Muggy Icky Humid Yucky.... and more stuff around Our Old House

I know most the country is in a heat wave and I shouldn't add to the negativity by grousing and complaining.  (but I will)    ICK!   I can not take this 100+ heat index crap!

I am suffering from a kinda summer head cold, and that makes it even tougher. I was going to take a couple grandtots on Friday, but I felt too icky to even do that. I stayed inside my air conditioning and got some sewing done and whined about the heat and humidity.

Saturday was a bugger too, and we sure didn't enjoy any of it. We started out with thunder and lightening, and high winds but only about half inch of rain.  We could have used more of the rain, as things are getting brown and dry around here.  I kinda flipped and flopped around the house all day Saturday, but I did manage to brush out both dogs...  Binney is finally shedding her winter coat.... that big pile of fluff is from only one side----

 She is finally getting a longer silkier Shetland Sheepdog Coat... 

and not just tufts of short fluff. 

I think her coat was sooo bad when she got taken out of the hoarder's pit hole from Hell, 

that her heartworm infestation

 and horrid skin & bones condition 

took it's toll on her coat. 

Now they look so PURTY! 

By bedtime I was running a fever again, so I dosed up good on Nyquil and went to bed with the AC blasting. Take THAT heat and humidity! There.... 'nuff said.

By Sunday morning the weather broke, and it was soooo peaceful and quiet.  I woke up at 6 am and we enjoyed coffee out on the front porch.  Soooo sweet and quiet, with chirping birds and golden sunshine and soft breezes.  I guess we gotta appreciate the good days when they come.

I even shot a little YouTube for the morning... just to play it back on a freezing cold winter day when I am complaining about that weather!! LOL

I decided to work on a project today around Our Old House, redoing the upper shaker porch railing. See how it's just two horizonal railings and not nearly anywhere close to being up to building codes.

The railings are too low and there is too big of a gap between the railings and also the floor.  Since it's summer weather, we do like to keep that upper back door open to the porch to let in a breeze.  Any child or dog could easily slip between those railings and it would be Bad News! We do keep the screen door locked at all times, but all it takes is "once"!  Duke zoomed out between my legs once and almost dove headfirst under the railing and onto the garage roof!~   I grabbed his tail at the last minute and pulled him back! Soooo it's a good time to get this task underhand.

 This is the "Before" shot of the second story shaker porch railing

During the week we bought some new spindles from Home Depot (thanks Dan and Heather for Steve's Fathers Day Gift Card!)  and got two coats of solid colored white stain on them.   I like solid colored stain because it can be applied right away on green treated deck wood and it "breathes" so the wood can still dry out from under the layers of stain.  It doesn't flake or chip off like paint does.  I used Cabot's Solid Acrylic Stain in white.

Steve moved the topmost horizontal boards up higher to meet code

and moved the bottom horizontal boards to a lower level for more strength.

We squared it up and leveled it, and started to put on the spindles! 

Even the neighbors complimented us on the good looks....

now it matched the porch rails and gate below 

We kinda changed the way the corners met with the spaces at the posts, so we needed to get 11 more spindles. I got those stained up and drying while we had breakfast and another cup of coffee.  I wanted to get them all up before the sun came over to that part of the house in the afternoon. It was warming up into the 80's but at least the humidity was down.

Wow.. that looks SO much better if I do say so myself!   I strung the little clothesline across from the corner posts. I like using that to air out bedding, even in the winter months. Better than trudging through snow out to the backyard washlines in the middle of winter.

We thought we had enough spindles, but nope, we need FOUR more! Steve wants to replace that center 4x4 post too as the original was too short. (that is the old height that is below the height needed to meet building codes)   I will get more of them from Home Depot tomorrow on a trip up to Appleton for a weaving guild meeting and then the job will be complete!

So that was another project for Our Old House! 

We also cleaned up a few weeds, 

trimmed a few shrubs

and refilled the birdfeeders.

This evening after dinner, I finally felt good enough to wash a few windows on the front porch.  Last week we tried that Windex type unit on the hose sprayer and all it did was muck up the windows, make them blotchy and streaky and clouded. You can see how bad they are on that You Tube video clip above.

Since we sit a lot on the front porch and enjoy the view, I decided to use the good SpryWay aerosol can of foamy cleaner and a roll of good thick papertowels and get the windows done right.  Steve hauled out the ladder for me and I got the lower outside ones done. He had to reach the highest ones while I did the inside windows too.  Sure improved our view while I type this blog, sipping wine and listening to soft music on the MP3 player.  

Ahhhhh two doggers curled at my side, hubby with his 'puter reading Craigslist, and life is good. 

Guess I will stop complaining about the weather now, huh?