Today I noticed...Sometimes it is the small things that are the most rewarding.

I've been working on the bigger project of stitching personalized towels for one of the grandson's baseball team. I've enjoyed watching these boys grow and gel as a team for six or seven years now and loved watching my son, Bryan, grow as a coach as well. So, I wanted to do a little something for them to celebrate their big state win and earning the opportunity to go to the league's World Series. 

I remembered that, when Bryan was a kid, they traded pins with the other teams. So, I asked if that was still a 'thing.' When I found out it was, I decided to personalize a towel for them to attach their pins to after they'd swapped. 

I'm still learning and wanting to create new things with my new sewing/embroidery machine. So, I decided I'd make a couple bag tags for my daughter-in-law and me. I've been browsing online for different ideas and landed on a couple of cute designs that I could combine and adapt.

I'm not quite like Abby Lee was when she first saw my machine start stitching. I don't gasp and my eyes don't enlarge but I'm not far from that each time I attempt something new! Today's project of bag tags was just the ticket for a fun, quick project.

Tennessee Bag Tags

Power T Bag Tag

I don't know whether the fun for me is to see whether I can combine a couple of designs and make it be unique or whether it is just the awe and amazement that my machine can create something so stinking cute with just the touch of a couple of buttons.

A New Venture

The Mister and I both grew up on dairy farms. So, we have been surrounded by agriculture all of our lives. His family had Jersey cows that were soft brown and my family had Holstein Friesians that were black and white. After we married, we would go to the local fair and wander round and think about days gone by and the Mister would always say, "I always wanted a Hereford (red with white face) beef heifer," and I would just roll my eyes. 

A decade ago, the Mister spent his time raising calves on a bottle and we had a barn full of calves. He wound up selling them all and really retiring, thank goodness. Having livestock like that can really limit a person's freedom and become strenuous work. Somebody has to be there to feed them each and every day. Their health has to be checked each and every day. Sometimes they will need medical treatment due to illness or injury. These animals can be quite large and are generally a bit rambunctious. Good facilities and equipment are a necessity when it comes to taking care of a herd of cattle. So, we didn't feel as if we were in the physical shape to care for a herd of steers and didn't really have the facilities and equipment to handle them either. So, the sale of the steers happened and the Mister retired. However, that dream of owning a docile Hereford heifer never really went away...

My uncle had a Charolais (white) beef cow give birth to twins several years ago and the cow would not let one of the calves nurse. So, the calf came to our house and the Mister raised her with a bottle. I thought that heifer dream itch had been scratched. When she matured, she was turned in with my bonus son's Angus (black) beef cattle. He started off his herd with four young females and has been raising and selling steers to local 4-Hers for several years. The Charolais just joined the herd and she also has produced some steers and a couple or three heifers over the years. Still, the Mister's dream of the docile Hereford beef heifer persisted...

Miss Moo Moo, the Charolais, and one of her calves.

Eventually, I grew tired of rolling my eyes and shaking my head. So, the Mister began researching and shopping online for his heifer. He convinced me that the grandsons who live next door are big enough to help take care of her and exhibit her in local fairs and shows. "They already have their own Angus heifers and steers. She will fit right in with their animals." Then, last Saturday there was a state Hereford sale. So, the Mister got a bidder number. Then, he was diagnosed with Covid a couple of days before the sale. He was really bummed until he learned that they would be live streaming the sale. So, we have a new venture...

Levi exhibited her in the show on the day after the sale. Then, they hauled her home with their steers and tied her in the barn with them so that she would be easy for them to take care of.  She gets led and brushed and petted and all of the livestock show prep things each day. He reports that she is a sweetie and is docile and cooperative. 

She is a really pretty young lady. I love how her hair is an almost exact match to our grandson's. She does seem docile and very much like a big old pet. Mike takes the ATV up the hill almost every afternoon to watch them. There are lots of grins. I think the Bonus Son and Levi grin that the Mister comes and sits and watches. I see the grin on the face of the Mister when he comes back down the hill. I hope she continues to bring smiles to everybody around here. 

Today I noticed...Dreaded little jobs often go fast.

We have been reading that the price of beef in the grocery store is going to go up. So, Mike and I talked about it and we decided we would purchase a half of a beef. For those unfamiliar with purchasing like that, basically, we have bought half the meat of a processed steer. Doing this provides a large quantity of meat, which includes steaks, roasts, ground beef, and other cuts. It offers cost savings and high-quality meat but requires significant freezer space. Like many farm families, we have chest freezers in addition to the freezer at the bottom of our kitchen fridge. Since Mike makes sausage and sells it, we have more than one chest freezer. 

Having all that freezer space means that sometimes when I order groceries, if I notice that chicken is on sale or something like that, I will buy more than we might eat in a couple of meals and freeze the rest for later. When Mike grew a big garden, I also froze some vegetables for us to eat later. Plus, like most everybody, we often buy frozen goods at the grocery store. All of this - Mike making and storing the sausage, buying frozen foodstuffs, and preserving vegetables is great and cost effective but also means we need to keep a good inventory. That is something that neither of us is really good at. We start off with the best intentions but then get in a hurry for one reason or another and our intentions slip off the track and the train gets away from us. 

So, our freezers need a good cleanout before the half-a-beef gets here. It is a job that should already have claimed our attention and efforts but just got pushed down on the To-Do List. Today was the day. I decided I would begin the great freezer cleanout. 

I found frozen squash that was dated from the summer of 2017. I found a frozen pizza labeled best before August 15, 2020. I found a frozen topping container labeled vegetable soup from 2022. I found a lot of outdated and forgotten items. Thus, my dreaded job was certainly bringing to fruition why I had been dreading it and putting it off. 

I was perturbed that we had wasted so much food. I was frustrated that I had not kept a better inventory. I was aggravated with having to dig around and read all the labels on items. Yet, the entire process of cleaning out one of the chest freezers in the basement took a grand total of twenty-five minutes. That short timeframe included standing bent over with my head and arms digging around in the bottom of the chest freezer, bagging the outdated foodstuffs, and trekking out to the trash barrel with the garbage bag. 

The frustration with myself for not doing a better job also served to encourage me to try to do a better job of keeping an inventory of what we do have. I've already started a spreadsheet listing of items in the freezer. I can print a copy off and we can keep a tally of what goes in and what we take out of each freezer. Have I mentioned before that I REALLY like digital accessibility? I'm trying to figure out what the simplest way will be to keep the inventory list accurate and up-to-date!

I'm also trying to remember that I should just tackle a job and not keep putting it off with dread...

Painting Project

One of my summer projects was to paint the furniture that sits on the back porch. Even though I ordered multiple cans of paint, I still ran out before getting everything coated. So, I still had a little bit of a project to finish up this year.

One of the things that we got from the dairy barn when Mom sold the farm equipment was this table that Daddy had made. It sat in the tank room of the milk barn for years. I remember Daddy making the table and recall it getting painted with a barn red paint. Mike has been wanting me to paint it since the day we brought it home! 

Back in the summer when we were painting the other back porch furniture, he asked once again if I had plans to paint it and wouldn't I like to put it up on the porch rather than have it sit down on a concrete pad just off the porch. I'd kept it there to use as a potting bench and the dirt that fell through it didn't bother me since it wasn't up on the porch where we walked in and out each day.

I needed more paint to finish up a couple of things and picked the paint up at our local Ace Hardware. On a warm, sunny day, I dragged the milk barn table out into the grass and gave it a good once over with a wire brush. Then, I washed it off and let it dry before giving it a nice coat of paint to match everything else on the back porch.

After a thorough paint job, I asked our son in law to move it up onto the porch for me because it is quite heavy! He put it near to Mike's grill so that it can be handy for holding things when he is doing his outdoor cooking this next spring. I realized that I hadn't made a photo of the finished product when I noticed it sitting out there one morning after a shower of rain. 

I loved how the little droplets of rain on it made it look like it was covered in diamonds! Truly, I do think of it as a diamond. I remember resting drinks, medicines, phone books, and even a baby carrier with Bryan sleeping on it while I was milking cows. The fact that Daddy made it even though it is a rudimentary piece of utility furniture makes it even more of a diamond to me!

Summer Project #5

This one was a quick one but one that was badly needed!  The chairs that I bought a couple of years ago have been great ones.  They are cane-backed and I just love the style and wish I had ten more to go with the four we have.  When I bought them, they were freshly chalk-painted and had a newly upholstered seat covered in burlap.  However, the burlap didn't hold up as well as I'd hoped and the two we use most often soon needed a refresh.  There were several tears in the burlap from my frequent use of this chair as my home office this spring when we were sent home to work. 

Since that refresh worked so well on those two chairs, I decided to use the same for this chair.  So, I went to my fabric stash and dug out the remnant that was left.  There was barely enough to do one chair so that it would look exactly like the other two and there was enough to cover another chair if I lay the fabric cross grain.  So, I decided that this chair is the only one with arms and would get the cross grain treatment.

I don't think it is noticeable at all that the fabric is laid a little differently from the other two that I recovered in the kitchen and I like the fresh, new look for this chair.  It fits well in my bedroom at the little desk I have there and will probably fit well wherever I put it since the fabric is so neutral.

So, a quick little project makes a big, big difference!

Summer Project #4

Mike tells me that I need to go back to work.  He says I'm finding too many projects!

The other day I ordered a filter for the fridge.  The sensor on the door indicated that a new one was needed.  I thought I had one here and dug around in the pantry looking for it to no avail.  So, I ordered the one I thought we needed.  I took a picture of the tag inside the door and saw that it said Whirlpool.  So, I ordered the one I thought would fit.  My memory told me that the filter required only had one thing poking up and I looked at what was listed under a search for Whirlpool water filters and ordered.  

When the filters were delivered, I thought they didn't look like what we had used before but I also know that my recall ability is not as good as it once was.  So, I went to the fridge and took the filter out.  Sadness abounds.  It was a different filter.  

I went back to the pantry and started pulling things on the junky bottom shelf out only to discover a bigger mess and no filter on hand.  So, I created another project for myself.  However, that is another story for another day.  Today I needed a filter because experience told me that if the old filter was returned to the fridge, the water would be black and we would have to run loads of water through it and throw out several batches of ice.  

I went back to the fridge to get the info again and noticed that the tag on the door says Maytag.  I looked back at the tag inside to find the serial and model numbers and sure enough, it does say Whirlpool. So, I wasn't quite as crazy as I feared.  

I looked online at places like The Home Depot and Lowe's to see if there was a local store which had a filter.  Then, I remembered that we now have a local Ace Hardware store only about five miles down the road.  So, I picked up the phone and called and voila! They had one of the filters I needed and would hold it at the counter for me. Oh happy day!!!

I masked up and entered the store and there were a couple of people at the counter checking out so I did a little browsing at the paint counter to social distance.  Remembering that I'd never painted the laundry room entry door that was installed two summers ago, I picked out a paint color that I thought would look good for our back doors and asked a woman to mix me a quart of paint.

I came home and installed the filter and knew what my plan was for the following day - painting!

I love a small painting project.  It is so fulfilling because there is instant gratification of immediate change - and usually for the better.

I got up early and did my morning puttering.  Then, got a tub of soapy water and washed down the French doors and the laundry room door.  I let them dry and gave them an inspection.  There was still some grungy looking mold or mildew or something clinging to the window trim on the French doors.  I hadn't planned to paint that part because I wanted it to stay white.  

You see, the new door has what looks like window pane muntins between the panes of glass and they are white.  So, I decided that the vinyl around the window and the muntins on the French doors needed to stay white.  I decided that I would try a bit of bleach in water to see if that would clean up the 'woodwork' around the windows.  When I came inside to mix that up, I saw that I had some Clorox cleaner and decided to just spray that on to see how it would turn out.

That is one of the greatest products ever!  I sprayed some at the top of the first window casing and it started to drip down and left a clean path in its wake!  No scrubbing was required.  So, I sprayed all the vinyl really well and came back inside to get another spray bottle of plain water for rinsing.  By the time I got back outside, both doors were shining like new!  I rinsed and left them to dry.

By the time everything had dried well, it was almost lunch time.  I was finishing up the first coat of paint on the French doors when Mike came in for lunch.  He didn't seem too enthused with the color I had chosen but I was enthralled by how beautiful it was looking already and kept mentioning how much I loved the color.  He finally started laughing at me every time I said how much I liked the color.

By the time I had finished the first coat on the second door, the first door was dry.  So, I just went right on painting and added a second coat, exclaiming how much I liked the color every few minutes.

I took a break to eat a bite of lunch and then painted the laundry entry door.  By this time the temperature on the back porch was in the ninety-degree range.  I sat down and had a cool glass of water and by that time the first coat was dry and I painted the second.

I love how sometimes the light will make the color look sort of blue and sometimes it looks sort of green.  The three doors in a row really look fabulous and stand out across all the white on the back of our house.

My project turned out to take longer than I'd anticipated and was far hotter than I wanted.  However, in just a few hours the entire back of our house was transformed.  I just love the color!  (Mike admitted the next day that he really likes the look of it, too!)

By the way, the color is Wythe Blue by Benjamin Moore and did I mention that I just love it?!

Summer Project #3

Before school was out, I had decided that I needed to paint the back porch furniture because it was looking kind of ratty.  Some pieces had paint worn off, some were starting to rust a bit, some had a grey fungus growing on them like is growing on the bark of the trees in the back yard, and some had some greenish grey mold-looking stuff on them.  

So, the first thing I did was get a bucket of soapy water, line up the chairs, and begin scrubbing.

I quickly got hot, sweaty, and a bit wobbly due to my not being accustomed to being outside of the air conditioning, getting older and out of shape, and Mike says I was going at it like I was killing snakes.  So, when I came inside to rest and cool off after scrubbing all the chairs, he picked up his phone and called a neighbor.  He lined up a young high school boy to come give me a hand.  So, I scrubbed a couple more pieces and the young man showed up for duty.

I had estimated how many cans I thought would be needed and placed a large order to be sure I had enough paint on hand.

Cole tackled the job with gusto by stacking up four or five chairs and carrying them out into the yard under a shade tree where I indicated I'd planned to paint. 

He painted all I had scrubbed and promised to come back another day to finish up and return everything to the porch.  He even assured me that he could scrub the pieces that I had left.  So, in a day or so, he returned and finished up the painting.  Then, came a day or so later and put everything back into place.

  

It all looks so much better!  I never dreamt it would turn out looking so nice.  It almost looks brand new!

A couple of days later, I decided that I needed to use the four left-over cans of paint to spruce up my plant stands.  So, I lined them all up and gave them a good scrub.  I came inside to cool off and eat a bite while they dried.  Then, I took them out under the shade tree and gave them a coat of paint.

I also unintentionally gave my feet a coat of paint and some of it bled onto my flip-flops and, sadly, they did not look nearly as good as all the furniture did with a coat of paint!

Summer Project #1

Summer has traditionally been the time when I work on projects and get things done. Most of them are home-improvement-type endeavors where I'm organizing or repairing or updating or simply making something work better around the house.  My first project was out of necessity.  The drain hose for the dishwasher cracked and was leaking.  So, one day there was a puddle in the kitchen floor.  I mopped up and did some investigating under the kitchen sink only to find water standing under there as well.  First, I cleared everything out from under the kitchen sink and mopped up all the water.  I left it to dry overnight and called a plumber.  

In the meantime I went online and ordered some clear plastic bins that would organize the cleaners, jars, etc. that I store down there.  I was inspired by Ann at On Sutton Place.  She talked about how the handle made it easier to pull out the items that were in the back.  So, I found these nice see-through bins and ordered these as well.  After weeding out the junk and throwing some things out, this is how my tidy under-the-sink cabinet looks:

• The left-hand cabinet has a trash can and a container that holds dishwasher pods. (You can see the pod container there on the left with the green label.)  
• That is one of my scrubbing brushes sitting on a clear plastic coaster right in front.  
• The clear bin right behind it is 14.5" long and just fits in that space with only about a hand's width to spare.  In the front, it has a tub that contains silver polish, brass polish, tooth paste for cleaning spots on silver, and that sort of thing.  In the back of that bin are oils for my butcher block counter top and cutting boards and front porch rockers.  
• On the right, I have two of the bins with handles.  The one in the back holds some empty jars and a couple of empty cans that can be used to discard something like bacon grease when I need something of that sort.  The front bin holds extras of dish soap and hand soap to refill the containers on the counter by the sink as well as window cleaner and the gloves I use for hand-washing pots and pans.  I also have an empty spray bottle in it for when I mix dish soap and vinegar to clean things.

The next project turned out to be sort of a consolation prize.  I had hoped to redo and update our kitchen this summer but we decided that our budget just wasn't ready for that, yet.  Plus, there is the Coronavirus and we just didn't feel good about having folks coming in and out of our house.  So, I decided that I would just make the things we had work better for us!

I had gotten frustrated with spices and things falling out of the cabinet every time I tried to get something out for cooking.  It seemed that every time I reached for one thing, another couple of things fell out as well.  So, again, I decided it was time to organize and followed Ann's advice! I ordered more of the clear bins with handles that stick out, a couple of these turntables, and large jars and small jars.  I hate I didn't take a before picture but these two will give you an idea of some of the jumbled up conglomeration that I had up there:

I threw out things that were out-of-date or simply looked yucky.  I combined a couple of containers into one jar when I had more than one opened.  It was really quite rewarding to get this spiffed up! I wiped down the cabinet and shelves and placed the turntables inside and filled them up!

• The bottom shelf has spices that we tend to use most on the turntable.  The jars behind the black pepper container are baking soda, baking powder, and corn starch.  There are a couple of bottles of flavored oils and a bottle of vegetable oil along with salt for refilling the shaker and some vegetable spray.  All tidy and within quick reach when cooking.
• On the middle shelf, the turntable holds spices that we use less frequently.  On the right are jars with tea bags, cocoa mix, lemonade mix, and bottles of different extracts and flavorings such as vanilla, almond, maple, etc. 
• I followed the advice that I read online in several places and put the items on the top shelf in clear bins with handles to make them easier to take down.  One bin holds bar-b-que rubs and it is in the middle because it is most frequently used by Mike as well as me. 
  
  The one on the right holds sprinkles and sugars for baking with/for the Grands.
  

The one on the left holds extras for refilling the jars.

I smile every time I open this cabinet now!  Everything is easy to find, easy to access, and easy to return to it's rightful place.  

I still hope to update and revamp my kitchen someday and when we do I will still be able to use these bins and turntables and jars.  For now, making our kitchen work efficiently for us and tidying it up are good enough.

Patience

I've been bugging Mike to put a new top on the table for the front porch.  A few months back a strong wind storm did a number on it and broke the glass top that was on it. 

Mike doesn't have quite the urgency that I do for the project.  So, I'm having to be patient. 

Patience is hard for me.

Yesterday, when I had finished working from here at home, I hopped on the ATV with Mike and we went for a ride.  We rode all over our ponderosa and even a little bit of the neighbors'.  We wound up back at Pop's barn where I checked out the progress of the seedlings he has been nurturing.

Then, we eased around the side of the barn to go close up the greenhouse for the evening to keep the new seed trays from getting too cool during the overnight temperatures.  I noticed something as we rode by the seedlings again.  Do you see it?

I think my exact words to Mike were, "I like how you crafted that plant table."

He responded, "Now, honey, that is a fine example of some redneck-carpentry there!"

So, today, when I mentioned how nice it would be if I had a new top on that table on the front porch so I have a place to set my coffee cup, he began to tell me how he would be glad to bring me one of those red plastic tubs and some different pieces of lumber to stack upon it.

Somehow, I'm learning that patience might be easier than I thought.