Under my skin

I think the white paint has gone from just in my hair and under my fingernails to soaking through under my skin!


Need a spoon? Fork? In there somewhere!



The cabinets are actually painted and the last coat will go on the doors today. Yes, I need to clean out under the sink. All in due time.



Looking good, huh? I know, you can't tell much of anything from these pics - that will make it more fun when we finish! While we wait for the doors to 'cure', we will be attempting to build some pull-out shelving for these bottom cabinets.


By the time last night rolled around, I really needed a piece of chocolate cake. I didn't have any chocolate cake so I thought I would make brownies but I didn't' have a brownie mix. What I thought was a box of brownie mix was actually a box of cookie mix. - Cookies it is.

Have a great week!

The man at work

The end is in sight for the upper cabinets! I need to put one more coat of paint on the top trim (as soon as I finish this post) but everything else is painted.

The doors have been 'curing' in the garage and will go back up this weekend along with all the trim. I'm terrible at waiting for paint to 'cure'. By the time it is dry to the touch I'm ready to get things back together so the past few days have been hard! I've kept myself busy re-loading the cabinets. Everything is getting washed as it goes back in and I've been trying to figure out the best place for some of the stuff. (some of it is going back in the exact same place) I'll admit it is easier to move stuff around without the doors on!

Once we get the uppers finished this weekend, we will start on the bottom cabinets. Those will be fun! We are planning to add pull-out shelving to some (maybe all!) of them. Hubby is taking next week off so we can work on that. Not sure if we can get it all done but we will be giving it a try.

I'll try to give another update once the doors and trim are up.

Slowest paintbrush on earth

I think I must be the slowest painter on earth. You women that can eat breakfast, rip out the kitchen, put it back together and still get dinner on the table all in one day - whew, better women than me! LOL

Can't remember if I ever showed you the lamps I got for the dinning room awhile back? Timothy gave me a gift card to Home Goods so I had been stalking the lamps section waiting for just the right ones and found these several weeks ago. (I'll have to go back and look for a pic of the old lamps - we will just say short!) Anywho - after I got them home I noticed they were the same height as the picture on the wall. I didn't want to take them back so I'm thinking I just need something else to hang over what is there. On the list. (I have 9' ceilings in there so there is plenty of room!)

And here is what you can't see in that photo







And I'm just working on the upper cabinets! This isn't even all of it. I shoved stuff around in the pantry and the closet under the stairs and stuffed stuff in there too. (don't adjust your monitor - fuzzy pics. Rush, rush)


And here is the entry (where I was standing to take those photos) Lovely welcome to my home, huh?

Back to painting!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Committed

Committed - the point in any project where you have gone too far to change your mind. Also the point where you think you should be looking for the men in little white coats because surely you have lost your mind.

For the record - I'm not painting in a closed garage, just didn't have the door up when I took this photo.

Back to work.

Night lights

Totally missed posting yesterday! Went to the hand-quilting class yesterday morning. Lots of fun! There were 8 or 9 of us plus the teacher. It was very informal. (just the way I like it) She showed us a lot of different types of 'tools' (thimbles etc) and let us try them out to see which we preferred, then she showed us the basics of hand quilting. Still lots to learn but I think I have the basic 'rocking' motion down, just need lots (and lots!) of practice and I may never get the hang of loading the needle, but it was fun.

Thought I would show you a pic of my little garden house with the lights on. I took this the other day just as they came on. It wasn't quite dark yet, but you can see them. I need to find a string of actual outdoor lights to put in there. I can see the lights through the window from my stitching chair that I showed you the other day. Love it!

Do you have those projects on your list that just keep getting bumped for whatever reason? Well I've had one that has been getting bumped for nearly 3 years. There have been many reasons for bumping, not the least of which is that it is not going to be a quick one. I tend to get grumpy about the third day of a project, especially if the end is still not in sight. Problem now is that I'm getting grumpy that this project hasn't even been started and it is the first thing that went on the list when we looked at this house. The time has come to paint the kitchen cabinets. I was hoping to have hubby take off work and help me but at this point that can't happen for at least another 3 weeks and I'm tired of waiting so I'm going to get started by myself. There are parts of it I just can't do myself. There are power tools involved and while I admire all you DIY women that pull out the power tools yourself and go for it, I'm just not that confident to do some of it without some help from the hubby so I'm going to get started on the painting part - that I can do by myself. (this is not a huge kitchen make-over, just paint, building and installing one shelf and some bead board paneling) I'm not sure how long this project is going to take (way longer than the week I was hoping, I'm sure) but I'm going for it. I may be scarce the next couple of weeks but I'll try to get at least a couple of posts in - I'll have to take a break now and then if for no other reason than letting paint dry! (I hate waiting for paint to dry!) Of course, there are several other things on the calendar that will mean some days will just not see any progress.

I figure if I am going to be grumpy anyway, it might as well be while it is in progress rather than just waiting to get started. It will never get finished if it doesn't get started! Wish me luck!

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother's Day!

Busy birdies!

Yesterday I noticed a lot of birds flying around the patio. Walked out to see the beginning of a little nest (I took a pic with my phone, but it wasn't very good) Today I noticed there was still a lot of birdie activity going on so I went to look again - the birdies have been really busy! this time I came upstairs and got the camera and climbed up on a chair to get a better picture. Hubby isn't too happy since they are on top of the shade (behind the curtain), which means he can't pull the shade down in the mornings and this is on the east side of the patio.

I've really been missing the weekly stitch nights with the girlfriends. It has been 3 years but I still miss those Wednesday nights. Anywho - I was having a little self-pity party this morning so I took myself out to the quilt shop and signed up for a hand quilting class!

Congratulations, Ashley!!!

I totally just stole the following photo and status update from Ashley's facebook page.


Just signed my first Equity contract!

I hope she doesn't mind! We are so excited for her! The only down side is that she won't be spending the summer in Texas. She will be spending her summer in New York, here - http://www.triassicparq.com/index.html.

We will miss having her in Texas for the summer (and baby boy's planned mid-summer visit) but we are so excited for her! Hopefully there will be a visit later (I'm crossing my fingers for a Christmas visit!)

And just because he is so stinking cute



I also swiped a pic of baby boy!

Miss them every day but we are so, so proud of them for going after their dreams!

Paint project

This is what I painted last week.

Before

We have has this coffee table forever. When we first got it, hubby sanded it down to bare wood and stained it to match the hope chest in the living room. (the only piece of real wood furniture we had in there at the time) This was way back when I used to think furniture should match instead of just playing nice together. Anyway, it has been used and abused over the years. Three kids, plus all their friends - no telling how many games were played on this table!

I didn't do anything to it before painting with ASCP. There are nicks and dings all in it but I planned to distress it anyway and I like the nicks and dings. :)

Improvement? I think so!

This last picture is one I took from my stitching chair - this is my view when I'm sitting there.

It is a terrible place to take pictures from - there is just no way to adjust the lighting for a good photo. You can barely see my garden house through the window but in real life, you can see it pretty well. At night it is lighted and I can really see it from my chair - I love it! There will eventually be a chair in that bare spot (but it still won't spoil my view of the garden house) We will talk about the chair issue later.

You can see the tv just to the left - still haven't figured out just the right arrangement for this room, but for now this works best out of what we have tried.

How is is possible to stay busy all the time and still never seen to get anything done? That seems to be the way things are going around here lately. We did manage a 4 mile bike ride again this weekend. (found a white basket for my bike but I can't find any streamers!)

Okay - off too see how much I can not get done before I have to start dinner!

I still can't get the spacing thing right since they changed things on blogger!

Friday flowers

Spent the morning (and most of the afternoon) running errands so nothing productive done around here so far today.

So, I wandered out to snap a few pics of my flowers. The hydrangeas are starting to turn a little blue but I think I'll add some more stuff to the soil and see if that makes them turn faster. They, like everything else in the yard, really need water but I'll wait until later in the day. It is so hot right now it would probably evaporate as soon as it came out of the hose!


My hosta bloom is coming right along too!

Project painting pics on Monday!

Have a great weekend!

An almost finish

I'm still missing buttons, but the stitching part is done.

This is my version of the February mystery block of the month over at Shabby Fabrics

http://www.shabbyfabrics.com/. For some reason I can't seem to insert links because I can't seem to highlight anything when composing a post. Not sure if it is the blogger changes or an issue with the new computer since they both happened at the same time. I am using the same mouse I was using before (I like the cordless one and the one that came with the new computer was corded) It is the same mouse I used with my netbook and I've never had a problem with it before but I may have to check into getting a new one and see how that works out. (I have no problem highlighting in other programs, so. . .)

Anyway - I finished the stitching on this block a few weeks ago but just now got around to getting a picture of it. For the January month I used the needle-turn method and for this one I used the spray starch method. I see pros and cons to both methods. Neither is 'small curve' friendly (IMO) I can do the large curves with no problem but I have issues with the small curves. I'm sure that will improve with practice. I'm still undecided on which method I will use when it comes to doing the Shabby Fabric versions. I have the March and April patterns printed out but haven't picked fabric for them - I might skip them and do the May block which should be up in a few days.

I had one of 'those moments' yesterday and started a new project. You know those moments. The house is far from clean and a list a mile long of things to be done, but I just had to paint something! Hopefully I'll be able to show a picture tomorrow - if not, I'm sure by next week.

I'm really anxious to get started on painting the kitchen cabinets. I've been waiting since the day we signed the papers on this house to paint them and it's time. I need to get my ducks in a row and decide exactly when to get started so hubby can take a week off work (he's gonna help!) and I need to decide if I want to go ahead and build a cabinet over the fridge before we paint. It just looks kinda like an empty hole up there - I think it needs something.

My other ride

This is my 'other ride'

(ignore all the other junk - she's in the garage and I was too lazy to move her out for her photo)
Anyway - we bought bikes the first summer we lived here. We rode them quite a bit at first, then they just kinda just sat collecting dust. Over the weekend we dusted them off, aired up the tires and went for a ride! We went a little over 5 miles. I think she needs a (white) basket and maybe some streamers before our next ride!

We stopped at one of the 'lakes' in the subdivision and hubby took this pic with his phone. Maybe we will go again this weekend.

If only

I wish you could smell these!

The gardenias are blooming right outside my front door. I love them as long as they are on the bush. I don't like gardenia scented anything (soap, candles, air freshener etc) and I don't like them cut and brought into the house, but I love the smell when I walk out the door!

look at all those buds ready to burst open!

I can't take any credit for these - they were here when we bought the house, though we have been feeding and watering them and this is the most they have bloomed since we have been here. I guess they like all the spring rains we had.

Took the above pictures last night


and I took this one this morning. Seems like there are more bloomed out every time I look out!
If only - they lasted longer. Seems the minute they bloom, they also start fading. My lantana is growing and blooming too!

Hope you are having a blooming good day!