leaving on a jet plane...

i am not sure how i am going to pull this one off...spring break is here and we are heading off for a few days. normally it would be a case of shoving a few things in bags and heading out the door. but not this time, this time we are going on a 'big' trip...a trip my man has been planning for a while, one that involves important things like 'insect repellent' and 'anti diarrhea' tablets...

you see dear readers when i met my man many moons ago, he was a 'traveller' if you will. in between the 'studying' and 'work' hours he took his free spirit and followed it to far off lands with just a few pennies in his hand and a backpack for his belongings...

i on the other hand am a 'nester'. i like my 'home' and try as i might am not good at just throwing caution to the wind and 'winging' it out in the big wide world...so for many a year my man has made do with small road trips and flying across the pond every now and then to see his folks.

but then last summer he turned 40 and announced with the arrival of such a big number plus the knowledge that soon his little flock would start to leave the nest it was time we had a 'life experience' like no other...something we will look back on in years to come, to share some memories.

he started to plan where we could possibly go to get such an experience... it didn't take long before he found it. tomorrow we will be carrying our little backpacks onto a plane destined for the rain forests of Costa Rica...to stay in little huts in a place that i have only ever seen on the discovery channel and even then it was only a short bit. once they started talking about spiders the size of dinner plates i changed the channel and made a mental note to have boots on my feet and a hat on my head at all times...

so the contractors have moved out for a week and i am left rustling together six peoples worth of stuff and wondering "why oh why" did i not start to 'beachify' my body several weeks ago. eighteen hours is not enough time to pull off a miracle when it comes to a pasty winterized fuzzy body...the one thing i have going in my favor, when i take off my glasses i don't see fine detail therefore i can not see the 'jungle' upon my legs nor notice the 'sagging' bottom that i was suppose to 'tone up' with the help of 'used dog' and our walks..

i must away to the list as long as my arm, try not to be 'nervous as hell', remember that this is a 'life time opportunity' and most importantly, not forget to pack my razor...

she's wishing you well for the next week or so ~ Tif

the rebellion at the shed...

used dog and i have come to a compromise, the 'used bowl' will become a water bowl and she will keep her plastic bowl for food. other compromises around mossy shed in past few days have been to do with 'lace' and 'frilly things'...it appears my family are starting to make 'noises' about too much fabric and lace appearing in every room. according to our #1, now i have Gladys i need to take all my "lace and what not" and decorate her thus leaving the shed alone (wounded, i was dear readers)

to try and quieten the 'rebels' down i have cleaned up my studio space...i have also made an attempt to sort 'the bedroom'.

since 'moving day' it has been a 'catch all'. add to that, boxes of kids toys and all the other stuff that was moved from the room above the garage to accommodate the wall being built. quite frankly dear readers i fear my wall is going to take longer than the 'great wall of china', i still do not see an end in sight. but we will not dwell on that...

so i ended up lugging most of the boxes down to the garage to make our bedroom feel a little less claustrophobic, plus i was beginning to worry if a minor earthquake hit it might take a while to find me. i could make the headlines "it's a miracle. after ten days, woman found buried, still alive under a ton of Lego"

my man is also objecting to my 'fabric cupboard' that looms over him as he sleeps, he has mentioned that it is the last thing he sees when he goes to sleep and the first thing he sees when he wakes up..."put it this way Tif, it is attacking me...i can deal with 'it' everywhere else but not next to me as i sleep" fair enough.

so i decided to place wallpaper behind the glass doors to create a more 'clean line' affect...i have managed one door so far.

of course the doors are wider than a roll of paper and so it makes for some very 'canny' matching, a lot of 'sticky tape' and my handy staple gun...i found the wallpaper from here...now all i have to do is match the other door, not a simple task i feel...

the kitchen is finished up tomorrow apart from some paint touch up...we have a front door that actually closes properly (what a relief)...and the wall? please do not ask about that...

she's thinking it's rather a load of 'old waffle' today ~ Tif

no more squeaks in the night (for now)...

i was wrong about it being a rat the wall...it was a mouse.

what possessed the little mousey to venture from the safety of his 'wall', out under the kitchen cabinets and into the waiting paws of a cat, i will never know. but he did and now he will no longer be gnawing on the shed. as i am rather fond of mice i felt rather sad...he looked just like 'our snoopy' accept a little more mangled. 'our snoopy' is still in his little pink box in the freezer, he moved with us and now we need to find a suitable spot for a pet cemetery, until that time he will stay in our freezer next to the peas. sad as it was to find 'mousey-no-name' dead on my floor, it is good to know that at least one of our cats will earn their keep living with us...

the roof will be finished by the end of the day...the kitchen drawers are in place and the crawl space man paid a visit and apparently "it's not too bad" down below. signs of 'moisture ants' and a 'bit of rot' but nothing that can't be sorted...(ha ha ha)

the kids were back to full day at school so i had a couple of hours to myself. i took a leaf out of Amy Butler's midwest modern book and put Miss Ethel to work making a slip cover for an ikea footstool that had a very grotty looking cover. i left the seams to fray and am quite happy with it...

i have plans for working on Gladys's furniture. my man has told me i have to "make do and mend" with whatever furniture lurking in the garage that did not fit in Mossy Shed when we moved.

so it appears i will be having to do quite a bit of disguising kid's left over ikea furniture. of course it makes for some creative thinking and hopefully by the time i get done it will be hard to spot the 'ikea' under the 'customizing'...i have been thinking how nice it would be to wallpaper a bit of Gladys, (what's that? no, no...on the inside, i'm not that mad) but i have visions of it just peeling off at the first sign of 'damp'...

used dog has refused point blank to eat out of her new 'used bowl'...she has had the same plastic bowl for eight years and i decided it was time for a change. she however has decided it isn't...i have changed everything in her life when we moved in January, everything accept her dog collar and her bowl. she tells me enough is enough...she doesn't care that the new 'used bowl' suits my kitchen so much better than the plastic one, she would rather go hungry then eat out of it...she never complains about life so i think i have to take notice of this 'hunger strike' and reinstate the plastic bowl...

she's wishing you a happy easter and hoping the easter bunny pays you a visit ~ Tif

another squeak in the night...

oh silly me...what did i mean "rodent activity does not bother me"...talk about jinxing things. Samuel Whiskers has not moved on as i had thought but appears to be living it up in the floorboards just above my newly 'crown molded' kitchen cabinets. last night he was having a good old chew on something that sounded very important to the shed 'staying up'...i fear we are going to have to toughen up living at mossy shed and just accept that some furry creatures are not welcome and must be sent packing...

Miss Ethel has hardly had a look in these days...i am fearing that she might soon seize up. i managed one hour with her the other day, just long enough to make a cushion cover with some of the bark cloth i have been squirreling away of late. she also got a 'spin' when our #1 decided to do a spot of sewing...i have to tell you dear readers i was in quite a 'worried' state, hovering near by just in case an injury occurred...and you know who i was worried about most, don't you ;)

as i was making helpful comments to aid our #1's stitching she got quite fed up with me and then bought up the subject of Miss Margery and how i had caused her to have 'serious issues' thus resulting in her having to use my machine and not her own. a fair point i feel, so i left her to it...

day three and the roof is coming along...it has been a little sporadic (yet another impressive word i find lurking in my vocab repertoire) this due to an inspector dropping by unannounced...as they seem to make a habit of doing.

we now have the thumbs up for the roof...we are also waiting for the electrical inspector to say "yeah" to the boxes wired in the ceiling. if he does then we can hang light bulbs and see after dark...yipee!

she's got a few kitchen doors back on and is feeling quite elated about them ~ Tif

footnote: i see it is not just the rats that have returned...so have the pesky lines...

an 'army of ants' pay the shed a visit...

i have no idea where the past few days have gone...after showing you 'Gladys and our big day' the electrician turned up (hurrah) and it was full steam ahead...every room now has holes in the ceilings giving us a glimpse of the darkness above. i have been very carefully monitoring each hole to see if (dare she say the word out loud) 'moths' find their way out...some how the knowledge of 'rodent activity' does not bother me, but the thought of moths, like all crafters out there makes my little heart beat faster and a chill run down my spine.

as well as my handy electrician coming to call, the door fitters turned up five days early to fit the back doors...funny how that happens, the weather turns from beautiful spring days to 'bloody freezing' and 'raining cats and dogs' and they then fit the doors.

as they pulled out the old metal brown slider, a 'too large for comfort' population of ants pored out of my wall.

now for all you lovely brits out there who perhaps like me thought little ants are just little ants because one lives in a brick built house ("sounds like a bit of old huff and puff Tif "...ha ha, what a wit). well let's just say, when one lives in a house built of wood one must immediately acknowledge 'an ant' if he comes to visit...if he brings a friend or two then you must start to count and keep tabs on them. if he decides to bring his big brother who is larger than you care for, that is your clue for starting to investigate where they are living.

with this being said, my door fitters removed the metal frame and out poured medium sized brown ants...they continued to pour as i raced to Ace Hardware as fast as little old Vern could go (plus i was slightly impeded by the speed limits in our neighborhood)...they were still coming out of the wall on my return with some rather nasty 'squirty stuff' in my hand.

i think we got most of them (in fact i am keeping my fingers crossed we did), according to one of the many men that pass through mossy shed these days (doesn't that sound risque) they are moister loving ants if they are medium and brown...rather than large and black which are the carpenter type. either way it's not good...no sirree one does not want any ants of any type living in the walls of a mossy shed...but on a positive note, the doors are looking rather lovely and when given a coat of paint and flung open on a summer's day with Gladys waiting in the distance, a few ants will not get get me down..

the electrician worked over the weekend and is here again today along with the 'roofers'...yes it is time to take down the 28 year old cedar shakes (a small miracle that they have lasted so long), remove all the moss, rip off the old gutters along with a ton of old branches and nests and have a new roof...after my window issues i am most concerned about changing the roof...let's hope it doesn't also glow green at dusk. i am also quite worried for used dog and the kitties, it is a noisy job having the roof replaced...i only hope they will forgive me (the nice thing about furry friends is they always forgive and forget).

i managed a wee bit of planting outside the front door in between the rain and brief visits from the sun (where oh where has the sun gone...Gladys has sprung a few leaks...she doesn't fair so well in bad weather, the poor dear). i choose a pretty ground cover with little flowers that appear sometime...i have thrown the label away and now the name has escaped me. i proudly showed my bit of gardening to my man "why have you paid money for moss when we have a ton of it already?"

"this is not moss" says i "it is a beautiful ground cover with pretty flowers, whose name has left me for the time being"...but dear readers looking closely i fear he is quite correct...it looks just like all the moss that grows around, under and on top of the shed...

she's thinking somebody doesn't appreciate her door decorating ~ Tif

me, my slip and Gladys...

i realized early this morning that it would only be proper and fitting if i dressed for the occasion, i put on my slip over my jeans, perfect i felt until the static cling took over (a trial of mine in winter time) and so the slip was slung and a little linen number from good old target took it's place...

then i waited and waited...my man said he could wait no longer and went to work. so used dog waited and then waited some more alongside me...i realized that she would be my only companion to witness this historic moment in my life...just used dog and me.

after what seemed an eternity of waiting Gladys appeared climbing the hill to Mossy Shed

she majestically entered the drive way, pulled round the side of the shed and ended her journey at the bottom of the yard, positioned on top of an acre moss...i have been checking on her most of the morning to make sure she isn't actually sinking into the ground. i fear with all our moss and soaky ground that she could be swallowed whole and never be seen again...

so dear readers it would seem fitting would it not that one whole year since i started my little blog and put the wheels in motion to make changes in my life, that Gladys comes to live with us...

i am inside quietly amazed that i have managed to blog for a year... about what? half the time i can not recall but some how i have notched up a fair amount of ramblings.

i know without a single doubt my little blog would have gone by the way side if it wasn't for the comments, support and just all round loveliness that you send my way.

even a year on i still find it extraordinary that kind people like yourselves take time out of your busy lives to care about someone else in the world that just happens to post up a few words and pictures of her life...

forgive me for sounding a wee bit mushy but to heck with it, i haven't felt a day of emotion like this since my babies came into the world...

she's off to gaze out the kitchen window once more, marvelling at the giant tin can at the bottom of her yard ~ Tif

one day to go...

dear readers, it would be true to say that you find me today, quite frankly good for nothing...how can i be when tomorrow Gladys arrives. after a few of you mentioned this lovely place, i spent what should have been 'dinner making time' just looking at all the lovely trailers one can spend a few blissful days in...

then i started to get that "i'm so excited, i think i going to be sick" feeling and had to pull myself away from the web and muster up something edible...i do have high hopes that owning an airstream (wait, let us just focus on that...i will be an airstream owner, gosh what a responsibility) back to what i was saying...i do feel that somehow owning 'Gladys' will help me become a better cook. i have no idea how this will occur but it just stands to reason that if such a beauty is viewed from one's kitchen window the chances are heightened that the meal you are cooking will be more creative and possibly more edible...

in between my 'i can't quite believe it's happening' moments i completed the kitchen table. it is very white, very shiny and very new looking. i took myself down to the d.i.y. center late last night to hunt down the perfect set of casters. i do believe dear readers that my 'caster' plan is going to be a very short lived one...don't get me wrong there were casters of all sizes under the sun but did any of them have 'little brakes' on them...nope.

now even me and my sometimes 'not so practical' ideas realized it would not do to have casters on the bottom of a table on a wood floor without little locks on. i am quite sure in the hey day of "changing rooms" (that good old show from the great bbc) they would have dismissed that little detail but i could not.

later when 'the shed' was sleeping i mentioned to my man that i had no luck in my 'casters search'...this of course was the first i had spoken of my plan, i had hoped to just 'do the deed' and deal with the consequences afterwards but as i was frustrated by my 'lack of findings' i needed to share.

"and why do we need to have wheels on the bottom of our table?" he asked, to which i explained my need to push our little table outside and eat 'el fresco' (i hope that's right) at any given moment.

he then pointed out a very obvious thing (a habit men have sometimes) "don't we already have a garden table to eat at, already conveniently outside the back door"...i explained quite patiently i felt that this was not the point, he had completely gone off topic...the topic being 'that casters with little brakes were not easy to find' and that the topic was not 'do we require a rolling table or not'...i shall spend some time tracking down the casters now just prove how lovely it is to wheel a little white table outside on a sunny evening even if we have a perfectly good one already outside...

and so i must away to get on with 'dithering' around the place, pretending to put laundry away, 'sorting' things and preparing ahead for tonight's meal (ha!)...while all the time thinking how nice it would be for Gladys to have a flower bed or two outside her door...

she's thanking you kindly for your lovely words on Gladys..and Lynn this one's for you ~ Tif

meet Gladys...

here she is, just as we found her at ten o'clock Saturday morning in a small town north of us, waiting outside the old school house...

as we rounded the corner and she came into sight i knew we had found 'our trailer'...her outside is in pretty good nick compared to last week's model and her inside has already been gutted out(doesn't that sound harsh when talking about her)...she has a new floor laid and is waiting for a coat of paint, new electrics and some 'fabric' and 'furnishings' to warm her up...

the guy who sold her to us lives in the old school house that is full of reclaimed pieces of architecture and furniture...everything about the place felt right...he even made the 'coffee stop' by the gas station where we had our celebratory 'hot chocolate' on the way home...it seemed perfect that we found 'Our Gladys' living in such a wonderful place.

dear readers, i am shaking at the very thought of it...Gladys arrives at Mossy Shed on wednesday morning...

i worked Sunday to finish up 'mossy's sign' for her arrival...i used an old piece of our fence, a bit of paint and then my friend Beth suggested using some bits of broken terracotta pots...we have the perfect tree just by our driveway, a huge old maple with gnarly roots. just fitting i feel...

so things are going a long at a great pace, this week i am keeping my fingers crossed the electrician makes an appearance...the loft hatch has gone in, so our #4 has moved back into his room.

i have given up the search for an old kitchen table, they are thin on the ground here and when i find one the price is always high or the legs are in the wrong place. in the end i bought an unfinished pine one from Ikea last week, (not quite the same i know) and am busy painting it glossy white (yes Lynn, that would be glossy and shiny). once there are enough coats on it to survive life in the kitchen i plan to add casters to the legs. this way on a sunny warm morning, i can just fling open the french doors (due to be installed Monday) and wheel out my little kitchen treasure and breakfast alfresco without requiring any one's help...

it was a good weekend...cooking shrimp on a little fire late at night, finding Gladys, officially naming mossy shed, trying to get Miss T. Dryer to work and love is in the air...

she still can't quite believe that come wednesday, looking out of the kitchen window she'll see her airstream trailer waiting for 'memories' to be made ~ Tif

meet Vern...

my trusty old truck who's seen a thing or two in the past...tomorrow he goes in for his first surgery and i am quite looking forward to not worrying any more about the exhaust falling off every time i go up our hill and over the speed bumps...

as i mentioned before he comes with a classic eighties blue interior, and some little seats in the back for our #3 and #4 to sit. they have discovered it is easier and quicker to exit out the rear window than to wait for their mother to sort out the gears, put the 'hand pull' brake on and get out of her seat. Vern has a few age spots but what can one expect for his age...what's that you say?...yes you are quite right spring has sprung early here ("what are you talking about Tif?"..."stay with me on this one") and at times the sun can seem quite blinding...luckily my newly fashioned visors help me stay focused...

had a few thrifty finds this week, turns out the lighting shop i needed to go to is right next to a 'goodwill' store...how's that for a bit of luck. picked up a lace throw tablecloth thing and also a very sweet teapot and jug...it's got made in Japan on the bottom (i know...i felt the same) and although at first i believed it to be a coffee pot it appears to have the holes inside the spout to stop teabags going where they are not suppose to. i am very pleased with myself and my little teapot but worry that if i use it then it will end up like my other teapot, a chipped spout and very tea stained...the best bit of all, i got all the wrong stuff for the electrician so i have to return it and get something else...how lucky is that, i will be forced to enter the thrift store again...

i haven't made a great deal of progress towards the shop and am not very happy with myself...next week was looking better for getting work done but now it appears most of what should have been done this week building wise has now been pushed to next week...i did manage to achieve a small miracle and get my chair's slip cover done.

on close inspection there are no fancy details and piping but i am quietly amazed that it fits and sits straight. the fabric is just lovely but is really rather 'busy' in my studio next to 'orla'... for now the chair will stay in my studio until an airstream houses her...

talking of which, my man asked me last night when we were talking 'airstream talk'..."Tif, remind me again why we are doing this"...and i know when Saturday morning rolls around and we are standing looking at a potential 'Gladys' that he will question the sanity of it all, but secrectly i am quite sure he's always wanted an airstream trailer and a beat up truck he just won't admit it...

she's off to make a cup of tea in her kitchen rather than the hallway...it's bliss to be back at the sink ~ Tif

bark cloth mad...

i'm back sooner than i thought..."why's that, Tif?" i hear you ask...well silly me, i thought my electrics would be worked on in a 'continuous' fashion until the results were in. apparently not, i got the call this morning, items required are on back order so my electrician will not be here until next thursday...leaving me with six large holes in the ceiling and still no electrics in the dividing wall, thus not allowing the builder to finish up.

my electrician asked me if i was aware of the rodent activity we had in our attic..."yes, i am aware" i replied, and then left off the bit about knowing Samuel Whiskers was lurking up there and that is why for the past two weeks our #4 has refused to sleep in his room because of the three foot by two foot hole above his bed knowing at anytime Samuel and his extended family are just going to invite themselves down to party in his room.

and might i also add that was why last night two boys were freaking out about sleeping above the latest holes...luckily all those thrift store bed sheets are coming in handy...

the kitchen is coming along a treat, here's how it looks today...most of the cabinets have gone cream, and not just any old cream dear readers...a cream that i picked out of the hundreds and thousands of 'off whites' that stare back at one at the paint store. what are the chances that the cream is called 'antique lace', how perfect is that. of course i had the worry once i had picked it that it would look yellow, but it doesn't even if my photo makes it look so...the wall cabinets to the left are white and will have doors with reed glass in them when all is said and done...the difference is like night and day, next week is 'cabinet doors', in the meantime i hope to be able to use the kitchen by tomorrow...which is a good thing, when it comes to feeding a household.

do you remember my little green swivelly chair i had planned to have recovered, well that plan went out the window with all my other plans these days it seems. the cost was just too high, now don't forget i already had the fabric but when i know the chair cost my $35 and i have so many other things like 'light fixtures' that need to be bought i decided to make a slip cover instead. i also decided against the fabric i had originally intended to use, and opted for a more 'asian' inspired bark cloth i stumbled upon over at ebay...so far i have bluffed my way through and it certainly would not pass any type of 'inspection' or win me an 'award' but it does the job...my problem now is to 'mirror' the other arm, i am procrastinating on this.

i hope to see my 'little rocker' take pride of place in an airstream one day...and oh, dear readers that day maybe closer than we think, for i have a very important meeting scheduled for ten in the morning on Saturday...and this "oh so important meeting" is with an airstream...she looks from the picture to be just perfect but then i do recall wearing my 'rose colored' specs when i was searching on line for her...watch this space to see whether 'Gladys' has been found.

she's had a cushion featured in a magazine and is feeling quite giddy about it ~ Tif

gone tomorrow...

how perfectly lovely you have all been to me...i can not tell you how fast the past week or two has whizzed by. you still find me running around chasing my tail, but things are coming along nicely. the kitchen at mossy shed is undergoing some serious surgery...in fact it is not unlike one of those reality shows, at the end we will not be able to see anything left of the original kitchen even though it is lurking underneath. as i have mentioned before we were rather fortunate to have new cabinets, appliances and worktop, however it was so very dark (unless we kept on all the lights, there are more lights in my kitchen than the rest of the house put together for some reason). anyhow i soon named my kitchen "the cave"...not much longer though, with the help of my handy carpenter and trusty painter, various bits of wood and some cream and white paint, a new kitchen will emerge...

on other notes,

note 1: i have made some progress towards opening up the shop and making some new treats...i have several window panels ready to go and my plan for next week when it is a little less hectic in the shed will be to.....wait for it, maybe you should sit down dear readers....yes i plan to customize some slips and get them listed. ("about blimen' time" i hear you cry)

note 2: i am in love...his name is Vern, he is a pickup truck with some serious history...i know he has been around the block a bit, when i found him he was not looking pretty but his baby blue metallic finish, cracked windscreen and non existent exhaust pipe just spoke to me.

he's sixteen years old, tilts slightly to the side where he is requiring hip surgery and after having him checked out by my "trusty mechanic" also requires some heart and brain surgery...but nothing a bit of 'pimping out' can't disguise.

alas i have no picture as Vern is on the road today...he is a manual so it makes for some interesting driving moments. i haven't driven a manual in over seven years and when i did, the gear shift was not to my right. his interior is fetching denim blue without a single curved line, all boxy and solid. when i told our #3 to hop in after unlocking the door from the inside, (it doesn't appear to work on the outside)...he got in, buckled up and then tried to find the switch to put the window down. "you have to wind the handle to make the window move"...there are no cup holders so nothing for 'crap' to build up in, just about perfect i feel...

so far Vern has been decked out in some lovely bark cloth visor covers (with a secret doily that appears when the sun shines and one requires some shielding) and some floor mats...i plan to pimp him out in various bark cloth fabrics once he has undergone surgery and survived. until then every time i pull up to a stop light i send a silent prayer to who ever is listening..."please let me pull away without leaving a bit of Vern behind"

note 3: tomorrow the electrician calls...hurrah, we will have ceiling lights upstairs, and the day after they come to finish off the wall and fill in the hole in our #4's ceiling which has been covered by plastic sheeting so he is refusing to sleep in there...the roof happens in a couple of weeks...i now see this is a good thing as when the hail storm passed over the shed's head yesterday, i found it quite disconcerting (oooh fancy word) that i could hear hail on the plastic sheeting thus implying the roof has some rather nice holes in it...

note 4: spring has sprung early here, hence my attempt at spring flowers...i have dared to plant a few daffs outside and so far three mornings in a row they have still been there...it's only a matter of time till word gets out to the deer community that the 'fool in the shed' has put flowers in her yard...

note 5: we spent yesterday doing a spot of this...not a total wasted journey as we learnt a few things about what it takes to move such 'a beast'. we are after a trailer that requires gutting so we can use it as a 'summer place' in the back yard but when the smell inside makes your eyes well up and then after a bit of time you realize the smell is the combination of damp, chain smoking and quite possibly something deceased, you know this trailer is not the one...there's an airstream with my name on it out there it's just a matter of time...

note 6: kitchen stools are now completed with a lovely coat of soft gray satin, just waiting to take up their position at the island...

she will see you on Thursday after the electrician has done his thing ~ Tif