the pain continues

all of the bedrooms and bathrooms are done and staged

hurray

very early in the week I worked on the chain for this piece -- and it's coming along, just very slowly

and the boards in the door are stitched down

but because my hands and arms are so sore I have not worked on anything but the house for most of the week

it's been a rough week all around

my mother (who had a heart attack back in June) was diagnosed with bladder cancer this week

I'm really ready to be done with this year

life is what happens while you're making other plans

first an update on the little family I wrote about

surrounded by family members that could make it to China, he passed quietly and the group has just returned to the US

they will have a memorial service sometime soon

we continue to pray for his widow and daughter as they have big challenges still ahead of them

we have continued to work in the house this week

this picture shows the first wall in the kitchen that was put back together with the freshly repainted cabinet doors

it looks a lot brighter in there

last Friday I had a professional come and clean the carpet in the living room/dining room

it looks great

and this week we managed to get that room staged -- which means my dog is not a happy camper as I am keeping her out of there now

while we had hoped to be done by today, and I was on track to be there on Tuesday, Wednesday morning when I work up my right hand was swollen and so painful I could hardly dress myself, much less do any work

turns out I had sprained it and the ganglion cyst on my wrist had broken, causing all that pain and swelling -- wow!

the second slow down in this week was that after the DH limping about for over a month we took him to the podiatrist to have a look at his toe

the same weekend he had the encounter with the spider (which has finally healed up, thank goodness) he dropped a carpenters square on edge striking his big toe on edge right at the base of the nail

seems he crushed the nail bed, so in the doctor's office they removed that toenail for him, and he should be much better now

just taking one day at a time

Working with a heavy heart

 it's been a tough week here

while work continues on the house and projects (more about that further down in this post), we are constantly mindful of the struggles this young family is dealing with

I have been very close friends with the grandmother of the young woman in this picture since before she was born, I consider them family

in August they went to China so she could teach English there

right now her husband is in the ICU of a hospital there in China and is not doing well, she has been told to be prepared for him not to make it

they need help
 
you can read the full story about what is happening here:  http://www.thelittlefigs.com/

if you can help them in any way, I believe you will be blessed

all of the cabinet doors from the kitchen are ready and waiting to go back in

yesterday we returned all of the drawers to their places -- fresh paint, new contact paper liners -- looking good

the little blue room is ready -- the carpet has been shampooed, the glass mirror closet doors cleaned, and just these two pieces of furniture in the room -- there are no ceiling fixtures, so in order to light the rooms I'm putting a lamp in each one -- it's the best I can do 

it took me several days to finally get the edge work done on this piece -- now I'm (slowly!) working on the necklace

 

and work continues on this shed door -- the last one

I have a lot of other art I want to work on, but the heavy physical work in the house must get done first -- the living room/dining room carpet gets professionally cleaned tomorrow, we meet with the real estate agents on Tuesday

we hope to have the house on the market by the end of the week -- we'll need all the help we can get

 

of respirators and spider bites

working right along -- I'm now at day 2 past what our original finish goal was, so there is increased urgency to get things done

ratty t shirt?  check

head phones?  check

respirator?  check

this has been the uniform for much of the week

yesterday the very last of the paint scrapping from the tile was completed and the shower has been all wiped down with vinegar

now I have only to re caulk around the door frame, the top edge of the tile and the shower pan, do a little touch up paint and mop the floor for that bathroom to be finished

and I'll be returning the kit for painting the shower to the store for a refund -- this tile is in perfect condition -- there is no way I'm covering it up after spending all that time cleaning it off!!

and under the category of more trick than treat

we spent most of Halloween evening in the ER of our local hospital

a couple of weeks ago the DH was cleaning out one of our sheds and had what we initially thought was a bruise on his left hand

turns out it actually was a spider bite -- a brown recluse being the likely culprit although we don't know for certain since he never saw it

he's got a week's worth of an oral antibiotic (and I'll spare you the rant about the hassles of obtaining those) and we'll be visiting with his doctor for a follow up this week

geesh!

the beginning of the last shed door -- just a little art work this week --

after hours of scrapping tile, my hands have hurt too much to do a lot of other things -- I'm really glad to be done with that

Onward!

House work of a different sort

the planned deadline for listing the house is fast approaching -- in fact, we've already told the agent that we need an additional week past that Nov 1 date, just because a couple of the projects we need to finish proved to be much more complex than we imagined

the downstairs bathroom is complete

it originally had a pink/blue/white wallpaper, but after a coat of wall board compound applied with a roller to give some texture, it is now painted a warm yellow tone

and I replaced all of the light bulbs in the fixture so they all match which is a little detail, but it would be one I would notice if I was the one looking at the house

meantime, the upstairs bathroom is one of the projects that is making me crazy

before we bought the house, the shower had been painted -- and while there is now an epoxy paint on the market that is designed for that purpose, we're not sure what was used to paint this with

and of course, in order to put on new paint (which was what I thought I was going to do), you have to have a clean surface, so I started at the places that were already peeling and scrapped

which revealed some truly beautiful ceramic tile

and let me tell you, getting paint off of ceramic tile is no easy job -- after several days of just scrapping, I headed off to the local hardware store and asked for some advice -- and came home with a bottle of citrus based paint stripper

it's making it easier, but I've still got several days of scrapping off the now "rumpled" paint before it's all clean

and as for the idea of putting on new paint -- unless I discover some reason to "hide" a tile somewhere in this, it's not happening -- I'll just finish the clean up and re caulk it

and while I've been doing the bathrooms, the DH has been working in the kitchen -- removing the doors, removing the hardware, scrubbing the walls and the cabinet frames, repainting the cabinet doors and the frames and presently we'll be repainting the walls

and we'll be removing everything from the shelves and putting in new contact paper as the old stuff is quite worn at this point

another time consuming process

in the evenings, when I'm too tired to do any more physical work, I'm still doing a little work on art projects

the bead embroidery on this piece is finished and I'm preparing to do the backing and the rest of the finishing on it

I'm pretty amazed by how well this design came together

and this piece is ready for the next step

it is the next to last of the shed doors -- one more to go!

and when I get to the very end of the day I do a bit of knitting

this is slowly becoming a Ninja Turtle for Mr Cute -- the one with the orange mask of course, since Mr Cute's favorite color is orange

all in a day's work!

Art Abandonment

last week was full of interesting experiences

on Tuesday I had to report for jury duty -- 150 people in a room and no one would meet your eye or let you start a conversation

weird

I used the corner of the jury questionnaire  to do some art work -- art in public places rather they want it or not!

another shed door got completed -- and I have started the next one

when I began this series, the DH asked me if I had any plans for where I might be able to actually hang all of them together where they could be seen

Wednesday evening at my local art group meeting, I got an answer for that -- once I get them all done I have a place to hang them all together

yeah!

this piece is moving along

the beads are slowly covering the surface

the Christmas knitting continues

finished the tractor hat -- it only took four tries!

that little green blob there is the head of a knitted Ninja Turtle -- I'll be doing the one with the orange mask of course, since Mr Cute's favorite color is orange

my daughter and son-in-law were here over the weekend

I have to say that my son-in-law did as much painting in one day as it would have taken me a week to do

I'm so grateful to have their help!!

this picture is one of the walls in the family room -- much better than the way it looked before!!!

while they were here my daughter and I put together this fireman's jacket for Mr Cute -- she had already found a pair of boots he can wear with this, and a fire hat that had been with us since she was little has a brand new sticker from the local fire department where they live to complete the look

he was one happy little boy!  no doubt this will be like the dinosaur costume from last year -- he'll play in it for a long time

who says dress up is only for girls!!

Hippos in tutus?

well, that's what this made the DH think of

I painted the bathroom this week (undoubtedly the most difficult room in the house to paint!) and I wanted to keep any splatters of paint off of the shower head and the lamp tops

a flat bottom coffee filter split to the center and then wrapped around each one and taped shut did a great job

but I agree -- it's hippos in tutus

this is the latest of the shed door pieces -- the main pieces are in place and now I'm putting in the smaller ones -- moving right along

this piece, titled "The Eagle Flies" is progressing nicely too

this one has been a very loosely designed piece -- last night I decided to try adding the bronze bugle beads along the edges of the eagle's wings just to see how it looks and I love it!

the more I do on this one, the better I like it

last Sunday's post talked about the hat I was working on for Mr Cute -- in the end after I had it all knit I ripped it all out and started over again because it was still just too big

this one is much better -- and the bonus is not just one tractor, but tractors all around the hat!

one of the things I love about this time of year is the pumpkins in all the stores

this year I've seen some particularly "warty" ones -- love that texture!

Finding a new "normal"

the packing continues

yesterday we had a small crew that came and moved all of the boxes that we had packed up in the past couple of weeks out into the garage so we can get them loaded into the pod this week

as we were chatting with them we mentioned that there was a doll house here that we would give to anyone that was interested in coming after it

a little later in the day one of the fellows came back and got it

I'm delighted!! it's gone to a little girl (and her mama) that are excited to have it, and I now have a large empty space --- yippee!!

yesterday's activities also included painting the primer coat of paint under the front door (that area had been really beat up over the past 12 years) and a coat of primer on the wall I had skim coated with wall board compound a couple of weeks ago

last year when I was working on my entry for the Hoffman Challenge, I was working on some techniques that I had not tried before -- in the process of doing that, I created this piece, which I titled "Feather Duster"

this year I donated it to the SAQA auction

and I learned yesterday that it was purchased during the auction

even though I don't get any monetary gain from this, it feels wonderful to know that someone thought it was worth paying for!

when I get to the end of the day of physical work, I'm still spending some time working on art projects

this week I finished the hand work on this piece -- number 10 in the series

and it's exciting to know that I'm getting closer to the time when I'll actually be able to start doing more than the hand work as my sewing machine will probably be back in a usable condition in the next week -- (another reward for all the hard work rearranging things!)

so this is the next piece -- which I started working on last night while enjoying a movie on PBS

I have been working on this piece of jewelry this week

I've had that piece of picture jasper and the carved bone moon face for a while, but only recently was able to get the porcelain eagle that I was searching for

and I've changed the glue I'm using to attach things to the backing so I don't have to build up so much of a bezel around the pieces with beads

so far I'm very pleased with how this piece is going

and the tractor hat is nearly done -- last night I started on the decreases for the top of the head

yup, lots of things are getting done

just keep chugging along!!