Painting, working, and remodeling (another catch-all post)

Once again I have neglected my poor blog.

I've been working at the Tulsa City-County Libraries, though, so I have a good excuse! I've also been busy quilting, and the kids have been home sick a LOT in the past two weeks (which means I get very, very little done).

I've been volunteering at the South Broken Arrow library for around three years now, I think. Over the summer I trained as a substitute, and I've had an absolute blast going between the two Broken Arrow libraries. They've called me a few times for some of the other ones but I'm very intimidated by Hardesty so I've turned those down. It's a huge regional library and I'm not quite confident enough of my knowledge to tackle that one, but I will once I get a little more experience.

The bad part is that my stack of books to read is now almost three feet tall. That's not a bad thing except that I'm frantically trying to catch up on my quilting. I'm about six months behind on posting customer quilt pictures, but hopefully I'll get my act together soon.



Last weekend we decided to finally tackle the utility room, which has bugged us since we moved in seven years ago.

Here's how it looked after we moved the washer and dryer out and Greg took out the baseboards. (They'd been butted together instead of installed properly, so that had to go!)

 
Yes, the walls really WERE that dark. They'd been painted with a flat paint that came off when rubbed with a damp paper towel, so that was pretty bad.

Greg repaired some damage and sprayed a new texture, and then Gillian and I sanded it down and she vacuumed. Greg got a drywall mud that claimed to be less dusty, and I think it actually was--more seemed to end up on the floor than in the air, which is a very good thing.

Here's Gillian, being a HUGE help:



The previous owners have done all kinds of head-scratch-worthy things, such as painting the smoke detector in place, as well as just painting the wallpaper. Sigh.

Luckily the wall paper was only on one wall and seems to be *very* well adhered, so we went ahead and put the texture on over it.




Here (below) you can see Greg taking off the trim around the door--it had been installed rather horribly and had all kinds of caulk in the corners--the top was sucked into the wall while the sides weren't, so there was about a 1/8" depth difference among the three pieces. It looks SO much better now.

And you have to notice the wallpaper that's underneath the current stuff (be sure to enlarge so you can see it in all its glory):



We've been talking about redoing parts of the kitchen (taking out the drop ceiling, among other things) but knowing that there's *another* layer of wallpaper is a little disheartening.

Back to the good stuff. Here's the final paint on the walls:




Doesn't that color look so much better than the old, dark color? It's absolutely amazing what a difference new texture and color have made in that space.


At this point I'm incredibly behind on my quilting, especially since I've spent the last 11 hours in bed, shivering and trying not to throw up. I'd *so* hoped that what the kids had was going to pass me by, but no such luck.

My family is coming here for Thanksgiving, and I need to finish ALL of my customer quilts before they get here since we're putting my sister in the quilt room. I hope I'm over this illness in the morning so that I can quilt like a mad woman over the next six days!

I hope all of you are having a great weekend, and be sure to wash your hands properly and often! There's lots of icky stuff going around.

Busy busy busy

Today was supposed to be a day to recover after a long week, but I'm still exhausted. LOL!

Gillian started soccer on Tuesday and I think it's going to be fun for her. That meant that on Monday we went out and got her new soccer shoes and shin guards. Now we just need new socks (the old ones don't cover the pads all the way up her shins) and a new ball since her old one is too small. Ryan also got a new bike since his old one is waaay too small for him. His new bike is the same size as Gillian's current bike, although the lowest seat height on his bike is the same as the highest on Gillian's bike. I suspect she'll be getting a new, bigger bike for her birthday in May.

Wednesday was bowling (I didn't do well, but that's all right), with knitting that evening.

Thursday was supposed to be soccer again but it rained so the field was too muddy. The task of the afternoon was making the entries for the Twinkie Decorating Contest for the school carnival. The kids quickly decided that they'd rather eat the frosting than really work on their entries, and I did my damndest to be a good Mom and not do their entries for them. ;-)

Friday was the school carnival, and once again I'd drafted Greg into helping me run the Twinkie Contest room. It's the best job of the whole carnival because it means I set up the tables with the Twinkies on them, help judge, then sit in the room during the carnival and make sure no one touches the entries. Very cushy job! We didn't have as many entries this year as last year, but then we only got the notices out a week before since we had two weeks out of school due to weather.

The kids totally wore themselves out at the carnival and were asleep within minutes of their heads hitting their pillows. (Yay!)

Today I did a few things around the house, and Greg continued working on the awesome shelves in the garage:


He's going to make cabinet doors to go on those and it's going to be *fabulous.* The main purpose of the shelves is to get the luscious wood up off the garage floor, and I think Greg was a little surprised that the storage area at the top is already full of wood.


While he was working on that I ran the Bag A Nut (yep, that's its actual name) and picked up the old, bad pecans in the front. I picked up about 50 pounds of them, I think, and I'm tired now. I found three (yes, THREE) good nuts. I hate pecan weevils. There are still a whole bunch of bad nuts on the trees, unfortunately. It's been a strange year weather wise and I think it's bothered the pecan trees.

I hope you all are having a great weekend!

Gilly's bed is finished

Greg couldn't stand it any more—when he went to check on how the paint was drying, he declared it set enough to assemble the bed in Gillian's room!


I think it's absolutely wonderful, and so does Gilly!

It took her about 20 minutes to completely cover the top shelf with animals (just as I predicted). There are a few animals in the side cubbies, and a hardback library book fits perfectly too.

I'm so proud of Greg!

Queen of the Household

I hereby dub myself Queen of the Household for successfully replacing the fan on our vacuum. LOL!

Here's the fan that was broken (and incredibly loud!!!):

It was cracked in multiple places and made an incredible noise when I turned on the vacuum. It's also filthy but I guess that proves the vacuum was doing its job.

The new fan went in really easily and the vacuum is quieter than it's been for a while. It's an industrial Sanitaire vacuum that my grandfather bought for us as a wedding present, going on 14 years ago (gasp!!!). It's a fabulous vacuum and I'm very proud of myself for diagnosing the problem and fixing it myself.


On the knitting front, I started a new pair of socks. I'm trying these toe up, with a heel flap, and hopefully they'll fit.


I have a hard time getting the color balance right, but you can get the idea.


I also got a skin for my Sony Touch e-reader. I'm not thrilled with the quality of the picture (someone used the unsharp mask in Photoshop a few too many times) but I love the way it feels on the device. Next time I'll order one from DecalGirl instead, though.



I love my e-reader, although it's going to take me a while to duplicate my paperback collection in digital files. I have to remind myself that it's taken me years to build up my paperback collection, and I don't need to have all of them NOW. LOL! On the other hand, it's really nice to be getting rid of things and I need to move that to other areas of my life. I was good and got rid of a stack of knitting books that I'll never use, and I need to go through my quilt books next. I think my yarn collection might be getting purged next. We'll see.

We've been busy around here

As usual, it's been longer than I intended since my last blog post but we've been doing all kinds of things around here.

First up, I got two skeins of yarn spun from the roving that my Mom, Karen, and I dyed up while they were here at Christmas.

I'm very happy with it! It's exactly the weight I was trying for. I have five more braids to spin up, then I'll start the knitting. One skein has 172 yards and the second has 168 yards.


Over the weekend I updated my business website with three galleries of customers' quilts. Check them out here!

Speaking of quilts, I just finished the quilting on my friend Calista's quilt. Here's a detail shot of the rocket:

The thread glows in the dark, which you can see in this picture:

Isn't that the coolest thing ever?!?!



Greg has been really busy this weekend, too. He got a new (used, but new to him) table saw, and a new jointer. He's been working on a gorgeous fish tank stand, and he'll put the finish on next weekend.

Here's the table saw:


And the jointer:

I'm so glad he's having such a great time using them. I've given him a list of pieces of furniture I'd love to have him build. LOL!

It's been busy around here!

The last 24 hours or so have been quite busy around here, getting ready for a new refrigerator!

I know, you're thinking that we're crazy to be so excited about a new fridge, but the old one was 18 years old (I bought it when my parents moved out) and it's been moved many times. The ice maker had died once and the fridge motor was running almost continuously, so I think this new fridge is going to make a huge difference in our energy consumption.

Here's a pic of the old one:

The towel taped to the counter is because there's some really, really sharp tile there and I didn't want to scar the brand new fridge. We'll be putting some wood there to keep the new one in good condition.

Here's the new fridge:


It's HUGE! 22.9 cubic feet. So far it's fabulous! We went for the freezer on the bottom and the french doors (obviously) and I think it's going to be really, really nice.

Here's DD, wanting to be the first to put stuff in the new fridge:


I'm tired. Moving food (and refrigerators) around and cleaning to get ready has made me tired, so I'm going to bed.

I hope you're all having a great week!

Pretty things

We finally had good enough weather for me to get some pictures taken this morning! All weekend was icky weather, with lots and lots of rain. Not so good for taking pictures but great for the plants. First up (speaking of plants) are some pictures of my amaryllis. This is such a gorgeous plant! Greg had been teasing me about watering an empty pot, but we finally got this: There's still one blossom to come. I'm really enjoying this plant!

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I promised better pictures of the yarn for the Yarn Dash, and here they are: This picture is in strong light and is probably the closest-in-color to the yarn in real life. (Monitors vary, of course!) This next picture shows the slight variations from the kettle-dyeing technique: It's 880 yards/100 grams of lace-weight merino wool. This will make a gorgeous shawl! (Or anything else you'd like to use it for. LOL!) Go sign up for the Yarn Dash if you haven't already, and this skein of yarn could be yours.

Happy Easter!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here, and we planted a whole bunch of flowers. I'd wanted to put up some hanging baskets in the front and I found some self-watering pots that were perfect. I put some hangers on the posts in the front, and in a few weeks the pots should fill out and I'll have pretty trailing petunias!


Greg mowed the lawn after I took that picture and it looks really pretty.
The perspective in that picture is a little off—I promise the house doesn't have weird angles the way it appears to!

In other planting news, the potatoes survived the cold snap last week and are thriving:

The dogwood in the front is also pretty with its pink blossoms:


And yesterday we got a patio set! I'm so excited! The next project is to build a pergola-type thing for some shade. We decided not to get an umbrella since the winds here aren't kind to umbrellas. We've seen a lot of glass-topped tables smashed because the wind grabs the umbrella (even when it's closed!) and tips over the table. This set is all metal and matches the bench that I bought almost 8 years ago.


As you can see from the pictures above, yesterday was a beautiful day. The rain/thunder started at about 1:00 in the morning and the rain hasn't stopped since!

We had a fun (but quick) Easter egg hunt this morning, and the Easter Bunny brought Lego kits for the kids. Ryan got a dump truck and Gillian got a Darth Vader ship from the original Star Wars movies. They've had a great time putting them together today.

I hope you've all had a great weekend, and Happy Easter!

Finally getting back to some spinning

[I tried making this post through Picasa and I'm not happy with the lack of control over the formatting, so please bear with me!]

Almost two months ago I got this luscious roving from Heartknits Handpainted, and I'm finally getting around to spinning it up.

Here's half of it so far:

The color is a little more accurate in the bottom photo, but they're both pretty close.

I'm planning to spin up the rest of it all onto the same bobbin, then wind a center-pull ball and make a two-ply yarn from both ends of the ball. I'm shooting for something heavier than sport/fingering, but lighter than worsted. It'll be whatever it is, which will probably vary between sport and worsted.

I've been spinning so much lace-weight yarn lately that this feels like it's just flying onto the wheel!

Hopefully I'll manage to actually start using the yarn I've spun up. I pulled it out the other day and I was a little surprised by how much I have. (Not that I have much, I'd just forgotten about some of it! Out of sight, out of mind these days....)

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The fence is almost finished! Greg just has the boards to put up on the gate and it's done! I am TOTALLY in love with how it changes the back yard. Ryan and I spent a wonderful hour or two out there this afternoon, and it felt like a private retreat. Wonderful!!

Here are some pictures, although it's not terribly easy to see exactly what a difference it's made.


Here are the double gates-to-be:


These just need the pickets put on them and they'll be finished! Greg worked so hard this weekend! When he ran out of nails and had to start using screws, we decided to quit for the weekend and finish it next weekend. With the time change, it's too dark to work when he gets home.

Here's the side fence. It's hard to see in this picture, but that fence runs about 100' along the diagonal line between the lots. Since the house sits on a cul-de-sac, our lot is more pie-shaped than rectangular so that's one long fence! I *love* not being on display to the neighborhood any more.


And here's the fence on the other side of the house. The bottom of the gate looks uneven but it's not--the concrete slopes at quite an angle right there! We'll probably end up taking out that bit of concrete and re-pouring it to be wider so that we don't twist an ankle! (That's the royal "we" which really means "Greg.")

I'm so impressed with the wonderful job Greg did, and I'm already loving having the fence up.

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While Greg was working on the fence Saturday morning the kids raked up a pile of leaves and took turns jumping into it.

Here's an action shot of Gillian:

And then Ryan:

They must've jumped about a dozen times each.
(Greg is working on that side fence in the pic above.)

After the kids got bored with jumping into the pile, Ryan burrowed into it until you could just barely see his head and feet:


They had a great time!

As I was taking pictures of the fence this afternoon I managed to catch a picture of this small butterfly resting on the mums:


This is truly an amazing mum. Karen gave it to us five years ago and it's come back again and again! It's a beautiful big plant.

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Tomorrow is the big day to vote, so don't forget to get out there are cast your vote! I, for one, will be happy to have the hoopla over with.

Happy Halloween!

Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful birthday wishes!

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I'm slowly becoming human again after a bit more illness. Blah blah blah, I'm tired of being sick and I might be human again by the end of the weekend!

I did manage to make a costume for Ryan out of this:


We got an ear-and-tail set for each kid at Walgreens a few weeks ago, and Gillian had black clothes to be a black cat but Ryan didn't have anything tiger-ish, so this is what I came up with:

The pants are way short because I ran out of fabric and had to piece the bottoms, but I think it came out all right.

Here they are in cat mode:




For Halloween at school Ryan got a goody bag, and it had some vampire teeth:


He'd never seen them before so he had a great time. He'd put them in and giggle. Four-year-olds are fun!

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Greg has done a tremendous amount of work on the fence:

There will be a big gate in that space. I think it looks great! It changes that space so much, and I love it already. I didn't like weeding that back flower bed because I always felt like I was on display--especially with my rump in the air pulling weeds! It's going to be so nice to have it more private. That section of yard was in very public view from five different houses so it's really going to be nice to have it fenced!

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Birthday gifts have been arriving, including this wonderful magnet from Aunt Louise:

She always finds the neatest things!


These beautiful earrings are from my wonderful Mother-in-Law, Vickey:

I tried to get a better picture but that was the best I could do at the moment. I'll have to try again later (when the kids are at school!).

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I hope that everyone had a good, safe Halloween!

I have a quilt featured on http://www.quiltersshowandtell.com/ so go check it out!

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In knitting news, Sivia's Dué Amori fingerless glove and scarf pattern is now available. Here's mine, although I'm finished with the first one and done with the fan on the second one:

You can get it here.

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In house project news, the rock was delivered this morning and we're a little more than halfway done putting it where it goes. Here's how it looked before rock:


And hopefully tomorrow I'll take a picture of it mostly done. I'm not going to do any more shoveling tomorrow (probably) because I managed to give myself an almost-blister in two places on my hands. It never occurs to me to use gloves until it's too late. DOH!

We also have a huge pile of soon-t0-be-a-fence-and-deck in kit form (hahahaha, that would be a big pile of wood and concrete bags). We're planning to put a deck platform on top of the cracked concrete slab, which will both beautify the back yard area and make it easier to keep mud/dirt/leaves/etc out of the house. I applied for a permit to build the deck this morning so hopefully we can get started on that soon.

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I brought home my stuff from the fair and my quilts have an interesting smell. If you put your face down close to them, you can definitely get a whif of fair food. It cracks me up! I'm sure it'll be gone in a week or so, even sooner if I air the quilts outside.

I hope everyone is having a great week!