Monday stuff....

Another Monday....... another room painted...... the living room is now a beautiful soft green (Behr's "Promenade," to be exact)..... I finished painting it this afternoon. All the pictures and mirrors are back in their places and they look even better on the softer walls. That dark green that had been there was just very hard to look at.... I'm surprised I didn't re-paint that room a lot sooner. But it's done now..... and I'm taking a painting break before I get out the "Whitened Sage" paint can and start painting the little half-bath downstairs. Three cheers to Behr paints, by the way... their paint/primer top-of-their-line paint is just perfect. (Especially when you find the right colors.)

We had a birthday lunch for J over the weekend..... my husband brought home huge Gulf shrimp from the waterfront area in Clear Lake...... and I used the Cake Boss's recipe to make Italian-style fried shrimp... totally delicious. I also made twice-baked stuffed potatoes, which was a treat because I hadn't made those in quite a while. I discovered a pre-made wheel of Brie that was covered in puff pastry.... frozen, so all you had to do was pop it in the oven.... that was a nice surprise because it was delicious, so that was a first course for our special lunch, along with a nice salad. "The Perfect Bite" is the name of the company that makes that Brie..... so I'll be looking for more of their products. Carrot cake for dessert.... J's favorite cake, and also mine and my husband's. (Except of course, if my Aunt Dolly is baking.... then her chocolate cake would have to trump my carrot cake.)

There are ducks in our pond now..... a male and a female, so I'm hoping they will stay there, decide our pond is the perfect place to raise a little duck family..... make a nest along the edge of the pond, lay some eggs...... and then surprise us one day with a little line of ducklings swimming behind the mama duck in the pond. Wouldn't that be nice...... I'm hoping it happens just that way. After dealing with all the really wild wildlife around here, it would be nice to have some sweet gentle ducks on the property.

When I went out to close up the coop this evening, Scarlett was waiting for me by the porch steps. She sat down on the stones as soon as my feet left the steps, and she waited for me to pick her up. Into my arms she went, and she was cooing like a mourning dove all the way to the coop. She is the sweetest chicken... it just amazes me that each of the chickens we've had along the way have all had such different personalities. Makes me think of that book called "When Elephants Weep." After reading that book, you just cannot look at any sort of animal as just an animal.

My painting arm is tired.... it's been a long painting day.... and a long painting/cooking weekend.... but it was all fun... and the end result is a beautiful living room that looks fresh and brand new.