Country Living Fair 2015 - Stone Mountain Georgia

Bob and I had a trip planned to Florida for quite a while to visit friends who are serving a mission there. We were to come back on the 23rd of October. Do you know that there is a layover in Atlanta on many flights home from Florida? I did happen to know that, and as I got an email about the Country Living Fair at Stone Mountain Georgia on the 23rd of October, I sent a text to my husband asking how long of a layover we could manage to have in Georgia. After questioning me a bit more as to my motive for asking, he said he'd look into it. And voila! He arranged for us to fly to Atlanta on the 22nd, stay there for two days, and then fly the rest of the way home on the 24th. Yippee!

We had been to the Country Living Fair a few years ago, and loved it. I couldn't believe how the stars aligned for us to go again this year! We had a wonderful time in Florida with our friends, and then off for a few days on our own to catch our breath and relax a bit. And then on to Georgia... If you've never been to Stone Mountain, you should go. It's a beautiful area surrounding a huge stone hill. In the hill is a huge (larger than Mount Rushmore) carving of three confederate heroes of the civil war (President Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E Lee). There are lakes, camping and hiking areas all around the mountain.

And The Fair is located smack dab in the middle of all of this. Sooooo lovely!

Of course, if you're going to make that much effort to get to the fair, you most certainly should cough up the extra dough to have an early-bird ticket. Which means waiting in a line to get in.

But once you're in, you have an hour and a half of no crowds. It is heaven. Pure, sweet heaven.

Just look at the excitement on Bob's face. He was definitely in the minority there, though not the absolute only man. There was a sort of brotherhood amongst the few brave men who were shopping alongside their wives. When they'd pass each other they'd give a little nod of the head and an understanding smile. Generally they'd have their arms full of bags and treasures.

I love this pic below. Bob is in line with a bunch of ladies. In his left arm, he is cradling gifts that we picked out for our daughters and daughters-in-law. 

A special treat was to be able to hear Ree Drummond (Pioneer Woman) talk and answer questions. She is exactly what you'd think her to be, in real life -- darling, funny, and down-to-earth. I've always loved her, and now I love her even more!

The fact that The Fair is located in such beautiful surroundings is just a huge win-win. We stayed at a hotel their in the park, and enjoyed this ride several times a day...

And in between our going to The Fair, we climbed to the top of the mountain a couple of times. Soooo beautiful!

And the best part of the trip? With all the fun and adventures we had, the best part was just being away with Bob. As Walt Whitman so aptly put...

Halloween Decorating, Easy Style

Halloween is coming and going in just a flash. Can't believe how quickly this month has flown by! It may have something to do with being gone for 9 days smack dab in the middle of it, but more on that in another post.

I did my usual quick and simple Halloween decorating this year, keeping in mind that we have seven grandchildren, 2 years and under, so whatever I have within reach needs to be touchable and even playable. Notice all of the things in the picture below, that are at child-level. They can play with the ghosts, car, pumpkin and scarecrow to their heart's delight.

We went up to the cabin and cut some gorgeous maple branches to begin with. I don't care a bit that the leaves curl up and shrivel a little. I am so in love with the color that I don't even notice it. I wonder if people who come to my house try to figure out why I have branches of dead leaves strewn all about. Oh well. Maybe it adds to the spooky effect?

After I placed the leaves around, I just took out one box (Yay!) of Halloween decor, and placed items here and there around the house.

I don't love the creepy or gory side of this holiday. I don't even really like dressing up. (My costume usually involves an orange jack-o-lantern t-shirt, or some such thing.) But I do love how much the kiddos love it, and I love to see their costumes and how excited they get. I love fall and the smells and colors of it. So.... that's pretty much how my decorating goes. Oh, and some Fisher Price Halloween toys to go along with it all. After all, I'm a grandma, and the littles need to have lots of fun at our house!

The best thing about fall decorating with branches as the base, is that the day after Halloween, I just take out the Halloween-specific items, and throw in a few Thanksgiving ones, and voila! Another holiday decorated for! Fall decorations seriously can last for more than two months. I sure wish Christmas decorations could be up that long, because they take the most work.

How much do you love this old Alfred Hitchcock book? It's the perfect Halloween decoration!

Another good thing about gathering branches and leaves as your base for decorating? You don't have to store them. You just toss them in the garbage when Thanksgiving is over! Doesn't get any easier than that!

And last night we had a trunk-or-treat in the church parking lot. I'm generally not a fan of the old trunk-or-treating in our neighborhood, simply because the kids that show up to trunk-or-treat are the the exact same kids who show up at our house only a few days later for round #2. Does that sound Humbug-ish? Maybe. But I've always thought trunk-or-treating was great for areas that might be iffy to trick-or-treat in, or if your church group was spread out over a large area, but wanted an opportunity to trunk-or-treat together. That makes so much sense. But going to the same car trunks as the houses they will trick-or-treat to a couple of days later seems a little much. Having said that, we whole-heartedly got into the spirit of things, because I certainly know the kiddies love getting twice as much candy, and I also know that if I was one of those kids, I would have loved the heck out of it.

We decided to decorate the tractor and use that as our "trunk", since Bob is known for his tractoring around these parts. I had a little bug the day I was planning on decorating it, so I literally opened a closet or two, pulled out some things, cut a few vines off of an errant (understatement of the year) trumpet vine, and draped them all over the bucket of the tractor. Done.

Early Fall Ramblings

I still can't quite believe summer is over and we're well into fall. How does time seem to fly by faster and faster with each passing year? I can honestly say I feel like we packed about as much as we possibly could into summer, though, so I don't have any regrets. Just trying to keep up, though, kept us hopping. I think we both lost weight over the summer, because we just didn't have time to eat a regular meal on some of those busy days. I love looking back at the photos, and thinking about the treasured family time we had.

And it seems we're just as busy now that it's fall!

How can you not smile with so many babies around. This photo was taken after our family pics a few weeks ago, so the kiddos were tired out, but still as sweet as can be. We can't get enough of them. Arms full of babies... what can be better?

The surroundings up at the cabin are gorgeous and fall-ish. We did our annual maple leaf cuttings, and brought them home to decorate with. (By "we", I mean Bob, with me pointing out just the perfect colored leaves to cut).

There is always wildlife to be seen at or around the cabin. This porcupine was just a few feet away from us, and didn't seem to mind that we were there at all.

Lots of family dinners. This picture is totally representative of what they're like. Babies everywhere in high chairs and walkers and laps.

What you don't see in the photo above, is to the left of that picture is the kid's table, which Grandpa was at, helping to get food down the older grands.

We had the perfect amount of apple-pears this year. There was a bit of a freeze in the late spring, which thinned out the harvest quite a bit. Towards the end, we just picked all of the remaining apple-pears and boxed them. We delivered them all around, and ate plenty!

A perfect specimen. (That goes for the hand holding the apple-pear as well as the apple-pear itself)

Of course pumpkin harvesting had to happen so that we could set the pumpkins out on the porch to decorate. The grand kids helped harvest the small crop that we had this year.

Such perfect times. I can't imagine not having photos to remind us of the sweet, happy moments in life. They have a way of slipping away from the forefront of our memory if we don't have the photos to look back on. Or is that just me?

S-SOS (Second Snake of the Season)

Oh boy. I knew it was a probability, but still. We're already at Snake #2 of the season. And Bob has dispatched both of them for me, which saves me the bounty I normally pay per snake. Kindof.

I am slowly trying to make my yard more unattractive to reptiles, while still trying to keep it attractive to humans. It's a bit tricky, actually. But we're working on it. And in the mean time, my love continues to come to my rescue, literally. He doesn't give up easily, either.

He's so determined to get rid of the little beasts and make my life a bit more worry-free. He even bought a snake grabber. Okay, maybe it's really a garbage picker, but he bought it specifically to grab snakes with, and it works like a charm, as attested by the photo below.

Icky. The only thing good about this photo is that I know I'll never see that snake again. 

So, if you find yourself with a snake situation, run to Home Depot and pick yourself up a snake grabber. Maybe don't ask the workers for a snake grabber. Ask for a garbage picker, and know that you and a few others know the real use for that contraption.

Bunny

This year I've had some unaccountable things happen in my garden. The most obvious was that most of my new tulips were eaten clear down to the nubbins. No flowers... not even much of a leaf. We do have deer now and then, and I had seen many a dropping when I was cleaning up after winter, but still... The deer had always been kind enough to just chew the tar out of my euonymus, but left my flowers alone. Apparently this year their appetite had changed. I figured it was out of my hands, so I didn't spend much time thinking about it.

And then I noticed little holes being dug. Almost like a cat might do, but then the holes were just left empty, with dirt sprayed across my walks. What in the world? What kind of crazy hole-digging cat or dog has made their home in my yard? I couldn't figure it out for the life of me.

And then last Friday came. We were working on taking out all of the edging in our yard (to be replaced soon, I hope), and saw this...

At the risk of overusing the phrase, What in the World????

Oh, hello there, lop-eared rabbit. You have been enjoying my yard this year. You must be feeling rather chipper after having eaten hundreds of tulips -- greens, blooms, and all. You don't look as though you've missed many meals.

Hmmmm. I think you are looking far too comfortable here.

Grow Old Along With Me - sign

I saw a recent episode of Fixer Upper (which, by the way, is my favorite show on HGTV these days). Joanna had this sign made for a client who had always loved this saying.

I, too, have always loved it, so when I saw it, and that it was made out of metal, I thought it might be the perfect thing for Bob to use his big machine for. I made mention of it, and thought maybe when he wasn't busy (in 30 years or so) he would have a minute to think about it. But the very next morning, he asked me dimensions, etc, and voila! This is what came home with him at the end of the day.

It's huge, which I love. It measures 24 x 24, and is probably a good 10 pounds. Robbie and Bob collaborated on it, which makes it even more special. We've found the perfect home for it right on the mantel in our bedroom. Love it, love it! It opens the door to many possibilities of what we can do with those big metal shop machines we acquired recently. I know, I know. They weren't purchased for my home decorator ideas (scooch on over, aviation world), but, oh the possibilities....

Cutting a Window in the Playroom Wall

I know many of you may wince when you think of cutting holes in perfectly good walls. But this was one of those times when it was needed.

We've been working on our playroom, which is specifically for our grand babies (5 here, two more on the way!). It is a slow work in progress, but at least we keep progressing. Our most recent improvement was to make our window in the wall of the little closet. This room used to be our oldest son's room, and he had a regular clothes closet, but then also had a little closet that was framed in under the roof line. We used it for storage of all kinds of odds and ends through the years, and when it was emptied out, it felt like the perfect place for a little playhouse!

The rest of the playroom is mostly done, so we've been turning our sights on the playhouse now. We put in a wood floor, and have plans to make a little kitchen in there, too. It gets a little cavernous in there, so we decided a window would be just the ticket.

We had to decide on the perfect height for our little ones, and then drew the outline of our window on the wall.

There was some electrical going on in that space, and also a probable load-bearing wall, so we took all of that into consideration. And remember, when I say "we", I really mean  Bob, with me on the sidelines cheering. 

After he had both sides of the sheet rock removed, he was left with what was in the photo below.

He carefully cut the boards out, moved the electrical to below the window sill...

... and then framed in a header for support, and re-framed the window all the way around.

After that, it was my turn. I taped and patched the sheet rock to cover the screw holes and the areas that we had to add sheet rock to.

A new coat of paint, and no one's the wiser.

After painting, Bob put in the finishing MDF boards to frame the window.

And there is always patching to be done after that. So, I got our paintable caulk out, and went to work.

This is the same corner, after caulk.

A few coats of paint on the window frame, and then some curtains, and we can check that project off the list! 

I envision puppet shows happening from inside this window, in addition to hours and hours of playing house. Can't wait!

Playroom Project #1: Wood Floor in the Playhouse

We've got the first project in our play room done, and it was a biggie! The playroom is taking over a room that was previously our older son's room. He is married and living with his darling wife, so the room is our blank canvas now. The first order of business was to get all of his (and our other son's) stuff out. Still working on that a bit, but we're making progress. I still have a couple of pieces of furniture to move out, too. 

In addition to a regular clothes closet, he had a closet that was a bit shorter, and tucked in under the roof line. We thought that would make a perfect place for a playhouse for the grand kids. Once we got all of the old boxes and storage items out of the closet, we realized we had a roof leak, and a mold problem. We had the roof fixed, and then tackled the mold project. To read about how we got rid of the mold, click here. Once that was all taken care of, we had a bare floor to start over on. 

We decided that a laminate wood floor would be perfect for a playhouse. Easy to sweep or wipe clean!

We bought all of the supplies for the wood floor at Home Depot. Once we bought the wood, we laid the stacks out in our home for a couple of days to acclimate them to the temperature and air in our home.

We started with a liner. This product is made to go between the plywood and the laminate wood floor.

It's fairly easy to lay. It has a piece of adhesive tape along the back that overlaps so that each of the pieces butt up next to each other, and are held together with that long strip of tape.

Once the backing was in, the floor went in right on top of that. The floor is a snap and lock type, so there is no need for nails or glue. It floats on the surface. Oh.... hello there, cutie!

It went together very quickly. The only places that needed a chop saw were along the one edge.

And here is the floor completed. The blue tape is a rough plan for where the little cabinets will be going. You can see the white quarter-round base moulding along the back in the photo below. It isn't attached yet. We're waiting til we put the cabinets in, and then we'll do the moulding.

The finishing touch was to put the little threshold that transitions the carpet to the wood floor. It looks awesome! Bob did such a nice job laying the floor. And our little grand son has already traipsed around inside of the future playhouse. I think they will enjoy that for many years to come.

Now on to the next project!