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