happy november

I wonder what has happened to the art of blogging.... and if we've all just lost our ambition on it and are resorting to instagram and facebook and texting.  I am trying to get it going again, but realize I've fallen victim to the cell phone photo syndrome.  I'll see if I can record here more often, with or without pictures.

Today was a sort of working day.  But I've had too many working days and evenings and I've become burned out in so many ways.  We have hired a part time girl to help share the load.  Hoping that when crazy hits in January, we can juggle a bit better, but we will also lose one in February to a new baby.  But back to today.  I have some goals that I wanted to complete while the weather was still good - while it was warm and the windows could be open and things would dry and air out better.  But despite those things working against me at this late date, I have completed a re-do on my bathroom.  It is what I referred to as the kids bathroom, but no kids live her anymore... so it's the public bathroom.  Because we have an office at our house, it is the bathroom that our employees use all day.  I'm coming to terms with sharing my space.  It comes and goes.. being a bit more prickly about it some days more than others.  I have had the paint for over 2 months before I started this project.  I moved it in and out of the bathroom several times.  And finally I just decided I was never going to find time.  I would have to make time.  So I picked stuff up and moved some out and painted the ceiling.  Two coats.  Then I painted the dark brown vanity white.  Two coats.  Then I put a coat of primer on the walls. Then I painted the walls a nice lavendar/lilac/purple color.  Two coats.  I bought a new light, because I had a broken part on the light and replacement was not available to fix it. So i got a bit of help from my spouse and installed it.  Then went back to Lowe's and picked up 2 styles of globes and tried them out...kept 3 returned 3.  And I got brave or crazy.  And I sanded the countertop that was 70s gold-veined fake marble and damaged my brain cells, despite the mask I wore, and painted it pewter.  Two coats.  It suggests that you wait at least 3 days before 'using' the counter.  I waited 5 before setting anything on it.  While I waited,  I slipped over to Bed, Bath & Beyond and found the perfect shower curtain and a couple of hand towels to match.  FINALLY SUCCESS !!

SO that was yesterday.  Today I got up with the goal of packing up the clothes and bedding and towels and things that need put into tubs in the camper for the winter.  AND bringing in the food from the camper. Thought we did better this year, but there's always several trips of hauling in the contents of the cupboards there, and fitting it into the cupboard of the house.  So, I opened the doors wide and started sorting.  Once you get started, it becomes easier and easier to pitch things. - expired food, old cereal, crackers not so crispy, something you bought but no one would eat.  Combining boxes and tossing old barley.  Jim will be busy helping me unload my truck in the morning into his dumpster, but WOW~!  It feels great here right now.

I've also been working on reclaiming the toyroom that had turned into a leftover stashing place.  But we sort of need a kids play, while we work space, so I worked a long time to strip the linoleum and glue off the top of this desktop.  Then sand and put a couple of coats of polyurethane and then set it up on the bottom pieces. Pull the chair in from my sewing machine.  Plugged in a power strip.  And brought a laptop and a tub of records down to input into QuickBooks.  We tried it out on Thursday and it was pretty nice to let Elli run and play and not try to keep her corralled.

One thing left to complete the bathroom re-do was cutting a piece of white pegboard to divide the doored area from the drawered area. Last year for Christmas my kids bought me a table saw.  It was still in the box in the corner of the living room.  SO now that my kitchen was a bit more sorted out, I dragged the box out of the living room, through the kitchen and into the garage.  There was some assembly involved, but I managed to get it up and running and cut the pegboard to size and install it inside that cabinet.  AND smiled hugely the whole time.

I didn't eat supper until late and that pause was just enough to lose my momentum.  I had planned to cut and prep to sew, but I was tired enough to know that mis-cutting was not worth it at this time.  So I googled a couple of things, Pinterest hopped a little, did a couple of calculations and made some notes and I'll be ready to get going on this tomorrow.  I did this with a glass of wine...

Now it's past time to let the dogs out one last time and go to bed.  Maybe tomorrow I'll take a couple of pictures and add them in.  But if not, here's a post.  Happy November..