Finished... ?

Have you ever looked and looked, and searched and searched for something that you know you saw within the last couple of weeks, yet you can't find it now that you want it?  Ugh! That is what happened with today's intended pictures. So frustrating! But the good news is that...

My living room is finished!

Mostly.

It has been a long-haul with the living room, beginning clear back, last year, when I built the shelf for the DVDs. And then the bookshelves. But now it is pretty much done!

So, to start out with, my living room had boring white walls, and ugly white mini-blinds. Also ugly, green couches.

I couldn't find any "before" pictures of my living room...
well, not the one I wanted. 

This is a very cute picture of Jessica, with the "before"
living room behind her.

And these are pics of the "before" living room
while it was under construction.

These pictures will give you an idea of my empty canvas, although they are not nearly as good as the one I was looking for.

Well, after the shelves were finished I decided I needed a little end table to go next to my couch. This would prevent the ottoman and the floor from collecting things like empty cups and remote controls. I got a cute little table at a second-hand store. It was mostly cute. But it had lots of gouges and scratches—including "I LOVE YOU MOM" carved into it which, I'm sure, made that mom feel very loved. The scratches were so deep that I decided I'd paint the table instead of staining and varnishing it, which would have been my first choice.

Once again, I forgot to take a picture until I'd already started working on my project. 

I did a lot of sanding, used a lot of wood-filler, and did a lot more sanding. I also tightened some screws—and put in a few more—to keep it from wobbling. I painted the table with the paints for the bookshelf and the wall around the bookshelf, but I've never been sure about it...it looks like it would be super-cute in a little girl's room.

Then we planted our garden. And then we painted the living room.

the same color as the hallway-side bookshelf wall

No more white walls! Yay!

We made a custom clock for the east wall:

I think the compass points and the fancy hands make it hard to read. I wonder if painting the hands bronzey/brassy
or maybe coppery would help...

We decided that the south wall needed some family pictures... But what I really wanted was a family tree. So we projected a nice tree onto the wall, and I traced it and painted it (time for us to bewail the misplacement of a really good photo of me painting a tree onto the wall). 

Lindsey is not sprouting a tree out of her head;
it is painted on the wall.

I had originally bought a bunch of picture frames at the thrift store, but I realized pretty quickly that they would 1. cover up way too much of my tree, and 2. take up space that I'd rather use for pictures. So we printed up a bunch of photos and mounted them onto hardboard and foam-core board and used sticky-tack to put them up. :-)

Then I had a short bout of laziness. 

And then I made the curtains for the windows. They are pinch-pleated, and have drawstrings and everything. No more ugly mini-blinds!

This picture in my files is titled: Too many devices.
But don't look at that. You are supposed to notice the "Before"—white walls, white mini-blinds, and green couches. Particularly
the blinds. You can notice my attractive kids, too.

Here's a better "before" picture of that wall.

This is actually a picture of my chair, in progress.
But you can see the curtains on the wall.

Then we did the couches. And then lots of canning. And finally the chair and ottoman.

Here is the chair, still in progress. I had originally intended to make the chair blue—just to break up the brownness of the living room. And then I started wondering if that would just be weird—
this BLUE chair in the middle of everything. I do have yards of brown fabric left, and I could have done it brown.
But we decided to go with the blue.
Behind the chair you can see my fabulous ottoman, and the first use of the elephant fabric that I fell in love with in the beginning.
Again, I debated brown or blue for the top of the ottoman,
but the brown just made it look really boring.
And a blue ottoman gave me a tie to the chair, right?

The very last project to be completed was the cornice board. It was pretty easy to make, although I did have a few puzzles to solve (mostly how to hang it up...).

the back of the cornice board—it's almost finished
What you don't see, and will never see, is that under the elephant fabric on the front side I used two layers of horrible, purple,
minky-fleece to pad it.

And now I'm going to take a break and tell you how wonderful that elephant fabric is. It is gorgeous in every way. It feels fabulous, and the colors are rich, and it was woven so that you could sew it end-to-end without any waste (it connects perfectly in the middle of an elephant). I knew I loved this fabric from the moment I saw it!

Love this fabric!
I wasn't sure about the tassels...Even though they match the green wall and the blue chair, and would pull those colors into another part of the room, they did look a little too bright for my beloved elephants. But, as with the chair, I decided to forge ahead.

OK. Now that you know how fabulous the fabric is...

I sewed the tassels on by hand—all 11 1/2 feet of them!

A sneak preview:

Of the four yards of tassels, I had nine tassels left: four brown,
three blue, and two green.

Well, Bruce and I got the cornice board hung up. It really gives the curtain a finished look—and I'm glad I used the tassels.

Oh...wait. I was wrong! The cornice board wasn't the very last thing done. Once it was hung up, I had my two throw-pillows to make. I'd gotten a couple from my neighbor, who was moving, so all I had to do was re-cover them, and pad them out a little more.

before and after pillows

blue on the backs, to tie in with the chair

And that's it. Well, almost it. I do have some lovely fabric for sheers to hang under the curtains. I'm undecided about them...which means I'll probably make them and hang them up and love them. But if I don't love them in the living room, I'll use them in my bedroom. I also have this strange little closet space to fix up (it's not going to be a closet). Maybe I'll make that it's own post.

Anyway, here are the before (sort of) and afters:

Before

After

with the curtains closed
Still don't know about the white and green table.
Mostly I don't think about it...

...although I'd like to keep a plant on it.

the whole room, as you see it when you come in the front door

So, that's it! I could use some artwork on a couple of walls, but we are hoping our talented kids will take care of that...  Or I will have to look around. And, if you look at the clock pic, Little Red Riding Hood isn't going to live in the living room. I'd replace her with a small globe or something. Maybe another plant (Because I am soooo fabulous with houseplants...)

Anyway, I'm pleased with the way it all turned out. :-)

2019 Wish List

I have been so tempted to post my wish list early—I just keep thinking of things I'd like to have (in the kitchen, mostly). But I knew that Santa and Kim would roll their eyes at me, so I have waited patiently for my traditional Wish List Day... November 1st.

Here it is:

Actually, I would like these first two things as Thanksgiving gifts. Pre-Thanksgiving.

First is a Bundt Loaf Pan.

You can find this one here,

and this one here.

I couldn't decide between these two. They are both lovely, and either of them would make a lovely Thanksgiving cake—as well as a lovely addition to the fall-themed dish display in my kitchen. So you could choose one for me, and I would be so surprised!

Second on the list (the Thanksgiving list) is a whisk for my Kitchenaid mixer. That would be so fabulous!

Find it here.
They are also available at our local ACE Hardware store.

I need a new Food Processor Bowl for my hand-blender tool. Mine got killed in the bottom rack of the dishwasher which is super sad because it is a tool I use all. the. time.

I really miss this thing! I have had to go back to chopping everything the old-fashioned way, with a knife and cutting board.
You can get one here.

Speaking of cutting boards...
I really could use more of those—big and dishwasherable.

You can find these (or some that are very similar) at Walmart or at any store that sells kitchen stuff.

Next up—which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier—is a pair of stylish Onion Goggles. If they really do what they claim, I could have used these five or more years ago—and in all the years since.

You can find these if you do a google search for onion goggles.
Or you can find these orange ones,
or these black and green ones on Amazon.

Hm. Really all of those things would be great to have for Thanksgiving. Maybe this should be a Thanksgiving Wish List...

Well, to continue:

I want flowers in my great room—all the time.

I love this arrangement by Nearly Natural.
It would look so very perfect on my round coffee table.

This one is a nice second choice.

Oh. And I'm back to food things.

I'd like a Mandolin (the kitchen tool, not the instrument—although that would be pretty neat).

This one is Cook's Illustrated's top choice, and it's mine too.
I had this same model for a long time, but it finally cracked under pressure. I'd love to have one again.

This Children's Tea Set:

Yes, I really have a thing for pretty dishes, and for childrens' playthings. This set looks gorgeous! And it could go in my spring or summer dish display...

I really want all those old stop-motion Christmas Specials they used to show when I was a kid, DVD (or Blu-Ray, if they have it). Specifically, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; The Year Without a Santa Claus; and The Little Drummer Boy. I wouldn't cry if Frosty the Snowman was on it. ( (I already have How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas.)
I really don't know where to find these; they may not all be in one set. I'd try Amazon, Ebay, and Walmart or Target, I guess.


Moving away from the kid stuff:  I think I'd like Cannery Row in my movie collection. It ranks with O Brother, Where Art Thou? (which I also don't own...in case you wondered) in my list of almost guilty pleasures. Funny movies. :-D

You can find both of these on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble.

Oh! I almost forgot...
A Kindle Fire (here). My eight-year old kindle gave up the ghost a couple of months ago. And, while I normally prefer books with real, paper pages, I use the Kindle when I can't sleep at night and I don't want to turn on a light and wake Bruce up.
Although, come to think of it, I should probably get this for myself because Amazon gave me a $15 toward a new one...

Hm. This is some list. And I'm not done yet, because there's still the usual:

Clothes

Hardbound Books: The Queen's Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner (books 1-3); any of Jane Austen's novels—as long as each one is bound as it's own book (I have a book with all her novels in it, but it is...unwieldy, and falling apart; any of Gail Carson Levine's fairy-tale books; The Goose Girl series by Shannon Hale; ummm... Those make a great start. :-)

I'd love a Spa Pedicure. Although I don't know where to get one in Vernal...

Well, it's a long list this year, and it could go on and on...because I started compiling early, and wrote things as I thought of them. But this is a good stopping place.

Except that, as always,

What I want the most is

to have a glorious Christmas with my family!

That is the greatest wish on my list!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Unprepared

This morning I awoke to a soft knock on my bedroom door.

At least that's what Rachel says.

Usually I wake up between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. all by myself, every day of the week, like it or not. But this morning I snapped awake, glanced at the clock—7:20—and realized it was time to take Rachel to school. I marveled that I'd slept so late, while simultaneously realizing that I had to hurry and get out of bed, and wondering why Rachel hadn't tried to wake me up.

Clothes, or pajamas?

I opted for pajamas, as I usually do for the drive to school. Stumble down the stairs and into the kitchen. Slip on my weird, sandal things that are also part of my morning drive attire. Head for the front door and...

my approach to the front door...
Oh, no!

Snow!

I am not ready for this. Not in any way at all, this morning.

Bruce has been reorganizing the garage (he even built a workbench in it).

No parking space inside.
But there's a really nice (and really tall, for some reason)
workbench in the left-hand corner.

This means the cars have been parked outside and now, sure enough, they are covered with snow. I open the driver-side door, toss my purse onto my seat and search for a snow-brush. None. Shut the door and my bare toes are liberally powdered with snow. Aaagh! At least I know that the snow isn't frozen onto the windows...

I am not exactly dressed for a snow day.

I search the other car, opening and closing three doors, showering drifts of snow onto my feet each time, and still don't find a snow-brush. Finally I grab a reusable grocery bag and use that to clear off the snow that's still left on the car. Now I'm unsuccessfully trying not to get my fingers in the snow on the windshield and brushing the icy powder onto my feet. On the upside, when I get into the car it feels relatively toasty.

The roads are wet, but not icy...that's good. But we take the drive to school behind a school bus and at less than five miles an hour the entire way—there must be an accident up ahead somewhere.

A few minutes and less than a mile later: How long is this drive going to take? I am realizing that, in my hurry to get Rachel to school on time (which is probably not going to happen now)
I didn't stop in the bathroom this morning. Well, I'm still trying to rub the sleep from my eyes with my popsicle fingers, so maybe a slow drive isn't so bad.

Finally we pull up in front of the school, having made the five-minute drive in eighteen minutes. We're not the only ones; even though the final bell is going to ring in less than a minute, there's a long line of cars dropping kids off.

I was able to drive home at 30 mph. Although I had intended to go back to bed, I'm thoroughly awake now.

The first snowfall! I was totally not ready for this today. It does make my backyard look better than it has for a few weeks, though.

I never did pull out my garden.
The snow makes it look much better.

And now that I'm home perhaps I could to do as my friend Theresa does and make cinnamon rolls to commemorate the first snow.

Or I could just go back to bed.

A scene from my childhood

Every now and then—not often—Bruce calls me "Lolly". This is because of  a boy Bruce has never met, and the story I told about him.

When I was in sixth grade—I think it was in sixth grade; maybe fifth—our class did a square dancing unit for P.E. Now, generally, I did not like P.E. very much, but dancing... That was another story. Unfortunately I kept getting partnered up with this kid named Todd who didn't want to dance at all. And holding hands and linking arms with me was probably not very appealing to him either. Who knows? I got so irritated with him lagging along that I would yank him around, hooked to my elbow as he was, until I almost lifted him from the floor.

Then there was this new boy from Vietnam, I think, named Liem Dang. Unlike a lot of the kids in my class, Liem was interested in school and in learning. In short, he was my kind of boy—we thought the same way.

One day I was partnered with Liem for square dancing—and he actually danced! He learned the steps, and he skipped around just the way he should. After that first time, we always finagled to be dancing partners. I remember one day, just before we went to P.E., our teacher told us to choose our partners. I was near the door of the classroom, putting something away, and Liem was across the room, diagonally from me. When it was his turn to choose, we made eye contact—a tacit agreement. And he chose "Lolly".

We were accused of being boyfriend and girlfriend after that, of having a crush on each other. But really we were both just smart kids...who enjoyed dancing together.

I don't know what happened to Liem after sixth grade. I suppose I could facebook stalk him, but I don't need to. I will just remember him as a nice boy who danced with me and who called me Lolly.

These are the Days of my Life

Just for giggles, I thought I'd keep track of some of the things I do in a week. And what better place to keep track of a week than on my blog? My journal, maybe?

Anyway, here is the summary of a week of my life:

Tuesday, October 8

the naked chair

Today I finished taking all the upholstery off of my living room chair. I pulled about a hundred-million staples out; they were so difficult to pull that the staple-puller bruised the center of my right palm. But pretty soon I will have ALL the reupholstering in my living room done! Yay!

Wednesday, October 9

taco sauce

This morning I picked the last of the stuff that might be usable from my garden—it's supposed to freeze tonight. Then I made some taco sauce (which is pretty fabulous, by the way). Tomorrow morning I will have to bottle it up. But what on earth do I do with the gazillion Serrano peppers that are left?

I also started cutting out the new upholstery for the chair.
 
And Kaylie came home from school to visit for Fall Break! I guess that I didn't do that, but it's pretty cool. :-)

Thursday, October 10

ready to start cutting

I spent this morning canning the taco sauce. I've been hearing the lids "pop", letting me know they actually sealed—one of my favorite sounds during canning season.
 
 In the afternoon I cut out more upholstery pieces; I had to cut one of them twice because it was wrong the first time. :-/
 
And our family book club met this evening to discuss Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Everyone (who actually read it) enjoyed it. Now, in honor of the month of Halloween (which is weird, because Halloween isn't really our thing) we are reading The Screaming Staircase, a Lockwood & Co. book. A lot of the kids are excited about this one. My family may not go out and play ball together (or go out at all...), but at least we can all get together in our geekiness.

Friday, October 11

I have been having the hiccups for the last three days. What's the deal with that!

This morning I spent a lot of time doodling around on Photoshop. Well, GIMP actually, because my Photoshop program and my computer hate each other. Each program has some things that I like, that the other doesn't have, but I do miss my Photoshop.
I am making a ...sign? ...a home decor item with a saying printed on it. Well, I'm going to...soon.
 
Then I actually cleaned the kitchen—which I haven't done seriously since just before the taco sauce happened.
 
And I cut out the last three upholstery pieces. When that chair is all finished I can do the dance of joy! And then start on the ottoman.

Saturday, October 12

ready to go

Let's see... I ran to the bank this morning only to discover that it is no longer open on Saturdays. Then I took Rachel to her bank—which is open on Saturdays. We went to Lowes and I bought a 1x8 board so I can start another project. Then I took Rachel shoe-shopping, and then we went to the grocery store where we bought chicken on a fabulous sale. It was nice to spend a couple of hours just with Rachel. She is smart, and she's funny—witty, but she's quiet, so I enjoyed the time to talk with her.

In the afternoon I sewed all the chair pieces together! Then it was dinner—roasted chicken and wild rice. After dinner I put the chicken carcasses into the crock pot with some veggies, some of the drippings from roasting, and some water to start a broth simmering.

Family time! We all settled down to watch a show, and I promptly fell asleep. I woke up—maybe twenty or thirty minutes later—feeling so exhausted and ready to go to bed. Well, my body was ready for bed; I still had to get my pajamas, brush my teeth, etc. There's more to the story of getting ready for bed, but it's coming later.

Sunday, October 13

Church in the morning. I play the organ for our ward. I have played the organ (in our two previous wards) for about fifteen years, I guess, but I am new to this particular organ, and I am still learning its ways (for example, sometimes it turns the volume up and down all by itself).

My music today was kind of pathetic—the wimpiest stops ever for "Called to Serve", because the stops I chose didn't turn on, and one of them that had been on turned off. So imagine the organ playing as a whisper instead of as... the exuberant march that it should have been. I'm actually still cringing over it. It's frustrating because we live in a ward where the same lady played the organ for forty-five years; despite her many years, I do play as well as (maybe better than) she did. But now that I've taken her place these nice old people in the ward come up to me and say, "You're really getting the hang of it." or, worse, "You will get the hang of it."  I know how to play, but I do keep having silly mishaps with this organ so it's hard to tell.

After church we had a nice lunch with our girls—except for Lindsey who goes to the young adult ward. Then we went to visit the Rays for a little while. Kaylie's ride showed up to take her back to school around 4:00. It was nice to have her home for the weekend.

Dinner (soup and rolls) around 6:30—which is a little later than I like, but earlier than it has been lately. Then we sat around talking for a while. We had a family scripture...study? More like a book review (where only Mom had read the book...of Ephesians). And then I was wiped out and ready for bed.

Monday, October 14

Here is the promised story:

Saturday night I sort of did some self-surgery—or actually, a ligation. I would not confess to this now if it didn't seem to be turning out OK. And I do not recommend DIY surgery. Just so you know.

I have this HUMONGOUS skin-tag on the corner of my left eyelid that's been annoying me for ages. This  growth is a product of rubbing my eyes too much. I try not to, but my eyes are so stinking sensitive since I stopped wearing contact lenses! Everything makes them hurt and itch, water and burn, even just the air! (We won't even talk about onions...)
Anyway, a more recent product of rubbing my eyes too much is that this skin-tag started to tear, so now it hurts me when I rub my eyes. Hmm...
Also my hair gets snagged on that tag sometimes, and if I use mascara I end up painting the darn thing black.

I started thinking about just snipping it off—my mom told me once that she used to "get a scissors and cut them off"—but that was just too creepy. And it's on my eyelid.
Then I thought I could just tie a thread around it—tightly—and that would cut off its blood supply and it would die and fall off. That was a little creepy too so I wasn't going to really do it—truly I wasn't.
But I was sooooo tired Saturday night, and the stupid thing was stinging, and I really, really hated it at that moment. I went and got some thread...

As soon as I tied and tightened the thread around the skin-tag,  I thought, "This was a bad idea!" But there was no way to cut the thread off without cutting the skin-tag too, and I couldn't loosen it to untie it either. The deed was done. I snipped the ends of the thread as close to my eyelid as I could, and then went to bed.

This is not me. This is some smart person who went to a doctor to have their skin-tag removed. But this is about how big and flappy mine was.

I woke up around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday with my cinched-up skin-tag foremost on my mind, keeping me awake. It was stinging a little, and I was sure I'd done a really stupid thing. I had visions of finally going to see the ophthalmologist and having to explain why there was a brown thread tied to my eyelid. So I grabbed some fine tweezers and went into the bathroom to see if I could somehow get the thread off. After several tries and a little prayer it did finally come loose. And now I had a little cut that went all the way around the stupid skin-tag instead of just a bit of a tear on one side. Oh well. Then I had my Sunday.

But this morning, the beginning of this Monday, today, when I looked at it I saw that the tag had shrunk considerably, and it looks like it will, indeed, die and fall off. Yay! Would I do this again, or recommend that anyone else do it? Nope. Go see an ophthalmologist.

After that little...triumph? ... this morning, I went to get my groceries. Monday had really started.

I don't like putting away the groceries. I couldn't say why, but I don't. I did put away the frozen and refrigerated stuff this morning. The rest of it sat on the table until dinner time.

Throughout the day I finished taking foam off of the arms of the chair so that Bruce could do some repairs before I put the upholstery on. Unfortunately Bruce had to leave for work before he got very far with the repairs, and he had to take the drill with him so I couldn't fix it myself. The chair still waits. So I took the ottoman apart.

underneath—and inside—the ottoman

I took two pounds of my Serrano peppers—one pound of red and one pound of green—and seeded them and chopped them up to make hot pepper sauce. Well, I still have to do the green ones. And I still have two more pounds of peppers left! I'm supposed to let the chopped peppers ferment in salt water for a couple of weeks before making the actual sauce. This—fermenting the peppers—feels a little worrisome. I have to keep reminding myself that the sourdough starter I made, and use regularly, is really just fermented flour and water. We'll see how the hot pepper sauce turns out.

Chicken Parmesan for dinner. Yum! Then we watched a movie with Rachel—"Selma"—which she had to watch for her political science class. I stayed awake for this one. And I finally strained and bottled up the chicken broth. It will keep in the fridge for a week or two.

I checked my eyelid several times throughout the day. By bedtime that tag was tiny—about the size of a chia seed, and kind of purplish-black. It rubbed off while I was washing my eyelashes before going to bed. The monster skin-tag is all gone!

Tuesday, October 16

And this is Day 8; it is 8:07 a.m.  My eyelid growth is all gone, and it doesn't hurt, and it looks so much better!

That's where it was. There's still the tiniest bump, and it's still
a little red. But it is so much better now!

I've already taken Rachel to school, and now I'm finishing this post.

This morning I need to clean my kitchen (why does that happen over and over again, all day long, every day?). Then I'm going to fix and upholster the living room chair; this will probably be an intermittent process because there are other things to do—like make the green Serrano stuff, and go shopping with Lindsey. If I finish the chair I might start on my new "home decor" project, or work on the ottoman. We'll see.

3 1/2 quarts of chicken broth
3 cups of red Serrano peppers starting to ferment
1 pound of green Serrano peppers, waiting their turn
Products of one week.

And that's a week in my life.