Home improvements

Stace has been perfecting his cheese-and-onion soda bread. He made a pair of loaves last weekend, and another pair Thursday night when JT, Jim and Callie came up for dinner. Yum!

 After a month of searching, we've replaced our living room furniture. Here is our new sectional/chaise, which fits our back wall perfectly and provides seating for five or six. It was really inexpensive, but with two little ones and two cats, we're not in the "pricey couch" time of life.

We had enough money leftover from our tax refund to get all the pretty pillows...

...and this comfy leather reading chair, which reclines and rocks.
Stace and I are so pleased with our living room now! For the first time since we moved in, it really feels like "ours," with furniture we've lovingly chosen.







In recent weeks, Stace also has improved our home's exterior. He installed motion-sensor lighting on either side of the garage door, and in the porch.









He also replaced the ugly weedy gravel next to the driveway with prettier rocks, over a weed-blocking fabric sheet.










I had hoped we could put in bark, to match the bark elsewhere in the front yard, but then it rained in the middle of the project. Whoa! Talk about a swiftly formed pond! We learned why rocks were the choice however many years ago.