Evolution

DISCLAIMER: No Neaderthals were harmed in the making of this blog post.

SIDE NOTE: This story is much more impressive if you click on the photographs to enlarge them.

Once upon a time, a Brilliant, Beautiful, and Extremely Young Lady
(hyperbole perhaps?)
discovered a diamond in the rough

at her favorite furniture store in town.
It had a seriously BAD paint (an unbelievable peach/cream color) job,
and the most Hideous 70s Floral Fabric you ever saw.

It was only $20.00.

However, the B.B.a.E.Y. lady's hubbers assured her that she got ripped off.
For shame!

Not being afraid of a little hard work

(unless it involves cooking, ironing, landscaping, childcare, vomit, etc.),

B.B.a.E.Y. lady set to work prying off old rusty nails and staples

(not up-to-date on tetnus shot! Yay!)

and peeling back layers of fabric.

As in, layerS plural.

First there was the Hideous Floral Fabric.

And then there was the Non-Descript Boring Upholstery Fabric.

And then there was the Dusty Faded Stained Damask Fabric,

complete with mouse poo.

And low and behold, there was even masking tape holding the split base together.

Ingenious!

But oh, those chair legs which were one of the main attractions of the chair in the first place.

Ironically similar to the hubber's attraction to the B.B.a.E.Y. lady's legs in the first place.

So there.

And who wouldn't want to hold hands with this??

As excavation continued, it was discovered that the original cushion was stuffed with horse hair.

And one lone button.

First, there was the skanky bottom cushion

(side note: in his defense, this was how the chair looked when hubbers first saw it).

And then it was gone.

Stripped down to the wooden frame and the metal ummm....supports?

But through it all, the icky paint job remained.

Until...

...along came the wonders of stripping (no, no! not me silly!)

with CitriStrip ($10.99)!

And, oh, you never saw paint come off so easily.

And so non-smellily (don't spell-check that one).

A second coat of this miracle solvent also took off more of the original stain.

And then it was sand-y, sand-y, sand-y down to this final glory.

And hubbers was still pretty unimpressed and mentioned things like:

The Marvels of Buying Brand New Furniture

and

Lead Paint Removal Giving Us Future Children With Three Heads.

Don't get your hopes up grandparents:

NO MORE GRANDCHILDREN THREE-HEADED OR OTHERWISE.

Which all culminated this past Saturday with a

Stain, Polyeurothane and Re-Upholstering Extravaganza!

In doing some re-upholstery research

(since B.B.a.E.Y. lady had never done this type of thing before),

it turns out that horse hair is one of the best stuffings for chair cushions.

Now while the bottom cushion just seemed too, too disgusting to re-use

(although several websites suggested washing and re-using it),

it was decided that the back cushion would remain as is.

With horse hair exploding out of the top.

Thankfully, with the aid of her trusty staple gun,

a little felt here,

a little foam there (two pieces for $12.99 each)

and two yards of fabric in a great trellis pattern

(at $9.99/yard)

led to...

Voila!

A masterpiece!

I do believe hubbers owes B.B.a.E.Y. lady a $20.00 dinner.

At which he will be eating crow.

Winterberry

Took this one a few weeks ago before all the snow.

And Then There's This Suspicious Character

Flip F. D. Bull

(never trust a man riding a bull and wearing a grin)

[Edited to add disclaimer: the rider pictured above wants you to know that his middle initials do not stand for curse words. Just say his name fast and you'll figure it out. Or not. And then we'll all know about your Secret Cursing Side, too.]

Look For These Characters at the Post Office

Jack O. Lantern

You won't find him eating soup this week.

(the Tooth Fairy is accepting tax-deductable financial contributions)

Slim Cooley
The meanest gun slinger west of the Yadkin River.
(on his way to the rodeo with his daddy)

You Know Who You Are

All right everyone.

Raise your hand if having snow on the ground makes you lazier. As in, wear-your-pajamas-all-day-read-a-book-and-read-blogs-and-don't-clean-the-house-and-have-your-hubbers-cook-dinner L.A.Z.Y.

(looking around, looking around)

Ah yes. That would be me.

Winter Weekend, Take Two

This is probably the last gumball hanging on the tree.

The other 5, 295, 942 are down in the yard.

Alan and Matthew made this sign this summer to Matthew's specifications.

Long story.

We are officially named.

Sled left outside. Now full of ice.

Too much sleet for sledding today.

Rats.

We'll just have to stay inside and eat Oreos.

We have two of these prickly bushes right outside our bedroom windows
which is a great break-in deterrent as they are S.H.A.R.P.
Now I'm finding these bushes all over the place in the woods.
They have pretty purple grape-y berries in the spring.


What the heck kind of tree is it that has
these pale leaves clinging on throughout the winter?

My poor Camillia.

All these blooms just didn't make it.

Snow Math

Even if we haven't left the house since Friday and the kids will have had three days off of school, don't think we haven't been keeping our brains sharp with some math facts:

3953 lego pieces + 2 boys = 1 unnavigable living room

2 days of snow + 536 unplowed roads = 2 canceled dinner dates

1 bored little boy + 1 can of play-dough + one sniffy dog = 3 hot pink dog turds

1 impulsive hubbers + 1 grocery store = 2 bags of potato chips, 1 can of beef jerky, 1 carton of ice cream, 1 chocolate cake, 1 giant box of pancake mix, 3 boxes of Hamburger Helper...

4 days at home + 1 Lazy Mama = 4 afternoon naps

0 days of work + 0 good cable channels = 38 movies/shows watched on the internet

9 therapy notes to write + 3 evals to write + 1 Rebellious Mama = 2 fun novels read

23 trips down the hill + 1 sled + 2 little boys = 1 Aching Mama

1 snow-plowed-over driveway + 1 squeamish mail carrier = 1 day without receiving mail

1 Snacky Mama + 5 different kinds of junk food = untold extra pounds

27 articles of clothing x (2 little boys + 1 Mama + 1 Daddy) x 13 trips outside = a daily load to throw in the dryer

all of the above + sweet family = good times over the past week

Inspiration!

Confession Time: While I know a lot of my friends and/or family are about to go Stir Crazy from being cooped up in the house from the snow, I am LOVING it. I am such, such a homebody. Alan brought me out of that a bit when we were dating. We went out and did all kinds of things all the time. He is so his sweet little mama. But bless his heart, his wife has officially reverted back to her old stay-at-home ways. Staying in with my precious family and making hot chocolate and going sledding and working on puzzles and eating my weight in potato chips has just soothed my soul over the past few days. And I have to say, my kids have been such a delight to be with. We have had minimal arguing and whining, and I think we are truly enjoying being together. And then there's the dog who so obediently makes yellow and brown snow. It's all good.

Anyway, I have had plenty of time to catch up on one of my newest, favorite-est blogs, and I am feeling fully inspired to re-do our entire home. Unfortunately, my pocketbook (or, as Alan says, "handbag"...who on earth calls a purse a "handbag" these days???) does not agree to similar aspirations. Anyway, the chickadee who writes this blog is so incredibly ingenious, and I just want to tuck her in my pocket and let her wisdom just flow on out whenever I need it. In other words, she would be my Beck-and-Call-Girl, only, not in a "Pretty Woman" kind of way.

So, embarrassingly enough, I am including two pictures in today's post of one of the three windows in our master bedroom. You might even notice that the right bracket is coming out of the wall, and so the panels are barely hanging in there. Artistic, yes?

I re-did our bedroom a couple of years ago, stripping wallpaper and painting and de-popcorning the ceiling and purchasing new linens, etc. However, I felt totally uninspired for the windows. And thus, two and half years later, we still have a lovely combination of mini-blinds and lined panels that we had up previously with the old blue bedroom decor [side note: the decor that Ms. Genevieve Gorder herself referred to as "a melange...in kind of a bad way." Nothing like a nationally known designer saying that about your bedroom for millions of viewers across America...sigh]. What to do, what to do? Panels? Roman shades? Wood grain blinds? Ahh...the dilemmas of my life.

And then, as I was perusing through the archives of Wonder Blog, I stumbled upon this little tutorial!!!!! And I so can't wait to use some of my Snow Time Off in the next few days to give this a whirl! Stay tuned for the result of another Casey Recycling Project at it's best!