whoosh!

How can it possibly be July 6th already? Holy crap! I guess I didn't pay much attention to May. 

Where did May go? Hmmm. Oh! Mother's Day was in May 💗💕 Mine is really great!! We painted, at home. Drank a lot of wine, snacked some and had fried chicken from Holly Hock Hill for dinner. It was a good day.

I cleaned up my craft room!! Hey, don't laugh. It was a big job. I moved most of my books to the sunroom because I needed more craft space. Go figure. It's a beautiful room. Every time I go in there I think, this is my dream come true. 😀📍📏📒📌🔎🔪🔮✏✂💯 I know it seems like a lot, but I've been collecting hobby/craft things for decades. And it's going to serve me well in retirement!

Also, we watched a lot of movies. Most of them weren't noteworthy. But I did think that "Gone Girl" w/Ben Affleck was delicious!! It made me wish I had read the book. And speaking of books, I read one by that wildly popular author, Colleen Hoover. I mean really, she has a ton of books out there! This one was called, Verity. I thought it was pretty average. I'm not a big fan of romance novels though. It was an easy read though. 

May seems kind of blurry otherwise. sigh

Rodents and other small mammals *REVISED 3/27

We don't live in the country. We don't live in an urban area either. I guess that makes us suburban?

Anyway, there is a lot of wildlife around us. Most of it is totally ok with me. Well, I don't appreciate the racoons eating all the bird food and/or pooping on the roof of the house, but other than that, I don't mind too much. 

Last Fall though, some small critter has taken up the interior of our living room wall, as its home. It drives my fella crazy! He can hear it, scurrying around in there. It's become our mission to seek out and destroy the culprit! Mwahahahahaha

First, we plugged up all the obvious holes we could find outside.

Then we set out mouse traps. After a week, we didn't catch a single thing.

Then we drilled small holes in the wall and squirted cayenne pepper in the walls. That worked for a second.

Then we started looking for poison. You would be so surprised to find that that's not a very likable way to get rid of an animal. So we opted for the humane way - trap it in a cage and release it back into the wild, far away from US.

Monday night he put the cage up in the attic. Tuesday morning he found a mouse in there! 

(3/22) Tuesday night he put it back in the attic. Wednesday morning, another mouse. 

*(3/23) Wednesday night he put it back in the attic. Thursday morning he found a mouse in it! 

*(3/24) Thursday night he put it back in the attic. Friday morning he found a mouse in it!

*(3/25) Friday night, back in the attic. Saturday morning he found a ground squirrel in it.

*(3/26) Saturday night he put in back in the attic. Sunday morning her found a mouse in it.

Honestly, I thought that it was probably going to be a chipmunk up there. Nope. I bet there are A LOT of mice up there! Shoot. I hope we can catch them all. I'm super happy though that they haven't found a way into the house. If that happens, trust me, death is imminent!

*I'm pretty sure the ground squirrel was the culprit in the wall. That sucker was PISSED off in that cage! Since we're still catching mice, I guess this qualifies for an infestation. Ewwww. The little squirrel kind of boogered up the cage though so we're switching over to a bucket trap. the bucket trap is a lid that fits on any 5 gallon bucket. I has a swinging flap on the top so when a critter steps on it, it flips 'em down into the bucket. Pretty cool. I'm so NOT happy about this mouse thing. Grrrr.

Great sorrow

Today we said goodbye to our beloved 16 year old miniature schnauzer, Greta. 

Greta, the bestest girl evah. 

Greta with the sweet, loyal, loving soul. There are so many things I want to say about her. 

She weighed 2.8 pounds when we brought her home at 7 weeks. She was about the size of a beanie baby! Seriously, how cute is this?!?!?!

I can't believe that was in April of 2004. We've had Greta for 1/2 of our married lives together! Whoa. That's a long time!

She was 5 months old when she got her first haircut. When I picked her up, I was so startled that I laughed out loud! Are you sure this is MY dog?? This is her before and after picture;

 

When she was a puppy, we had this little plushy squirrel for her that she loved. She killed 4 of them before we had to move on to a larger plushy! Her second favorite toy was a rubber squeaky burger. Squeaky toys were the best. She knew the names of her toys too. We didn't really make an effort to teach her those either. But she always knew the difference between "get the burger" and "get the ball."

When she was a 'teen' we kept her gated in the kitchen/dinning room. She ate a corner of one wall and tore up the vinyl flooring in another corner. Man she was busy! She chewed up any book I left out but she never ate our shoes. Oh, well...there was her love of slippers 😂

I walked her every single day, no matter the weather, to teach her good manners so she would be an awesome dog. And she was! She was a quick learner too. But every once in awhile she would rebel. She would pull on the leash, bark at everything, stop at every post and light pole and sometimes just walk into someone's yard and lay down! Such a character!! 

Once we were walking and this strange cat crossed the street to come say hi to us. Greta usually barked her head off at cats (for no reason). But she didn't that time. The cat walked a blocked with us, right next to Greta, before it left. We found out later that it was a deaf cat. Greta was smart, eh!? 

She knew all the right commands pretty early too. Sit, down, and twirl :-). She loved tug of war and scrunched up balls of paper. Christmas was a lot fun!! 

One of our favorite games was hide and seek. I would hide some place in the house and my fella would say, "where's da mama?" It was harder to make it challenging after a couple years though, she knew all my hiding spots! 

She loved to sleep under the covers, right behind my knees. 

She was completely food driven. You could get her to do almost anything for a treat. We weren't big on people food, just here and there, but she had her favorites. The milk in the bottom of the cereal bowl, peanut butter, pizza crust and Dairy Queen.

She knew when I said, "love da mama" that I wanted a cuddle and she would jump on my chest and lay down. Super cute. After my fella retired, she liked to lay by him all the time.

She wasn't a digger but she sure was athletic in her youth! She never did catch that bunny though. And until she got much older, she didn't mind the snow. She always hated the rain but the snow was ok.

She didn't love Pepper when we brought her home. But it turned out that she really grew to care about her. After Pepper died, she lost her appetite. She lost her interest in walks or playing or hanging out outside. That grief coupled with her age and failing physical abilities, was pretty hard on us. Heartbreaking as a matter of fact. 

We really struggled with what the right thing to do for her was. We wanted to keep her with us. For as long as we could I guess. But that's not always the best thing for you pet, is it. She was struggling to eat, struggling to drink, struggling to stay on her feet. Because she was deaf and mostly blind, everything startled her. 

Greta loved us all unconditionally. There were moments when that unconditional love just made my whole day worthwhile. The love of a dog is a gift. 

It's so hard to imagine our home without her. I know it's been awhile since we've seen her sitting at the window waiting for us to get home, but I'm still going to miss that. 

I'm going to miss her toasty hot little body next to me when I was chilled. I'm going to miss her twirl for a treat; She always had grand expectations. That's a good way to live your life.

Her absence will be profound. 

She was the bestest girl evah!

                                                                                 

                           totally bribed them for this shot

"dad! is that for us!?!?"

                                         

                       She actually did pose for pictures

                but she didn't like all the pictures 😜

                                   Yep, another bribe 😊

                        One day when I came out of the bathroom, there she was, waiting....😂

Greta and Pepper had wonderful lives and ours will be changed forever without them.

wee things

You know how much I like tiny things. Miniature everything! Dollhouse furnishings, tiny felted animals, even baby clothes. SO cute!! I love the whole fairy garden thing too. I started seeing them on Pinterest a couple years ago. I had no idea they were so popular right now. Wow! If you Google fairy gardens, you'll get almost 14 million results. Geez. I hate to be a follower, but I think I have to have a fairy garden. I can almost feel my husband cringing right now. Sorry honey :-)  I promise not to get too carried away.

house update

Last weekend, we finally picked the tile for the wall/backsplash behind the sink. We bought several pieces and brought them home, leaned them against the wall and voted on the 2 we liked best. We had a secret vote :-)  Out of 4 choices, I liked 2 and four. The man of the house liked 1 and 2. So we're going with #2. It was a good experiment and turned out to be a really great way to make a decision! I think I'll use it again in the future.

Oh, and in case you didn't notice in the other pictures, we also got new lighting! Yay!!

Many years ago, we rented this little OLD house. When the house was sold and we were evicted, we pilched some of the old furniture stuffed in the attic. We had permission. Sometimes I wish we had taken more because some of it was kinda cool. One of the things was a tall, round, end table. It's very plain but solidly built. We just recently decided we would refinish it. When we turned it over, we found this written on the bottom!!

Isn't that neat??

Do over...

This is one of those days that I wish I could have a do over on. 

It started last night, about 11:30, when I woke up to the sound of sweet Greta, coughing. I thought she might want to get up so I turned the flashlight on and looked over at her and there was blood all over her face!! Yuck. So Bill and I got up and took her into the kitchen and started wiping off her face. I looked in mouth the best I could but didn't see anything unusual - beside her yucky teeth. And she was acting just as happy as could be! So I determined that she lost a tooth and swallowed it and the blood made her cough. That's what I'm hoping. But I slept crappy the rest of the night. And it made Bill grouchy so I had that on top of it. 

And work sucks right now. 

And as much as I LOVE our new looking house, this week, all the mess and disorganization is kind of weighing on me. No, I haven't been inconvenienced. But the nesting part of me is bugged that there's so much stuff that doesn't seem to have a home right now. And I'm tired of all the dust.

And work sucks.

OK - there are some lighter things. Like, check out this totally awesome rug I got for the kitchen!

It's a little colorful for the man of the house, but I'm going to win on this one.

And honestly, HOW FANTASTIC IS THIS FLOOR!!!???

Almost done!!

We're heading into the home stretch!! All we need to do is get a back splash and paint! Oh, and the trim work and little details. Oh, and I still have to paint the inside of the doors. But still!! We're almost done!!! Walking around in this new space last night, it really hit me. It's an entirely different place now. When I put these pictures together this morning, I was really surprised! It's SO AWESOME! 

Here are some before and after pictures;
(don't forget, you can click on them to make them larger)

My fella is still trying to let the blue island grow on him. He'll get there :-)
I might sand it a little so there's less color.

But check out this floor!!!!!

I wish I could submit his name, for some kind of award/reward for the truly spectacular job he's done!

Ta Da!

Last night, we committed to our kitchen layout! whew. That was not easy! Our 2nd island is a smidge smaller, but I like it better - it flows. It feels right, now;

This is my cool new sink

And THIS is my cool new range!

I'm starting to get excited now!!

Color

I wish I was better at putting colors together. Some people just have a knack or an eye for putting colors together. I always struggle with that.

This is a really fun piece, about colors.

http://listverse.com/2012/12/24/10-fascinating-facts-about-color/

Also, WHY are there so many colors??? How many shades of white do you need? Or black. Black is black! Geesh! I brought that up because I've been looking for a good white, to paint our new kitchen cabinets. Oy. There's shades and hues and tones and...Ugh.

As far as the remodel, it's slowed down a little now. He can't go further, or is it farther, on the floor until the kitchen cabinets are in. And the kitchen cabinets aren't installed yet because we keep changing our minds about the layout. Thank heavens we're doing it ourselves, because we would drive a designer NUTS! Oh, well maybe not - a designer would know what to do, hahahaha! That's ok, we're figuring it out. 

First, we thought we wanted an L shaped island. But then when we put the cabinets where they were going to go, and cut out the foam top, (for the pretend counter) we didn't like it at all!  So now, we're back to my orignial idea of having 2 islands. My guy hated that idea the first time around, on paper. But when we moved the cabinets around, he really liked it! Oh!! And the IRS got my new stove money so my sometimes wonderful hubby said, "I'll sell my motorcycle. I don't ever ride it anyway." So now I can have my new slide in stove. Yay! This make me very happy :-)

Anyway, this is sorta what it looks like now;

It's coming along.

Noooooo

How can it be JUNE already???
sigh
July 4th is practically here. And then autumn and then Christmas!
sigh

I guess we're all just plugging along. We actually had a Spring this year, which was awesome. And summer won't arrive until this weekend, which is awesome! Not the heat part, but that it took so long to get here :-)

The diet has stalled. I haven't gained or lost a single pound in 3 weeks. Phooey. I'm sure it's all about falling off the wagon during vacation. I have no willpower. Which probably has something to do with not having a good filter either! Thank heavens my sense prevails, sometimes.

The kitchen re-model has progressed. At last, we made a final decisions about the floor plan, ordered cabinets and the counter top! Woohoo! And while we're waiting for the cabinets, my fella - who is strong and worthy and precise, has started laying the new hardwood floor. IT'S SO FABULOUS!!! I love it SO much! Yesterday he was mad though...he's no spring chicken. He said this is the first time he's really started to feel old. Because he's tired and sore and it's taking longer than he thought it would. I tried to make him feel better about it but I remembered an article I read a couple years ago, about aging. It said that the thing men fear/dislike most about getting older is their loss of strength and stamina. For women, it's a fear/dislike of being invisible. I wasn't sure I "got it". I do now. Not the women/invisible part though. But ever since I read that, I try to be more aware of little old ladies. Oh yeah, I was talking about the remodel!

Here's the new counter - solid surface material (Corian)

Here's part of the new floor - try to imagine it not dusty :-)

I'd show you the kitchen but it's just sorta pieced together right now. Not much to see.

Remodel *update*

Whoa, he's been busy!!

Here are some before and during pictures;

Remember, you can click on the picture to see it larger.