One. More. Tree.

Oh yes.  He did. 

You read that right. One more tree.  We already planted 14 trees this summer. What's one more?

Steve had to run a couple errands, and drove past the Tractor Supply Store. He saw a clearance sign by their trees. Now they are marked down to "Half Price". He had seen a row of cedars and was curious about maybe doing them a along our border. He didn't buy them, but instead came home to ask what I thought. After supper we drove back over there to take a look. The cedars were already gone. But there was this really nice white dogwood tree. It's supposed to get between 15 and 25 feet high with the most beautiful white dogwood blossoms. Seems to have a lot of nice branches. Although the leaves are dead and dried up now, the branches are soft. Come springtime, we should see some beautiful new growth.  It was only $15.00 and after my 10% off coupon, it came to $13.50.  So yes, he bought another tree. 

From there, we stopped at the grocery store. We just had to pick up a couple things. They had a cute little display of the most beautiful African Violets! If he can have a tree, I can have some flowers.  I have this nice pretty flower pot that I had gotten from my neighbor Sheryl with some succulents in it two years ago. Succulents finally died off, and I wanted to find something pretty to put in the pot. These violets just filled the bill.

Been a while since I had an African Violet. My grandmother used to grow beautiful ones. I carefully potted it and put it in the window in the kitchen where it will face the north. I can admire at each time I stand at the kitchen sink. Now that the outdoor flowers are dying off, it will be nice to have blooms inside.

We started working on the French doors to go between the living room and the guest room (which we may turn into an office). Steve had done all of the sanding and prep work and had them ready for me on saw horses.  Remember, he HATES painting.

The weather had finally warmed up enough to start a couple coats of paint.  It is my job to change them into beautiful French doors that will go in the house. I think we will put on a glass doorknob, to match the original ones on our bathroom door. 

I love the beveled glass. It's very hard to take a photo of beveled glass but each pane of window has a nice wide beveled section all of the way around. There is brass caming in between the sections. Some of it is bright and some of it is tarnished. My daughter Erin suggested I find one of those metallic flow paint pens at the craft store. Then I can make them all maybe a nice deep bronzish brown and take down the brightness of some of the spots and cover up the tarnished areas of others. Great idea! It's on my next shopping list.

It was warm enough on Saturday to get both coats done on both sides of the doors. So now they will be ready to be installed whenever we prep the inside doorway. Steve will cut off the protective plastic over the glass and then I will see about doing something to the brightness of some of the brass caming pieces.  

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Saturday was such a nice day with sunshine and slight breezes. The neighbor to the back Southeast yard was wanting to cut down a couple of the dead trees in his yard. Some of it's in our yard too. Some would fall in our yard if he cut the best direction for the leaning tree.  Steve said have at it, and the neighbor can use all of the dead wood for his wood burning stove in his house. They got one hunk hung up in a crotch of a tree, they had to use a rope attached to the bumper of his truck to yank it down. They did it safely and nobody was in the way.

My Lumberjack guy looks pretty good on this fall day. I'm glad that we are both feeling good, healthy again, and able to get a few projects done before the weather turns cold.

It was nice enough to give Binney a little bath down in the laundry sink in the basement. When I was done, I let her loose in the sunshine in the backyard. She ran some "Zoomies" around and around the yard in circles and shook off repeatedly. She was like a little puppy, even if she is 9.  The sun felt so good on her coat, that it was drying her off quite well in no time and now she smells pretty!

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Later in the day I hauled out my Grandma Groop's old Singer sewing machine. It's from 1942. It's called the "Godzilla Finish" machine because of the rough textured surface instead of the shiny golden filigree decals that Singer was known for putting on their machines.  This was made during World War 2, so embellishments and frilly froo froo designs were frowned upon.  Manufacturing a utilitarian machine to do work was okay, but not a fancy pretty Singer that they were accustomed to making in the pre war era.  It does have the beautiful bentwood case. This is such a workhorse of a machine that I can use it to sew the triple folded hems of my hand-woven rugs.

This rug is now finished, hemmed and measured up and listed for sale in my Etsy shop:

Snowy Winter Day Rug

She had used it all of those years, and sewed many quilts and patched up her hard working husbands's mining clothes on it. Both of my aunts remembered sewing their prom dresses on it, as well as other clothing. I remember the big heavy quilts that she made for us when we were children. For the inner layer of batting she used heavy moving blankets. She was always one to recycle and reuse.

It has really done it's duty over all of these years and is still going strong. 

I remember the day my Grandma Groop gave me the sewing machine.  I was sitting on a lawn chair at my nephew's graduation back in about 1998. Grandma Groop came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Before you leave town tomorrow, come on up to my house. I have something to give you".

We went up to her house, that was only a couple miles away, and we had a nice visit. She had the sewing machine sitting there for me. She said out of all of the grandchildren, I was probably the one who would use it the most. So she asked if I would be interested in having it. Of course! I use it often and proudly.  I hope she is looking down from heaven and smiling to know that it is used a lot and still kept routinely oiled and cleaned, and stored carefully where it won't get rusty or damaged.

One of her quilts is hanging on display in a museum downstate in Lansing Michigan. This is called a "Signature Quilt" and it has historical and patriotic connotations. It was done during the Bicentennial of 1976. It is embellished with all of the signatures of the people she worked with at the factory in Caspian, Michigan.  Just 2 blocks from where we grew up.  I remember her sometimes coming over on her lunch breaks to visit.   FW Means is a commercial clothing and linen laundry service. They take care of the sheets and blankets and towels for hotels, nursing homes, hospitals, and even work uniforms for large factories. She worked there for many, many years. My mom even worked there for some time, and my brother still works for them as a semi driver delivering the big bundles of clean fabrics and picking up the dirty bins.

Everybody knew her there at the factory, because she worked there almost all of her life, until retirement and then sometimes filling in when they were short staffed.

Here is the link with more information about her quilt at the Museum

 Grandma Groop's Signature Quilt

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It's getting late. I think that's enough for this blog post. Because my next blog post will be about Halloween. Which is incidentally, also my birthday! And it sure was a good one. Stay tuned.

And It Goes Up Up Up

Steve has determined that today is the day that we will get the three big sheets of drywall mounted up onto the ceiling. 

So he grabbed the covers and flipped me out of bed at 5 a.m. and said it's time to get a move on! LOL 

Not really, I woke up at 5 a.m. with thoughts buzzing through my mind of every step we have to take (or should take) by putting things in order in my brain.

I am really good at doing A B C D E F etc. Steve is sometimes known to fly by the seat of the pants and his alphabet goes P J E L A Z~~~~~ That is why we are good for each other. 

We disassembled our bed and all of the other furniture, to clear the room out and prep. It was necessary to clear it all out to get the sheetrock in and up on the ceiling.  We stacked the mattress and bed frame up against our dining room buffet.

Then we disassembled the bed frame itself with the under-bed drawers and moved them out of the room as well.  They are stuffed all into our dining room and office. We can eat in the kitchen for time being.  That is okay, we are adaptable.

We stuffed our end tables and drawers and the other items all into the guest bedroom. There will be just enough room to crawl in there if we want to sleep. But I think we're just going to sleep out in the motorhome in the driveway for the next couple nights.

We rolled out rosin paper on the floor and taped it down. That way (hopefully) there's no excess mess to clean up. We can just roll up the paper and throw it all away. Once everything is done, we can put the tall mopboard back on the wall under the window.

Next, we spread plastic across the openings to our closet and to the master bathroom. Taping it down securely, we hope this will keep out any excess dust or mess. That was better than completely removing everything from the closet.

Steve carried in the big drywall lift machine piece by piece and assembled it in the room. This is a very handy device that helps raise the whole big 12 foot long sheet of drywall, and hold it flat up to the ceiling. It sure makes life a lot easier getting it up there and screwed into place.

Our wonderful and helpful neighbor, Ed, came over to help Steve lug in the three big long sheets of drywall. I was going to help do it, but it sure was nice for Ed to come over and lend a hand. He and Steve trade favors back and forth to each other. I was very thankful that Ed was willing to help. I was in charge of opening and closing doors. Mainly to keep the air conditioning inside the house. It was getting to be a hot muggy day.

They quickly loaded the piece up on to the lift and had it raised up to the ceiling in the first position nearest the closet and the master bath.

Look how spiffy that works! It's a very heavy board and the lift is holding it up there in the perfect position.  What a helpful piece of equipment.  

They both grabbed handfuls of drywall screws and went to work securing it to the previous wood strips that we mounted on the ceiling yesterday. Zip Zip Zip and soon they had all the screws into place.

In came the second sheet, which they had to measure and cut out the opening for the light fixture. Then the third sheet was up and in place before I could blink my eyes.  

So here is the ceiling, already covered up, in a room that is 11 and 1/2 ft by 13 ft. Tomorrow morning, the young man we hired, Paul, will be here to do the skip trowel plastering for us on the ceiling and the walls.

It will be so very exciting to see the room come about and evolve. Then it will be my job to prime and paint. Steve will recreate the woodwork trim to match the original vintage trim on the other window and the doorway.

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In between all this exciting bedroom stuff that we are doing, I picked another huge amount of tomatoes. I think tonight I will be canning up another four to six quarts during the Packer game. 

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On the sewing machine, I am working on a new quilt. It's called a pineapple block and I'm using a lot of beautiful colorful batik fabrics. These blocks in this photo below are just laid out in no particular order. I have a couple more rows worth of blocks to do yet. I have a nice piano key style border planned for around the edges.

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And on the Sanna Kangas Finlander Barn Loom, I started a new rug. It's in soft creams and blues and browns. I kind of like this farmhouse style of Hit and Miss rugs. I've been doing quite a few like this lately, and they are very pleasant to work on. 

The nubby texture, as well as the soothing transition from one color tone to another is so harmonious in this style of rug. I like the neutral warp string which doesn't add a lot of detail. The rug is the "Artistry" of itself, with the colors as they undulate from one to the next.

Time to get some supper going here. I tossed some boneless skinless chicken breasts into the pressure cooker with some soup broth mix. I will take out the cooked chicken and shred it up. Some we will use tonight for tacos. The rest I will put in quart ziploc bags and toss them into the freezer. They are very easy to grab out for a quick casserole, chicken salad sandwich, toss into some soup, or just use again another night for chicken tacos. Easy peasy.