Birthdays & Moving In - Garden Shed

A week or so ago was my Dad's 78th birthday. My sister & I (along w/our sweet husbands) decided to cook a surprise lunch for him & his church members. We served Boston Butts, Potato Salad, Green Beans, Mac & Cheese, Salad, Rolls & of course cake & brownies. He was very happy & yes, even surprised.

We also gave him a gate alarm for his place up in the country. Like us, he has a very long driveway & sometimes people show up unannounced. With the gate alarm he will be able to hear them coming before they get up to the house.

Last Friday would have been my Mama's 80th birthday. I was thinking about a distant relative recently & thought to pick up the phone & call her with a question that only she would have known the answer to. Sad to think there are so many questions that will remain unanswered because there is no one left to ask. Sure do miss her.

This past weekend we finally finished the Garden Shed & was able to start moving in. I was originally just going to paint everything white because that was the paint that I had leftover from other projects. It was waaay too white! Didn't want to go to the store for a small can of colored paint so I looked around & found a tube of blue Easter egg coloring. It was too blue. I had some black acrylic that I added which toned it down to this very soft grey/blue color. Fine by me & I didn't have to make a trip to town.

I hope to have plenty of room for gardening things, paint supplies, canning jars, as well as Christmas Decor. We'll see just how long it takes to fill er up. Oh & still need to paint the back doors.

p.s. We also got asparagus crowns planted but didn't get a pic of the beds. Not much to see but I should take one just for documenting sake. Now to wait the 3 years it takes to be able to harvest & eat. That is, if they survive.....

Garden Shed Update

Many may remember that we bought a Garden Shed waaaay back in December 2013 (Garden Shed Delivery). We have worked on it here & there (mostly there) over the past 3 years (yikes 3 years go by fast!).

We wired it, installed press board walls, added a shed roof on the back in early 2015. Then it sat while we worked on the barn. We decided to finally get it done over Christmas break 2016. We added flooring & trim & had intentions of being finished but we ran into a couple of electrical problems. Got those fixed & last weekend we finally finished it. Well, I still have to paint but, after painting it will be ready to move in. Here are a couple of pics:

West End

East End

I know not many garden sheds have pretty laminate flooring but it was very cheap (the lowest price of any flooring, even vinyl, at the local big box store). Plus, it was a whole lot easier to install.

Ceiling Fan - found in attic - clearance sale over 4 years ago.

Left of Back Door

Right of Back Door

The tools are hanging on slatboard that Greg had for many years. Someone gave it to him & he thought, "I will be able to use that some day". He lined his office walls with it & had some left over which we used here. I couldn't resist going ahead & hanging tools & shelves on it even though I will have to remove in order to paint. 

I have a lot of stuff ready to move into it & I am promising myself to not take 3 years to get it painted! Will post more pics as that gets done.

New weeds & a Shoulder Saver

Went to the Country as usual on Friday night with a trailer & truck load full of stuff. Greg wanted some of his garage back.

We got up Saturday morning & unloaded it all. First up was the shelving units. There was a World Market near our city house that was closing. After the merchandise was sold they started breaking down the shelves to sell. I was able to get 10. The shelves themselves are made with 3/4 solid wood & are 36" wide & 19 inches deep. Perfect for my future pantry. ($15 each) I also had one of the wire shelves I got from work that we took as well. It will definitely get some use. (free)

Greg had bought two used lateral filing cabinets from a discount/used office supply store. Will be used for storage of some type. ($20 each)

I had purchased a big rug & long hall runner at an estate sale a while back. (I think the rug was $35 & the runner $15)

We had a ceiling to put up in the garden shed so we headed to Lowe's to buy sheets of strand board. Greg had bought this device a few weeks ago beccause we knew we had ceilings of dry wall & this strand board to hang as well as eventually doing the walls. He used his ever present Northern Tool coupons to buy at a discount.($100)

If anyone has hung sheet rock or plywood on a ceiling you know how hard it can be. I used to hold the dead man but Greg would just about tear his shoulders holding his end up & the screwing it to the studs. With this tool, you just lay the board of top & roll it into place then raise the to meet the roof & screw into place. Truly a shoulder saver. It breaks down & stores nicely too. It can be used on vertical walls as well.

I took this pic of the storage shed a couple of weeks ago. I like the sun shining on it. That stick  in the whole you see in front, was where one of our oak trees used to be before it (& the other 2) up & died on us.

We put a shed roof & a mini deck on the back of the shed. I didn't match the roofing material so it looks a little red neck but it will be a cool space to get in the shade during the heat of the summer, while working in the raised beds.

Putting insulation on the spigots - yes we have water!

Speaking of the raised beds I noticed the weeds have already started coming in (they don't kow it's winter). There are some new ones that I haven't noticed before & are actually quite pretty. If anyone knows what they are, please leave me a comment as I have no idea about weeds except for the dreaded Bermuda Grass that hasn't shown it's ugly head yet.

This one is almost like a succulent & seems to only be in the blocks.

We've had this before but I don't know what it is.

Only 1 of these on outside of one bed, it has purple flowers.

This one is inside 2 or 3  of the beds.

Many have asked about my Mom & she's doing great. She is getting her sugar under control & the Endocrinologist was pleased. Our long term goals & to get her of injected insulins & back to 1 pill a day. We have the follow-up cardiologist next week & hope we can evenually lesson some of those meds as well. Thank you for all your thoughts & prayers. Her new house should be delivered next week so expect next weekend to be very busy. My sister & I have been buying all new stuff for her since almost everything she had was completely worn out. Of course, many of the items I have purchased have been from Estate Sales. 

Oh well, going to heat up leftovers for dinner & have the stupid game on but we never sit down to watch. Like many, we listen for the commercials then go back to doing something else. Hope everyone has a great week.

So this is how 2015 begins?

Left on the Eve to head back to the Country. Greg had already gone back on Monday. Stopped by my sister's to give the news of the house to our Mom. She was very happy & appreciative. Got to the Country House by 4:00p. Has a nice dinner of steaks & baked potatoes.

We have a dear friend that was disagnosed with Leukemia last June. After her second round of in-hopsital chemo & then a bone marrow transplant she was improving daily & then  started going downhill. They made the tough decision to just let that horrible journey carry itself out & went home to be with family for the holidays. She died on New Year's Eve. Got the news on Thursday. She was a beautiful, charismatic, opinionated, classy, elegant woman. Forever known as the baby whisperer. She could make any baby quit crying by holding, cooing & just loving it. She leaves behind a very loving husband, 3 grown children & 2 beautiful grandchildren. The last one born on the 10th of December. Her memorial will be in a couple of weeks.

On Tuesday & Wednesday Greg had trenched the line for the W & E for our Garden Shed  that we had installed last year. So on Thursday, after breakfast, we went once again to Lowes (I swear I need to buy stock) to buy a few plumbing fittings & more electrical stuff. We got the water running (2 faucets at this point) ... yeah! I decided to spend the afternoon filling in the trench. Manual labor always helps me find solace. I thought about our friend all afternoon.

We then cooked our very southern rendition of New Year's dinner. But, instead of pork roast we decided on pork ribs plus white rice, black eyed peas (w/green onions sprinked on top), collard greens & cornbread. It was soooo good, especially since we hadn't eaten any lunch.

I woke at 5:00a this morning & couldn't go back to sleep. Got up & noticed phone was dead & plugged it in, turned the coffee pot on, got my blanket & curled up on the couch watching MeTV. Just before I made my first cup my text alert went off. My sister ... our Mama had called her & was having trouble breathing/catching her breath. Sister went to her house & took her to the ER in their small town. They put her on oxygen & ran a few tests then decided to transfer her to one of the larger hospitals in the City. I took a shower, packed & drove back this morning going directly to the hospital. They ruled out Pneumonia, Flu, etc. & started her on medication to remove the fluid. By noon she was doing better. My sister went home to gather a few things while I stayed w/Mama. Sister came back & will stay a while tonight & I will head over there in the morning. All her vitals are good so we are very hopeful that medication can control whatever the problem is. No Dr. sighting as of 15 mins. ago but the nurses are ALL so very nice, helpful, funny & they share whatever information they have & answer all our questions as best they can.

Please let the year go uphill from here ....

Christmas Weekend 2014

Had Christmas lunch at my sister's then opened presents. In addition to my sister, her husband & niece we also had my Dad & his wife, her daughter, boyfriend, grand daughter & my Mom. It was very low key this year. We normally open gifts one at a time so everyone can see what each received. With so many present this year we all opened at the same time which made it go a LOT quicker. Gift cards were the theme for us because we kept telling everyone we didn't need anything. Actually, I wish we wouldn't exchange anymore but my Dad will have nothing to do with that. This was the 2nd year without my other niece. We all miss her very much but truly believe she is in heaven doing what God needs her to do.

We got an earlier start to the Country due to the presents not taking so long. We woke the next morning to this beautiful sky:

After breakfast, we made enchiladas from some leftover taco meat from earlier in the week.We then decided to continue our Christmas tradition of buying ourselves blocks for our own present. If you remember, 2 years ago my niece had just died & we didn't celebrate Christmas at all. That's when we bought 250 blocks to define the raised beds in our garden. Read about that here Christmas 2012. This year we needed new steps to our front porch & off the car port. We had temporary steps made of a couple of old blocks & wood. The wood was starting to rot & spiders had taken up residence in the block holes. We decided to make steps out of solid blocks so off to Lowes we went. We only had to buy 24 this time, whew! We got the steps put in after much levelling & decided to call it a day. 

Just as we sat down I got a text from my neighbors at Hoss Tools down the road, inviting us to come over & hang out by the fire & to eat some Christmas leftovers. We put on our boots & hopped on the Mule with our enchiladas. It was a fairly small group of about 10 or 11. Everyone brought a dish of some sort. We had ham, boston butt, broccoli casserole, etc. My friend's daughter was home from Germany & made homemade biscuits. They were great with the ham & the enchiladas were a big hit. It was a nice night & we were home & in bed by 10:00p.

We got up the next morning & I decided to try to make some biscuits myself. I just don't have luck with the regular old fashioned biscuits so I found a sour cream/7 up recipe on Pinterest. I had 1/4 c. sour cream & some lemon lime soda. It was very soft dough & you place the 'cut' dough on top of melted butter. Very messy & while they were baking I had my doubts but boy were they good! And, I can't find the recipe now. I need to get back on Pinterest & search. I didn't want to pin it in case they weren't good. Silly me.

We then put up a weather vane that Greg gave me. It's more for looks than anything. It's really the same brown color all over but the rooster & arrow looks copper with the sun shining on it.

While at Lowes the day before we also bought insulation for our garden shed roof but wanted to wait until the end of the day to install that. The early afternoon was spent string trimming (him, not me) & laundry. We then got the insulation done & stopped for the evening. Had leftover spaghetti & meatballs & called it another early night.

We left fairly early on Sunday because we wanted to stop by my sister's on the way home. We stopped & gorged ourselves at a country buffet in a nearby town. Roast beef, potatoes, carrots, turnip greens, dressing, chicken & dumplings, butterbeans & fried chicken. It was sooo good & I think it was $6.99 a person.

My Mom's house trailer is falling apart & we wanted to talk with them about buying her a new one. Since they live in the same town as her, we wanted to see if they would coordinate getting the old one torn down, permits, etc. We all agreed & hopefully she'll have a new safe home to live in, in a few weeks.

Greg has gone back to the Country, his business is closed until the 5th & he is going to work on getting the electrical & water trenched to the garden shed. I have to work tomorrow & 1/2 day on the 31st & will then head back to spend the New Year weekend with him.

If I don't post again I hope everyone has a safe & happy New Year celebration.

Christmas in the Country & Happy New Year

We went up on Christmas Day, after spending the day with family. We were greeted with wind & cold, not unusual for this time of year. Why does the wind always blow in the wrong direction for the current season? The NE wind in winter is just brutal. We may not have ice & snow but wet & very windy conditions make it unpleasant to be outside. Nothing like our Northern neighbors have to deal with but unpleasant nonetheless. Our house sits on a slight hill in the middle of field that was used to grow many things like watermelons & cantaloupe & even tobacco at one time. There are no trees so no wind break except for the other side of the house. That NE wind would be most welcome in the Spring & Summer but it rarely happens.

Not many projects planned as we were only there for a few days. We did get a delivery though. A garden shed! It was our Christmas present to ourselves (or to me actually). It was put at the top of the garden which will give us some definition in that area of the yard. Here's a before (note the dead oak tree - all 3 of them died):

And, here's the after:

The 'front'

The 'back'

It's 16 x 24 & will eventually have a shed roof over the back with a potting bench & outdoor sink. I love it!

In other news, we had a couple of rotten steps that needed to be replaced.

And, my cousin gave me a couple of ears of Glass Gem corn. I had given his boss a few seeds to see if it would grow there. I think it's beautiful. Can't wait until I am able to be there for the majority of the growing season (1 year & 6 months to go!).

We came home early to pack for a quick vacation before heading back to work. I'll post about that once we're back home.

Hope everyone has a Happy & safe start to your New Year!