Archive for the ‘painting’ Category

Spring Forward – and Make Me Some Spaghetti

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

Tonight, or rather early tomorrow morning, we spring forward. Which simply means we set our clocks ahead one hour. I really wish we could just decide on what time we want it to be and quit with all this Daylight Savings crap. I like it when we spring forward, and I wish we could just stay sprung. In Pennyland, springing forward means that I get to go to bed early and not feel like some old person. Because I can stay up until 10PM, because in my mind, it’s REALLY only 9PM. Plus Elvis doesn’t really get the whole time change thing, so he won’t start screaming for me to get up until it’s what he THINKS is 5AM – but it will acutally be 6AM since we have sprung forward and I’ll already be awake. I can’t wait to trick him. I may just YOWL at the top of my lungs when I wake up just to give him a taste of his own medicine. But that would wake up Priscilla. And Priscilla is quite considerate in the early morning. She never makes a peep until I wake up. And then she’s hell on wheels the rest of the day, while Elvis goes back into hibernation for the rest of the day.

Tonight I made Bernie a big pot of spaghetti and noodles. It’s one of his favorite meals. I can tell when he gets a hankering for it, because he drops subtle hints like “Remember when you used to love me and make me spaghetti”. He’s been really working hard to get this place painted, and being that he is a wonderful husband and I’m such a darn good wife, I made his stinkin’ spaghetti and noodles. He seemed greatly appreciative.

Next week we’re supposed to get a break in the weather. I really hope that’s true. Bernie plans to work some more on our fence. I really can’t wait to have this place fenced in so we can put in the garden and get our chickens and goats. I’m pretty sure I’ll be battling chickens and goats in the garden, but I don’t care. What’s a homestead without animals to make it entertaining? Remind me that I said that when I complain about it in the future.

We’re planning to finish painting our sitting area tomorrow. Bernie finished up mudding and priming the walls yesterday. We bought the paint today. I picked out a nice shade of deep red. I showed Bernie the little paint wheel from Sherwin Williams and asked “What do you think about this color?” He responded “Is it black?” I just chuckled and said “You are so funny”. Who said color blindness is a bad thing?

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in basic living, daylight savings time, homestead, homesteading, mudding, painting, spaghetti | No Comments »

Mud and Honey Comb

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

The weather has kept us from getting a lot accomplished outside on the homestead, but it sure has allowed us to make some headway in getting the inside of the house painted. By “we”, I mean Bernie. But I’m sure you knew that already. Today Bernie worked on our little sitting room. He removed the strips between the drywall last week, and he’s been working on getting those areas taped and mudded. Today he sanded it all down and attempted to mud over it again, but the mud was at the end of the bucket and getting rather gritty with old dried mud that kept falling in from the sides of the bucket. That makes mudding darn near impossible. He was not in a good mood when I checked on him around noon. I walked into the room to find it, and him, completely covered in drywall dust from all the sanding. He was totally white from being covered in dry wall dust, holding a mud knife full of gritty mud, cursing under his breath, and looking somewhere between a rabid dog and a crazed serial killer. I knew better than to say anything. I gave him a big hug and as I patted his back a huge plume of drywall dust erupted from his shirt. I wanted to laugh. But I knew better. I just said “Maybe you can quit for the day and wait until you buy more mud.” He mumbled something as I left the room, but I didn’t ask him to repeat it.

Sunday Tex, Charlotte, and Bobo came out to visit for the day. It was one of the warmest days we have had in a while. So the men decided to go outside and grunt and do manly things, while Charlotte, Bobo, and I decided to whip up a batch of soap. I’ve been wanting to try my hand at a batch of honeycomb soap I’ve seen pictures of, and since Charlotte and Bobo seemed game, I decided it was time. Charlotte and I lined my soap mold with bubble wrap, whipped up the soap, and poured it into the mold. I cut it this morning and I’m pretty pleased. It’s made with honey, and scented with Oatmeal, Milk, and Honey:

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Elvis had me up at 4:30 this morning. Although he’s rarely awake, he can not stand to have me sleeping when his eyes are actually opened. He yowled and yowled until I finally gave up and joined him. I logged into work at 5:00AM, and Elvis curled up on the desk next to my mouse and fell asleep. I wanted to scream “YOWL” and wake him up, but I didn’t have the heart.

By the way, Bernie is in a much better mood tonight after his mudding experience. He sanded a bit more, and everything looks really nice. He’ll get some new mud tomorrow and get this finished up. It’s very rare for him to be in a bad mood lately. And when it does happen, it doesn’t last very long. After 20+ years of marriage, I’ve learned to keep my mouth mostly shut when it does though. I am, after all, a pretty darn good wife.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in drywall, home made soap, homestead, homesteading, honey, mudding, painting | 2 Comments »

Incriminating Evidence

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

I think I mentioned that when we have nasty weather outside, Bernie is painting the inside of the house for me. Today is cold and windy, and apparently the thought of painting appealed to him more than working outside, or maybe he just wants to get it over with. What ever the reason, he decided to put a base coat on some of the walls today, and I am eternally grateful.

While he was painting, he took a quick break to come back to my office and chat with me for a few minutes. When he got back to his paint tray, I heard him chuckle and yell for me to come look at something. When I got there, this is what I saw:

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The paint tray was on the floor, but there were no paw marks close to the paint tray at all. We were a little perplexed where the paint came from, until Bernie found this on the wall:

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If you look very closely at the top left and bottom right, you will see the little cat paw prints.

As you know, we have two cats – Elvis and Priscilla. They are siblings. Elvis is 18 pounds of sheer laziness and affection. Priscilla is a whopping 7 pounds of nothing but trouble. That little monkey is always into something.

I went looking for cats. I first found Elvis – doing exactly what Elvis always does. He was sleeping. He woke up when I grabbed the camera and managed to expend enough energy to yawn:

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Priscilla jumped up on the bed, looking very suspiciously guilty:

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I flipped her over on her back, and sure enough …….

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White paws! I KNEW it!

Fortunately, base paint comes up very easily with a little water. I wish I could train her to step in paint and walk across a few pieces of furniture. I think the cat paws would look cool. But I’ve learned you can’t train Priscilla. She has a mind of her own – and that little mind is always thinking of ways to get into trouble. If she weren’t so darn cute, I might even get annoyed with her.

She and Elvis should be happy we get so much entertainment and loving out of them or they’d be barn cats for sure. But then I’d worry they’d starve to death, because they apparently find catching and killing mice repulsive.

I’ll post pictures next week of the kitchen and living room walls we painted. Hopefully, they will be paw free.

Bee Free,
Penny


Posted in cats, homestead, homesteading, painting | 2 Comments »