Day 237 - Lisa

My cousin Ruben made this stand for my mom, his Godmother, when he was about 14 or 15 years old so that makes the stand approximately 33 years old.  It leans a bit and it's had about 4 coats of paint but it's still functional.  In fact, we are convinced the paint is the only thing holding it together.  It's been to LA, Chicago, Livermore and now ATL as my mom gave it to me when I moved out, then it reunited with her when we bought our home in Livermore together.  It's well traveled.  It's had a wide variety of plants live on it, it's held snowman, nutcrackers, angels, roosters, candles, pictures, lights and pets on it's three platforms.  Some material things have so many memories attached to them it's impossible to say goodbye.  So red she be!  I'm thinking a really healthy purple Wandering Jew belongs on top.  So many jokes to make over that last sentence.  Nah, I'll leave it alone for now.  ;>

Day 237 - Sis

Starting to try new recipes and hope to find some favorites.  This past week we ate five various dishes, we found four out of five are keepers!   At this rate with all the ones I have saved and not collecting any more, cooking everyday,  we should be through the binders around 2015. :-/  Now you know I have no plans to cook everyday and doubt if we will repeat this week's success.

Day 236 - Sis

When I commuted to work I found that audio books really helped past the time and made the frustration of sitting in traffic a diversion from screaming at other drivers and explaining the rules of the road. Recently after unpacking  music CDs I found this audio book among them.  Have no idea where or who it came from, if it was mine or Lisa's, but I planned on listening to it.  I had started a painting project and thought this ten CD  book was a great way to do some physical work and past the time. I did learn pretty fast that the car, where you aren't interrupted to answer a door, let a dog in or out, receive a phone call or even nature's call, is a much better setting to listen to a book.  When I left the area where it was playing I'd forget to stop it, making it necessary when coming back to rewind and hear some pages repeated.  I suppose with my comprehension level not as strong as a few years ago I shouldn't complain but it's beginning to feel like there are 15 CDs !

Day 236 - Lisa

Oh my!  LOL perfect for this political season.

Day 235 - Sis

Time for allergy animal to have her shampoo medicated bath, which means I must gather together the items necessary, besides towels.  The treats to entice her up the stairs and into the bathroom, of course the shampoo and today I needed the leash since she caught on to the treat trail trap. She's not ever eager to have me lift her into the tub and can't say I am either.  So I think one more item is necessary, just have to have a winch installed in the ceiling over the tub.

Day 235 - Lisa

Visitors are coming!!!  Woohoo!  I hope my sister leaves her friends at home.  Not sure they'd survive oneeya and sunii.  ;>

Day 234 - Lisa

Beautification to the hideous porch.  Gotta get ready for all those hunters coming to stay at Carrier Lodge!  LOL

Day 234 - Sis

About five years back I ordered a few things as a joke from this company.  I get an email occasionally from them with new ways to use our last name on clothes, hats, etc.  Well today their ad came in the mail.  I knew I had to dispose of it quickly.  See, I have a daughter that wanted to open a tamale parlor in New Orleans until the reality of the cost, to start one, hit her.  And even though no one in my family hunts or has any experience in running a lodge, (well if you don't count people who come to visit and you wonder when they will be checking out), she might think we could do this.  I mean she would be on multiple websites, investigating hunting equipment, clothing and how to make your own jerky!  "Mom this wouldn't be any different than what you do now, sure a few more rooms to clean and you're use to cooking too much food.  We could do it, Mom are you listening?"

Day 233 - Sis

Remember how Tim Allen  in Home Improvement would make that grunting noise whenever a new power tool became available to him?  That's how I was feeling today when I saw this planter pot.  I pick up Lisa's new drill and am getting that grunt mentality.  Here I go, hit the button, one spin and it stops. Whaatt?!  Dead battery.  Leaves me no choice, have to go old school and grunts are not longer a thought, they're coming with each hammer hit.

Day 233 - Lisa

Yes, those are CD's.  Finally unpacking and putting the bookcases to use.  These are my mom's little African animals.  Another World Market purchase.  They make me feel happy when I see them.  I want to break out singing, "It's the Circle, Circle of Life."  And yes, we are that ANAL!  Little tabs by genre.  My mama did the hard work of sorting, I just made and inserted the tags.  ;>  Teamwork.

Day 232 - Lisa

Saved and saved, finally found a good deal I could not refuse!  Now the baseball players are taller than my mom in our living room.  55" baby!

Day 232 - Sis

This stand is my project.  We were trying to go with a red that hopefully will look fine with that "reddish" mirror in the dining room.  No the bright yellow hutch will not be in the same room!  Well not for now anyway.

Day 231 - Lisa

Working in a hot, humid garage is not ideal but sanding and coat one is now done.  It's going to take quite a few coats to get her looking like we want.

Day 231 - Sis

One of the big grocery stores in our area, couple of miles from home. It's a place that provides us convenience and a pretty big variety of foodstuff.  Usually we visit it once a week after Lisa gets home from work.  Today I did the shopping by myself, as Lisa was getting a little more bed time and had plans to continue working on something while I was gone. Most of my life I have done the grocery shopping alone and like it when I can go early in the morning there is plenty of parking and less people.  So while folks were attending church and praying, I was paying and praying I could stay in my budget.

Day 230 - Lisa

Day 1 of what I believe is going to be a week long project.  Repainting my great grandma's hutch so we can use to house my mom's teapots.  She had someone make her this hutch back when she lived in Richmond.  We don't know when but she was going to get rid of it in the late 60's.  My mom said she'd take it.  Over the years of my child and adulthood it's been several colors.  For 15 years it just sat in our garage in Livermore housing paper stuff and other junk.  Poor thing got kicked around and a tad beat up.  We are going to give it back life as a showcase.  Tangerine, here we come!

Day 230 - Sis

Spent a good bit of time at Home Depot today.  Shopping list - 1- Plants for front porch, and hope they make it through the remaining days of summer. 2- Paint for a couple of projects. 3- Router for Lisa's Milwaukee drill. 4- Sanding paper for those aforementioned projects. 5- Batteries, because we always need them in every size, this time triple A's!

Day 229 - Lisa

Well the colossus crepe myrtles have finally started to bloom on the front side of our house.  They need to be cut back so bad, that's a winter project, so we have these huge tree shedding their flower pedals.  Creating a big MESS.  All over my car, the driveway, the lawn. 

Day 229 - Sis

Finished, I thought!  Forgot about the sets and that one box at the bottom.  Now the genre labels need to be made by Lisa so we don't have eye strain and frustration trying to find the particular music we want to hear.

Day 228 - Lisa

Impulse spending on vacation was at a high level in New Orleans; art, lots of drinks and my baseball cap THAT I got at Lids inside the Riverwalk Mall.  Of course there are Lids all across America but something about being on vacation gives us more patience, more guts to spend $$ on stuff we really don't need and well time, lots of time we normally don't have.  So I dreamed up this cap while watching a kid get his custom made baseball cap.  Tribe name on front, family lineage on left side, Tribal homeland on the right side and our Tribal bird on the back.  Red, white and black represent the colors we use to paint our bodies during dance ceremony.

Day 227 - Sis

Finally finished the pantry and think we should not buy groceries and mess it up!  Celebrated with a drink, non alcoholic since I reached my yearly quota while in New Orleans.

Day 227 - Lisa

Work is like a vortex.  Any rest gained while on vacation seems to be sucked into the vortex called work the moment you open the building door.  I haven't been getting home till after 6:30pm, something 7:00pm, 7:30pm since returning from New Orleans and now we are talking about manning a Swing Shift for which I'll be on a rotation to cover.  Come on vacation in September.  Oh how I look forward to you.

Day 226 - Lisa

The simple life!  God has blessed me for many years now.  Oh the lessons of youth!

Day 226 - Sis

Lisa and I have bickered, (surprise), over how the pantry should be set up.  We knew it needed a redo but where was the best place for some items, like baking pans, racks, extra can goods and how to arrange what will stay in the pantry.  Since I do most of the cooking, am the shortest and have an arthritic left hip, I think things used more often should be at eye (or I ) level.  She, who is close to 7" taller and has a bad knee thinks when she needs an item they should not be on the lower shelves.  We decided to move many utensils and extra comestibles onto a couple of shelves into the garage.  Just have to open the door across from the pantry, one step down and all of it is right there.  Still a bit hard on the hip or knee but beats 13 steps down to the basement and back. Little hiccup in moving these things when I knocked over a glass jar of marinated artichokes and it exploded like an IUD when it the engaged the  floor.  Kind of slowed my progress down.  Olive oil doesn't clean up easily so went and got some cat litter to soak it up, shush, don't tell sunii.

Day 225 - Lisa

Look out neighborhood my mama and I finally got our stereo set-up!  I wonder if Stevie Wonder will mellow out sunii and oneeya like he used to do with our other pets?  LOL!  Saturday household chores just got a whole lot better now that we have our tunes back!

Day 225 - Sis

Yesterday Lisa put up some colorful postcards we bought in New Orleans.  We thought they could brighten up the area over the kitchen cabinets and after much measuring we felt they were just right.  We then had dinner which included chile verde, refried beans and Spanish rice. After dinner we sat down to watch the Olympics closing ceremonies and I left this pan to soak and loosen the rice stuck to the bottom.  It was late when the ceremonies ended and we both went to bed.  This morning I found one post card face down in the pan.  Yep, it's true, Louisiana shrimp does go with rice apparently  a few go further than others!

Day 224 - Sis

Lately it seems like when one task or problem is completed it leads to another one.  Sunday had packages to mail to California so Lisa, my chauffeur and oneeya, truly my road dog, rode with me to the post office.  You know that advertisement the USPS has about the Priority Mail, " If it fits we ship"?  Well I did my part and made it fit but when I tried the ship step, I almost broke my arm trying to open the damn box.  It was full and I was standing there thinking, " If it fits, could  mean a muscle may rip." Well it did mean we had to go to another post office and I had a sore arm to remember it!

Day 224 - Lisa

When we first moved to GA it was completely a dry state on Sundays.  Now, it's okay as long as it's after church.  Aye yi yi!  LOL

Day 223 - Lisa

Busy day decorating.  Some things new, some things from our home in California.  My mom and I like a colorful home; vibrant and bright.  While in New Orleans in June 2010, my mom and I spent a whole morning taking pictures in the neighborhood streets of the French Quarter.  We both were intrigued with the different doors.  We didn't really know this till we shared our pictures.  On this trip, we went into an artist co-op gallery to look around.  I fell in love with these two pieces showcasing French Quarter doors.  The artist uses oil paints and the foil from wine and liquor bottles, I thought it was really creative.  Yes a tad whimsical for my normal tastes.  Come to find out she lives part time in Livermore and part time in New Orleans.  Small world.    When my mom worked at Target they used to have the World Market with lots of really cool furniture, frames, vases and other decorative household items from around the world.  She fell in love with this red mirror (Philippines) and we both loved the chests (Indonesia) and mirrors (India), so we waited and waited for the clearances and used her discount to claim our pieces.  They remind me of Livermore now and that makes me happy.

Day 223 - Sis

While Lisa hung mirrors and pictures in different rooms, sunii followed and was underfoot.  Guess she got tired of walking in and around Lisa's work space and decided to just hang out.  Oh how convenient that this stand was available but not sure it was her idea or if someone planted her there.  She does have a look in her eyes, that says, "Grandma!