How I Spent my Day Off

Since we've decided to have a Halloween party after all, I looked around with a critical eye--and the first thing I saw was the kitchen floor.  Lately, no matter how much I've mopped, it still seems dirty, so I knew it was time to strip off the layers of old wax, and that meant ammonia.  Yuk. So all day yesterday was spent scrubbing the floor, with frequent breaks to breathe fresh air, despite opening the windows and turning on the floor fan and the ceiling fan. 

While I had the Hoosier partially emptied and pulled away from the wall, I decided to take a few pictures to show you. This was a Mother's Day gift about 10 years ago, bought from a consignment store in Albuquerque. I'm not sure it's the real thing, actually. The plate looks too shiny, for one thing.

And it looks as if it's been stripped and a stain wiped on the front and sides, but not the back, though the back looks to have old paint on it.

See how the top has been attached to the bottom?  It's metal, but looks as if the piece has also had a brown stain wiped on it.

But it has a lot of what I've read are Hoosier features.

The two doors on the top open to shelving.

And the one on the side has the flour grinder. (Can you see it under the mess?) This is where you load the flour, or whatever you're grinding.

Underneath is the crank, that empties into your container.

The cutout had a glass rolling pin on the rack and I added some semi-old pharmacy bottles on the upper rack.  Usually I keep my most frequently-used cookbooks standing here.

The bottom left cabinet has more shelving.

And the bottom drawer has a sliding metal top, the reason for which, I have no idea.  I just store candles and candleholders in it.

It needs a good cleaning again; it's beginning to stick.

The metal tray  on the top slides out,

and the wheels are the old small ones of yesteryear.

So, what do you think?  Is it authentic, a mish-mash of old and new parts, or just a thrown-together piece of furniture? 

I've been seriously considering changing out the hardware, because I'm sure those are new, and maybe painting the whole piece. I don't think it will change the value of the piece, and even if it does, who cares?  I didn't buy it to resale, and it's mine to enjoy, anyway.

This piece I bought at a yard sale, also when in Albuquerque.  A man had taken his childrens' old toy box and remade it, with screens in the front of each door.

He had painted a vine with leaves, and flower decals on the top.  I took the decals off and changed the knobs, but haven't painted it yet, though that is definitely in the works.  I just haven't decided exactly how. Right now it stores plastic baggies and in the bottom I used to keep potatoes and onions.

Well, everything's back in place for now.  If you look closely, you can see I still have to take a brush to the edges where the floor meets the baseboards, and clean the baseboards, too, but that was all I could manage on one day off.  Tuesday will find me on the floor with a mask, scrubbing away, and then reapplying a mop-on shine.  All the floor will need before the party is damp mopping a few times. 

Next will be both bathroom floors, and that should last for another year. It's a lot to try and get done this soon before Halloween, but we're coming up on more holidays and then hunkering in for the winter, and I like the house to be as clean as possible so all I have to do is decorate. And sew. And maybe paint the kitchen.

Curing the January Blahs

For a long time there, I felt as if all my off days were committed far in advance: doctor's appointments, hair appointment, traveling to DD's house, work inservices, putting the tree up, buying and wrapping gifts, grocery shopping, cooking, etc, etc, etc. It seemed all my time was taken up with lots of have-tos and few want-tos.  It was starting to make me a little CRANKY.

Every other week I have a 4-night stretch off.  (For night-shift workers, this is equivilant to 3 full days).  Last weekend I really should have taken the Christmas tree down and put away all the decorations, but I had a mini-rebellion. Instead, I worked in the sewing room, clearing away the clutter, taking down the black Halloween curtains (!) and re-organizing a bit.  I have some dark blue-striped curtain panels that have been up in the room before, but the fact that they gapped when shut really bothered me. So I ripped out the side seams and sewed the pairs together.  Not very challenging or creative, but it got rid of one of those little things that bugged me.  And in the winter, the sun's path is low enough that, when it shines, it blinds me at the machine until after 11am. Not any more.  Now I can leave the curtains shut until I'm ready.

I even got my hot air balloons back up.

(And yes, that's STILL snow on the ground, 4 weeks later!)

I cleared stacks of books off my desk and sewing table.  These were bought at yard sales during the summer, in plans of reading while lying in the hammock.  Didn't happen, obviously.

And as much of a Stephen King fan as I've been for years, I have some old ones yet to read. Some are stacked beside the bed, and others stored in a box under the cutting table, out of sight, out of the way, but still accessible.

This book I won 2 years ago in a giveaway by Julie at Pragmatic Compendium.  I got about 2/3 of the way through, stopped to do my taxes, and just never finished.

I went through my 3-ring binders and culled out old patterns and pictures of quilts I no longer want to make.  In the top of the closet are standing organizers full of old quilt magazines.  Even though I've stopped subscribing to all but 3 magazines, I still have loads of magazines, and I could really use that room to store something else.  There's so much that can be found on the internet now, I have no problems going through all my old mags and cutting out the pictures and patterns I want to keep--and putting them in the binders to do later.

Also in the reorganizing (and I haven't gotten into the closet yet), I found several UFOs I'd forgotten about.

I cut 12 of these squares, in preparation for a child's quilt, but only cut 9 balloons. I think I was searching for a different fabric for the last 3 balloons, and I've decided to use this fabric:

The problem I'm running in to is, even though I haven't turned the edges of the applique under just yet, it's too

big for the square.

Even turned diagonally, it's too big.

I don't remember why that is.

So I'm thinking I'll either need to trim the balloons and baskets down, or add borders to the cloud squares and make them larger.

Or, I suppose I could sew the squares together with  sashing, and have the balloons overlap the sashings deliberately.

What do you think?  Any other ideas?

In the meantime, I re-discovered these king-sized pillow shams bought at a thrift shop a while back.  I'd already taken the seams apart, and laid out some of the pattern pieces for an apron.  I finished cutting, and then sewed them together.

It's not quilting, but it turned out just as pretty as I thought it would. And it cleared just a little more off my cutting table.

And this week?  Not much sewing has gone on, and the tree is down, but most of the decorations and lights still need to be packed away.  I'm a late convert to Ghost Whisperer, and have been catching up on dozens of old episodes, thanks to  ION television and the WE network. That's why there is no Saturday at the Movies this week--I haven't seen any movies in about 3 weeks!

I'm also now addicted to Farmville (thanks SO much, Mighty Mom).  Coming up is a make-up dentist appointment, a groomer's appointment for Tandi, and having my truck towed to the shop.  Despite trying to start it several times the last few weeks while it was surrounded by ice and snow, it has succumbed to the cold and only makes a forlorn clacking noise now.  I do believe that's the sound of money exiting my bank account.

Oh, but look what came in on Wednesday:

Fabric.com, you rock! I don't have a specific project in mind, but I'm sure I can find something.

 I wish it were next weekend already.

HGTV Fallout

Whew! I am so happy those two days of work are over! They weren't crazy-busy, but it was more activity than I'd done in over a week of being sick, so I was tireder than usual.

No progress on the sewing front just yet, but all those hours and hours of lying around watching HGTV under the influence of albuterol inhalers haven't been totally wasted. One sleepless night, I took an old spiral notebook and listed, room by room, every project I wanted to accomplish. Read now, in the clarity of daylight after decent sleep, it's a rather daunting list!

But yesterday, one of the big ones was accomplished, thanks to Handyman Matters.

When we moved here in 2003, I had a big, nice, 2-yr-old side-by-side refrigerator we brought with us--that wouldn't fit in the new kitchen. So we left the small, black, freezer-on-top fridge from the previous owners in the kitchen and put ours out in the garage, next to the old upright freezer. It's actually rather handy to have a second fridge, for things like extra cokes, 2 1/2 dozen egg containers, vegetables, and watermelon in season. But J-Man, who is paralyzed on his left side and has chronic back pain, was finding it increasingly difficult and painful to bend down to get his tea, find leftovers, hunt for the pickles, etc.

So yesterday, the really nice guy from Handyman Matters came out, trimmed my cabinets down, and swapped the refrigerators for us. It took longer than expected, and of course, I had to come home from work, unload both refrigerators into coolers and onto every available surface before anything could be done. And clean both fridges, too, then reload everything. It was an all day affair, and my legs were so sore from going up and down steps, but it is so worth it!

In a couple of days, I should have the new filter in, and things arranged like we want them, and we'll be back to using the cold water and ice dispensers again. Heaven.

I'm sorry there are no before pictures, but here's my wonderful appliance back in its rightful place:

I had him just leave off the cabinet doors above the fridge, rather than cutting them back down to size and re-installing. I have a couple of decorative items that will look just fine up there--and no, I'm not referring to the empty egg cartons or my lunch bag!

Besides the cabinet and refrigerator work, he changed out the fluorescent light fixture that wasn't functioning (yeah, the kitchen needs updating, but whenever...), and while he was at it, fixed the storm door--which I hadn't even mentioned. He was here almost 4 hours, and had to take the doors off the fridge to get it into the house, but part of the delay wasn't his fault, so he charged us for less than 3 hours' work. All in all, we paid only $265.00--labor and supplies. Considering all he had to do, that was a real bargain!

Russell was a very pleasant man, whistling along to the old Beach Boys tunes J-Man had playing on the computer, reminiscing about The Twist and other old dances, and giving some helpful hints about thriftiness and efficiency. I have a grocery list of things that need to be fixed around here that J-Man and I are unable to do, and you can be sure we will be calling them again--and requesting Russell.

Celebrate!

Wooohoooo! Doin' the Happy Dance!!! The taxes are finished!!! All of them--the '05s, the '08s, and the amended '07s!!!
Next year I'm not going to know what to do; it'll seem so easy! (And so cheap, not doing more than a year at a time.)

AND, I finished the non-sewing project for my friend!


Remember my little orientee from last year? Well, she's from the Philippines and never really learned to cook, though she's picking up recipes from friends. So several of us combed through some of our kid-and-husband-friendly recipes for her and I put them in a 3-ring binder for her.

I found a pad of contemporary card stock at Michael's to insert in the front and back and trim for the end, and then found some coordinating paper at Staples for the recipes themselves--those that weren't already printed out, that is. Then used the computer and some other paper I had to label it.
By using a binder, she can add or delete as she wants to, and by using the sheet protectors, she can pull individual recipes out and not worry about spilling or tearing them.
One of our co-workers is also Filippino and included some native recipes for her:


It took me a while, because I was transferring recipes from the desktop, as well as my index and cookbooks,to the thumb drive and then the mini-computer. I took it to work--and they had put her on call. So I had to stick it in her locker, and hope she gets it! Because she's the only local person I know who reads my blog, I couldn't show pictures before now--and then I forgot to take photos with my digital camera and took them with my phone at work before putting them in her locker. (That's why the pictures are so horrible--makes my hand look like it has leprosy or something!)

Now--to the sewing room with a clear conscience!!