Looking back

Before (old set)

After (new set)

 Decorating:

 All Fall down:

 Up Again! moved down an inch as well:

 Remember these?

 "Oh Dang!" They all survived but 1 tiny pineapple plant!

I took this bottom picture this morning so yep, they're still there!

I have to go get ready for work right now. I have to go in a 1/2 hour early and I need to shower, and dress up because it's our Family night tonight! Wish me luck! It's going to be tiring and crazy as usual!

I'll see you tomorrow!
Trisha.

Closet

Time to show my closet!
Here is the starts (with randomness as we were building) New shelving and clothes rods.

AND FINISHED!

HOLY COW! WHO WOULDA THOUGHT WE HAD SO MANY CLOTHES!

 I was so surprised!

It took me a little more than 1 day to wash all of them because most were in my garage and I wanted to start fresh. But whew! It's done! I am so excited every time I open the door, because my clothes have a place! And I only have to look in one place! I have all our winter and summer stuff mixed in, so it still needs a little work and sorting, and after that's all done, I will put winter stuff in the trunk and put it under the jackets which you can see hanging in the bottom picture.

But there's a place for EVERYTHING now!

I am so excited to see this part of the house done!

Have a fun day!

Trisha.

I'm Back!

 Whew! I'm feeling tons better! I have defeated my cold finally! I stopped eating dairy products except 1Tablespoon butter a day if I felt it was absolutely necessary. I now know I am for sure allergic to dairy. It just kept the mucus coming! I also am not bloated anymore!

I also stopped eating meat. I ate vegetarian/ raw and I feel that also helped. My body cannot heal itself if it's bogged down with stuff it cannot digest.

I treated myself last night to Sonic's jumbo chicken popcorn and tater tots and an ocean water to celebrate! ( I shared some with my husband) I feel if I do eat meat it should be meat I enjoy and I love chicken and Sonic makes wonderful chicken! Well, the one on Greenway and 40th st. I mean! I've been disappointed with other locations!
So far, no ill effects other than slight bloat! So it shows I can have meat on occasion!

We went to PV mall last night, and I got my first ever massage! OUCH! I am not sore today though thankfully! I was sure he would take off my head! I must have had all kinds of knots in my neck! And eeew! The popping lumps in my shoulders! Who would have thought! Maybe that's part of the source of my migraines!

We also went to Dillard's, and oh joy! Oh happiness! I used my gift card from 2010 Christmas from my parents, and LOOK!

A whole new outfit! I cannot express my joy at a new skirt! Both were on sale and I fell in love with both, and they go together I think, so a new Spring/Sunday/Church outfit! Out of all my clothes, my skirt collection brings me the most joy for some reason!
But do I really need more clothes? I'll show you my closet tomorrow!
Have a great day! I'm feeling alive!
Trisha.

This calls for a break

I am so exhausted lately and found I had the hardest time driving home last night from work. I ended up getting a headache which then turned into a migraine which made me so sleepy and queasy I had a hard time staying awake but I made it home.

I am planning on finding out what is wrong with me and to do that, I am going to take a break from computer land and sleep. I didn't sleep well last night and I don't know why.

So, until I can get my brains back and be able to function like a normal human being, I'll see you later. Like maybe Monday.

Until then, I'll have to stop eating the foods that bother me. I've been eating a normal American diet all week except for breakfasts, and am starting to wonder if that is whats doing me in. I still cannot process dairy or meats well. I am still fighting the end of my cold, and have not been taking care of myself while working full time, and trying to put my house back together.

The sun's up, but my body ain't

It has been too much on my body.
So see you later! I'll be back!
Trisha.

The Wall Of Ideas

It looked like this: Pencil

 And this: (same)

Then this: Pencil/tape

Then this:

Now this:

This wall has given me the heebie jeebies.
I was under constant anxiety over what it would turn into. Especially with all the unfinished projects in the house already and the thought of "a new one?"

I can rest easy tonight knowing it's over. No more wall of ideas. 

For now.
Trisha.

We're getting there!

We found the lamps, found temporary end tables and set them up.

 Here is the idea wall! All finished, and started to be decorated. We haven't decided if we're keeping any fake trees, but my husband set this one up.

I now have a hole in the garage where we had clothes and the shelves. I'm hoping within the end of this month that my linen closet or extra bedroom will be finished so I can move more from the garage and decorate and finally organize and sort through all the junk. I have a garage sale/ junk pile started. My husband wants to just pile it all in the truck and drive to Goodwill with it, but I'd rather wait till we've gone through everything and then do 1 trip if it's possible.

So I will start a pile and add to it as we go through things.
I've got to start a bit of organizing before I leave for work so the dog doesn't have fun eating things he's not supposed to, so I'll see you later!
Trisha.

All fall down

This is just like my life I guess:

 I think these are so pretty! I just wish they were thicker. We'll have to come up with a different option then what they came with to install them. I'm thinking attach them to a thicker board then nail in place.

 But the other side of the living room is up! We're getting there! I hope this doesn't come crashing down as well! This one is installed with a nail.

I'll be busy working on my closet today. Wish me luck. I'll be exploring in the garage dungeon and visiting the laundry room. I'll probably try on a lot of clothes as well.

But in the end, hopefully we'll be living out of our closet and not the bed drawers, laundry basket and garage.

See you later!
Trisha

Randomness

At it's finest.

Feels like spring has sprung!

I finally ventured out far enough into the yard to investigate what looked like grapefruit tree branches growing out of the soil from a distance. Turned out they were gigantimous weeds. Growing strong and healthy.

All the trees are all in holes about  1/2 foot deep or so, so you can see how tall and lush these weeds are. Our front yard is also growing weeds, but the smaller variety that will get bigger if we continue to pretend they're not there. Someday we'll be better enough to get them out.

While we are still battling our colds, life goes on.  I thought I was just about finished, and then it decided to give me the scare of maybe I have pneumonia and then now it's going away again.

So until I have my strength back, I'll be looking at all that needs to be done.

Have a Happy Sunday!
Trisha

It's my Friday!

I have the next 2 days off. I plan on:

• Sleeping
• Resting
• Putting my closet back together

I have 2 days to do all that. Do you think I can do it?

The third one will be no fun though because it involves washing laundry after I go through all of my clothes from the garage.

 Yep, we're moving back in! We still need to repaint the bedrooms and laundry room though.

Here is what my living room is looking like now:

My husband installed the cork! I am so excited! My house is finally coming together! I'll have a home! Don't you love the pillow details? I didn't bother trying to set it up. I also left the dog detouring mousetrap on the couch as well. Those things work!

So living room 1/2 ways done. We still have 1 picture to hang, 2 end tables to buy, and need to find decorations for all the surfaces. Living room almost finished.

See you later!
Trisha.

My quilt

Here is my quilt. I cut many squares. I then bought more fabric after I got married to make it for a California king bed. We now have a queen. So I may end up taking a couple rows off and make a decorative pillow out of it.

 I love purple.

 I think I picked out the prettiest fabrics too.

Here are the things to make it with. I have other white fabric so I might double up so the thread doesn't show through. I don't think purple threads showing through white cloth would ever look nice.

I started this quilt before I got married. Every house I have lived in I have sewn little squares together. Then I sewed rows of little squares together. Hours and hours have gone into this quilt so far.
I have all kinds of plans on decorating the bed also. Many pillow sham ideas, etc... here's one- sew lots of scrap strips together: I'm still undecided.

I have many memories making this quilt. Of cool spring air blowing through the window while I sewed, of cute cats skittering across scattering loose squares to gallumping big dogs. I have so many dreams for this quilt. But it lies unfinished still. Maybe about 10-12 years I have owned these squares now. I have great plans to now work on it. AND FINISH IT.

I've always had great plans to finish it. And be the first one to finish my quilt.

Me and my sister started our quilts at the same time. 2 teenage sisters bent over fabric cutting squares neither one of us with any idea on how to make a real quilt. Just dreams. My sister got as far as cutting her squares and putting them in a bag perfectly, neatly all stacked up. I still don't know how she stacked them more perfectly than a machine could have! Then she finished school, went to Finland, and  got married, had a baby, got pregnant again, and then gave them to me. She said she'd never have the time to finish it. I was so excited! What a gift! That was a couple years ago. She's now had 3 babies in total.

Lo and behold, I found her squares neatly stacked so perfectly in that same bag she handed them over to me in. That was about a week and a 1/2 before Christmas last year. I saw them and realized they would always be her squares to me. I remember the longing look she had looking at those squares before she handed them to me. I made a goal to finish that quilt. And I did.

Here is her quilt: Didn't she pick out the prettiest color scheme?

 All those little squares I painstakingly sewed together late into every night. Trying to make them match up. Then painstakingly quilting it and cringing every time the fabric would crease under the machine because it was so thick and I had no idea how to make it not shift while sewing and I kept getting stuck with the thousand pins I had tried to use to prevent shifting. So there are permanent little folds sewn into her quilt. :-( Not my best work I'll have to admit, but I still don't know how else it could have been done. Mine will probably be the same unless I learn a new technique before I do it, or hand sew it. But it will probably still happen to mine!

Finally finished quilting:

 The only fabric I had to back it with that wouldn't show through all the threads and seams was my thick plaid fabric. I got the OK from my mom that it would work, and then finished it. I guess it's reversible now!

All finished. She won. Hers was finished before mine, but I just knew every time I saw those squares made into a quilt or not, I'd always think of it as her quilt. And it is. I gave it to her for Christmas 2011. I feel like I cheated. Especially because she bought me a gift- a popcorn popper! And mostly because they were her squares to start with even though I purchased the rest of the materials to finish it with and sewed them together. My mom said it would be a good gift. I sure hope my sister felt the same way!

But now I can make mine!
Trisha.

The garden beginning 2012

The Garden now:

 in all it's brown glory.

Life among all the frozen death and decay: Green onions! and weeds!

 and mixed in with weeds, red lettuce! I didn't plant it though. so a useful weed.

 The pile of bricks still goes untouched along with pots still needing care and love and new plants to cradle within. Bags of soil/ mulch, stakes, and yes, that's a dead sunflower propped up over the pile I've pulled up and rudely beheaded. notice the dirt clump still firmly attached to it's greedy root fingers? I tried to bang it off and it's such a mass of roots, forget it. Caliche clay living up to it's name: Caliche is a sedimentary rock, a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate. This calcium carbonate cements together other materials, including gravel, sand, clay, and silt.
Yup, and in my garden it flourishes. and cements stuff together. But it sure grows things!

With out going much into the garden, as you can tell from the first picture, there is a lot of dead plants all frozen and littered across from one side to the other. I still have potatoes to dig up, and watermelon to harvest. Probably frozen and gross now as the melon vines died about a month ago.

A garden frozen in time a little after the first freeze. Neglected. And forgotten.

This year it will take on new life. My husband wants to do it his way and rid of all the grass for me, and then maybe he'll help me re dig it and we'll plant our health in there as well. Another of my goals this year is to try eat or can/freeze/save everything that comes from my garden and try not to buy much from the store. I'm hoping for a HUGE garden this year. But we'll see how it goes. you can't just say something and have it work as planned, especially while working full time relying on batteries to keep it alive, (experience from my mom's garden where her batteries gave out in the middle of the summer in the middle of the blazing heat while she was out of the state) but I'll sure try! :-) I had the best garden last year! (Thanks mom for my garden and for all your hard work helping me!)

So the garden before. In the beginning. A lot of work. A lot of dreams and plans. Unstarted.

So many words to describe it. A whole year to do it.
Trisha.

Our yard: year beginning

From the north west corner:

 west side

 east side

 still on the patio: The banished fruit fly plants The big one in the upper left corner was knocked down by the dog. He he :-) snicker snicker -oh well!  We'll see if it dies survives! maybe one less to worry about! I keep forgetting to water them! so lots of brown leaves.

 HOLY ORANGE TREE! the other side of it. I don't see how this thing is still standing! TOO MANY ORANGES! The first year, we had maybe 19 in total. maybe 25 last year but all frozenly gross. now this year, well you count them! not counting the ones that get mowed as they keep getting in the way when my husband mows the grass.

 Talking about grass, so lush and thick and springy! Here's where the dog and I pranced around.

 And the garden. So frozenly sad in a frozen in time state. not much life left in there.

 New life on the shamel ash tree and look on the phone line:

 HOW CUTE! I love seeing the birds all lined up trying to warm up in the sun every morning! Sometimes across the whole entire string from the beginning of the block all down the street to the end! But lucky me, they like it by my house best. Always.

So, now that it's a fresh year, we'll see what changes to the backyard 2012 will bring.
Trisha

Out with the old!

Our old living room set:

 SOLD: love seat

 SOLD: couch (I won this one for free)

 SOLD: Chair (no more dog waiting for us to get his ball out from under it! they don't fit under the new ones!-You might also notice it's under the coffee table? Hee Hee!)

Still waiting for a decision: Our coffee table given to us by a family I babysat for.

This old set we've had for a while, and the first set I've liked. I'm sad to see it go. But it has dog hair, cat hair, and concrete dust mashed into the fabric. I guess I could have cleaned it, but I don't have the patience. I might have no allergies if it goes away. Still, I'm sad to see it go.

We like the coffee table, but my husband wants to cut it up to use it in a shelving system. I don't know about that idea. But we have no more use for it. It's old, and showing it's age and needs refinishing. I guess we will hang onto it for a while till we figure out what we want.

So, Out with the old.
Trisha