We have light!

The lighting on the back patio is done!

We picked the fan first. There is not a great selection (within our budget anyway) of fans for non-enclosed areas and I hate fans with floppy blades. I hope these stand up to the weather. The box says it is rated for 'wet' areas or 'non-enclosed areas'. Time will tell.

Then we found this wall light to replace the 'buy 'em by the boat-load from China' builders light that was by the back door.

You can see the one recessed light on the other side of the fan - there is another on the opposite end. We have plenty of light! There are also two motion lights on the corners of the roof. The electrician tried to talk me into 4 recessed lights - glad I didn't go for it. We might have had airplanes trying to land in the back yard!
Still not completely finished but the weather was great last night - breezy and cool - so we sat outside for a bit. This morning it is humid and muggy. Yuck.
Have a great weekend!

Marking off the list

Don't you love marking things off the 'to do' list?

After we painted the living room I never got around to hanging stuff back on the walls

I left the big porch picture in the same spot (I love this picture - it is like looking out a window)
Anyway - I hung it back up but wasn't sure what I wanted to hang beside it. This is what I finally ended up with. Now I have a pile of stuff that was hanging there I still need to figure out where to hang.


Since we moved the sofa when we painted I didn't have anything hanging above it. (the tv was here - the sofa has never been against a wall w/o a window before) I ended up with these white plates. Will do until something else comes along!

The thumb is better - at least it isn't throbbing anymore. Time will tell what will happen with the nail.

Sewing

One thing about hanging around the house waiting for people to show up is that I get a few things done. (we won't discuss the fact that I have plenty of cleaning I could be doing)
Anyway - I sewed up a receiving blanket for a baby gift


The blue side is cotton and the white side is flannel. I love these things.

The other thing I sewed on was a pillowcase. I've made pillowcases before but I never liked the raw seams on the inside. I picked up a 'kit' with instructions for making one without the raw edges. I read it several times and was drawing a complete blank. It talked about rolling the fabric and making a 'hot dog' and the only picture was of a hot dog. I was totally confused, so I took to looking for a picture on the internet. Once I found a real picture it made perfect sense!

and I finally got my pillowcase put together! No raw edges to ravel on the inside.

Obviously I took pictures before the blanket or pillowcase were washed and ironed!

I smashed the you-know-what out of my thumb this morning. Cut and bled right through the nail. It is really hard to type with a sore thumb!

Thanks for all the comments/emails on my scissor board. I'll show it again when I find more scissors and/or when I get the wall painted.

A few things

While I've had to hang around the house I've managed to cross a few things off my 'to do' list.
I made these bulletin boards for my computer cabinet a few years ago. They get a lot of use but the fabric was kind of busy so I decided to recover them.


There are 4 - one on each side of the inside of the cabinet and one on the inside of each door. The first time I covered them in a yellow & blue floral.



This time, I used a drop cloth and pink ribbon. Better?


I also made a board for hanging my scissors. (no - this isn't all of them - not even half) I found this frame at Hobby Lobby marked down to 3.00 a while back and knew I could figure out something to do with it. I painted it (it was black) and covered some foam board with more of the painters crop cloth. It looks pretty blah hanging on the fugly beige wall but eventually I will paint in here. I'm thinking about using a soft (really soft) pink. Will see - there are still walls to paint downstairs before I move to the upstairs. I also re-covered my bulletin board that is hanging on the wall (also with the drop cloth) but I failed to take a pic. Like the scissor board, it also has a white frame and the wall color doesn't do a thing for it at the moment. I'll get a pic later.
Back to business.
Hope you are having a great week!

Patio progress

Here is a little more progress on the patio



It is getting there!

Changes

I can't remember if I told you that we were going to have a patio built on the back of our house. I might not have mentioned it because it had to be approved by the HOA first. Anyway - last week we finally got our approval. Monday evening (like 7:00pm!) we got a call saying they were going to come pour concrete Tuesday morning. Tuesday was the only day we couldn't be here so hubby told them it would have to wait. (we left here at 6:30am and didn't get home until 10:00pm on Tuesday - most of that was spent on the road so we were both beat!) When hubby talked to the contractor he said he would call on Wednesday to let us know when they would be out - probably Thursday or Friday. That meant I could have Wednesday to do some errands. So, when I left the back of the house looked like this.


I think hubby actually took this picture on Sunday.
Anywho - I came home a couple of hours later to a backyard full of workers! We had no idea they were going to show up on Wednesday - of course that kind of put the rest of my day out of whack.
This is what we had when they left on Wednesday.



They came back yesterday to trim out and put the shingles on but being as I am a short person and you can't really see much from the ground I didn't take any more pictures last night.
As I type this, they are pouring concrete! I have no idea if they work on Saturdays or if it will be Monday before they come back to work on the cover again. They still have to set posts and do electrical. We will have a couple of can lights and a ceiling fan. We are also replacing the back door. That is kinda what started the whole patio thing - there is some rotting on the door and frame from water bouncing off that 'patio' so we knew we had to replace the door but it was senseless if it wasn't going to be covered since it would just do the same thing again. Same door except this time it will have blinds between the glass. We debated on half or full glass but since there is carpet in that room I don't want a doggie door there and Autumn loves to look out the window so we ordered the full glass. (who knew they only keep the half glass in stock - two weeks to get the full glass!)

So there ya go - just a little more chaos to add to the week.

ps - the dog is going nuts - not only are there strange people in the back yard, she can't go outside to check them out!

My New Man

Okay - didn't mean to tease you with the news of my winning a man. :) We were out of town all day Tuesday and yesterday was chaotic - I think my life has been in constant chaos for the last year and a half and it is wearing on me, but I'll get into yesterday in another post.
Here are the promised pictures of my new man

Isn't he cute? Saluting as he holds my scissors. I put him to work immediately!


How about a close-up?

I just happened to be using black scissors when I won him but I grabbed a pair of floral ones just so there was a little more contrast between the scissors and my man. I haven't named him yet.
If you would like to get your very own man to put to work for you give Pam @ 3 Stitches a call @281-320-0133 or email her at 3stitches@3stitches.com.
I will get to pictures of the other goodies I came home with later - chaos, I'm telling ya.