August!

It’s been a busy month since I got home from my micro-vacation. Way too much going on and barely time to breathe, let alone write on the blog. Right now I am working on preparations for BATTLEMOOR!

I’ve been repairing clothes and starting some new Viking pants for Dan. These are brown linen and should be much cooler than his flannels. I’m hoping to make some Beledi Dance clothes for me. I’ve got fabric for two pairs of sarouelles. (baggy pants) I’m using Folkwear Pattern #119.   I’m also making a couple of tunics for one of the Battlemoor crew.

I’ve had lots of meetings, work in the garden, and trips to Pueblo. My mom has had cataract surgery, my nephew moved out, and it’s rained!!!! We also discovered part of the reason that our garden hasn’t done as well this year. Deer. They eat down all the new shoots. sigh…

The school district is trying to get a Mill Levy Overide to provide more money for the schools as well. Tonight there is a drum clinic at Washington school. Dan is doing the sound work. I’m just going to go deaf. 🙂

Back to sewing!

A busy summer so far

We’ve been doing a lot of gardening between the two houses. It has been very hard to bring back the yard at 203. Pruning, digging, planting, digging, mowing, digging. You get the picture. I’ll post pics when I have a bit more done. We had some really windy days, and my rose trellis snapped. argh. I’ve sort of fixed it, but it needs totally redone, which won’t happen until the fall when I trim back the rose bush.

There’s been a lot of work as well. Dan has been doing a wiring job for the school district. I’ve been doing sewing. I’ve also repaired two chairs. Check it out!

Life has been busy with SCA meetings, SCA beledi dance and bobbin lace classes, School board stuff and the Huerfano RE-1 Schools Foundation. We are working on a mill levy overide to provide more money for our school district. In order to make it a bit more sustainable, we are setting up a foundation that can raise money any time for the schools. If you’d like to contribute, you can send a check to the Huerfano RE-1 Schools Foundation care of the Huerfano RE-1 School District, 201 E. 5th, Walsenburg, CO. 81089.

May hit like a Mac Truck!

I swear, one minute life was okay. Next… wow! I feel like I haven’t had a minute to breathe. Oh wait… yeah.. last Tuesday between meetings.

Since last I wrote, I’ve attended 8 or 10 meetings. School board, Celtic Music Fest, District Accountability, SCA, and a few others. Some of them, more than once.

We’ve had really cold weather. In fact, nearly a foot of snow.29April2

We had plunged back into winter.

Then, a few days later, it was cool, but more like Spring. On April 30, we attended Aarquelle’s Newcomer’s event in Pueblo West. I hauled out the warm SCA clothes we’d worn to Viking Vinter Vonderland. It was a great day and the after party at THL Generica’s was grand.

It snowed on May Day. The next day it was warm enough to work in the garden at 203. I removed trash, plastic under the dirt, trimmed various plants, lifted rocks, etc. Wore myself out! But… the yard was looking better. Silly me, I did it again the next day. I even got my nephew to help.

May 8th, Mother’s Day. We had fighter practice in Trinidad. 🙂 We even had a local cop stop by. He wanted to take pics and one with him in it. We obliged.

The next week was Hectic! Why? Well… because it was Spring Coronation! More on that in the next post.

A good weekend

We spent the night on Friday! It was lovely. We hope to do this more often.windowview

Saturday I worked on various projects upstairs while Dan continued to sort through stuff in his office. He was suppose to have a meeting, but it didn’t pan out. I’m starting to actually work on projects too! I’m switching printers with Dan so that I can use the scanner and copier to make patterns for various things.

Sunday I got a lot accomplished while Dan was off working the Tannahill Weaver concert in La Veta.

I started off the morning working on the guest room. Reorganizing the closet was first. It now is home to 8 tubbies of SCA gear, holiday tubbies, and odds and ends that I just don’t know what to do with at the moment. I put a few things up on Walsenburg Freecycle too. Then I moved tubbies to our room. Photos, family papers, etc. I organized the closet to hold things a bit better.

Tackling the desk and paperwork was next. I didn’t realize how disorganized I’d gotten during the crazy “box up everything and stuff it in storage” move a year ago. I sorted papers, threw things away and filed other papers in logical spots. I wrote up minutes, and updated a few websites as well.

Last of all, I refurbished three stools that were left her. I spray painted over nasty green paint and then tung oiled the tops. I think that they will look pretty good in the studio or library.

Where to start?

Okay. Weather or progress. Hmmm… Progress. Yesterday, we got all the cupboard doors on the cupboards! This was in spite of the fact that some of the hardware was missing, and that we had to buy some new hardware and juggle other bits. Then I got to put dishes away!!!! Yes, I’m a little enthusiastic. However, you have to understand that other than book boxes, kitchen boxes are the most numerous.

Today I continued to work on the kitchen. I pulled boxes out of the guest room and reorganized a bit. I even had empty boxes to put in the guest room! I pulled boxes from the living room as well, putting them where they belonged. I’m in the process of emptying the living room in order to paint it.

Now for the weather. We woke up this morning to about an inch of snow. Between making the bed and breakfast, the sky opened up and dumped six inches! By the time we headed over to the house it was eight. When we left the house this evening around 7pm, there was over a foot of snow!

Progress!

The breakfast nook is done. The furniture is moved in! The bathroom needs a little work. It needs a new wax seal on the toilet, a wall area patched and painted, and eventually the tile board taken out of the shower stall. It will be replaced with tile to match the rest of the shower stall. Otherwise, it is usable.

I brought over 99% of my craft stuff today too, and began to organize the studio. The baker’s rack shelf needs a little adjustment before I can use it. The wardrobe is filled, and oh my… I had forgotten I had so much fabric.

Dan did some work downstairs as well. He is beginning to set up his office space. I still need to bring my desk over, but that won’t happen until we have internet.

The next two days will be sort of ‘light duty’ as we have a meeting on Tuesday. Lots of good thoughts about the job would be appreciated. We have work up in Castle Rock on Thursday. However, I’m feeling so much better about what we are getting done. My next big task will be arranging the kitchen. Aieeee-ya!

Yet Another Milestone! (or 6)

We’ve been busy on a number of levels. March 9th, we ran sound for a celtic group called Runa. Good music, and the start of getting ready for the Celtic Music Fest in September. We took a break on Saturday and went up to Pueblo West to have fun with our SCA friends. It was a well needed break.
The house is coming along. We got a lot of touch up painting done. The bathroom, hall, kitchen, and breakfast nook are all finished. I was going to do some dark blue trim on the quarter round in the kitchen and breakfast nook, but there was just no way to do it neatly. I painted the china cupboard to match the pantry and will be using the remainder of the blue paint on the floor trim.
we’ve made some great leaps forward, and are now being held up by one or two little things. Hinges for example. Many of the hinges were paint choked. I’ve hit them with citrusstrip, but… now we have to soak them in a solvent to get rid of the paint that worked its way into the hinges. Argh!

Then there are the cupboard doors. They needed wiped down with solvent, and then sanded. The solvent makes me wheeze and dizzy, so Dan wiped them down and then sanded them.
We cleared the studio and sanded off all of the paint drips as well. The amount of paint that ends up on the floor even with drop clothes is amazing. Gahhh!

While Dan worked on taxes, I washed some of the windows, and painted cupboard doors. Then I decided that I could put the china cupboard back together. It took a bit and involved a ladder, but I got it done!

Then I had the fun of unpacking boxes! I have all of the Noritaki china in the cupboard as well as some of the other bits and pieces. Some of the cupboards in the kitchen got filled as well. Herbs, tins, and other bits and bobs. I’ll get the doors on those cupboards in the next day or so.

My biggest challenge is deciding where to put things. In many ways, I have less storage than I did at the other house. This is making me look very carefully at everything I put in the kitchen. While I was cleaning, I had visitors. Two friends of ours came over. They have a propane stove, some dome lights and a sink if we want it. 🙂

Today I finished painting all of the cupboard doors. Wheee! I painted the trim on the floor of the breakfast nook, sanded up paint spots, swept, mopped and oiled the studio and breakfast nook, organized some of the paint and painting tools, and then I unpacked boxes.

Some of the boxes were kitchen stuff. It’s funny, but I don’t have the same amount of storage I did over at the other house. I will be doing some sorting to weed out things we don’t need. Granted, I’ve been doing a lot of this. The ARC thrift store,the library,  and a local foods group have been getting lots of donations.

One really big box had kitchen stuff, office supplies and DVDs. I found 5 more duplicates, and then tried to sort them into a kind of order. Too tired to think! I stacked them on a rack so that they weren’t in a box. Oh my we have DVDs! I haven’t counted, but I think we have close to 130 now.

Tomorrow I hope to put cupboard doors up. We have 8 frozen hinges to work on, and hope that they work. We have three lights to put up as well. On Friday, we have a friend helping us to move the big awkward furniture. Wardrobes, and the rolling cabinet will help figure out a lot of storage.

That smell…

We knew we cleaned the entire house, yet we kept smelling just the slightest whiff of something. Most times it was as we opened up the basement door, or were headed downstairs. Cat? Mold? Something. We checked everything. Especially as we had a cat get back into the house about two weeks ago. Nothing. I just figured it was a ‘ghost’ stink. Dan on the other hand…. kept looking.

He’s been mapping the house in order to understand where everything is, goes and relates to. For example, the kitchen, breakfast nook, part of the dining and living room and hall all wrap around two chimneys that are side by side. It makes for an interesting ‘space’, that you might assume is a dead space. It isn’t. He checked the laundry room and chute. Yes, it has a chute that goes from the upstairs hall linen closet to the downstairs laundry room. Yes, all of my boys went down it at one time or another. It’s musty, but that wasn’t the smell.

Finally, Dan realized that the basement has one space he hadn’t looked at or inspected. The basement stairs has a right angled turn. four steps, two triangular steps turning right and then four more. While we replaced the top four, my ex and co. replaced the bottom four. He could only stand under the top four as the bottom are closed off. So, he pulled one tread, thinking he’d be able to look under and see what it was like.

Meanwhile, I’m upstairs working in the kitchen. We got the breakfast nook 95% done. I was working on cupboard doors when I hear him cuss. Then I hear boards being removed and Dan hollers for a trash can and bleach. Yes, he’d found the source of the smell. Trash, dirt, mold, a plastic crate they’d used as a step, and of course… cat shit. 90 minutes later, the area was shoveled, swept, and sanitized. Then he put the stairs back together.

Unbelievable.

Perfect!

We’ve been painting and repairing things at the house. Not new news, I know, but… We are actually getting somewhere. 🙂 The master bedroom is painted, has new electric plugs, plates and switch. It even has some furniture in it!

The bathroom is nearly done. We have to touch up the corners near the ceiling and put another coat on the inside of the shower stall. I’ve started painting trim. Yes, it is green, but it is a 1930’s kinda green, not neon lime. We still have a few wall repairs to do, but they won’t delay the painting.

The library… Paint. New electric plugs, plates and switch. Floor oiled and mopped, and… Furniture! We had a table at the old house that my grandpa had made out of a door and drills from the coal mine. We took it over to this house yesterday, and it looks like it was made to be there. Wow! Perfect! 🙂

I moved boxes today, and will be moving more furniture tomorrow. I’ll put three bookshelves in the library and start filling them with books. Ahhhh!

Visitors!

Yesterday was cold! We got about 4-5 inches of snow, and the sun slipped in and out of the clouds all day. Yet we had a wonderful surprise. Visitors! Granted, they were rather shy and just walked around the yard, but it was great. Pics below.

It was cold in the house today, and we lit our first fire in the fireplace. It was a little smokey, but we figured we’d need to clean the fireplace. Dan finished fixing the stairs, so the trip to the basement is no longer an accident waiting to happen. The paint in the library dried, and I will need to do a second coat. The bathroom needs a second coat as well. Once that is done, and a few touch ups are made in the guest room, we will begin to move things into place. Book cases, books, and furniture. We will be moving tools into the furnace/tool room as well. The house is really looking good.