Kristin Preble, our realtor called me last week and said she thought the farmhouse ought to be “shined up” for the Spring, so Maria and I gathered our vacuums, brooms, paper towels and cleaning sprays and went to work. I vacuumed, she mopped. This is my favorite room in the 1861 farmhouse, it was a combination dining room and parlor. This is where pastors came to visit and where the residents were laid out after they passed away. I loved to sit by this wood stove and look out at the barn, we took parts of the old wallpaper and put pieces of it in panels along the floor. The tall windows are beautiful and we had to restore them so the old ropes and pulleys work. It was wonderful to be in this room, this is where many important things happened to me – I wrote seven books in my office off to the rear, spent many nights reading by a roaring fire during blizzards, decided to end my marriage and then spent so many evenings talking to Maria. Album going up on Facebook.

We fell in love in this room, no doubt about it, it was where we first  talked, Maria sitting on that old Victorian sofa, me across from her on Lenore’s couch. The windows look out at the big barn on one side and out into the valley on the other. This is my favorite of any room I have ever lived in or near.