SWEEP & MOP!

I don't normally like a product well enough to post about it, but I bought myself something last week that I really do like! I've never liked cleaning my hard surface floors. NEVER!! I've tried sponge mops and string mops, but I never felt like my floors were clean unless I had gotten down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floors after using a broom to pick up all of the loose dirt. I think part of my problem was that I felt like I was always starting out with a dirty mop. While I was shopping at WalMart last week my eye was drawn to a different mop - the Rubbermaid Reveal. This mop has 3 washable pads, an attached bottle that holds an liquid cleaner that you care to use and has a sprayer on it to put the cleaner on the floor. I love it!! I can dry mop the floor first with a clean pad and then, if it's dirty, put on another clean pad (they're easily attached & removed with Velcro) and start wet mopping with a nice clean pad. Once done, remove the pads, put in the laundry and I still have an extra pad if I missed a spot!


And since it's so much easier to use, hopefully I'll clean my floors more often and they won't get so yucky!! Wish me luck!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY GABRIELLA!!

Hey girl, Happy Birthday!! I can't wait until we can get together to give you your presents!!
We love you!! Hope you're having a great day!

FALL BREAK 2011

I decided to take off work for the entire week of Fall Break this year. Normally I work part of the week, but I just needed a good break. The first four days we spent working around the house. There was plenty to do there and I didn't accomplish all that I wanted, but I did make a dent in things.
On Saturday, Handyman picked up our new sofa, see here.
Then we drove out to Jackson's Orchard and bought 1/2 bushel of Golden Delicious Apples. Normally we buy Red Delicious, but they had 2nds of the Golden Delicious so we saved $5.00 over the Reds. We ended up freezing 12 quarts of apples to fry this winter.


We also bought 1/2 peck of Bartlett Pears. We peeled and grated enough pears to make a batch of Pear Preserves. We got 4 pints of these. That left us about 6 pears to just eat.


I gave Toby a haircut and bath/shower which he had been needing for quite some time.

Of course Sunday was regular day of worship at our church home, Christ United Methodist.
We studied Chapter 7 of The Story. For those who haven't been able to read completely thru The Bible, this book takes you chronologically thru the Bible. This book is being studied in a lot of different denominations including Baptist and Presbyterian.

With the cooler weather, I had been thinking about Pumpkin Pie. My mother almost always made a couple this time of year. Since she's not here to do it and they were sounding awfully good I made one regular and 2 mini pumpkin pies. We ate the 2 minis that night and brought the other one to the cabin on Wednesday.


And since I make such a mess when I make pie crust, I decided to make and bake one to freeze so it'll be easy later on to make a butterscotch or chocolate meringe pie.


The first couple of days at the cabin we just enjoyed our view, read books, and played on our computers.

View from the cabin.

On Thursday, Handyman had to go to the Corp Office to purchase his launching pass for the year. I rode along with him and then we went to check out the new park by the dam. They have a great concrete walk around that you can fish from or just take a stroll on. There is a boat ramp to launch your boat, a nice playground for the kids and an amphitheater with a tiered seating area.




On Friday morning, Handyman took his boat out to do some fishing. No fish... Then after lunch I went out in the boat with him and I finally got a look at where the cabin is from the lake. You couldn't see the cabin, but I know it was up there somewhere!!


The weather was perfect out on the lake and there weren't many people out, but we saw several boats with kids who were probably on their fall breaks.

Getting ready to take the boat out for the day.

Tomorrow we head back home so we can be at church on Sunday and then it's back to work for me on Monday.

HAPPY FALL Y'ALL!!

Living Room Redo

Our living room was getting a little, ah, old. We've been in the house for 16 1/2 years and had never painted any of the walls except for a couple of the bathrooms. Handyman had stripped the wall paper off of the walls in one of the bathrooms and the other one had once been a closet and the old laundry room. When we bought the house the walls seemed very dark to me since we had antique white walls in every room in our prior home. But lately we were getting the urge to go a little darker. I wasn't really sure about it, so handyman painted the bonus room first so I could see the color on a larger scale. It turned out that I really liked it. Below you can see the difference - the wall on the right is the old color, on the left is the new color.


Then there was the couch & recliner that were bought on New Year's Day in 1997. They were getting tired looking and need a good cleaning. The love seat that had been in the living room was recently moved to the cabin. We had bought a couple of really comfy chairs a while back and even though I like them, I was a little concerned with matching them.

We found a new couch at an Overstock place here in town. It's an Ashley Furniture couch and they still sell it in the store, but we got it for about half of their price. I wasn't certain that it would go with the chairs so the fellow let me bring a pillow home to check the color. We really liked the colors together!!

The coffee table never was quite what I wanted, but there were elements of it that I did like. I didn't like the little spindles at each end or the scallops, but I really liked the turned legs and the handy little drawer. Handyman has removed the part that I don't like and is rebuilding it so there will be a flat table top and he'll keep the drawer. Yeah!!!

The green table to the left of the sofa was a little odd ... I liked the basic design of the table. I found it at the church bazaar. One of the church ladies had painted an antique table with green crackle paint. I kind of liked that, but then she had painted purple grapes on the top of it. I tried to hide that the best that I could with chotskies, but it took up so much of the top, I never could quite cover it. It was also kind of rickety -- it wobbled quite a bit. Handyman had told me from the beginning that he could tighten it up. It's in his workshop now being glued, tightened, and repainted. I should have it back soon.

I'm still looking for a chair to replace the little mauve swivel rocker. It doesn't look too bad, but I'm ready for a change there too.

I'm also looking for material to make new window treatments. I'm hoping that I can figure out exactly how to make this. I think it is so neat looking. I won't replace the mini-blinds with the shutters since we almost always leave them open anyway.

Here are just a few more shots of the living room - the beautiful bookcase that handyman made for us.

The bookcase from another angle.

And my curio cabinet with many family heirlooms.


Hopefully it won't take me too long to get the rest of the living room finished.
Toby just has to get in the pictures!!

What a Difference A Day Makes

While I'm off on fall break I'm trying to get a few things done here at the house before we head off to the cabin later in the week.
I took a picture of my yorkie, Toby, yesterday and I noticed how badly he needed a haircut. He was even beginning to get some curls!

Sooooo, today I decided I'd better give him a haircut while I was off. He usually tries to run off while I'm working on him so this time a wrapped his leash around the foot of my chair and hooked him up so he couldn't get away.
See what a cutie he is when he's all trimmed up!! I still have a few stragglers I'll have to cut at some point, but he does look so much better. He also go a shower so he's much cleaner. Now he's ready for a road trip.