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HOUSE DIARIES

Barn, Art, and Stuff

January, 2008

Written February 17, 2008

Dear Friends and Families,

 

Another year and I'm behind on diaries already. My list of excuses includes:

-- No one reads these things anyway (ans: We're doing these for our OWN memories!)

-- I'm busy (ans: Not so true and besides, who cares?)

-- My back has been hurting (ans: This one has a grain of truth, but only a grain.)

-- I'm concentrating on German so I don't want to write in English (ans: A lie. Ich bin faul.)

-- Etc., etc., etc.

 

So, what HAVE we been doing? Planning the modification of our barn/studio/garage. Marianne's art work. Marianne's socializing. And other normal work and at-home things.

 

Contrary to several reasonable arguments, we are starting on the remodel of our old barn. The true, historic upper part was lost a couple decades ago, and replaced with ugly concrete block walls and unsafe asbestos roof panels. We are removing all that and replacing it with a shape that our architect calls "American barn". I try to convince him that America has no barn design that didn't come from Europe, so it's conceivable that we are being appropriate to the original era of the barn.

The plan has a ground-level bathroom, in this landing that is above the cellar. Above that, everything has to go, even the old beams since they have a fair amount of bug-infestation. The upper room will become an art studio / guest room.

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the regular house is getting a few more touches. I finally am getting around to hanging some art work on the walls, including this "soft sculpture", which we found for over the bed in Kiev. That seems like forever ago!

 

And Marianne's own works are proliferating. This painting of apples turned out well and joined an abstract of red turmoil on our living room wall.

 

Marianne now has a once-a-month breakfast group, made up from some friends in the neighboring villages. This is a boost to general morale, as well as help for language skills!  
 
And, we are starting to see signs of Spring! Not real close signs, and the locals assure us we will get at least one more snow storm, but we can assure ourselves that we are past the half-way mark in what has turned out to be a pretty mild Winter.

So, that's where we are. Nothing too exciting, but that's the way it is in Pommersfelden.

We DO have a trip to France and Luxembourg planned for later in the month, but that's another story.

 

Take care and feed the birds,

 

John and Marianne.


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