The best laid plans of mice and me...

Yes, they often go awry.  And lately, it seems like they go awry a lot.  

In the grand scheme of problems life can hand out, mine lately (thankfully) are pretty minor.  I guess sometimes though, when you have minor setback after minor setback, you just find yourself wishing for one of those streaks when life seems to go your way (even minor-ly) instead.

Remember the bathroom and entryway walls that need refacing?  And the guy who came to give me an estimate, but then never showed up to fix them or returned any of my texts?  Well, I'm still working on finding someone else for that.

But let me tell you about last Monday.

But first, for clarity, here's how it's been: I've been working on this house (95% painting) for almost a year now.  I have been going between The House of Goodwill and home, but have been trying to be here (at Pine Lake) as much as possible to try and get this house finished.

While my family and I have absolutely enjoyed being here, we have spent all of our time here in some degree of mess/chaos as the house has been continually in process.  Currently, the entryway and hall bathroom are in disarray (cabinet in the middle of the room, doors off etc.) as the wall finishing remains stalled.  

We also blocked off the stairs in the entry with a scaffold my husband built that will not come down till the walls get painted.  (So every time we need to go downstairs, we have to go outside, down a set of stairs and through a sliding glass door.)

In the kitchen now, I have the refrigerator pulled out in the middle of the small kitchen so I can paint behind it, and the washer and dryer (as well as everything in the laundry area) in the middle of the dining area.

All this to say, I am so motivated to finish this project, so we can finally be settled and enjoy the house in its finished form a bit before we start to rent it.

But I keep having to interrupt my progress to return home for some reason or another, often doctor appointments.

But back to Monday:

So, last week I was here with my family for four days.  I gave up on making any progress on the house, because I needed to paint behind the fridge, washer and dryer and it was too complicated to do it while the family and dogs were here.  So, I just enjoyed myself with my family, bought the paint I would need and did a little yard work.

We decided to leave for home Monday at 11am.  (I didn't want to leave Sunday night and cut the weekend short, and my son had a zoom class until 11am.)  

But it was imperative we leave at 11 because I had a doctor appointment at 2pm that I had made six weeks before and couldn't miss.  (It's a two hour trip home.)

At 10:45 we were rounding up our stuff, gathering pets and loading the car.  That's when my husband went downstairs for the first time that morning (through the front door, down the outside steps and through the garage 🙄), and I heard him yell, "Come here right now!  We've got a huge problem!"

(Which led to the horrible feeling of dread you get when you're informed "there's a huge problem!" but you don't know what, or how huge...)

When I walked into the downstairs "basement" room, I saw him pointing at a missing ceiling tile in the corner of the room, and a shattered ceiling tile on the floor, along with a large tin pan full of filthy water that had splattered and pooled everywhere on the floor.  (Including some standing water on top of the wooden game table nearby that we had just brought in from the garage.)

The curtain on the sliding glass door was soaking wet and dirty, and there was a continuous dripping of water from an overhead pipe.

So, under some serious time pressure, we mopped up all the dirty water, tried to dry off any wet furniture nearby, threw the broken tile outside and shut off the water to the dripping pipe.  (Which was connected to the master bedroom toilet above.)

Here's a picture of our small scale "disaster" after we cleaned it up.

As we got in the car, twenty minutes behind schedule, we still had hope I could make my doctor's appointment, if my husband took me straight there.

So guess what happened?

For the first time EVER (in a year of driving back and forth between the houses) we came upon traffic at a total standstill on the highway (apparently due to an accident ahead), and after almost an hour of sitting without progressing, we were detoured due to the highway being shut down.

Of course.

And here's the best part: as I called my doctor's office to tell them I couldn't make my appointment time, I was told by the office girl that the machine for my test was broken, the appointment was canceled and they'd been trying to get a hold of me for two days, but they only had my home/house phone number to leave a message on.

So ironically I didn't even need to go home.

Ok.  Sometimes it is what it is.  So while there was some obvious frustration on Monday, we decided to focus on the positives.  First, we almost left to go home Sunday evening, but changed plans.  If we hadn't been at The House of Goodwill Monday morning, we wouldn't have caught the leak, and the mess, and who knows how bad things could have gotten before I returned.

It was better to find it.

Since I couldn't have made my doctor appointment anywhere close to on time, I guess it was better that it had been canceled anyway.

Who knows.  Maybe things could have been worse.  We have driven the highway between the houses SO MANY TIMES and seen traffic completely stopped in the other direction, but never in ours.  So I will choose to be grateful that it's only happened once.

I returned to The House of Goodwill the next day to work on some painting alone, but didn't get much done because I kept having to deal with the plumber who had come out to assess our situation.  His assessment?  $840.00 to fix the plumbing, a problem he attributed to "a do-it-yourself toilet installment" by the former owners that went awry.

The best part?  Well, apparently the same former homeowners knew there was a leaky pipe, because there was a giant tin pan full of water that at some point had been placed over the ceiling tiles (unseen to the room below) to catch drips.  When it finally got totally full, it crashed through the ceiling.

And the second best part?  Well, besides the cabinet in the middle of the entryway, the refrigerator in the middle of the kitchen, the washer and dryer in the middle of the dining room, a stair-blocking scaffold and about six doors stacked against a wall,  I also now have a toilet sitting in the master bedroom shower, while I wait a week for the plumber to come back with the necessary parts to reinstall the toilet correctly.

And I'm not going to lie, it's kind of got me wondering if there will be any other do-it-yourself homeowner fix casualties to come...?

While I don't know who to blame (?), acknowledge (?) or thank (?) for the sometimes mysterious or frustrating life circumstances I find myself in, I do know who to thank for the blessings.

Thank you God for the money in the bank to pay for a repair, and for this house (that we love) to repair.  Sometimes, I'm just grateful that the problems aren't bigger or more serious.

And as to the former homeowners?  Well, the leaking toilet pipe was not a great surprise.  But on the other hand, they did build us a great house and hide little rubber snakes all over the place.  May God bless them wherever they are! 🙏

The most useful app ever?

I promise, this post title is not an exaggeration.

Ok, so I acknowledge that this arena's got some amazing contenders.  Because it's amazing how helpful good phones app can be!  Last year, a friend told me about an app that is not just good, it's incredible.

And I'm probably just really late to the party and everyone else already knows about it.  But if you've never heard of this app, you need it!

The (FREE!) app is called "PictureThis" and it looks like this in the app store on my iphone:

"PictureThis" is a plant identification app for the phone, and so far, it has identifies absolutely everything I've tried it on, with 100% accuracy.

Why do I love the app so much?  For two reasons.  The first is the obvious.

I LOVE learning what plants and trees I'm looking at!  Last fall, I saw some BEAUTIFUL trees with yellow leaves on dog walks, and really, really wanted to know what they were.  Above you can see what I used the app to look up.  This is SO MUCH EASIER than the clunky identification books of old you had to carry in your pocket.  (Which I never did.)

I'm still an old school "real" book reader; but honestly, some things are just better in digital form; nature identification apps are a perfect example.

Have you ever seen a beautiful flower or shrub, and wondered what it was because you'd like to plant one yourself?  This app is perfect for that.

Since we purchased The House of Goodwill (on almost two acres); I've seen a few things growing that I wasn't sure were intentionally planted.  So the app has been incredibly helpful in distinguishing between good plants and weeds.

Here are some of the plants/weeds I've identified in the yard here with the app:

Which brings me to the second reason that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this app - IT TELLS ME WHICH THREE-LEAFED PLANTS ARE POISON IVY.

As I've told my son, who so far indulges my interest in looking up plants yet shows no interest of his own - he still needs this app, because doubtless he will need to be able to identify poison ivy at some point or another.

I never "experienced" poison ivy till I was forty years old.  Since then, I've tangled with it at least once a year, and it's always been a mystery to me where I got it from.

I've also always struggled to identify poison ivy; I know it has three leaves, but poison ivy can take so many forms, and there are many three-leafed plants that are NOT poison ivy.

As you can see from my next screen shot, this app showed me which three leaf plants found growing in the iris beds are and aren't poison ivy:

Now, I know without doubt where the poison ivy is, so I can dig it out carefully.  I also know what NOT to be afraid of!  And using this over time, I will doubtless learn to identify poison ivy better for when I don't have the app on me.

(There is a premium version of the app you can buy, with more in-depth info and interesting content.)

I'm not sure my son is as excited as this app as me.  Since I never have my phone on dog walks, I'm constantly asking him to pull his out so I can identify some tree we're passing.  Needless to say, our walks go just a little bit slower.

And now I proudly call out the official name of every tree and shrub we pass, just because I can.  I'm not sure he appreciates this either.

There's only one downside to this app that I can see - I always used to leave my phone at home when out walking, which was a sacred disconnected time.

But now that I sense my son is getting closer to cutting me off from my constant requests to him to pull out his phone (he's twenty - of course he can't go for a walk without his phone) - I'm afraid I just might have to bring my own technology along with me.

Isn't it funny how cell phones always seem to be a blessing AND a curse?

Inching forward

I have a little bit of progress to share.  Last week I was at The House of Goodwill for a couple of days by myself, and I was able to complete almost all of the molding painting in the kitchen.  (Deglossing followed by four layers of paint.)

I say almost all, because after my family left, I realized the small piece of visible floor molding continued behind the refrigerator, which I was unable to move by myself.  So I'll have to come back to it.

It took me two long afternoon/evenings to get it done.  Here it is:

This is the ceiling molding before.

There is really excellent quality lighting in the kitchen, with lots of task lighting throughout. 

It definitely helps make up for the darkness of the cabinets and the paint; I think it also makes it harder to tell how dark this kitchen actually feels.

The walls are flat darker colors, just like everywhere in the house.

It wouldn't be so bad if there were more windows and natural light, and if the cabinets and molding weren't so dark.

The house was full of these dark, earthy colors, like this terracotta color in the kitchen.

The color combo in the house was dark greens, grays, browns and this.

Again, if there was just more light if might have been ok.

Here is the molding after.  

One less dark element in this kitchen!

If you look at the first pic posted here, you can see what a difference it made painting this window frame white!  It brightens up that whole section of wall.

NOT fun to paint! 

(It required all kinds of interesting body contortions to do it...)

Of all the colors that were used in this house, this tiny section of wall in the kitchen is my favorite.

I really like this sage green color.

It's still going to be changed, because it's still too dark, and doesn't go with the rest of the palette I'm using.  

I feel like this molding change is a good example of a small change that makes a big difference.

I have to go back to the home/house with my family Monday for another doctor appointment.  *Sigh.*  But I'll be coming back within two days so I can get some of the painting done that is easier to do when I'm here alone.

Before we leave Monday morning, I'm going to have my husband and son pull the refrigerator forward, and also the washer and dryer out from the walls so I can paint behind the appliances next.

If I thought I had to bend in interesting ways to paint that kitchen window, I'm sure this will be even more fun.  But having the appliances pulled out will make the kitchen area feel more messy and chaotic, so it's better to do it while the family and dogs are not here.

And I've got one more beautiful thing to share.  Remember my tree peony at home that was in the middle of blooming when I left?  Well, the cut flowers made the loveliest little vase:

I couldn't leave these behind with no one to admire them, so they came with me!

I just love how enormous these flowers are.

Don't they look pretty in this little mirrored container I bought at Goodwill for $2?

Here's a little tip:

When I have a container that I'm not sure is watertight, or it's something that I might not want to get wet, I put my flowers in a glass vase inside the container I REALLY want to use.

(This is especially helpful if your container is wood or metal.)

I have quite a few sizes of these glass vases (from Goodwill or WalMart); so I have some that will go inside of almost any standard-ish shaped container I may use.

These are the same peonies in the first photo; this is the vase inside the container.

And one last pic, just because I have to:

This iris in a vintage vase has the prettiest colorings; the plant came from a division from a friend a few years ago.

Since irises only stay in bloom for about three days, I had to bring this one with me as well.

One flower in a bud vase is as simple as it gets.

Simple and exquisite!

Use what you have

I've said it before, one of my favorite things is having beautiful flowers around, and making arrangements.  So one of my goals has been to create a perennial garden with enough flowers for cutting and enjoying.  (It makes the yard look great AND saves money!)

It was a really great bonus when we bought The House of Goodwill to discover how many perennials had been planted over the years, that now I can enjoy.

We are headed back there tonight for the weekend, and I'm looking forward to checking on the irises and azaleas.

Meanwhile, I'll share some pics of one of my favorite perennials I have here at the home/house.  It's a tree peony (so it's slightly larger than the usual peonies, and it has a woody base like a shrub).  Over the years, it has slowly gotten taller; I don't remember how tall it will get, but it will definitely get taller than my other peony bushes.

I bought this peony in New York, and I paid a lot for it (it was probably around $30, that's a lot for me...).  It came from a fancy garden center that offers more than the usual landscaping suspects.

So here it is, I just can't get over how huge and gorgeous these peony flowers are!

They smell as great as they look!

There are 9 flowers on the plant - since I'm leaving for a few days, I'll be clipping some and taking them with me.

And when I was visiting my neighbors Jim and Jeanne last week, who enjoy gardening as much as I do, they wanted me to see their viburnum shrub, which was at its peak and smelled amazing.

They clipped a few branches so I could take them home; just a few of these branches made the entire first floor of my house smell so good!

Cuttings from Jim & Jeanne's viburnum shrub

Cut viburnums don't last a long time; they're not really meant to be cutting flowers.  They lasted about three days in this vase.  But the three days were worth the 30 seconds it took to "arrange them."

But the point is - you don't have to grow roses to enjoy flowers indoors.  Use whatever you have!  I clip forsythia and crabapple blossoms in the spring; I fill vases with fall leaves from the yard, I cut shrubs and vines and anything pretty, really.

One of my favorite flowers (that I don't think people think of as a cutting flower?) is from my clematis vine.  (I posted a pic last year.)  It was perfect for a bud vase and lasted a long time as a cut flower.

Planting enough to have enough for cutting without decimating your shrub or garden is key.

I'm looking forward to reuniting with The House of Goodwill's azaleas this evening!

The throes of spring

Well, my posts remain sparse due to my slow progress in the house.  But spring has officially sprung, the weather has been amazing, and I have been celebrating life in the throes of spring.

Every fall, the changing scenery is so beautiful that I think it MUST be my favorite season.  But then, as winter fades away, we have spring!  And I think that spring MUST be my favorite season.

This window of time before the intense heat of summer doesn't last long enough.

Here are some of the wonderful scenes I've been enjoying so much:

The trees are turning green again, and all kinds of plants around The House of Goodwill are blooming.

It was 80 degrees on Monday and I saw my first groups of kayakers on the lake.

On Saturday, we actually saw a boat pulling some people on a tube!  In April!

One of my favorite things about being at a house in the "country" is the random dog and cat visits.  Seeing a dog on a leash in the Pine Lake subdivision is like seeing a unicorn.

Fortunately, the dogs are all really friendly.

The great part about it?

When all the other dogs are off leash, when I walk mine (on leash), I don't feel guilty leaving the bag at home. 🙂

The electric blanket I got for Christmas has been perfect for coffee on the porch on spring mornings.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but the dogwood trees are all in bloom.

(There are four in the yard.)  So pretty!

Two of the dogwoods as seen from the porch.

What else is in bloom?  All the azaleas.  There are 22 at The House of Goodwill.

I wanted to gather some up for a vase but I ran out of time.  

I had to return to the home/house for the weekend but I'm hoping enough will still be in bloom when I return next week for a multi-colored arrangement.

There are azaleas down by the "beach house" by the lake too.

There is so much potential for this unfinished little building.

Down the road (after the big lottery win), it could be fun turning this into something special.

The colors! 😍

I made a big mistake in the fall.  Not realizing that some of these shrubs were azaleas (like the two flanking the front door), I trimmed them to size in October, unwittingly removing many of the flower buds that had been set for spring.  Azaleas should always be pruned right after they've bloomed; now that I know what the shrubs are, I'll be trimming them next month.

So there is one sad azalea in the back yard, and not because I pruned it at the wrong time; I never touched this one.

I'm not sure why it appears so dead or why there are barely any flowers, but I'll definitely be doing some azalea research.

I'll trim it down by at least half, and see what I can do to feed it.

There is Columbine too, lots of it, in the front.  

I remember seeing it the day we went to view the house for the first time.

Columbine is interesting, after it blooms in the spring the foliage dies down and you would never know it was ever there.

Right now it's so full and thick and lush it's hard to believe it will soon "disappear."

And finally, all the irises are just about to start blooming!

Forget fall!  I think it's clear that spring is the most beautiful season of all.  

I will be absolutely certain of this, for at least six more months...

A slow go

A few weeks ago, my son and I stripped wallpaper from the entryway and bathroom here at The House of Goodwill.  When we did, we found a few holes in the wall (that had just been covered over with paper).  Also, our wallpaper stripping removed some of the wall finish in a couple of places.

I hadn't been counting on that.

I had been hoping to be able to paint the walls right away, but after those discoveries I realized I needed to find someone to fix the walls first.

I had a meeting scheduled with someone to see the walls, but it wasn't till this week.  I ended up staying at home last week, since I couldn't do much to move forward at The House of Goodwill till the walls were repaired.

Since the wallpaper had only been on the upper 2/3 of the walls, there were no issues with the bottom 1/3, and I was able to paint that.  Something I could get done while waiting on the upper wall repair.

So far, I have been sticking with a purple, orange and green color scheme for the house.  But I've been wanting to add a little blue, so decided to use it on the bottom section of the entry.

Here's how the entryway looks, 1/3 painted:

I can't wait till this scaffolding is gone!  

It's been so helpful while I paint, but every time I need something from downstairs, I have to go outside and through the garage to get inside.

When my husband and son walked in and saw it for the first time, they loved it.  Each of them has told me at different times that it's their favorite color I've used yet in the house.

I was feeling hopeful, because when I finally met with the guy who is supposed to fix the walls this week, on Tuesday, he told me he could do it Thursday (yesterday) and that he'd be here at 8am.

Can you guess where this is going?

When had hadn't arrived yesterday, by 10am, I sent him a text asking when he'd be here.  He never responded.  I sent him another today and have yet to hear back. *sigh*  And this is somebody who was recommended to us too. 😕

So now what?  I'm not sure.

My brilliant organization idea...

There is one other positive improvement, though.

I'm finally getting *a little bit* smarter.  After years and years of painting houses, I have figured something out.  I used to paint rooms, and then several years after the original paint job, need to touch the paint up.  I'd go looking for my old paint cans, which sometimes I could find and sometimes I couldn't - but even when I could I often wouldn't be able to read the original label (with the paint "recipe" to have touch up paint mixed to match.

So now I take photos of my paint can labels BEFORE I even open the can.  Then I save the pics in a special album in my phone labeled "The House of Goodwill."  That way, when I need to touch up paint in the future, if I have no left over paint, I can just take the photo from my phone into the paint store so they can mix up the exact same paint formula.

I know, it's brilliant, right?

Sometimes (or always, I suppose), you've just got to focus on the positive.

A slow go - as long as it's in the right direction - is still moving forward.

Easter Blessings

Since I've taken a little unplanned break from The House of Goodwill project, and I haven't even been thrifting in a bit 😮, it's turned into a little blog break as well.

But Easter weekend was really lovely this year, and I thought I'd share a few pics:

Easter morning is for church, of course!

It was a beautiful resurrection Sunday. ✟

I always make a lamb for Easter dinner, in honor of my grandmother.  It was one of the few things I remember her cooking when we'd visit her when I was young.  It always seemed so exotic when I was a kid - and so delicious!

The lamb has to have mint jelly, as she served it.

This lamb recipe also had gravy.  So good.

It was a fun day for trying new recipes - we also had tomato casserole, "Tennessee squash" (with Jack Daniels and pecans) and parmesan-crusted turnips.

Since the old people in our house are in the process of dropping some weight, the Easter baskets were full of healthy snacks this year.  (Except for my son's, which was full of energy drinks. 🙄)

The flowers on the table were a surprise from my son, and the treat bag was for the dogs, because the holidays are for pets too!

And note the Easter lily in the background.

There is always, always an Easter lily for Easter!

(My yard is full of past Easter lilies I've planted outside.  They multiply and smell amazing when they're in bloom in June.  I think when this one is done I'll plant it at The House of Goodwill.)

At Church we were given a card to fill out, the statement on the card read, "In the last year, I have seen the Lord ________."

It gave us something to think about all day, and inspired some interesting dinner conversation.

How would you answer that question? 🤔