Busy Weekend, You?

As usual here at Vicktory Farm & Gardens we have been cramming a lot into our days. This week I went to town twice, once to do our regular shopping-Thursday thing adding Anna's first try at the written test for her permit, and then back on Friday for the second try at her test.

All that while trying to get the hall painted, so that I can put up a bookshelf around the top of the hall for all my children's books, so that I can get the book issue dwindled upstairs, so that I can....

Final look around here depends on so many steps we would need the help of a map.

We were also preparing for another Vicktory F & G style weekend party, celebrating February birthdays and gun enthusiasts on Saturday and then Bowlerama-mama on Sunday (today).


so in between reading the driver book from cover to cover Anna diligently did prep work (I hate painting prep work! Thanks Anna!) and did the undercoat of white on the hallway.

Given strict instructions to do a good job, she tackled it with due diligence and a good mood. Something I sure as heck have been lacking lately! She wants me to be sure and tell you that those are sunglasses. And that she has them on so

she doesn't get splatters of paint in her eyes. Smart girl, I just always let my contacts catch the splatters, not so nice feeling.

She is demonstrating how she rolled the walls, for the walls you don't need the sunglasses so much.

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And yes, what you see is us, well Anna actually, but I instigate, painting what used to be wood paneling. When we first moved to this house Dale nicely didn't complain too much when I painted the walls. Every wall in this house was covered by dark wood, light-absorbing, depression causing panelling. Hey, I like wood products, don't get me wrong but as a mood enhancer, dark wood walls fail miserably! (I just noticed that I spelled panelling two different ways and spell check didn't say one was wrong, that can't be right, but I'm skipping research on which is what and so there you have it, two ways to spell paneling, one probably has to do with doing it and the other with being it) (Nope, that isn't it. ((couldn't stand it, had to look it up)) Both are acceptable the double "l" second and mostly British, so there you go, in the future I'll use both interchangeably and drive you just a little nuttier with my writing Dear Reader. Aren't you excited!)

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When I first started painting I thought I was too poor to do anything but paint the surface, already people told me that that wouldn't work, let alone trying to change it. But then I got brave.

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Surface experiments and color (mis-mixes!) all began to happen at the same time. My beige mother (she was married to you-know-who Mike) had passed away and I felt like I could face the disapproval of just one face and so I began to experiment. A lot of interesting things have been done in those fifteen years.

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But here we are in the hallway and I'm not really into either putting on a smooth coat, filling in the panel grooves, like in the living room. Or taking down the paneling and dealing with the old board underneath like in the kitchen (I don't think the same walls are behind this panelling) or doing my messy crazy plaster smear like in the dining room and my new bedroom.

We have something slightly simpler (well that was the idea anyway, I'll let you know when I am done just how simple it really is) in mind for the hallway. So Anna is getting the base coat on and then on Saturday just before company arrived I began an interesting paint job.

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For now I'll just call it "a study in green". And it incorporates the "stripes" of the paneling. My company arrive before I got far enough to share with you how it is coming together and I put all my toys away. So hopefully we will be all over the rest of it in the morning. Dirt has the day off, yay Presidents' Day! and so we can get a lot done tomorrow and hopefully even finish!

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So have a good night Dear Reader hope you wake to a wonderful view of the world and God's heart in the morning.

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I'm working on improving my mood, really struggled this week and weekend even though I was totally in my element, so I have a call into the neurologist to get see about getting this stupid-nothing-pain under control. Wouldn't mind so much if the pain had a legit origin, like my bad bowling form (I'll tell you about Bowlerama-mama later this week, what a blast!) but this stupid numbness and pain without a known source?! It doesn't make it better just 'cause it has a cool name that Mike likes to say. It doesn't make keeping a nice spirit a very easy thing, but then I guess that keeping a nice spirit wouldn't be a spiritual discipline if it was easy eh?

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Okay, whining over. I'll try and keep you posted on all those loose strings I just threw out there not to mention update you on all the garden stuff that I haven't told you about. Oops another loose string, my favorite thing I guess.

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Too-tells.

Up In The Middle of the Night

This use to be typical of me but not for a long while now. So I don't really know what to do with myself. I could do all my Ol' Befana baking but since my girls aren't little any more no need to do that in the middle of the night. It would require me putting my contacts back in and committing to staying up. Not sure I want to do either. I'm really hoping that not unlike reading my Horticulture magazine at ten-thirty and then eleven-thirty that I will just get tired again and go back to sleep, but as you can see I'm not doing so hot on staying asleep.

Tomorrow the girls and I tackle the upstairs, my sewing room/office and contemplative perch and their room. It is crazy messy up there. Because I no longer use the dinosaur computer up there and haven't had a huge urge to sew it has become the dump and run room. Come on, you know what I am talking about, either you personally or because you know someone like me intimately you know we have rooms or some folks contain it to a closet where things that you do not desire to deal with at the moment they find themselves in your hand go until you are ready to deal with them. In this case stuff has been being exiled up there since July when I did a grand cleaning, sort of, and before that we could date some stash I hadn't gotten to in July back to oh just shy of a year ago. I am positive there are no lost children, dead pets or rotting fruit up there but beyond that don't push it.

But the whole Farm and Garden by the moon phases and the zodiac thing has today, oops that'd be yesterday(Monday) , and the real today (Tuesday) and Wednesday as great days for weeding, barren signs in the sky, and so I extrapolate to the household, a great few days to weed indoors too. Which I think is a good use of a weeding day as today, oops, Monday, it was impossible to go outside even in rain gear I fear. One of those visibility zero because of the precip streaming down your face and in your eyes sort of day. Can't imagine that tomorrow is going to prove any better.

My cheery, isn't the whole world wonderful and dreamy, daughter, stood at the window several times today saying how she just loved the rain like this. Her sister and I would have contemplated the dismemberment of her body if we were those type of people, which give us a few more days of this and we might be. The down spouts, every single one of them, look like someone is up at the top of them with a hose on full blast. The barn roof, no gutters on it, was delivering a solid sheet of water for the majority of the day. Consequently what doesn't know how to swim on the Farm right now is getting a quick lesson and even the ducks have gotten out their umbrellas and hip waders.

I toyed with the idea of weeding a few beds, this being the first day of the best days for that sort of thing according to the zodiac and moon, but I decided the signs pouring out of the sky this morning, as we all looked out my huge new window, certainly held other prospects as being more profitable. But I really wasn't up for much so nothing but a lot of general tidying got done. Which considering that my toss and go room has become a teetering wall of what-not it is a good thing that I dealt with all those random things on the main level of the house that found their way into my hand today. But man, that takes a long time.

By the way, I'm not feeling very tired yet. I take that back tired yes, very, sleepy on the other hand, not so much and not the type that I am certain will keep me asleep for more than an hour before my eyes fly open and I find myself twiddling my thumbs, at least I think they are my thumbs in the dark.

I'd like to swear. But I won't, it doesn't look pretty on the screen, not that my regular words do, it is just that random or purposeful even, swearing doesn't look very pretty, sures heck isn't very uplifting, okay again, not that this is but lets not have the Lanny P. in the gutter completely shall we. But I do feel a swearing hanging just below the surface, a big one, a flippant one followed by a truly cranky one. Unfortunately I have no idea who I would aim it at.

Well sort of I don't know who and sort of I do. Dumb pusillanimous people in this world who don't ascribe to my way of thinking, that would be a starting target. Then mean people, stupid mean people, next target. Then careless people, ridiculously careless, "do you know you have feet even" people, I could have a good go at them I suppose. And then the foolish people, destroy their own lives and souls while destroying and hurting others in the process, foolish, foolish people.

But if I start swearing at them, I think that wouldn't be good enough, I would have to start throwing things at them. And I don't have a lot of nice breakable things that I could just run out and replace tomorrow.

So they (all those crummy people I mentioned) would win this battle, they would have control of my mouth and they would have destroyed my few little pretties in my house and they would not really have suffered a whit. Most of them are in bed and wouldn't even hear it all. And those that aren't in bed and are still out at the bars wouldn't hear because the music is too loud anyway.

So I won't swear at them. What I ought to do is pray for them. But me and zillions others like me for thousands of years have been praying for those yo-yos and they still just keep a coming, some one still keeps reproducing them. And they still continue to mess with good folks.

Folks that just want to live a decent life and take care of others. Folks that don't need to morn their father at the ripe age of sixteen. Folks that just want to drive the car from work to the store to home, safely and quietly and non-excitedly. Folks that just want to produce something that someone else might need. Folks that want to teach others how to do something useful.

Ya know, a big part of me hopes that the 2012 folks are right, because no amount of any earthy goodies and fun stuff compares with being in the constant up close and personal eternal presence of my God, and sure as shoot it would be nice to be done with the stuff I sorta wanna swear at.

Tomorrow, well Tuesday really and my computer calendar says that that is today, will be a more productive day for Vicktory Farm & Gardens, not necessarily brighter, as this area will be holding another memorial, but hopefully more productive.

Not much more to say Dear Reader, finding it hard to do my usual uplifting God focused adieus, so maybe just a reminder that God is everywhere and holds everything including our bodies together, He is the glue whether we acknowledge Him or not. He is, no matter what we think of Him. But it certainly would behoove us, for our sake, not His or anyone else, if we began to give Him more credence in our lives. In the whole of our lives not just in our desperate panic prayers when things seem to be going terribly a wry, or on Sunday when we get up, get dressed and toddle off to church so we can mark it off our good for you to-do list. He is the glue and the glue is there all the time.

I'm going to take another whack at sleeping. Hope I didn't leave to many errors for you to slog through, but a sleep cycle hit while I started to go through and correct and I am going to take advantage of it. Good night - or really good morning - Dear Reader.

The Bedroom Story, Part One

Well, here's the hole that started it all. It all began with the bed actually, but right now it is just a big brown uninteresting box. So the hole will get top billing for now. The hole and the termites that ate the hole, nice square job they did eh? (That was really Dirt's handi-work.)

This is the type of stuff that freaks out my silly over-reactive nodes, they're so much like me, over-reactive that is.

Boards just hanging out, being bored, waiting to be reused and used. Not everything got hauled out as planned but the girls appreciated the stereo being left in the room.

It kept them entertained while they pulled the wall paper off the wall to expose more paper. I'm a corner cutter, and would have just plastered over the wall paper but when I heard it peeled easily I figured they should peel it and I'll plaster on the paper I used to decrease the paneling lines on the upper part of the wall over twenty years ago.

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I know, everyone is going to say that I should strip things and do this and do that, butcha know, I was told that the wallpaper and even the paint wouldn't adhere to the paneling twenty years ago. I would have had a different color scheme years ago if it would have only peeled or flaked or something. So for a person who loves change, I like to live dangerously.

Here's the original window with the window taken out. A nice typical bedroom sized window.

Anna helped her dad measure and draw the cutting lines for the new window. A new window could be extravagant, but I found it on Craig's list for a relative song, it is a really nice Penguin window, and will afford quite a view of the yard and gardens from the bed. No need to pull up a chair, the head of the bed is a mere eleven feet from the window. The foot of the bed, just inches.

Dirt will be installing a baseboard heater just under the window. I like baseboard heat. I don't care for the blowy noisy-ness of most force air heaters or furnaces. And with my asthma issues (and now obviously my lymph seems to want to complain a little too) one of the worst triggers is house dust and mites (uck) and forced air heat is a contributor to the problem.

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Besides that, our furnace never worked well into other parts of the house and Dirt had to crawl under the house and redo the soft duct work. Our cats were often blamed, but I'm thinking that the possums that Martin has pulled out from under the house also liked to rip into the ducting and enjoy the heat, not to mention the mice and other rodentia that crawl under my house with abandon ( I hear them all the time, skritch, skritch, skritch).

Ah, here is the new window! And even better, here is the help to put in the window! Our friends from up north have impeccable timing to show up for work and for that Dirt and I are incredibly thankful.

It took the three Coulter men, Dirt and a bit of help from Bet on the inside to put the window in the hole. I have no idea how Dirt, sicky me, Anna and Bet would have gotten that hurkin' thing in.

It pays to have tall friends, and friends willing to play huggy to rose bushes (I told them they could cut it down), you can't really see Trevor in behind the rose arbor or Mark being eaten by the climbing clinging rose, that's Justin on the ladder getting tapped on the arm by the rose, and looky there, Dirt, and no rose thorns in his side!

And here are the spectators. Becky and I sittin' on the Lilac Bench watching the window installment. (I'm the one in the mask.) I appreciate good company sittin' on my favorite bench with me on a bright sunny day. We are both happy to have the chance to soak up some pre-winter sun.

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This all went down on Sunday and now it is Tuesday evening, I still wear the mask most of the time, even when I am not in that end of the house. It helps with the asthma, I forget how much more comfortable I am with them on than without them wheezing most of the time.

After lunch break and a little football, we took our precious company out back to Dale's pond to see how the mountain was getting along. It looked pretty in soft pink and all snowy. Anna was ready to head to the mountain and play in the snow. Daddy better have his big truck ready for some Saturday afternoons in the snow.

I should have packed the tripod with me as the light level was low enough that it was hard to hold still for nice crisp shots. But I enjoyed being out shooting pictures again.

One of my favorite things about autumn is the evening, with the fog that forms on the ponds and the way the sunset catches it. After taking in all the pretty sky we could, we all headed back to the house for Anna's Green Tomato Spice cake from the last of this year's green tomatoes. We topped off the cake with our homemade caramel sauce and some delightful home made hazel nut whipped cream, had a little bit of coffee, watched some of the Philly's and NY game and then reluctantly said good bye to our northern friends, those positively amazing Coulters.

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I hope you had a good weekend and are in the middle of a terrific week, Dear Reader. Things are just looking plain old terrific here at Victory Farm and Gardens because as a very dear friend shared with us this week:

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The Lord your God is in your midst,

a mighty one who will save;

he will rejoice over you with gladness;

he will quiet you by his love;

he will exult over you with loud singing.

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Zephaniah 3:17:

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It matters not who you are or what you situation is God is in your midst.

Ad Addendem

Please note Dear Reader, that in the post where I exposed my fond desire for a Dear Grandmamma, I did my best to point out that it isn't just Dirt that is in need of extra care. I am most likely the household's largest slob and project spreader-outter. It is just that when you add the dear man to the full day daily mix it does indeed get deep around here.

I'm not a very good conventional wife, I like to lift heavy objects and I like to do it out-of-doors. This has never been a complete disappointment to Dirt as he has all along appreciated that I desire to give a hand and flat out be the one to do some of the out-of-doors tasks. And that I am fairly capable of dealing with weights of more than five pounds without having to call him over or crush something in the process is a big plus in his world. So what if he has to eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner sometimes? Although a steady diet of such is rather a bummer, I actually am the first to tire of not having "normal" suppers like my mom always had. Oh wait, I'm the mom now.

He says he married me for my .. let's call them sturdy yet shapely.. thick ankles and my mom's apple pie. He has repeated that and never wavered. He says that when he saw my ankles he knew I would never go lame. (He has skinny wimpy ankles and has "gone lame" often.)

The only problem with his reasons was that he made an assumption that if the mother could cook (and enjoyed it, day in, day out, morning, noon and evening) so did the daughter, ooops. My mother was nearly dead before I could roll a pie crust and get it to the pan, and so was I with the frustration of trying. I became very fond of cake. And I am certainly fond of cooking, at times horrifyingly passionate even, but the key is "at times." If I am consistent in anything, it is my inconsistancy. There isn't even any rhyme let alone reason to my inconsistent moods.

Oh, I cook when I don't feel like it. I'm not saying I am such a dud that I won't. The food from those moments is however perhaps two components away from making a good pesticide. It sure as heck is at the very least "just food" at that point and not life-sustaining love in the form of a culinary delight.

Outside is where I wanna be. I do not however, do anything mechanical any more, well obviously mechanical or at least maintainence on the car. (The word maintainance could be the dead give away, maintainence is not a project.) It is why I married a mechanic. Well that and the fact that my dad was a mechanic.

So actually, if our Dear Grandmamma could please add changing oil, filling window cleaner dispensers and a myriad of other car maintanence sorta stuff that I'd prefer to block from my brain, I am sure Dirt would appreciate that also. It would free him up to learn to make apple pie before the last of his girls leave.