I Am Woman...Hear Me Roar

It takes 89 steps (all up hill) with an empty dolly to get to the storage shed.

It takes 109 downhill steps to get to the back door with a fully loaded dolly.

(If this situation were reversed, I’d being sprawled in a heap, partially buried in wet leaves with a certain pup licking my face in an attempt to revive me.)

It took 7 round trips (fraught with wet leaves, hidden tree roots, rocks, ditches, etc.) to get all of my stamping supplies transferred from the storage shed to the house.

Or 623 uphill steps.

And 763 downhill steps.

For a grand total of 1,386 steps.

For the sake of perspective, that would be like 69.3 trips up and down your basement stairs. (You should just make it an even 70, because no one wants to hang out on the basement stairs.)

For kicks let’s just say the stairs are rickety and covered w/ wet leaves and while going up the stairs you’re carrying a toddler, and while you’re going down the stairs you’re carrying two toddlers and are accompanied by a Labrador retriever, over whom you’re trying not to trip.

AND someone has turned on the humidifier.

(I look like a 60’s era country-western singer at the moment.)

Anyway, if I did this every day I’m certain I’d have Bonnie Blair thighs.

Thighs of steel are overrated.

I think I’ll go drink a beer.

Painting Paneling....

It's not for the weak of heart or spirit....
especially, when the paneling in question is of the cheap, faux wood variety...
but it sure makes a big difference.
I chose to paint it, rather than replace it with drywall, because, well...it would cost a small fortune, and I don't even want to think about the mess and destruction that would entail...been there, not interested in re-visiting!
And, you know what?
I think the "plank wall" look is rather interesting.
I'm strange like that.

Anyway, the before:

and after:

The color on this wall matches the kitchen cabinets in order to tie the kitchen and dining area together. Genius...I know.

I thought I'd snapped a before shot of this wall, but apparently I was mistaken. So, you'll have to use your imagination.

I chose white for this wall, because the kitchen's beadboard stopped to the left of the door, and I wanted to keep the color on that wall consistent. Again...tying the whole thing together.

I'm looking at this picture, thinking that the wall looks really stark compared to the other one...but, and you have to trust me on this, it looks much better in real life and viewed as a whole. Really.

So, there you have it.
Are you getting sick of this before and after nonsense yet?

Bruce's Hermitage

Today, because it's such a lovely day, and because the trees are starting to reach their peak, and because a lot of people have been asking about it, Sassy and I have decided to give you a photo tour of the yard. I mean it's not like I don't have anything better to do, right? Riiight!

We have 2 acres, roughly square, with the house situated toward the left front as you face it from the road.

This is the view from the front porch, as you walk out the front door. The fence in the foreground makes no sense, because it encloses nothing and the property extends to the road. Although, that is a pretty steep hill from the fence to the road.

Looking diagonally to the right from the front porch. There is a pond on the other side of the road behind the trees.

Diagonally to the left from the front porch. The Chihuahua house is across the road and can be seen behind the post if you look closely.

Looking to the left from the front porch. Have I mentioned how much I like the front porch?

To the right from the back door and facing the backyard. Note the pup soaking up some rays. The driveway is on the other side of the gate and, ordinarily, the dreaded chicken coop can be seen over the top of the fence.

Following the fence diagonally toward the middle of the property. One of Bruce's rock piles is between the fence and the green bush in the foreground.

Looking toward the center of the yard. In the foreground, the reason for all the rocks...the obligatory pond(s) in progress. You can see the lower pond surrounded by the pavers. At the top of the stream and behind that bush is the second pond. The two ponds will be connected by the stream...the water isn't running right now, but when it is...wow!

The "giving tree" (because it holds no less than 8 bird feeders) and yet another rock pile, just to the left of the stream. Oh yeah, there is also the brush pile, which Bruce originally intended to burn, however it's too dry to burn and the birds LOVE it. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to degrade.This picture was actually taken earlier, before the leaves started to turn.

To the left of the back door. The sun was coming in from this direction, so the picture is not as clear as it could be. In the bottom right corner and under the bushes is Sammy's famed hay pile.

The upper pond, looking toward the house.

Diagonally from the far left corner and back toward the front of the property. Note our fuzzy tour guide in the shadows.

Still from the back left corner and looking a little further up the hill and to the left. The small structure in the middle is the well house and the one to the left is the storage shed. There is yet another fence that makes to sense running through the middle of the property...again, it encloses nothing. There is some type of vine growing on it; the leaves resembling grapes, but it's far too shady for grapes.

From the far right corner of the property looking diagonally toward the house...can't see it, can you? If you look toward your left from here you'd see the defunct chicken coop down the path.

From the chicken coop, looking toward the back fence...the storage shed in the middle of the property.

From the chicken coop, looking toward the house.

 

The driveway comes up from the road and curves to the left beside the house.

So there you have it...and now I really have some other stuff to do.

Bathroom Do Over

I've been intending to post these pics for awhile, but when I downloaded them from the camera to the computer every single picture had my finger stuck in the middle of them. And, believe it or not, the second photo session yielded the same results! (I'm a disaster.) So, here we have Round 3.

When I posted the kitchen pictures I mentioned the fact that there was a serious hole-poking problem by a previous resident; so Mr. B advised me to take the pictures of the wall after spackling but prior to sanding, in order to convey just how serious this issue was.

So a few before shots:

This is just one wall in the hall bath. Nearly all the walls in this bathroom looked just like this one:

 

This is the master bath...again same story. The wall color really wasn't this pumpkin-y:

The color here is more accurate. This is the wall beside the shower and across from the toilet in the master bath. Mr. B's theory is that either they used this wall as a bulletin board or used a push pin to hold back the shower curtain and didn't bother to try to find the same hole each time. My theory involves obsession:

Okay now the after shots. A few things to note:

1. Between the two bathrooms there was only one towel rack. That has been remedied.

2. I painted the master bath first...wasn't pleased with the color (I wanted it to have more tan in it); so for the second bathroom I chose what I thought was going to be more what I had in mind. Got it on the wall, and it's almost the same color as the master bath! Sooo, I may end up painting them over at some point in time, if I absolutely can't take it.

3. I still need to add some decor elements to both bathrooms...I'm working on it, I'm working on it!

Because both bathrooms are small, I was really excited to find a double towel rack...how cool is that?

Not terribly exciting here, but at least now the hand towels aren't hanging on the door knobs!

Not an easy picture to take! But I want you to know what a creative genius I am...these light fixtures were an antique-y bronze; they are now a very lovely satin nickel thanks to Rustoleum metallic spray paint. Love it!

So there you have it...no more holes, no more peach!
Next project?
I'm painting paneling!

Of Mice and Men….

And by “Men” I mean teenaged girls…

More specifically…angry teenaged girls.

A few posts ago, I made this statement:

"Mice? Although I respectfully request that they stay outside, and, yeah, I will set out traps and bait to keep them out of my house, you will not find me standing on a kitchen chair screaming my head off if I encounter one. (Okay, so there was one particular incident involving my little sister…but, honestly, that little devil had it coming.)"

The back story is thus:

Many, many years ago, while I was still living in my childhood home, Grandma Ruby came to live with us. As a result, I was promptly evicted from “the pink palace” and sent to the basement to share a bedroom with my younger sister. (No, I’m not bitter…why do you ask?)

Now you should know that for much of our lives my younger sister and I were referred to as ”the girls”. For much of our lives we shared a bedroom. For much of our lives we were dressed alike. For much of our lives we received different versions of the same toys. We were raised as one; and, I’ve said this before, we are variant versions of the same person. Not such a bad thing…like twins, we are connected and share an unspoken communication with one another.

Now, on the fateful night in question, the two of us had just settled into our respective and matching twin beds when we heard it.

A mouse…

rustling around somewhere in our room.

The unspoken decision was to forget him tonight and bring in the “Assassin” tomorrow.

The Assassin was Spook, our very large Siamese cat. Spook was a master at catching a variety of prey, but specialized in mice. He didn’t just catch them and eat them…he toyed with them, he tortured them, and then he ate them.

But, and this is a very big but, the mouse made a very rash and misguided decision. (Probably because he was hopped up on the 50 chocolate candy bars he'd just eaten his way through, which my sister was supposed to be selling to benefit the high school band.)

Picture, if you will, the lights are out, and I’m just about ready to drift away when out of the darkness comes a stream of curse words the likes of which I had no idea my sister even knew, much less would scream at the top of her lungs. Apparently, Mr. Mouse decided that it would be fun to screw with her by running right over the top of her sleepy body.   

(It is interesting to note that in any normal household at least one person might have possibly thought that maybe they should check on us…I mean, seriously, we were not quiet. Perhaps this is why we are so independent…)

 

The unspoken decision…

GAME.ON.

Being the self-sufficient and hardy young girls we were/are we waited and we listened…

And fairly soon it became clear that our little terrorist had taken shelter in the trash can.

What happened next was a symphony of teamwork…

A paper bag was somehow procured and slipped over the top of the trash can.

The trash can was then inverted.

The mouse slipped between the outside of the trash can and the inside of the paper bag.

A pair of scissors miraculously appeared.

The mouse was stabbed through the paper bag.

He was then held aloft, carried upstairs (I think there was chanting), and…

just to be sure…

ceremoniously drowned in the bathroom sink.

From that point forward….

no one messed with…

 “The Girls”.

For baby Olivia...

Those who know me well, know that my “go to” baby/wedding shower gift is what the rubber stamping community has not-so-creatively dubbed the “name frame”. In fact, on occasion my mother has more or less told me that this was the gift I would be giving.

Sooo, when my husband’s assistant recently adopted a baby, and the inevitable office shower was announced, the creative juices began to flow.

Ordinarily, I like to go all matchy-matchy with these things…requesting nursery bedding patterns and color schemes…which I did. Unfortunately, getting specific information just didn't happen, and, as is usual in the décor realm, there are many, many different styles of jungle and farm animals available. Out of desperation I decided to go with color scheme and the crib sheet pattern; which is the only thing I could find based on the baby registry.

So here it is:

I stamped and heat embossed the white polka dots on the green background to match the crib sheet. The rest is based on the pink-green-brown color scheme indicated by the information provided by the new mother.

I used an EK Success punch to, well, punch out the flowers and petals from two different polka dot patterned designer papers. The flowers were then assembled and put together with enameled brads. (All of which I forced my poor mother-in-law along with me to find.) Finally, they were sprayed with a high gloss sealant to provide a little substance and shine. The letters are pre-fabbed chipboard by K & Co. As a side note...the ribbons on the letters are actually a very thin satin ribbon, which look better in real life than they do in the picture. (Obviously, I need help in the photography department.)

The whole she-bang is glued within an inch of its life with the strongest adhesives known to man to ensure that it doesn’t just arbitrarily end up in the bottom of the frame someday. It is also behind glass, but in order to get a decent picture, I waited to put that in place until after the picture was taken. (The very reason you haven’t seen other pictures of these things is because I get so wrapped up in putting the whole production together, I usually get the glass in place before I even think about taking a picture, then there is absolutely no way I’m taking it apart just to get a picture.)

I hope it matches…

I hope she likes it.

Fear and Loathing in the Chicken Coop

The thing you need to understand about me is that I am not a screaming, shrieking mess of a girl whenever I encounter creepy crawly things.

Snakes? No problem…as long as they do their job.  In fact, I find them rather beautiful.  When Kevin (yes, I name my “regular” critters) turned up in my kitchen early last spring with a slightly injured tail after a bout of warm weather was spoiled by a layer of slush (I suspect the kitties had something to do with the tail), I actually felt bad about tossing him out in the cold. Kevin is a garter snake who had a bad habit of sneaking up on me anytime I was putzing around in our Central-Missouri yard. Changing the bait in the mouse houses…there was Kevin (and if you think about it, it’s really kind of brilliant on his part…shelter and food all in one place); filling the bird feeders…Kevin sunning himself underneath; mowing the lawn...again, Kevin, racing around to avoid being sliced and diced (unlike someone I know, I will not chase down a snake with the lawn mower).

Spiders? They’re safe as long as they stay out of my house. They can be very fascinating…really! (Okay, so I have a problem with black widows, but we do have a history...)

Mice? Although I respectfully request that they stay outside, and, yeah, I will set out traps and bait to keep them out of my house, you will not find me standing on a kitchen chair screaming my head off if I encounter one. (Okay, so there was one particular incident involving my little sister…but, honestly, that little devil had it coming.)

BUT, there is one creature in this world that I will absolutely, positively not tolerate. The one animal on this planet that sends shivers down my spine. The one thing about which I’ve had recurring nightmares. And, this is crazy, but it’s also the one critter I have never seen in the wild.

Do not even think about telling me about what wonderful pets they make. Do not even try to play the Templeton card with me. Do not even attempt to get me to watch the movie, “Ben”. My response will always and forever be, “Oh, hell no!”

This whole issue can probably be traced back to a single statement made by my brother well over 40 years ago... (Yes, Wic, I blame you.)

So, when my husband reported to me that he rousted out one when he was cleaning the chicken coop…my exact words were, “IT MUST GO.” My husband, my hero, promptly drove to the feed store and picked up a trap.

Ironically, the trap caught nothing, but two of these little demons managed to ensnare themselves in a very large barrel, where they eventually died…stinking to high heaven.

Hah! Suffer you little bastards!

From this point forward, if I must, absolutely MUST, go to the chicken coop, I will be armed with one very gorgeous, but protective, dog, and one very sharp pitchfork.

I wonder if that rat snake we evicted from the bird house could be convinced to go mercenary?

My next purchase may very well be an automatic weapon.