In the New Year 2015

During the holidays I was watching TV with my youngest. The movie Julie and Julia was on in which a young woman blogged every day while she cooked through Julia's child cook book. Her goal was to do all the recipes in 365 days. No I'm not going to pledge to do that. I am not that ambitious of a cook. But what I decided I would like to do is blog every day next year. I have gotten away from blogging this year but as I read through some past posts I liked reading some events or musings from the past, so I decided to make my own challenge. Some posts may be short but I am up to the challenge of daily blogging. Here's to a blogging 2015!

My weekend project...

We ordered some doors from Home Depot for our bathroom remodel.  Two of the doors are for the closet entry and one is the bathroom entry.  We were going to get antique doors but couldn't find any that matched and were affordable.  Anyway we were going to have someone stress paint the doors for us but that didn't work out so I decided to take on this project myself.  I have never stress painted (using chalk paint) before but typical for me I take on a huge project.  3 doors both sides is a lot!  Here are some pictures.  I still have wax to apply to the back sides of two doors and an entire door but my arms are beat!

Doors 'Before' Knotty Pine doors from Home Depot

Spray Shellac on the doors since they are pine to seal them.

Chalk painted white base coat and then old white final coat 

Painting the Old White coat

Stressed (with sand paper)

One door waxed on one side

One of the closet doors stressed

Long weekend almost over..

Sad to say this long weekend is almost over.  It was a nice relaxing weekend although disappointed that the youngest could not come visit after all.  When college-aged kids get a dog I don't think they really think about how that will affect things in the future, especially if they split up and then move on.


Anyway I took a few walks this weekend but that was all and by myself. I guess I should explain myself. On Wednesday I had my dermatologist appointment and after talking with the doctor about the extremely high probability of my moles growing back and turning into melanoma (at a time that would be totally unknown) I went ahead and had the two punch biopsies done.  It is always worse that I am originally led to believe.  I thought they said it'd be 1 or 2 stitches at the most. Well it was really one stitch underneath the surface that dissolves on its own and then 3 stitches on top.  And she did two of these so I had a total of 8 stitches, one on my back and the other on my right shoulder.  Not what I expected. And to avoid injuries to the areas I am not to do any hard exercise or stretching, so not my normal exercise routines.  I was told I could take walks but figured I better not take any of the dogs so they don't jolt my arm.  It was actually nice yesterday because I got to talk to a very nice neighbor that I don't usually talk to.  I always have a dog or two with me and there is no approaching anyone else with a dog and trying to talk to them. My dogs would be barking and pulling too much.


Yesterday I watches some Sci-Fi movies since I really couldn't do much else.  It was relaxing and a real lazy day.  This morning I had some fun on a new karaoke website that someone told me about.  I recorded my first 2 songs (duets) with random other members.  Here is a link to 'If I were a Carpenter' if you care to listen.  http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/r/b06bfd75f    Mine is the female voice of course!


I wanted to do something while we had this long weekend so today we did go and see the new Transformers movie.  It was good.  I enjoyed all the special effects.  If you like the Transformers movies, you won't be disappointed. 


I didn't really mention the 4th of July but we didn't do anything special.  I went to visit my mom and make her lunch as my dad was away for the day playing bridge in Austin.  She appreciated the help and the company.  We heard some fireworks in the evening while sitting in our living room, but didn't go anywhere to see them.  I don't really care about seeing them or not, like I used to years ago and are somewhat concerned about our dogs as a few of them really get wigged out by them.


All in all a nice relaxing weekend.  Oh made chocolate chip cookies too with the mix from my Southernbellegourmet website.  You can find them here:
http://www.southernbellegourmet.com/zz_products_cookies.php

Random Sunday Blog

I thought I'd write just to touch base since it has been a little while.  Things have been going very well lately.  I am enjoying work more than I have before, we have decided on a contractor for our bathroom, and it hasn't gotten unbearably hot in Texas yet this summer.  Life is good!


Also my oldest is getting married in August and I'm so looking forward to see her again and seeing her getting married to a man she has loved for years. 


We have had fun picking out colors, vanity styles, etc., for the bathroom. We are getting sliding barn doors for the closet and bathroom entry. These are doors that roll across a track that is on the outside of the door above the doorway. Anyway we were wanting to find 3 antique doors to use for the doors and I thought it would be easier than it has been. There were a few places we checked in town yesterday and one lady had a few doors but none that were the size we need.


Hubby knows a guy that he thought would have some and he happened to have his business card from years ago when we owned Wood Stock. This guy salvages things as well as gets some props that have been used on movie sets.  There are the fake wooden windows that were used for the movie True Grit that we got to see on an outbuilding there.  Anyway, there were not as many doors as had hoped they would have.  We did see two matching ones but they wanted $200 a piece for them and that was giving us a break. Ouch!  They didn't look any better than the doors we saw yesterday at an antique store for $40 a piece. So we passed. It was  a nice ride out to the country and we got to see where we used to have Woodstock, but we went ahead and ordered some knotty pine doors at a local store that we will have stress painted by the same gal who did the one in our dining room so we are happy with how we think they'll turn out.

Good Monday!

I know I usually hate Mondays!  But got an early start with my walk and took Merlin with me.  It was still a bit cloudy so it was nice not having to wear my hat (which just makes me sweat more).  I watered the balcony gardens (pulled 5 caterpillars from my parsley that got on them at some point and tossed them off the balcony and over the fence).  I don't know why I keep thinking I won't get bugs by having plants up on the balcony, because they come anyway.  I have a pepper plant in the front that is fighting a losing battle still with the aphids too!


Anyway this was going to be a happy post not sad.  Anyway got dogs fed, washed up and got to work at 8:00AM.  I got through a lot of work today.  I was on a roll and also got some great news as well and cannot go into particulars but let's just  say I'm a happy worker! 


I had some yummy leftovers for lunch from eating at Cotton Patch on Saturday evening and enjoyed a Mike's lemonade (hubby surprised and bought it for me to try) with dinner.  Overall just a great day!! Just weird for a Monday to be so great!  I'll take it though!


Here is  picture of a few recent houseguests and no they were not invited :)

Both were set free unharmed.  Just don't want them back any time soon. I don't mind the cute little gecho type creatures but the lizard was about 6 inches long and not a tiny cute thing

Almost Friday

Another seeming long week is almost over.  I have been getting up earlier and walking in the morning instead of after dinner. Did I already write this?  I hope not. Anyway it has made me a little more tired than I'd normally be I thinking, because instead of getting up at 7:30AM on the days I don't do my regular exercise routine, I've been getting up at 6:30AM to do my walk early.  I've been taking one dog with me too which makes it take a little longer, for sniffing stops and peeing/pooping stops.  But it is fine. I get washed up when I come back and grab my coffee and am ready to go.  So I'm trying not to complain about feeling tired right now.  LOL


I think we've decided on our bathroom remodel. We picked some great guys who after revisions, gave us a decent quote that we can live with.  It is going to be at least a month away, but it is nice to know that it is really going to happen.  Now that's something to be excited about. That and the fact that tomorrow is Friday. Yea!!!!

Happy Father's Day!

Posted this today on Facebook. Wanted to share...

 To a man who served in WWII...married my mother...had four wonderful children (no bias there)...ventured out of state to start a business with a small group of like-minded men determined to not just simply punch a time clock...who refused to succumb to advanced stage non-Hodgkin's lymphoma nearly 10 years ago...and who will most likely be holding a winning bridge hand until the day he passes....to you I wish you Happy Father's Day! I am so proud to be your daughter!