Latest Project

Hello Folks ~ I want to thank all of you once again for your kind comments, your encouragement and your prayers. It all is priceless and boosts my spirit.

I’m happy to report our weather now is a bit ‘fallish’. Since Sunday the temps have cooled down and the humidity has lessened, making for delightfully perfect weather. We are supposed to have night time temps in the 60’s the end of this week I think. That will really be nice.

Sunday morning I got a 2” x 12” x 67” shelf that DH and I had picked up somewhere, out of the cat barn, where it was stored. It’s been waiting to be used for the right project. It was a light color and I wanted it darker to match the bookcases that I was going to pick up yesterday. So, I got out some small cans of min-wax stain from DH’s workshop, opened them up to check out colors, and decided on Provincial first, stained the shelf, nice and a deeper color but it was still too light, so then I put on a coat of Jacobean and it came out just right. I love it.

                                            Before                            After

     

The bookcases that my dear BIL & SIL gave me were stored where my BIL works. Since neither of their vehicles were large enough to haul them, I suggested I could drive my van up to pick them up. Todd, was going to be at a work related meeting yesterday, south of me, so he asked would it work for me to pick up the bookcases in the morning and then he’d meet here back home after his meeting/lunch to unload them. 

That would work for me, so I ‘geared’ up mentally for the drive, an hour each way, and had a lovely short visit and brunch treat with dear SIL. I drove up to their condo first, to pick her up as she’d tell me how to get to workplace. Two nice young men loaded the bookcases into my van, then we headed back to condo to switch to her vehicle and go to a neat little place called ‘The Nook’. I had a ‘Wimpy Burger’ with sweet potato fries and an Arnold Palmer to drink. She had one fried egg with French fries covered with sausage gravy and sweet tea to drink. That looked good. Afterwards it was back to the condo and just about time to head back home. We said our goodbyes and hugged and off I went.

Driving distances takes me out of my ‘comfort zone’. But I did it and I had some nice ‘loot’ in the back of my van that was going to look so nice in my small living room. I was excited. Todd got here awhile later and we unloaded the bookcases and talked about the mantle shelf which will go over the TV. Strips of stained wood will get nailed to the bookcases, and a painted one will go on the back wall, for the shelf to rest on & be nailed to. That will happen when he comes back another time.

Below is what I’ve been picturing in my head since dear friends of mine bought me a new TV, and I said I’d take the bookcases and media stand that BIL and SIL were getting rid of, (due to moving and change of decor). Now it is reality. The mantle shelf will be great over the TV, and I look forward to decorating it with change of seasons, or whenever I feel like changing things up. That painting won’t stay there, it’s just to fill the space at the moment.

The cooler weather has me itching to work outside, with more clearing out of ‘junk’ and working in the garden spaces that are overgrown.

I am thankful for the gift of each new day, for the ability to be able to do things on a limited income and because of other people’s generosity. I will be shopping my little home for decorative bits and pieces for the shelves and have plenty of books to fill them as well. I will be weeding out more books as I look at them again, planning to keep only what I truly want as visual/mental inspiration/ideas, in gardening, cooking and health. This is exciting. I know DH would like this new look and is happy for me.

I just got an idea for using a piece that we found curbside. Actually, we found 5 of them and sold 4 of them at the antique shop I managed for 17 years. This is 11” high by 70 1/2” wide. I’ll see when Todd is here next and we can put it up on top of bookshelves. It may or may not look good. It is in storage right now. I’m even more excited now thinking of seeing this piece where I can enjoy it. A reminder of the good times we had ‘junking’ as we called it, in other words, ‘curbside shopping’. These are made out of some kind of composition. It is a bit heavy, so I can’t put it on top of the bookshelves by myself. Patience.

Ok, that’s it for now.

Enjoy life, moment to moment.

FlowerLady

Edited 4:46 p.m.

I got home from visiting an elderly widow friend and decided to bring in the architectural piece so that I can look at in the space. Oh my goodness, the piece is much heavier than I thought, but I got it in here with the help of a dolly and some 69 year old muscle strength. My neck and back are feeling it a bit, so I need to take it easy and relax.

I’m also playing with bits and pieces from the cottage. Not going to load it up until we are finished with the mantel shelf.

Not in Michael’s path

Hello Friends ~ Miss Tork and I are fine here at Plum Cottage. I live on the s.e. coast of FL. Thank you for your concern. Had some rain yesterday and again this morning, it’s pretty breezy also. Right now the sun is shining and it is hot and humid. Does not feel like autumn at all. I do have a sister who lives about 180 miles east of Panama City, FL where landfall was predicted to happen. They have battened down the hatches and I pray they will be safe. The live in a mobile home on some acreage. (started this post yesterday, it is now Thursday morning and my sis and family are safe. Their little town has suffered high water damages though. They themselves live 1/2 mile from the Gulf and the river.  I’m glad they were spared. My heart and prayers go out for those who were in the path and havng to deal with the aftermath.)

I’ve been thinking about writing up a post and your inquiries as to our well-being because of Hurricane Michael, prompted me to get one written now so you won’t worry.

Let’s see, over the past month, I had a nerve wracking bee problem that was only growing larger so called some bee professionals in. The bees had moved into the tail of that large faux marlin fish that hung on the back fence. Lots of them were starting to visit my birdbath near my path to my wash house. I was afraid to use the lawnmower or the weedwacker by the fish for fear of making them angry and be in attack mode. The fish and bee problem are gone, although there were still LOTS of bees in the area for a day or two until they made a new home, hopefully not somewhere else here on the property.

I got new eye glasses. I encapsulated Moringa powder and will write up a post about that later.

This past Saturday I finally got off my behind and finished painting the living room. Yay!

This is the living room east wall. Had to paint most of the little wall connected to it also. Baseboards got a coat of fresh white paint also.  The wall paint color is ‘Bleached Linen’ by Behr.

 

West wall before – this is from 2011.

2017 – before getting new tv, old tv under mantle shelf and behind drape

Below is after getting rid of old TV, friends bought me the new one. I gave away the blond found book case on the right, moved the book case desk unit on the left to the bedroom. Mirror is now stacked in the bedroom. Since the book case was gone on the right, I hung a tablecloth in the space until dear Todd, bro-in-law, could fill it in.

This was an old doorway into bedroom from years and years ago. Old wallbaord cut out evenly from floor to ceiling. Vent hole in center of room also ceiled up.

Here’s Todd mudding over the archway into my little space where I hang out on my computer, or do my crafting. Several projects he has helped me with that my dear husband and I didn’t get to finish together. Plus, Todd has come to help with plumbing emergencies.  Thank you dear Todd from the bottom of my heart for all of your hard work and you taking time from your own life to give me a hand.

Two matching book cases will go on either side of the tv unit. There will be a mantle shelf between bookcases and over the tv. At least that’s my plan. That painting is there temporarily to fill the space.

Some of our rock collection.

Some blooms

Dwarf Poinciana tree.

Wild perinkles

Plumbago with hamelia paten

Bougainvillea

Bermuda’s Kathleen

‘Kathleen’

Last but not least here at Plum Cottage is my sweet indoor kitty, Miss Tork, doing what she does best. I had started folding clean laundry and she jumped up on the bed, and while I had breakfast, she made herself a sleeping spot. (I love the head & footboards to our double sized bed. DH and I found them dumped by the road while we were living in Spain. They are made of beech wood, so are really blond, but we like dark wood so I stained them out on our apt. balcony.)

I will be starting a 12 week session with Grief Share. Friends told me about this and said it really helped them when they lost their son. I wasn’t ready to handle this when I was a fresh widow, but am looking forward to this now. I’m rather shy so meeting new and hurting people will be a bit intimidating. But, we will all grow together, and I hope I can be a comfort to some new to grieving, since I’ve been on this road almost 6 years and have come quite a way since the beginning. Jesus has been my strength and seen me through every step of the way.

That’s it for now. I’ve things I’d like to stop proastinating about and just ‘do’ them, so I need to get up out of this chair and get moving.

Be thankful, love, pray for and help others, and God’s blessings on you.

FlowerLady