porch — Page 11

Scrubbing, Cleaning: Time for Spring

April 21, 2018 at 8:53 am by Claudia

Well, that was a resounding success, don’t you think? The conversation is still going on as I write this new post and I couldn’t be happier! I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about where you are from, about your individual journeys. And I have loved seeing the dialogue that has taken over the comment page. I figured I would just sit back and enjoy.

Connection. We all need to connect.

Thank you, Judy, for the idea, and thank you all for taking part. Much love to all of you.

And now to the mundane.

I worked like the dickens yesterday, if I do say so myself!

I cleaned the porch railing and the individual spindles and everything. Since our outside hose connection is not working at the moment, this involved hauling buckets of water from the kitchen to the porch. Over and over. But it looks so much better!

This is a chore that is not on my favorites list, which is why I ignored it for a few years.

Then I started to clean up the porch – still in progress as I write this – sorting through the accumulation of crap that built up over the autumn and winter. I drove the now 17 year old CR-V to the storage facility, retrieved the adirondack chairs and a few other things. Then I cleaned the glider and the chairs. I stopped for the day around 4 pm, so I haven’t added the cushions to the furniture. That will happen today.

It just felt good to start making the porch into our extra room for the spring and summer and fall. No potted plants yet – too early – but that will come. Today it will be sunny and reach 60 degrees, so I’ll be out there again working on the porch and the garden beds.

It’s slowly getting there. Slowly.

Don informed me that he wants to come home for his day off. He’s homesick. So I won’t go in, obviously. I’m just as happy to have him here. And it will be sunny – no rain! I’ll go in next week as we have tickets to listen to one the guys in the cast perform at a club on Sunday evening. By the way, Don signed up for access to a community garden around the block from the apartment. It looks lovely. There are benches to sit on, flowers blooming, birds singing, plants thriving. I’ll be sure to take photos when I see it next weekend.

Happy Saturday.

C’est Fini. For the Moment.

August 7, 2017 at 9:36 am by Claudia

My plan to work on Act 4 yesterday was shelved when I decided I would rather get everything organized in the kitchen, finish painting the trim and get all the crap off the table. I’m not a person who can leave a mess behind. Some people have no problem with that, but I’m someone who cleans and straightens up before I leave town. I did assign Don the bathroom; heaven knows when he’ll take care of that. Most likely, when he knows I’m two hours away and headed home on my day off. Same with washing the sheets. I will wash them before I leave and I think I can rest assured that he’ll leave them as is until absolutely necessary.

Not the best picture as it’s dark and rainy today, so I had to take it with the lights on so the yellow looks darker than it is, but you get the idea. Still have to re-mount the roman blinds and hang a few things here and there.

Anyway – all done! For now. We’ve decided that we want to paint the entire kitchen yellow, which isn’t as overwhelming as it sounds because we have lots of windows and trim and all the cupboards and a door that will be painted ivory white. And the ivory white I’m using is lighter and brighter than the current paint color. That’s just fine with me as I’ve never liked the paint color in this house, which is the same in every room, save the two bathrooms which I painted not long after we moved in. This house was flipped and I am absolutely sure that the flipper had every wall sprayed in this same blah color – not white, not beige, but somewhere in between. In a flat finish. When was it ever wise to paint a kitchen in oil-based paint in a flat finish?

We’re coming up on 12 years in this house and I’m finally getting around to painting the kitchen, which I’ve been threatening to do for years. I doubt I would have started painting, knowing me, but then we fell in love with the vintage stove.

And I’ll do anything for that stove.

The process will take a long time. I’m going to do it a section at a time and I’m headed off to Hartford for five weeks, so there’s that.

Again: dark, rainy, the floors look darker than they are but here’s the table. I find I’m really liking it. Don tells me he had no trouble cooking last night and the pots and pans and baking supplies are in another cupboard now that is much closer to the stove. The crate under the table holds miscellaneous items, including dish towels, some rarely used utensils, etc. I think it will work. Eventually, we’re going to replace that microwave with a smaller one in white. (I’ve never liked this one, but it came with the house, so we accepted it.) I’ve also never liked the black stove and the black dishwasher. The dishwasher doesn’t work. It’s never worked. Right now, we’re storing supposedly essential kitchen items in there. But we never use them. So they’re getting tossed and we’re getting a new dishwasher. In white. None of this will happen immediately, but with the paint, the new dishwasher and the vintage stove coming, we’ll have a mini makeover.

Oh, and I hate the tiled countertops.

You can see how the yellow changes depending on the light, the time of day and whether I have to resort to turning on the overhead pot lights.

The other item I purchased on Saturday was not a need, but I fell in love with it, so it came home with us. It’s almost impossible to take a good picture in the den because there are windows on three walls and it tends to stay dark in there until late in the day.

This table. Fell in love with the shape, the paint color – everything. I had no idea where it would go but this seemed like the right place and Don agreed. Excuse the laptop cord, but hey, this is real life. This is also pretty accurate in terms of the color. I had to close the blinds to get it that way.

And for those of you who asked, here’s the former island on the porch. I haven’t really done anything with it yet. No time.

It does look pretty there.

As you will see, it’s facing the entrance to the porch.

I have to find some place for the bench that was there – it’s currently shoved over to the left.

What do you think?

To sum up: Photos, but none of them very good. But there you go. It is what it is.

Okay. Acts 4 and 5 today and then Tuesday and Wednesday are for shopping and laundry and packing.

Happy Monday.

Missing My Husband, Garden, & Little Z

May 20, 2017 at 9:42 am by Claudia

It’s a good 15 degrees cooler today than yesterday. I must confess, I did a lot outside yesterday, culminating in mowing the larger part of the lawn. This is tiring on an average day, but yesterday, it was extremely tiring. Maybe because it was warmer and humid? I’m not sure. But I had to stop more than a few times and hydrate myself and rest. I felt frustrated by the whole endeavor, though I did finish. I’m not one to back off of chores like this and the fact that it was harder than usual ticked me off.

Anyway, after it was all done, I came into the house, took a shower, plopped into a chair and a wave of missing Don completely engulfed me. It’s been over 2 months now, with a month and half yet to go, and I felt overwhelmed with loneliness. And I knew I couldn’t call him because he was in the middle of rehearsals, so I had to wait until later in the day to speak to him.

Most days, we both handle this pretty well. But there are some, like yesterday, that are too much. We often say, “If we could just give each other a hug, everything would be better.” Not being able to do that is just plain hard.

Today is a new day and I’m better, as I knew I would be.

So far, I see three poppy buds. There will be more. And you can see that the catmint is just starting to bloom.

Forget-me-nots in the Memorial Garden.

I received an item in the mail yesterday that lifted my spirits. It was addressed to Aunt Claudia.

From Little Z.

We spoke briefly last night. He hadn’t had a nap and he was tired. After a little back and forth, he said, “I can’t talk because it’s raining.”

Oh, that boy! He makes me laugh.

Happy Saturday.

Scrubbing, Cleaning: Time for Spring

C’est Fini. For the Moment.

Missing My Husband, Garden, & Little Z

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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