Tag Archives: painting

Homestead Update

In other life, I am done with the major painting of the interior, still have touch ups to do and certain access areas.

We got the prefab (cheap) 10′ counter and sink installed last week in the kitchen. Still have to hook up to the drain on that.

Because we don’t have real cabinets I am having to do the curtain thing around the bottom –ugh– but Hey! ya do what ya gotta do. Having a working sink in the kitchen it worth it!

The main room floor is still not painted and it doesn’t look like that will happen this summer either. We have made a lot of head way towards living there more full time this winter though.

I will be there a lot, without the computer for at least the first few months, so that isn’t something I look forward too on that level, but again, it’s what has to happen to move things along.

Any way..sorry it took so long to post. I am just fried and tired and hormonal and busy.

9th Anniversary

It’s been so long since I posted.. don’t know where to begin!
Guess I will go backwards, as it is freshest in my mind 🙂

We had our 9th wedding anniversary on July 27, we have been together 13+ years though. Nice dinner at local Mateel Cafe with Russel’s sister Carol who is visiting from South Carolina.

The day (Monday 26) before our anniversary, part of my front tooth broke off! Yikes.. it was easier to deal with (fill) than I thought it would be. Helps if you just don’t leave the dentist office until it’s fixed *lol*. The 28th I had a dental cleaning..oh joy..2 mornings spent in the dentist office.

Meanwhile, we are trying to entertain Carol, which mostly amounts to eating out, and it’s been 100 degrees here for a least a couple of weeks.

We are still working hard at the house, and believe it or not, I am still painting! Down to 1 room, the living area, I am working on the catherdral ceiling with a light yellow paint. Threw my back/hip/sciatic out on Saturday, was down with that for a few days.

Managed to finally have a visit with friend Pam too.

The week before this we went to Eureka to pick up out Toyota truck which had been in the shop for 1 week getting a new engine (we got to drive a new 2004 Jeep suv..pretty nice ride). We actually took it to the bay for yet again another VA appointment for Russel who finally got a broncostmy… which still shows nothing to point to all the pain/congestion and need for steroid inhalers to hold that at bay. I will talk more about that trip another time..just too much to say.

I have more but gotta go help Russel with the upcoming Reggae on the River Aikido Burrito booth scheduling fiasco…more about that later too.

Lois Lane..

I remember a line in one of the first Superman movies, where after Clark took away her memory, she comes into work and asks “What’s happening in the world?” There’s a feeling I get from that line, not that I am not aware of what’s happening in the world, but that my life has been so busy and full, that I sometimes wonder just where I am at.

That said, still trying to learn my way around my new computer system, see Zippadeedodah!. Going to load Mozilla this week end, need to hook up the new Canon i960 printer and the new Canon LiDE 80 scanner.
I haven’t even transferred the email or favorites as I want to wade through a lot of stuff and keep it off this machine.

We just got back from the bay (SF-VA) again seeing Russel’s doctor. He gave us a sort of diagnosis, it still is not a for sure.

“Eosinophilic bronchitis is a recently described syndrome. Subjects with eosinophilic bronchitis have cough with eosinophilic airway inflammation characteristic of that seen in asthma; however, these patients have normal lung function, negative methacholine challenges, and no evidence of variable airflow obstruction. The cough in this condition responds nicely to inhaled corticosteroids.”

We need to do more research on this, but at least at this point he feels a lot better and hasn’t taken pain killers for 3 weeks. The chest congestion is still there and the inhalers make his voice sound hoarse and weird.

The Garberville farmers market started today, to my surprise.. but i am glad. The Catching Cactus and Succulent folks were there once again with just wonderful displays. Next week I will take my camera and try to get better shots than i did last year.

We are working on the house, more painting, I will scan new colors when i get the new scanner hooked up. I hope to put the garden in next weekend. We are having some problems with all aspects of our water system which has Russel stressed, we will get it fixed, it’s all just part of homesteading.

Spring Cleaning

I mentioned here about getting a new computer. It has been ordered but not built yet. Which is a good thing in a way, see the small (tiny) town house we live in is filled to the max and one 15′ wall is an assortment of shelves with tapes,books,cds, misc junk, pictures, baskets etc… well the whole thing has to come down and be reformed to fit a small computer desk in the back corner so this old computer can go there for Russel to use, and I can use it for testing sites and such.

Any way almost some of every day in the last week has been spent unloading shelves and vacumning (ugh… places that haven’t seen the light of day in 8-10 years!). To do this also meant that the house on the land needed to have certain areas painted so that storage out there could start with a clean slate so to speak.

We ended up buying a 6′ x4′ chrome rack for some hallway storage at the land, after I spent hours looking for some kind of pre-fab pantry or closet unit I could use in this particular place. There is really nothing like what I wanted out there at a price I was will to spend.

Yesterday I finally started to put things back in place in town. I have several tubs full of stuff yet that was intended to come back in here, but I am having my doubts as too just what will fit and leave room for future storage needs..now that I am getting a cd burner… I will have lots more of those!!

Tomorrow we go to Eureka again, lots of little errands. The greenhouse is coming together, out garden beds have been built but not planted. We transplanted into a larger pot one of 6 peach trees, only 5 to go 🙂

I have a friend talking to me about the wonders of XanG0, as a cure all for most that ails ya. It’s expensive, but maybe worth it. I am still thinking about it.

On another note, the last round of Prednisone that Russel used, along with 3 different inhalers, seems to have knocked the severe pain out of his chest. He still feels a slight congestion feeling there, and the cough is getting better with the inhalers, so that is a good thing. He has been much more his good ole self the last week or so. It’s really nice to not have him in agony all the time.
But I feel it is just symptoms that have been repressed and we still know nothing about the cause or how to really cure it.

Watched a feel good movie and had a good laugh Something’s Gotta Give. Especially could relate to the glasses things.. I hate that I can’t see what I used to be able too!

My House is my Palette

To change my mindset a bit, I have been painting, very slowly, section by section, in the house. I think I mentioned the bathroom blue we did this summer.

There’s a narrow hallway between the bedroom and bath, in front of the utility closet, this was painted the very bright chilled lemonaide. And the wall extending from the bedroom past the hallway got to be perennial sweetpea! (check out the floor plan)

The lid (ceiling) in this hallway is:

As this is the only area of the house that can take deep dark bright colors, I went a bit wild. Being off the grid, we need to use as much sunlight as possible to brighten the rooms, so the whole front of the house will be a very light color to reflect the sun and add light.

The yellow wall will have a pantry/storage unit on one side and textiles or wall art of some kind on the other, so you won’t be hit with so much of a bright thing.

The purple/periwinkle wall is very short, will have wall art as well as either a chest of drawers/ book shelves, or some kind of storage there too.

Any way, it is fun, finally being able to just do what i want.. Russel is being very agreeable about it, even though he personally likes more muted (dull) tones.

Year of the Monkey

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Google even recognized it!

The last Monkey year was 1992, I remember it well.
I do hope for Russel and I that this one goes a bit smoother.

Waves HI! to a special Monkey person 🙂

Chinese Astrology is fascinating to me, as is what we know as regular Astrology. There is a ton of info on the web, I would type up what my books say, but Hey.. I am not that great or fast a typist 🙂

To celebrate the New Year, we did a bit of work on our house. We added shelving to a closet, so now it can really be put to use. And I bought a gallon of YELLOW semi-gloss paint for the back hallway. It’s bright and deep color, no pastels here, but I think I will love it once I get it on the walls, that’s the plan on Saturday.

Bathroom – finally water!

This is the color we painted the bathroom.

I don’t think the computer/camera gets it quite right, it seems to be a brighter bluer blue in real life.

This is the vanity we quickly got on Friday.. i do like the maple and mission style of it.

The faucet we bought is chrome, with toggle handles, not knobs. Very simple, with a curved spout.

The hot water heater and propane tanks are set in place and and hooked up, the vanity is going into place as i write this, then they will run water into the house and HOPEFULLY there will be no leaks and all will be good to go!

Amazing, after all these years of working on the house that we will finally have a fully functional bathroom!

Hot showers/flush toilet/an indoor sink!!! Oh my… i may be spending lots more time out there now. If only we could get a power system in place that would accommodate my computer habits, we could move.

Painting Again

I mentioned in this post about some colors we used to paint the shed. Here’s the picture:

The closet became multi-colored, and it is a very bad paint job .. but here are the colors:

I also used the ‘too pink to be mauve’ color on the top of the lid of the closet in the now bedroom… to create a ‘rose-glow’ of reflected light. Worked rather well, will be especially nice when the cream/apricot color is applied to the ceiling.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt