Catching up

Posted on April 20, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Last week was spring break for Jesse. Jim took the week off to start on one of our biggest and most needed projects: painting the house. This is the “before” view:

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The shutters on the left of the house are faded; the shutters on the right are peeling. We didn’t know that the ones on the left were made of plastic until Jim took them down and piece of it broke off. The ones on the right were made of wood.

With a split level, there are odd little places with pieces of roof sticking out from the rest of the house and little patches of paneling. I was inside the “sun room” at the back of the house when Jim and Jeremy were on a little section of roof to paint the wall above that and below the main roof. I took this picture from inside the sun room looking out at them.

Yes, Jim is climbing a ladder on a roof. Yes, I did pray for safety a lot during the week!

Jeremy and Jesse working in the front:

This is the contrast of the new color on the left and the old one on the right:

I was a little alarmed at first because the new color looks more yellowish (though not so much in this picture) when I was trying to avoid a yellow tone. When I told Jim’s mom we were painting it off-white, she said, “Ecru?” Unfortunately there are scores of tints and shades in that color family! But when I look at a wall of the new paint by itself it doesn’t look yellowish, so I think it’s fine. Better be! It’s too late to change it! I was just frustrated with myself in my color choice, but it will be fine in the long run.

Jim working on the front:

More prayers for safety!

Jeremy did most of the shutters and gutters:

While I was walking around taking pictures, I thought the view of the sky through the dogwood tree was pretty:

This is the view this morning — the lighting is a little different because the previous pictures were taken on a sunny day and it is overcast this morning. The old is on the left, the new on the right:

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I like it. It looks a lot lighter and brighter.

When I was looking at colors, I didn’t even think about the area around the windows, but changing that from dark to light makes a lot of difference.

Jim was frustrated that he lost two days of painting due to rain at the beginning of the week. He used the time when it wasn’t actually raining to do some prep work, cleaning and scraping. He had mercy on Jesse and didn’t make him work as much as he could have so he could just relax some over spring break. Jesse did get to have a friend over one night. Jason doesn’t get a spring break from his school and had a heavy week of homework, so he wasn’t able to help much. I felt bad that I didn’t contribute more. I am no good on a ladder: one of the residual effects of TM is balance problems. I did have some extra time on Saturday and offered to help Jeremy with the shutters or gutters, but where he was set up on the patio there wasn’t much room, and he was enjoying listening to his iPod while working and didn’t really need or want help at that point. I did provide lunch and dinner. 🙂 I don’t usually make lunches for all of us: years ago when the kids discovered the joys of sleeping in, they woke up at different times and ate at different times, and if I made them each something to eat whenever they got ready, I would have been in the kitchen all day. So they usually make their own lunches. But this week they usually took a lunch break all together, and I figured having a meal ready was the least I could do. And, of course, I’m the chronicler and photographer. 🙂

The greatest majority of it is done. The wall on the left and a little patch of siding on the right is all of the “big” stuff, and Jim will have to rent a ladder to reach the peak (at least I think and hope he is planning to. He did mention the possibility of putting a ladder on top of the van. :O ) They also need to do the doors. But there is some tedious little stuff left, like the wood parts on the window panes. We’ll just have to fit that in as we can.

Today everyone is back to school and work. I sure enjoyed not setting the alarm clock last week. Funny how 6:30 is “sleeping in” these days!

This Saturday is the ladies’ luncheon at church. We got the favors mostly done at the ladies’ meeting last week, and I have a pretty long to-do list before Saturday, but, though it is going to be a busier than usual week, it doesn’t feel really pressured and overwhelming. Even so, there is a little underlying feeling of nervousness that seems to be a part of planning any event, even though things are going well and there’s nothing to worry about and it is all in God’s hands anyway. I just try to ignore it and carry on. 🙂 But I’d appreciate your prayers that everything go well and especially for the lady doing the presentation of Darlene Diebler Rose’s Evidence Not Seen as she prepares. I’m praying that neither of us is adversely affected by the pollen that is so prevalent this time of year!

I was playing around with StumbleUpon last night after noticing in my blog stats that someone viewed one of my posts via Stumble. I clicked on the link, but it didn’t show me what page was viewed: it just took me to a page saying someone had viewed one of my posts, which I already knew. I had already signed in with them but just hadn’t done a lot with it. I looked around and read several things. I didn’t know if I could “stumble” any of my own posts, and I tried it just to see if I could. I was astounded this morning to see that the posts I had stumbled had all received over 90 views just since last night via StumbleUpon, and one, When there is no hunger for God’s Word, received over 2,000 views! I guess it works!

I think that about catches us up with the goings-on here. This will be a busy week preparing for the ladies’ luncheon; next week I’ll have the ladies ministry newsletter/booklet to do; Jason graduates in May, and his fiancee and future mother-in-law are coming for that, so there are some house projects I’d like to get done before that. Jesse has a sports banquet coming up as well as a piano recital and choir concert in May. Then when his school gets out later in the month, I’ll have a breather for a while — until Jason’s wedding in August!!

Blue Monday: Kinkade throw

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Barbara Harper

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue — pretty, ugly, serious or funny — and then link up to other Blue Monday participants.

Today I wanted to show this Thomas Kinkade throw blanket my mother gave me years ago.

It has Psalm 91:2 on it: “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”

We keep a throw blanket folded on the backs of sofas and loveseats in both the living room and family room because even with the heat on it gets a little chilly when we’re just sitting watching TV or reading. This one is in the family room. Sometimes when I use it I think about being covered by both my mother’s love and by the promises of God.

Blue Monday: Blue Christmas and more on the engagement

Posted on December 15, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Thanks so much for your thoughts and wishes in response to my son’s engagement. This is a first for our family and we’re very excited! One quick funny story in connection with it: He is going to her home over Christmas break, and I thought he would probably ask her then, so I wasn’t expecting it to happen now. When they came in Saturday they were dropping all kinds of hints, and I just wasn’t getting it. We had pizza, and she reached right in front of me with the hand that had the ring, and I didn’t see it, then she asked, “Mrs. H___, when Jason marries me, what should I call you?” I said, “Well, whatever you feel comfortable with.” “Well, when should I start?” “Well, whenever you want to.” Finally she just held her hand up with the ring, and I think I just said, “Oh!!” They said my expression was priceless.

They went back downtown yesterday to “reenact” the event for Jeremy to photograph, and I loved this picture taken near the downtown Christmas tree, where Jason did the honors.

On to Blue Monday!

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue — pretty, ugly, serious or funny — and then link up to other Blue Monday participants.

I thought I’d show some of our Christmas ornaments and decorations that have blue in them.

The first two are the newest. I just got them at the Christmas bookstore last week — saw them and loved them.

I got this at a craft show some years back:

I took a class in “One Stroke Painting” at Michael’s and made this.

It’s not much like the original!! The shadowy parts look dirty and his face isn’t as round as it is supposed to be. I’d love to do more of that kind of thing. I had a goal once to make one ornament of every craft I tried. Ornaments are actually a good way to try a new craft, since they’re usually smaller, easier projects.

A blue ball of styrafoam and fabric and ribbon I made eons ago:

This was a gift from a friend:

Part of our tree skirt:

Snowmen candle holders my son’s girlfriend’s fiancee’s mom gave us last year:

A little snow globe on the windowsill:

A little blurry snowman figurine:

My mom gave me this several years ago. You push a button on the back and it plays songs and lights flash in the windows.

Serving dish and dish towel I just received last week:

A little Nativity musical figurine:

I got this sign at a craft show a few years ago. It’s one of my favorite things:

Stop by Sally’s for more Blue Monday. Have a great Monday!

Blue Monday

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue — pretty, ugly, serious or funny — and then link up to other Blue Monday participants.

Our upstairs bathroom is decorated in blue, tan, and beige. The “inspiration” came from the wallpaper that was there when we first moved in, which looked like sand dunes and sea grass. We’ve since taken that down and painted, but we kept the theme. I found these Thomas Kinkade prints on sale in a catalog.

They are a little hard to see at this angle — they are in the little entryway, so there wasn’t enough room to get directly across to take the picture. Both have lighthouses on them, and one has the verse “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12) and the other has “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” ( John 1:5).

The lighthouses there led to a lighthouse shower curtain and bath mat.

This also shows a little bit of the flooring, also there when we first moved in, which helped lead to the color scheme with the blue squares.

The seaside/lighthouse theme spilled over into a general nautical theme. Though this isn’t the clearest photo, it shows one of my favorite pictures:

This old sea captain reminds me of Captain Peggotty in Dickens’ David Copperfield, the brother of David’s nurse, Pegotty, with whom David stays when his mother remarries and with whose daughter he develops a childhood crush. The captain has been one of my favorite characters.

This doesn’t have a nautical theme — but the colors match and it fits here right above a towel rack. 🙂

It has Romans 12:12 at the bottom: “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.”

And this has nothing nautical about it — but where else can you put it besides a bathroom? 🙂

My sister cross stitched it for me several years ago.

I do have some other little touches I want to add in at some point — but other things are ahead in priority right now.

You can visit Smiling Sally‘s for other Blue Mondays.

Blue Monday

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue.

I thought I’d show a few more things in my kitchen, this time relating to bears. I used to collect a lot of bear-related things, but nowadays I have narrowed it down to Boyd’s Bear figurines. But these are a few non-Boyd’s bears that I love.

I found this cute little bench as is at a thrift store for $3.

Show and Tell Friday: Jesse’s room makeover

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts “Show and Tell Friday” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky. Guidelines are here.

We moved into a house that was about 30 years old at the time, and most of the wall and floor coverings needed to be replaced. Of course, you have to space those projects out as time and finances permit. So after ten years we are just now getting to the bedroom of Jesse, my youngest son who just turned 15. He had three days off due ro a teacher’s conference, so Jim took those days off as well.

I didn’t really get a “before” picture as it was before we started working on it because…I would have been too embarrassed. He has the smallest bedroom in the house but the most “stuff,” some of it from younger days and no longer really played with, some that his older brothers passed down to him as they cleaned out their things. We would sort through and purge a few shelves or drawers at a time, but it was overwhelming for both of us.

My husband’s strategy was to pack up everything into boxes and put it in the attic, because if we took time to sort through it before painting we wouldn’t get done in the time frame we had. As we packed things away, if there was something obvious that needed to be thrown away or put in a give-away box, we’d do that, but otherwise we’ll just take the boxes out one or two at a time as we have time later to sort through.

So…here are the “before pictures I took after most of the furniture was out and they had done some spackling:

The walls look a little greenish here, but they were actually a barely-there blue.

Of course, you notice the hideous carpet:

We were delighted to find nice hardwood floors underneath:

Jesse first wanted to paint the walls red, but we felt that would be a little too intense. Then he said brown: we weren’t sure how that would do in a small room, but we were okay with it. Then he said he wanted to paint the trim blue. I wasn’t sure about that at all. But Home Depot had a computer setup where you could click on the paint color and then on the walls or trim of a picture of a room, so we tried it out, and it wasn’t bad.

It actually turned out better than I thought it would:

It was hard to capture the right shade with the lighting in the room and this camera, but this is pretty close. The walls are Double Chocolate, the trim is Smoky Blue. The doors and dresser are supposed to be Oyster, which I had thought was a little tanner than this — this pretty much looks barely off-white. But it’s fine.

I think he was wanting to try for a look that was grown and masculine, and I think this definitely fits the bill. I probably would have done things differently…but then, he is the one living in it, so as long as it wasn’t too outlandish, I was fine with letting him make the choices.

It hasn’t arrived yet, but I ordered this comforter — I let him choose it out of a catalog. And this weekend we’ll look for an area rug — I found a couple that incorporate the different colors.

He’s very pleased!

I also wanted to show my “work in progress.” It’s about one-fourth done.

You can find more Show and Tellers at Kelli‘s.

Blue Monday: Houses

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Barbara Harper

My new blog friend Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue.

I didn’t realize until we moved to this house and I was unpacking boxes that I had several little houses, so I grouped them all together. Many of them are blue or have blue on them.

The top one of these says, “Treasured friends: time only makes them more dear.” The bottom one says

Let’s visit — just come in and sit.
Our homes warmed by your presence — so linger a bit.

This is one of my favorites. I love this saying. I think I got both of these at a craft show.

This is a house-shaped potholder.

I also found somewhere along the way this cute little house. It’s supposed to be one of those things where you put a small candle in the back and something scented that melts in a little impression above it — but scented things like that give me a headache, so I just enjoy looking at the little house.

And this is a cookie jar — although, since there was no room on the counters for it, I put it on this baker’s rack, but the top is a little heavy and I was afraid of the kids dropping it, I haven’t put cookies in it for a while. But I think I could now.

And, of course, behind all of these you see my kitchen wallpaper, which has blue and pink in it.

Head over to Smiling Sally‘s for more of Blue Monday.

Blue Monday

Posted on September 22, 2008 by Barbara Harper

My new blog friend Smiling Sally hosts a Blue Monday in which we can post about anything blue.

Long-time readers will have seen this before, but this is a sampler I made several years ago. When we were first married I was more into Early American style decorating, and somewhere around that time I had read the Little House on the Prairie books, where Mary and Laura learned to make samplers in their first forays into needlework, so I really wanted to make a sampler for our home. Patterns for them were very popular at the time.

I have it hanging beside what is supposed to be an antique raisin rack (used to dry grapes til they became raisins) decoupaged with a Burpee seed label (I didn’t decoupage it — I bought it that way).

This has more of a faded blue in it, but I like it, and it seemed in keeping with the old-fashionenedness of the sampler.

These both hang in our family room

Show and Tell

Posted on September 19, 2008 by Barbara Harper

I wanted to show you a couple of sweet items found on sale at Forget Me Not Dreams on a Pink Friday sponsored by the shops at Make Mine Pink (which actually does have more than pink items. 🙂 )

I just LOVED these pot holders — I rarely see anything in pink for the kitchen in local shops. I didn’t realize how big they were when I ordered them, though — maybe 8 or 10 inches on each side.

I loved everything about this wall pocket, too — the color, the design, the heart shape. I was thinking it was too bad I’d have to wait til spring to use it on my front door, but, I don’t know — it might look ok with fall decorations in it. What do you think?

I have to say, I totally love Pink Fridays at Make Mine Pink (and no, I am not paid nor asked to say that!) We don’t have shops like this in town, and it’s like visiting a nice sidewalk sale without having to leave home.

I also wanted to show my current work in progress:

It’s coming along! I am not finished back-stitching the scissors, but this shows how the back-stitching really defines specific areas:

I’m off to visit with other Show and Tellers at Kelli’s.

Site-seeing

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Barbara Harper

Thanks to those who prayed for my family in Texas through Ike’s onslaught. They lost power around 2 a.m. the night it hit, but otherwise had no damage. I don’t know yet if the power has been restored — I haven’t been able to get in contact with them since Saturday morning, so that may be one indication they haven’t.

I wanted to share some interesting posts I’ve found recently:

How to help a family in a medical emergency at Adventures In Daily Living, HT to Rocks In My Dryer. Excellent advice.

How Christan Women Can Mentor and Be Mentored.

Books Build Character by The Common Room. Yet another excellent reason to read.

The Common Room has also been keeping up with several posts detailing the media feeding frenzy since Sarah Palin was named McCain’s running mate. It’s just amazing.

Semicolon has lots of links and resources to say Goodbye to Summer, Hello Autumn.

I found TipNut via Susan at By Grace. This post shares several 25 household tips. Some are outdated, like the one about cords on packages — I don’t think the Post Office allows cords or twine any more, do they? But most are really good. I’ve enjoyed subscribing and getting tips every day ranging from household tasks to craft ideas, like this one about organizing craft supplies and sewing rooms, and this thumb pincushion looks sooo handy.

Sew, Mama, Sew! has a great tutorial on sewing lined curtains, just in time! I hope to start mine this week. There is also one for cut-out curtains — embellishing plain panel curtains with designs cut out from other fabrics.

Here are some other neat crafty ideas:

This quilted potholder looks like a great way to try beginning quilting, as well as tying together a color scheme.

The cutest doorstop I have ever seen.

Christmas mitten ornaments out of felt.

A button/toile reversible heart ornament (the bottom half of the page).

A lovely and a little different fall centerpiece from Hydrangea Home.

Finally, I have been remiss in acknowledging the kindness of blog friends who have sent awards my way.

Carolyn at Talk to Grams gave me this Proximidade award. “To translate the gift from Portuguese to English, it means:”This blog invests and believes, the proximity” [meaning, that blogging makes us ‘close’ -being close through proxy] How awesome is that?? They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”

I clicked back through several links trying to discover where this originated, but gave up after a while. It evidently began with someone who speaks Portuguese. 🙂

I’m going to pass this on to Alice, Jen, Susan, Susanne, Bet, Lizzie, Ann, and Melli. I know a couple of these ladies don’t “do” awards, but I still want to acknowledge them.

Mindy passed along this award: