1900's carpenter chest

This stinky old chest has been sitting in this basement for the last 50+years. It belonged to my great grandpa Emmanual J Lensing. Not sure the dates on all the tools but I know great grandpa was born in 1885, these were his tools and in the 40's he shipped them out to my grandpa(Donald)in Burbank, CA.

Now the big question, what do I do with this chest and the old tools inside of it? I have no use or desire to save these. The woodin chest, stinks like old wood. While it's like a time capsule, I wish I could find someone who would appreciate it antiquity/character.

Birds nest

I feel really bad, I unintentionally disrupted a birds nest in the rockery to get this shot. I never really put much thought into birds making a nest in rocks. As I was taking these shots, I startled the birds and they flew out....scared the living tar out of me, that's for sure! Thankfully all the little birds could fly, but they have not returned to the nest. It makes me feel a bit better than I can hear them all nearby in a neighboring tree, I'm assuming they found another home.

Maternity Session from a few weeks back

Almost forgot, I did a practice session a few weeks ago. To make matters a little bit more challenging the flash tube in my strobe broke. Ended up just using my external flash, but not really the efffects I was going for!

Some After photos of the house

Test

Trying out my new wireless trigger/receiver with my Alien bee. Only bribes that involve food work for photos.

Moved in

We're all moved into our new home. Still a ton of work to do. Our floors turned out amazing! Now that I have my camera stuff here, I'll get some photos up.

I'm LOVIN this old house! I can't seem to find the appropriate words to describe how I feel about this house, other than it's sentimental (being that it was my grandparents home for the 50 years).

So much work, so little time

Feeling a bit overwhelmed this week with so many things on the "to do" list. My mom is such a trooper. Her and I have been working hard the last few days cleaning up the downstairs foyer and family room of the new house. It's no secret, we both enjoy house projects and we make a great team. It's been fun working together and I look forward to being closer in location.

With all this manual labor....I am looking forward to a little girl time! I've been sporting my grubby clothes and messy hair (which btw is showcasing several colors from the new paint palette).

On a sad note, the last few weeks I've had a chance to spend a lot more time with my parents. I had no idea how much my father's health and mental capacity has deteriorated. He was diagnosed severe dementia a year ago, and since then he's slipped quite a bit. At this point his Parkinson's symptoms look meek in comparison to his cognitive abilities. Being closer and quality time with my dad is priceless these days. We're not sure how much longer he'll still resemble himself :(