Weellllll….I didn’t quite follow through on my intention of keeping you up to date with all that is going on with our Katahdin cabin at the Reserve at Montalba. Let’s just say my spiritual direction practicum is to blame.

However, the practicum should be finished by the latter part of April and I will be back to my blogging shenanigans. In the meantime I want to give you a brief update and…an invitation!

We are now “at the landscaping stage” of our little gray cabin in the woods. And a new pond is going in, as well as our driveway! I finally got to drive down the driveway this past weekend and we can now park a car in the carport! Hallelujah–I never thought I’d see this day!

We have already had two sets of guests at the cabin, too, and celebrated our first Christmas there. I used to think I did well decorating my own home for Christmas, but there is just something special about decorating a log cabin for Christmas. And it was our first grandson’s first Christmas and New Year’s, so it was even more special.

But, back to that invitation I mentioned. Each year the Reserve holds an “Open House” of sorts–Spring Fling! It’s held in conjunction with nearby Palestine, TX’s Dogwood Festival.

Howdy, Log Rhythms and log cabin fans! It’s time to update you on all that has happened since last August regarding the Solitude cabin!

I would like to say our family is finished with the cabin, but we are not. This is largely due to one busy family and yet again, weather delays.

Even so, we are nearly done. But, I’m going to go back to the 2016 Labor Day weekend. That’s when our entire family took over the interior “finish-out” of the cabin. Our building crew had packed up their RVs and tents and taken off for Montana.

We were all traveling in various vehicles to get to the Reserve from our main homes as dusk hit on the Friday before Labor Day and then, we were at a dead-stop because of one bad crash on a narrow bridge on the U.S. highway closest to Solitude. You know it’s a bad sign when the CareFlite helicopter nearly lands on top of you!

Notice a few things different in the picture above? I sure hope so.

Number 1 Change: There are now double posts at the edge of the back deck on the lakeside of Solitude. They add a little more pizzazz to this simple cabin design, if you ask me and add on well to the Timber look trusses.

Number 2 Change: The porch railings are up! Our porch railings are square with a flat board on top. Most log cabins have rounded rails and tops and I just wasn’t wild about it. It was too “chunky”. I love resting my arms on the flat top boards! We lowered the railing as much as we could so that one can see as much lake as possible. We also put the rails as far apart as possible, while still protecting little ones! I would have lowered the rail even more, but again, safety dictates a minimum height for the little ones.

Lakeside view of Solitude this morning…

As a blogger I do not spend inordinate amounts of time promoting my blog on social media. There are several reasons for this: A) I do have a life! If I actively worked all the major “avenues” of social media, I would never make any progress in the other “arenas” of my life. B) Some sites require a master’s in computer science in order to post links. C) Some claim they have major followings and then really don’t. D) Some are photo-based and as you have probably noticed, I’m not a great photographer. (I do have future plans for working around this, though!)

However, there would be no MaryAnn In Progress if it were not for Facebook. I began writing “Notes” on Facebook nearly 10 years ago “just for grins” and the response was surprising to me. Several faithful “followers” suggested that I needed to write a book and the DSL finally suggested that I “own” my writing. Hence, a blog was born!