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This is the view of the front entrance of Jeff and Deana's house. The address is placed in the stained glass over the door of their late Victorian home in Cape Girardeau, MO.

Cookie monsters

Tonight was the Cobalt Studios annual Christmas cookie party. Don't worry, its not as much like Faux Thanksgiving. Here is the table before the guests arrived and brought their cookies to add to the pile.

Woody

If you haven't noticed, the Cobalt house is full of random stuff. Sitting on the floor of the great room is a piece of wood, possibly found outside in this state. Its position on the floor under a lamp helps accent its many changes in terrain. I thought it made an interesting picture.

Six inches

It snowed overnight. We got six inches on the ground and its still here. Snowball fights are inevitable.

Home

This is the house on Main Street where I grew up in Clinton, Illinois. My parents bought the house in 1974 and still live there.

Front hall

This is an extra-wide view of the front hallway at the front door of the house. I used the diminishing glass to get this shot.

Apples

Now that all of the leaves are gone I'm noticing more things I was unaware of before. We have five or six apple trees in the back yard and right now they are full of ripe apples. I picked one at lunch today and it was great!

Wide open spaces

When I left the studio tonight I caught a glimpse of the moon coming up over the trees. I ran to grab my camera and took about twenty shots of it peeking around the side of the house. I didn't like any of those shots, so this is not one of them. This is the house taken from across the field. We have a very large sky here. (The moon was still rising behind me in this shot.)

Ginger

Ginger came over tonight! Don't worry, she brought her human too, our good friend and teacher, Joan. The group of us played games and watched a movie while Ginger took a nap on the floor. This is Ginger between naps.

Puzzle

The house is full of puzzles. I found this puzzle of the house itself tonight and started working on it on the coffee table. Compare to our very first post on this blog!

Its big, its heavy, its wood.

We have two wood burning stoves in the house. Today we went outside and began stacking piles under the awning or in the wood shed. This is one row I stacked today in the shed.

Before and After

This is my view at the top of the stairs on Monday, and then again earlier this afternoon. The walls in the top picture are what they looked like when I moved in. This week, myself and the other Cobalt students were led by a commercial painter from the City who helped us restore walls on the second floor. This was part of the area I worked on. I'm very pleased with the results, considering that's my room on the left.
(The drapery over the stairway was painted on a canvas last spring by Stephanie Stover, a recently graduated student of Cobalt. It hangs in its original place.)

This Old House

This is our first view! This is where I live. I just moved in yesterday. Its a wonderful old house!