It has about killed me.........

But I finally got it done. As you well know and I have said before I like to paint in the house. It just makes things look nice and freshens the place up. But this laundry room has about been the death of me for sure. I just cant do the physical stuff that I use to. Between moving the appliances and all the bending and stooping and climbing I was so ready for bed last night. Got the whole thing painted. Got the mirror back in its place.

Damn it looks empty and sterile. The paint color was much lighter than I had anticipated. Almost white! No I don't do white. I did a lot of searching on Pinterest last night, scanned thru some blogs, pondered on things I had that I could re-purpose and use to add some life. Not to mention hiding the connectors for the washer. So far this is what I came up with. What do ya think?

The quilts on the wall behind the appliances are family heirlooms that are very near the end of their useful life. They are falling apart. I remember sleeping under those as a child. They feel so good to touch. The picture on the right side has been thru a house fire, it belonged to my grandmother on dads side of the family. The feed sack dress by given to be by an aunt. On the left are 2 washboards, still usable(ha ha) that belonged to a family friend. Ya know, I keep in touch thru facebook with this fellows daughter, I might just contact her and see if she would like to have her dads old washboard. The wooden ironing board behind the washer that now hides the power supply to the washer was a gift from a former co-worker. Still in good usable shape(ha ha). I don't like to iron. Don't know many people who do. I still think I need to put up a small shelf to hold some old irons and jars of buttons. Maybe in a few days I will brave the weather and get out and find a shelf.
I can not believe I am about to show this in public. But it looks so much better than it did.

This is where things go when they are homeless. OK so I cheated an didn't show the floor area. Well with good reason. We garden, we like sweet potatoes. And sweet taters will not keep in our cellar. They need warm, dry storage. So that is where we store those in winter till the weather warms and by then they will mostly be gone. Except the ones I will use for starts for this years crop. This room also serves as a back entrance where we take off muddy boots and shoes in general. It gets a lot of dirt and clutter. Maybe more shelf space will help a bit with keeping that in check.

OK, this is it! This is where rugs go to die totally. Once they live a few months in here catching mud and other various things they are pretty gross. The towel serves to catch wet stuff, like snow, that we have almost daily seems like. This will be so nice IF and WHEN we ever get laminate floors down. Hopefully soon. Yeah my sandals are still out, thas what I wear to go feed chickens, cats and or the dog. Well at least they go on and off easier than boots, and I am not out there long, mostly. I am pretty happy with the end result now that I have this room painted. I would love to start on the dining room tomorrow but dang my body needs a few days to recover. Maybe I can just chill out and work on my quilt tomorrow.

We had a few snow flurries today but nothing on the ground or roads right now. I guess dad was right. It thaws a lil every day in February. It might snow one day, but its mostly gone the next. I can take that. Its the snow that lays on for days on end that get the best of me. Not much else happening on this lazy Sunday evening. The peach cobbler is almost done. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Piddlin on Superbowl Sunday

I am not by any means a football fan nor do I watch. But I have watched 2 in my life. Many years ago in 1979  when Terry Bradshaw was quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers and they won against the Dallas Cowboys in the bowl I watched and today I watched as the Ravens beat the 49ers. I mostly watch for the commercials. I guess my favorite was the Dodge commercial with Paul Harvey and "Then God made a farmer". Guess that just hit home. Now I would have been all in if it had been a Chevy truck. I kinda half watched the game, I was busy cutting more strips and starting my rugs. I had a bright idea of sewing the strips together and make a very long strip and then use my huge crochet hook to "crochet" the strips into a rug.

I had lots of strips when I got tired of cutting them. Notice the huge scissors? And the glove? Well if ya use those scissors ya need that glove or you will have blisters all over your hands pretty quick. Or maybe I am just a wuss. Anyway I had already taken a pile of strips like the one to the left that you see and moved them to the sewing machine so I could stitch the ends together to make a long strip.

At this point I was adding on more strips and crocheting them as I got them attached. This hook is huge.

 

You can kinda get an idea the hook size by comparing it to a finger. It is fairly easy to work with. Although the jeans that I made strips from are a lil harder to manage.

This is what I got done today using the first bunch of light blue fabric from 2 old shirts and the tan is the legs of 1 pair of pants, the outer light blue is from legs of jeans. It is now about 18 or so by 24 inches. A good start for just piddling around with it. I will post more pics as I progress. Don't really like too much and this one will be big enough for the purpose I have in mind. Maybe I will get a chance to work on it some tomorrow evening. Anyway this is a functional use for old clothes that are stained and beyond hope. Not really fit to even donate. If I continue to feel real industrious I may make a really large one to use on the front porch for summer time. I think it would feel nice underfoot out there. Hey I could even make a chair pad for my nice willow porch chair that Aunt Ann gave me. I best quit thinkin before I get in over my head.

Not much happening here on the farm right now. Rodger got out today and walked around some on the farm, He said the fields are muddy and water logged. He found lots of deer trails up back of our house.  Just hope the fruit trees I have ordered don't come in too soon. Cant set trees in mud. At least I don't want too. Not only that I would sure hate to move wet chicken manure to mix in the soil to plant them.

Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

February, in like a lion....

.........out like a lamb. At least that's the old saying any way. I just hope it ends that way. I hate to fly and travel when the weather is bad but will if I have too. February started out for us with cold, wind, and now snow. Not just flurries. We actually had a lil snow on the ground this morning. But as the day wore on the snow melted and it seemed to warm up during the day. Not hot mind you but warmer than it was. We are supposed to get snow all weekend. We shall see how much we get. Kinda like sex, never know how much ya gonna get or how long it will last.

We got our new fan assembly that we ordered for the furnace. That was fast too. I ordered it on Wednesday and it came in yesterday. I was impressed. If we need anything else electrical I will for sure order from the same place. This is the place we ordered from. The website was kinda messed up when I placed the order and I could not get it to take my cc info. I was gonna call later in the day and make sure they didn't bill and ship me for 3 blower assemblies but before I could do that THEY called me to assure me they would only send 1 and I would only be billed for 1. That is good customer service and I guess I am a lil old fashioned in the fact that I still appreciate good customer service and human contact. They have replace parts for things mobile home related and sometimes parts can be hard to find for those.

We have not done anything here today other than eat, sleep and watch TV and surf the Internet. Talk about lazy. I have pondered my quilt today and trying to figure out how I can cut the fabric straight and keep it all even without having to buy one of those neat cutting mats and rotary cutter. I finally decided if I want to do it right I may as well suck it up and purchase one. I will need it later to finish the full size quilt from the top my aunt Connie made. So now I am cutting strips from old jeans that Rodger had to make some simple braided rugs to toss outside near the doors to catch some of the crap to keep it out of the house. I could just go buy some cheap rugs and save a ton of time and energy but ya know, I actually enjoy making things to "make do". Not only that I can actually hose the homemade ones off and let em dry and toss em back down. Easy and I am sure they will last much longer than the store bought ones. I have had those in the past and they soon fall apart. When they get too bad to wash and re-use I can toss em and make more. Easy and fast. I will cut the fabric in strips and then twist and braid it, sew the strips together with light weight fishing line and once I get the size I need stop and put em to use. Now if I was going to use them inside and wanted them to look nice I would fold the strips in half kinda like bias tape and sew them down, braid and then sew the braids. But for outside serviceable rugs that will not be necessary. OK I will go back to my strip cutting and let ya know what happens. Maybe I take some pictures along the way.

Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella