to eat Lady's food and sneak in the bedroom when I am not looking and steal one of her toys to play with and destroy! bad dog! Hopefully, next week, the shower will be operational before Thanksgiving. The tile for the bathroom is not in yet. It was special ordered. I am sure it will be in before Christmas. Once we get everything we need to finish up what we need to do for the renovation, then we can enjoy the house more. I cannot guarantee the house will be ready by Christmas for an open house but we will honestly try :) Enjoy the pictures. Keep checking my blog for updates. We are getting closer to being done! Yeah!

HSH Interior Renovation Update

Beautiful, sunny day in Dublin sunday. It was prob in the 70s with a light wind. Looks today will be a repeat, weatherwise like yesterday. John and I got back from Atlanta late saturday night. We accomplished our mission for the most part. We returned with 5 new lighting fixtures with 2 on special order. We will have to make a return trip to Atlanta in about 2 weeks to get the 2 remaining lighting fixtures. We played tennis friday night and ran all errands saturday. The shower is 95% complete. The glass doors is missing one shower handle to the outside.

At 5:30am sunday, a loud boom from under the house near the masterbedroom woke us up. Maybe some duct work came loose. Last night, John crawled under the house to see if any ductwork detached or a cable snapped. As John checked for damage, he came face to face with a black widow spider. Luckily, he gently blew the spider away and it scampered off and he came out from under the house unscathed.

On our trip to Atlanta, we went to a pre-garage sale of one of John's clients. We selected a few items and a electric leaf blower. I spent all sunday afternoon blowing fallen leaves out of the yard. I ran out of sunlight, so I could not do the backyard.

My dog, Lady, was laying in the sun, enjoying the warm weather as well as observing my leaf blowing. Then with about 30 to 45 minutes left of yard work to do, Lady goes missing! Panic! I look all over the house, cannot find her anywhere. So I went to go look for her. Finally, after about 15 minutes of calling her name, she came trotting across a parking lot towards me, all tired, thirsty and hungry. She was so tired, she slept on her new bed all night last night and did not move an inch. I hope she enjoyed her solo tour of downtown Dublin. She still has not quite recovered from yesterday and I found her snoozing on the bed in her favorite spot since about 7:30am today.

John was inside sealing and priming. Earlier, he put some beautfiul artwork together from a few frames he got from the garage sale. One is hanging in the front hall. The picture of it is below. The time and effort he put in to it, could have easily cost over $200.00 to have a frame shop do it. The picture entitled, 'Crowned With Glory' by Michael Gnatek, Jr depicts a proud and wounded Civil War soldier wrapped in the confederate battle flag fighting for southern rights.

Once the sun went down, we showered and went out for some mexican food, then came home watched tv and went to bed. This week, the hexagon tile for the bathroom goes in, along with the pedestal sink, toilet, hot water heater and hopefully my washer and dryer can be hooked up. The trench will be dug to lay the wire for the electric for the house, we will have lights. FINALLY!

Right now, it is 12pm and all is quiet as far as construction goes. The interior renovation is winding down on the front part of the house. Next, the kitchen. Yeah! Some pictures from friday and the weekend. Keep checking my blog daily for updates.

HSH Renovation Update

Cloudy, cool and windy in Dublin today. The shower stall is in the process of being installed. The installation should be complete by tomorrow. The heating and air guys continued to do duct work on the back part of the house.

Picked up more pecans out of the yard today of the 3 trees that produced this year. The pecan trees are sheading their leaves with more pecans left to fall. We have about 10 lbs of pecans so far. I also raked leaves. I need a leaf blower. John won't buy one because he hates the noise it makes. Raking by hand a 1/2 acre of land is not very easy or I am getting old. There is a leaf sweeper in a catalog that would make raking leaves easier that I think we should get, with John's final approval of course.

John and I are going to purchase the formal lighting, breezeway, hall and front porch lights tomorrow. That is all to report on the renovation today. For the first time, I allowed Max to come into the masterbedroom to play with Lady. They got along well. A picture of them in action. They are such buddies now, almost inseparable. That is all for today. Keep checking my blog for updates on the renovation progress.

HSH Interior Renovation Update

It is a cloudy, much cooler day here in Dublin. The wind is blowing and the wind chimes are ringing music on the breezeway. The constant downpour of rain from yesterday and last night have stopped for now. Alot of pecans have dropped from the trees in the yard. I spent the last hour of so picking them up. I probably picked up about 50. It is hard to spot them because the leaves have fallen as well. So I will have to rake the leaves in the yard then I can get them later when the sun comes out to dry up the yard. Looks like more rain might be on the way later today. Went to the 46th Annual Dublin Service Leaque Antique Fair last night at the Heart of Georgia Technical College with John. A good evening to be browsing the vendor booths, enjoying a warm, good tasting meal and mingling with some of John's friends. The rebath guy is here today to redo the wall where the pedestal sink is supposed to go. The plumbers cut too large of a piece of the wall where the plumbing for the pedestal sink will go. So instead of patching the spot, he is putting up a totally new piece of beadboard and cutting precisely the way it should be when the pedestal sink is put in. Tomorrow, the shower will be installed! The duct work for the entire house and the electrical for the front part of the house is completely finished. All that needs to be done is electrical for the breezeway and the back two rooms of the house, the storage area and kitchen. It is almost mid november and all work is on schedule for the most part. Georgia Power won't be out here until next week to dig the trench for the electric so the testing of the heating and air unit and electric is on hold until they get out here. The chaulking and paint priming of the bathroom began two days ago. That will continue today until completion. I REALLY look forward to having central heat and electricity and enjoying a long and relaxing SHOWER in a shower! The day where this will become a reality is approaching and I am excited. Living like I have been on an extended camping trip is finally drawing to a close. Keep checking back daily for updates to my blog!

HSH Interior Renovation Update

A big change from yesterday's beautiful clear skies...cloudy and gloomy but no rain yet from Hurricane Ida. It is supposed to make landfall somewhere in LA and the moisture to spread across southern tier of AL and GA, including Dublin. The duct work is almost completely finished for the entire house. Tomorrow, they have to tie in the connections, whatever that means, cover the wall in the GWTW room, test everything, once Georgia Power gets over here to dig the trench and turn on our electricity. They were supposed to get here today to dig the trench and tomorrow it will be raining all day. Another delay in getting the power turned on due to miscommunication on their part. This change has been a long time coming and we are anxious to have a home with electricity we can plug stuff into outlets instead of into cords. I was in the mood to pick up pecans in the yard. I picked up about 60 total. With the rain and the wind tomorrow, they will all fall to the ground within the next few days. The squirrels got alot of our pecans. Two of our trees did not produce this year. The other three are full of them. John is in the bathroom chaulking the windows and other areas. The bathroom is a mess and Max in the worst way, wants to eat Lady's food. Her food is for senior dogs. He is a young dog and must have the proper nutrition. He does not care, he is just hungry. Lady has the Cadillac food and Max has the Ford. Only the best for my Mimi girl will do. The re-bath guy came over and did a little trim work in the utility room and ceiling in the toilet/sink area. He will need to come back and do the trim work in the toilet/sink area next to the toilet on another day. It is almost 5:45pm and it is getting dark quickly. That is all for my blog today. Keep checking back for updates.

Beautiful Day in Dublin

What a beautiful day here in Dublin. Get out the suntan lotion! Don't mean to rub it in to my northern friends, (no pun intended), but I am in shorts and t-shirt just soaking up the sun! I may even work up a sweat on the tennis court today. It is 77 degrees but it feels like 78. The picture to the left is the First Methodist Church that I see every morning when I look out my window, as a reminder to remain hopeful each and every day. The movers and shakers of Dublin go this church. So far today, I have picked up over 30 pecans off our pecan trees. It is fun! Check out the pecans we have so far. Just in this box, it is about 5 lbs worth. We have about 3 lbs more in two other paper bags. John is going to build a contraption to shake the leaves so the nuts will fall to the ground so we get them and not the squirrels. They have eaten alot of our pecans so far this season. Annoying! He just went to play practice for 'The Nutcracker'.

Max and Lady (our dogs) were playing freely in the breezeway this morning. Max is the young, bulldozer and Lady is the dainty, old lady. She can hold her own against Max and sets boundaries so he knows NOW finally. Look how Max, submits to her and he is twice her size! Max escaped twice (before 1pm) to run around with Lady in the yard because he saw her do it and wanted to join in the fun. Bad dog! People were leaving from church so he likes to chase cars. (Not a good habit). Luckily, the people around here are careful and know Max and slow down so he can get out of the way. Now, I am cleaning the masterbedroom. Once John returns from play practice, off to go purchase ceiling fans for the upstairs bedrooms. I feel good today. I made a new bed for my dog, Lady. I put my old 6" memory foam in where the junk stuffing was in her old bed and zipped it back up. She loves it. Interesting, I saw on tv last night, someone trying to sell a memory foam bed for dogs. The 6" memory foam I had used to be on my queen bed and got ripped apart during the move from Atlanta, so I decided to save it and make a bed out of it for the dogs. They both love it. My favorite picture of them. Watching out for us :) Good Dogs :) Keep checking my blog for updates on the house and what I am doing in Dublin.

Day 20: HSH Interior Renovation Update

The past three days here in Dublin have been sunny and slightly cool but ideal for the contractors to make major headway on the duct work at the HSH. The trench for the electric should be dug this coming monday. So Georgia Power should be flipping the switch for our lights this coming week! The heating and air duct work is almost complete for the entire house, so we should have heat, to keep us warm, coming through the vents, next week too. Keeping our fingers crossed. Hopefully, the last weekend using portable heaters and working orange cords off a pole in the front yard. Check out the unit that will be heating the house. The blades on it are huge. It is a monster. Another view of it. Check out the vent work in which the heating and air guys had to cut two big holes in the ceiling and floor.

John and I will be going shopping for 3 ceiling fans tomorrow for the upstairs quest bedrooms. Then we will be traveling to Atlanta friday for the purchase of the house lighting fixtures. We will be traveling to Macon to buy the office and masterbedroom ceiling fans because they are special order. Today John did some mowing, racking leaves and sanding/chaulking of the two bathroom doors that need repair work due to certain doggie claw marks.

Tonight John and I went to a party put on by his theatre group. Just a small get together. It was nice and informal. John is in the local production of 'The Nutcracker' and he plays Dr. Stahlbaum. The backdrop of the home in the first scene is of John's maternal grandmother's home, the Griffin Lovett home on Belleview Ave. I just love this home. John has toured the house several times and even ventured out onto the 'widow's walk', the area above the columns. Keep checking my blog for continual updates on the renovation progress nearing completion!!

Day 17: HSH Interior Renovation Update

Beautiful, sunny, warm day in Dublin today. As you can see, my dog, Lady, is enjoying herself with the heating and air guys and the attention they are giving her. They were out doing more duct work which was the main event of the day. All the duct 'tunnels' run under the house. They did an excellent job and were here promptly and worked hard every day not to mention very professional and personable. Paul, the guy in the red shirt, I heard is a pretty good golfer. The main unit that you see in the picture is almost ready to be turned on via 'Zone' thermostat from inside the house. There are three 'zones', one for the front part of the house, downstairs, 'zone two' for the front part of the house, upstairs and 'zone three' for the back part of the house. What is cool and cost effective about this system is that we can run all the zones at once, one or two or none at all. So very soon, we will stay very warm this winter and cool in the summer. Check out how big this monster is. Almost looks like the type you see in an office building or something.

John and I went to go cast our vote for city councilman or woman today. We went to the local feed store so I could get my very own personal pecan cracker. As you can see from the pictures, it is a tedious process I would not want to do on a large scale. The commerical pecan growers use a weird looking 'tree shaker' for their groves of pecan trees. The final result after the nut is cracked open is the familar pecan 'meat' inside. This one came off one of the Hardy Smith trees and mighty good tastin' too :)

No additional work on the bathroom today. The tile is not in yet. The rest of the work cannot be completed until the tile is installed. Once that is done, the shower, hot water heater, the washer/dryer, sink and new toilet will be put in. Once the shower is in, the claw bath tub will be pulled out of the bathroom, sandblasted, repainted white and the claw feet painted gold. The painting in the bathroom can begin at any time at this point. We are waiting for an estimate on a wall shelving unit for storage of linens and towels. This house is starved for closet space. Back in the days of Hardy Smith, they did not have too many clothes like us modern folk do. I miss my walk in closets! I am trying to talk John into finding ways to create more closet space because most of all my clothes and possessions are in are boxes.

Not much else to report. Keep checking my blog daily for updates.

Day 16: HSH Interior Renovation Update

Cloudy and cool day in Dublin today. No work in the bathroom because the tile is on order. The duct work continues for the heating and air. A section of the ceiling and floor near the door had to be cut out for the installation of the in/out air flow unit. Not sure what the technical term is. It just helps circulate fresh air throughout all the vents in each room to make it easier not to mention healthier to breathe in this old house.

Continued to comparsion shop for lighting fixtures today. Kept loosing my wifi connection which made my research somewhat difficult. Nearing the end of my research and in the final stages of selecting all the lighting fixtures for all the rooms in the house. Georgia Power has been notified to turn on our lights. Hopefully, within the next few days, I will have some pictures of the house with lights coming from a source other than orange cords.

John, as you can see from the pictures above, spent a few hours painting the upstairs hallway the pretty yellow with white trim that will extend all the way downstairs. The priming completed, he is applying the first of two coats of yellow. Notice the way in which he rigged his paint brush and roller to use in areas where he could not reach. Pretty ingenious not to mention safer. Could not use a ladder to do the work, too dangerous. The work on the house is a labor of love for John. He just loves the work and is relaxing for him. When he is painting or doing other stuff around the house, I just do my thing, whatever errands I need to run, housework or computer work and before you know the day is done, time for a shower, dinner, tv, then to bed and prepare for the next day.

So that is all that has been done today. Relatively quiet day, workwise. Sanding, Priming, and painting will start in the bathroom soon. Cannot wait because you cannot paint when the conditions are at a certain temperature.

Keep checking my blog for updates.

COOL day in Dublin

Sunny, partly cloudy and COOLER today. Only 63 degrees right now. With the wind, it feels like in the 50s. Big change from the 80s yesterday. I knew it was coming. The nice thing living in the south compared to living in the north, like Indiana, is that the COLD temperatures don't stay for weeks at a stretch this time of year. I just turned on the table heater and the floor heater in the bathroom. The central heat/air is not quite ready to be flipped on yet. So we continue to live like campers. It will be over soon. We will have 3 zones for heating and air so our bills don't skyrocket. The first zone, heats the downstairs, front part of the house, zone two, heats the upstairs, front part of the house and zone three, heats the back part of the house. So we can run all or one if we need too. A great way to manage our heat and air costs. The test will come next summer, when the temperatures go into the 90s regularly for days at a time like last July. With the heat and humidity, it was like being in a sauna. John put up my oldest brothers flag on the big oak tree in the front yard today. My brother died in 8/07 of heart failure. He was only 48 years old. Today, just another day. Not sure what I plan to do. The beauty of it. John is in the Dublin's version of 'The Nutcracker' and he plays the doctor, how ironic. So he has to go to practice today. Tennis maybe later today. Lady is enjoying the sun. Picture of her without her collar on, looks like a black panther :) That is all for now.