Bambi Makes a New Friend

Guess who came to visit again???  Well, I guess I gave it away in the post title.  But our orphaned deer friend stopped by our home and invited him/herself into our back yard. 

Since I don’t the know gender of our little fawn I think I’ll just refer to him/her as Bambi.

Hope did offer little Bambi a little fresh grass but wisely he kept his distance a little bit from us today.

Please don’t call Animal Control on us, as we didn’t try to make contact this time, other than Hope’s first grass offering.  Just mainly stood around the yard and quietly took pictures as our deer friend visited.  He stayed for over an hour.

 

Even Hope’s bouncing around didn’t scare Bambi off.

I think he was too intrigued by his new friend.

I don’t imagine too many cats are dumb enough to let a deer get this close.

But Pumpkin the Ninja Cat isn’t the brightest cat.

Bambi appeared very curious, and I believe wanted to make a new acquaintance.

And so I watched for a good 20 minutes of nose touching, then bounding off; followed by sneaking back up on each other.

In nearly all corners of our yard.

Sometimes Bambi would be more interested in lunch.

And when Bambi lost interest and started eating our weeds again, Pumpkin would wait  patiently.

And before you knew it Bambi would be curious again.

So Pumpkin gave Bambi a tour of our backyard.

 

He even took the little Prince/Princess under the trampoline.

And introduced him to even more native terrain.  Yum, Fresh Spring Grass.

I think Bambi appreciated the kindness of our silly Pumpkin.

And, I think, Pumpkin appreciated the nuzzle in return.

So this post is dedicated to my little Arizona nieces who are just as enthralled with Bambi as I am.

Now I’m back to the de-hoarding – But Bambi’s visit was just the rejuvenation I needed to have a wonderful day.  Guess what another room DONE!  I promise to post pictures soon.

When Fawn meets fawn…

Yesterday a familiar face wandered into our neighborhood.  I’d seen him with his mom earlier last fall.  But today Mommy Deer was nowhere to be found.  I, of course, was worried for the little guy, especially when he let myself and my kids get this close.

He came no closer than four feet away and I was mesmerized.

He paused long enough to get a good look then off he went as graceful as could be.

Today the poor little darling came back.  Alone.  I now fear the his Mom is gone for good.  Probably the victim of an accident with a car.  I’ve seen way to many deer along the side of the road near our rural town.

I reluctantly let Lea take out some apples for the little fellow. 

He gobbled them right up.

I know we can’t continue to give him treats or become too friendly with him.  If he gets too used to us, then it will be so much easier for him to get hurt by the next car driving along.  He’s just so small and my heart breaks that he’s alone.

So we’ll watch from our front window and wish him well.

And be grateful that he graced us with his presence.

Makeover Madness

So Makeover Madness has officially taken over our Household – The De-Hoarding is still progressing although it has slowed considerably.  I know I haven’t posted in ages because I wanted to show you a completed room.  As we speak I’ve got 4 area’s of my home that are hugely different from their original form, yet they are not quite there.  My Young and Gorgeous Counselor could sense my frustration with not having anything BIG so show (so to speak).  So, she sent me back home to WOW you with all the little accomplishments I’ve made over the past couple of weeks.

FawnDear completed her first-ever from scratch Woodworking Project.  I built some wooded, or maybe I should say composite based Cornices to hang over the windows in the front/dining rooms.  Here they are with only one coat of paint.

 

I know lousy lighting, but yes that’s molding.  Wow, I can’t believe I used Molding???  It involved a lot of kicking myself for not paying more attention in High School Math Class.  I never did master the lessons on Angles, and Percentages.  Fortunately, my husbands Big Boy Toy had a lot of the measurements already guesstimated for lumber Numbskulls like me.  I never would have figured out the angle I needed was 31.62.  Thank you saw company.

I’m totally digging trying out all the power tools.

Do guys intentionally say they will do the carpentry work because they are afraid that if we try it and like it – we might claim it?

Regardless, I measured and cut, and muffed up.  Then measured cut, nailed, glued and screwed my creation together.

I did ask the Hubster to mount them on the wall for me.  Of course they were mounted in studs and with some good Drywall anchors where no studs were to be found.

So Big Thanks to my Prince Erik for pitching in on this step. 

I rewarded him for his handy weekend contributions by turning the tables on him.  A couple of years ago he was 14-day-guy for me, so this year I surprised him with his very own 14 Days of Valentines. 

Each simple card went along with a little gift.  And although they might sound silly, it’s the thought that counts.  Examples were on Day 1, I gave him an adjustable spice rack (he loves to cook) for our new kitchen.  And the card mentioned thanks for the spice he brings to my life…  Ahhhhh, am I adding too much ooey –gooey?  Some gifts were dress socks, some nut packets or jerky.  I think his favorite day was day 4 because it was 4 lbs. of Seafood.  Oh, and he liked day 12 as well because I gave him 12… well something I can’t mention here.  Anyway it really did feel great to do something nice for the guy. 

Currently I’m furiously setting up my Dining room as the Curtain Sewing room.  Can’t wait to hang some curtains after a few months of giving the Neighbors more of a show than what they were intending to see.

I also filled the home with mind numbing oil paint fumes as I slowly put some touches on part of our kitchen cabinets.

Here’s T-rev sucking it in for your viewing pleasure.  So I’ve now let the cat out of the bag.  Yes, we have repainted nearly every surface in our home.

I also finally framed my carefully selected artwork for the Front Room.  After going to a framing store and nearly choking on their estimated price of $700 plus for frame, mat’s, glass etc.  I went the cheaper route of finding a similar size frame at Goodwill for $25.

I had to paint it white, and I did end up paying the craft store to cut the matting for me.  But then I put it together.  The matting was around $80, only because I didn’t wait for a dang sale.  But $105 compared with $700 is a great deal.

Here’s another peek, I haven’t really staged it yet, just hung the picture, and threw a couple or items on the mantle.  Hopefully it will do until I can get around to the thoughtful decorations.  The picture is by my favorite Artist Carl Bloch and is called Fra Hellebaek.

The two girls in the picture look almost exactly like my Lea and Hope.  I knew the moment I saw it that it was the perfect picture for our front room.  My husbands love of boating and ties to his Danish Roots are represented as well.  Just wait until you see how perfectly it ties my entire Front room together.    It gives me goose bumps that it fits so perfectly.

So Yes, the Home makeover is progressing.  Even though it’s now progressing slowly.

Our family is also following our sixth anniversary tradition of Unplugging for the month of February.  No T.V., no Computer or Internet (unless it’s homework).  No blog browsing (I promise I’ll come visit soon), No Video gaming…  More Madness.

The kids have adjusted as expected.  First weeks a nightmare, then they start coming alive.  Hope had a hard time because I’ve been plugging her in over the past few months to work on my De-Hoarding.  So there were a few days of her mauling loving the cat and walking around moaning that she missed her electronics.  But she’s bounced right out of that zombie phase – Thank Goodness.  If I had it my way – I’d keep the blasted electronics turned off Forever!  With the exception of Blogging, of course.

And Pumpkin our Ninja Kitty Cat, we’ll let’s just say, it’s been his worst month yet.  With all the smothering loving from bored kids, he turned to the streets.  Sadly, the street cats didn’t take to kindly to him and the poor thing came home a bloody, sad mess.  Clearly his ninja skills have failed him.  Several set’s of stitches, some oozing drain shunts, a $305 dollar vet bill, and one humiliating Cone-Of-Shame Latter…

Pumpkin’s a much humbler fellow, realizing that hugs from Hope are not that bad after all.

And if painting a kitchen, building cornices, dealing with six, I mean seven unplugged kids and a maimed cat are not enough, I’ve added another Makeover project to the List – ME!

My husband and I applied for a contest where our local fitness center was going to select eight teams or couples and give them 12 weeks of trainer’s, nutritional counseling, weekly incentives, and a whole lot of support to essentially shed some pounds and build some Fab Muscles at the same time.  So four weeks ago Prince Erik and I were jumping for joy, more like jiggily bouncing, when we found out that we were one of the lucky teams that they selected.

Wa-hoo!  A perfect opportunity to lose that nasty 65 pounds of emotional eating I gained dealing with the Unbloggable.  And I’m doing it with past success information and even more help from my Young and Gorgeous counselor in dealing with the whole mental/emotional side of eating. 

I’m thrilled for the opportunity to get something like 24 training sessions from a personal trainer – it’s something I couldn’t afford on my own.  How blessed am I?

Of course they are judging on percentage of body weight lost and not lbs. lost.  So I was the recipient of a fabulous Dunk Tank experience.

  

Sorry about the view.  I  guess it would be an understatement to mention that I’m pasty white, right?

Apparently getting tanked gives them a more accurate measurement of how much of your body is fat and how much is finely tuned muscle.

 

According to the tank – I’ve got 72 lbs. of blubber to lose before I’m at optimal healthy weight. 

So there you have it.  The FawnDear and Prince Erik Makeovers have just been added to our list of current projects.

So here’s the dreaded Before’s.  Funny we must be married, or something, because our starting weight was an identical 227 lbs..

 

Can only get better right???  Well let’s hope so, because I KNOW you’re not tuning into my posts to see scary pictures like these posted every other day.

So week one came and went and guess which team lost the most?  Before I answer, I need to clarify that I want all the teams in the competition to do stupendous!  I want them all to hit their personal goals.  I’m their biggest cheerleader.  But, I’m pretty confident that I’ll be right up their with the best of them.  The A-Team (as we are called) are on everyone’s hit list because we won week one.  Between my husband and I, we lost a combined 21 lbs.  It’s week one.  We didn’t starve, but we did exercise 6 days a week, but never for more than an hour and we did count calories and keep them within our 1500-1800 calorie range.  We followed the rules and it felt great.  Our prize – Two haircuts, which we will use for our Fab makeover. 

Week 2 – I lost another 3.  Prince Erik hit a little wall and didn’t lose anything.  But we are still on track.  We came in forth the second week. 

We are currently in the middle of week #3.  This is my hardest week by far, but I haven’t given up.  In addition to competing with the other teams – there’s a little competition between me and the Prince.  Seeing who can outlast the other on planks (me) or weights (him).  It’s awesome to have a built in support system.

So there you have it.  The Month of February in a nutshell.  I promise not to hold out on projects until they are all completed.  It’s easier to just show a little at a time. 

And the Monkey Threw a Greasy Wrench…

My Doctor told me to slack off the Home Improvement yesterday.  At least that’s what he said…

What I heard was that I have to wear these little pretties while working around the house.

Stupid Monkey and his wrench.  Do you like the paint speckles I’ve contributed to the hideous bondage device?  I might paint them lavender and sprinkle glitter all over them. Maybe even add a lace trim.  Hummm… turn them into Fairy Godmother secret compartment gloves…you can never tell what I might add that will stick to all the Velcro... and my mind wanders… must be all the paint fumes.

So this whole de-hoarding, home improvement journey might take a little longer than originally planned.  I’m not quitting, I just have to take the home improvements slower and make sure I back off if what-ever it is I’m doing aggravates the tingles.

The Stupid Monkey wrench… Possible Carpal-tunnel something nonsense.  All I know is that my fingers are numb during the day, and often my wrists are in pain (the kind that can wake you up at un-heavenly hours), especially at night.

Last night after I spread the joyful news, that my hands might need to back off some of the intensity of our home redo, the boys stepped up big time.  Their task was to prime something previously crusty and old in the kitchen.  And I’m so itching to show you how amazing it’s looking already.

I’ll have to post the whole kitchen process when it’s finished.  But it involved a lot of heave-ho and out-you-go, to stuff we never use.  Lot’s of cleaning, sanding washing, priming, painting, etc.  It’s like the kitchen vomited out of itself and into the dining room and family room.  So I’m extra motivated to hurry and get the painting process done so that we can reclaim the rooms it overflowed into.

Here’s an ugly glimpse at the messy in-between phase.  You know the phase where we pull everything out of the cabinets and you hear exclamations like…

‘Wow, I never knew food could grow that much hair,’ or…

‘It expired in 2006?  Are you kidding me?’  No officer, I’m not trying to poison my family.  The expired food was buried so far back in the cupboard there was no way possible for some starving child to find it.

‘And what does this contraption do?…  Honey, which infomercial did you buy this hunk of junk from?’

‘Really, darling, over forty knives – Five of which were, exactly the same, for cutting bread.’  Apparently, I’m not the only hoarder in the family.  Prince Erik hoards knives.

‘Are those shriveled raisins under the stove???  or…. No… don’t taste them… I really think they are dung from the attack of the R.O.U.S’s (monster rodents) that we fought off two years ago.’  Plenty of shudder’s emanated from all of us on the discovery of an old rodent’s nest under the stove. 

‘I never knew the bottom of that cooking oil shelf was painted yellow?… oh, you say, it wasn’t…  What? it’s really old layers of balsamic vinegar mixed with drops of every oil known to man.’  Quick open a can of elbow grease – see if that will help dilute the hazy layer of muck.

 

Am I making you sick yet?  If so, don’t say anything, just congratulate me for not being in denial anymore, and more importantly, for doing something about it.

To be fair the bottom of this shelf was well above eye level and had I any idea of how nasty it had gotten I would have tackled it um, Years a long time ago.

Have you lost your appetite yet?  Decided that this blog is too much of a biohazard of mental proportions to risk ever visiting again…  Suddenly overwhelmed by the the urge to go clean a shelf… Well if one or more of these thoughts have crossed your brain – welcome to my MIND.

Stick around the Makeover is amazing.  Want a little proof.  Look at one of the project’s I redid last week.

From Blah Brown… to Beautiful Blue  (Looks 100 times better in person.)

See how I did this by clicking Here.  So monkey, take that wrench and do what you will, but beware, you’ll not slow me down.

Dust Doilies and Do Not’s.

The Dust Bunnies are having a holiday around our house.  It’s still snowing remodeling dust in a consistent manner.  Nearly every day, I could probably pull up doilies and still have a decorative design left behind.

My lesson this week - When you try and cut corners it will come back to bite you in the who-ha!  There are no short-cuts in quality home improvement. I’m learning this the hard way.  So my advice to you is to read the instructions – Twice.  Oh, and then follow them.  Precisely!!! Don’t skip steps. 

So I laid out this beautiful tile floor a week ago, and on Tuesday I grouted it.  Wow it was looking nice.  I sponge washed it off, just like they said, but I didn’t dry rub off the hazy glaze left on the tile right away, like they recommended.    Big mistake. – Huge mistake.  I did cover it with plastic and occasionally spray it with water (part of curing the grout), thinking I could wipe up the haze later.  Last night I took off the plastic and was preparing to wipe the floor and then seal the grout.  But the darn glaze wouldn’t come off.  See the streaks?

So with some wonderful helpers, (Prince Erik, Grandma, T-rev, Abner and myself) we had to put in some really good elbow grease time.  Maybe a combined 8 hours of scrubbing that tile hard enough to remove the glaze.  I’m thinking if I ever had to get fingerprinted, they’d have a hard time seeing anything other than smooth.  So FINALLY – Today, I was ready to seal the deal, or the grout.

It’s finally done and it only took us 16 days from start to finish.  Probably 3 of those days were muscling up the mistakes.  My wise bro-in-law pointed out that the good thing was that we aren’t likely to ever make the same mistakes again.  Next time I’m removing the glaze – dry rub style right away.  The other good thing is – I can actually see my arm muscles.  Wa-ho!  I’m going to be a buff dudette when this is all said and done.  And sixteen days later I have a kitchen floor.

From This sliver-full, redneck, uneven, stained plywood floor (which we’ve seen for the last three years)…

To This (A real honest-to-goodness, professional looking) Kitchen Floor…

 

Makes every hammered thumb, chemical thin-set rash worth it.  Oh yes, another rule I should have followed – wear gloves while mixing and spreading thin-set.  It burns the skin.  Another reason why I don’t have fingerprints anymore.

Right before the floor was sealed T-rev was walking across it with a jug of concentrated juice.  I warned him not to spill it or it might stain the new floor.

‘I know mom, and if I stained the floor, you’d kill me,’  T-rev moaned.

‘Nope, because then I’d have to deal with blood stains.’  I replied. 

He smiled and said, ‘Good one, mom.’

It was a tough week, the washing machine died and spewed it’s guts all over the laundry room floor.  Abner kindly took this mountain of unpleasant smells to the Laundry-mat for me.

The furnace died too, on the day of the snowstorm.  Maybe all the dust burnt out it’s igniter.

What is it with my appliances?  Luckily, Prince Erik fixed the furnace, and we bought a reconditioned washer, with a warranty, from a little small-pop appliance store.  It’s worked like a miracle for the last two days.  In the past, two bumps in a road like that would have totally sent me to the fridge for some comfort food, or some escape-from-reality movie.  But I’m doing so well at not letting the hiccups slow my progress.  It feels good to power through.  And the rewards, well, look at how huge of an accomplishment the kitchen floor is.   Wowser!  Things like this make the speed bumps insignificant.

The best part of the week was Pompa and Grandma came for a visit and didn’t whine about the construction mess.  Oh, and Lea and Prince Erik both celebrated birthdays.  So time marches on.

I am overwhelmed at how much harder this transformation process really is compared to what I thought it would be.  It’s physically, and emotionally grueling.  TV shows make it look like one hard week or two of work and snap a beautifully Done project.  Today is my four month mark.  Nine truck loads to the dump, and the truck is filling up with number ten as I type.  The thrift store calls on a weekly basis to see if I’ve more to donate.  It’s exhausting, but so rewarding!  Never in a million years could I have realized just how hard it is to de-hoard.  But I’m so determined to see this through.  Even though I’ve still got mountains of clutter in maybe 5 more rooms, I know I’m past the half-way mark.  That light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter every day.

So dust bunnies – enjoy the construction snow while it lasts because winter is almost over and I’m nearly ready to sweep you out of the house once and for all.

What was I thinking?

Home Improvement Projects always seem easier than they really are.  Case in point… My husband and I took an Excellent Tiling Class at Home Depot.  So excellent in fact that we decided to tile something ourselves.  Here is the ‘What was I thinking?’ part.  So for our First-Ever-Tile-Project we decided to tackle… are you ready for it?… the Kitchen floor.  160 square feet of pure Madness.  I guess we should be grateful that our first project wasn’t the Master Bathroom.  Just sign me up for the Looney Bin Now!!!  We have been constantly working on that dang floor for over a week.  And aside from cleaning, grouting and sealing I thought I’d give you a sneak peak at our kitchen.  I know I should wait until it’s done but I so relieved it turned out.

Here is some wild, short-haired creature laying the finishing touches at 2:20 A.M.  Because that’s how long it took.  Three stinking days to design, layout, cut, then thin-set in all those pieces of tile.  And that doesn’t include the previous week of a day spent prying up the particle board floor, then another day spent scraping all the liquid nail/particle board remains off.

 

What a nightmare.

 

And you can’t begin to believe the dust layer that now covers my entire home.  The dust bunnies are very happy, it’s like snow to them.

Oh and before I forget, it took yet another day to add some self-leveling floor muck to all the dib-bits we hacked out of it.  Plus who makes a perfectly level floor anymore? – not our builder.  Then tack on another day to lay down the hardy backer with more thin-set.

 

What’s the count up to. That’s right forgot to mention that while all this was going on, we were also working on other areas like hanging some refinished chandeliers.  I seem to be refinishing everything.  But it’s looking so good.

 

I also had to take a wee break right in the middle of tiling to take the three girls out for their Christmas Present that Santa gave them.  Instead of typical presents from Santa they got tickets to Great Wolf Lodge.

 

It’s a pretty incredible indoor Water Park and Hotel.  Here’s my darlings fashionably wearing their so momma won’t be paranoid of drowning suits life jackets .

 

How’s this for a Gi-normous fireplace?  And this is a picture of just the bottom quarter of it.

And honestly no matter how upset I was at Santa for interrupting my floor project with such ill timed tickets – I have to secretly and profusely thank him because my muscles were howling from all the lifting, scraping, and mucking I’d been doing.  The sort-of rest was just what I needed to come home a tackle the rest of the tiling.  And that wild, short haired creature?  Let’s just say I wanted spring so bad that I shed some fur.  Some really heavy because it was so thick and long, and always-in-my-face-when-trying-to-do-home-improvement-work, hair.

 

Whew, no more pony-tail headaches. At least until it grows out again.

Sorry I got distracted.  Here’s the sneak peak.  Erik’s motorcycle turned into the chunk of rock you see on the right and my handwork is on the floor below it.  See how the border design ties the two pieces together?

 

There’s still tons left to do besides the floor.  Need to refinish the cabinets as well.  They are starting to look their age.  Let’s just hope it doesn’t take me another week and a half to finish the floor.  Oh, and if you ever consider tackling a ‘What-was-I-thinking-project, don’t let me dissuade you, with my previous grumbling.  It is SO worth it, just plan on it taking three times longer than you originally thought.  Plus it’s a great work-out.