Weekend in Review: Mission Accomplished!

We finally finished putting together the daybed for the library!  We got it moved in and assembled Sunday afternoon.  It is bigger than I anticipated, but not too bad, all things considered.  I want many more pillows for the back, and I keep thinking I would love some handmade pillows with batik fabrics, but it may be too busy with the pattern of the coverlet.  I love the look though, and the copper colored metal leaves on the wall were just the right touch. I love it when that happens!

Since we also got the water filters switched out and the photos taken to list my new card sets on the etsy shop, I would say we had a very productive weekend! And, as an aside, I just noticed one of my dominoes was listed in a Treasury last week. That is always nice!

Ornery is taking at least part of the day off tomorrow to return the water filter to Culligan, and to go downtown to transfer 507 to the LLC. Once that is done, I can contact the mortgage company and the insurance company to find out what needs to be done there.  It is all new to me, and I may not have to change anything at all, but just in case...

Looks like it will be a toasty week here in Oklahoma.  Not the usual triple digits, but certainly too hot to want to work outside! Today Ornery's mom is coming to work a puzzle with me, but other than tomorrow's errands, I don't have a thing planned for the week.  I vote that this is the week someone rents 507!

Choosing our Perspective

My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the wildfires of Arizona this week.  The loss of an entire team of highly trained professionals is devastating to the entire area as well as the friends and families of those men.  It is the same for our state of Oklahoma with the loss of a team of highly trained storm chasers in the last Moore tornado system.

They all knew going into the jobs they were living on the edge, but somehow, just as those young men and women who join the military, it doesn't seem like death and disaster will ever really happen to them.  They take all the precautions possible and do their job to the best of their ability but sometimes the game changes and all is lost.

It seems like a lot of "games" are changing these days.  Crazy hot weather up north, inundated with rain to the worst flooding in recorded history, and cool weather here where normally we see triple digit temps by this time in the summer.  I sat out on the patio this morning in 59 degrees! The weather isn't all that is changing, but it is surely a sign of the times.

I don't spend much time reading or listening to the news, and I never watch it unless I am someplace out and it is unavoidable.  Darren Hardy in his book, The Compound Effect, spoke about the futility of attending to the news when one could do nothing about it.  I don't know that his is the only reason I choose to remain ignorant, but certainly he has a point--there is nothing I can do about it, and worrying doesn't help anyone.

Yesterday in a moment of introspection, I was reminded to live my life with generosity and gratitude.  While that is a challenge when circumstances seem to point to a downward spiral in many areas, it is not impossible. So instead of getting frustrated at things that don't go as planned, I will look for the good around me and focus on that.  It is proven that what we focus on is what we get more of--so I choose joy, love, health, happiness and peace.  Will you join me in looking for the good and remarking on it?

Weekend in Review: Gardening

It was a really rough week for me: mostly I have been on ice and either sitting or reclining. I managed to prepare meals and with Ornery's help keep up with a few things around the house, but that was about it.  I was really glad we had done so much cooking last weekend (even though that was the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak.)

I finally broke down and went to my chiropractor on Friday, and have some relief, but have to go back again tomorrow for more adjustments.  More of my spine was out of alignment than was in, I think, but the worst and most painful was the pelvis.  At any rate, hopefully I am on the mend and can get on with life.  Apparently the original cause of all my pain was toxicity from paint, chemicals and pesticides at 507. My neck went out and caused all sorts of other problems.  Besides adjustments I am on some lymph detoxifying supplements.

Saturday morning Elizabeth and Michael went to the Farmer's Market near their house and brought me all sorts of goodies for my garden.  Four pepper plants, two tomatoes, a beautiful nasturtium, some herbs and a few other things of the edible variety.  They ended up spending most of the day with us, making a couple of runs to Lowe's to add to my container garden and helping to plant several new flowers and all the vegetables.  I will take photos tomorrow when there is sunshine, but I am very happy with what we have so far.

Ornery finally bought a new grill (our old one was 18 years old and falling apart) and spent most of the afternoon assembling it and we dined high on the hot-dogs for dinner. :)  We are planning to host Ornery's mom and Michael and Elizabeth for dinner tomorrow evening in honor of Mom's birthday. She is coming in the afternoon to work a puzzle with me, then we are grilling burgers and having brownie sundaes for dessert.

In addition to the outdoor chores, Ornery and I worked together at clearing out the huge dresser in our room as one of the first steps toward getting our new bed set up. He went through a lot of stuff and threw a little bit away.  We are accumulating quite a pile for charity, and another for giving to various family members. Life changes and with it our needs change, so it is nice to clear things out from time to time.

The weather was beautiful all weekend and we were so happy to spend much of it outside. We didn't accomplish nearly everything on my list of chores, but enough that we feel good about it.

A Little Too Close

The tornadoes last night were a little too close for comfort hitting about 4 miles from Zoe Cottage. No injuries were reported, and the property damage comparatively minimal.  We were very blessed to have been spared the nightmare other Oklahoma communities have experienced with the storms this spring.

Ornery was on his way over to his sister's house to return some tools we had borrowed when the hail first hit. He turned around to come home then realized he had already gone through the worst of it and the storm was headed this way, so he turned back again. While he was there, they stood outside and watched the funnels forming, swirling and starting down before going back up into the clouds.

The hail hit Zoe Cottage a couple times, mostly pea to dime size, but some bits were golf ball sized as well. I don't think we have any damage but I haven't really checked, either.  The sirens went off twice before Ornery got home. We don't have a TV to watch the weather unfold, so I used the old "observe it from the porch" method of gauging whether to hunker down in the utility room or not.  About the time I was ready to turn on a radio, my SIL called to say a tornado had touched down just a few miles from us.  By then the sirens had already turned off and I was back to reading my book.

The forecast is for another three+ inches of rain for our area in the next 24 hours, which will cause an equally dangerous situation since the ground is saturated and the area creeks and rivers are swollen.  There is a flood warning in effect through Saturday.  The Cottage is situated at a high point in our neighborhood and well sloped so I don't anticipate a flooding problem here, but certainly travel along some roads will be tricky.  Unfortunately with the heat we are experiencing, the storms coming in may also be severe--not something I am looking forward to!

The discussions this morning over coffee revolved around storm shelters, safe rooms and so forth.  Ornery said we could make our utility into a safe room relatively easily if we wanted to. Elizabeth and I discussed basements (which are pretty rare here) and other options, but decided that we'd rather take our chances with the storm than die from drowning because we couldn't get out of a flooded below-ground shelter.

I read a string of blog comments after the Moore tornadoes in which there was much uproar about the lack of safe rooms and basements here when we have such a history of twisters. One man said the reason there are not many basements here is because the frost line is high enough the foundations are shallower than in places up north.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons, but at least in this part of the state the two most prevalent reasons for not having a basement are the soil (clay) and the water table.

Every basement in Oklahoma I have ever been in had mold problems. The clay soil holds the moisture in and makes keeping them dry almost impossible. I understand there are moisture barriers that can be applied, but I have never been in one that had the more advanced shields.  The clay also moves a LOT over the course of a few decades. Each time it gets wet then dries out (which is inevitable when the weather in the summer hits the triple digits for weeks at a time) the clay expands and contracts causing cracks in the cement.

The neighbor next door to 507 has 66 piers in his house, most of them interior.  I can't imagine his house would even be standing if it was over a basement!  He said the neighborhood is built on 27 feet of clay before bedrock, so no matter how deep the foundations were dug it seems there would be shifting since I can't imagine a builder of a 1300 sq. ft. house going 27 feet down for the foundation!

I am not a geologist or an architectural engineer, but it seems to me that clay would not make for a very friendly environment for a basement. That leaves safe rooms, which need excessive reinforcement to withstand EF5 tornadoes such as the one that hit Moore.  Elizabeth told me she heard they were going to begin mandating that new homes be built with a safe room inside, but that doesn't help the people who aren't buying a new home.

I hope to never have the experience of seeing a tornado up-close and personal, but I won't live in fear every time the skies cloud over, either. Either it's my time to go or not.

Learning Curves and Rainy Days

My inability to readily absorb printed information may end up being a handicap in this book-keeping endeavor I have set myself to do. My SIL offered to lend me a couple of books on tax deductions, accounting and so forth for rental property income, but since I can't tell you the names of the main characters in a novel I finished yesterday, I am not sure reading them will do me much good.  One apparently has a handy chart in the back that I may find helpful, however, so I will be happy to check them out when we get together next.

I ended up with Quicken for Rental Property Management, and I spent 30 (frustrating) minutes online with customer support chatting about how to make my life easier. Eventually --not because of what he said, but because I stumbled around long enough to figure it out on my own--I got my receipts entered.  I can say it would have been MUCH easier to begin at the beginning of the year instead of trying to play catch up.  But, for all that I am nearly caught up anyway! :)  I hope at the end of the year the reports are easy to generate and read.

Now if we could make that much progress at 507!  We have had rain and more rain, which makes it difficult to paint outside.  It has stormed pretty much all day today, and yesterday evening we even got a healthy dose of small hail with the rain.  Things are REALLY green today, and the flowers are loving the moisture.  I wish there was a knob to balance out the rainfall so we might enjoy a spot of it when the days get hotter and a bit less right now when we so desperately need to be working outside.

We didn't have tornadoes near us, but others in the state were not so fortunate.  Last I heard there were as many as 91 fatalities from the EF5 tornado that hit Moore, OK on Monday, but there seem to be conflicting reports on the actual number of confirmed deaths. Many of the deaths were elementary school children who perished when their schools were hit. There were several schools hit, and neighborhoods destroyed completely. Some houses were completely blown away, leaving only a bare foundation behind.

It is hard for me to fathom disasters of that magnitude, but one report I read said the twister tore through a 20 mile swath. Events such as this really bring life into perspective, don't they?

A to Z Blogging: T is for Tornadoes

Last Wednesday night was a wild weather night for us here in the Tulsa, OK area.  I had worked hard all day and was really tired.  I usually sleep really well in the rain, but around midnight and again at 1:00 the tornado sirens went off.  Between the sirens and the thunder, I didn't get much sleep.

I have lived in Oklahoma for over 30 years and for all the times I have heard the sirens, I have never actually seen a tornado.  We have driven through the paths of a few tornadoes, and witnessed the devastation they can bring about.  I am glad I have never seen one up close and personal.

Have you ever seen a tornado?

This post is part of a blog hop.  Check out other participants by clicking the link on my side bar.

Weekend in Review: House Hunting

This is my latest WIR post since I started writing them.

Ornery arrived home late Thursday night, a full day earlier than he thought he would.  I had made an appointment with a mortgage lender for Friday morning, and we went and filled out an application for a loan on an investment property.  We haven't found the property yet, but we are approved and know what our limits are now.  After we left there, we opened a new account for our investment properties, and looked online for properties to see.

Saturday we looked at four houses with a Realtor, made an offer on one but didn't get accepted.  We will continue looking and learning more about being landlords.  Ornery mowed the yard -- first time in two weeks, but since it has been so blasted hot it hasn't really been growing much.  He also pulled out the last of the holly bush I cut back several weeks ago by the driveway with the help of Big Red, and trimmed back the boxwood bushes in the front.  Trim is a kind way to say what he did to them--they are now about 1/2 their former size.

The framing around the garage door was somewhat warped leaving a rather significant gap between it and the wall, and Ornery had been intending to secure it better to the house from the time we moved in last May. He finally got around to it this weekend.  The sound of him hammering on it could be heard all over inside the house.  The nails he used were more like spikes!  It is now repaired, and we are contemplating the need for exterior paint this fall or spring and I have been deliberating color schemes.  Enough of the boring taupe... I am thinking about painting the main part cream and the shutters and front door green (surprise!)

He also made numerous (at least 5) trips to Lowe's to replace a sprinkler head. It needed a riser to work in the new bed he built a few weeks ago.  Who knew there were so many different sizes and pieces required for the job??!  Once that was finished, we planted the two abelia bushes I had gotten at the first of the summer.  One may or may not make it, but the other looks to be faring okay so far.  We had originally planned to put them in the front bed after removing the boxwoods, but rather than let them die altogether, we decided to get them in the ground and at least give them a chance to survive.

The bed certainly will accommodate more than just those two bushes, so I took all my old flower seeds and broadcast them over the surface.  I plan to keep the ground wet so we shall see what comes up.  I wanted a bed full of flowers, and that is what I will have if even half the seeds come up!

I spent some time in the studio Monday morning covering some little mint tins with more scraps.  I completed three of them before I got so sleepy I could hardly keep my eyes open.  I don't know if it is the heat or something else, but all of us were very tired on Monday.  I will say that house-hunting is an exhausting occupation!  I also threw away all the dead flowers that didn't survive last week.  There were four hanging pots that were dry and crispy.  There are a few more that need to be emptied, but they are not the eye sores that the hanging pots were.  I also swept the back porch and cleaned up a bit out there.

We have invited Ornery's sister and her husband for dinner this evening, and plan to fix hobo dinners with steak (as opposed to pork chops which we used to prefer before we quit eating pork) and a variety of vegetables.  There is a statewide burn ban in effect, but it is okay to use a gas grill on the patio.  It has certainly been hot and dry, so I can see why there is a high fire danger.

This morning I spent a bit of time out in the yard applying fertilizer and watering.  My ferns are simply amazing--so lush and green.  I had to kill a grasshopper that had been dining on one of them rather prodigiously, and since then I have found many new tender shoots.  NOT that the plant minded sharing some of its foliage--it is truly an excellent specimen of an asparagus fern!  I also planted some cuttings from one of Elizabeth's philodendron plants.  I am truly amazed at how well those things are doing.  Too bad some of the other plants haven't produced as well.

I still have four more empty tins to cover, and then I think I will move on to the journals I have to cover.  I am going to use maps on a couple of them--that will be different from my usual fare.  I still need to finish painting the little table for the sewing machine, and I might get to that tomorrow.  Life seems to be inordinately full these days. I don't mind a bit!!

Already August!

The summer is cooking right along--literally here in the mid-west!  Triple digit temperatures are forecast for at least the next ten days with lows only in the mid 80's which means there is really no reprieve.

Meanwhile, Ornery and Janese are headed home.  Last night they were already into Oregon and hoping to make Boise before they stopped for the night.  Tuesday they had a fun day sightseeing in Seattle taking a boat tour of Elliott Bay and walking through the Pike Place Market.  They saw the space needle, but didn't want to wait the hour or more to get tickets to go up in it.  They also saw some interesting little museums and other sights that I am sure Ornery will be happy to share photos of when he returns.

The trip (so far) was exceptionally productive in all ways.  They were able to load all of Daniel's stuff into the truck (with the help of two paid helpers) in one day (Sunday).  The owner of the house behind offered to take over the payments on the house (rent to own) to use as an investment property.  This will prevent the house from going into foreclosure and affecting his credit.  They were able to meet with Daniel Monday night for a short visit, and retrieve his vehicle early on Tuesday so they were able to leave for home sooner than they had planned.

The host couple fed them until Ornery said they were ready to pop.  Apparently the woman has a hefty helping of the gift of hospitality and bonhomie.  They were treated very well all while they were there and couldn't say enough about how kind and generous the couple was.

Monday Elizabeth stayed home from work still sick from whatever she had on Friday and Saturday.  Mostly she stayed in bed or watched movies with me.  I didn't do much that day either.  By about 5:00 PM she rallied, and went to work on Tuesday.  After work she started on an art project for a friend, the first art she has done in ages and ages!  I hope to post a photo of it when she is done.  This morning she got an offer from the place here in Broken Arrow that she interviewed with on Friday.  They offered her the same pay she is making now, which is really a considerable raise when one takes into account the savings in gas and tolls!

I have been pretty quiet here--working puzzles, watching movies, reading books--that sort of thing.  The house is beginning to show the lack of attention, however, so I am going to spend some time on that project today.  The big outing was yesterday morning when I shopped for groceries.  I really haven't left the house other than that since Ornery left.  I miss my chauffeur!

Weekend in Review: Hot Work

The weekend began on a rather disconcerting note when Elizabeth got a call Friday evening telling her that someone tried to charge $500.00 on her debit card at a Walgreen's store in Louisiana.  She was very grateful to a) have a second account with an active debit card and b) know that her bank refused the charge and took care of the problem immediately.  She and Michael left Saturday morning for a week-long trip to visit his sister in Washington, DC and it would have been tricky to travel without a card.  Hopefully by the time she gets home, a new card will have been issued and all will be well again.

Saturday morning we made our weekly (at least) trip to Lowe's after breakfast.  We bought (10) landscape timbers and (20 bags) topsoil, white spray paint and a fabric covered box.  Interesting combination, no?  It was HOT already at 9:00 as Ornery was loading things up, and it didn't cool off any throughout the day.

The landscaping in the front yard has been an eyesore ever since we moved in.  The designer put metal edging next to the flowerbed and cut stone on the outside of that, but not close enough to keep the grass from encroaching.  We took out the creeping juniper last summer, and a few months ago removed a couple of the dwarf nandina bushes, but the whole thing is so full of Bermuda grass that it is beyond hope of ever cleaning it out.  With that in mind, we decided to start over with a raised bed keeping only the two crape myrtle bushes on either side of the big window.

The existing plants include overgrown boxwood hedge right next to the house, creeping phlox, and five dwarf nandinas in addition to some daylilies, iris, and a couple perennial plants I bought last fall on clearance.

First, we decided to use the rock from the outside of the front bed to make a small circular bed where the holly by the drive is/was. That means removing the holly, moving the stone to the other side of the driveway and setting it, filling the area with topsoil and planting. We plan to use one of the nandinas and the three perennial plants in this new bed.

The other four bushes will go in a new bed in the back corner which Ornery built on Saturday with some landscape timbers.  There is a bit of a problem with a sprinkler head smack dab in the corner that will need to be dealt with, but the bed will do a great job of covering over what is left of the other holly that we took out last fall and help control a little bit of the bunny traffic through the yard.  The bushes will be joined with some iris and mums at some point, making an easy to maintain little area.  By raising it we won't have to worry about all the cables and wires that run right through there. Win-win.

In addition to building the corner bed on Saturday, Ornery moved several decorative stones  and did some other outside work.  We needed to spray the grass with round-up before we could do more, and the heat pretty well did us both in.

While he was working on all that, I used white spray paint on a little vanity stool and painted a bookcase white for my studio.  I also watered, did some laundry, dishes and cooking. The main thing I concentrated on was helping to keep Ornery from getting dehydrated.  I was successful in this endeavor.

Sunday we decided to go a bit easier on ourselves as my back was really screaming and he was just worn out from the heat Saturday.  After I fixed a big breakfast, we returned the 20 bags of topsoil to Lowe's.  It smelled strongly of crude oil, and since we didn't know the cause of that, we decided to use a different product.  Since we weren't really ready for the dirt yet anyway, we will get it at a later date.  Ornery also sprayed the new bed with Round-up to get the grass under control.  I assembled the newly covered and painted stool and moved the rest of my things into the freshly painted bookcase.  And that was it for Sunday's activity.  (I posted pictures of the new studio here.)

Ornery decided that the chairs he made for Micah and Makayla weren't nice enough so he is going to remake them using some different methods. They are rather "industrial" looking, and I am glad he is going to do them over. He had used some scrap materials and rather than attempt to hide the fasteners he had a lot of screws showing.  They are well made, just not very pretty.  He was not happy with them, but he learned a lot while making them, so the effort was not altogether wasted.  I think I will slap some paint on them and use them to hold a potted plant on the patio. 

Resurrection of the List Journal

Lately it seems like I have just been drifting through life without much purpose or direction.  I get a few things done here and there, but not nearly what I used to accomplish.  Last week  when I was cleaning things up in the studio, I came across my old list journal.  It still had a lot of usable pages in it, so I figured I might try to resurrect the old list making habit.

The way I like to work is to start out by making a list of all the things I want to accomplish throughout the week, then break it down by making five smaller lists on the same page for each day.  At the very bottom I make a tentative menu plan and add the food prep needed to the daily lists.  On the far right side, I list errands and grocery needs.  One page per week is all I seem to need to keep things going.

So far this week I have been twice as productive as I have been for the last several months, but I guess I wore myself out because this morning I went back to bed and slept for an extra three hours!  On the plus side, we have been eating better and I feel good at the end of the day knowing that I have accomplished something.  So far I have made lists reasonable enough that I am actually able to cross almost everything off.  I am trying to get to the level of not too little or too much.  I am almost there.

It was good for me to take a break from it for a while (about a year) since I had become rather obsessive about both making and following the lists. The lists were often so long and overwhelming that they drove me away from accomplishing things instead of being beneficial.   I think I can handle it again without overdoing it--if not, I'll go back to slacker mode.  I am trying to de-stress, not make things worse!

The heat has been oppressive this week.  We have been under an ozone alert each day and the lack of wind makes things feel so much hotter.  I have been trying to keep up with the watering and "tea" schedule for the garden, and so far I have only lost one plant.  The tomatoes are all split, one of the peppers has a scorch mark on it and the birds have eaten every strawberry that has come on so far, but I have only lost a couple of plants I put in from seed and I am pretty sure I will have a nice crop of jalapeno peppers in a few weeks.

Ornery finally got the fertilizer on the lawn last weekend (we had it for six months before we moved, so that is why I say finally!) and the grass looks pretty happy. It was organic and the bag said it could be applied any time.  Much as I hate to use the water, I have had the sprinkler on this week since it is so hot. I also re-potted the two shamrocks I got in March and found them a new home outside on the patio.  I got the top coat put on the little patio table Ornery built, so it is finally out there between our rockers, awaiting a cool morning for us to enjoy our coffee out there.

Ornery's travel schedule seems to have changed again, and now he won't be gone for so long.  Site trips are financially beneficial, but I really do enjoy having him home.  I think he just wishes they would make up their minds so he knew what to do!

Today's task is to do some cooking and paint the bookcase in my studio.  I am going to have to put some wild music on and wake up a bit more if I am to accomplish much!

Weekend in Review: Weathering the Storms

Saturday and Sunday morning, Ornery and I took our coffee out to the back porch to rock and visit.  I was trying to remember the last time I had morning coffee on the porch and I am pretty sure it has been almost two years!  I used to enjoy it so much, but with moving and all that has transpired over the last couple of years, the habit fell by the wayside.  We resurrected it in style. :)

Elizabeth went downtown to take a test at about 8:00 and Ornery and I went on a date to Mimi's Cafe for breakfast.  We dropped by Sam's club for a few items, then home to visit with Ornery's mom for a few hours.  She came to work a puzzle with me. Elizabeth's knee was bothering her so she stayed close to home after her test instead of riding to Oklahoma City as she had planned.  The rest of the day we spent in quiet pursuits, keeping an eye on the weather which was forecast to be severe and dangerous.

We didn't get the tornadoes they were predicting, but others were not so fortunate.  At any rate, we were grateful to be home and out of the weather.  Sunday morning we had a nice rain, but other than that, we just saw a lot of wind and cloudy skies.

Ornery and Elizabeth got the new big loom set up on Saturday and she started my next shawl on Sunday morning.  She seemed pleased with the construction saying it was a very tight weave, which should make the finished product very nice.

Since the rain seemed to be over, she spent the afternoon out and about while Ornery and I hung around the house in quiet pursuits.  He stained parts of a box he is making for Elizabeth, (was supposed to be a Christmas present last year!) took care of a clogged drain, and worked on the Grace and Righteousness Ministries website.  I painted a couple of pages in my art journal and read.

This week I will be editing a few message outlines for the Grace and Righteousness website, then I will start on the next eight message sermon series for Impact: How to be Ridiculously Happy, no matter what.

I doubt I will want to write a lot after being on the computer so much for "work," but if I can, I would like to get a few more letters written for the Letters from Zoe Cottage blog.   They are not turning out to be letters for children by any means, but I am hoping to get 365 written and have them published as a devotional book before my grandchildren reach adulthood!

Otherwise, I plan to work a little bit outside, maybe do a little housework (wouldn't want to be too ambitious!) and read. The weather is supposed to be beautiful--cool in the mornings and sunny with low to mid 70's in the afternoons. That is absolutely perfect weather as far as I am concerned.

Weekend in Review: Hi's and Lows

First, I would just like to say that whatever caused these beautiful days to linger, I am thrilled!  Saturday and Sunday were amazing!

Such a lovely spot, and one we occupied intermittently throughout the weekend

The rain earlier in the week followed by the lovely sunshine greened up the grass almost everywhere overnight.  Our tulips bloomed this week, but are almost done.  They were surprises since we didn't plant them, and all but one plant had red flowers--the other was purple.  The creeping phlox blooms were white, so when we have to pull them out to rework the bed, I won't feel bad if they don't survive.  I really like the pink and periwinkle colored flowers the best on those, although I do plan to attempt to save them.  Unfortunately, it seems I have the best luck keeping the white plants alive. Figures.

We all slept in on Saturday morning, and ended up rushing around a bit so we could get breakfast and go garage sale shopping.  I did a search on Craigslist for sales in our town (as opposed to going into Tulsa or other surrounding areas) and programmed Naggie (GPS) with the addresses.  We stopped by our usual breakfast spot to dine and were on the road to the first sale by 8:45.  I think we hit about 9 sales and found nothing I really couldn't have done without, but I did score a few fun things like a very small display case, some old CD's for $1 each, cheesy jewelry I will dismantle to use for art projects, and a like-new Richard Scarry book for the grands.

After scouring Craigslist for several weeks, Ornery finally found a router table he thought he could make work at ReTool. Unfortunately, the little router he bought to go with it doesn't really work, but his old one will.  ReTool does not give refunds.  Bummer.  Since we spent the morning at garage sales, we missed the lumber yard to buy the corner molding for the bathroom, so we'll have to go next week.  I really did mean to do that before the weekend, but it slipped my mind.

He worked a little while on the bathroom, trying to figure out how to finish off the edge of the carpet.  It has been a bit confounding to him since he has never done it before nor seen anyone else do it.  We also worked together to pull all the (hundreds) nails from the first loom he and Elizabeth built.  We saved the wood, even though it was just a 2X4 split in half.  I am pretty sure we will find some use for it.

I am amazed at how well the background of the tile my sister painted matches the wall color. 

We had to make a trip to Lowe's for some screws for the new table and bought some top soil to raise a low spot in the back yard.  I am sure we didn't buy enough soil, but hopefully we can get it a little more level by the end of the summer. I don't really like puddles of standing water hanging around--they make great mosquito breeding grounds!

You can see where we added cotton seed hulls and top soil to help raise the low area just beyond the pergola.  I figure in a month you won't be able to distinguish it from the rest of the lawn.  Gotta love Bermuda grass!

While we were out in the yard, we struck up a conversation with our neighbor.  She came over and toured the house (although they have lived here for 10 years she had never been inside!) and we visited on the drive for a while.  Then I wandered into the studio for a little session with my art journal and twinks.

Elizabeth traveled with us in the morning, but spent the afternoon and evening out gallivanting with a friend.  She came home pink and rested.

Sunday morning Elizabeth finished her first essay for one of the classes she is taking, then we invited a friend for lunch al fresco and the two of them went to Redbud Valley nature preserve.  She was even more pink when she returned from that outing, as she was out in the sun longer. It doesn't look to be a bad burn, however, so hopefully it will turn to tan instead of peeling.

The carpet is not as tight as he would like, but the last of the floor is laid, the tack strip attached and the carpet edge no longer presents a tripping hazard. :)

Ornery spent the day working on the bathroom floor and finally finished everything except replacing the baseboards. That should take an evening or two this week, then I think he plans to make some Mason Bee houses and begin building a table for our entry hall.  Not one to jump into any new project too quickly, he has been gathering plans and doing research for months in preparation for this table.  I can hardly wait to see what he comes up with!

I spent a little more time in my studio with my journal, read for a while, swept off the back porch and did a spot of cleaning.  We opened up the windows to enjoy the lovely day and it has been so pleasant to have the fresh air flowing through.  We drove to a town nearby to buy a few flower pots from a guy we found on Craigslist then scavenged a chair from the neighbor's curb to use on the porch for plants.  Ornery commented that it was starting to take on the look of a jungle out there.  I smiled.

A view of the pergola/patio facing the other direction... 

Meet Freddie Fernhead.  I bought him last summer and managed to keep him alive not only through the summer but the winter as well.  It isn't quite as full after losing much of its foliage when I first took it in the house, but it is coming back with a vengeance!  I am quite impressed with myself! 

This week I have a massive list of things I hope to accomplish.  My dream of using April as a month of non-stop art seems to have driven me to new heights of industriousness as I try to get all the little niggling projects wrapped up so I have nothing hanging over my head.  I was up at 3:30 this morning and got busy right away to finish editing the sixth message.  It is just now 8:00 and I have already finished it and loaded the next one into the document.  Now I am off to cross things off the list.

3.21.2012

It is already the middle of the week and I have to wonder where the time gets to!  I have managed to edit another message and start on a third, (hopefully to finish that one today)  worked a lovely 750 piece puzzle my MIL gave me for my birthday, and yesterday I played a little bit with my twinks in the art journal.  My lack of drawing skill makes the exercise frustrating but I still love the colors, and as I play around with both the drawing and the painting, I expect I will eventually find my niche.

I need to move past the notion that my art has to look "real" or like anyone/everyone else's art.  I am not really interested in people seeing my art journal pieces--they are sort of a brain-dump and I don't want to have to explain or feel the need to defend them.  This is something new for me--both the art and the privacy wishes--and I am a little surprised at my feelings!

We have had several gray days and a nice amount of rain this week.  Ornery helped me move my newly potted plants to the covered porch so they wouldn't flood.  The forecast had predicted 4 to 8 inches of rain with possible hail and high winds, so I was afraid they would be ruined.  We got a hair over 2 inches of rain and, as far as I know, no hail.  It seems to have moved on for now, and while there are chances for rain for the rest of the weekdays, it looks like Saturday will be lovely--mid to upper 70's and sunny!

One thing I have not been doing is writing on my blog! Posts are getting fewer and farther between, but life is quiet and I don't have much to say--at least not for public consumption! :)  I think I would like to start taking a photo each day and posting it, but I am not going to stress about it if I miss a day.  It would be good to improve my photography skills, and as with the art, improvement will only happen with experimentation and practice.

Weekend in Review: Food, Phones, Phantoms and Floors

I bought a few groceries Thursday and decided Friday would be a great day to do a bit of cooking.  I have to admit I have been a real slacker in that department lately, and feeling a tad guilty about it.  So Friday morning I put a roast in the crock-pot and cooked a bunch of chicken and made Chicken Packets, Chicken Broccoli and Rice Casserole, Chicken Tortellini Soup, chopped chicken for Chicken and Dressing Casserole and baked 2 green chile quiches.

Much inspiration was gleaned while looking through Once a Month Cooking (which is where the recipe for Chicken Packets came from--although my copy is not the new revised and expanded edition--I have had it for about 20 years!)  I had forgotten about a lot of those recipes and I have to admit my lapse in cooking was mostly due to being terribly uninspired. 

After work, Ornery worked out in the Man Cave on a plant bench using some of the treated lumber we had gotten for garden beds.  He had already cut two boards, so they wouldn't take it back with the others.  We figured this might be a good use for the wood to get it out of the garage and give me something to set the pots of plants on so they would be off the ground.

I plan to paint it later on--after he builds the second bench.  I am trying to figure out which of the many colors of paint we have left on the shelf to use on the project. I do have quite a few options!

Ornery also re-baited the traps in the garage. The first round of peanut butter was completely gone--it didn't even leave a greasy spot!  He added more peanut butter and moved the spring a bit to make it more sensitive and hopefully catch our little phantom.

Saturday morning while Elizabeth and Ornery were at the aviation work day, I made Calzones, spaghetti sauce and chili.  I also finished putting the fringe on the red and black shawl on the loom, created on a new page in my art journal and dusted the living room.

The red and black shawl on the end of the loom is the one we finished Saturday.  The red and gray on the loom was started Sunday morning while we listened to the sermon. We finished it off at 7:30 PM Sunday evening.

 After lunch, Elizabeth went to see if she could find some Dr Marten's shoes to wear to work and Ornery took a nap.  I downloaded my new CD (which arrived with two new puzzles in the morning mail.)  The baking I had planned to do along with the other cooking didn't get done.

Elizabeth was successful with her shoe search although she ended up having to order the pair she wanted.  When she got home she suggested we go look at phones since hers was behaving like a teen-aged girl--moody and unpredictable.  Her contract isn't up until December, meaning a hefty fee would need to be paid to get a new phone, but mine was already up for renewal, so she bought me a new phone ($29.00!!)  and took my old android (which I paid 10 times that for a year and a half ago!)

The rest of the day was spent re-entering all my phone numbers, which for some reason refused to load onto the new phone. I like the new one but it will take a bit of getting used to. It is still an android model, but branded ATT instead of HTC, which is what I had before.  This is Elizabeth's first smart phone but I could tell she was already getting into the capabilities after just a short time of working with it.  As for me, I found a cool wallpaper with birds on a wire that fly around... it entertained me for quite some time. :)

Saturday night was rainy, and cut short by an hour since we set our clocks forward an hour for Daylight Saving Time.

Sunday morning, the traps were empty again. This time he baited with cheese, although that seems even more unlikely to catch it to me... I am afraid we will have to resort to something less humane like sticky traps or poison--neither of which appeal to me but I really can't abide the thought of housing a rat!

We listened to the sermon and I worked one of my new puzzles, then we dined on roast beef and mashed potatoes--Ornery's favorite meal in the whole world! :)

Ornery worked on the bathroom floor before and after lunch.  All he lacks is replacing the trim and cleaning up the mess.  He also still has to figure out how to finish off the carpet into the bedroom. I can hardly believe it is almost finished!!

He did a really nice job on it--especially considering this was his first solo attempt at anything like this.  When everything is all put back together, I will post photos of the finished project.

Elizabeth spent a lot of time studying and doing homework for her two classes, hoping to have less of it to do during the week.  She is filling in for another woman who will be out for a couple of weeks or more, and still having to do her job as well, so she is going to be working over-time.

The coming week will be dedicated to finishing off a few projects and helping Elizabeth prepare for a birthday surprise for a friend.  I am also working on a birthday gift for my grandson who will be two in a couple of weeks.  I have a dentist (cleaning) appointment and intend to work several hours a day on editing.  No worries we'll be bored!

Windy

It seems the wind is determined to hasten the arrival of "fall" and has blown all day to dislodge the leaves.  Most have not turned color yet, so it seems a bit premature, but the lawn is littered with little branches and leaves despite their untimely demise.

Otherwise, it is apparently an "Indian Summer" day at 84 degrees and mostly sunny skies. I had planned on working in the garage today painting my little table, but it seems like there are always so many other things that take me away from that project.  Today I did a bit of cooking, and tidying up.  I fixed vegetable stuffed Cornish Hens for lunch, and have soup in the crock pot for dinner. The recipe for the birds is on the recipe blog, but the soup is not really a recipe--just threw some stuff in the pot! I'll write it out if it turns out to be a "do again" recipe.

brrr

It is so rare that I am ever cold these days, but this morning there was a decided chill in the air. It never got above 70 yesterday and it is a chilly 43 degrees right now with a projected high of only 58 with up to 30 mph north winds and a freeze warning for tonight. I turned on the heater.

It was a little chilly in the garage yesterday, but I managed to get a lot done out there.  I put the final coat of paint on my little shelves, put the first coat of butcher block oil on the first set of oak baskets that Ornery made, and got a coat of Gripper (primer) put on the end table after partially dismantling it. I was hoping to start painting the design on it today, but I think I will wait until it warms up a bit out there, or I may set up a table in the dining room to paint on.

The Gripper made me feel sort of sick, so if I use it again, I will certainly set up my operation out in the open air.  I did have the fan on and the garage doors partially open, but it wasn't enough to dispel the fumes.  It could be since this RBTI is cleansing the liver that I was more sensitive, but it took me a couple hours to get my equilibrium and a little energy back.  We ended up watching a movie instead of doing anything productive in the evening.

I spent quite a bit of time adding new things to my etsy shop.  Well, they weren't really new things, but new to the shop.  It took a little while to reformat all the photos.  They are jpg pictures, but the camera called them jpe instead. Etsy doesn't recognize that format, so I had to change the letter on each of the descriptions. I rearranged the shop so like things are together, and put up a shop notice for BOGO on the dominoes. The impetus for the activity was another request for a domino, although I don't know if the person will actually buy it since the sale hasn't materialized yet. I think I will add some cards today.

Only six weeks until the ornament and cookie exchange. Time is sure going by quickly. I have decided to go ahead and use my wooden sock ornaments for the exchange so I don't have to make all those others. There is still a lot of other stuff to do, but at least my ornaments are made. I am trying to get as many of my other interior decor projects done as possible before then, but there are sure a lot of them!

Ahhh-tumn

~~ It looks like we have finally left the dog days of summer behind and are set to enjoy some of the finest days of the year in Oklahoma--autumn! This morning it is a brisk 53 degrees, and the high is to get up in the low 80's. I can handle these temperatures!  Sadly, I don't have any energy to do anything with them! The past few days I have really been dragging, only able to accomplish a few things throughout the whole day. Somehow I have gotten meals on the table, but if it wasn't for the dishwasher, the kitchen would be in a constant state of turmoil.  I won't even mention the state of the rest of the house!

~~ Ornery patched all the holes in the living room walls last night--all he could reach, anyway. The patches need to be cleaned up a bit and then it will be ready for me to start painting in there. Maybe later today I can start that.

~~ I spoke with Mickie yesterday and she asked if we could craft on Thursday this week--yay!! I have sure missed our gab and art sessions!

~~ This morning I need to put together information packets for the cookie and ornament exchange participants.  It looks like there won't be that many cookies... and I am opting out of that part since I can't eat chocolate or nuts and I don't want to have to sample them that late at night. It will be hard enough to eat dinner that late. I am sure I could "fudge" and eat the cookies, but I don't want to set my healing back.  I think it will be much more fun if I am feeling good!