A Busy Little Bee!!! :-D

PHEW!!!!

This week has been hijacked from me -- I have had somewhere to go every day so far!  And by the time I get back home, there isn't enough time to get into a project!!  And for some NEW reason, my internet gets terribly spotty again at night.....can anyone explain THAT???  So I lost most of a really long post two nights ago (pics and all! :-P), and I just didn't have the energy to start over!

And my title of "Busy Little Bee" is NOT referring to me getting any painting done, or any other projects! LOL  Nope.....what happened was I found the "Cleaning/Organization" boards on Pinterest (of course! LOL).....and it just totally inspired and motivated me to get going around here!!
So I have been scurrying around here, doing all sorts of little jobs, and it feels great!

See, I've been a little nervous finishing up my huge jobs in the main living area, and thinking about how I don't have any more excuses for having a dusty, cluttered home.  I'm NOT a great housekeeper....."great"???....I'm not even GOOD!  I have a tendency to gather, acquire, collect STUFF, and most of the time I don't put it away, I just have it!  And I have a real paper problem -- mail, flyers, receipts, lists, recipes, notes-to-myself, etc, etc -- I can never find a way to deal with it all!!  I love BEING organized, I just can never figure out how to get there!! :-D

So I made some goals for myself -- I want to get the dishes DONE every night (instead of saving them until the next day), and I want to wipe down the bathrooms every night, and I want to wash the sheets and towels every WEEK (instead of whenever they are overflowing the laundry baskets!), and finally, I want to conquer my PAPER....!!

I'll let you know how I do.....so far, so good, but the real test for me is in two to three weeks -- if I am still doing good THEN, I'll probably be able to stick with it! :-D

Here are some of the pinterest boards that have inspired me with really good ideas....
http://pinterest.com/tcusso/clean-and-organize/
http://pinterest.com/ammladybug/homemade-for-the-home/
http://pinterest.com/nurse_lb/cleaning/

There are TONS more (just check out which other board each pin came from....!!), and lots of great blogs about cleaning and organization, so I'm hoping I can finally get control of my procrastination and clutter!!! :-D

Yesterday, after getting home, I DID get the thresholds painted!!!  I LOVE how they look......

 This is the big one between the kitchen and library room!

This one is on the other side of the library room, in the entryway!

And here is the one for the laundry room!

That laundry room floor has been scrubbed!!  I decided not to paint it, and just leave it "distressed" -- I mean, that's the look I'm going for, right?  Why ruin it by making everything look new again??

I used stain to help match the new paint on the thresholds to the 5-6 year old paint on the floors!  I am VERY happy with how they look!! :-D

I wanted to paint the "cross-beams" from my last post, but I ran into a little snag.....

YUCK!! Haha -- that's what happens to paint after 8 years, I guess! LOL  Of course, it could also be because it's Walmart paint -- my Behr paints and Valspar paints have never done that (and some of them are older!)
No problem, though, because I just had my favorite Lowes paint guy (Daniel) color-match me up a sample size.  He calls me the Sample Lady!!! :-D  I do love my samples!

So I will be able to paint those "beams" next.....I'm actually just waiting for my arm to feel better.  I pulled a muscle in my forearm last week, and it really hurts!  And I never told you all about what happened to it the week before Brian's vacation.....NOT a good story, but I'll tell anyway.....

You all remember last fall when we were finding homes for the puppies across the street, and we kept one of them, our sweet little
Minnie-mins......

 

(She loves to wedge herself between me and the island, probably hoping to look cute enough to get a treat!!!  What you can't see is her tail wagging and thumping against the island door!  Soooo CUTE!!)

Things have been great with her until she got to be about a year old, around the end of April.  Our other dog, Puppy, who adores me, never really warmed up to Minnie.  She played with her for a little while, but as Minnie got older, Puppy would growl at her alot when she was acting too excited and bouncy, and Minnie would be submissive to her......until the end of April, when Minnie snapped back at Puppy, and they started fighting.  We managed to pull them apart, but that was IT -- Puppy decided Minnie needed to be dead.  Now they cannot be together AT ALL.  We've been doing ok with keeping them apart - they stay in different rooms with the kids, and they take turns being out in the kitchen with me, and they stay on leashes when they get walked, etc.  But if they ever get together, Minnie goes right over to Puppy (not viciously), and Puppy jumps on her, snarling and biting.

It's HORRIBLE.  I can't say that enough!  Even my son said, how do people actually enjoy dog-fighting???  It's SOOOO upsetting to see and hear!!

Brian wanted us to find another home for Minnie, since she is younger, and Puppy is totally attached to us/me.  And for a week or so, I agreed with him and was looking around for a home for her, but I just started to cry every time I thought about really doing it -- driving her to a new home and leaving her there.  She would be looking for me!  She would be wanting to come back home with me!  She is nervous around strangers, and doesn't even leave the yard anymore.....how could I do that to her???
Besides, neither of them are one bit aggressive to us - actually, they are very submissive to us because we've trained them that way.  So Brian relented, and we just play musical dogs all day.  And it's been working great.

Until the week before Brian's vacation.

My poor Adam, who at 17 is so protective of me and caring about me, went in to the room where his brother was with Minnie.....and without thinking, left the door open.  Out came Minnie, making a bee-line for Puppy, who was laying next to me.  The boys came rushing out after her, but they were never going to make it in time, so I leaned over to grab Puppy's collar and block her from Minnie, and Puppy (in the confusion, and getting riled up and ready to kill Minnie) BIT ME.

It was only a quick bite, a quick reaction that was meant for Minnie's leg or preferably, neck, but it was just above my wrist, and it was a BAD one.  It gave the boys enough time to grab Minnie before Puppy could get her, so at least a fight was averted, but my arm was a wreck.  Poor Adam, as I was bleeding profusely, and rinsing it off, and realizing how deep it was (and shaking!), he felt AWFUL.  After I bandaged myself up, I found him sitting outside away from the house, alone, trying not to cry! :-(  Poor kid!!  Hey, any one of us could have done that!  And I was fine, albeit a little damaged, but OK!

Of course, that's why I stopped painting in the beginning of this month!  It hurt ALOT for a few weeks......

Naughty Puppy!!!  I'm getting ready to change the bandage here, about a week after it happened.....she knows what she did.....

YIKES!! (Sorry if it grosses anyone out!  It actually looks great here -- healing perfectly!)
And now it's nearly gone.....

I was surprised that the pain and bruising went up to the knuckles of my hand!  It's still sore and a little swollen around the bite!  But at least I had the movement of my arm and hand back.....until I pulled the muscle in my forearm that goes up to my elbow!! :-P  UGH!  Too many arm issues!!!

So while I couldn't paint or anything like that, I got really excited about.....Garlands and weeds!!! :-D
I started trying to dry anything...hahaha!!!  I'll share pictures of them all in my next post!

NOW I am trying to find a substitute for tobacco leaves!  I LOVE how they look!!  But I can't find them anywhere!  I did buy some seeds online to grow my own....LOL....but that is going to take awhile.  So I walked around the yard today and found these from a tree out back......

 (the fork is for scale)  They aren't big enough, and they will probably dry and crumble, but I'm going to TRY and see what happens!! :-D  And maybe I can find a way to preserve them if they aren't too crumbly when they first turn brown -- like maybe wax or varnish or something.  It's worth a try!!  And then maybe next year I'll have real tobacco leaves to hang!!!! :-D

Before I go, I want to show you a picture I found (while moving things around my library room, you know, "organizing"! LOL).......

Those are my boys, Adam and Jonathan, and their cousin, Holly......aren't they ADORABLE!?!?  I can't stop looking at this picture!!!
Now here is an updated picture, well, it was taken last year when my sister came down for a visit and took the kids to the mountains over night.....

That's Jonathan, Holly, and Adam!! (it's blurry because it was taken with my sister's phone)
The funny thing is that no matter how old they look or get, when I look at them, I still see their sweet little faces from the first picture! :-)  And sheesh!.....how did they grow so fast???

So that's my week so far!!  I'm going to try to post again by the weekend, but we'll see.  I have the AT&T guy coming tomorrow or Friday to check the wiring again, and he said it will take one or two more weeks before they can get started on the main wire.  They must really want to keep us as customers!  But it had better WORK after all this -- they will have no more excuses!!

Enjoy the rest of your week!!! ^-^

I Have Internet Again -- YAY!!!!

Well, we are back online steadily again -- THANK GOODNESS! 
It's not completely fixed (the wires haven't been re-hung/laid/placed/whatever!), but we redid a wire under our house, and the guy came and hooked that up this morning, and it worked!!  (notice how I said "we redid".....in reality, it was Brian who did all the work, while I was observing and offering my invaluable opinion - "Go HERE", etc!!! :-D)

Our internet speeds still aren't good (and not what I pay for....), but it's at least staying connected!  Hopefully, when they figure the whole pole-right-of-way-thing, we will have our high-speed internet back!

I'll be back with a post tonight -- I should get to work on a few things around here, but I've got to get my Pinterest pages sorted and saved!!!!!  I have TONS of tabs open of them! :-D  I think I'm developing a pin-addiction.....I can block out all else in my pursuit of pins!  It actually frightens me a little......but I can't stop!!  There is so much to SEE.....I must click on it ALL!!!

See, it's hopeless! hahaha!!

I'll post again later.....! ^-^

A Few Days Late!!!

:-D
I LOVE the library -- it's so quiet and comfortable, my kids pick out tons of books and love to sit here reading them.....I should have stuck dinner in the crock pot, then I could stay all day!!!!
I was here Tuesday, too, but I got distracted by all the Pinterest pages I had open, and didn't have time to blog......Pinterest is becoming VERY dangerous for me....!  I can easily lose hours looking through there.  Tuesday, I got caught up in recipes!  Usually I'm very careful and discerning about what I pin when it comes to primitive pictures and ideas, but I just totally lose that focus when I see recipes!  And then I created a "secret" board for recipes to try before adding to my "Yummy" board, and that was IT......I was out of control!!  I think I have 400 or more pins on that board!!!  I guess it's time to make something from those recipes, right?! :-D

Anyway, the other thing that happened while I haven't been blogging is that Brian had his summer vacation last week!  Oh, it was wonderful.....I love having him home and with me!!  Of course, now that he's back at work this week, it's thrown me all off -- I haven't done ONE thing I wanted to all week!!  I just can't seem to get that lonely feeling for him away from me after having so much fun doing things around the house with him.  The excitement is missing!  So I have been sitting and looking through all my magazines every day.  At least I can say I've been organizing them, which really means moving the piles of magazines around and changing out the ones in my "Favorites" box for different ones! LOL  And today is Thursday again, so he'll be home tomorrow - YAY!! :-D

Another thing that we crossed off my list when he was home were the thresholds!!!!  That's where the last ugly remnants of the old floors that we covered were showing, and now they are GONE!!  Yippee!!!
There were four doorways (without doors) that needed them, and they were all different sizes - the kitchen one even has one of our heating/air vents in it! (poor planning on our part when we extended the kitchen wall! :-P)
Here are the before and after pictures (I love looking at them! :-D)......

These all need to be painted still, and I can see the laundry room floor in these last two pictures should get another coat of paint too! (that's one of the jobs I was supposed to tackle this week....)
Here's the last one.....

This is where the new wood floor joins the kitchen -- doesn't the stain look great?!!  I love it!
And I think Brian did a great job making the space for the vent cover.  It was a little tricky - he had to use the jig saw to cut the edges of the square while it was here on the floor! - but it's perfect!!
I guess I should have taken a side picture, so you could see the shape and height of them, but I'll do that when I paint the others.  I had him cut them so they looked like the old raised thresholds I see in all my favorite pictures!! :-D  Of course, the kids keep stubbing their feet and tripping over them (haha!), so I am getting lots of complaints and comments ("we aren't actually IN an old house you know, Mom!"), but I LOVE them and I told them they'll get used to them!! :-D

Now let me show you the other really FUN thing Brian made for me!  When we first moved in and I started changing the house around, I decided to do something about the long white joining seam that ran along the entire ceiling in our family/living rooms.  You see, because this is a manufactured home, both sides were delivered here separately and then put together on site, so they covered the ceiling "seam" with a long white piece of pressed wood.  I painted it two different shades of brown to make it look more like a real beam, and then I had Brian put 2x6s on the walls on both ends of it, and painted them the same!  It made it look better, even good, but I've always thought it needed something more.....so I asked Brian to put up another piece of wood on each side.....

.....before......and.....

After!!!!

Of course, I was supposed to paint those this week, too, but....well, you know the story!

I really like them!!  I just hope they don't look too fake.  I mean, they might look dumb.....you can tell they aren't REAL.....   Once they are painted, I hope they will look good.  I can't wait to hang things from them!!!

The last exciting thing I wanted to share with you was something that is oh so familiar around here......

.....a mangy, skinny, sad, sorry little dog found us.  Isn't she SO sweet!?!! :-)  My mom said there must be some kind of animal ESP message going on out there to come to our yard if they need help! (I even saved an injured wild bunny once!)  And at least this time she wasn't a victim of the losers across the street (although the kids over there tried to say they were keeping her -- ahhhh, NOPE!).  She wandered into our yard covered in ticks and burrs and some kind of black oil (and no collar).  And she was so timid and even afraid -- she loved to be petted and have attention, but as soon as we moved our hands around near her, she would duck and cower and try to crawl away! :-(  In case you can't tell, she is also pregnant.  So we fed her and I called my dearest angel-helper who I've turned to with all my dog problems, just to ask advice, but she told me, "Bring her!".....isn't she wonderful?!  She has NEVER turned a dog away!  So I drove her there the next day, and by nighttime, she had found a wonderful home for her!!!  And those people brought her to the vet the day after that, and the vet did an ultrasound and said she has 4 puppies that are about one month along! :-)  My friend told me that she LOVES those people so much, she could tell just by watching her with them at the vet's!  Isn't that the best thing?!!!  I love that she has been mistreated and alone all this time, and now she is getting all the love and attention that she wants!  It just delights my heart!!! :-D

There are SO MANY abandoned and unwanted dogs down here, it's probably going to be a lifetime thing for us.  But like Brian said, we can't turn our backs on an animal that needs us, no matter what.  I am SO grateful that he feels like that, because I could never refuse to do anything I had to to help, and it makes it so much easier that he believes the same and wants us to help -- I don't have to sneak around!! Haha!

Alright, I guess I need to get going!  I am waiting for a call-back from the phone company guy who is working on the line re-do, because this is starting to take too long.  At least I am getting a credit back from them for last month and this month, if necessary.

And oh, how lovely, guess what it's doing outside.....here's a hint: it's the same thing it did last night, and the night before that, and the day before that, and for two weeks before that!!!  RAINING!
Do you know that we have only had TWO - count 'em, 2 - days that were 90 so far this year???  That has to be some kind of record, because every summer for the past ten years it has been 90 or above for half of June and most of July and August!  Do you know that it's been hotter at my mom's in Massachusetts than down here??  WOW!  Not that I'm complaining about that, but I'm just so surprised!  I didn't think that could happen here!!
*Sigh!*  Good thing I have a book tote bag to wrap my laptop in!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!  I almost feel lost without any big projects looming over my head.  All I really have left is painting.....maybe it's time to start planning another room.....???
Shhhh!....Don't tell Brian I said that!! ^-^

Remember ME....??? :-D

Do I get the "World's WORST Blogger" Award yet??? :-( 

*Sigh!*  I wish I could tell you that my internet troubles are over, but, alas.....THEY AREN'T!! :-P
I am sitting here at the McDonald's in our town, using their wi-fi so I can get online!  Our internet is so spotty that it's just easier to stay off of it until they can figure out the wiring.  It will stay connected for a minute or two and then disconnect for 30 seconds or more, and then reconnect for another couple of minutes only to disconnect again.  It's SOOOO irritating, so we just aren't using it at all.  Fortunately, though, I have tons of browser pages opened to favorite Pinterest pictures or boards, so I just leave them on there and look at them when I need some inspiration (being very careful not to click on anything, which would lose the page!)!!  After I'm done with this post, I'm going to pin them all to my boards!!! :-D

Since I haven't been staring at my computer these past couple of weeks, I've done some Very Fun Stuff, and I've been aching to share it with you guys!  Which reminds me......it's become very clear to me lately WHY I blog, because I am missing it so much --- I LOVE it!!! :-D
I've been feeling so bad for MYSELF now that I don't get a chance to sit and post regularly like I could before!  I love having this online journal to record the fun things in my life, and all the things I get excited about during the day don't seem as fun without being able to SHARE them on my blog, with all of my online friends!!   Some people might think that I only have a small amount of "followers" -- actually, I think I have alot!  It's more people than I actually know in real life!! LOL  So I feel like I'm sharing my posts with a large group of friends! (and ONE sister! haha!!) :-D

And I could literally post every day -- I have something I want to write about almost every day! LOL  But I try to restrain myself to once or twice a week, so I don't overwhelm my blog with too many posts to keep up with! :-)

So now that I can't post whenever I want to, it feels wrong, and like I'm missing all these chances to share the silly little things that make me so happy.....that only you guys "GET"!!! :-D

So.....here I sit at McDonald's, because I just can't take it anymore!  The other thing that is terrible is that it has been raining on and off here for the past TWO WEEKS, and probably longer.  And even when it isn't raining, it is so humid and cloudy that it might as well just rain (which it does after a few minutes!).  Right now I'm listening to thunder, and ahh-yes.....the rain is just starting again!  How much longer can this keep up???  Needless to say, I've done very little in the garden -- every time I step in there, I sink into wet soil/mud up to my ankles!  I can tell this is going to be a low-harvest year, between me getting started so late, and this lack of sun for weeks and weeks.

I also want to update you all on my neighbor's scan results -- it was not BAD news, but not the news we were hoping for either....but I'm going to keep hanging on to the GOOD part!  Her scan showed cancer cells in some lymph nodes, but that was it.  She was upset about it because she had done her first round of chemo, and we wanted there to be NO cancer.  BUT....they never did a baseline scan before she started her chemo, so I told her she has no idea if there were more cancerous cells that were killed off and are gone now.  Plus, her blood cancer markers are great.  And she is getting help from an herbalist, and he told her that it was great news because there was no cancer in any organs.  So we are going to hang on to that!  Right now she is doing the radiation part of her treatment, and it's every day for 6 weeks.  She just finished up her second week this morning, and she's feeling OK.  She may start to feel bad in another week or two, they said, and she knows I'm willing to go over there anytime she needs me.  Her son practically lives over here, so I know she appreciates being able to have a quiet house to rest in during the day, and it's nothing for me to have him here and feed him.  I love knowing that when he's an adult, he will have happy memories of being at our house like his second home! :-)
So anyone who is willing, please just keep praying with me that she will have complete healing after all this.  It's so frightening, and really all I can do is pray.

Let's see what else has been going on.......

I bet you guys think my whole kitchen must be painted by now, right???  Well.....NOPE! LOL
Wait, though!  I have a reason (actually a couple of reasons!) -- I got going on some other painting that needed to be done, too, so it's a good reason! :-D
First, we DID get the kitchen trim all painted and nailed up.....

That's trim for the kitchen ceiling, AND the laundry room floor (finally!)!!
Vive la difference!!!......

It looks SO beautiful to me, after seeing the ragged, unfinished edges for 3 years now!! :-D  I still see it and just sigh with happiness!!!!
Then I got to the kitchen baseboard......

All the baseboard trim in the house is going to be 1x6s.....I LOVE the look of the larger size, and I see it all the time in the older houses!  You can see in the top picture I used the cheap fence boards (again!) -- I can't resist because they are more than HALF the price of the regular pine 1x6 boards!  But they are so rough, either I have to sand them alot or Brian uses his hand planer to shave off a very thin layer.....see the difference in that first picture?  The board in the middle has been planed!
Then I painted them, and on they went......

I LOVE this color now, especially next to the tile! :-D  I'm still contemplating putting a piece of quarter-round trim along the floor, so it looks like this......

This is from an old Country Living magazine I was looking at the other day (sorry it's so dark).....I LOVE that look!!!!  But for now, I'm just thrilled to get any trim in here done! :-D
I also got some of the hallway trim painting started too......

That's only one coat, and obviously the doors aren't done, but I already love it!  I am nervous about painting the doors the dark red, though, because it will be so dark, but I have to -- they have to be the same color as the trim!!  I thought about painting them a beige to match the wallpaper, but I just don't think it will look RIGHT that way. 

The next thing I've been working on has been something I've never even mentioned on my blog -- the outside of my back doors!  I have always had SOOOO much going on inside that I didn't really give the outside much thought, but as I worked on painting the back doors, and then cleaning the windows, I just kind of started it......

ALMOST DONE HERE!!!! :-D
I cannot describe the happy feeling I have getting these projects completed -- it's wonderful!!!

The inside doors are completely done......

Now, I'm getting ready to hang curtains on them -- see the little hook magnets I put on the top?
I painted them the same red.....

.....then I bought dowels and had Brian make little end caps for them to keep them on......

Now all I need to do is to sew the curtains! (and I might paint the dowels red, too)

I would have even more painting done, but I hurt my arm last week (a long story), and haven't been able to use it well -- I'll save that story for my next post, because it's getting late here, and I need to get back home!  I have so much more I wanted to show everyone, but it will have to wait.....I will be going to the library on Monday, so I'll post again then!! :-D

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday yesterday, too!!  We got rained out, so there were no fireworks, but we cooked inside and still had fun.  My kids have gotten back into playing board games and cards together, and I'm really enjoying listening to them play together again!  I guess there are some things to be thankful for without the internet, right?!!!

See you all on Monday!!!!!! ^-^