Welcome Summer!

I love summer! Though there are things I enjoy about spring and fall, I LOVE summer. I love being able to spend time in the water. If I had a pool or lived near a decent lake, that is where you would find me ever spare moment. Brad Paisley’s new single “Water” should be my theme song (minus the wet t-shirt part). As a kid, if there was water, I always managed to “accidentally” fall in.

I love having/going to cookouts. I love grilled hamburgers and homemade ice cream. I love baseball games, and fireworks (LOVE LOVE LOVE fireworks). I love shorts and sandals. I love working in the flower beds. I love watching fire flies (I get those in my back yard). I also love driving thru Kansas during early summer and seeing the wheat about to be harvested. Harvest time in Kansas and cookouts by the river are still my two favorite childhood memories.

So here’s to you summer. Please don’t fly by too quickly. I’ll enjoy fall when it gets here, but it can take its time.

I Have Been A Busy Woman

So, I took a few days off last week to get some stuff done at home. It spilled over into every evening last week and this past weekend, but after numerous trips to Lowe's and Wal-Mart, here is what I accomplished:

Put some plants & mulch in the front flower bed. Also "transplanted" some mum plants I've coveted from my neighbors. I know, I know...sounds like stealing, but in my defense the new tenants aren't taking care of them and their landlords didn't plant them and I KNOW Lynn (the lady that did plant them) would want me to have them...and it's not like I took all of them, I just took a few small sprigs.

I finally put border around where my tulips are and added a few new plants that you can't see yet because I started them in the house and the still aren't very big. I still need to add mulch to the big flower bed, but I want to plant a few more things before I do.

End table that I painted black.

Coffee table that I also painted black. I still plan to frost the glass, but that will probably have to wait a few weeks.

Some of you will be glad to know I FINALLY finished painting the stairwell. That lamp is so dang ugly, but it is staying for now.

Now for the biggest project of the last 9 days. My neighbor/friend down the street and I had been talking about taking the carpet off our stairs. Her husband said I had to go first. So I did. And for once, I have full before, during, and after photos:

This carpet looks so much better in the pictures. It was was horrible in real life.

After the carpet was removed (mid-tack removal).

I cannot believe I'm posting this, but it was too funny of a sight not to share (Facebook Profile Pic? I don't think so). The mask was to help with allergies and the goggles were for the tack removal process. I didn't have time for a trip the the ER because some wood chip or tack flew into my eye...I am accident prone (and I'm going to spare you the photos to prove it this time around).

This was the results of my gap-filling mishap. It spray in gap filler SAID it wouldn't over expand. So I sprayed it in, cleaned up the foam that did expand, waited an hour before I went to bed to make sure it didn't expand out any more, and when I got up the next morning that stuff was all over the place. This picture is after I had trimmed it down and sanded some of the mess.

The stairs after a day of sanding.

After the painting.

And the "almost" finished project. I have a college student moving in with me today and so I was trying to get it stained and polyurethaned before she moved in because you can't walk much on the polyurethane for 24 hours after. But the stain bled through the tape onto the white (what I get for not using the Frog Tape on all the stairs. The two I did use it on didn't have this problem). So since I now had trim work to do and because there were some flaws that need to be fixed better, I'm holding off finishing them until the college student moves out at the end of the summer. They at least "look" finished for now.

Its the Little Things That Make Me Happy

Call me crazy, but I’m in love with this thing…

It’s my new washing machine! Isn’t it pretty? I have never had so much fun doing laundry. It’s like I have a new toy. Poor dryer, I don’t get as excited about it.

On a totally unrelated note, but one that deserves some mentioning, this is my latest cookie project.


Frogs, Fish, Flowers & Butterflies for my friend’s Sonshine School Pre-K class. Still working on designs I like for the butterflies, frogs, and fish but I’m pleased enough for something that will be gobbled up in less than a few seconds. ;o)

I’m also still working out the best method (and amounts) for using my decorating bottles. And thanks to my wonderful mother, I now have 6 bottles instead of 3…which helps to speed things up. Now if only the kitchen fairy would swing by my house before I get home.

Where Do I Start

So my weekend was a little on the nuts side. Here is just a taste (warning, this will be long)…

Critters
I finally got the hole fixed leading up to my attic, and since I hadn’t heard a single critter in my attic since early January, so I decided to take advantage of the fact that my mom was at my house and had no problem pulling the trap out of my attic (I don’t know why I’m such a chicken when it comes to that). When we pulled the trap out, this is what we found…


Nothing triggered the trap, but something ate all the corn. Thinking I might be putting some Decon up there sometime soon (though a little afraid something other than mice will eat it and then I’ll have a real mess on my hands). So after months of not hearing a peep, at 3:44 Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of a something overhead. Oh yes, there was another raccoon in my attic!!! What are the chances? Since inspection of my house doesn’t show an entry point on my property, then once again its getting in on my neighbor’s property and making its way through the eves to my attic. I’ve decided to resort to coyote urine and either a super soaker or water balloons (since I won’t go any farther into my attic other than lifting the opening).

Washing Machine
Another highlight of my weekend was buying a washing machine. I suspected that it would take me more than an hour with it being the first day of the Oklahoma Cash for Appliances program, but never dreamed it would take 3 hours!!! We got there at 8:50 a.m. since I couldn’t make a purchase before then. There were people who had been there since 6 a.m. I took a number (#29…didn’t seem too bad), picked out my washer and waited for them to call my number. Seems the state’s rebate website kept freezing up. By 10 a.m., they were still working on #5. By 11:00, one of the employees found a way to get people entered and by noon I had my rebate form (though not without issue…the website didn’t recognize my address b/c the person on the other end of the phone entered something wrong). I’m supposed to be in possession of my new washing machine by this evening, but the phone call I had this morning isn’t sounding too promising (stupid tornados).

Porch Light
You thought that was it… not quite. I also recently installed a new porch light that has a photocell in it so it turns itself on at dusk and off at dawn. The first one stopped working after a week. So I finally took it down and installed returned the malfunctioning one and got a replacement. I really like this porch light, so I was hoping I just got a dud the first time around. Maybe not. The new one took several attempts to get it to work and it flickers some when it is on. I don’t see how I could get the connection any better than it already is, so I think it’s just poorly made…but I will keep it there until it dies.

Alarms
Finally, I got to put my new alarm system to the test Saturday night when my friends/neighbors came down to see if I had started my next home improvement project yet. I thought I had disarmed it, but when I opened the front door, we all got a scare. Yeah, it’s loud…and I shouldn’t have a problem hearing it upstairs.

Okay, so now I’m done. A week’s worth of posts in one day.