Like a hole in the head

I was hoping to post a lot this week; my husband and son are out of town and with no distractions or obligations, I hoped to have the super productive week of my dreams (that I needed)!

And I have!  But I've been so busy accomplishing projects, I haven't taken too much time to post.

Since today is my last day to work distraction-free, this will be brief.

But first, an explanation: just over two years ago, our family accepted a foster placement of two babies.  When we decided to foster, we did not plan on having kids that young.  When they suddenly showed up, our lives got very chaotic quickly.  And since we really didn't have a good set up for a small child, the two kids and all their respective stuff took over the whole house, or so it seemed.

We dismantled our guest room to fit two cribs, but there was no where really to move the bed to, so it stayed pushed up against a wall, as did all the original furniture.  The room felt like a crowded disaster.  But since we knew it was not a permanent situation, we opted to leave things as they were and wait it out, rather than rehome all the original furnishings (that we had nowhere to put anyway), since we knew the situation would be over "soon."

But "soon" turned into a year-and-a-half.  And toward the end of that time, we bought The House of Goodwill.  Right around the time we bought the house (which is two hours from our permanent home/house) Covid kicked in, enabling us to spend more time there while we began working on it.

All that to say, I've had very little time here at our permanent residence - when I was here with the kids I had very little free time - so the to-do list around here and little organizational projects have built up.  Hence my excitement to have a week completely free to sort and organize.

When the kids finally left in October, we were mostly living and working at The House of Goodwill.  Up until now I hadn't had an opportunity to clean out the former guest room, and deal with all the kids' stuff.  I had been using the room as storage for the last few months, just throwing things in there that I didn't have time to deal with.  Until this week.

If I only had pics!  The room looked like something from a hoarder's house - just piles of stuff everywhere.  It was overwhelming.

But now, it's almost totally back in order!  And I have to say, the relief that comes from tackling a huge project and conquering it feels great.  The room was so bad it took a week to re-order.  For real.

I made a lot of piles - piles of the kids' stuff to take to Goodwill, piles of their stuff to donate back to a foster care ministry (that had donated it to us in the first place) and piles of stuff to take to use at The House of Goodwill for guests who come with small kids.

Ok, so I guess this post is not so brief. 🙂

Here's a quick share, for the "brief" part:

To reward myself for my hours and hours of hard work, I took a day off yesterday and went antiquing an hour away, to one of my favorite little Tennessee small towns.

At an antique store, I saw this little guy:

Is this vintage puppy planter not ADORABLE??

Since I needed another planter "like a hole in the head" (to quote my mother), I actually left him on the shelf.  But when I went to pay I couldn't overcome my second thoughts, and I ran back to get him.

I had to.  I just had to.

And he's going to be SO CUTE when I get the little plant in him!  

Stay tuned - you'll be seeing it soon.

When science is fun!

I've done it again!  I feel like a nine-year-old who just won honorable mention at the science fair.  And I am so proud of myself.

Would you like to know what I did?

Here's the quick backstory: maybe four or five years ago I was given an orchid for Mother's Day.  It was a *beautiful* brilliant dark blue orchid.  I loved it.  After the orchid ceased flowering for the year, I put the orchid in my bathroom window, where it seemed to really enjoy the light and humidity.

Fast forward to May of the next year.  My orchid bloomed again.  I couldn't wait for more of those beautiful flowers.  And knowing nothing about orchids (this was my first), I wondered if that blue color was the real color of the flowers.

So the orchid bloomed again.  And it was white.  Just plain white.  No variations of white, or anything like that.  Just white.  It was nice, but it seemed a little boring, honestly.  I've never been a huge lover of white.  When the orchid was finished blooming, it was returned back to the bathroom windowsill again for the year.

Fast forward to May of the next year.  I could see the orchid was growing flower buds.  I figured if someone else could color the orchid, why couldn't I?  So I googled "how to color an orchid," and it turns out, it's extremely easy to do.  I followed the instructions, and was rewarded with a colored orchid.

(I'm embarrassed I don't remember what color I colored it!  And I can't locate any pics of it, or any original pics at all.  I just remember it turned out to be really pretty.)

Fast forward to this year.  I returned from The House of Goodwill after a couple of weeks, only to discover my orchid had developed large, unopened flower buds.  They were far enough along that I was afraid it was too late to perform the magic color-adding surgery, but I decided to try anyway.

And you may have guessed by now, it worked!  And I love the results!  Here are my orchid pics:

Here is how the orchid looked at the end of April.

Several of the buds were on the verge of opening.

So to alter your orchid's color, you just take a sharp knife and slit the woody stem, about half way through.  (You have to be a bit careful, obviously if you go all the way through you will be removing the top half of the stem, with all its flowers.)

Once you have your slit made, you take food coloring (in whatever color you like) and put a few drops on a cotton ball.  Put the cotton ball over the stem slit, and affix it with a grocery bag twist tie.

That's it.

Now just wait for the color to be absorbed through the plant stem, so it can pass into the flower buds.

It looks like I slit my orchid's veins and made it bleed!

Here is an orchid bud a day or two later.

You can see the color has been absorbed.

And here is the "after" of my beautiful white-pink orchid!

I love how it turned out!

I am guessing because the operation took place when the buds were almost open, they probably didn't absorb as much of the color as they might have otherwise.

But that's just a guess, maybe I just didn't use enough food coloring?

I can't imagine how they got the orchid as blue as the one I was initially given.

But isn't that what's fun about science?  The experimentation?

Up close, these blooms are so pretty and delicate!

Update: I have a second "branch" of the orchid developing buds.  I applied the same process to this one; this time I did it while the buds were still very tiny.  So I'll see if that makes a difference in the amount of color absorbed.

I used to see orchids in the store and never bought them (probably because they seemed a little expensive...I can't help it, when you have the cheap gene it's hard to turn off.)  But I was given this orchid, and I've enjoyed it so much!

What's great about orchids?  Well, aside from changing their colors, they are REALLY easy to take care of!  Orchids only need water about every two weeks, so they're super easy to keep alive, even when you're constantly traveling and moving around. 

You are supposed to water an orchid by placing the plastic pot (with holes in the bottom) in an inch of water every two weeks.  It just needs to sit for five minutes till the water is absorbed by the roots.  I just put mine in a pool of water in the bathroom sink for a few minutes while I'm cleaning.

I also bought a spray at the grocery store that is an orchid fertilizer.  It's simple to apply: just spray the leaves and stem with it.  I try to do this once a month while the orchid's in the sink.  The orchid must have really liked it because it has TONS of flowers this year.

And that's it!

So Marie Curie I'm not.  But I've taught myself to successfully make compost and change the color of orchids.  (I'm sure my son thinks I've lost my mind every time I make him admire the bugs in my compost.)  

If you had told me when I was ten years old that these are the things that would thrill me thirty-five years later, I probably would have felt really, really sorry for my future self.

But they do.  And I'm sure my elementary school science teachers would be proud.

When your pleasures are simple, it's amazing how much joy life can hold.

Some beautiful things, part 2

In my last post, I mentioned that we've been a little busy.  I left The House of Goodwill nine days ago to come back to the home/house for my son's baptism.

Recently, at a young adult's church service he attends, he made a commitment to follow Jesus Christ.  Last Sunday he was baptized, and we celebrated the day with some family and friends.  Nothing he could have done would have made me happier.

Yes, it's been a few weeks of beautiful things! 💓

We all agreed it was one of the best days of our lives!

In other, slightly less beautiful news:

Before I left The House of Goodwill, I HAD to pick some peonies to bring home.

They smell so good!

The irises there were also just about done, so I gathered up the last few that had just opened and not quite opened yet.

My son gave me these roses for Mother's Day.  It was the first time I've tried floral foam to arrange flowers.

This blue glass basket was $5 at a thrift store, and I just HAD to fill with some roses.

I saved a couple of the roses for this antique vase I picked up at an antique store.

I just love the old-fashioned look of it.

My husband and son went out of town for the week, and I am enjoying being at home and staying in one place at the moment.  I've got lots of organizational goals I'm hoping to accomplish since I'm distraction-free.

Sometimes it's nice to have a chance to catch your breath...

Some beautiful things

It's been a little busy here lately, so I haven't posted in a bit.  But things are about to slow down, so I have time to share some of what's been keeping me busy.

But first, after a week of beautiful, temperate weather, the heat has finally hit Tennessee.  I took advantage of the beautiful days last week to take care of some gardening here at the home/house.

Late spring/early summer is always when the garden seems to be at its peak.  Here are a few pics from the yard:

Every flower is pink or purple in this part of my garden.

In the front of the house I always plant red, white and yellow flowers.

My dogs follow me in and out of the house all day.

'Til they fall asleep in the sun.

This is Shiloh requesting her daily walk.

The clematis is SO beautiful!!

I learned last year that they make long-lasting flowers when cut and put in a bud vase.

After a couple of hours of planting bulbs and annuals in flower pots, this is the Friday evening reward. 🙂

All of our neighbors have been commenting lately on how nice our yard looks, and how much they like it.  I guess we're doing something right.

I think creating a beautiful yard space is one of the most inexpensive ways to make yourself happy.  Really!

More to come soon...

Dining room done!

Ok, so technically it's not a dining room.  It's more of a "dining area."  But it's done, and I can check another box off my list of projects at The House of Goodwill to complete.

Because of commitments back at the home/house, my son and I came to The House of Goodwill for just two days this week, to make a little progress on the house.

I had painted the top half of the dining area last week; I finished the bottom yesterday.  Meanwhile, my son finished painting some molding on a door frame downstairs and sanded the downstairs bathroom vanity.

Together we got some yardwork done.  We also spent an hour running the hills together here the other day.  That was the fun part!  (It's usually just me by myself.)  So, before we head back home again, here are the before and after pics of the dining area.

These two pics are the room before.  It was formally a dark coral color on top with a khaki color on the bottom.  The living and dining rooms were the only rooms in the house where the molding had been painting white when we bought it.

Below are the pics in process.  I lightened the upper color to an orange-tinted cream color, and the bottom is the same blue color I painted the entryway.

Here's the finished room.  Now I need to find some curtains and a rug - it's going to look great!

The lighter colors are refreshing.

After all this time I am SO CLOSE to having this whole house painted.  And once the painting is fully complete, I can move in all the furniture in the garage and start really setting the house up.  This is the part I've really been looking forward to!

My son painted the downstairs bathroom for me and the dark stained door frame to the garage.  (Pics to come.)  The only other thing we had planned to paint downstairs was a dark green accent wall in the downstairs kitchen.

As I stood downstairs contemplating the color for the wall, I took a really good look at the dark cabinets and decided I just couldn't leave them in their current state.  They just look old, and dark, and in need of freshness.

So I had my son take off all the hardware and pull the cabinets out in preparation for sanding.

Now we need to sand and paint the downstairs kitchen cabinets.  (NOT a small task.)

All of this time, I had been planning to do the same in the main kitchen upstairs, but at this point in the project I had changed my mind - honestly, I'm just tired of painting and thought we should just let them be.  But if we do the downstairs...well, I'll see how it goes.

I do have my son to help me, which is really motivating, as it seems to make the task so much less overwhelming.

Aside from the kitchen job(s), I am also waiting for the hall bath and entryway walls to be fixed, so they can be painted.  And that's all I've got left.

Someone was recommended to me who could fix the walls, and when I contacted him, he said he could and would - BUT - he is so busy he's scheduling work two months out right now. 😑  So my husband offered again to try the walls himself.

And at this point, I'm thinking that's the best idea.  I just want them done.

When we redo the kitchen(s) and the entry and bath, the walls and cabinets will all need to be sanded, which will make a huge dusty mess in the house.  I want to get past that before I haul all the furniture, etc. in that I'll be using in the house.  So that's why it feels like the house is still on hold.  

I just can't wait till it's all in place, and to have rugs and organized rooms.

It's getting there!

The good, the bad and the beautiful

My last two posts were about the current level of chaos I'm living in with The House of Goodwill project, so for purposes of this post's title, I've already shown you the "bad."

Working on this house, taking it from zero to finished (and rental ready as well), has been a much bigger project that I imagined, and taken far longer.

But with a fun project like this, there really is no "bad."  Frustration at times, yes.  Feeling disorganized and overwhelmed often?  Yes.  But if that's the "bad" I'm dealing with, I'll take it!

To balance out the last two posts, today I'm going to share some pics of the good, and the beautiful.  First, the good:

After three days of work, I got the walls behind the appliances completely painted, the floors cleaned and the appliances back in place.  I am loving the brightened up walls!

Also good, here is how I spent Sunday night relaxing:

Before my neighbor Teresa moved in March, she started teaching me how to make a "very simple" crochet blanket that she swore I could make alone.  I started it with her help, but I hadn't picked it up again since March.  I was so proud of myself for watching the videos of her that I made and making some progress!

And now, the beautiful: you may remember, the last time I had to return home for a few days I was HOPING that the azaleas and irises would still be blooming when I came back to The House of Goodwill, as I had been waiting to enjoy them all year.

And I was not disappointed!

While the white azaleas were finishing up, the pink ones were just beginning!

I 💗 the colors of spring!

I found this little pot for a couple dollars at Goodwill.  I'm not exactly sure what it is supposed to be used for - a humidifier to sit on top of a stove, maybe?

But of course I know what I would do with it!

It was perfect for the azaleas!

The irises were in their full glory.  (And still are!)  

So far I have seen seven different varieties.

I picked up these tiny vases at an estate sale and thrift store this year; I really liked the iris images on them and have been waiting to fill them with irises!

The light was terrible when I took these photos, so it's hard to get how lovely the colors in these irises really are.  The shading on their petals is beautiful in the light.

This is one little azalea branch.  Use what you have!

And now that the (22!) azalea bushes are winding down, the peonies are just starting!

There are five peony bushes here; this is the first flower I've seen.

And finally, as I was reading and drinking my morning coffee on the porch, I looked up and saw this!

Three more deer followed behind a few minutes later.

Last year we spent the summer watching a family of house finches nesting on the porch.

They returned this year, and I just saw a baby in the nest for the first time this morning. 💗

Enough posting, time to go paint!  I've got some more "good" to work on today!

A picture's worth a thousand words

In conversations with my mom, she often asks me if I'm almost done with my work on The House of Goodwill.  "Yes, almost," has been my reply for the last couple of months.

In conversations with my sister-in-law (who visited once), she often lets us know she would love to return.  And I feel bad, because I'm always trying to explain to everybody about the state of the house and why we're not quite guest-ready just yet.

I decided after trying to explain the current level of chaos with words in my last post, I'd use this one to let the photos do the explaining.

While we haven't felt settled since we began the house project, we've probably never been less settled than at this moment.  So here is our current state, in pictures:

Right now I'm painting behind the refrigerator; changing the color from green to lighter green.

The fridge has been in the middle of the kitchen for a couple of days.

I'm also painting behind the washer and dryer, which are sitting in the eating area.

(This was the other original house color I liked - it was a khaki color.  I might have left it alone, except the walls were filled with nail holes and scuff marks.)

A view from the laundry closet looking to the kitchen - all the laundry room stuff is pulled out.

There has been stuff stacked in the kitchen since we first got here - not sure yet where in the house it will end up, so it's stayed in the corner.

This corner of the living room has increasingly filled with stuff that is yet homeless.  My son needed somewhere to store bulky sweaters and coats (at home) so I bought him a white storage bench.  The guy I bought the bench from on craigslist (cheap, of course!) was selling two as a pair.  So we brought the other here.  It's probably going to end up in a closet, but the closet it's going in is full of stuff and I can't get it in just yet.  So it's sat in the living room.

Every corner seems to have homeless stuff and tools, paint, etc. filling it.

This is the entryway that is still waiting to have its walls refaced.  I still haven't been able to find anybody!  I just want to get. this. done!

Here's the corner of my son's bedroom; pillows and rugs we aren't ready to put out yet.

The desk where my son's been doing Zoom school is filled with books, lamp shades and wall art that hasn't been hung.

My son's closet is currently lamp storage.

My son's bedroom is also the repository for entryway closet doors.

A few weeks ago I sanded the hall bathroom vanity so I could paint it.  But the bathroom walls are waiting to be fixed first (there's a huge hole in the wall you can't see on the other side.)  I want to paint the vanity AFTER the walls, so this bathroom's still a mess.

My husband's office is currently storing some blankets and pillows we were given for free, but I haven't decided if I'll be using yet.

I bought a different table for my husband to use as his work area, but we haven't set it up yet, so he's still got a kitchen table in this bedroom.  (He works from home, so the office is vital.)

This bedroom closet's full of house accessories, cleaning supplies, etc.  It's the only closet I didn't paint the floor molding of when I did the room, so I still need to do it.

The lavender bedroom (I just love this color) became our cat's new space when we were here the week we got 7" of snow (and had below freeing temperatures).  He'd been staying outside in the "beach house" before, but since we moved him inside he's decided he likes it.  Storing stuff in there too.

Since the cat got upgraded to this room, we decided not to set the bed up just yet.  It's still sitting in the downstairs kitchen.

The master bathroom, awaiting the highly anticipated return of the plumber...

This bedside table's been waiting for my husband to add casters to it.  (So I can start using it and move my current table - an outdoor plant stand - outside.)  My husband brought casters on his last trip but they were the wrong size.

So that was a lot, but maybe it helps explain why I keep telling everyone "the house is almost done."  And it's definitely not ready for visitors yet, as much as we'd like it to be.

I spend most of my work time painting; I've got a million little projects to work on and organize when I'm done.

While we're closer to the finish line than we've ever been, the house is probably more disorganized than it's ever been as well.  

Little by little, it's getting there!