Mish Mash

There is a lot going on at our house right now.  The kitchen remodel is starting after a great trip to Ikea for countertops and a sink, 2 hours in Home Depot Saturday and then some fun appliance buying today (thanks Sears for your Friends and Family Discount Day!)  Well I guess I mean it started this weekend with these two measuring twice and cutting once.....

Here they are again.  They are gone right now, and I just like to look at them - especially the one with his back to us :)

And then continued with a long discussion on weather they had the dimensions of the new appliances wrong.  So it was decided that they would wait until the appliances had been ordered and shipped to go any farther.  I ordered them today!  It was a fun and scary experience for 2 reasons:  1. I dropped a lot of cash and 2. I tried to use my debit card and forgot we have a daily limit and it got rejected.  I assured the man helping me that there was money in the account and had him run it again and then remembered that we have a daily limit.  And then I felt stupid and gave him my credit card.  I am very happy with our choice to go with Sears and Kenmore appliances, and while doing dishes tonight by hand dreamed of what it will be like when I have a dishwasher.  

In other news, the garden is growing like crazy!  We are well on our way to having friend green tomatoes this weekend.  yummm....I can taste them already!

My hydrangea's are in bloom, and one of my rose bushes put off three flowers already.  Here they are:

I cut them ang brought them in the house so I could enjoy them.  Now I think I have a pest or a disease on  my roses - the leafs are getting eaten by something!  I am going to look into it more tomorrow - I just noticed it this weekend.  

I also started the stripes in my craft room.  I have seen lots of pictures of people who paint stripes on walls, and love it.  Lots of friends have been telling me I am too ambitious, but we'll see when the stripes are finished.  Tonight I only did one wall to see how it would go.  I hope to have the other two done before the weekend.  

Here's a picture of the wall when I got done doing the taping:

The stripes don't have a pattern and I hope it looks random enough.  The walls are white so when I pull the tape off the lines should be white in between.  Here's hoping. 

Taping the stripes took about an hour.  Then I took a break for dinner and camp back to it, and found a storm brewing outside the window.  I checked the Weather App on my phone and it said a really big storm was headed for us and would be over Jasper in 20 minutes.  So I waited, and watched.  What I saw was this:

The most beautiful sunset.  I wish my camera could do it justice.  I don't know how anyone sees something this beautiful and doesn't  think there is a God.  How much proof do you need?  He sure is a master painter.  I hope he gave me a little skill to get my walls painted.  

By the way, it did rain, but there were no destructive winds like they said there would be.  At least not while I was up.  They might be happening right now for all I know.

Anyway, here's the final product for tonight.  It will still need another coat of paint tomorrow and then I'll pull the tape off and post another picture.  I like painting, but the whole not getting it on the ceiling thing is hard.   I know Joe-Joe is going to roll in here later this week and the first thing he is going to say is "You got paint on the ceiling."  He always notices thinks like that.  

So part of me sorta misses the nice clean white walls that I had before.  And part of me loves the fact that I took a blank canvas and changed it.  And part of me just wants it to be finished so I can start sewing.  Long way to go, but hopefully I will have it finished by the time my mom and daddy get here in July.  

I mean, it will be done by July.   It has to.  There isn't a room in our house that hasn't been interruped by our new projects.  All the sewing room stuff is in the spare bedroom and living room, our new dresser displaced the old one and the vanity to other spaces, The new dresser drawers were too swollen from the humidity to fit so they are in the hall, along with all the clothes that came out of the old dresser.  The bed from the sewing room is now in the basement, and the big wonderful new cabinet I bought for the sewing room is taking up space in the garage.  And the plan for the new appliances?  The dining room for now.  

Whew!  this is a long post.  I just had so much to say tonight.  Stay tuned for other news from the Seger house coming soon. 

Praying that you founds something interesting in this post tonight, 

Jen-Jen

Sunday.....er, no Monday

It feels like Sunday night.  But its Monday.  Which most of you would say is a good thing.  But I don't feel good about it.  Joseph is out packing up his car as we speak to be on the road again.  I hate when he leaves, and he won't even be gone long this time.  Its hard on me - all this traveling.

This week is extra trying on my emotions.  Two reasons:
1). I thought my temperature had spiked.  (Background:  When trying to get preggers, the doctor has you take your temperature every morning with a special thermometer (basel) and you chart what your temp is doing. Its supposed to dip a bit, spike, and stay hot.  Mine dipped, spiked, stayed hot, but went cold.  It should stay hot till your 28th day and then get lower when your little friend comes to town.)  So I've been really excited about my temp being up, and even made the mistake of telling a few friends it was up.  Now I'm feeling again like a failure.
2). Joseph is going off on a guys-weekend fishing trip this weekend.   Sounds fun right?  I am glad for him (I guess) but am so upset that he is leaving me for the weekend after being gone this week and then again on Monday.  I am just jealous of being left home.  I love to fish.  And I don't like to be left home.  Its extra hard because he doesn't understand my resistance to not going.  He just keeps telling me he has never met another man whose wife doesn't want him to go have some guys time.  I am going to try not to cry like a baby this weekend when he leaves.  Especially because my father-in-law and Jon-Jon will be picking him up.

Thats all, I'll put more pictures up this week.  I've got lots to share.

Jon-Jon!

Today was a big day.  This happened:

Jon-Jon graduated!  It was a very special day full of laughs, hugs and a good meal.  Graduation was long, but the speaker wasn't a bore like I thought an engineer would have been.....

I'll put up more pictures later.  I just wanted to let you know what I've been up to today.  Congrats Jon-Jon, Love you :)

Late Night

I'm sitting at the dining room table.  Its 11:15 pm.  And its Wednesday, meaning I have to work in the morning.  Why am I up you ask?  Well, my husband will be home in half hour and sometimes its just easier to wait up for him.  I hate when I get in bed, get comfy, and dose off and then he rolls in, turns on lights, makes me move over (i mean really, why CAN'T I sleep in the middle of the bed?) and then I can't sleep.  And sometime I lay down and just lay there starring at the ceiling.  He has only been gone since yesterday so its probably more of the first example tonight so I am up.

And I'm baking a cake.  Tomorrow is my dear friend Banita's birthday and I can't stand it when someone goes without cake on their big day.  I haven't had a cake on mine in years, but that doesn't mean others shouldn't.  I tried a new recipe.  I wanted to make my favorite cake, but it has sour cream in it and Banita doesn't do dairy, so I looked up a recipe for a non-dairy chocolate cake. I don't know how it's going to be but the  batter tasted wonderful off the spoon.

So here I am listening to a little Lady A on Pandora, baking a cake and blogging.  The dog is laying at my feet sleeping.  And the house smells of chocolate.

Baking a cake at my house poses a problem.  We have this really old stove that came with the house, and when my mom was here in  February, she washed the numbers off the dials.  So its sort of hit or miss on how hot the stove is.  I have a thermometer inside, but every time I open the door it changes drastically, so I have no idea how hot it is.  I just checked and the cake looks beautiful.

Wow, I feel the words are just flowing out of me tonight.  Maybe I should stay up every night and blog.

Back to the stove.  We are getting ready to redo the kitchen.  The cupboards are staying, but there is going to be new counter top, a new island, stove, dishwasher (which we don't have right now), new sink and a built in desk area on one wall of the kitchen.  Joseph drew up the plans for it and I can't wait till its done.  I'm going to have a breaking in the kitchen party.

So the stove has been one of the things that we keep coming to a screeching halt over.  We pick one, and then it has something that I don't like.  Then we pick on and Joseph doesn't like it.  Now we are stuck on whether to get a downdraft or a hood.  Oh well....

Till next time, May God Bless you :)

A little peek at my garden

Helloooooooooooooo

I took some pictures of our garden last week, and really after looking at it today I think its gotten a lot bigger.  Oh well.  I'll take more photos in 2 weeks and we'll see how much its changed!

First, here is a pineapple top that Joseph planted on the side of the house.  Yes, it is still there.  Yes it looks dead.  Yes I have been watering it.

Here's the front of the house.  All our new landsacping!  Joeseph put in those timbers to make flowerbeds for me.  What a wonderful husband!

New pots of impatiens on the front steps. 

Behind that cute dog are my climbing rose bushes.  They doubled in size this weekend while we were gone.  That dog loves to be in all the pictures.

See that big brown spot in the yard?  Thats the garden!

I threw this one in because of the dog!

Look at these!  These iris came up all on their own and we didn't even know they were there!

Tomato's!

Radishes!

And Potatoes!  They finally showed themselves after a long wait!!!!

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers day to all of you out there! Mothers day is a mixed bag for me. I miss my mother, I am thrilled to spend time with my mother-in-law, and today is a constant reminder of my inability to give birth (so far). So I didn't go to church this morning - just couldn't do it. Used some terrible excuse about pants not being ironed, which Joe was seeing right through it. So I had a breakdown, and went back to bed. Got up at 11, called my momma, took a drive with my dog, got a doughnut, came home and sat on the patio, ate the doughnut and planted flowers. For myself. It turned out to be a pretty good day.

Here's a little of what has been happening here in Jasper, at least at my house.

Well Thursday I sorta cut my hand open. Doing dishes. So then I was wandering around the house with my hand wrapped up in a towel trying to get a hold of anyone who might be able to come and drive me to the hospital. Finally my mother in law calls back and we head off for a 2 hour round with the ER. Luckily my favorite doctor was there. And he always makes me feel so comforted - its nice to see a friendly face. So he slides into the room Cosmo Kramer style and said he had to fight three other doctors for my chart. He then stitched me up with three stitches and we were on our way. Here's a picture.

Its doing ok. I am just not used to not doing things with that hand. I keep getting it wet, I keep getting it dirty. It is probably never going to heal.

Then that night my husband came home with this!

Its my new computer! Its a Sony Vaio and i love it. Yep that's my blog on my new computer. I can not promise that I will write more, but I will try :)

Things I'm loving right now

My dog. Except for the fact that this morning she jumped up on my and got me so dirty that I had to come back in the house and change my clothes.

God. My favorite thing to say lately is God is Mysterious.

Joseph. He sent flowers today. For no reason.

My Job. Its good to work every day on something you care about. It's going to be a rough couple of weeks as we have some really big programs coming up, but It feels good.

Avatar. Saw it in 3D Imax and can't wait to watch it again. Might have to invest in that one on Thursday.

Yarn. I keep looking at some yarn at etsy and am thinking about ordering some new stuff to knit with :)

Pink. Don't know why, just feeling feminine lately.

My Sewing Machine. Been using it a lot this week and it feels so good to make something with my hands.

Glee. Just watched the Madonna episode. Too much sex. But awesome songs!

Fishing. Such a relaxing way to spend the afternoon, until something bites and my heart starts racing! Its been so warm here, we have been spending a lot of time sitting on the boat drinking a beer and slaying the blue gill.

My Family. Making plans to head north next month to see them. Get ready people!

Dreaming. Dreaming about my sewing room. Dreaming about my kitchen remodel. Dreaming about the garden. Dreaming about a baby.