Happy Snowy Friday and Office Reorg Update

Happy snowy Friday! I adore these serendipitous holidays where nature has everyone slow down a bit. We’ve had a wonderful day staying indoors.

I went upstairs this morning and took a few pictures of our home office which is my current “big” project. No one is going to say I took performance enhancing drugs to get through fast. Small steps. Bits of progress.

Chairs look a lot crisper spray painted black. I think a little red lumbar pillow will look great in this chair.

Chair painted Black

If you can get around all of the mess I have pulled out in the above picture, you’ll see how the newly painted black chair looked BEFORE when you look at the picture below. Just imagine all of the junk gone and picture how GOOD the chair looks black in this spot. I know..it takes some imagination.

While you’re using your imagination, imagine the couch slipcovered in white denim. I’m ordering 14 yards today!! The labor for this will be $400. I’m saving $100 per week for four weeks.

Bookshelf all neat and organized in the picture below. A place for everything and everything in its place. These bookshelves are over 30 years old now. They are a little out of style. They were purchased at Ethan Allen and are really sturdy. They work!

And my file cabinet…all tidied up with the Cricut on top where its handy. I’ve organized all of the drawers, too! I like these little wooden file cabinets. Mike and I each have one.

You can see the green rug in the above picture. That rug will be shampooed and rolled up for storage. It’ll come out again some time in another room, but the rug that will go in it’s place is a neutral natural “cream” color. Imagine…the natural rug, the black chairs, the wood pieces all accented in black and red. I’m starting to see it!

Accessories will make this a sweet space. New lampshades, a red throw, some burlap, plants, black and white checks…you get the picture. Lots of cleaning, throwing away and organizing still ahead.

I’m also looking around the house and seeing what I have that I can reuse. I had a wrought iron “curly thing” that I’d hung above the entry way in the dining room. It was a distressed yellow color. I painted it black. It’ll go behind the couch. See the post it note for Mike!” He hates those things!

How are you spending this snowy day? Are you crafting, reading, cleaning, sleeping or eating? All of them sound good to me!

Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup

Last week’s rainy…then snowy…weather made me want soup in the crock pot. Is it more classy to say “slow cooker?” Anyway, I found a recipe which used the following ingredients.

And here’s how you assemble the ingredients…I got this from my Rival Crock Pot Cookbook that came when I bought the crockpot ages ago.

1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1 zucchini, diced
1 cup cabbage, shredded
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 15 oz. cans kidney beans, drained
2 14 1/2 oz. cans beef broth
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes (I used home canned)
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 cups cooked elbow macaroni
1/4 cup Parmeasean cheese, grated (Of course it’s grates as I use the big green can!! So NOT classy!)

Combine all of the ingredients in the crockpot except the macaroni and Parmesan cheese. Cover. Cook on low for 7 to 9 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours. Stir in the macaroni and Parmesan cheese.

It’s good! We had homemade bread (someone else’s homemade..not mine) and this soup last Thursday when it was snowing outside.

Very cozy.

After the January 2013 Snow

Hi! Baby it’s cold outside! It’s been a wild week. I had no internet on the onset of last week due to a transmitter being replaced up at the Mendota Fire Tower by my pals at IGO Technologies. They did the replacement while our area received 6.5 inches of rainfall!

Here’s where my internet comes from…on top of Clinch Mountain!

Twenty four hours after the repair, we received 6-7 inches of wet (and beautiful) snow resulting in no phone service, no electricity and no internet. The phone service returned in 48 hours, the electricity in about 72 hours, and the internet, FINALLY, today!

The wet snow had trees down everywhere. Here’s a few on the side of the road going up Nordyke Road leaving Mendota. The scenes below repeated over and over on all of the Mendota roads. Thank goodness some folks had chainsaws as the road crews had too much other stuff on their hands.

And another…

And another…yawn!

We are so fortunate that we have a generator (check out this post). However, to keep from using so much propane, we are careful about our electrical usage during outages. I didn’t spend a lot of time working on my home office organization project because it’s in a different “zone” in terms of the heating system. However, I tried to do a few things…

I have all kinds of photo albums from the time when we didn’t have digital photography. Look at them! (If you can get past the trash I have on the floor in this picture…sometimes you have to drag it out before you can clean it up!)

I am putting most of the albums in the lower part of the bookshelf behind doors. However, there were a few that I could not get in there. I went back in time to the era when I had to “wrap” my rented school books. Do students still rent textbooks? I don’t know!

Took some ordinary mailing paper and a very ugly pink album..

Using my skills developed during my years as a textbook renter!

Taped down the sides here…

Here ya go! Still a work in progress..it doesn’t look like it will look with a bit more tweaking…but you can see where I’m headed.

While slow as molasses, this is a good winter project!

Plans for Office Organization Redo

We got up in a dither of excitement today. The river was rising fairly rapidly and the creeks were out of the banks. I didn’t go to work — was afraid I couldn’t get back home.

Here’s a picture taken in front of our house early this morning. The river has continued to rise. This just screams at us to get in the truck and go look around, and we did.

I appreciate the rain — especially since there is drought in so many areas of the southeast United States.

Here’s a creek up the road “a piece” from the house…looks like a little lake.

It would have been a great day to hang out and surf the internet, but it was down today, too. Back up now…finally! Sort of…it’s actually going off and on.

I did a little work on a long-term project which is our home office reorganization. It looks like this now, and Mike says he thinks it looks fine. I hate it.

He has a computer that does not work and a printer that does not work. There are at least 150 wood working magazines and he has binders that say things like “Electronic Gate” or “Generac”. He gets to keep the notebooks but the magazines need to leave. I thought the best way to get him to go along with my idea to “redo” the home office was for me to start working on it. Admittedly, my side is a mess,too.

Here’s my side of the room…see that trashbag on the floor? I’ve gotten rid of a bunch of stuff.

I have plans for my side and for Mike’s side and for the whole room. No shortage on ideas here.

My plans are inspired by these…you have to have a start.

There’s a few things in this room that will be slow to change. The red couch is going to be slipcovered white, and I haven’t even bought the fabric so that won’t be completed for 6-8 weeks or even longer.

Do you recall when I spoke about having a chair and ottoman slipcovered? Here’s that post. I was going to move it to the downstairs master bedroom, but I’ve decided to leave it up in the office and use the same white on the couch. That is my only big expense in redoing this room.

Here’s how the chair turned out. Don’t you love it. I can pull these off and wash them.

Shifting rugs around, organizing and making those bookshelves look nice, getting rid of stuff we don’t need or is torn up…those things can take place over the next few weeks.

And I’m sure some chalkboard spraypaint and regular spraypaint will be involved!

DRAT! Internet is down!

Hi…I’m gone for a few days as IGo Clear is having an equipment problem. Said we’d be back up Wednesday.

This was eye opening. I am thoroughly addicted to social media.

Serious withdrawal.

Taking You on a Road Trip

I am so over obsessing about the barn that I talked about in the last post (here if you missed it). I don’t know where the barn is. I give in. Uncle!

To celebrate my moving past the barn issue, Mike and I went and grabbed a bite to eat. I’ll take you along!

Here we go…off in the truck. This Ford Lariet has been a great truck for the dogs.

And of course, “the girls” are going with us? Woof!

We’ll check out the Barnrock Road project. I know the curve will be safer, it’s just…I feel bad for the birds and squirrels…the little creatures.

In Mendota, we live about 17-18 miles to the nearest grocery store which is Walmart. However, we’re a little closer to a really great place to get a bite to eat…about 11-12 miles or so.

Please allow me to introduce you to the best place to get a BLT (bacon lettuce and tomato) sandwich in Southwest Virginia.

So convenient..you can fill up your tank while you fill up your tank!

Here’s the lunch menu…

And the breakfast menu..

For this post to be really finished, I’d be showing a picture of a beautiful BLT. However, in my excitement, I forgot to take a picture.

I ate it too fast.

Please Help Us Identify the Barn

One of the projects I’m working on that I haven’t yet mentioned on the blog is my reorganizing and changing up the look of our home office. It’s a disaster. I’ll talk about that in another post. In the process, I started going through old pictures, and I came across this picture of a barn filled with beautiful Burley tobacco. The Burley tobacco leaf kept my family supported and warm when I was a little girl. Perhaps I am romanticizing tobacco, but I remember the excitement of getting the check and going to settle up our grocery account at Cunningham’s Store.

At some point in the past 15-20 years, I took this picture.

Now, I cannot find the barn. I’ve lost a barn!! My sister, Pat, and my cousin, Terri, drove around all night Thursday “in our heads” hunting this barn. I’m sure we passed each other a hundred times until we pulled off and fell asleep. We think there is a possibility it is the very barn that I posted about last week (here), but I’m not sure. The picture below which was in the the previous post is the front of the barn.

So…the above picture is the front of the barn. Here is the back side of the barn. I ran down and took these early this morning. If it is the same barn, there has been a shed added.

I was certain until I started comparing the pictures. Now I’m not certain at all. I think these are two different barns.

Here’s another view…

Would you mind sharing this post with everyone you know? Surely we can find this barn. It has to be in the Mendota/Gate City/Rich Valley/Walnut Grove area. Here it is again…

On another note…it is 70 degrees today in January! Can you believe that? My dear girl Gracie loves to roll around in dead stuff and she was stinking. It was a nice day to bathe her.

Just before her bath…she took one last roll and stretched.

“Oh Mommy…you’re going to love what I’m rolling in. It’s Skunk Poop. I’ll smell so good.”

“Mommy…why did you call me a Stinky Flower and is that doggy shampoo in your hand? Oh no!”

“I am just going to sleep and pretend this bath thing did not happen. Thank you Chrissy the Cat for staying with me during this difficult time.”

And yes, that is a wet dog lying on my couch. It just happened.

Mendota Quilt Square and Wanna Be Celebs

Earlier this week Mike dropped me off on Swinging Bridge Road and I took you along to show the changes that are occuring on nearby Barnrock Road. You can read about that here. Today, he headed in the opposite direction and dropped me off at Kernie and Connie Timmon’s farm for my walk. I’ve been wanting to take a picture of the quilt square Connie painted for the barn, and finally, it was not raining!

This is a gorgeous barn. Do you like the pretty quilt square? It’s two 4 ft. x 8 ft. plywood pieces that are put together to create an 8 ft. x 8 ft. quilt square. Kernie gave me some pictures of the work that was involved in putting this together but I can’t find them!!

Do you think Mendota, Virginia should have quilt trail? I do! Here’s a start!

This pretty barn and quilt square set the stage for my wonderful walk. I’m in a good mood!

I’ve learned in this blog process that some people do not want to be photographed, and I totally understand. However, there are some “wanna be celebs” that love to have their picture made. Here’s a few…

Sammy the Steer…very handsome, even though he is rather fat. He really wants to be a spokesperson for Weight Watchers, but I think he’ll go to work for Food City in the Meat Department.

Goats are so cute with their funny eyes. However, I always think of the “separation of the lambs and the goats” in Revelation. I don’t wanna be a goat! Still, this one is cute, and it wanted to have its picture made. It plans to be a locksmith when it grows up.

And then…I ran across these guys..

Patty the Dog. She is seeking a career as a traffic cop or an excavater. Translate…car chasing and digging. She’s a beautiful dog.

I buy eggs from Margie (Patty’s mom), and I DID return the egg cartons by sticking them in the newspaper box. That worked well, except Patty zipped over, stood on her hind legs, reached in and got the egg carton, and then tore it up in the yard. If you look closely in this picture, you’ll see a bit of green behind her. That’s my egg carton.

Here’s Tank. He’s not looking for a job at all beyond professional modeling. He thinks he should be on disability because of this vision issue. He squints all of the time.

Or maybe Tank is Chinese?

This little face is Lucky. Like Tank, he’s really not looking for work since he’s a professional card shark. He’s the Maverick of this pack!

Finally, this is the old gentleman, Roscoe. Roscoe is retired. He was a diplomat.

A little further down the road, there’s Jasper. Jasper works in a Daycare Nursery. He’s got a lot of responsibility.

Jasper’s newest charges are Delilah and Bridgette. Very fancy names for these girls. They are young but they want to be strippers when they grow up — that’s why they have such racey names! They are two month old fainting goats. They are on leashes because Danielle (did I spell that right?), their person, thought that if they got loose and ran off, she could just scare them into fainting and then catch them. It didn’t work well. They are on leashes for a while.

So cute. I would like to have one of these babies.

Mendota Daily January 9 2013

Wow…I’m acually getting used to writing “2013.” Has it been easier for you? It’s been easier for me! Although…a few months ago at the grocery store, I wrote something like “1996” on a check. What was I thinking??

It’s a sunny morning here in Mendota and I’m kinda cleaning house, kinda doing laundry, trying to get Mike a hair appointment, and planning to meet a friend for lunch. My burning question of the day is why won’t he make his own hair appointments? I could wait and see if he ever would, but I’m afraid he’ll look like someone from Duck Dynasty. I am not channeling Miss Kay.

We are very diverse in our household. We love Duck Dynasty and Downton Abbey.

Back to my post…I decided last week to surround myself with cheerful thoughts, people and stuff. My girlfriend said my “Let it Snow” pictures were depressing her, and I didn’t want to do that. I’ve hidden them–at least until it snows–and went in a different direction.

I quickly used my ~~grade school~~ kindergarten art talent and created something happy to look at in the foyer. While you may be rolling in the aisles laughing, I like it. It’ll be fun to see those happy colors during the next 4-6 weeks.

It used to look like this….

Here ya go…

I put some apples out there with it. I like apples that are room temperature because they are sweeter, and I think apples are cheerful, too. This bowl of apples (pictured below) would look better with one more apple, but I ate it!.

Mike’s mother gave me the antique glass bowl years ago. The glass is no longer clear…it has a pinkish hue.

Still I have some sad news…my beloved Cinderella pumpkin did not get to be a pie.

When I cut the pumpkin open, she was too dry. I think where I’ve had her sitting in the warm air for too long, she had got a little withered.

She was a good pumpkin. Remember…she just showed up on the side of the house where I’d had a fall arrangement in 2011 or even 2010. Apparently, when I let the whole arrangement sink and rot, the pumpkin reseeded….quite strange as I’ve tried and tried to grow these pumpkins. I like their looks, and they are supposed to make amazing pies. I’ll have to take everyone’s word on the pie thing.

I saved her seeds.

Changes Are Coming..

I’m writing this on January 4, and it was really cold today. It was about 30 degrees here in Mendota. I wanted to go for a walk, but I couldn’t get started, so Mike just “dropped me off” about two miles from the house. I took my camera because I wanted to photograph the Granny Bott’s house.

My parents were friends with Ed and Edith Cunningham. Granny Bott was Ed’s mother. When I originally put this post up, I said that Granny Bott was Edith’s Mother, but Dianne, Granny Bott’s great granddaughter corrected me. Thank you Dianne! I have always liked this house, and I remember when it was lived in and kept. There was a lilac bush growing by the house, and the last family that I recall living there was Pastor Sifford’s family. His son, Joe Sifford, and I were about the same age. Pastor Sifford was the pastor of the Mendota Bible Methodist Church, and I believe he was also an auto mechanic. I wonder where this family is today?

We are are going to have some road construction on the road in front of the house, and while I haven’t heard for sure, this old house could come down. I’ve never been in the house.

There was a little store across from the house when I was very young. It was known as Granny Bott’s Store. The store was composed of logs and it was moved around the corner five or six years ago.

The road that you see in this picture is Barnrock Road, and it is being “reworked” to make it a little wider and a little safer. I really do not know who makes these decisions. A few might think it’s important, but for the most part, it’s not something most people in Mendota care about. However, removing the sharp curve at Granny Bott’s house will make the road safer.

The signs were put up this week.

It must work like this…someone comes out and identifies where the sign should go and they spray paint the road and then the sign is put up by another crew. Right beside the sign, “RWA” is sprayed on the road.

I wonder if I write on my driveway “PCHH” if someone will put up a sign “Please Clean Her House” and then someone will actually come and clean my house? I may try this!

Here’s another change on Swinging Bridge. Steve and Mary McCroskey, owners of Riverview Dairy, have moved some of their cows to the pasture running along Swinging Bridge. I love these cows, and I’m thinking they were bottle fed because they are so friendly. They ran over as if I had a treat for them. (I may have a treat on my next walk…I’ll get some sweet feed!)

Isn’t this one pretty? I love those faces.

Here’s another…look at the funny face in this picture (below). The little guy to the right? If I were a cow, that would be me!

It was so dang cold today that the ditch water was frozen when the sun was shining.

I enjoyed this walk. I need the exercise and I need the sunshine. I get a little Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) in these long, dark winters.

A walk really helps…especially on a sunny winter day. It’s one of the bright spots in my day.

I took this picture looking up to the house. So thankful to live in this beautiful place. With pretty cows.

Just getting outside felt good…and it reminded me to look about for the bright spots in the winter landscape…such as the presence of these red berries in my back yard…reminding me that brighter, longer, sunnier days are ahead.