For the Love of Red

I'm back from our trip and what a wonderful time we had! We hated to leave, but it was also nice getting back home to rest a bit. And by "a bit", I do mean "a bit", hehe. My yard sale is on Friday and there is still lots to do in preparation. Yesterday, I pretty much rested up and read all day in bed and then this morning, I tackled our poor neglected front landscaping bed. While the flowers that I planted last year are thriving without much help on my part, I needed to do some weeding and I also needed to mow. I still have to mow the backyard, but I'm taking a break to cool off and day dream a bit! Hubs and I will work on the yard again later this evening...it's something that I look forward to doing together each week:)

Our house (which is *not* the one pictured to the right) needs just as much work outside as it does inside. Nearly all the siding needs to be replaced, not to mention the gutters and eaves. For years, I've wanted to paint our house a cheerful yellow as all the homes nearby are shades of grey, brown, and blue. "Oh, we live in the only yellow house on our road...", I imagined I would say to those who needed to know where I lived. But, lately, I've fallen in love with the notion of painting our house - you guessed it - red. When I see red homes like the one pictured, I suddenly want to live in "the only red house on our road"!

And the siding and trim color I'd like to use is just like what is in the photo above...only I would like to have a metal roof as shown in this photo. Imagine hearing the rain as if falls...mmmmm....delicious!

One Swedish (I think?) blog that I like to peruse is I Min Vacra Varld ...the author lives in the sweetest Swedish little red house. Oh so inspirational!

On the home front, today while mowing, I rode past a robin that was just sitting on the ground. I was a foot away and it didn't budge despite the very large and loud mower...it just looked at me and closed it's eyes as if trying to sleep. I knew something was wrong and that it must be very sick because it looked like it hadn't moved in quite a while...there were flies landing on it which made me very sad. It doesn't seem to have any broken wings or legs. I know that there is probably nothing that can be done for it but regardless, I gathered up an extra cage that we have, found an old robins nest that has been the home to a female robin during the spring nesting season for years (don't worry, she always rebuilds in the same place even if the old nest doesn't make it through the year) and placed the robin in the cage, put in some water and seed, placed the robin inside, and put the cage in the garage (being careful to wash my hands well as to not expose any illness to my own birds, the cage will be bleached after no longer being used to shelter the robin ). I know robins like worms and so I tried to feed it one, but it's very lethargic and uninterested. I'm going to wait for hubs to home and see what he says we should do. Oh, I hate to see it suffer and couldn't stand the thought of it being out in the heat without the energy to look for food or water. Even out of the elements, I feel for the little thing... I fear that it's slowly fading away. I won't tell the children about it - they are very sympathetic towards winged creatures as I am and I want to spare them the heartache when this little one passes. Such is life, I suppose.

It's good to be back and thank you again for all the sweet comments about my first cake. I'm looking forward to making more! After this yard sale, I can take a break and have some creative fun again - and I'm looking forward to that!