Our house, again

I have this notion that I'm going to try to do one small thing that I actually want to do each day. Given the demands of a more than full time job and an infant, this is actually harder than it sounds, even though we have tons of help from our families and so I shouldn't whine about it. Anyway, today, it was sort of a big thing: I finally left work for about 30 minutes in the middle of the day to go to the state archives to get an old assessor's photo of our house. I really, really, really want to get the foundation plants in the front planted this fall, and I was interested in seeing what the people who built it (in 1902) had in mind. Well, the earliest assessors photo is from about 1936, so not as old as I would like, and it is sort of torn up (the archivist was so apologetic for this---as if he could do anything about it!), but how completely neat. Our house looks exactly like this still -- completely, exactly the same. Except, of course, no chimney; and all the plants are gone except for the one little rhododendron down on the corner of the porch that is now so tall and arborized it reaches the upstairs windows.

Also, I loved the archives. Everyone was really nice and helpful. Maybe I should quit my job and become an archivist; except I think they probably make very little money. . .and we have this very old house to fix up. . .. Anyway: Thank you Washington State Archives; this photo has really made my entire week!