A little bit of paint goes a long, long ways...

I've decided that painting walls is easier than washing old spaghetti sauce off them.  The trouble with painting things is that it spreads.  I started out patching a small section of wall, then texturing, priming, and painting it.  But why stop there?  I textured several spots where the previous owner had patched the walls.  (Please don't patch your walls with caulking!  It might be paintable, but it's still shiny & smooth.)  Then I primed them and painted them.  I still had primer left, so I started in on some door frames.  Well, the walls looked awfully dingy next to the cleanly primed door frames, so I touched them up too...  Have you ever read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie?

While I was up on the stepstool painting, I decided it was a good time to replace the fan in Derrick's room with a flush-mount light that won't chop his head off or break when he bounces a ball into it.  Here's his new light on the left:

Then, not wanting to waste a perfectly good light-fan combo, I used his to replace the light-fan combo in my own room.  Mine was in good shape, but a little larger than the room needed.  Here's my "new" light on the right:

Well, my living room light-fan combo really did need to be replaced.  The light pull snapped off and could not be fixed or replaced easily.  So of course my light went into the living room:

 And the living room light-fan combo is on its way out to the ReStore.
Lest you think I did this all myself, I'll confess that Derrick washed all the blades and glass fixtures for me, Brooklynn collected all the dropped screws, and Buddy kept me company until I dropped a screwdriver point down by his tail the second time.  My dad helped with the final fan, lifting it up to me and all.

Now I'm working on the kids' rooms again.  January seems to be the month to do new things!  Derrick will be getting a football-themed room with blue sky upper walls, and green lower walls with yard markings.  And of course, a big O in the middle!  Brooklynn already has a sky blue room with a shelf full of my old Strawberry Shortcake collection:

I have a few more coloring books to frame for her walls.  I also found a vintage Strawberry Shortcake quilt for a wall hanging.  I'm painting an old greenish bookshelf pale pink.  After it cures, I'll decoupage some of the pictures from the vintage coloring books onto the bookshelf.  Just hope she doesn't grow out of pink too soon!



Old & ugly





Glistening pink!





My Favorite Things

But I'm not Oprah, so you won't find a basket of these under your chair.


The first year I've had tomatoes that look like they (I hope!) will ripen!  I also love my portable fence section that I'm using for a trellis right now.  Those 5x3 sections have a lot of uses!

  

My rain barrel -- doubles as a redneck splash park for the kids.



I love, love, love my flower garden!  It's full of masses of brown-eyed Susans, lupine, and a bunch of other anonymous flowers.  I also love finding surprise visitors out there, like this bee and grasshopper.  Right after I took this picture, the bee tried to land on the flower the grasshopper was on, but he kicked at her, and she startled away.




I have a sparrows' nest right outside my window in the carport.  They've nested there for years, but this winter a windstorm cleared out all three nests.  One pair rebuilt and have raised a noisy family this summer.  I love the sound of the "pio pio pio" in the morning.




Who doesn't love frogs?  These fellows have been living on our kitchen counter all summer.



Cardamom is the spice of the gods, I'm sure.  Just the scent of it in my spice cabinet makes me feel wealthy.  It's delicious in chai, coffee, bread, rice, and anything else.

Many years ago I got rid of my beautiful matching dishes and collected mismatched, brightly colored ones instead.  I like variety.

This is my newly redone bedroom.  I painted over the old manufactured-home wallboard (the paint is the color of peach smoothie), replaced the thin plastic wood molding, ripped out the mauve shag carpet and painted the floor brown, then put in new curtain rods, curtains, and comforter.  I didn't put my niece there; she rolled herself into the photo.

Random Thoughts

I got a new phone, which the kids think is top-of-the-line (it's actually pretty basic) because it takes pictures and records their voices.  So now my ringtones consist of, "I love you, Mom!", "Okay, Mom, you got a new message," "It's a picture!", and "Grampa's calling..."  I also have half of "I love you more..." sung in a wavering seven-year-old voice.  We played with it so much that we ran the battery down in an hour or two.

The kids started swimming lessons.  Derrick's class has two kids and two teachers.  He's on his fourth attempt to pass level 3, coordinating arms, legs, shoulders, and side breathing.  He is slowly learning not to flip vertical in the water to take a breath!

Brooklynn, meanwhile, has started Preschool level 1, beginning bubble blowing.  She has a boy teacher, which means she will try anything he asks of her -- even to releasing her death-grip on his arms.


I feel like a quitter this summer -- I'm finally giving in and seriously considering buying an air conditioner.  Until then, we've been spending most evenings at Cline Falls, with our wonderful water dog.  Buddy likes to chase sticks and things in the water, but he's at least half blind, so he usually misses the stick, and he almost never brings it all the way back.  Can a dog have ADHD?

I had a great workout the other day, hauling four children across the river so they could stand on the "big rock" and say they'd crossed the river.  (Barby wouldn't let me take the baby across, fearing, perhaps, a repeat of the Moses story.)  Then the girls made mud pies and the boys hunted tigers.

Bathroom makeover

I wish I had "before" photos.  I never remember to take those.  I will try to describe: sand-colored walls, plastic wood trim, layered with dark blue trim, blah clear shower curtain, blue & white rug.  Pretty basic and boring, but a big improvement over the turquiose blue paint it had when I moved in!

Redo a la cheapo:



Found the shower curtain at Grocery Outlet: $4.00
Matching trash bucket at Ross: $5.00
Bath mat from Kohls: $8.00
Bright colored washcloths from Kohls: $5.00



Supply bucket at Ross: $2.00
Soap dispenser from Ross: $2.00
Brown wall paint: leftover from another project
Colored polkadots for wall: cut out from old gift bags

 I painted over the old wood trim with white trim paint leftover from my bedroom project.  I will replace the blue washcloth basket with a white one from school.  I added a curtain: $8.00 and rod $.75 from Goodwill.  Then bought 2 bath towels, one turquoise and one lime green, and 3 hand towels to match from Fred Meyer's clearance: $8.00 and $4.00.  Total cost: $46.75.  Total time: less than a day.  Response from the kids: "Wow!  Mom, it's beautiful!"



Well, I guess it was good exercise...

After spending two weeks digging out a sprinkler pipe trench 20 feet long and 8 inches deep, I visited Home Depot to find sprinkler heads.  Did you know they make sprinkler heads that rotate and fan out to cover a huge area?  They're terrific.  All you do is screw them onto the existing sprinkler system (note: not the pipe that you spent two weeks digging a trench for) and they fan out to cover the entire area needed.  I don't know whether to regret the wasted two weeks of digging, or to rejoice that I found a short cut to the project.

Next on my list for the summer:

1. Buy a camera to record all the work I really am doing while I'm not washing dishes or clothes, bathing the children, cooking meals, vacuuming, mopping, or doing any of the other boring housework that's always here.
2. Rake aside all the big gravel chunks in my yard, digging up buried soldiers and dinosaurs in the process -- plastic ones, not real.  If I had real dinosaurs in my yard, I guess I couldn't put in a lawn.  Same for real soldiers, I imagine.
3. Pull every last weed.  Convince Brooklynn to help pull a weed or two each day.
4. Spread topsoil.  Respread topsoil after Derrick and his friend across the street turn it into a jump for their bikes.
5. Lay sod.  Any volunteers??
6. Edge driveway.
7. Spread gravel on driveway to replace the gravel that Brooklynn throws into the street during her tantrums.
8. Finish painting trim in bedroom (with trim paint this time, instead of the exterior paint accidentally used).
9. Paint trim throughout house.  It's about time to cover up all the plastic-covered cardboard that passes for "wood" in this house.
10. Mend the holes in my wall.
11. Lay a new kitchen floor.  It's difficult walking around with no floor to stand on...
12. Paint the kitchen cabinets a color that will look good on my dog.  (This week he is black with white accents.  Last summer he was black with green accents.  Black pretty much goes with everything.)
13. Rejoice if I get even half of what I plan done.