Hi, ho!

It’s nose to the grindstone day!! So, off to work I go!

I’ll be home shortly after 2PM eastern time and I’ll be in the studio around 3-ish. Come watch me on the web cam while I make beads with my rainbow cane I made last week!

We had a WONDERFUL weekend! Saturday was Nancy’s birthday and yesterday was Mom’s day! Great times!!

I hope everyone else had a good weekend too!

Thankfulness

I am thankful this year for many things, not the least of which are:

• FINALLY having a part time job and an awesome boss who is willing to work with me on all the time off I've needed in this past year due to shoulder surgery, this latest emergency surgery as well as my upcoming knee replacement.
• Having this wonderful ol' house to keep us warm and sheltered, despite the fact that it is an old house and needs lots of tender loving care; read: expensive at times! It has just about everything we need and it's full of good times, good memories, good food, and good folks! It also is the investment that is our future! (Southwest - here we come!)
  
• Mom. Her health and attitude are better now that she is here with us. This is not to say that it isn't trying at times with her here, but my stress levels are much lower now that I don't have to worry about her being alone.
  
• Our pets. Nero the dog, Henry and Twink the cats, Harriet and Hermione the hermit crabs and the fish. They all bring us joy and unconditional love.
• My creative outlets. They calm and relax me.

And last but certainly not least...

• My WONDERFUL partner, Nancy who has stood by me, being a rock, encouraging and supporting me during all these health issues. She is just simply the best thing that has EVER happened to me! I love her dearly, however I doubt she really has any idea how MUCH she truly means to me! Simple words cannot describe what she means to me. She is my everything!
  

Happy holiday to everyone!!

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Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey, then where you are reading it from is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

Upon Moving Mom in with us....

We've had an extremely busy summer! As you know we have been busy painting rooms and rearranging the entire house. This operation has two desired end results:

1. Prepping this big ol' house in anticipation of the economy turning back around. Once the whole political thang is over and 'we' as a country come to our senses and boot out the current administration and "hopefully" get some real change happening in Washington! We SIMPLY can not endure another 4 years (with the very real potential of eight years) of the same ol' idiocy that has reigned with the republicans!! AKK!! Our personal plan?? Make this old house as shiny and inviting as is physically possible for two ol' Lesbians to do, so when we do sell, we will squeeze as many pennies out of the equity in this place as is possible. This house, after all, is what will be financing our pending move to the southwest! *dance, dance*
   
2. Mom was declining in both her physical health and mental state. It was time for her to move in with us. She has developed emphysema and gets VERY short of breath at the least little physical excursion. She is legally blind, has been her entire life. She does well with what she can see - however her right eye is basically useless and her left one is bad as well - she also has no depth perception, so walking on uneven surfaces is not really an option. Her knees are shot, too. Stairs are very difficult. She has never had to take any prescriptions until the whole emphysema thing happened and then she immediately got confused as to when what and how she was to deal with a couple pills and some inhalers! It was time... I was stressed out about her being alone in her apartment, I was stressed about her being a half hour car ride away should something immediate occur on her end, I was just stressed.
   

I have always known that at one point in my life my Mom would be living with me full time. In fact it was told to me over and over that it was and would continue to be my job to watch over my Mom.

Different folks have commented to me about her living us. 'A relationship killer!', 'A sure fire disaster just waiting to happen!' - these are just two things folks have blurted out to me upon my telling them that we were moving my mother in with us.

I know it won't be easy. Mom knows and goodness sake Nancy certainly knows! We are 3 grown women, two menopausal and one elderly. We all have opinions and needs and wants, in other words, we are 3 strong vocal women. The potential for disaster is there, but I have faith in us, as a couple and as a family.

It'll take compromise and gentleness as well as lots of love. I love my Mom and I love Nancy more than anyone knows. She is so special to me and I know this is the woman who will be with me for the rest of my life. Our golden years. Nancy has known since we started dating that me and Mom were a package deal. She took that on and has run with it! Completely changing our lives and our home we have worked hard this summer! She is a trouper and must really love me for doing all this work to the house and moving Mom in!

I am simply struck dumb sometimes at how lucky I am to have found her. *gulp*

Trudging along.....

Kind of a neat picture of a guy trudging along on wet sand in this "flickr find" I found -

Mom has been sick and not getting better for a few weeks now. We went to a "quick care" place a week ago, she had all sorts of tests and internal pictures done with no releif from the scripts he gave! *sigh* Then, Tuesday we went to her regular doctor, except he was on vacation, so we saw a PAC and Dr. who was on call... had more tests done and another ex ray done! Yesterday I was expecting some news from this doc on call and found that NOTHING was conclusive about her diagnoses! OY! So we now have another appointment on Tuesday afternoon to see her regular doctor who knows her! *SIGH* She is, among other things, having trouble breathing. Could it possibly have anything to do with decades of smoking!!?? Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder...

Nancy and I've been working so hard to get the bathroom done so we can move her down here! It seems as if we are the guy in that picture trudging through wet sand! Akk! It just seems to be the project that is taking FOREVER to finish!!! AKK!!! All I want to do is get her, her bed, her recliner and her TV down here so I can take car of of her!! I'm worried sick about her being alone when she isn't feeling well!

So, Monday I was off and I worked on the fauxing of the bathroom walls again. I got a good chunk of it finished. This morning I worked in there for a bit too. Here's a pic of the unpainted interior door with some of my faux work.

I have been scheduled for over 30 hours this week and will get probably get close to that many next week too! Covering other folks vacations. Good for my wallet, bad for my time to work on the bathroom!









I REALLY like the richness of the look on the walls!! I plan on waxing and buffing the walls as a final step in my process. Nancy is having a difficult time picturing what the final room will look like.

I've decided that the woodwork and trim is going to be yellow.... so I played with the last picture in my photo editing program to give her and all you blog readers an idea of what the cabinet and trim will look like in yellow.

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Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey Designs, the you are reading it from is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

More home improvement pictures

The whole reason we've been painting and redoing portions of the house is in preparation for Mom to move in, she's been having some difficulties living alone in her apartment. So in order to give me some peace of mind, and get the house ready for the market (once the economy turns around again) so we can can get what the house is worth, or at least what Nancy paid for it, we've been working our way around the house.

These pictures are of the fully completed (painted) double living rooms. As I mentioned in an earlier post, "P" came over last weekend - the 4th of July - and did the majority of the work in these two rooms. She is a GREAT painter and did a wonderful job! Nancy also did a great job patching two rather big holes in the plaster walls. There's so much trim in these rooms, 4 archways, crown molding, a chair rail, base boards and 4 windows! LOT'S and LOT'S of painters caulk was used!! Prep work, prep work, prep work! You can NEVER do too much prep work when painting out rooms!! Especially in a 100 plus year old house!


This is a shot of the second living room with the new paint color! The top is a terracotta and the bottom is pumpkin-y, and the trim is a sage green. We had the drapes and furniture, which go beautifly with the new colors! We still have to Kirby the area rug that will go in this room and a chair or two of Mom's will go in here too. To the right you can see the "key hole" arch leading in to what will be her bedroom.


I'm standing in the "front" or "first" living room here. You can see the "key hole" arch and on into what will become her bedroom. We will wash down the walls and perhaps repaint the trim in there, but the wallpaper stays. It's difficult to see in this shot but the orange-y reds in the paper really look good against the pumpkin and terracotta walls. I have to find or make a drape that will match to hang in the arch so she has some privacy in her bedroom.


Here's the front room. That love seat will go against the front windows and her green recliner will go in that corner. As you might or might not know, Mom is legally blind and sun and glare bother her terribly. The windows and front door (yep thats a piece of Kathi's stained glass art on the front door!) face east, so the sun comes in the front windows in the morning quite strongly. In the afternoon, the sun is in the west and the house across the street is white so sun reflects off it terribly through the front windows again! So, because the glare from the windows is so strong, in order for to see her TV, it will go opposite her chair, on the southern or driveway side of the house instead of in the front corner like we had it.

Here, I'm standing where her TV will go, next to the arm of the large couch you see in the first picture. This is looking in to the dining room. That's our 20 gallon high goldfish aquarium in the corner.





This shot is taken from inside Mom's bedroom, looking east out into the living rooms. You can also see into the dining room. That little built in houses my Great Grandmothers mantle clock. The chimney runs up through this portion of the wall.




My focus today will be to finish my portion of the downstairs bathroom. I finished texturing the walls with joint compound and I painters caulked all the cracks in the trim work the other day. Today, I'm painting out the ceiling in a light blue and then painting all the walls and trim a light sandy color. After that dries, I'll do a faux technique, wiping on and then off with a darker sandy color. The darker color will seep into the cracks and crevices I made with the joint compound and give an over all stucco, sandstone-y look. You can see the entrance to the bathroom to the left in the shot above. Nancy will then finish out the shower surround next weekend.

After the bathroom is complete, I'll finish up settling my new studio space. Then we'll take a bit of a break from painting while we pack up and move Mom out of her apartment and into our house. We hope to have her moved in by August. In the fall, we'll start painting out our living room (media room) upstairs. After that, it'll be the front hall and stairs (which we'll hire out due to the need of scaffolding and such) then perhaps early spring or even late winter, definitely by next summer -!!- we'll tackle the kitchen! Phew!!

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Copyright © 2008 by Constance Pelkey.

This bloggy feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this content in a news reader or on a website related to Constance Pelkey Designs, this site is in violation of copyright!
Thanks!! Connie

Blast from the past!

Didn't work on anything upstairs today at all! Went up to Mom's and we went to the cemetery. Then we had lunch and I came home and prepped the desktop 'puter for the yard sale this Saturday.

I found lots of fun files on it! Including these two VERY fun videos from our southwest trip a couple years ago!




A link to the video



A link to the video

Weekend

Yesterday I went to work again. I worked from noon 'til four. It was good. Good to get out of the house other than errand running or going up to Mom's. I was tired out after getting home last night!! I'm vastly overestimating how quickly my shoulder is healing. Don't misunderstand... it's healing wonderfully and my physical therapist, Dana, say that it's leaps and bounds ahead of my right shoulder, which was repaired by the same surgeon last summer. I'm being impatient. Because it's doing so well I want it to be better, completely. NOW! Dammit!! I'm tired of being in a sling, I'm tired of being severely limited as to what I can do. I'm tired of it hurting. I'm just impatient.

I'd put some turkey cutlets in the crock pot yesterday morning along with some crushed Italian tomatoes and paste and some Italian veggies and mushrooms. What makes them Italian veggies as opposed to... say French veggies I'll never understand. *G* It was delicious when I got home and we ate. I LOVE no fuss yummy meals!

While I was gone, Nancy worked some more upstairs... details. DETAILS! The old saying "The devil is in the details" makes perfect sense to me. These rooms are taking much longer than we'd anticipated. She scraped and primed the crown molding in the bedroom and touched up ceiling spots in both rooms.

This morning after leisurely cups of coffee and home made banana walnut muffins on the front porch, we went upstairs and worked a bit more. She painted out the crown molding in the trim color while I finished caulking and trimming out the two windows. She then moved into the dressing room and scraped and taped the crown molding in there. I also vacuumed up all the loose paint chips from the painted floor and we realized that it was chipping. Easily. Ak! So, that will get another coat of paint and then a final coat of satin finish polyurethane. Hopefully that will stop the chipping.

This afternoon we are being deck dogs again. It rained yesterday and today it's a mix of clouds and sun, but nice and warm... so here we sit, me putzing on the laptop and her doing her Sudoko and reading her book. The dogs are lazing in the sun too!

Tomorrow is back to reality. Nancy goes back to work and I have a big day with Mom. It's our monthly go-to-lunch-with-the-the-low-vision-group and then I'll do her groceries.

On Tuesday I'll get back to trimming out the dressing room.

Connie

~ Life's too short to use cheap beads! ~

Recently on Drew Street.

It's been a busy past few days...

Nancy took this week off so we can work on fixing this place up.

The master plan is to move our bedroom into the room Patty used as her bedroom (she moved back to Portland last fall to be closer to family again) we'll keep the middle room as our "dressing room" - there's no closets to speak of in this house so we have had to use one of the rooms upstairs as a closet, it houses our dressers and my vanity.

My studio will be moved back upstairs, into the small front room (that I had it in when we first moved into this house) and the big electrical things - my kiln and buffer and tumbler - will go down in the cellar. We had the electrical updated on the first floor and cellar, so those "big things" will be down where the electricity can handle them.

Our old bedroom will become a new living room with a small area to the side that'll have a table and such set up for when we have poker and cribbage night.

Then, the living room downstairs and my "old" studio will be open for Mom's stuff. Yep, you read that right. My mother's stuff. It's time. I'm very concerned about her living alone. She is legally blind and she has fallen a couple of times. Also she just can't see well enough to do little things that, to a fully sighted person, is nothing, like plugging a lamp in that has become unplugged for whatever reason, changing the batteries in her remote, and any other of the 100's of reasons I have to drive up to her place (a 2o minute ride!) to rescue her from one thing or another!

We'll set up her living room in the front room and her bedroom in my old studio. We'll still eat in the dining room and I'll do the cooking, as always. She goes to bed pretty early so we'll have the upstairs living room for ourselves.

So, the painting involves our new bedroom, the dressing room, the new upstairs living room and we'll also paint the downstairs living room. I'm still working on the downstairs bathroom and at some point we'll do something with the kitchen too. This "master plan" is in preparation for the market to turn... fixing the house up while waiting for the pendulum to swing back. *g* Because, after the economy gets "righted" we will sell this place and move to the Southwest! YAY!

So, Friday Nancy took as a vacation day too. We did some errands and grocery shopped, that evening "D" came over and played cribbage.

Saturday Nancy worked on the new bedroom, taping, cutting in, rolling the walls etc...

In the afternoon I went back to work for the first time since my surgery! YAY! I worked from 10AM to 2PM. It was fine, I just straightened aisles and did customer service. I go again next Saturday from 12 to 4PM.

Sunday morning I organized, weeded out and emptied the dressing room.

Nancy mowed the back yard.

Then in the afternoon we went for a motorcycle ride - 73 miles round trip! It was GORGEOUS!! The lilacs are in bloom everywhere and we sniffed deeply every time we went past a bunch!! YUM!!

Monday morning was spent doing some more yard work. These two bushes were transplanted (by Nancy) from the front to the driveway side of the house.


And these, the Bleeding Heart and -- I can't remember what it's called! AK!! -- Nancy moved into the bed across the front.


In the meantime, I finished planting my tomatoes in the bed right off the deck. Not an easy task with one arm! LOL!!


In the afternoon we got back to painting.


And today, Tuesday we finished up in the bedroom. Well, almost. I still have to go back and do the details of the crown molding and the windows, but I have a couple appointments as well as Mom's year and a half out check up at the cancer center and believe me, I NEED a rest! My shoulder hurts and needs a rest.

Here's Nancy's beautiful floor!


And a shot of the 3 colors... mocha walls, latte for the the trim, and dark chocolate pudding on the floor! See? The crown molding and details on the windows still needs finishing.. I'll get to that.

The dressing room will have these same colors except there's creamy gray carpeting on that floor as well as in the new living room.

To top today off, the roofers came! They worked all day and almost got everything done! It started raining right at the end of the day and they had to knock off early. This new roof will stop those nasty leaks we had last winter! Shewt!

Connie

~ Life's too short to use cheap beads! ~

Lunch in Canada

I drove my Mom to Canada for lunch yesterday. We drove up 95 and crossed at Houlton. Yep. A four hour drive, one way to see her 87 year old sister, my Aunt Vivian. They are the only two left, on this coast anyway. My Uncle Raymond is in Oregon, doubtful if he will ever make it over here again. Mom is 76. There were 7 siblings. 3 remain. There were some tears as we left... Both are in good health, but ya just never know. It was a good visit.

On the way back down I95 we ran into some heavy rain storms and there was even some hail mixed in at times.

Connie

~ Life's too short to use cheap beads! ~