Denouement

Yep. That's right. I studied French for four years, so I can throw out a word like denouement ... after double-checking Dictionary.com to make sure it means what I think it does!

Anyway, the resolution I'm talking about is the whole mirror saga. Turns out I don't like it after all. Whew! That makes it easy. So now we get to talk about other fun or creative things to do with the vast space above our mantel. It may still end up housing a mirror, or maybe it'll be the home for a funky red modern/grandfather clock Bob and I fell in love with at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Who knows. Do you want to see the mirror?

Ok. Here it is. I appreciate all the detail, but I was expecting something simpler, with elaborate molding, but no carving.


And I'm going to post pictures from the farm, for the heck of it.

This is looking at the house and garage from the northeast, from the driveway as you pull in. I have always thought the garage was sweet. And there's a teeny tiny apartment above it where my Uncle Dick lived for a while.


Here's the view from the front. You can see that the part to the left was added on; that was my grandparents' bedroom, and I will never forget sneaking in and out of there, with my sister and my cousin John, while my grandfather was taking a nap, trying not to pee our pants laughing because he snored SO loud.

Ah. the kitchen windows. You can bet that the ivy would not have made it that far with my grandmother around. The little curtains are a small strawberry print, and my grandmother loved them, so though my mom didn't, for the year that they lived there, she didn't have the heart to change them. There was a kitchen table in front of those windows, and we could pack in a lot of grandkids back then.


Here's the cabin. I'm not sure I know why they built the cabin; it's right across the driveway from the house. But I think it has something to do with Grandpa wanting to host fish fries (is that the right pluralization for a fish fry?) for the Lions Club, of which he was a long-time member. At one point in my childhood, my family lived in the cabin for, I don't know, maybe a month or a couple of months, when Dad was trying to figure out whether to take a job there in Murfreesboro, or do mission work in Appalachia. He opted for Appalachia. But this cabin? One room. A wood stove, but no central heat. The bathroom (which I think was added on?) is accessed by going out the side door, into the screen porch, and then opening a door to the bathroom. It shared a wall with the cabin, but was definitely not part of the cabin. I remember it as full of spiders then, and I don't think you could pay me to go in it now.


And here's the lane. My grandmother used to walk this lane, lap after lap, for her daily exercise. Then my mom did it. I have really fun memories of arriving at the farm, after driving for a couple hours to get there, and Dad would stop the car and tell us to get out and run down to the house. In retrospect, what a good way to get two little kids to burn off some steam before bombarding their grandparents...

It's still weird to me that this lane empties onto a six-lane road, across from a huge State Farm complex. It's more than an office, but I'm not sure that it's their national headquarters. I have a funny story about that which I'll share sometime.