Kerry'd Away

Summer Cross Update – 7-1-16

Posted on July 10, 2016 by civilwarrose5

First off, I realize that it’s not July 1st. That was when I took an update picture and I just haven’t had time to post it.

So, as of June 16th this was as far as I had gotten. I had finished up all of the regular stitching and was getting ready to start in on the background lettering.

And here it is as of July 1st. All of the words are complete on the right side of the cross. Now I just have to finish them on the left side.

Some more exciting news is that I found the frame for it today. It was originally $50, but Michael’s had it on clearance for $23. It’s a slightly lighter wooden frame than what I used for the Winter cross, but I think that’s exactly what I need. I don’t want to frame this light and summery cross with a heavy, dark frame. It will probably be at least another month before I’ve finished all of the outlining, but I can’t wait to have this framed and on the wall!

Posted in cross stitch, Faith | Tagged cross stitch, Faith | Leave a comment

Train Layout Planning

Posted on July 7, 2016 by civilwarrose5

Jay keeps telling me that this train layout he’s working on is going to be a 10 year project. I suppose that’s true because it feels like we haven’t been getting anywhere with it lately.

I know that he has to work out exactly where the track is going to run so that we can then work around that.

He has built the incline around the far end of the layout so I guess that’s an improvement. My part of this is the ‘finishing’ and detail components. Since we aren’t quite there yet I’ve been trying to do a lot of planning in my head. That’s not an easy task because things are so easily misplaced up there!

Jay has begun to glue down the track so we can now start to get a better feel for where the structures and details will go. We started laying out roads and trying to determine how to do things that make sense and look good.

I keep reminding Jay of elements that I want to add into the scenery, like my church. I guess this is where we will put the church and the church yard. In my head I see a simple white church with a steeple… similar to what was in my town where I grew up. I wanted to put the church closer to town, but Jay says that it will be fine out here on the edge.

Then we have the corner of Industry. We will have one of the roads going underneath the underpass so that the employees who live out on that side of the county won’t have to drive all the way around the town.

Then we will have the ultra-light airstrip. Jay measured it out and we will have enough room to make a scale airstrip for an ultra-light plane.

This is an ultra-light aircraft. Jay is going to be disappointed that I can’t recall which one this is, but I’m a girl so what does he expect? This is one of the three that he has actually built and is similar to what he will miniaturize for the train layout.

Then we have the farm area. The farmer will be able to use part of the air strip property for haying (he’s friends with the guy who owns the property) and the pasture for the herd of beef cows will be on the other side of the tracks. That means I’ll have to figure out how to create an underpass for the cattle to easily travel between the barn and the pasture, but I’m up for a challenge.

I think that we have the roads mostly figured out. In the meantime I’m still trying to work on the buildings that we already have in progress. On these hot and humid summer days it’s nice to spend time in the cool basement.

This past weekend I decided to concentrate on the hotel building. Except, due to the fact that we are modeling a small rural town I didn’t feel that an extravagant hotel really made sense. So I’ve decided that it’s actually an apartment building with shops on the bottom floor. It looks very similar to an apartment building in the small town where I grew up.

What do you think? I still have more to paint on here, but you have no idea how hard it is to paint with a three-bristle brush and not make a mess.

Once the outside painting is done I then have to partition the inside so that we can wire it for lights and you can see the segmented rooms from the outside. There’s more work to these things than I realized!

Posted in Crafting, model trains, N Scale Train, Trains | Tagged Model Railraod, Model Railraod Layout, Model Train Structures, model trains, N Scale Structures, N Scale Train, Trains | Leave a comment

Extending the Sewing Surfaces

Posted on June 30, 2016 by civilwarrose5

My sewing room looks huge, but it’s really not. I have slanted ceilings on both sides with one wall being slightly taller than the other one.

This makes organization a little difficult.

And it also means that all of my tables end up on the taller wall.

About a month ago I received an excited call from my mom. She had found a black 301A sewing machine and she was so happy. It was the last sewing machine on her wish list. She already has the all tan 301A, and I bought my two-toned 301A last fall. The tan and black ones are both long beds while mine is a short bed.

The black machine came with a cabinet, but the long beds weren’t meant to be inserted into cabinets. My mom gave me the cabinet so that I could install my short bed machine in it. Which means that I had to make room for it…

I had to move things around on my table that Jay made for me to make sure that when I open the 301A cabinet the lid will clear everything.

Chester was supervising to make sure that I was doing everything correctly. She approved of the cabinet and I had a hard time shooing her off so that I could actually put the machine in it.

When somebody had decided to put the black machine in here they had to cut away a portion of the cabinet to get it to fit. According to my mom, though, it didn’t fit well at all. Again, these cabinets were meant to house the short bed machines, not the long beds.

Chester was still supervising.

Now that the 301A is in the cabinet I have placed the Merritt back on my regular sewing table. Technically there are four machines in this picture. My 99K is in its carrier underneath the table where the serger sits. I moved things around a little more and the serger now resides in its carrier beneath the 301A. When I need it I can always take it out and quickly plug it in. I left the power cord stashed on the table so I don’t have to crawl underneath to fish the cord up behind the table every time I want to use the serger.

I have asked Jay to fix the gap between the cabinet and 301A so that it doesn’t cause an issue when I’m trying to sew. I guess that now I need to figure out more things to sew. I feel kind of guilty having four machines easily at my disposal yet are idle most of the time. If only I didn’t have that pesky full time job that gets in the way of having fun!

Posted in Cats, Crafting, Sewing | Tagged 301A, Cats, Crafting, Sewing, Singer 301A, Singer Merritt | Leave a comment

Training Hiatus

Posted on June 28, 2016 by civilwarrose5

Summer time and the living is easy…

Actually, the living is mostly taking place outside so I haven’t spent much time in the basement. Jay continues to live in the basement, but he’s been working on various wood working projects.

So the trains are kind of on a hiatus.

Part of the problem is that I got frustrated because I wasn’t getting the finish on the bricks that I wanted. I’m not an artist and so this is a challenge for me. I can be a bit too much like my dad sometimes so when I get frustrated it’s best to walk away for a bit before something gets broken.

Luckily, Jay hasn’t seen that side of me very often…

While I was in Atlanta I managed to find one train store to visit. I wanted to surprise Jay with some interesting finds. Unfortunately this place was 95% H scale stuff so there wasn’t much of the N scale variety to choose from.

I did find this picket fence, which I thought was adorable.

And then I spotted…..

… N Scale tombstones!! These were so adorable that I couldn’t bring myself to leave them behind. Hmm… I might be the first one to refer to tombstones as ‘adorable’. Look at them! I still giggle when I see them. Jay works with The Big O who really couldn’t wrap his head around how tiny this stuff is, so these are perfect for me to show you the scale.

See how tiny they are!! Aren’t they adorable?!

I do have big hands, but they aren’t freakishly huge so hopefully you can understand how small these little guys are.

Now I just need a church so that I can put these in the church’s yard with the picket fence!

I also found some vehicles for the layout. The box said that these are Toyotas, although they look awful big to be Toyotas. I don’t recall Toyota making a land cruiser like that. It doesn’t matter, though, as I will not allow any Government Motors vehicles in the house, so these are definitely Toyotas.

And look at how tiny they are!! I think that I read somewhere your thumb is about an inch long between the knuckle and the end of your finger. So, theoretically, this little car is only about an inch long.

Here is one of the store fronts from the town.

When I’m feeling tiny and insignificant I go downstairs and play The Amazing One Thousand Foot Woman with the train set. “Ha ha ha ha… you silly little people! Try to run! I’ll crush you like ants!”

Actually, I don’t like to crush ants. Due to their exoskeletons they are extra crunchy and the whole sensory experience makes me want to throw up.

So just how small are these buildings? Here is the hotel that I’ve been working on sitting next to a regular 12 oz pop can.

Does that not really tell you much?

Okay… how about this? This four story building is barely 4 inches tall…

And just a smidgen over 5 inches.

Actually, it’s pretty close to 5 inches. As you can see I was a bit sloppy with my measuring. In my defense, though, I only measured once and I didn’t cut anything… so I’m still good.

I’m not sure when I’ll have more Train Stuff to share with you. Perhaps towards the end of the month. There’s a rather large train show that is taking place a few hours from here and I think that we’re going to go. It is almost the 3rd anniversary of Jay being cigarette-free so this excursion will be his gift to celebrate the milestone.

Perhaps we’ll be able to find more of these for him at a much better price than what these cost. Otherwise I might have to go get a second job to keep spoiling him!

Posted in model trains, N Scale Train, Trains | Tagged Model Train Structures, model trains, N Scale Trains | Leave a comment

Front Porch Update

Posted on June 25, 2016 by civilwarrose5

Front Porch - New Concrete - 6-3-16 At the beginning of the month we had the concrete pad on the front porch fixed. This was a huge relief to me because there was quite the gap that had formed between the concrete and the sill of the house. When it rained water ran TOWARDS the house and there was enough of a gap that the critters were getting in. When the concrete guys were bracing the porch roof they discovered that the header was horrible and we had to do something right now.

The general contractor showed up (he’s the concrete guy’s cousin) and gave us an estimate. It was much higher than I wanted to pay, but we had to get it done. The contractor had another job he was working on, but he promised to be here on the 14th to get it done.

The 14th came and went… no contractor.

The 15th came and went… no contractor.

On the 16th Jay called him up and asked what was going on. The guy had forgotten about us! He promised to be out on Monday, the 20th. Unfortunately I had to take Jay to the ER very early that morning due to abdominal pain (after some tests this week it’s looking like he’s got gallstones) so I was home when I heard voices at the front door… at 10:30. Apparently this guy doesn’t feel that an early start to the day is good practice. I went out and talked to him. He was taking measurements and getting his materials list together. Then he promised he would be back the next day.

Tuesday morning at work I received a phone call at 11:30. It was the contractor telling me that he wouldn’t be over that day because they hadn’t managed to clean the gravel off of his trailer the night before like he had expected. So he would be over on Wednesday instead.

Wednesday night I got home and found a pile of materials on the porch, but no work done.

I left for work Thursday morning and besides the trailer that had been dropped off at some point the night before (we’d never heard them drop it off), there wasn’t a sign of the contractor any where. I got home from work that night and it was all done. Jay told me that they had just finished up around 5:00.

It was nice to no longer have the braces in place with the caution tape wrapped around them.

I was still irritated with the many delays and what I felt was a steep price for the work.

I do wish that he had placed one of the posts about a foot more to the right. I know that he had never seen it when the other posts were in place, but you would have thought that he could have seen where the end of the walk meets the porch and figured out post placement from that. Now I have to move a bush over to the other side of the walk so that we can pour a step.

We decided to leave the railings off for now. The porch feels so much bigger without them and I don’t think that we’re missing much by not having them.

I also asked him to use regular 4×4’s instead of the decorative posts because my aunt had her porch redone and used the decorative posts. They aren’t nearly as strong and stout as a regular 4×4 so she’s already had to replace her posts after only a few years. They were already beginning to buckle!

The contractor showed back up Thursday night after I got home so that I could write a check out for him (the checkbook was in my purse). He left and I decided to go change into my play clothes so that I could do some sanding and polyurethaning in the basement.

I started to change and happened to look over at the corner of the bedroom… and saw this!

They had put a hole in our bedroom wall! There was plaster and wood pieces all over the night stand on that wall.

GRRRRR!!!!

Apparently when they were trying to take the old beam down this happened. The contractor was supposed to show up last night to start the process to fix this, but two hours after he was supposed to show he finally contacted us and said that he will have to be over today instead. So… this front porch has morphed into yet another project.

I know that we really needed to get it done. The contractor said that if we hadn’t fixed it now that the porch roof would have ended up collapsing this winter because the wood was that bad. They didn’t have many big pieces to haul away because it all crumbled into dust. Jay said that the front porch was absolutely filthy with rotted wood.

I’m just irritated with this whole thing. It took us a year to get the concrete guy out here to do the work. Then the general contractor gave us a steep estimate just to constantly delay things. If I ever need another general contactor I will definitely NOT be calling this guy!

Posted in My House, Remodeling | Tagged My House, Remodeling | 2 Comments

Book Review – The Catholic Catalogue by Melissa Musick and Anna Keating

Posted on June 20, 2016 by civilwarrose5

As a fairly new Catholic I was intrigued when I saw ‘The Catholic Catalogue’ by Melissa Musick and Anna Keating. It seems like I always have questions about various aspects of the faith, but my husband is not always able to answer them so I turn to books like The Catholic Catalogue.

There are so many aspects of the Catholic faith that you could discuss and I think that Ms. Musick and Ms. Keating did an excellent job in both selecting the topics and organizing them in the book. The book is not only separated by sections such as “Seasons of the Church Year”, but it is further separated into topics like “Lent” with chapters relating to the topic, in this case “Stations of the Cross.” This makes it easier to answer the questions that you have first, and then perhaps go back and read other topics later. You don’t have to read this book all at one time, either. You can read a single chapter or read all of the chapters related to that topic since they are all grouped together.

I have read quite a few books on Catholicism and the practices, but I love it when I am surprised with a new fact. How many times have you seen people making the sign of the cross? I myself make the sign multiples times at Mass and as needed during the week. After all, I don’t think that there’s really any such thing as blessing yourself too much, right? In the chapter ‘Holy Water And the Sign of the Cross’ I learned that there are actually two ways in which you can make the sign of the cross. “In the Latin Rite, we trace the outline of the cross over our upper body with our right hand, palm open. (The five fingers of the hand symbolize the five wounds of Christ.)…” “In the Eastern Rite, the sign of the cross is made with the first three fingers of the right hand joined at the fingertips. These fingers represent the Trinity. The remaining two fingers are pressed against the palm, to represent the unity of Jesus’ human and divine natures.” Did you know that there was a reason behind how you hold your hand when signing yourself? Now you do!

There are many other little tidbits of information throughout the book that I feel are just as interesting. It doesn’t matter whether you are a newly minted Catholic or a Cradle Catholic, there’s something in here for everybody. The writing is clear and easy to understand so that you can easily read it to a child to answer questions that they might have, too. If nothing else this would be a terrific resource to have sitting on your bookshelf. I highly recommend it.

As a disclaimer I must tell you that I received this book for free from Blogging for Books in return for my honest review.

Posted in Blogging for Books, Book Review, books, Catholicism | Tagged Blogging for Books, Book Review, books, Catholicism | Leave a comment

Summer Cross Update – 6-16-16

Posted on June 17, 2016 by civilwarrose5

It’s been a stressful month at work so I’ve made sure to spend a few minutes in the morning working on my Summer Cross. This is where I was before leaving for vacation last month.

As of last night I placed the last full ‘x’ stitch in this piece!

Now here comes the long stretch of stitching the words into the background. After that all I have to do is finish up the outlining on the actual cross and then it will be done!

I’m already thinking about what colors I want to use for the double mats. I’m thinking either a medium yellow or pink on the inside with the top/outside mat being either a light or medium green. I have a little while to think about it, though.

Posted in cross stitch, Faith | Tagged Cross, cross stitch, Faith | Leave a comment

Sewing: A Garden Kneeler

Posted on June 15, 2016 by civilwarrose5

I don’t have a really big yard, but I do tend to spend a lot of time on the ground when I’m gardening. I might be weeding, planting, or just trying to make things look nicer. Either way, my knees take a lot of abuse. I’ve been using one of those foam garden kneelers for the past few years, but it’s no longer doing the job. I ended up with bruised knees when weeding the fire pit area.

I looked around to see if I could find a new kneeler that I would actually like. The problem was that I didn’t see anything that I thought would either last or would be something that I would like using. I knew what I wanted so I decided that I would make my own. I thought about how I would use it, what to use for cushioning and cost.

My first thought was to use a durable fabric like canvas. Then it hit me… Levi Strauss came up with denim after using tent canvas to make durable pants. Denim is not only a pretty durable material but it’s also easy to wash. So I went shopping at the Goodwill. I found the cheapest pair of large pants I could find. These are a man’s 49 waist and they were $2. I then found the fluffiest cheap towel ($1). I had purchased a cheap vinyl table cloth at Wal-Mart when it was marked down to $1. I didn’t end up using all of it, so in total I have about $3.10 invested in my kneeler.

I folded the towel until I had the right amount of cushioning for my knees and determined how much of the extra that I would need to cut off. You can always serge the cut edges of the extra and make them into rags for under the kitchen sink.

Then, with some assistance from Chester, I placed the jeans over the towel to figure out where I would need to cut the leg. If I messed this one up I still had one more to use! I wanted to use the leg because it already had a nice hem at one end. I will end up putting Velcro at the hem so that if I need to replace the towel it will be easy to remove.

Leaving extra room for a seam I made my cut. Chester left at this point in case I got crazy with the rotary cutter. She’s a bit attached to her tail and feet.

To make it easier to care for I decided that I would make a sleeve out of the vinyl tablecloth to slip the towel into. The vinyl should keep the towel dry if the kneeler gets wet. This way I can remove the vinyl covered towel and launder only the denim shell when needed.

I first serged three of the sides together, then folded it right side out. Place the towel inside, folded as you want it to be for your kneeler, and serge the fourth side to close it up. If you don’t have a serger then you can use a regular sewing machine, though I would probably use a zig-zag stitch to help protect against tearing. Though you won’t see it, this portion of the kneeler will be under a lot of stress when it’s in use.

After the towel was encased in the tablecloth I sewed Velcro onto the pant leg at the hem line. Also, double check that your towel will fit into the denim shell before you go too far. Luckily mine fit nicely despite the fact that I hadn’t really measured the pant leg before starting on the towel envelope.

I sewed up the cut end of the pant leg, inserting a strip of denim to make a loop at the end. This loop will enable me to hang it for storage or hang it off of my finger while trying to carry everything to my gardening spot.

Let’s try it out…

Nice and cushy…

Plenty of knee room…

That’s it! A garden kneeler that is much more durable than the regular foam kind. Plus this one won’t blow away in the wind.

I have had a chance to use it and so far, so good! It’s not too big or bulky and yet it does a great job of cushioning my knees. And I still have the other leg should I need to make a new one!

Posted in Crafting, Garden, Sewing | Tagged Crafting, gardening, Sewing | 1 Comment

Trip to Atlanta – World of Coke

Posted on June 12, 2016 by civilwarrose5

Coca-Cola is headquartered in Atlanta, GA. While we were there we had to go visit it. I figured it would be neat to see the history and all of the old ad campaigns.

I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, but if you’re interested this is the official website for the World of Coca-Cola.

The best part of my visit was that I was horribly thirsty by the time that we arrived and when you walk in they offer you a complimentary bottle of coke. Coke had never tasted so good (I used to be a die-hard Pepsi girl).

There were all different exhibits that you could see. They showed you how Coke was invented and what a typical soda fountain counter would look like. They had the various ad campaigns throughout their history plus different marketing items that they had used. Sarah and I walked through saying, “I remember that!” and critiquing the ads that we’d never seen.

I was intrigued by the many decorated Coke bottles that they had scattered throughout the place. I’m sure that somewhere was an explanation as to the why’s and how’s, but I preferred to just enjoy them without knowing the back story.

We sat in a theater and watched commercials that they had used, plus commercials that were aired in other countries. If you want a good laugh at something that just doesn’t seem like a good marketing campaign do a search on YouTube for Russian Brrr Coca-Cola commercial. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you!

Isn’t this one pretty? It looks like a Ming vase.

I wanted to touch it and see if it was porcelain, but I didn’t dare. I figured that would get me tossed out.

And probably by the creepy polar bear…

Okay, so Sarah and I disagreed on this polar bear. She thought he was cute. I thought he was creepy. You were allowed to take your picture with him and I avoided that area at all costs. To be fair, I don’t like the movie “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” because I get creeped out at the part where the suits of armors are lined up for battle, but they lose the magic that brought them to life so they all whither down into heaps. So perhaps I’m the creepy one…

As we were walking up the stairs towards the room where the commercials were playing, which was right next to the tasting room, I spotted this bottle. I wanted to take a better picture of it, but there was a docent there who looked like he could easily get chatty. I wanted to avoid that at all costs so I took my pictures as quickly as I could.

I did manage to snap one more, though. Look! They’ve got a moat of broken Coke bottle glass! It was much more impressive in person.

Not only can you see this broken glass, but they show you the Coke bottle throughout its history. You can also walk through an exhibit that shows you how they make and bottle it. I thought that it was put together very nicely.

In one of the rooms they had a giant display of various things people have made out of Coke bottles, cans and caps. Or stuff that was modeled after Coke. Do you see the two helicopters on the shelf?

And there was an airplane hanging up at the top….

Plus one ready for take-off on a lower shelf. As I was looking at all of these creations the number one thing that ran through my mind was: How badly did these people cut themselves up when making these things??

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Twister” then you know what I’m talking about…

I don’t have a picture of it, but the last room was the Tasting room. I didn’t really want to hang out in this room for long because a) there were a ton of kids running around in there and we all know how they act after drinking a lot of sugary beverages and b) the floor was incredibly sticky!

Overall it was a very interesting visit! I would love to go back if I could figure out a time when there wasn’t a billion screaming kids in there trying to play with whatever interactive display you are trying to read. I will also continue to avoid the creepy polar bear. He’s the stuff of which nightmares are made!

Posted in History, Travel | Tagged Atlanta, Coca-Cola, History, Travel | Leave a comment

Front Porch and Gardening Adventures

Posted on June 6, 2016 by civilwarrose5

This is what our house looked like when we first bought it. Actually, I’m not sure when this picture was taken because I know the first spring that we lived here I thinned out the front flower bed a LOT. This was definitely taken in the spring before everything really started to grow.

You can’t really tell from this picture, but the front porch was causing us some trouble. It’s a concrete pad on top of concrete blocks, but the pad had sunk towards the house so when it rained the water headed towards the house. Also, there was enough of a gap that critters were able to get into the house via this entrance. I tried spraying Great Stuff in the crack, but the mice chew through it with very little effort.

We wanted to get this done last year, but our concrete guy couldn’t fit us in. This year we were #3 on his list. He came over Wednesday night and scored the porch so that it would be easier to remove the next day. Let me tell you what… that guy worked his tail off! They were there until 9:30 Thursday night fixing the base and getting things ready for concrete in the morning.

The first guy showed up at 5:30 Friday morning, with the rest of the crew following shortly after. They had a few more things to do before the concrete truck arrived at 6:30. I’m sure that the neighbors weren’t happy, but I know that almost all of them are awake by that time so it didn’t bother me too much. Jay had to work 2nd shift on Friday so he was able to stick around and watch the process.

We now have a 4″ thick concrete pad that slopes AWAY from the house! It also eliminated the huge step from the porch to the door. The only problem is that as the contractor was propping the roof up he discovered that the header for the porch is in bad shape. This was supposedly fixed by the previous owners before we bought it. Our inspector had found an issue with it so that was one of the things that had to be fixed before we bought the house. The sellers claimed that they had fixed it so we took their word for it. All they did was put a 1″ pine board up to hold everything in place until it really started to crumble. What irritates Jay and me is that we had put this issue as a condition of the sale. We said that we would enter into the contract if the seller agreed to fix this issue, which they did. And yet, they didn’t. So now we have to get that fixed… yet another expense we hadn’t planned on. Ah, the joys of home ownership!

Anyway, the porch pad turned out really nice. The concrete contractor has a cousin who does general contracting so he will be fixing the porch header. That should begin in a little over a week.

I didn’t notice until the contractor said something about it, but since Jay was home when the concrete was poured he put our initials and the date in the corner of the porch. Jay then told me that not more than an hour after everybody left and the concrete was curing… the squirrels were running all over it. So now we have squirrel paw prints on our porch.

This past weekend I finally managed to get my gardens planted. Since I wasn’t home over Memorial Day weekend it had to wait a little longer than I had hoped.

This is my rose garden. As you can see I need to thin the Irises out again. I’ve already yelled at them for being greedy and taking up more space than they are supposed to. Luckily I have friends who said they would be happy to take some of these guys.

Until my roses really start to bloom I have added a little bit of color to it. I love petunias and pansies, so I found some pretty pink petunias for this spot.

Speaking of roses, look at what my rose bush in the backyard decided to do while I was away. Isn’t it gorgeous? And to think, all I had to do was threaten to pull it out two years ago if it didn’t start budding.

I am addicted to roses, though, and always want to add more. I was looking at this garden and decided that I don’t like that hosta there in the middle.

So out it came (and was split into four pieces to be given away) and I planted another rose bush in its place. Is there such a thing as too many roses?

This new rose bush is special, though. I call it Boogart’s Rose Bush. It’s not a hybrid tea (the type of rose people usually think of) and the flowers actually reminded me more of apple blossoms. They are a really pretty pink, too, with beautiful warm yellow centers. This is actually called the Home Run Series rose bush, but I’m allowed to change the name. My older sister’s nickname was Boogart and her color was pink. My mom had pink apple blossoms put on Boogart’s urn, so that’s why this is Boogart’s Rose Bush.

Finally, I had to turn my attention to this mess. A lot of people won’t show you their dusty corners or messy places, but I wanted you to see just what a little bit of elbow grease can do. It took me three hours and two trash cans full of yard waste, but when I had to stop (due to my allergies getting the best of me) it finally looked like…

… this.

I still have a little more to do, but look at the improvement so far! I must confess that this is my problem corner in my yard. I have no idea what to do with it. It’s the wart on my nose.

The area by the shed needed some attention, too. This shed is a piece of junk and we hate it, but it will be replaced this summer with a structure that actually keeps the weather OUT! An engineer built this shed. This is why engineers should not be allowed to touch tools of any sort. Metal roofing is supposed to be put on the building so that the water can run down the ridges and off of the building. Unlike this masterpiece, which has the metal roofing on sideways so that it can be sure to catch every drop of water and bring it inside. What an idiot…

I did manage to make some headway. Again, I ran out of trash cans to put the yard waste in so I had to stop. We have a lot of stuff in this area that I need to figure out what to do with so that it’s not in the way when the old shed gets replaced.

I have been doing a couple of other things that are gardening related, but I will wait to show you those at another time. Hopefully you have been able to get outside to enjoy playing in the dirt, too!

Posted in Garden, My House, Remodeling | Tagged Concrete, Garden, Our House, Porch, Roses | Leave a comment