This past year, so far, has been a long road.   One I alternately simplify and managed to complicate.

I needed to grow, to stretch my boundaries and  have in many ways. I began my spring cleaning, trying to go through new doors even before the old one has closed completely.

It began during the dark, wet and long days of winter. 

The first of my home's many leaks to come during the rainy months ahead.

What is a homeowner to do?  I had kept my income tax refund in savings...ostensibly for a rainy day.  I guessed this was it.  I hired a roofer and he was going to bring a carpenter to repair the second story brick walkway.  I knew the walkway was a mess and I was even afraid to take a bath in my deep soaking tub upstairs because it seemed to be resting on the bricks.

What bricks?  

The roofer and contractor told me the work would take two weeks and X dollars.  Then I found three of my beams in the dining room were dry rotting too.  Oh well, I would replace those too.  Cha-ching.

I paid half of the estimated amounts and eagerly left town on a prearranged vacation, happy the work could be done when I was away. 

My dining room prepared for new beams.

Off I went confident the person I left in charge would oversee the work knowing I wanted to be away while workmen crawled around my home.

First I met up with two friends from OS a few days before Christmas. (You may recognize them.)

Lea Lane, Cartouche and me after brunch.

Then it was time for a relaxing cruise on a beautiful ship.

 Everything was going so well.  Christmas arrived and I posed with the ship's gingerbread house.

And then the next morning I decided to check my email.

It seems it had been raining torrents, but when they got the first tiles up they found dry-rot among other unsightly things. This necessitated a quick decision on replacing the wood under the roof, so I waved it on.  Then back to my vacation, after all what else could happen?

It was onward to Cartagena, Columbia and a New Years Eve doing passage through the Panama Canal.

To be continued....