We are at the end of the year and in many ways it has gone fast and in others it seems to have been moving in slow motion. Time has taken on a new meaning with the pandemic. Most days are filled with walking the dogs, maintaining websites, working on the house and eating – lots of eating and I might add, drinking. I truly enjoy my evening’s glass of wine or two and it’s not because I did all that much it is just such a happy time when we gather around the fire and catch up with each other at the end of the day. We are so happy to have Jack home as he can carry the wood in for the fire and he does so happily. He has been back at work at the local hardware store and usually has a story or two to relate when he gets home. Libby is in classes during the day via Webex or Zoom and has decided it is nice to talk to others in person once again. She and her brother have really adapted to the new Bonus room and spend time there playing some video games.

Jenny Lane Update

Work on the Sun Porch has begun in earnest. The trim work in the Bonus Room, Office and Hall has all been done so the guys moved to the Sun Porch. They were optimistic at the beginning of the week that they would get it mostly done so we could open up the wall between the porch and the living room. Like most things that didn’t go as planned. The big news was the arrival of the door. We could not believe that we had not ordered a new door back when we ordered the windows. It completely slipped our minds I guess. Anyway, we have been living with an old door surrounded by plastic to keep the wind out as much as possible for weeks while we waited for the door to come in. It was supposed to arrive 10 days ago but somehow got lost so it was with great excitement that we saw it actually arrive this week and then get installed.

Once installed the crew were able to get going on the strapping for the sheetrock on the ceiling and walls. Over the doorway is an opening that basically goes to the outdoors as it is a roof over another roof. We guess from when they added the porch onto the house. No insulation up there and it could not be left open and all the heat escapes out that way. So a new wall will go in. The wall below it will come out and a new opening into the main house will go in and new walls will go on either side. The current doorway is off center. Once they started framing they realized that the electricity came up through there so we had to wait for the electrician to come and adjust where the wires come into the sun porch before it could be closed in. They did get the ceiling sheet rocked however so we did make some good progress.

The barn door for the Bonus Room arrived this week too. It is gorgeous and needed to be either painted or stained. We decided to stain it to go with the barn board siding on the chimney. That ended up being John’s job for the weekend. It will be installed this week with the hardware. He actually mixed two kinds of stain together to get a more random pattern of stain. He is also polyurethane it to protect it. It will be fun to see it installed. We were going to do one side painted white for the hall side of the door but decided we liked the stained look too much.

Walking On The Trail

We ended up not walking all that much this week. After the snow the trails got very icy. Monday the pups went to the beauty parlor so we only did a short walk. I was very busy doing a myriad of other things so I did only short walks until finally I decided I had to get out for a good long walk. We went back over to the rail trail and were surprised to find little snow if any at all on the trail. I was able to wear my sneakers which was just great. We walked for six miles and had a wonderful time. The weather was actually good and it warmed up to almost 40 degrees plus the sun was shining. Always much better to walk in the sunshine. It is far too easy for me to let things pass when I get involved in a project and that is what I had done most of the week. I am working on a pictorial documentary of the renovations and it consumed my time this week. Seems thousands of pictures and I needed to catalog all of them. Whew. It has been fun and very satisfying to see what we have accomplished but then it is also overwhelming with what we have left to do. It’s the big stuff like three bathrooms and a kitchen and a living room. We will do it but I know what it took to get us where we are today so I am almost exhausted thinking about it.

The Christmas Cooking Show

There are elves in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Little bread loaves are ready for baking, homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream is steeping, the chocolate for the Buck Eyes is melting, cookies are baking and everyone is getting into the holiday spirit.

We had Christmas Carols playing and a fire going so the atmosphere was very festive. All we needed was some snow but we got rain!

The Buck Eye Recipe from All Recipes

Ingredients
1 ½ cups creamy peanut butter
½ cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening

Directions
Step 1
Line a baking sheet with waxed paper; set aside.

Step 2
In a medium bowl, mix peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and confectioners’ sugar with hands to form a smooth stiff dough. Shape into balls using 2 teaspoons of dough for each ball. Place on prepared pan, and refrigerate.

Step 3
Melt shortening and chocolate together in a metal bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth, and remove from heat.

Step 4
Remove balls from refrigerator. Insert a wooden toothpick into a ball, and dip into melted chocolate. Return to wax paper, chocolate side down, and remove toothpick. Repeat with remaining balls. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to set.

Nutrition Facts
Per Serving:
204 calories; protein 3.7g 7% DV; carbohydrates 22.8g 7% DV; fat 12g 19% DV; cholesterol 8.1mg 3% DV; sodium 81.2mg 3% DV.