It's Curtains... for the window

 

Like the new curtains for my sewing room?

I got them brand new thrifting last week!  I was thinking about using them in my bedroom but Jen suggested here as it would clash with the pink-ish paint there.

So I've got another idea for my bedroom.

And there's a reason the photo is cropped.  It IS my creative room so there it is.

Oh, after cooling down, the mower fired up beautifully so I got my steps in yesterday walking to Meri's house to pick up my car after driving the mower home. Just over 7k steps for the day!

That's a record for me if you don't count the Irish festival day!

Back to work!!!  It's almost FRIDAY!!!

Bohemian Cool

Streaming:  Mash season 1, episode 1.

The weather lately has been ridiculously hot.  95+ temps.

My air conditioner wasn't able to keep up two days in a row and I KNOW it's not a low freon issue, although I'm sure that will happen eventually, and I should get a guy to look at it.  It got up to 77 degrees when I had it set to 72.

The upper windows in my living room are the culprits.  The morning sun heats up the room and the air conditioning has to work overtime to try and keep the temps down, unsuccessfully.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I was inspired by this photo I'd seen a while back.

I'm not interested in crocheting that many blankets and don't have the right tools to hang it up properly.

SO...

I got a ton of this fabric off the ASG free table several months ago. I sewed them together into a huge rectangle and strung them up with twine to the wall speakers and then upstairs banisters and through my office window, tied to the leg of a heavy dresser. done.

I basically made a huge awning for my living room.

It looks like we live in a circus tent.

Cue Big Top Pee Wee theme song...

I'm not entirely sure I like this and this fabric could easily also become curtains in my office before fall.

And of COURSE, the weather turned around by the next day so it'll be rainy and chill all week.  The proof is in the next 95+ degree day.  Maybe Saturday, maybe August.

And I just hope the cats don't get the idea of a giant hammock in their heads and jump onto it from my office window, which is currently closed.

The rest of the family doesn't mind it and thinks it looks rather bohemian, which is their style anyway.

Crossing my fingers for success!

I also found THIS recipe on FB.  Yum, huh?!

And Aggie girl is finally interested in dolls!  I knew she would be.  She's into "baby wearing" these days.

OK, back to work!!!

Random Bits of my Life

 I completed a Sexual Harassment Course for work.  Was a little surprised to see David Schwimmer in a little video clip!  HEY!  I KNOW him!  Well.. from Friends...
According to the video... he's a womanizing jerk!

Maddy and Matthew won't be able to have us the weekend before Christmas. Bummer!  Maddy called last night to break the news to us.  So I'll complete & wrap their gifts and get them off in the mail by the end of this next week. hopefully...

 Robb gave Meri a pre-Christmas gift of a Weeping Angel ornament. :) She was always a big Dr Who fan!  For maybe just that season, but she'd loved it.  DON'T even blink!

Robb was gifted a free flat screen tv and he set it up in the living room on the coffee table and was "casting" shows from his phone to it.  Ummmm  hmmm...  We've never been "living room tv people" before...  but I'm pretty sure the coffee table isn't the best place for one.

I suggested that we move it back behind the second couch on the far side of the room and he thought that with our aging eyes, that little screen wouldn't be big enough.  So he ordered a 50" tv for our living room instead.  And set up eye appointments for us.

We're getting more pre-Christmas gifts this year than ever before.

Leon is eyeing the older free one for his room.  ummm.. hmmm. probably not happening.

So now we have a 50" tv on the coffee table.  As seen below.

We have our old non-working stereo system behind the couch right now and with the help of a saw and an old skinny closet door from the garage, I was able to get the tv back there. BUT it was wobbly.  shoot.  AND if you tried to use the remote from the big butt chair next to the tree, the electronic eye couldn't see the eye on the tv.  

*gasp* 
you'd have to get out of the chair and turn the tv on manually...    like a BARBARIAN! 
*again gasp*

So it's back on the coffee table until  solution could be found.  We DON'T need more furniture...

I purchased some risers for the stereo but it's even more wobbly now.  shoot.

So today I purchased this.

It'll be here in 7 short days...  I am convinced it will change our lives and the layout of the living room.  I'm sure, as a woman, the living room will be rearranged 16 times before it settles.  Like a cat! 

But that will be after Christmas when the tree comes down.

Things are heating up!

We had a major energy bust going on in our house this winter and we didn't catch it until that huge wind storm last week... 

NOT our windows, but aren't they pretty?

I was wondering why the master bedroom and bath were so cold this winter!  I figured it was because we've taken to keeping the bedroom door closed since there is a dog in the house that thinks the green rug in my bathroom looks JUST like the grass in the yard...

The other day while using the facilities, I noticed the Roman shades waver in the breeze. *really?*  There was a definite draft coming in!  Not only was the wind whistling around my bathroom, but I could feel it.  I pulled up the shades and found the window had been open a half inch. Who knows for how long??!  I never open those shades!  I really don't want the neighbors looking directly at me while I'm in the bath!

So now the window wouldn't shut.  *figures*  I was so conscious of the wind after that, up until the wind finally died down around midnight. The next day I took a hair dryer over to it and tried to melt some of the ice off so I could close it. 

Nope.

It finally warmed up above freezing Wednesday but there was not a time when someone else was home with me to hold the ladder for me to climb up and shove the thing shut.  The inside latch is too far gone with the window having rotted from being open like that for however long it's been.  Thursday over lunch, I had Ryan hold the ladder.  I figure if anyone is going to die while trying to fix this thing, it'll be me.  I don't even want anyone I love to do roof work on our house!  and I'm not going to do it!!  It's way too tall so we get a professional stranger to fix the roof when problems arise.  Luckily this was only one story to get to the roof area by the bathroom window.  So I gave it a shot.

I climbed the ladder and it shifted in the wind as soon as I got to the top!  Ryan held it below.  When I got to the top, I couldn't get off the ladder.  Seriously.  One leg past the gutter on shingles, the other bending in an abnormal way to get over the stinking top of the ladder...  and then the ladder shifted again. 

Okey doke. I'm coming down this thing!!! 

We took the ladder down and decided to wait until a warmer, less windy day to do this.  May is a nice month!

I was frustrated and decided to tackle the window again from the inside.  Found that it must have thawed out a bit more, because I was finally able to get it to close just an eighth of an inch more!  JUST enough to get the lock to pull it shut the rest of the way.  FINALLY it's shut and locked!!! 

Can you believe my nose wasn't frosted over this morning!!??!

Pavlov's Flush

I'm still in the cleaning mode... I don't know what it is, but when the rainy fall weather starts, I start feeling like I'm running out of time to get ready for the holidays. Can't wait until I'm done, because the sewing projects beckon. Or rather scream.

Robb is hating it, not just because I left the vacuum out last night and he almost cracked his skull tripping over it in the darkness early this morning. (Soon honey soon...) But because I expect every one else to be in the same mood as me. It's strange that they're not!

Anyway... Another thing we've been doing this week... Robb does surveys on occasion and we are now guinea pigs in an experiment of sorts. Some company sent us 5 rolls of toilet paper. The first 4 were to get us acclimated to this single ply Brillo pad style toilet paper for one week. We made it through part of the first roll. Then the 2nd week, we have to use only the 5th roll and keep track every time we use it. It's only in our master bathroom, so it's taking a while.
I was really hoping the 5th roll would be a contrast to the previous rolls, but it's not. It's the same old newspaper style as last week. *harrumph...* We are NOT single ply people!

Another box came in the mail the other day so as soon as this roll is gone, we'll start in on that set of five. I hope it's 2 ply...

If nothing else, the single ply is lasting FOREVER and we won't have to buy toilet paper for a long while!

Now, if only he could find a guinea pig test where we have to sample Christmas cookies for a month...