I Think Everyone Has It Out for the Groundhog, Even Us Vegetarians

Monday:

Snowing yet again!  I think possibly an inch has accumulated thus far.

Even though we turned off the heat in the house yesterday, I am amazingly warm.  I have a fire going in a wood-burning stove.  That used to be our single source of heat.  The reason for turning off the heat is that we are in the process of putting down coats of varnish on the barn wood floor we just laid.  The smell is bad enough without vents distributing it throughout the house.  A nice Spring day with windows wide open would have been the ideal situation.  Phil told me it would be so, but Phil lied.

On the bright side when Spring does finally arrive we will move outdoors for our projects, that greenhouse that we started last year, the gardening, our hiking trails, and the continuous lawn upkeep.  In the meantime low temperatures and snow keep us indoors to complete our latest indoor adventure.

Our projects are far from perfect.  We always start out with grand ideas, but it’s not long before I’m making all kinds of compromises.  Usually the end effect is homey, and definitely eclectic, but mostly the end of a project comes with the elation of getting the house all picked up of the dust and construction clutter, not to mention all the other stuff we have had to crowd in other rooms throughout the house, and our house is small.  We basically have no storage.  My belief is that if you don’t use something on at least a semi-regular basis, you don’t need it.  What little storage we have is for seasonal items.

We always seem to be working under some time constraint, while getting behind in other chores.  Hopefully, the baseboards will go up tonight.  The large ones are planed.  Then there is the ceiling and window we need to fix – saving that for a later time.

I just discovered the HGTV app.  We don’t have television service so didn’t know we could watch this.  Like cartoons are make-believe for children, HGTV is the make-believe world for adults.  They both give one the false impression that you can do unrealistic things, for example, liking transforming a room completely in a weekend on a limited budget.  I’m not so sure I need to watch this though because I’m already too addicted to do-it-yourself house projects.  You already know you have a problem when you are in either Home Depot or Lowe’s when the doors first open, and they recognize you.  Possibly we should pitch an idea for our own program.  There has to be others out there like us.

Once again, hi ho, hi ho, it’s back to work I go.

Tuesday:

We woke up to snow on the ground.  My husband had built fires in both wood burning stoves so it was nice and warm.  We are still working on the baseboards.  But fortunately the smell is gone and the heat is back on.  Snow flurries continued all day but melted upon touching the ground.  We were able to move some exercise equipment into the room on Tuesday night.  That was an exercise in itself.  There is still more varnishing to do and some touch ups here and there, but that will have to wait as we are expecting my daughter, son-in-law and grandson in for Easter weekend.

Wednesday:

I’ve been working all day on the construction clean up.  Saw dust will probably fall out of things for awhile.  I’m even beginning to clean closets.  The sun has been out.  It was even looking like Spring for awhile, then some more snow flurries made a brief appearance.  Maybe this time we’ll actually use the exercise equipment we have been moving from room to room.  I need to build up some muscles as my “hi ho” has been wearing down.  The front porch swing and hammock have been calling my name.

Someone brought up affordability of remodeling projects.  What we have done thus far with the room cost just a tad over $100.  That was mainly stucco or drywall compound, which I was using to do the stucco, paint, nails, a saw blade and varnish.  We also were able to do hallway walls as well.  It was our good fortune that the barn wood was given to us.  If that hadn’t been the case, the project would have never taken place.