this and that

Wow the week is over and I haven't posted anything but a picture of herself. Its the end of the week, and a three day weekend looms ahead, and its a wonderful thing. I have lots of little jobs to do this weekend. The bestest, bestest thing is I finally finished covering the camper cushions for a co-worker. It was a job I took on without knowing all the details and there were times I felt I had bit off more than I could chew. But they are done. The last one is on my veranda waiting its owners to come along and take it home. They are camping this weekend so I wanted to get it finished. I have dragged my feet on this project so the camping trip was a good kick in the butt, no pictures, I'm afraid.

Lets see what else makes me happy, its payday, there is a three day weekend ahead, I have supper plans for tomorrow night, I have lots of projects to keep me busy, and my peonies are blooming in the yard at long last.

I love, love, love, peonies and this is the first year that the ones in the front yard have bloomed.There are white ones in the front yard and dark pink ones in the back yard. I may even go and cut a bouquet to have in the dining room. Its a good thing they bloomed because I did not plant flowers this year. Too wet, to late in the season and frankly the budget just did not stretch to it this year. I don't want to think about the budget, it will ruin my happy mood. I will think about that tomorrow. 

Back to my flowers. My yard has a long way to go but it tickles me to no end to look out the kitchen window and see little shots of colour here and there as things finally bloom.  The flower bed just mostly looks like a jungle out there. The weeds are running amok and apparently I am more than content to let them have their way, maybe this weekend I will actually do something about them. If I can crank up the courage to face the clouds of mosquitoes that are lurking outside my door, waiting to eat me alive. Those little critters just love me.

So the weekend looms large, three days of freedom. Whoot!!

Linda

Monday Moment with Minou

Oh just shut up and kiss me!!

Sunday Stuff

What a good day this has been. A bit of a road trip with some friends, we all went and had our cards read, had lunch out and then headed back home. Nothing new in the card reading. still supposed to be meeting this man, still supposed to be getting married some day. Can't help but think if this doesn't happen soon we will be hiking down the aisle in our walkers :-)  No big lottery wins but money is supposed to get better. She said a bunch of other stuff but there was nothing really big or new or exciting.  It was fun to go. I like to do stuff like that. The trick is to not take it too seriously.

So I got home and decided to try out my homemade laundry soap. I would not say its fantastic but it works well. I definitely think I will make it again. I would change the recipe a little and prepare it a bit differently but all in all I don't think its any worse or better than some store bought ones. I am pleased with it for a first attempt. I would pre soak more with this one than one of the high performance laundry soaps but that is a small price to pay for a really economical soap. Not to mention its super easy to make and makes a lot.

I should have been making bread as well but I ran out of steam. I am going to spend the rest of my evening working on my new afghan. I have had the kit for a couple of years and am just now finally getting around to working on it. There is a roast cooking in the slow cooker, laundry is splashing away in the washing machine, the cat is snoozing on the couch and I am going to go and knit. All round its been a very nice weekend.

Linda

Saturday Stuff

I am not sure that I can adequately portray to you how much I love the weekends. I do not have to listen to an alarm clock go off, I pretty much set my own schedule and if I do not wish to go out of the house I do not have to. I love to putter about my house. It gives me a happy.

Today I feel like I got stuff done, like I made progress, that I was a productive being not a slug on the couch. I was up early, remade the red room bed, washed the hall floor, stripped my bed, scrubbed the stairs, ran the dishwasher, painted the treads on the stairs, did laundry, made soup, had tea with my dear friend the Hostess. (I had thought of calling her the Cook because, damn, that woman can cook. Its not enough though she is so much more than that, she is the best hostess, she always makes you welcome, she is a wonderful friend to have AND  I am not saying that because I am drunk on homemade cookies fresh from her kitchen). Yum......... warm cookies...........where was I???? Oh yes back to my day, I did a small sewing job, knit on an afghan for myself, decided on a pattern for a quilted runner I am making for Busy, tidied up the kitchen AND I made laundry soap from scratch today. I have wanted to do this for a long time now and if it works well I will be making it again for sure. Its easy to make and easy on the pocketbook, but the proof will be in how well it cleans the clothes.  Not bad for a days work I think.

Tomorrow I am off to have my cards read. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for me. I find this all a lark, its fun and a chance for a trip with a couple of friends. A nice little outing for a Sunday. I do not hold my breath and have a tantrum if what I am told does not come true. I would have keeled over dead long ago since I have been hearing about a certain farmer since 1979. I mean, really, if 7 psychics say its so, should it not be so??? I ask you.

If we get back to town early enough I have some yard work to do. This week I am making bumper pads and I am going to finish recovering a camper cushion I should have had done a long time ago. My co-worker has been very patient with me over these camper cushions.

 Right now I am going to watch a DVD then head to bed.

Linda

Grandbaby Quilt

This is what I did tonight and it was wonderful fun. I had the top sewn together before but tonight I quilted it, bound it and now its done. This is the crib quilt for my grandbaby, I still have the bumper pads to make but they will get done ASAP because my little ladybug is home and she needs the finishing touches for her perfect princess bedroom. This plain, simple crib quilt is made of the most delightfully soft, squishy material. I want to wrap everything in it. It is covered with these little bumps that give it a polka dot effect. Its baby perfect. I did not use a batt as the material is thick enough a batt would have made the quilt heavy on a little body. Her Mommy decided on the quilt and in my eyes its perfect, simple, soft and feminine.This quilt is small so I may make a bigger one. We have lots of material and a bigger one may be not a bad thing. I will consult with the new mommy first because after all it is her material.

Its been awhile since I spent an evening with a quilt. Since Sunday, I have mended pants for the Teddy Bear, recovered cushions for the Hummingbird and now making the crib quilt. Oh its a joy to be crossing things off my "to do" list besides puppets. I love my puppets but its time for me to be doing other things. I need to do other things, my crafty stuff is as important to me as breathing and I never ever ever want it to become a job and not a joy.

This is the first quilt of many I will be blogging about in the near future. Whoot!!



Monday Moment with Minou

Why are you sitting on my couch??? Did you not get the memo???

Birthday Weekend

Well, the Carpenter and Busy are on the road home after a delicious late lunch/early supper of barbecued pork chops, Cesar salad and new potatoes. I am sitting here listening to the dishwasher hum away and the house has that lonely, empty feeling that it always has once company goes home. It has been a wonderful birthday weekend for me. It was so good to have them here for the weekend. I love to have company and getting some of the jobs done that I have on my to do list is just icing on the cake.

Thanks to the Carpenter, I now have my hall light on a proper light switch and the switch is located in the proper place. My dishwasher is working again after sitting for a year an a half with me thinking it was broken. Turns out someone should have checked the breaker in the basement. Yep, I hang my head in shame that that is the only thing that was wrong with it. I am feeling like a twit but the up side is the dishwasher WORKS!! I have missed it so much. I love that I do not have to save up the money to get another one. Win win with a big hunk of stupid piled on top. Honestly it never ever ever occurred to me to check the breakers. Needless to say, in future this will be one of the first things I check.  We also got the old dining room chairs stored into the basement. I cannot get used to all the room in the dining room. Its been packed with extra chairs for so long.

These were the two jobs that I had lined up for him this weekend, well removing the dishwasher was originally planned but he fixed it instead. Today I got bonus projects accomplished.  This morning Busy got us moving and we tackled the yard work. They moved my potentilla bush for me, weeded my flower beds, and fixed the trim around the flower bed that I could never make stay in the ground. I mowed the lawn and weed whacked while they did the other jobs. We would have done it last night but it rained yet again, well poured down really. Now I am going to go tomorrow night and get some flowers to fill up those lovely clean flowerbeds. :-) I had thought of not bothering but now the yard is so cleaned up it seems a shame not to put in flowers. The three of us did in an hour what it would have taken me three or four hours to do. I tend to loose steam before the job is finished.

I got a magic bullet food processor for my birthday. Happy Dance of Joy!!I have wanted one for ever. Smoothies for breakfast and fresh salsa on tap from now on. Yahoo!!  I was taken out for supper last night and all in all I have to say I had a fabulous weekend. I always get spoiled one way or the other. I always buy myself something and this year I got a CD I have been wanting. Adele's latest, Rolling in the Deep is my new favorite song.

Right now I should be doing laundry but I am larking about on the computer. I will get at the laundry later on. Right now I will wait for the dishwasher to finish and I may just have a little nap on the couch, watch all the Dugger shows on tv. Laundry will get done eventually. Its my birthday and I can do what ever I want!!

Linda

this and that

Well tonight I finished pulling up the laminate tile in the kitchen. I am pooped. It took four days to do it all by myself and there is still a big pile of it in the kitchen that needs to be hauled outside. It took that long because I only wanted to do a section at a time. That stuff is heavy!! The kitchen is now free and clear for the Carpenter to remove my dishwasher this weekend. I am sad to see the tile gone but on the other hand I am happy its done and I don't have to think about it any more. Now I am free to stalk the new tile until I can afford to buy it. Things are a lot cleaner in the kitchen, as they got a scrubbin' while everything was all pulled apart.

The university puppet order is done and delivered. I am free to get at my quilts now. I am looking foreward to quilting and quilting and quilting.  I have at least six of them to make and I have left them far too long. They are all in partial stages of completion except for one that I have not started at all. I will be posting pictures for sure. Monday the quilting bee will begin.

I am really excited about this weekend. I love having company and the Carpenter and Busy have not been here for a weekend for ages. (I started out calling her the organiser but Busy suits her better, that woman is always doing something, being still is not in her nature). They both work full time, he works every other weekend and he has an after hours handyman job not to mention they are finishing the house they built themselves. They also have two grown and married children they like to visit.  They do not have many spare weekends in the year.

Not only is he going to remove the dishwasher for me, he is going to put a light switch in my upper hallway. The current set up, I suspect, would not be up to code and I want it changed. As is typical in an old house the switch is not only suspect its totally in the wrong place. I want it where you would naturally reach for the switch when you get to the top of the stairs. Bit of trivia about my old house, the light switches are all upside down , just like the plug-ins. What is up with that?

Tomorrow night I will be doing the last minute clean up before they get here. Tonight I am done, I am tired, I don't even have the umph to haul the tile out to the back. Tomorrow I will do it. Tomorrow I will be rested. Tomorrow I will want to. Right now all I want to do is nothing.

Linda

A Moment with Minou

Minou says: "Does this carpet make me look fat?"

To the Mattresses!!

It as been a busy productive weekend. The most important event of all was my pretend grandbaby arrived this weekend, born exactly on her due date. Clever little madam. I popped up to the hospital this afternoon and had a quick cuddle and a visit with the new parents. AND TOTALLY FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE! I was too caught up in looking at her and rocking her I never thought of it. ACK I am loosing it. The new baby is such a dainty little lady, she is tiny and  just perfect, with lots of dark hair. She snoozed through my visit but that's ok I will have lots more opportunity to visit her in the days to come. For the longest itme I have dearly wanted to be a Grandma so I came up with a solution to my problem,  I just laid claim to a friends child. I get to be Grandma Linda and I get to spoil her to my hearts content. Win win all round.

This is what else I did besides dote over my grandbaby, I took a round out of this headboard. This is what it used to look like, then I committed the ultimate sin

 I painted the headboard white. Yes, yes, I did, I painted wood and I am not afraid to admit it!! I added some green accents, a little stenciling and relocated it to the green bed room. It looks like it belongs in there and I am very happy with it. So I took the old bed frame and headboard out of the green bedroom, replaced them with the bed frame and headboard that was in my room, washed all the bedding and put the room back together. It was great fun wrestling the mattress, box spring and bed frames around but it all worked out in the end. The extra bed frame and headboard are on my veranda waiting their new owners to come and take them home. I gave them away and they were snapped up in less than an hour of me putting them on the local web site.



Then I tried to work on my puppets.

The resident snoopervisor made her wishes known and planted her furry butt right on my work space. She is more hindrance than help but she is determined. She loves to get all up in my business when I am trying to work. She suddenly has to have some attention, has to have it right now and it is immaterial what you are trying to do, Minou needs some attention.

So we stopped for a bit of a scratch and tickle which got her purring like a tractor. Minou has the most wonderful purr, its instant, its loud and its the most contented sound. She did eventually have her fill and then removed her exalted personage from my work space and retired to the upper level for a nap .

I have also started to pull up the kitchen floor. This is bitter sweet for me. I love my floor, the tile was given to me when I bought the house and I love it. Its easy to care for and looks so much better than what is on the floor originally. The problem is this is rigid flooring and my house is over a hundred years old. There is not a level surface in this house. The floor is popping apart and the tiles are separating and its just not working. I have found that flexible laminate flooring is a better deal for me. I can install it myself and it bends with the wonky floor. I have found some that looks like cork so I am going to put that down over the summer I hope. This needs to come up now so when the carpenter is here this coming weekend he can remove the dead dishwasher from my kitchen.

I laid the flexible laminate in my living and dining room that looks like wood and it works well in this old house. I had hoped for real wood floors when I pulled up carpet after I bought this house but no such luck. Sigh.

Icing on the cake that is my day is that  I have the university puppet order completed, well at least the ones that have to be there right now. They have ordered 6 more but I have until August to get them finished. I am having a puppet break in July and devoting myself to nothing but quilts. I am soooo excited about that. I have at least a half dozen quilts that need to be finished and I am going to enjoy working on them. Anyway, there are 13 puppets in this bag and they will be delivered to their new home tomorrow. Pardon me while I do a happy dance about the sewing room.

Ok I am back. I had hoped to do some yard work this weekend but its raining AGAIN!! It the middle of June, I have no plants planted, the weeds are running amok and I wonder if its worth even trying. I am going to pray for a dry day and then I can at least spray the weeds.

Time to make supper.

Linda

Plans, Changes, Projects!! Oh My!!

I love love love my new bed. Its so nice to sleep the night through without a magazine shifting and getting jarred awake by a spring trying to drill it's way through your hip. It's wonderful to wake wound free. Getting the bed has also created changes and things need to be shuffled about. My house is like a giant jigsaw puzzle if you move a piece or change something it causes a ripple effect that can have me going for hours until I get everything settled back into balanced order.  Yes I have issues........what's your problem........shut up!!

Thankfully this is not one of those times when I will be wandering about shuffling things, moving this and that while my eyes glaze over and my brain explodes until it all works again. I do that until I feel that click inside of me that says its all balanced and all is well at the homestead once again. Its not easy being me sometimes. It takes a lot of work to deal with my issues.

This shuffle is simple simple simple but it took me most of last night, mulling things over before I got my plan in place. I do love to have a plan. :-)  My old bed frame does not adjust to fit the new bigger bed size. Easy fix, get a new bed frame come pay day. My old headboard is a curvy antique wooden number that I love and I have had for many years but its for a double bed not a queen. I really thought I would just keep it and make it work because I love it so much. Many thinks later, I have decided that if I am getting a new bed frame I may as well look into a new headboard. The one that I love will move into the green bedroom to replace the plain white rectangular one I have in there. I have thought of doing this many times in the past because it would really suit the room, but it seemed like work anytime I thought about it.  NOW it seems like a fun new change. The headboard just needs a lick of white paint and some stenciling to make it match the rest of the furniture in the room and it will be perfect. Once I do all this I will have a double bed frame and head board to spare. I wonder if I try to sell it, will I have more luck than I did with the dining room chairs??? I do know I can always give it away if I can't sell it.

Now I get to hunt up the perfect new headboard. I think would like something black and iron looking but I will know it when I see it. It has to be perfect, it has to fit the budget (cheap but not crap) and I have to love it. Maybe an old door, that would work too. I could turn it into a headboard. Well this will give me something to look for over the next little while. Who knows what I will end up with but I know it will be something that I love.

In the mean time I can make the dust ruffle,  fix and finish the quilts and maybe find the right paint colour for the room. I have the most ugly, boring, beige wall paper in the room right now. I cannot wait to get it painted and have my blue room once again. The 70's carpet will go and someday a new carpet will take its place. I can see it all in my head, I just need to turn the vision into reality. I will be posting pictures cause that's what I like to do. Plans, changes, projects , oh my ................its all so exciting!!!!

Linda

Dang Bumble Bees are at it again

The second thing that can light a fire under your butt is the sudden knowledge that actual people are going to see your bedroom. My bedroom currently is not a sanctuary, a haven of calm. Its the junk yard where the cat and I battle for a spot on the bed and the clutter piles up because its the last room in the house to be redecorated. When you are going to redecorate you don't do to much to keep the place impeccable. At least I don't.

But my new bed is coming today. Doin' a little happy dance here. Today works for the wonderful people who are bringing the bed so I scrambled up stairs and turned the garbage dump into something fit for company. Oh my,  I need a nap. I cannot tell you how excited I am to get this bed. Its queen sized and its free!!! Well we are doing a barter of sorts but they are basically giving it to me. (Have I ever mentions I have some wonderful friends????) . The bed I currently have was my Mother's. Its over thirty years old and the springs keep poking out of it. Magazines between the mattress and the sheets have protected me from this for now but its life span is really over. Its used up, worn out and need to be thrown out.

This is so much fun for me. It means brand new sheets, it means I will finally make the dust ruffle that matches the curtains and it means that I will have incentive to finish that other quilt I started for my room.  I will adjust the current quilt that I use as a bed spread to fit the new bed. I had thought about making something new but its still in good shape and I really like it,( not to mention that it already matches the curtains.) In my chilly house you need at least two quilts on the bed.  All that will be left to do is paint and replace the carpet. So exciting. 

So now all I can do is wait for the new bed to arrive. Which could be any minute now. :-)


In the mean time I will show you a little project I did this weekend. I got the inspiration from one of the blogs that I  read and I cannot for the life of me remember which one it was. Sorry I would give you credit if I could but I cannot remember nor can I find the entry again. The blogger had painted an old tin for pet food, she put her pets name on the tin but I had other ideas. I loved it and I also happened to have this old tin hanging around.

A little spray paint, some stenciling and I turned it into this.  I love it and its so much prettier looking than the plastic containers that I was using for the dry cat food. There are 4 of them to be honest so condensing it down to one will be space saving. The best thing of all was I had all the ingredients on hand so it did not cost me a dime and I  finally found a use for that big old popcorn tin. :-)

I love tins and baskets and containers. This just ticks all of the boxes for me.

Linda

Flight of the Bumble Bees

It has been a busy week here at the old homestead. Wednesday night I hosted my book club monthly meeting. Nothing like having your friends in for a visit to light a fire in your tail to get the house cleaned up. You see in my head, in my fantasy life, my delusional self is Martha Stewart incarnate. My house is impeccable, five minutes in the kitchen and I have a mouth watering banquet prepared and everything is perfect. In reality, I am vacuuming up bales of cat hair, stuffing papers and junk into drawers and in a burst of culinary genius, after weeks of contemplating the menu  I serve up cheese, crackers and a veg tray. Sigh. Some day my fantasy life will become more of a reality but until then I have wonderfully forgiving friends who are willing to wrap up in blankets, braving the chill of my house (in spite my running the furnace in JUNE!!) and said wonderful things about the food and the house and me. They are a fabulous, that special circle of women. I would not care to think of my life without them in it.

Thursday night I was off to a local production of Steel Magnolia's which was fabulous. I marvel at the talent of people in this town. Supper out at the local Irish pub then off to the play, not a bad way to spend the evening, in spite of the torrential downpours.

Tonight it was out with the No Cook Friday Club. There are a group of us that go out every Friday night for supper, then coffee, then home. We have great fun and for me it certainly beats sitting at home on a Friday night. I hate cooking on Fridays, the week is over, I am tired and cranky, and I just want to relax.We were discussing it a lunch one day and then two of us decided nothing was stopping us from going out for supper on Friday. We thought we would only do this on pay days  but that lasted for one week.  Since my farmer is still off in a field somewhere (will explain this in another post some day)  I have to grab my social life where I can. Its a lovely way to end the week. We have a lot of laughs, lots of fun, good conversation and I really look foreward to it each week. We don't care who comes, anyone is welcome. Our group can sometimes just be two of us or as many as 7 or 8 people.

Now the weekend stretches ahead of me, two days of not being at work. I have the usual lists made, one for rain and one for no rain. I am also off to a Tupperware party. I haven't been to a Tupperware party since the '80's and I am looking foreward to it. Then in two weeks the Carpenter and the Organizer are coming to spend the weekend. A lovely birthday present for me. SQUEEE!!!! They have not been out for awhile and I am looking forward to having them for the weekend. I don't even have a big long list of things for the Carpenter to do so he will not be worked to death this trip. All I need him to do is remove the dishwasher and put in a light switch at the top of the stairs.

Don't get me wrong, if I had the money I would have him working on the million plans I have for this house. My wish list out strips my budget all the time. Slow and steady, it will all get done. I have already done tons to the house and what is left to do will be done. Until that time I can amuse myself by pulling up the floor in the kitchen. I have a faux cork floor in my future!! Probably in July but its coming!!

Linda