Goodbye, sea of brown.

Since we moved into this 1970s house, I have been battling the neverending brown and darkness. You may recall my first attempts adding color with curtains, here. I also completed a little painting project which I never got around to blogging about--painting the long-dark-road-stripe-yellow-hallway-white.

Here is the before pic. I should've turned on the light in that hallway so the yellow could be better seen, but essentially the previous owners painted that hallway to try and match the wood in the kitchen and living room. Unfortunately, they did a pretty good job of that and the hallway just continues the monochromatic feel of the entire living room and kitchen, given that the walls, floors, blinds, and kitchen cabinets are nearly the same color! To break up that feel, I just gave the hallway a new coat of off-white, kind of tan paint. I'm still not quite sure I like the color completely, but I do like it a whole lot more than the yellow.


I adore the differentiation between the wood and the painted wall afterward, and I never, ever thought that I would find a white wall a relief, as usually I can't wait to apply some color to white walls! One of the next de-browning and de-1970ing projects I'm wanting to complete is to make the hallway doors appear to be panelled and painted white. Once those doors are white I may decide that the hallway needs a nice blue or green! I want to get these things done before I get too pregnant to climb up ladders, bend and such.

Here are a couple more pictures of the living room to remind you exactly what I am wrestling with. Ignore the ghost orb and evil cat. You can see several future projects in this first pic: painting that closet door next to the ghost orb white, and possibly painting the front door a fun color. Green maybe? We'll see what I can convince the hubs to do, as he is leery about painted front doors.

My project for today will hopefully involve getting some white faux wood blinds for the front living room window, the side window, and the kitchen window. Let's have some more white to break up that brown! A plus to this project is that these "semi-private" (what's the use of that?!?!) brown bamboo blinds are going to be replaced by real PRIVATE blinds. Once the new blinds are up I will make a curtain to top the side window there.

You can see yet another future project in this second pic: replace that cheapo folding tray that we use as a side table.

As for my outdoor projects that I mentioned before....it's still too hot for them in my opinion!

Yard Planning

As you may recall, earlier this year we built a chicken coop in our yard.

You can probably tell that the coop is in the middle of the yard. Yes, smack dab in the middle. When we built it we thought that we would let the chickens free range in our yard, but we've since noticed that a good portion of the back yard would have to have new fencing to contain the littler cluckers, which would be expensive. So now we have a new plan which includes moving this heavy coop about 10 yards to sit up next to the shed in this area:

We could then use the wall of the shed as one side of a chicken run, and fence in the three other sides. I think it would be really nice to have chickens moved back there so the coop can be in an out-of-the-way location in an area that's shady all day. I'd like to border the enclosure with some kind of fruit trees, in my mind fig trees. There would still be room back there  to create another enclosure if I ever wanted to get a dairy goat or some crazy business like that in the future.

The chickens need to get situated because Egg Watch 2012 is on. These biddies are nearing about 20 weeks old, so who knows when those eggs will start coming. As it stands now, I herd the chickens into my garden area to spend the day (we don't have anything planted yet) and I really don't want to have to set up any kind of nest box in there because it's always been just a temporary solution.

I have also been holding on to these awesome T posts for my clothesline that my dad welded for me.

I've been trying to figure out where to place these babies in the yard. The right hand side of the yard is iffy because I don't want to accidentally dig into the septic tank, and getting too close to the fence may put drying clothes in danger of snagging on barbed wire. I'm thinking now that it may be a good idea to get the chicken run built, trees planted, and position the clothesline a little in front of this.

So to start this whole thing off, I suppose we need a few strong men's arms.

Socially Awkward...

Someone needs to create a guide online to help the socially awkward among us accomplish ordinary, seemingly innocuous tasks which are excruciatingly difficult for people with the above impairment. I just spent two whole days preparing for a single 8 minute phone call. Most of this time was spent going over and over in my head how to begin the conversation on the phone. I searched for advice online and found lists of questions to ask the -type of person I was calling, sorry for the vagueness-, but what I needed was more of like: What do I say when she answers the phone? Should I introduce myself? Do I need to say my last name? How much detail should I go into? How should I ease into asking my list of questions?

Other tasks that are exceedingly difficult for me:
Meeting acquaintances unexpectedly. What should I say?
Inviting people places.
Ordering pizzas.
Calling doctors/clinics/craigslist people....
Introducing myself in a group.
Thinking of questions at interviews.
Powerpoint presentations/outreach.
Talking to people at small restaurants/stores/booths.
Having lots of people look at me (the wedding was very, very difficult).

And so the quest continues. I have so many more calls to make, but at least I got enough courage to call one.

Project Updates!

1. Table Project


This project is still not complete! I had to stop working on it last weekend because we were having people over for Mother's Day and I needed the paint to dry and harden a bit before being sat on and scuffed up. So here is the state of the table:

I applied polycrylic to the legs of the chairs and base of the table to protect against foot abuse, but still have work to do on the seats and backs. Appealed to fashion and convinced the hubby that the seats need to be green as well, but haven't had time to go back and apply primer, paint and polycrylic. The backs need to be touched up due to scratches from people sitting on them. I'm getting excited because the project is actually turning out pretty well despite the loooooong time it's taking.

2. Baby Girl Quilt

I mentioned a quilt I was starting in this post some time back. I've since finished it and given it to the beautiful girl in question! Here it is finished:

You can't see too many details in this pic, but I can sure tell that my stitching was a bit crooked on top. I fixed it after the pic was taken.

3. Baby Boy Quilt


Here's a peek at what I've been working on this week. This project will be done in short order because the baby shower is on Sunday! I hope my cousin is as happy with this symphony of beachy blues and greens as I am! This is just the quilt top, still need to make the quilt sandwich and sew it down.

4. Garden Project


Our pitiful progress on the garden is laughable. But at least we finally borrowed a truck and got it mostly filled with dirt!

I think plants are in the garden's future this weekend, but this is still a tricky prospect because we don't have a truck. I drive a Mustang which can barely fit people in the back seat. We really need a truck. This problems slows down so many of our projects.

Neverending Table Project

Lately I've been reading lots of decorating blogs and scouring Pinterest for frugal decorating ideas...and getting unbearably inspired to do some projects of my own. Thursday I decided to tackle my kitchen table which had been bothering me because the table top is made of a very light wood which doesn't really go with the paneling in our kitchen. I began the project with spirit and vigor...it was great fun. I figured that I could do the whole project in an afternoon and then put the kitchen back to normal. Ah, naievte...

Project this evening after priming and two coats of paint.

Let me first mention that the table cost $150 brand new out of the box in 2006, which should clue you in to its quality. I was reminded of this as I was taking the spindles off the chairs so I could sand the seats and noticed that a lot of them were cracked near the bottom. I mostly noticed this because of the splintering sound as the bastards came apart! I attempted for fix the breaks with wood glue and sighs of frustration which may or may not have included some words that shouldn't be part of a lady's vocabulary. After sanding and putting the chairs back together because I was afraid of breaking any more spindles, I started the painting. The above results were achieved only with THREE coats of paint. Yes. I would call that number EXCESSIVE. That is, one coat of primer and two coats of paint. It was painstakingly tedious and long. Took several hours. I even painted over the brokenness.

Recall that the plan with this table was to paint the legs green and then stain the top and seats a darker shade of brown. I had taken the chairs apart and fought with broken spindles for the sake of sanding down the seats. Today I applied the stain to disastrously hideous results.

Seems like I didn't sand off enough (couldn't tell whether I was down to bare wood or not). The stain seeped into all the tiny cracks and beautifully highlighted all of the beatings the seat's endured over the years. And now I definitely can't take off the spindles to sand some more because the wimps will break. My options are to a) paint the seats green and then apply polyurethane over them or b) apply the polyurethane and just to-hell-with-it preserve the current color which was the reason for this project all along.

The table top may still be able to be stained, but we'll have to bust out the power sander. But if I do that, then the seats of the chairs will not match the table top, but the table top will match the room. The hubs really doesn't want the chairs painted completely green, but I think it's going to be the best looking option. Personally, I quite enjoy the green chairs dancing around my head!

I just want this project to be over!

Survivors & Newbies

The big girls were surprised yesterday when I opened their coop and inserted a dog crate containing three new sisters. These two gals were definitely not the higher-ups on the pecking order with my deceased ladies, and Ginger and Nutmeg kept seeming kind of jumpy and nervous the last few days, although they appear to have enjoyed being able to sleep on the windowsill of the coop together. Yesterday Ollie and I visited a local poultry and rabbit operation and bought three 8 week old chicks: a black sex-link, a red sex-link and a gray Ameraucana that looks like a pigeon.

My other girls are probably 9-10 weeks old, so these babies need to catch a growth spurt. I let the birds integrate during the evening of day one, and witnessed four little bird bodies sleeping on the windowsill of the coop together that night. The next day I noticed that big Nutmeg was chasing after the little girls and trying to peck them...so they are now separated again. I may let them be out together tonight again and see how that goes since the dog crate is not big enough to accommodate three growing chicks for long.

A dog is not a person...

And neither is a chicken.

Yesterday my boss told us about a story she read in Dear Abby. A father had written in to complain that his son, a sports fan who would get very angry when his favorite teams lost, would take out his frustration by beating the family's dog. The father wanted to know how he could convince his wife to get rid of the dog.

At this point in the story the phone rang and my boss answered it, so I was left talking to a certain 19 year old security guard. He was saying that if he was the kid's father he would beat his kid and push his kid down the stairs. I'm sure he wasn't serious as he frequently says shocking things just to maintain a certain level of "asshole". So I said, "but then the punishment would be worse than the actual offense." He replied, "no, because the kid had beaten the dog." It occurred to me that the guard regarded his suggested punishment as a fulfillment of some kind of "eye for an eye" justice and was regarding the person and the dog as entities of equal dignity. I said, "a dog is not a person." He said, "to some people a dog is a person." My boss agreed with him.

Okay. Just because someone treats their dog like a person does not mean the dog becomes a person. They were suggesting to me a kind of shifty reality in which someone's mere thought has the power to change fact. Which by default means that there is no such thing as absolute truth. I don't agree. There IS absolute truth, and no matter how wrong animal cruelty may be, the same cruelty to a person will always be worse. And since truth is absolute, I have to let it inform all aspects of my personal life no matter how difficult it may be.

Today two of my chicks died in the mouth of my neighbor's peppy blue healer. My default is to break down and cry, but still, a pea-brained $3 chicken with a fleeting life span is not worth such deep sorrow. I named them people's names, but that doesn't make my dear chicks people.

RIP Hailey the Golden Comet and Judy the Barred Rock.

If I keep chicken farming there are bound to be many more instances like this in my future.