Happy Monday

What makes me happy?

Pictures, posted on her facebook page, of K in Ghana...



(K's little friend is not in pain... she's trying to make a big smile for the camera!)



K, in a truck filled with supplies for a PC project she's been working on...



It's always good to see that K is still K... crazy, silly, full of life. (I wonder what the people in her little village think of Americans after having her living with them for almost two years?!)

mom's playtime

I don't know what it is about building with wood that is so much fun to me, but it is...

I love the measuring, cutting the wood, fitting pieces together... watching something go from just a drawing, or plans, or even just an idea... to an actual, finished product.

I wasn't planning on building anything today... but I was down in the garage, and thought maybe I'd just measure the OSB roof sheathing (leftover from building the shed) I was planning on using to winterize the north side of the chicken coop... (I'm enclosing the bottom of the chicken coop for the winter for warmth, and will open it up again in the spring.)

As I looked at the OSB, I realized I was going to have to make a long cut and piece it to fit... and since I don't have a table saw (and don't want one with M around!) I wondered how much of a challenge it would be to cut a straight line that long.

And before I knew it, the OSB was cut (relatively straight) and the two pieces I needed to fill in the north side of the coop were securely screwed together and it was time for the fun part.



I'd put cedar "siding" (made from pickets) on one rough side of the coop a few months ago, and liked how it looked with the red of the coop, so my plan was to do something similar on the north side too.



Here's the north side of the coop: in another month or two the wind and snow will be blasting through the bottom unless I close it off.



 I had a bunch of small pieces of pickets left over from building the garden shed last month, and I thought they might be close to the right size to make little cedar shake shingles.





I didn't measure anything at first, just grabbed my cedar scraps and tried to fit them together, using the OSB as a base, in a way that looked nice.

I added some 3 1/2" cedar pickets (leftovers from the pumpkin patch fence), cut to size, on either edge so that the measurement came out right for filling between them with my cedar pieces, which I was hoping would end up looking like cedar shake shingles.




Then I started laying out the smaller shingle pieces...

First row, looking pretty good... (that longer one towards the end won't matter, the tops will all be covered by the bottom of the next row of "shingles")



I just used 1.5" staples and the staple gun to attach them, and it went super quick.



It wasn't until the last few shingle pieces on the second row that I needed to do any measuring and cutting...



The third (and final) row was a little more work, as each piece had to be cut a little shorter to allow room for the trim piece on top, and I ended up having to make a few shingles because I didn't have quite enough scraps.





It didn't take long to cut the last few to size, and dog-ear the edge to match the others...
And here's the finished product.



It's not perfect by any means, I didn't think staggering the rows (like real shingles) until I was almost done....but I think it looks good enough and I can't wait for the rain to stop so I can attach it to the coop and see how it looks.


(And next spring I might pull the "shingles" off again and stagger them... I think I would like it better.)

birthday moon

Our daughter K, our "first" baby (the youngest of our three birth daughters, and the baby of the family until we adopted M and R) turned 27 today.

She is serving in the Peace Corps in Ghana, and so a staticky phone call this morning and an envelope of small gifts, mailed last month so it would get to Ghana in time, had to pass for a birthday celebration.

There is a beautiful full moon tonight in honor of her birthday though...

Since she lives in a village with no electricity, sporadic phone service, and no internet, the moon is often our only connection. Everything about where she lives is different from home... even the stars she sees are different than the ones over her Colorado home... but she sees the exact same moon we see. And we imagine bouncing love, hugs and other important things off that moon, and back down to each other.

Yeah, maybe it's silly... but it's hard to have family so far away... and it's good to grab any connection you can.

Like this moon...




...shining down on both Colorado, and Northern Ghana, on K's birthday.

Happy Birthday K, if I could I'd send you a burrito and a (cold) diet Dr Pepper to celebrate the day with!

order from chaos...

 cha·os

ˈkāˌäs/

noun - complete disorder and confusion. synonyms: disorder, disarray, disorganization, confusion, mayhem, bedlam, muddle, mess, shambles.... 

No, I don't think chaos is too strong a word to describe my little basement storage room before I whipped it into shape...

The room isn't large, but it has floor to ceiling shelving along two walls, and a huge free standing storage cabinet on the third wall. There should be plenty of space to hold our stuff right? 

Right.

Except there were games, movies, odds and ends of craft supplies, batteries, spray paint and countless other things cluttering up every inch of floor space... because the shelves were full. 

So I reorganized. Here's how I brought a little order out of chaos.

Gift bags... 

Before: stuffed in a too small box with bits and pieces of tissue paper, bows, gift tags etc. It might not have been too bad except the box was always buried under board games.

After: I found an old over the door shoe holder and repurposed it to hold gift bags, rolls of gift wrap, and bags with tissue paper and bows. Ah... much better. 

Paint and brushes... 

Before: Paint cans squeezed and stacked haphazardly onto not enough shelf space, I never could find the paint I was looking for... brushes "stored" in a box holding various paint supplies... I could never find the brush I wanted either. 

After: Paint is roughly organized on shelves, with one area for wood preservatives (important in a log home), another area for our "core" paint colors (barn red, white, gingersnap brown, etc) and a third area for everything else. Paint brushes, can openers, and masking tape now hang from a simple holder I made and hung up.

(Sorry about the weird font change, I'm not sure why it changed, and can't seem to fix it...)

Movies... 

Before; stored in large clear plastic boxes. I thought they'd be easy to find and easy for the kids to keep put away. I was wrong. Putting movies away mostly seemed to involve the kids opening the storage room door and tossing the movies in.

After: Movies nicely organized in a little bookcase that used to hold canning supplies. (Canning supplies have been moved elsewhere, still handy enough to use but not taking up space that is better used for movies.) So far not a single movie has been left on the storage room floor!

My too-good-to-toss scrap wood... 

Before, stuffed here and there in corners of the storage room, frequently finding it's way out into the middle of the room to trip me when I'm not looking.

After: I repurposed a little cabinet we've had forever into a scrap wood bin. I used the drawer from this cabinet for M's little drop down desk, then used the rest to make a rolling wood bin. I took the top off the cabinet (it's behind the rest of the wood) and added some reinforcement across the front, and voila... a nice rolling wood storage bin. (Like my old barn wood? I'm just waiting for the right project for it...)

So... order is better than chaos, yes?

I think I need to find something to paint... I can finally find my paintbrushes again!

*~*daybook*~*

So.... waaaaaay back this morning.... approximately 4 days ago (yes it seems that long ago) I typed out this post... but then had to wait to get a moment to add a photo and post it. It's now 13 hours later and I'm finally getting back to it. Yep... it's been one of those days...

FOR TODAY
October 6, 2014

Outside my window... the sun is just starting to coming up, I'll need to head outside soon to do the barn work.

I am thinking... about my neighbor, Mr G... He is so old, and so vulnerable, and the people he's paying to take care of him aren't doing a very good job. I'll be on the phone later, rattling cages at the agency he's working with, hoping to get things changing for the better.

I am thankful... that the other older people in our lives, Grandma, Grandpa and Granny are 1) so healthy, strong and capable and 2) have made sure they have good support in the areas they need it.

In the kitchen... I'm inundated with apples! I think a nice batch of applesauce might be on the agenda for today. 

I am creating... order. I've been working the past week cleaning out our little storage room. Before I started you couldn't even walk into the room without stepping over things.. between the extra dining room chairs, M's overly large board game collection, R's endless movies all over the floor, and my "stash" of odds and ends of wood too good to throw away or burn, it looked as though the room had been ransacked. But two trips to drop stuff off at the thrift store and a few hours cleaning and reorganizing, and it looks much better now.

I am going... to start taking a more active role in Mr G's care. Because he is so old, and his English can be halting, I don't think people (especially at the agency he's hired for his in-home support) take him seriously. He deserves to be treated with kindness and respect.... and I know how to advocate. This seems like a good time to put that knowledge to use. 

I am reading... North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person... a very strange but interesting memoir. 

I am hoping... M's stomach settles down again. He's been up sick the past two nights, and R's birthday is coming up. I don't want her to stress about him being sick after her birthday dinner.

I am looking forward to... today, a nice day to just putter around the house. (Edited 13 hours later to add; hahaha.... what's that about "best laid plans"?)

I am learning... I'm working on some new (and old) mando tunes and have had to figure out a bit of ukulele so I can help R with a ukulele tune she's having a hard time learning.

Around the house... I'm having too much fun mentally planning the winter's projects. My bathroom is going to get a makeover (new baseboards etc. since I didn't update them when I did the rest of the house, and some "prairie shutters", similar to these but not full height, only half the window height ) and a barn door (similar to this) in the basement.

One of my favorite things... my mandolin, such a good friend (and good therapy!).

A few plans for the rest of the week... applesauce and Mr G's phone calls today, a Candidate Forum night tomorrow through our CCB where the kids can learn more about our Senatorial candidates, a meeting on Weds. at S's foster home (might be interesting, given the FB debacle) which is also K's birthday... I do hope we get to talk to her that day, a nice stay home day Thursday, and Friday I'm meeting the nurse up at Mr G's to help him navigate that visit. 

A photo to share..

the kids, M, R and S with Mr G... they were on their way to homecoming and stopped on the way to see him.

______________________________

Visit Peggy's blog for more about The Simple Woman's Daybook

a PSA

A reminder as the days get cooler...



(My brother Steve, posted this on his FB page and it made me laugh...)

unsinkable...

If you grew up here, in Colorado, you "knew" Margaret Brown...

...as in the rags to riches, survived the Titanic, beautiful old house just east of downtown Denver, "Molly" Brown.

It didn't matter if she died back in 1932...



... you knew her because she was a local, her home is preserved as it was when she lived there (and virtually every child in Denver has taken the tour), and the play and movie "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" has played in one form or another for decades.

We had the opportunity to see the "new" Unsinkable Molly Brown at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday. What a fun, wonderfully done, show!




R has been enthralled with the Molly Brown story since her Titanic obsession a few years ago. She's read about Molly, toured her home, driven past her summer home (just west of Denver) and has loved getting to "know" her... so this show was tailor made for her.

M and I loved it too (except M's aching back didn't let him enjoy it as much as I would have liked...), the cast was amazing, the sets beautiful, and there was just the right mix of old familiar Molly Brown songs (Belly Up To The Bar Boys, and Colorado, My Home, for example) and songs new to this production.



Although the title is the same, the new "Unsinkable Molly Brown" at the DCPA isn't just a remake of the one from the 60's that most of us are familiar with... In addition to some new songs, the picture they painted of Molly  Brown, and that time, was a little different... maybe a little deeper, than the old version.



If you're local and get the chance to catch this show... do it. It was such a fun way to spend an afternoon.