Still hanging on . . . .

That's what we're doing here: hanging on. On the phone with the insurance company (just how long DOES it take to write a check?), onto our sanity while living in this mess, and to the hope that spring will soon be sprung (28 straight days of precipitation).

My friend Mary wanted to see the parts of our house that aren't destroyed so here goes:

You come into our foyer, between the ground floor and second floor:

The clock and mirror are what I got from my mother last time we were in Missouri. Those vines grow down from a planter in the dining room on the second floor.

From here, you can go down into our family room:

Why yes, that is large basket of dog toys in the corner. Who says we don't spoil our boy, Andy?

Three of the walls are "Indiana Clay" (although Rod says it's orange) and the chocolaty one is "Southern Wood". Who comes up with these names?

If you go up from the foyer, you find the living room:

That color really isn't as "raspberry" as it looks in this picture. We had BRIGHT sunlight today (or maybe after all that rain, we have eyes like moles). It's really a deeper red, more like what's on the right side of the fireplace. None of those cabinets or shelves were there when we bought the house; Rod (aka "Garage God") built those, and the wood valances that you can't see in this picture.

And the other side of the living room looks like this:

Only one wall is that red, the others are this caramel color. I'm still looking for rugs to go in the living room. But now I'll really have to wait until after the restoration is done to see what carpet I get.

When you go from the living room upstairs to the bedrooms, you get to the first landing:

That's a carved and painted wooden door from Bali on the wall. And the dried arrangement? Pampas grass from my neighbor's yard, some dried weeds, er . . . wildflowers, from the creek a block away, and some kind of brown cornlike stuff I bought at a nursery closeout and dried in the garage.

Then up at the top of the stairs:

That littlel cabinet has some of my hedgehogs in it. And, yes, that is the end of the sticky carpet protector still there at the top of the stairs. We've pretty much given up on housekeeping until this mess is cleared up.

And that sunlight you see at the end of the hallway is our guest bedroom:

This was taken after dark, so the colors are even more off than the other pictures. The wall behind the bed is a slate blue and the other three are lighter, almost robin's egg. My friend, Naomi, says this room is so Zen, it makes her want to take a nap.

WARNING, FIBER CONTENT TO FOLLOW:

Yep, that's the lace baby blanket on the blocking board. All nicely washed and steamed, with about a million pins in it. It's 36' x 36', knitted in TLC Baby fingering weight, colorway "Fizz", 2 skeins at 3.5 ounces each, on US 3 needles, in ribbed feather stitch from The Knitter's Bible by Claire Crompton. "Fizz" is white with short bursts (only 2 to 3 stiches) of hot pink, lime green, and cantaloupe orange. The sweater, bonnet, and booties will be solid hot pink. Perfect for a May baby girl. If we can just hang on until then . . . .