A birthday to celebrate!

Brian is coming down for the weekend so we get to celebrate his birthday with him. He will be here sometime this afternoon. I've already got a roast w/veggies in the crock pot and a cake waiting to be frosted.

Have a great weekend! (and hope for some cooler temps - upper 90s is getting old around here!)

Nameless

What's in a name?

When baby boy was in high school he was in a 'garage band' - they were going to perform in a talent show and when the time came to print the program they still didn't have a name so they became 'Nameless' and it stuck.

Do you name 'objects'? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.


Bertha


and her friend Olivia (though to be fair, she had a name before I adopted her)
Hubby calls them 'the girls'


Lola - sadly, Lola is no longer with me. (well, technically, she is but she no longer works)

I had been thinking about getting an e-reader - hubby has a Kindle and loves it, so I figured if I got one we could share books. But then Lola bit the dust. After thinking about it for a bit I decided to go with this


Of course I had to have the pink cover


I've already downloaded the Kindle app and I'm reading 'The Help'. I got a non-glare screen protector and I'm not sure that was the right decision though if I had gone with the regular I'm sure there would have been times when I wished I had gone with the n/g.

Now back to the name - she doesn't have one. :( I think she needs one but it just hasn't come to me yet. My van doesn't have a name either - it hasn't come to me and I've had it 15 years. So, does your computer have a name? Your car? Your phone?

How is your week going? Today is better for me than yesterday - so far no migraine today so that alone makes it a better day. So far.

Little things

Sometimes it is the little things that are special.


See the little white shirt on the left? I wanted something to hang on that peg, but I didn't want to buy anything - then I remembered I had this shirt in the cedar chest.


It was hubby's as a baby


Back


and the tag on the inside.

I will say this - it was a bugger to iron! Glad my babies had no-iron clothes (for the most part)!

Now, if you are a fabric junkie, head over to Carolyn's blog - she is having a give-away!

Texas must have missed the memo

The calendar says it is fall, but Texas (or at least this part) seems to have missed the memo! It is still hot and humid here.

Our plan for the weekend was to clean out the garage - well, at least get stuff back on shelves and out of the middle of the floor. First we had to go to Sam's and get another shelf unit (and put it together) which meant we didn't get started until Saturday afternoon. It was pretty hot Saturday but not as bad as Sunday. Unfortunately, we didn't finish on Saturday so we were back out there yesterday. Too bad you can't really 'sweat your a** off'.

Anywho - one of the things out there still waiting to be worked on is FIL's Army trunk. We got it empty so I can work on it (when it cools off a bit!) - it needs a good cleaning. It has been stored in a non-climate controlled environment for years and it has some kind of mildewy looking stuff in a couple of places on the outside. I haven't figured out how to clean it - any ideas? It is made of some kind of rough wood and the outside is painted black. (I should have taken a pic, my bad) I don't want to sand and paint it because it still has his name etc. painted on it and I don't want to cover that up. I'm hoping to get it cleaned up enough to bring inside and use for a coffee table in the game room.

We didn't go through everything as we were moving stuff to another container but we did find a couple of cool things I brought into the house.


an old wooden hanger. Looks like those metal clips might have been used to hang pants? They are on both sides and one on each side is snug while the other is not. I assume they got bent with use?


Also found this catalog from 1927. It was kinda wadded up in there so right now I have it resting under a stack of books.


And an old school (?) picture. It is a 5x7 print. No writing of any kind on the back. We ''think' FIL might be the second from the left in the middle row. Hubby will have to ask his mother or aunt to find out for sure.

No crafty stuff. I did put a few stitches in a stocking but no pic yet. Ran out of one of the threads so I've got to order more.

Hope you are having more fall-like weather where you are. It is still flip-flop weather here!

Happy Fall Ya'll!

First day of fall. I suppose in some places that means cooler temps, leaves changing colors - all those things you think of when fall arrives. Here, it means we hope we don't get to 100 again, but the weather man makes no promises.

I did find these yummies at the grocery store yesterday - Honey Crisp Apples. I found them in the early spring and got hooked - then they disappeared. I'm happy to see their return. They are pricey, but worth it! Yumm.

Hoping to get something crafty done over the weekend, but we are also planning to clean out the garage so it all depends on how long that takes.

Hope you have a weekend full of fun!

Not a lot going on

Just not a lot going on around here lately.
I guess I just haven't felt like I had anything blog-worthy.
Haven't spent as much time on the computer lately - which means I should be getting lots of other stuff done, right? Not.

Lola (my netbook) has been replaced, but not with another netbook. I'll show you her (yet unnamed) replacement soon. There has been a bit of a learning curve - I'm so not tech savvy.

The dogs are barking their fool heads off. Someone taped a flyer (probably a take-out menu) to the front door and the wind must have blown it. Guess I should have pulled it off when I saw it a little while ago. I'm quite sure they would have found something else to bark at - they are good at that. (finding something to bark at) Guess I should go remove the 'stranger' from the front door so they can take a breath!

Hope you are having a great week.

Ahhhh

I woke up to the sounds of thunder around 3:00am this morning. Went right back to sleep! I wasn't sure if there was any rain to go with it (we have been teased by thunder the past few days, with areas all around us getting rain and not getting any here)
When daylight finally dawned I looked out the window and saw this.

When I walked out to get the picture the grass crunched. The ground is still so dry. This is barely a drop in the bucket compared to how far behind we are but I'm sure the ground said 'ahhhh' as the rain was falling.
Hubby and I had a nice few days. Usually when he takes off it is because we have something on the calendar but this time we just did whatever, whenever. Not the norm for us, but it was nice! The cake tasted great (even if it looked a little whop-sided). We had cake for breakfast a few times. :)
I've managed to get my reader feed from 1000+, down to 932 but I'm sure I won't get caught up any time soon! Oh well.

If it ain't broke. . .

Keep it away from me. I'll spare you the long list of things I've managed to break or screw up in the past two days, but trust me, it ain't pretty.

I was asked if I made the quilt and dolls in the guest room


No, I didn't. The middle doll was a gift from a friend (she also gave me a blue and yellow quilt that is in the master bedroom - I'll show it sometime soon), the two dolls on the outsides were made by my grandmother, from pillowcases made by my great-grandmother.

The quilt top was found in a hamper full of scraps at my grandmother's house. I assume she made it, but don't know for sure. (found it after she passed away) This was before I ever even thought I might make one myself someday so I had it quilted and had it hanging in my office/sewing room at the old house. (I've always loved quilts but never thought I would actually try making one!) Had I thought I might actually take up quilting someday, I might have kept the scraps too. :(

I may never catch up on my blog reading. I usually read blogs in the morning and evenings, downstairs on my netbook. Unfortunately my lovely friend Lola bit the dust yesterday so I'm sure I'll get even farther behind. (my reader is approaching 1000 at the moment - how many will it count before it stops?)

Hubby's b'day is tomorrow and he is treating himself to a long weekend (he took a couple of vacation days). We don't have plans to go anywhere - just hang out around here. I have some furniture that could be painted but I'll give him a break. Personally - I'm pretty much afraid to touch anything at the moment - I would probably have paint spilled everywhere. I've got a b'day cake baking so cross your fingers it comes out decent!

I'll be back next week - hopefully my dark cloud will be gone by then!

Stick a fork in it

And call it done!

I'm calling the guest room done - at least for now! No room is ever 'done' since I'm known to change things around on a whim.

First a couple of before pictures.


Obviously, these were taken at Christmas.




It's amazing what just changing the wall color can do for a room!


Most everything that is in here was already in the room but it looks so much different with blue walls compared to the boring builder beige! I painted the day bed - the black just wasn't doing it for me - I like it much better now!


I tried to work with what I already had and not buy anything new, but I did buy two dust ruffles (on sale!) I had to re-work the one for the day bed since there is no box spring to put it on. I took it apart and sewed on velcro - took a whole day, but it worked! (fyi - the sticky back side, that I put on the bed frame, is super sticky - nearly pulls the skin off your fingers!)


I pulled in a few things that had either been in other rooms or still boxed up from the move.






I painted the quilt rack and the small shelves white - much better.



Still working in plates that I had in the plate collage at the other house! Hubby keeps asking me if I bought more plates - nope, just using up what I already have! I have used them in most of the rooms inside the house, outside on the fence and in the front flower bed but I still have a few more! (sorry for the glare)

Okay - that's it for me today. I'm going to try straighten the rest of the house. Do you 'trash' the rest of the house while working on one room? I seem to - need to get things back together so I can start dragging out fall stuff - not that it feels the least bit like fall here!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Staring at a blank wall

A blank, blue wall.


I've been staring at this blank wall for two days. Well, yesterday I was (re) making a dust ruffle for the day bed but every time I went in the room to measure (or whatever) that blank wall was staring back at me. I'm still undecided as to what I want to hang there. Hard to believe that even though this house is bigger than the last one, I still have stuff that I don't have a place to hang. Even when I finish this room, I'll still have a stack of stuff I won't know what to do with and after this the stairway is pretty much the only thing left blank (except over the tv and I don't want to hang anything there until I am sure of what I am going to do with the tv) Some of what I will have left are shop models from when I was working in the frame shop (stitched pieces, I would stitch them then we would use them for framing models) although I do have a few other things as well.

Anyway - that was a lot of 'typing' just to say I'm stumped with this wall!

Since I really don't have anything interesting I went looking back through pictures to see if I could find something to post. I was almost through the first folder when I came to this

This is me at 18 months, wearing the red velvet dress that is hanging in the r/w/b guest room. Was I cute or what? Time is so not kind. :(
This was my grandmother's picture and now my mother has it, along with 18 mo. pictures of my brother and sister. I had 18 mo. pictures made of my boys too and framed a set of each for myself and my grandmother. I have mine hanging in the master bedroom and the ones my grandmother had are put away for the boys. (my mother already had 18 mo. pics of my kids) Hopefully someday the boys will want them - I'm saving them just in case.

Guess I'll get back to staring at that blank wall and the pile 'o crap I have spread out trying to decide what to hang.

Sorry for the lame post. Maybe next time I'll have something interesting.

A little relief

We are finally getting a little relief from the heat around here. We are by no means through with summer but at least it isn't 105! It was really, really windy over the weekend and there are so many fires here in Texas. Thankfully they are not near us but there are some large ones in the Houston area.

How did you spend your holiday weekend? We spent ours waiting for paint to dry. We did finally get the last guest room painted - that means all the upstairs is painted! Yeah! I'm still putting the room back together - hopefully by the end of the week I can call it done. In the mean time, here are some final pictures of the bathroom. It is finished, all the way down to fresh, clean white towels just waiting for guests! All the 'pretty stuff' is stuff I already owned. Some of it was already in the bathroom and some I moved from other rooms (or from where it was stuffed in a closet)


The picture on the left is 4 old postcards from J'ville. The smaller pic is one that was in my sewing room.


The two cross stitch pieces were hanging in here before but on the wall beside the sink. The metal 'Z' was a half-price HL find months ago but had been sitting in a closet waiting for a place to land.


And the shelves with the fresh white towels, a mulberry candle, a pink glass container (from my sewing room) with travel size soaps in case you don't want to use the shower gel that is in the shower, and a small plate (from the plate collage at the old house) with bathroom cups.

Yes, I'm digging deep for blog fodder. These slow moving projects don't make for a lot of blog content!

Hope you have a great week!

And then this happens

As soon as I got the picture of the quilt, I got started on getting the other guest room ready to paint. The closet in that room is where all the 'stuff' ends up. You know - out of season clothes, clothes that are too small but you hope to 'someday' get into them again (stop laughing), holiday decor that doesn't get put in the attic, just stuff. Well in order to paint said closet it had to be cleaned out and the newly finished guest room is the only place for it to go! This is just the closet stuff!

Doesn't look like I will get to paint the day bed unless I can make room in the garage (again, stop laughing) but I will get the room done! It makes me really happy to know that it is the last 'room' to paint! Still have 3 closets downstairs and the kitchen cabinets to go, but this is the last room! Yippie!

No crafty projects going on since I'm spending all my time either getting rooms ready to paint, painting or putting rooms back together but I'll get there. (and letting dogs out, letting dogs in, letting dogs back out . . .) I did get stuff on the walls in the bathroom and the game room this week so I still have those pics to share.

Hope you are having a good week. We are looking forward to some 'cooler' temps and by that I mean we might not make 100 today!