The hummers are back! We spotted our first hummingbird a little over a week ago. They leave just before winter and we are always excited to see them when they come back.
This morning I spotted this one on a branch at our back porch. Last year during a hurricane I ran out and grabbed branches and zip ties and tied the branches to the ironwork on the porch because a hummingbird was trying to stay safe on our porch but there was hardly any safe area for her to perch. She stayed on the branch throughout the hurricane into the next day when it was safe to leave.
I did not remove the branches from the porch and this morning I see this young hummingbird perched on a branch. I am peeking through the blinds and snapped this picture above.
It has been very busy for the past month. Yesterday I groomed Bernadette and Elizabeth. I shaved them down from their long winter coat. It takes me about two hours to groom Bernadette shown above.
Elizabeth above. It takes me about three hours to groom Elizabeth. If we get anymore cold weather I will put a sweater on her. She grows out quickly. They get tired after grooming and I am exhausted. I even napped yesterday afternoon when I finished. The weather is binging from freezing to the 80s so who knows how to dress anymore. A few days we will wear full winter clothing and the next short sleeves and petal pushers.
Katherine, far left does not get grooming, only a bath and ears cleaned. They look thrilled about the picture don't they?
Well I jumped right back into painting after my muscles would allow me to climb a ladder again. This photo I was breaking apart the room. After I removed the curtains and painted the walls blue I decided to remove everything from the room and paint the floor. Now this really might be something I cannot do much longer because I am still not over the soreness from that.
The green walls are in several rooms in the house and I have been wanting to paint the guest room blue for awhile because of our quilts and bedding that have blue in them.
So I started putting the room back together.
This room will be in good shape for quite a long time now. Our homes need maintenance inside and out and a fresh coat of paint is part of that maintenance. Even if we don't paint we should take everything out of the room and give it a good scrubbing. Not often but it is good to do so we can wash the baseboards and spots off the walls.
I changed the pictures in the room. Since our intentional direction is to live more like the past and pictures were more sparse on the walls and hung slightly higher many years ago.
I chose smaller pictures I had in the sewing room.
I do have a goal to reach at some point and that is freshly painted rooms, nothing stored under the beds, closets and drawers organized and air flow around each piece of furniture in the house. This is a bit difficult when we live in a small house.
I hope to start sewing curtains any day now but normal household chores keep bumping my start time.
Even if I reach my goals I will always have something extra to do as I have a secret hobby, well it was secret up until right now...
I like to paint or decopodge the inside of our drawers.
I did art work on the inside of each drawer in a chest of drawers several years ago. It was a chest that someone threw out to the side of the road for trash pickup. Charles and I picked it up, Charles fixed the broken parts and I painted the outside and did art work inside all the drawers. Later we donated it to our local mission store. It made me happy to think what child or adult might end up with that chest of drawers with the secret artwork inside. :)
Since we started downsizing and donating our furniture and "Stuff" the inside of the furniture we have left is not painted except for two pieces. So now I will have plenty of opportunity to do my art work.
I am funny about crafts and artwork, I want it to have a real purpose. I went through the stage of making things because it was fun and that led to "Stuff". So now what I do make has more purpose such as knitted and crochet household goods, dish cloths and wash cloths, placemats and coasters. Rugs and lap throws. I also like to re-purposing items we already have.
This is the blue fabric I will be using to make curtains for the blue bedroom.
When I was young one of my Great Aunts lived in a beautiful house. I used to think her house was a mansion and she had rooms that we called the blue room or the pink room and such. It was fun to choose which room we would get to sleep in. She collected Antiques and the beds were as tall as trees. It was like a magical place to me with her fine silver tea and coffee serving pieces and large spacious windows. The formal dining room overlooking much land.
It was hard to believe during this time that this house was in rural Mississippi on a dirt road way out in the country and the only house around that was brick on the outside. It truly was and still is a beautiful house today but it has been many years now that my Aunt lived there.
I will tell you a very funny story.
When I was a teen, We were visiting my aunt and uncle and my aunt told me to pick which room I wanted to sleep in. I picked the blue room for that particular visit. I had to go to the bathroom and the bathroom was adjoining the blue room.
So I sat on the toilet and started to pee with my panties down below my knees. Something hit me in the butt! Something wet! I screamed trying to run with my panties around my legs! It was an embarrassing situation as everyone rushed to me as I peed from fright as I cross the bedroom floor stumbling with my drawers down around my ankles at this point.
What became more funny is my Mother and Aunt peed in their pants from laughing so hard after they found out what zapped me in the butt.
As it turned out a tree frog was in the toilet.
I am not sure how I got off on that story from showing you the blue fabric...
Back to the painting and de-cluttering. Little by little I am still reducing clutter. It is taking a long time but at least I am going in my intentional direction.
Keeping to our 1944 life we ate loose meat sandwiches for supper yesterday. Loose meat sandwiches goes back to the 1920s. It is served mostly with hamburger buns or sandwich bread but we had flat bread so this is what we used.
They are served with mustard and pickles and are messy like sloppy joes.
Since painting and thinning out the guest room Apple bunny and Hubert have lost their shelf. They are just hanging out in the hallway for now. Apple Bunny goes back to Charles and I early in our marriage and Hubert was in our GrandCrib and our Grandson that is now in college slept with Hubert when he was a baby so how do you separate these two buddies? I will just have to find that new special place for them. They were probably getting bored in the guest room anyway. Lol
It may seem that I am not posting much about living like 1944 with all we are doing around here but part of living like the past is working our way in that direction. We are getting use to living the old way so it is simply becoming part of the way we live. Grandma Donna
