Chicks!

Oh my goodness, I am so excited! CHICKS ARE COMING!!!!! Now I have to figure out which breed....

Garden progress

What you see here are two overly ambitions 10 inch high 6x8' garden plots. I opted for the raised bed on the basis of so many recommendations. Weeding would be less. It would be less of a hassle. No one mentioned that it would be an expensive project to start up. We layered $27 worth of top soil with grass clippings and hay and have barely reached 5 inches high in one of the beds. I just hope the start-up cost will be last at least a couple of seasons and I don't end up with a $64 tomato like another overly ambitious gardener.

I know the probably $100 cost of this project doesn't seem so expensive, and I guess it really isn't. But when I look back and see that I could have just made some rows right in the ground after I removed the sod and grown some perfectly fine crops is making me feel a little anxious. Tear. I might just become a true cheapskate someday. A girl can dream.

Currently I am trying to figure out how to engineer a low-cost chicken coop. I have a book checked out called Building Chicken Coops for Dummies which seems to be right up my alley, but for the smallest coop the book estimates a cost of $200. I figure I can sort through some of my borderline hoarder grandfather's junk to find some suitable and free before I dish out some more money needlessly.

But I seriously need to finish the garden project soon so I can get some plants in the ground. They will probably need extra time because in case you haven't realized this, I have no idea what I'm doing!

Living on a budget is hard when you just bought a house and you really really really really want to decorate it, but you only allow yourself $40 spending money a month and since you're an information sucking bibliophile, quite a bit of that money ends up being traded for books instead of home decor. I find myself lately just trying to bring new life into things I already have, or create new decorations from materials I already own.

Case in point: I got tired of seeing wires snaking out of the space above the microwave:

So I dashed to the fabric stash and found this hideous but strangely charming old fashioned fabric that I'd gotten for free last year...

...and fashioned a little ruffly curtain with a tension rod in the middle.

This did not take long because it seems that this curtain was also a curtain in another life, and was already folded over and sewn just waiting for a little curtain rod to take its place just like the good old days. All I had to do was sew about an inch above the previous stitches to create a smaller pocket for the rod and leave a jaunty little ruffle on top.

And I didn't stop there. I started thinking that the colors looked kinda good and would do well to add color to the brown that's EVERYWHERE in the kitchen (and living room). As an aside...I truly love the paneling. It's not 1970s faux wood paneling. It's about an inch thick and very sturdy. But I also enjoy colors other than brown. So there ya go. I ended up creating another little curtain to frame the top of the french doors:

This curtain is strung onto a piece of 1/4 round crown molding that cost me $4 which I cut to length with a steak knife. The entire thing is supported by 3 cup hooks that I already had on hand:

I even accidentally created a curtain for the kitchen window by sewing one panel for the french doors and discovering that I was working on the wrong little piece of fabric!

Amazing. The house is starting to look more and more ours every day.