...12.9...Over the Weekend...

...this time of the year I feel like there is so much going on that I can't show you...yet...

...but I've been addressing Christmas cards...we ordered about 100 less than we usually do this time of year...haha...now that the Man is retired we won't be sending one to every single person in the congregation...well...we'll see how many cards we get from our new congregation...but probably not as many as we got as a 'pastor's family'...

...I did go back out after dark and snap a couple of pictures of the lights...I think we'll change these to red and green for Christmas...

...and the front of the house lit up with icicle lights...

...a little bit of bokeh on the tree...

...and ornaments all over the place...

...wrapping some presents...

...and snacking on guacamole...almost daily...

...I repaired the little water colour that Our Airman had done (in second grade)...because the frame that he made for it in Cub Scouts had completely come apart...

...back in order...I love this painting so much...

...and I'll do a little winter garden update...this photo is from the weekend before Thanksgiving when I was out in the back yard painting...

...and it's grown quite a bit since then...and so have the WEEDS...arghhhh...

...mostly this guy...I think he's called Creeping Charlie...

...so I got out there and pulled them all up...(mostly all anyway)...and it's looking much neater now...I don't think we quite got the 85% germination stated on the pack of collards...but we have about 21 more collard plants than we had before...

...and look at the baby radishes...they are adorable...and I'm hoping that they are not too hot...I can never tell with the ones I get from the grocery store...like jalapenos...they vary quite a bit...

...and then I washed all of the patio furniture...it just gets so dusty and we may want to bring the chairs inside next weekend when the family visits...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!

...12.7...Dinner and a Movie...

...starting with some Blogger comments...

...to my sweet sissie Karen who blogs from her boat at McCraw Sails...Hey K...I can't believe y'all had snow...and LOVE-LOVE-LOVE the cabinet organization...even if no one else notices it...it's one of my favorite things to do...#organization-love...I also love the Christmas Fica...that thing has survived so much change... Love, T...

...to karen from Pumpkin Sunrise...Hi Karen...loved the peek at your Christmas decorations...and your green hat looks awesome...

...to Éphée from L'éphémère quotidienneté des repas et autres trucs de magie...Hi Éphée...your fried rice looks amazing...and that is a sweet pup to share your day with...

...to Penny from Snap That Penny...Hi Penny...I loved seeing your pastel skies...we've been enjoying some beautiful sunsets...

...to Beth from BLD IN MT : LIVING A SIMPLE LIFE IN THIS INTERCONNECTED WORLD...Hi Beth...I love gratitude posts...and I love looking at the last checkout dates in books at the library...I've checked some out that haven't been touching in more than 50 years...and I'm so grateful that they're still around for me to check out now...

...still reading Maupassant when I have a few minutes...

Beside Schopenhauer's Corpse
Miss Harriet
Little Louise Roque, Part 1
Little Louise Roque, Part 2
The Donkey
Moiron
The Dispenser of Holy Water
A Parricide
Bertha
The Patron
The Door
A Sale
The Impolite Sex
A Wedding Gift
The Relic
The Moribund
The Gamekeeper
The Story of a Farm Girl
The Wreck
Theodule Sabot's Confession
The Wrong House
The Diamond Necklace

...I'm actually surprised at how much I've read now that I list them out...I also read "what really happened"...by Dorothy Canfield...another short story...and I may take a break from Maupassant soon and read the books Mom gave me...

...we had brought a bunch of Thanksgiving leftovers back from our trip up to Mom's...and froze it all because we weren't really in the mood...haha...but we got it out for a quick supper...mainly because we need the freezer space for party food...haha...

...and for the movie...we started watching Inside Out...the first one...Mom had mentionned that it was really good and we'd never seen it...but we haven't finished it yet...

...what have you been watching lately?...

~Have a lovely day!

...12.6...Friday Update...

...since I didn't do a Friday update the week of Thanksgiving...this is the weekend before Thanksgiving's project...

...and if you've visited us here...and peaked into the little bedroom...(I really should have taken a 'before' photo)...it was our storage/staging area for all of the projects we've been working on...so it had the two bedframes and mattresses as well and the cute new headboards...but it also had boxes and baskets and bins of tools awaiting use...

...so we cleared all of that out...

...and this was sort of my inspiration photo for the room...just generally...I was actually searching for 'purple' rooms and found this one...the purple room is a future project (laundry room)...this room will actually be a soft yellow...and we actually looked at padded headboards like these before we found the wicker ones...but the room layout will be the same with the beds on the side of the room with the window and a dresser in between...

...oh...and this is a really long post...

...we completely cleared out the little bedroom...and brought the headboards downstairs...they hadn't been touched in months...so I cleaned them really well...

...and I wanted to 'fix' a couple of broken places...this one on the side...

...and this small loop had come loose at the top...

...the first thing I did was to glue down the pieces that were still there...I just used wood glue and wrapped it really tightly in plastic wrap while it dried...

...but that didn't seem to be holding it tightly enough...so I added a clamp...

...then I squeezed the little circle back together...

...and used plastic wrap again to kind of pull it back into place...

...and then I used my curved upholstery needle and some rafia to stitch it back to the little arch...

...then I coated the broken edge with wood glue...

...and started wrapping that area with rafia as well...

...I know it's not going to be a perfect match for the wicker...but I just wasn't sure (even if I had 'wicker') how I'd get it pieced in...

...then I primed the spots I'd repaired...

...then it was time to address the bed frames...they were stained walnut...so I got out the air compressor and the paint sprayer...

...and gave them a coat of primer and a coat of SW Chantilly Lace...which we have plenty of because we initially chose it for the kitchen cabinets and then decided it was too 'cold' with the blue walls...and went with the slightly warmer BM White Snow for the cabinets...

...then I propped up the headboards...

...and gave them the same treatment...I know they were already white...but not quite as white as Chantilly Lace...

...and brought them in to dry...

...and then gave the frames a second coat of Chantilly Lace...I think I'd have done a third if these frames were going to be very visible...but I really think they'll pretty much be covered by a comforter most of the time...

...brought everything up to the little bedroom and put them together...

...the headboards fit the frames perfectly...don't worry about that chest of drawers...I'm going to paint it too...

...put the mattresses back...

...and the cushy memory foam toppers...

...then I made up the beds to get a feel for how it was all going to work together...those two quilts were both made by the Man's Nanny (paternal grandmother)...one was made as a wedding gift for her son and his wife...and the other was made years later for her grandson and his wife...and they are both Garden Path...and both have a pale green background and yellow centers for each flower...so I think they'll be perfect in this room...

...now...on to the chest...everything needed to be sanded really...really well...so I rigged up a way to hold the drawers at a good sanding height...

...this chest of drawers belonged to the Man as a child...and then to Our Airman through his childhood as well...and it has all sorts of scratches and dings...

...so I sanded the top down to bare wood...because it had a lot of wear...

...and I sanded all of the drawers too...but just to get the shiny clear coat off...

...and then I had a little bit of repair work to do...the veneer had come away from the bottom...

...so I glued and clamped it back...

...and then the bottom drawer was really messed up...so I had to do a little repair work on it as well...

...and then we were ready to paint...same as the bed frames...a coat of primer...

...and I actually did do three coats of the Chantilly Lace as this will definitely be pretty visible...

...the Man found these adorable ceramic purple daisy drawer pulls...these would have been so perfect in my childhood purple bedroom with the canopy bed and the antique mirrored dresser from Nanny's...

...but they're perfect in this little room as well...(and we're going to hang the Sunburst mirror on the wall too...so it won't be sitting on the dresser)...

...and we got a Black Friday deal on this little corner table...and added a daisy knob to it as well...

~Wishing you a lovely start to your week!