The painting is progressing slowly

As some of you know, H and I are painting the inside of our house. We're going from a cool and pale mint green to a creamy yellow called Milk Maiden. We've, or more accurately, H, has finished the ceilings and yesterday started on the yellow walls. I can't tell you what a difference it makes to the look and feel of our home. The kitchen is finished and H hopes to finish off the remaining yellow walls today, while I'm at work. Then he'll start on the trims and doors, which will be a greyish blue called Smoke Ring. If you're wondering what my part in all this is, I've been cleaning down walls, picking up paint cloths, covering furniture, checking the coverage of the paint ; ) and making cups of tea.

Once the first yellow wall was finished - the one opposite the kitchen and behind our small round dining table - I realise we'd have to paint some furniture too, as what we have now - a greyish green - doesn't look so good with yellow. So I'll be painting a couple of pieces on Wednesday if H hasn't had time to do them beforehand. Along with my mostly Irish heritage, I have one Swedish grandmother, so the idea of painting furniture fits in well with my Swedish sensibilities and I'm looking forward to it. We're not buying anymore paint, having reached the limits of our dedcorating budget, so the furniture will have to be white, as that's the only paint we have available. Hopefully I'll be able to find a tint of black or blue in the shed to soften the stark whiteness, as I could quite happily live with a very light grey or blue. I'll be posting some photos when we're finished so you can all let me know what you think of our efforts.

As we've been cleaning, moving things around and painting the last few days, I haven't had a chance to make my soap, and take photos for a tutorial on it. I have not forgotten and will certainly get to it next week. I think that soap making is a valuable skill to have when living a simple life. A rich moisturising soap does wonders for the skin, as well as keep us clean, and it's nice to have a soap you know you can trust to nourish your skin without relying on overpriced skin creams. If I need extra moisturing during Winter, I just use a little olive oil. It's a wonder to me why anyone would need to buy anything more.

I'm really pleased we have our dishcloth swap underway. It will be a lovely way to connect with each other and get to know our online neighbours. I think I might get some time to come online when I'm at work later today so I'll start sending email addresses or postal addresses to swappers. If you haven't sent your postal or email address for me to pass on to your swap buddy, can you please do it soon. Thank you. Remember, the swap deadline is August 17, so if you all start your knitting soon, we'll have enough time to finish our projects without the need to hurry. And we do have a place for one more swapper, as I ended up with two swap partners, so if you'd like to join this swap, let me know today.

I want to also mention how much I enjoy getting your emails. I've received quite a few from readers who have never commented so it was delightful to get to know them in an email. I also enjoy contact from those lovely people who do comment. There is a greater opportunity to connect via email and to talk openly about what we're doing. Sometimes it takes me a couple of days to reply, I forget to check my email sometimes and at other times I'm busy, but I will get back to all of you, I promise. It's been a blessing to receive emails from all over the world, as well as those from the many Australians who read my blog. So to all of your who have taken the time to write, I thank you most sincerely.

This is Alice, in her curly Airedale winter coat, sitting with her good friend Hettie, our old white cat, in the warmth of yesterday's afternoon sun. They make sure they sit close to the back door every afternoon so they are ready when their dinner comes out.