A Reveal That Was...

Here are the pictures (uploaded to our desktop... still have no idea why my laptop no longer likes the camera). We had a house guest this weekend and she said that the room was "cozy." A good endorsement for a guest bedroom. I, for one, am very pleased with the results!

The bed from in front of the window.

The bed from in front of the closet.

Another book unit that Reid built.

A Reveal... That Wasn't...

I had every intention of revealing the room that we worked on all last weekend (and into the evenings of this week). Unfortunately my computer has decided that it doesn't want to talk to my camera... and it is my bedtime so I'll have to share the pictures tomorrow (if the two pieces of electronics want to play nice then). So, for now... I'll leave you with a before picture. When I posted this picture originally (over a year ago) we said that the blue was going to go... well, it's gone!

Memorial Day

On this Memorial Day I hope that you are able to spend time with family and friends. I hope that you eat lots of yummy foods (anyone having a pitch-in? My co-workers make fun of me because they call them pot lucks and no one had ever heard the term pitch-in). But most importantly, I hope that you spend a little bit of time today thanking a veteran, and remembering those who have and who continue to give their all in service of our country. Thank you veterans (and veterans' families!).

The Big Reveal!

One of the most exciting things to me about moving into our first home was the idea that I could have a room entirely for my crafts. I claimed the front upstairs bedroom because it was big and bright and had two closets off of it, perfect for holding crafting supplies. But a terrible thing happened... it became less about my crafts and more about stuff landing up there. It became a storage room for just about everything. Rather than it being the crafting sanctuary that I thought it would be it had become one of the rooms I didn't want to show people on the brief tour of our home. And for the sake of full disclosure, here are the before pictures of the room which I am more than a little embarassed to put on the web for all to see.

You can see on the far left... this room is also where our little seedlings have been growing for over a month now. What can I say? I was a little zealous in the planting department and have learned my lesson for next year.

Just piles everywhere!

This past week has been a transformative week for that little room. I remembered that I still had a lot of yellow paint and enough white for the trim... and with that I was off! I painted the walls and trim. Then I designed a nice and easy shelving unit for Reid to build (made out of painted plywood). I painted the shelving unit and then took on the daunting challenge of sorting my craft stuff. But it is now (for the most part) all sorted and the best part about is that everything has a home! Of course some day I would love to have cute matching bins or baskets for the shelves... but until then I think we can all agree on what an improvement this room is! Of course... now it's the back bedroom's turn! And believe me... you may not get before pictures! If it is possible, that room might be worse!

A nice table in the middle is just asking for a scrapbooking session, don't you think? And I love that you can now actually see all of the detail of the built-in shelves behind it.


Looking the other way... doesn't my sewing machine fit perfectly over there? It's in the same place, you could just barely see it in the other photo for all of the stuff!

And here is the storage/shelving unit. And as you can see, I still even have a little bit of space left!

Spring has Sprung!

After two days of lots of work, we have a primed fence, outside and in!

Here is Reid at the beginning of the project... we weren't nearly so smiley by the end. I'm right now completely denying the fact that we have to do the same amount of work with paint coats, at least one possibly two.



And in other news... spring has definitely sprung in the Valley (yes I know it is May which means that for most of you spring has come and gone and it's practically summer).

Big Changes...

There are big changes going on around our homestead. Basically midweek last week while I was cursing the winds for blowing (and thus thwarting my fence project) I remembered that I had everything necessary for another project I had been meaning to get to since we moved in. So... I completed that project during the week. We started the fence (it will be the longest of the projects to complete because we simply have so much fence) this morning with just one coating of primer over most of the inside of the fence and it already looks better! I'll post before and after pictures eventually. And... Reid is working on a woodworking project for me that it going to finish out the project I worked on this week and then... I'll reveal all of our hard work! Hopefully be the middle of this coming week.

So cryptic I know...

Blogging Haitus... and Yummy Stuff

I've been on a blogging haitus this last month. It is self imposed. Part of it is that I've been interested in other things and part of it is that I lead a pretty boring life in which most of the every day details aren't particularly interesting, even to me. I think I might be coming to a time where I'm just blogging less frequently and that's okay. My guess is that blogging is a little like a pendulum... I've swung in the direction of blogging every day in the past... now I'm just swinging to the opposite extreme.

We're still waiting for the wind to die down (and for me to paint our fence and for the sprinkler system guy to call me back so that we can set up a time for them to come out to figure out why our back sprinklers won't turn on... see what I mean about boring details). And until all of those things happen the garden won't go in. I'm hoping to paint the fence (at least the part around the garden) this weekend (I bought a paint sprayer today after two hours with a brush and only about ten of the literally hundreds of slats painted) and I'm hoping the sprinkler guys call this week. I would LOVE for the winds to stop tomorrow but it's probably another week or two for that. But... just because the garden isn't going doesn't mean we haven't been eating yummy healthy vegetables picked right here on our little homestead. What ever do I mean? Well... see for yourself!

This was the first batch of wild asparagus picked last week from the drainage ditches and fields around our house (little known fact that horses apparently don't like asparagus... it's the only thing along their fence line that they didn't eat). Reid and I went out and picked another basket almost this full again last night. And today the dogs and I walked down the other side of our road and saw that we could revisit the plants from last week and pick at least another serving or two off of those. Reid has told me that I'm a woman obsessed. I just love that I can pick something for free that cost me at least four dollars/bundle at the store! And it is so tasty. We have, so far, had it pan fried two nights and in a pasta dish one night. Tonight I think I'm going to try the east/west marinade for it that was in my latest edition of Vegetarian Times! Yummy!

Oops

Okay, so apparently "very soon" around here means over a week later. What can I say? I got busy. And lazy, both!

The show closed on Sunday. Though our audiences were not as large as I would have liked, we otherwise had a very successful run. I'm going to miss the show a little. But having my evenings free is going to make up for it.

This is finals week. I have three finals, all of them performances with papers tied to them. One tomorrow and two Thursday. Then Thursday evening Reid and I are having the graduating seniors over for dinner. So, today I got up, rented a carpet cleaner and cleaned the carpet in our bedroom and living (and boy did it need it!). Now I'm waiting for them to dry so that I can do some more housework in those two rooms.


In other news, Reid and I have been working towards putting in a garden. Up until this week it has been getting to cold to plant anything. I think in another week or two we should be able to. But, before we could put in plants we had to put up a fence (done several weeks ago when it was still ridiculously cold and we both felt a little silly for being out there).

(Here is Reid pounding fence posts!)


(This is the garden space all fenced in. It's about 24X24!)

Then we had to till the soil and put in the gate. And finally we had to lay top soil. We really need another layer of top soil (and we need to mix in the layer that is out there). I just hate paying for dirt...

(This is Winston's version of helping in the garden... isn't he a big helper?)

(Of course... Winston learned from the pro! Tater!)


And finally... in case anyone wondered whether or not Tater is enjoying having a little brother... here is some proof that he is! After all, Winston makes a great pillow!