Lull in the yard activities.... this and that..... and new project......

Hi blogging friends...... it's been almost a month since I've posted so thought I'd bring you up to date! Really though... not much has been happening around here. All the activity outside in the yard and on the house has seemed to come to (almost) a screeching halt.  It's kind of a letdown.......

Our painter guy got too busy..... he's so popular now that everyone wants him to do work for them. Darn....... but since he lives just down the block from us, he does come over now and then and works for a short time, an hour here, an hour there.  When he painted our house, he told us we need gutters.... well we knew that but hadn't been able to afford having them put on. He offered to put them on, which would be included with the price of fixing and repairing (and replacing?) our rock wall in the front yard. Wow.... that has been a bonus for us! So the front ones are almost done.

Our poor front yard is a mess (yet again). How many times this summer has it been torn up????

The wall is still there, leaning outward at a precarious tilt.. and he and/or his workers have been digging behind it so they can put drains there and gravel, and make the necessary repairs. To our and their surprise, there WERE some "dead men" behind it, holding it back. A "dead man" is a big cement thing that attaches to the wall and is buried in the yard behind the wall, to keep it from tilting outward and falling down. Well the dead men obviously have not worked!

To make matters worse, our painter guy's two sons were in a car accident. One broke his leg in 7 places, and the other hurt his knee! Oh boy... that will put a kibosh in the work activities, for sure. So I don't know now WHEN the work will be finished on our wall! Frustrating to say the least, but I'm glad his sons are OK.

Here's a pretty picture to make me feel better..... Mt. Jefferson as seen from just up the street from our house.  I drive up there and just sit awhile.. when I'm feeling frustrated or overwhelmed... it helps to calm me.

And I've started doing a little crafting again..... I have a new "craft corner" in our living room. It's my house and I can do what I want, right? We got a new little (used) dining set that has more comfortable chairs, with cushions and arms and on casters. We really like it.... but what to do with the older set? We were going to sell it, but I decided to try it out in the corner of our living room, right by our electric fireplace, and beside the TV, so I can sit and watch  YouTube videos and craft at the same time! I love it there and I feel like doing more when I sit in the living room by the fire.

So I now have a new............

CAT "CATIO"....

Our catio is almost ready to use! Did I show you this before? I can't remember now, so will show you again. It's a chicken coup, but we are going to use it for our 3 cats if we go somewhere more than 1 night. For one night, we can leave them in the house, but for longer, we wanted a way to leave them in the garage, but with a way to be outside also. So we now have the cat door installed on the side of the garage, and it goes outside into the "catio" where they can get some daylight and fresh air. The garage is dark, no windows at the moment (that's on the "to do" list)............. so they can have their food and water in the garage when we're gone, without all the neighborhood cats coming inside and eating it (and sleeping in there!)..... and still be able to go outside and lounge on the catio. 

This isn't quite done yet. We are raising it off the ground. We've cut the plywood piece for the floor, I've bought the blocks for under it, and we just have to raise it up and put it on the blocks, and attach it to the house somehow. We'll have a nice rug inside and some stools/platforms for them to sit on. The litter box will be inside the garage. We can't just leave the cats "loose" when we're gone, as there are too many neighborhood feral cats that fight with ours.  I'll show you another picture when it's totally done, which will be soon I hope!

NEW PROJECT:

Hubby has a new project to keep him busy for awhile.......

HE wanted it, so it's HIS project! He promised. I don't want to deal with it (well not too much anyway). But.... I DO want the end result!  It's a 1980 Perris Valley camper made for a small truck. Pretty decent shape, but needs alot of work too, such as resealing, new vents on top, one new window, door repaired, and inside, though fairly good, needs new cushions, foam, etc. Lots of cosmetic stuff too. 

I want to get rid of the brown plaid cushions. He wants the theme to be cowboy/southwestern so I plan to recover the cushions in a western theme, using greens. And although I love lace curtains, these will have to go! I'll make some new ones. We/I also plan to paint that dark paneling to a nice off white.

Hopefully it'll be done enough by next summer to take a few short road trips. We've wanted a little travel trailer for years, but this is about all we could afford... was practically free, so that's a good price. 

The gold stripes will be painted black to match our truck. I think it will look really nice. Since these pictures, he's washed it thoroughly and it looks like new! The inside had a couple of leaks so we need to re-do the paneling in those spots.

CROCHET AND FABRIC:

I got to go visit our neighbor's mother 2 weeks ago, who has quilted for many many years. She was getting rid of most of her fabric and she knew that I sewed. She showed me the quilts she has in her home. She has made EVERY one, all by hand, the piecing and the quilting. Wow. She said she has too much arthritis in her hands now which is sad. I suggested maybe she could do the piecing by machine instead of by hand, but she said she feels that is "cheating"! 

Boy did I ever hit the jackpot! I now have bags and bags of beautiful fabric, embroidered quilt squares, some partial quilt blocks, tons of whites and off whites and some flannel! This all precipitated me deciding we need to get rid of our huge futon that takes up half of my craftroom! So that's for sale, and I've already found a nice tall bookshelf to put on the empty wall once the futon is gone. I need more room for all that fabric!  What's a girl to do?

This sweet woman (we talked for hours) also crochets, and has made GORGEOUS doilies. She had a trunk full of doily sets using that teeny tiny thread! She said she's still able to crochet. She has inspired me to start crocheting again. 

She gave me two of her all cotton dish clothes that she made, and I love them! I must admit, I've felt for years that a handmade cotton dishcloth was more for just something pretty to look at, and not using. But I was so wrong. They work so much better than those store bought things, and they dry so fast that they stay clean longer. Now I want to make some dishcloths for gifts....... so of course, I had to immediately go to the store and buy several skeins of the pretty Sugar & Spice cotton yarns. Oh me........I need two more "me's" to do all the projects I want to.

THAT'S THE NEWS FOR NOW....

Lot's to do as usual. Never a dull moment around here. I did get all my back yard pots and tubs cleaned out and all the dead stuff cut down and thrown away. I was dreading that so glad it's done!

Now I can get back to my crafting. More on that later.....