A New Year!

I'm back! After a long hiatus without a PC, my kids got me a laptop for Christmas so I can download photos again, and return to blogging - yipee!

It's a New Year, and that means it's time to tear down Christmas and shove it in the garage for another 11 months. I took a few photos this morning before commencing the task of un-decking. This is my sunroom garland.


The little sunroom tree in a nail barrel:


Sunroom china cabinet - this is displaying my cheapie K-mart Christmas china that I bought 15 or 20 years ago for about $25 for the 8 five-piece place settings. It has a simple holly design that has never gone out of style. My paperwhites are starting to topple.

I had visions of filling these glass containers with colorful sweets, but I only got the small ones filled. Good thing, too, since everyone is going on a diet today and I have to just get rid of this stuff anyway.

Below is one of a couple of new things that I got this year. I worked a seasonal part-time second job in a local nursery/gift shop and they carry great Christmas stuff. I love these LED branches, and I got them at a 40% discount before Christmas. I stuck them in a watering can with some fake greens and berries.

The dining room has the same theme of brown and metallics as last year, I just moved things around a bit for some variety.


Here is a cozy corner in my country living room. I got my bear collection out just for Christmas. I think I may do that every year. My mom gave me the big Longaberger basket this year - it looks great with my blankets piled in it.

Shelf over the sofa:


Now to get to work taking it down... Happy New Year!

Catching up...

Spring, my builder-fabulous azaleas, and early summer have come and gone and all the craziness (2 graduations and a wedding) that has been going on in my kid's lives is pretty much over. I'm still PC-less since the death of my 2-year old HP a couple months ago, so I'm taking advantage of my daughter being out of town to use her Mac.

One of the things on my to-do list this spring was to clean the mold from my Trex deck. I researched how to do this in an environmentally friendly way and I settled on a product called Corte Clean from Lowe's:


I was really skeptical (as a rule, I expect nothing to go as planned, and generally I'm right), but it was really easy to do, looks just like it did when I moved in, and I've had no damage to the grass or the structure under the deck. Plus I have a ton of it left in the bag, so I will do this twice a year as maintenance. Win-win, for a change. And no, I am not advertising the stuff, just saying it worked for me.

Something else that impressed the heck out of me was a $2 piece of plastic I bought at Walmart in the plumbing aisle. I was looking for something to unclog my shower drain that did not involve chemicals and there was this barbed flexible plastic strip with a handle at one end called a Zip-It. You just ease it down into the pipe and pull it back out with the clog attached. Pretty gross, to be sure, but quick, cheap and completely effective. (I will spare you the photos of that.)


For the remainder of the summer I plan to hone my cooking skills, spend time with my family and work on the other things on my list. First up - cleaning out the garage.

Have a safe and happy summer!

Finished Painting the Living Room

This took me forever, only because I'd stop and not get motivated to start again, but now it's finally done. Unfortunately, this room never gets decent natural light. I tried for days to get a good picture but it's pretty gloomy:

And the flash photos are pretty scary:

My daughters think I need lighter curtains - ? I guess maybe for spring and summer, something else would be nice.

My cat was determined to have her picture taken, I think:

Anyway, that is finally done so now on to the next thing on the list.... cleaning up THIS, my leopard spotted deck:

Apparently, TREX plus little sunlight and tons of rain equals MOLD. Gross. Now I just need it to stop raining and dry out so I can treat it!

Sneak Peek

I'm painting my living room, FINALLY. I have to say it's very difficult staying motivated to do this without my painting buddy, my daughter Amanda, who is at college and can't come home for a while. She wants to see the color: (Ignore the tootsie pop in front of the tv, that must have been the cat!)

I told her it's a mushroom-y color, so she may not like it because she hates mushrooms. Maybe I should have said it's khaki-y, but that would be a lot harder to pronounce.


I'm not so lazy that I only did this one wall... I also painted my lower stairwell, which was murder. I sort of don't like the color next to the yellow foyer color though, so I might have to paint the stairs again (ugh!) However, I do love it in the living room, it's just what I had in mind.

Enjoy your day!

Second blizzard bag

Here is the second handbag I made yesterday while snowed in. I winged it based on a picture I saw here. This is my "natural light" photo from this morning:

But I thought the color was really washed out so I took more photos with the lights on and no flash.
The next time I make one of these, I will fix the stuff I did wrong. I forgot to clip the curve of the handle so it is a little bunched up around the lining. I made the bottom of the strap too wide and the length of the handle too short to tie the top (which is why there is a button on top of the strap). One thing I did that I like is I made a little box pleat on the top of the pocket. I think next time I will add a flap.

I put some pockets in the inside too.

Overall I think it came out ok, but next one will definitely be better. Unfortunately I had to spend my morning digging out the driveway so I could report to work at 11 am, so maybe over the weekend I'll do the next one!

Snowed in and making bags

Good grief, 2 more feet... this is all a bit much. Our town was pretty much shut down today, no work, no school, no leaving the house. My daughter has a friend over and they are having a movie marathon, which leaves me a bit of time on my hands. I shoveled some:

But I have not made it to my car yet...

I made a little handbag from a pattern posted by another blogger here.

Now I'm digging through my fabric stash for some fabric to do another style. Hoping for another snow day!

Snow

Looks like a good day to snuggle up and read a book.

It's been snowing all night and is supposed to continue throughout the day:

We have a bit over a foot so far, I think:

I shoveled a path and cleaned the cars off, but it keeps snowing, so it does not look like we will be going anywhere for a little while:


Have a cozy weekend!