If only...

I'm trying to make a blogging comeback, but it seems the harder I try, the busier I get. This has been a very crazy year. It has never taken so long to get moved and settled in. We're coming in on six months now, and while we are making progress, there is more to do. This unsettled business might have something to do with the fact that we are not only trying to get our house finished up before winter, but we also have five acres of land that needs to be made ready for a smidgen of livestock, and we need to put a gas line in so we don't have to rely on electric heat! Mix that together with the fact that the jobs we are getting requires a lot of traveling. And, well, there's just not much time left for blogging. And, oh, how I miss that blogging time. 

However, one of these days, we will get caught up on our work! (I hope, I hope, I hope! Fingers crossed!)

If all our jobs could be like this recent job, I would not complain AT ALL! We put gutters on this house shortly after we moved back form North Carolina, three years ago. They had just moved in, and they had giant 4-foot high ferns all over the place. I mentioned that I loved all their ferns. They hated them and wanted to get rid of them. I could have whatever I wanted. I happily went around digging out as many ferns as I thought would fit into our truck, occasionally stopping to help Hubby with the gutter work. Oh happy day!

They recently called for another job. There wasn't much I could do, but Hubby said I could go along because they had a bunch of blueberries they said I could pick. We love getting free fruit because that turns into brandy! He also said I could take my bathing suit and go swimming in their pool afterwards.  I wasn't sure I'd feel comfortable going swimming in a stranger's pool, but I took my suit, just in case.

We arrived at the job about 9:00 a.m. Hubby started surveying the situation while I took my buckets and headed for the blueberry bushes. Those bushes were jam-packed with berries, and I picked to my heart's content. It took three hours to get through them all!

Meanwhile, Hubby was up on the roof, tearing off wood-siding, making repairs, and replacing new siding.  The weather was nice and pleasant, but of course, it's always at least 20 degrees hotter on the roof.

 After my strenuous three hours of picking blueberries, I did decide to take a dip in the pool. 

Oh yes! It was a heavenly as it looks. I'm pretty much a fish when I get into the water. I forget how much I love being in the water until I actually get in. Ohh, I love it! So this is where I spent the remainder of the day. Floating on a little raft, getting off and swimming around the pool, hoisting myself back up on the raft, floating, swimming, floating...you get the idea. Just me and the pool. I told Hubby on the way home that I think we need to put a pool on the list of things to get someday!

 Right beside the pool was a butterfly bush, and those things do indeed, attract butterflies. I hopped out of the pool to have a little photo shoot with a butterfly.

These were the sights that greeted me as I swam and floated around and around. Beautiful gardens everywhere! I hope to make a similar transformation in our yard - someday!

The blueberry bushes are in the background

 What? Did you say you wanted to see a picture of me in my bathing suit? I'm blushing. I'm very shy about that sort of thing, but for you I will make an exception! 

Hee hee. I'm hilarious!

This week my agenda includes this:

Yep. Scraping and painting our house. And, guess what I'll be doing for the next two weeks after that. Scraping and painting another house. Oh, the fun of it all. 

How I wish I was back here:

Until next time,

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Raising the White Flag

Well, I'm back from another unintended break, but only temporarily. In fact, just long enough to say, I'm gonna have to take a little break. I didn't want to, but since I haven't been blogging much, I decided to make it official. Hence, the raising of the white flag. I surrender. Oh, how I hate saying that! 


But, before I surrender, you may be wondering what I have been up to. Well, last week, during the hottest week of the summer (so far), Hubby and I were up on a rooftop. A two-story high, steep roof. Not a fun place to be. He spent most of the time on the roof, while I sprinted gingerly climbed the ladder carrying a myriad of supplies that were needed. While I was climbing the ladder I wondered which was worse, to make 1000 trips up and down, or to be perched up on the top of a steep roof. But, when I was perched on top of the steep roof, I decided that I would much rather be drudging up and down the ladder. My job was to cut the shingles to size to make the process go faster. I'm getting really good at it. We should be able to really fly when we do our roof this next week! After that roof job, our single story roof job will seem like a piece of cake!


And speaking of cake, (wasn't that a nice transition?) this is what I am going to attempt to make for the 4th of July:

Source: s3.media.squarespace.com via Darlene on Pinterest

I found this on Pinterest. I'll let you know how successful or unsuccessful my attempt was. I'm hoping it slightly resembles the flag, but we'll see. 


Son, JT, and Sweetie Pie will be arriving on Saturday. Between now and Saturday I have to get ready for a yard sale (Wednesday thru Friday),and get the house cleaned. What the heck am I thinking??? Well, it must be done, otherwise there is no place for Sweetie Pie and Son to sleep, because all of our yard sale junk treasures are being stored in the "living room". 


I'm not even going to discuss the garden! Sigh Everywhere I look there is work and more work to do. Next year, HOPEFULLY, we won't be so overwhelmed.


I've also be editing two books, not mine - are you crazy? Amazing Daughter is getting ready to publish her first book. I'm so excited for her. Her dream is coming true. 


Also, one of my SILs has written a book. She passed a copy (rough draft) out to all the family members to read, to get everyone's opinion. I'm having a hard time reading it without being in "edit mode". She assured us that she wants honest opinions. So, she will either hate Amazing Daughter and I, or love us. But, when someone says, "Give me your honest opinion", and you do, you discover they really didn't want honesty. And, bye-bye friendship. I like her story, but...what do I say now? Let's say it needs more development.  I hope it doesn't make me sound judgemental, because I could never begin to write a book.


I'm reading another book, no editing needed! Remember that little contest a few weeks ago over at Craziness Abounds? Well, I won first place, by default. The first place winner already had her book, so she graciously said someone else could have it. I came in second place, so I recieved not only the just released book, "More Nonsense", but also the first book, "Just Nonsense", by my wonderful friend, Melynda Fluery. And, they are great, entertaining books. I'm loving them. You can get your copy by clicking on the book at the top of my    blog.


Well, it is time for me to start carrying stuff out of the basement and out of the living room to get ready for the yard sale tomorrow. Hubby is busy scraping off shingles as I type this, so I will be setting up the yard sale by myself. At least I'll be on the ground!


I am missing you all, my bloggy friends, and hope to be back to visit you come mid-(or late-) July. To all my American friends, have a wonderful Independence Day, and celebrate by reading the "Declaration of Independence".


Oh, in case you are wondering, we now have a full and functioning bathroom! YAY! Pictures will be forthcoming when I return!


I hate to say good-by, so I'm dragging it out. I do the same thing when I'm talking on the phone. It drives my kids crazy. Finally, they will tell me, "Are you going to say good-bye or not? You said your first good-bye 30 minutes ago!" 


OHH-KAAAY! Ta-ta for now. Talk to you again in a few weeks! 

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Discombobulated Again

Dontcha just love that word? It is such a fun word to say, and describes my mental state quite well.


Just thought I'd give you a little tour around the place, and you will understand my discombobulation. We are still in disarray from moving (back in February! sigh) but we are making great progress. With every move we've made (hey, isn't that a song?) Hubby and I have always done some kind of remodeling and tweaking. And, with every remodel and tweak, we've said, "The next time we do this, we are NOT going to live in it while we are 'tweaking'." ROFLMBO!! That has never happened. Ever. 


So, here we are, again, living under construction. And, to make matters just a smidgen worse, we are also trying to get the outside in order. So, if it rains, we work inside, if the sun is shining, we work outside. 


This little picture is hanging in our hallway. It's rather appropriate for us at this time. It was made by my artsy-fartsy creative daughter. 

Oh. One more thing. You can only visit if you promise not to judge us as pigs living in squalor, (even though it might look like it.) (Is this small print hard on your eyes? Because I can hardly see what I'm typing!)


Did you solemnly swear? OK. You can come in.
But first, here what the house looked like when we bought it. It had been empty for 18 months or so and needed some TLC.

The fields were also in very tough shape.

 This is the dining room going into the living room.

Now, everything is painted, but it still looks a bit (ok, a lot) like a storage garage. 

This is the sight that greats you as you walk through the front door. Garage sale collections - except for the flag. We're waiting to get the house painted before we hang up the flag.

 Then you work your way in through the narrow pathway

Now, if you turn around, you will see another view of the living room/storage for the bathroom/storage for the garage sale stuff. Back on the far wall is a queen size mattress, waiting for a new home or to be dragged out to the trash. Continuing clockwise is our new toilet - can't wait for that to be installed. Then the couch that no one sits in, because #1 - the TV died, and #2 - why would you want to sit and look at the bathroom furnishings? And, then we have the bathroom cabinet. Very comfy, huh?

Behind the cabinet, more garage sale junk amazing one-of-a-kind items. Where do you put all that stuff to get rid of? The garage? Nope. Ours is full of man stuff.

 This is the dining room, (I use the term loosely) with all the tile for the bathroom threatening to takeover the hallway.

And, here is a collection of tools on what some people might call a dining table. If you look carefully, you will notice a small arrangement of sunflowers in the midst of chaos. At one time, for a brief moment, this piece of furniture was actually used as a dining room table. Weird, huh?

Another picture of our almost finished kitchen, just to show that I do have a place that is clean!

 Ahhh, let's move outside and get a breath of fresh air, shall we? This is the view from my kitchen window, with one of our redbud trees in the background.

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 I transplanted some of the wild raspberry bushes (far left) from our last place. They are doing quite nicely and are loaded with lots of berries. In the center, we're planting 10 blackberry bushes (said to produce 1-2 bushels per bush!), and to the right is our garden/weed patch. We started planting at both ends, working toward the middle. Don't ask me why.

 Another view of our garden. The green parts are weeds, 90% of which are thistles! The other 10% is some kind of vile weed with a root system that reaches to China.

So, we have been quite busy the past few months. And, still have a lot more work to do. Hopefully, by the time the snow flies, we can take a breather and relax.

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Y is for Yipee Yipee Yahoo!

The Yipee Yipee part is because son #2 B.D. is here helping Hubby measure for my new countertop.  We're getting one step closer to having the kitchen all finished. Yesterday Hubby worked on getting the dishwasher and the icemaker  installed. Yipee! The dishwsher is running now, and now we can put away the paper plates.

Here is a little sampling of the nice work B.D. does. This is Amazing Daughter's Christmas present. She had to wait four months for it, but it was worth the wait.

The "Yahoo!" part is for only one  more day of the A-Z blogging challenge, and then I can breathe a sigh of relief!

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P is for Progress

Yes, weare making progress, but as I look around at what needs to be done, it still feels overwhelming. Ah, now why didn't I think of "overwhelming" for yesterday. Oh well.


As promised, here are some photographic peeks showing the progress of our projects. Here is what our little gem looked like when we moved in. The boarded window in the garage has been replaced, so it doesn't look quite so forlorn.

Sorry for the blurry picture. The camera person must have been drinking...

Chaos

On its way to being finished

Still having storage issues, but making progress

Original kitchen

Original upper cupboards, new lower cupboards that
traveled from North Carolina with us. The plan is to have the
upper cupboards refinished to match the lower ones...someday!

My new farmstyle sink - which I LOVE! - complete
with new faucet and running water!!

 I don't take running water for granted. We still can't drink the water, however. Our water was tested and is off the charts high in manganese. Normal levels are something like .050; our levels 1.10! High levels of manganese are said to cause memory loss. Heaven knows I have enough problems with my memory, without help from my water intake. Hubby said he would go to extreme measures to help prevent any more memory loss. He will be working on the plumbing again today, trying to get the water purifier hooked up. This will be his third attempt. Please, I beg of you, say a prayer for him! We want no leaks when he is finished. (I hope I won't have to pee in a bucket today, but it wouldn't be the first time!)


This is our gutted-out bathroom, with new can lights.

That big box contains our new bathtub!

The garden in the front is shaping up

Azeala bush

 The back area has lots of work to do. I've started planting around the gazebo.

 I have a long way to go to be finished!

Another garden area in the back

Another area in the front

Hubby wanted me to show you our high tech water purifier system. Most systems don't need that big tall one. That one is for the manganese!

We still have a long way to go, but we have come a long way from when we started!

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