Still Alive

Well, I am still alive . . . mostly. The last two months have been pretty crazy. First was my wonderful trip to St. Thomas with my mom. I hope to do a post about that, with pictures, later this week. Unfortunately, I haven't really felt well since coming home from that trip. Travel always tires me out and the travel day coming home was horrendous. Completely exhausting. I felt like a zombie for the next week. Then, let's see . . . Mr. M. C. went out of town for a week; the day after he got home, I went to Missouri to see Kevin for the weekend. He was there for 2 weeks of training. I got home late Monday night and Wednesday afternoon my mom flew in for my graduation. So we had house cleaning and party prep to do. It was fun to see my mom again so soon, though.

The graduation and party were lovely. Lots of people came to share my special day and I got lots of nice gifts, too. Mr. M. C. smoked 4 briskets, my mom made her delicious potato salad, Laura made her famous chopped salad, and we had way too much yummy food. It was all topped off with an almond cake with buttercream frosting. Yum yum yum! We played a mad game of Apples to Apples that night and my mom took us all to the cleaners.

Then Mr. M. C. went out of town again, I think. It's all kind of a blur now. I tried to recover from the party and started making rounds of doctor visits to try and find out why I'm having so much trouble breathing. As usual, all the doctor visits have just made me sicker. Sigh. I've also been seeing the podiatrist because I've had a lot of foot pain, so now I have a cast on my right foot and I start physical therapy for it on Tuesday.

So there's the long, sordid tale of why I feel crappy and have no energy. And it's fall here, so beautiful every day, and I can't even get enthused about decorating. That is just sad. I'm hoping to do some this week.

In other news, we have started our box-a-day packing routine that we did when moving from Tucson to here. Our house is on the market and we have no idea when it will sell. It could take a year or more, but we have to be prepared. We are packing up things we can live without for several months and will just keep going until we are down to the necessities. We are also concentrating on decluttering as much as possible, getting rid of things we don't use or don't love. If we're lucky, the house won't sell for long enough that we will be ready to buy a house when it's time to move. But we'll see what happens.

And I've been sending out resumes, but no interviews yet. If I don't find something soon, I will probably start doing temp work just to bring in some money and get back into the working lifestyle. That will also bring job opportunities my way.

Last, but not least, I am test driving cars. So far I've driven a Hyundai Elantra, a Mazda3, a Scion xB, and a Toyota Yaris and Corolla. The Scion xB was my favorite, the Mazda3 and Corolla were about even seconds. I still have 4 cars I want to try, then we will sit down with the short list and make some decisions. I'm not even sure how we will do it, but I don't see how I can get to a job without a second car. Trying to do it with just the truck will be crazy. Plus, driving the truck really hurts my foot and ankle, so I need to quit doing it.

So there's my news for now. No fun pictures in this post, unfortunately, although I did get a couple of goodies at Wizard of Odds when my mom was here. I also got some fun Halloween things at Cracker Barrel and TJ Maxx a few weeks ago. Maybe I'll get a chance to post those later this week, too, as I'm digging out all my decorations.

Where the heck is Ramona? - 7/14/10

Paradise Point, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands

Where the Heck is Ramona? 7/13/10

Sapphire Beach, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

Where the heck is Ramona? - 7/12/10

Cinnamon Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

Finally!

I’ve been working on these chairs for a month. Sheesh! I thought they’d never be done. There were some paint issues, then there were some more paint issues, then there were some clear coat issues, and some more clear coat issues. They still have clear coat issues, but I’m calling them done, because I want chairs for my dining area. So, here’s the before pictures:


I got all four of these chairs from one seller on Craigslist. They were $10 each. The top two are allegedly from Crate and Barrel. I liked the basic shapes and three of the four were good and sturdy. One of the Crate and Barrel chairs was rickety, so I learned how to take it apart and reglue the joints. Now it’s solid, too. I’m excited at being able to do that. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of rickety chairs that I liked over the years, because I didn’t know how to fix them. Now I won’t have to do that anymore. I also won’t have to pass up used chairs that I like because they aren’t sturdy. Coolness!
Here are my new dining chairs:

(You can see that Treat approves of them.) I’ve been thinking a lot about color schemes. I like changing my decor out for the seasons, and I like lots of different colors, so I thought for the big pieces I’d go for classic neutral finishes and colors. That should allow me to change things out as much as I want.
The fabric on these is a luscious linen. Right after I recovered the seats, I found another fabric at Joann ETC that I liked even better, maybe. I had to buy that, too, so I might make chair skirts out of it. Or use it for a bench cushion. I’m not sure yet. I will be redoing the bench to match the chairs.
And here’s the before and after of my dining area:

Yuck, those folding chairs. So uncomfortable! We’ve been sitting on them for about 5 years. I’m so glad they’re going.

So much better. I heart my new chairs.

Oh, yeah. I'm hoping to put this one on BNotP's Metamorphosis Monday, so don't forget to check out the other cool metamorphoses. Is that the plural of metamorphosis?

Stuff and Things

When Mike and Laura came to see Kevin last month, Laura and I had a very successful shopping trip at our favorite new place, Wizard of Odds. We found too much good stuff there and couldn’t get all of it, but what we got was pretty cool. I don’t have pictures of everything yet, but here is one thing I bought with my birthday money:

It’s a gorgeous corner unit made out of an old door. You can see the old hardware in this close-up:

I had to use my flash to take the picture, since it’s in a dark corner, so you can’t see the pretty blue color. Staging things is not one of my natural talents, so I will be asking Laura to help me figure out what to put on this the next time she visits.
In the close-up, you can see the really cool lab flask she got me for my birthday.
I also bought this sign at Hobby Lobby that weekend:

Laura and I have also taken to working on projects whenever we get together, rather than just buying more. The weekend of their visit, we made chalkboards. Here’s the before of mine:
 
I loved the old barn wood frame, but the brass corner pieces were pretty awful, as was the too glossy picture which had a clock in it. We forgot to take before pictures, so this is not the picture that was in my frame, but it’s close.
Here’s my after:

I used an old scrabble letter holder to hold chalk. I like it a lot. Making chalkboards is pretty easy and I think I’ll be making lots more of them, since I have plenty of paint left.

Edited to Add: I'm trying a linky party for the first time, so hopefully this will show up on Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch. Be sure to click over there and see lots of great befores and afters. Now let's hope this works . . . .

I'm Done!

I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm . . .

You get the point.

Happy Kittens

Look what Mr. MC made for our lucky kitties!

We put it upstairs in the new craft room, which TNT have already decided is their room. After he brought it upstairs, Mr. MC put catnip all over it to entice the dynamic duo to get on it. I didn’t think they would need the encouragement, but he wanted to be sure they had positive feelings about it.

They headed right to it as soon as we let them in the room.

Within a minute or two, they were both stoned.

 

Then Treat found the secret passage to the third level.

And he just kept going up.

Soon Trick discovered the upper levels, too.

It didn’t take long for them to figure out it would add to their fun during the hour of scampering.

Pretty soon they were all mellow.

Later this afternoon, when I came inside after putting the first coat of paint on my new chairs, I went looking for the kittens and found this:

 

I suspect we’ll never see them downstairs anymore, except when they want to be fed.

Sims 3: Zombie Apocalypse

The apocalypse came suddenly, as apocalypses usually do, but there were those who said it’d been a long time growing. Growing was the right word for it, although the religious extremists and radical survivalists didn’t know it. They spoke of the arrogance of scientists and multibillion dollar conglomerates, the evils of cloning and stem cell research, the greed of politicians and CEOs. They prophesied doom at the turn of the new millennium and again in 2012. But binary code and ancient Mayan calendars had nothing to do with the end of the world when it came in 2036. And none of them had ever heard of the experiments taking place deep underground, where thousands of human clones slept in suspended animation, walking, breathing delivery systems for the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed. Everyone knew bioengineering was the new frontier. No one knew it would be the last.

Dawn Taylor counted her stock of canned food one more time, somehow hoping the first three counts had been mistakes. “Two hundred and four,” she finished. Nope, not a mistake. She sighed. Three people, each eating two cans a day, that gave them . . . thirty-four days. Just over a month. The weavelly flour and rice would give out before that. They needed to cut back their rations, but how could they continue to forage for supplies if they were weak from hunger?

More needed to be done. Nickey was working feverishly on ways to clean up the water. He’d found a more or less intact chemistry set on one of his foraging missions and spent most of his days muttering over it, testing various compounds on water from their pond. Maybe she could use her prewar hobby to help with the food shortage. She’d never tried to garden in ground covered with ash and most likely filled with dangerous biochemical residue, but maybe she could find a way to protect the plants. She knew a bit about chemistry herself, after all.

“Where can we find more chemistry supplies,” she asked David as he walked past her with a book in hand. He thought for a minute. “The old military base probably has all kinds of useful supplies. If we can get in and if it isn’t infested with Zs and if we don’t run into any looters.”

Thank Goodness for Skype!

Kevin began his trip to Germany at 4 a.m. Sunday morning, when we got up to drive him to the Cleveland airport. We said goodbye to him at about 7 a.m. Boy, did that day suck.

Yesterday I got to talk to him on Skype for a while. He’d traveled for about 27 hours, then spent the afternoon in processing at the base in Germany. He was pretty tired when we talked, but happy to be there and hanging out with his friends. He has posted pictures on his Facebook page. Anyone who might want to Skype with him, email me and I’ll give you his Skype name. Or, you know, check Facebook. Apparently my son has no worries about privacy.

Here’s some pictures from his graduation and month at home:

Kevin in his class As, which were clearly too big for him by that time.

On family day. My god, he’s tall!

At graduation. I’ve decided he’s joined the Ministry of Silly Hats.

 

Wearing his cool new shades.

 

Mike and Laura came to see him.

Yeah, yeah, we all know I’m short.

I miss him dreadfully. I’m so thankful for technology that allows us to talk face to face from halfway around the world. I can’t wait to hear about all of his adventures.

A sleepily joyful homecoming

I’m sorry these are blurry. My camera was (is still) buried in the piles of luggage, so my phone was all I had handy for these pictures, taken at 3 a.m. this morning.

My son is home, living here for the next month until he heads to Germany. I am happy and occasionally overwhelmed by grief. How does anyone survive their children leaving home? I think it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

My first sight of Kevin on Thursday was a huge grin before being enveloped in a hug. We had a nice low-key day. We took Kevin to a restaurant he’d heard about from his drill sergeants and wanted to try. It was delicious. We hung out in the air-conditioned hotel room, watched TV, napped, and talked. We went shopping at the Exchange. On Friday, the graduation was at 9 a.m. The ceremony was rousing and funny and just the right length. A nice rite of passage with no boring parts. Apparently the Army knows what it’s doing. Afterward Kevin did a little more shopping on post, we had lunch, changed clothes, and got on the road about 2 p.m. It was a very long ride home.

My son is impossibly beautiful. I don’t know why the girls don’t swoon everywhere he goes. He’s full of stories and swear words. He’s calm and confident and has a new level of self-awareness. He calls waitresses and cashiers ma’am. He has ambitious plans for his future. He drinks Monster energy drinks like water. He eats fast but healthy and less than he used to. He sang cadences for us in the car. I didn’t even know he could carry a tune. He missed music most during his training. He made good friends, some of whom he will miss and many of whom will be waiting for him in Germany. He probably won’t be deployed until late next year. He still wants to be a mechanic. Or a weapons specialist. Yes, that sounds like my son.

He’s still Kevin, but he’s grown. He’s bigger and smaller all at the same time. It’s good to have him home.

Birthdays and Miracles

Firstly, look what my mom sent me for my birthday:

It’s a pendant and earring set. She said it made her think of Halloween when she saw it and of course, that made her think of me. Isn’t it awesome?!!! I have to get a chain so I can wear it soon. It will look great with the new black pants and jackets I’ve been buying for work.

Here’s a lovely birthday week story:

I planned a get together with a friend for this week so that I wouldn’t spend the whole week alone. We were going to watch the first two Twilight movies on dvd, plus all the special features. I got New Moon as soon as it was released, so it’s been sitting here for a couple of weeks, still in the shrink wrap, waiting for tonight. Today my friend texted me and said something came up and she couldn’t make it tonight. No go for tomorrow night, either. So I was here feeling a bit sorry for myself and thinking that I need to do something to make more friends who actually live in the same town as me, when I look out my window to see a car pulling into my driveway. It was my classmate, Shelley, who is taking the Careers in Psychology class with me. She came over this past Sunday and we did our collages for The Artist’s Way together. On Sunday she admired some of my vintage pieces and we talked about our mutual love of home renovation and vintage decorating. Today, she was just stopping by to bring me two old windows that she’d had for a long time. She’s getting rid of stuff in preparation for a move and wanted me to have them. For free. For my birthday. She even brought a birthday card with them. Here’s the windows:

 

They’re so beautiful! I got weepy and gave her a big hug and said I’d been feeling sorry for myself and she made me feel so good. Then she invited me to Red Lobster for dinner tonight. Apparently someone’s listening up there.

And finally, a picture of the new me, taken with great difficulty after many somber and silly tries:

V-Day Tablescape

As must be obvious to the most casual observer by now, school and blog posting are not mixing well for me. The last 3 weeks have been pretty rough. However, this next week is not looking too bad, which is nice, since it’s my birthday week. Mr. MC will be out of town all week, so I am planning fun things to do for myself.

For fun, here’s a tablescape I did for Valentine’s Day:

It was fun to use my new table runner. I got it here. It is red and white striped ticking with a pretty white ruffle. It was listed as a Christmas item originally, but it will be handy for all sorts of occasions. The pretty gift bag, heart shaped bowl, and red and clear glass hearts were all gifts from my mother-in-law. She likes to give us fun little Valentine’s Day care packages every year. I put the glass hearts and some tea lights on my ironstone platter and they looked very pretty lit. Unfortunately, I’m not a skilled enough photographer for those sorts of pictures. Maybe eventually I’ll learn to use my camera well enough to do that. For placemats, I just used some pink tissue paper I’ve had for years. It was fun to do a festive table. I’d like to do more.

Monday's discussion in my capstone class was about a potential new therapy to treat people with depression. Unfortunately, most of the discussion consisted of various students (and at one point, even the professor) making such statements as depressed people need to "suck it up," "make do," and my favorite, "man up." Most of the students believed that people suffering from depression could just make up their minds to get over it and function. They just want to pop pills or they're just using it as a crutch were some typical comments. I left the classroom feeling angry and frustrated. These are senior psychology students, the future of the profession! Some of them will be working with depressed clients or studying therapies and drugs to treat depression. I think our psychology program has failed if it is graduating students with these attitudes.

In other news, Kevin has finally received his first posting. After graduating in April, he will be going to join the 18th Engineering Brigade which is stationed near Schwetzingen, Germany. He thinks they will be deployed to Afghanistan after the first of next year.

Anyone up for Christmas in Germany?

Hobgoblins

Probably my favorite find of our thrifting weekend was these glasses I got at the Goodwill store.

 

A close-up:

(Loving my new camera.)

Aren’t they awesome?! They’re tall and have a nice heft to them, which is important to me. I like my dishes to feel as good as they look. I found five of them.

Laura and I looked them up on the internet when we got home and discovered that they come from the Hobgoblin Pub in Japan. I don’t know why someone wanted to get rid of them, but I’m sure glad I was there to find them. Now I want a whole collection of pub glasses for Halloween! Anyone know any other appropriately named pubs I should seek out?

Boxes

Shopping while visiting Mike and Laura a couple of weeks ago was especially fruitful. There were many vintage scores that had me cackling with glee. Now that Mr. MC has gifted me with a new camera for Valentine’s Day (thank you, Honey!), I will post my new goodies for all to see.

First, we went to university salvage and scored a great vintage lab floor lamp. It has a sticker on it that declares it the property of Penn State College. Penn State changed its name from that to Penn State University in 1953. <cackle> We also got several library card catalog drawers and some other vintage boxes, 9 in all, for $1 each. <cackle> The salvage trip started off a weekend of good luck with thrifty finds, especially vintage finds. I’ll share more in later posts.

For now, I’ll show you a couple of the card catalog drawers I got and what I did with them. There are 4 of these drawers. I’m using 2 and I have some ideas for the other two, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with them yet.

This first one I’m using as a tea box. It’s a perfect fit for the bigger tea bags I usually buy, like Yogi Teas. I like all the colors lined up in the gray box. I may paint the boxes at some point, but for now I don’t mind the gray. This box still has the metal compressor in the back, so as I use up tea I can keep them propped up. I like the way it looks. It’s so industrial.

Here’s a picture of it fitting perfectly in the pull out drawer in our kitchen where I keep my tea:

I wish two of them fit side by side in that drawer, but it’s just a little too narrow. You can see that I still have 3 unopened boxes of tea waiting their turn. I probably won’t leave this box in this drawer forever (I have big plans for the kitchen), but for now, it’s nice that it fits and it’s much neater and easier to find things this way.

The second box:

This is something I tried out to see if I’d like it. I’ve been wanting to get my crayons out of their box for a while. They don’t all fit in the box and the box is just not very appealing. I’d like to see all the colors. Right now they’re sitting in little votive holders.

I’ve decided I definitely do like this idea. I need to get slightly bigger cups for the crayons. I also need to put a piece of board in the bottom of the box, as the cups won’t sit evenly on the compressor tracks. This box no longer has the compressor. Only two of them did. I think what I might want to hold the crayons is small lab beakers. I think they might look cool. On the other hand, maybe I will look for pretty little glasses, as I think delicate glasses will look awesome inside the industrial box. Yes, I think I like that idea better. Bonus, there are lots of pretty little glasses at thrift stores. I’ll just have to take some measurements and get a feel for what size I need.

Here’s another picture of the crayon box, straight on:

I want the crayons to show more over the edge, so I’ll probably put a somewhat thick piece of board in the bottom to prop them up a bit. Maybe a piece of plywood. This looks really cool sitting on our bookshelves. I couldn’t get a picture of it there because it was too dark in the corner. Just take my word for it.

There are more goodies to come. Patience . . . .

Of Dragons, Electronics, and Sons

As requested, here are more pictures of my Halloween dragon. His name is Sam Hain. <snicker>

 

Here’s an extremely blurry close-up:

 

I heard a rumor that I might be getting a new camera soon. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m also looking at laptops. Having one would make some of my course work much easier. I went and tried some at Best Buy this weekend. Of course, I want the Sony Vaio, which is expensive. But I really liked the Vaio’s keyboard and touchpad buttons, as well as the shape and size. The Vaio would be my intermediate choice. In a perfect world, I’d get a MacBook Air. I heart those. But if I get anything, it’ll be a Dell, because they are affordable. Bonus: I can get a purple one!

Kevin is doing really well in Basic. He’s having fun, even. He gets longer phone calls now, so we get to have real conversation. Sunday he was talking about how he got to try rappelling and climbing down a rope from the top of a 60’ tower last week. Yikes!

He’s sick with bronchitis and pink eye, both of which are running rampant through the barracks. At least he gets free medical care.

I can’t wait to see him again. I wonder how different he’ll be?

Downstairs Bathroom

I’ve decided that this year I want to go through each room in the house, decluttering, deep cleaning, and decorating. It’s something I’ve wanted to do before, but I always get caught up in wanting the rooms to be perfect and being unable to afford perfection. Now that perfectionism and I are parting ways, I’m looking forward to trying it. I started last week with the downstairs bathroom, as it’s tiny and didn’t need much. It looks so sparkly clean now. I cleaned both light fixtures and I think it’s actually brighter in there. Although I replaced the overhead bulb with a CFL and it seems really dim, even though it’s the same apparent wattage. I don’t know what that’s about.

Anyway, I also did a couple of little makeovers that I’ve been wanting to do. I painted the little rack that hangs on the wall over the towel bar with black spray paint. I’m not even showing it here because it really doesn’t look much different. It was dark mottled green before. Truth is, I’d like to replace it with something I like better. I found a couple things I like on Etsy:

Something like this would be cool, although not this color. Maybe just a distressed white. I found this here.

I really like this, too, which I found here. Of course I would want it distressed a bit. Although in my house, that’s usually not a problem.

I may order something, or I may keep my eyes open at the thrift stores for something I could turn into one of these.

I also want some funky hooks from which to hang the rack that’s there for the moment, plus the bicycle basket above the toilet. They’re both hanging from picture hooks right now, but I’d like something that looks more appealing. Maybe some hand made iron hooks, or some old rusty hooks. Again, I’ll be looking around, or I may just give in and get something from Etsy. Don’t you just love Etsy?!

The other makeover is one I’m really happy with. I painted the old stepladder that stands in the corner! I’ve wanted to do it for a while and I finally did. I knew just what color I wanted to paint it, a bright turquoise, so off I went to Lowe’s. Then I got completely overwhelmed by all the paint chips. Is this one too blue? Or maybe this one’s too green? Is this one bright enough, or too bright? I almost decided to take a bunch of paint chips home and try them, and then I said, “No way! I’m going home with some paint!” So I just picked one and got a little sample pot. I figure, worst case scenario, I don’t like the first color, or even the first few, and I end up with a bunch of chippy paint layers on it. Now wouldn’t that be a shame?!

Here’s the ladder before. (You know the cats have to inspect everything that gets moved.) I really like this ladder, the rough old wood and rusty hardware. I tried not to get too much paint on the hardware, although of course I couldn’t avoid it completely. But I like the way it looks with some oops paint on it.

After I was done with the first coat of paint, I stood up, turned around, and found this on the floor behind me:

Little devils! I don’t even know how they managed that. They must have stepped on the paint can lid, although it was right next to me the whole time. Fortunately, I was able to get the paint out of the carpet.

The after:

 

It makes that little corner much brighter. I smile every time I walk in there.

My first before and after!