Mother Nature's Cruel Joke

Here is what the outside of my apartment looked today. 
Snapshots every hour shows how fast the accumulation of snow has been.

6:00 AM

7:00 AM

8:00 AM

9:00 AM

So now we are left with the question, where did our spring go?

Stone Soup

Stone Soup

Ever hear the story of "Stone Soup"? 

You haven't? Well let me tell you....

Once upon a time there was a travelling man who wanted to see the world. He stopped by at a few villages on his way, and the villagers were not friendly with him at first, they were suspicious of strangers walking into their lives. 

The man had eaten all the bread and drank all the water he brought with him when he left home on his journey a month before. He was getting hungry. And thirsty. And frustrated that no one would give him the time of day when he visited their poor settlements. 

After leaving one such village he sat on a big rock and contemplating going all the way back home, feeling defeated that what he set out to do was a failure. Until he saw a round shiny stone. He picked it up and held it in his hands. It was smooth, not one rough nick on the surface, not one scratch, and it was the shiniest, smoothest, gray stone he had ever seen. That would make a great souvenir of the past month he spent walking the earth in search of fulfillment and happiness. He started to concoct a plan to use this stone against the villagers for his selfish needs and to teach the scared villagers a lesson they can use for themselves.

He walked to the next town to see if his plan would work.

He entered the little town and stood in the middle of the main street noticing all the curtains closing up. Sometimes a curtain would separate and the homeowner would stick his head out and close the curtain again. This lasted for about an hour until a tall man came out of his house at the end of the town and started walking towards him with a purposeful look on his face. 

"What do you want?" asked the thin man with a voice that shattered the air like a bullet.

Feeling brave, he answered " I want some bread and water and a bed to sleep for the night"

"We can give you a bed to sleep for the night, but we cannot give you bread and water as we have none."

"Fine. I will have to make myself some Stone Soup to eat then" said the traveler as he pulled out his shiny grey stone and held it high so all the villagers could see it in all its glory.

The man started a fire and asked one of the tall man for a soup pot. The man went inside his home and retrieved a magnificent black cast iron soup pot, along with a long handled wooden spoon. 

"I will need some water please" One woman came out of her house with a bucket of clear water and dumped it in the pot.  The travelling man hung the pot between two sticks hanging over the fire, he dumped in the rock making it splash. As he stirred the water, he closed his eyes and sniffed the air saying "This soup would be good if it had a potato in it" A lady came out of her home holding 6 potatoes and put them in the pot, stirring all the while the man said, "Smells good but the soup would be better if there were carrots and onions" Two women from behind him came up with 7 carrots and 3 big onions and dumped them in the pot. The man mentioned a few other vegetables and the villagers were talking about how the soup was smelling good. Finally the man said, "The soup is done but this Stone Soup would make a Super Duper Stone Soup with some salt and pepper!" 

While the villagers scurried to find salt and pepper, the travelling man asked the villagers to get some bowls so he could share his soup with them. They all were amazed at how this wonderful soup started with a simple stone.

Smoke Alarm Problems

I have a smoke alarm that kept on beeping all night! Time to change the battery!

Make sure when placing the new battery that the positive and negative are in the right order!

When I twirled the alarm around, I saw this convenient sticker!

So I've got 4 more years and then a new one has to be bought.

Does yours have a date sticker on it? 

As I was putting it back up on the ceiling it didn't feel right, because I could pull one side down. So I took it off again for a closer look.

One of the "hooks" was broken off. As it's on the ceiling and doesn't get touched (only once in a blue moon to change the battery) I decided it wasn't a big deal to wait until 2017.

Shower curtains

I think this is an important aspect of taking a shower

THE CURTAINS!

So I go in search of curtain hooks that doesn't look like curtain hooks, and I found them! They fit wonderfully with my white decor!

The price of these babies were the big winner!

Look at how they fit nicely on the rod. Compliments the white curtains I put from the ceiling. Elegant!

What do you think of little details?

Baskets!

from the website: http://www.simplybasketsvernonbc.com

Baskets are trendy organizational tools. 

I have several of these ones, bought on a whim a while ago, I think at Walmart.

The thing I like about these baskets are that you can store them inside each other 

when not in use!

This one, I call a basket because of how it's made, and I use it for my kitchen utensils.

It has 4 square compartments so the tools are separated.

   

This one I like best! It looks like it's made from bread dough and it's so pretty I use it to house my tomatoes on the counter!

 

Do you have baskets, and if you do, what do you use them for?

Would you like some tea?

My collection of Tea Cups and Saucers 
are a welcome addition to my home 

Take a look at what makes each one unique!

1) This one is a colorful burgundy and has a pretty scene on the front of the cup.

What makes these unique are the "holes in the plate, 

they look like little Pacman ghosts, don't you think?

  

Quite the resemblance?

2) This one is just pretty with the handle in a very original shape!

                 

The gold rims on the plate and cup makes them look regal

3) Here is another one with a scene on the front of the cup

It's the same scene as the first one but a different cup... see?

  

4) This one reminds me of bamboo especially the handle! 

The cup itself isn't a round cup but shaped as a flower!

5) This cup is sort of flat not rounded.

I like the double diamond shape holes and the thick handle.

 

So do you have any teacups and saucers and how do you display them?

  

Baseboards

Why are baseboards and trim white? 

Because I have a frustrating experience with tape not being able to keep the paint off other parts of the wall and the floor, 

I decided to paint the baseboards the same color as the wall. 

All I have to do is tape the floor. 

With new tape this time. 

Called Frog Tape. 

Guaranteed not to bleed!

I just painted the top of the baseboards along with the wall, much easier than taping all the top of the baseboards, don't you think? 

Then there is the continuity of color all way down.

Tomorrow I will show you how I am doing this!

Do you paint the baseboards and trim white?

Black Wall

I have painted my wall black. 

It's such a nice contrast to the normal beige or white in most homes.

Take a look at the before and after picture.

Dramatic isn't it?

  

I decided to only paint the back dining room wall because it would be too much and too dark to paint that long wall in such a small living and dining room area.

So I now have lots of black paint... 

Here I am painting the "corners" near the ceiling, I am certainly not in a bikini frame of body, that's for sure!

Black paint on the ceiling! OOPS I will just add the white ceiling paint to that when it dries...

Now I have decided to tape the floor and came upon a problem... the baseboard corners. They are not tapeable! I must have ruined yards of paint tape trying to do it. So I thought a foam brush will get it just in the right areas...

 

Beautiful.... just beautiful! 

Now where is that white ceiling paint?

So remember I said I taped the floor because I just did because I didn't want the floor to have black paint on it? 

The black paint bled under the tape and left some of the white baseboard color too! ARGH! 

So tape or no tape, I get paint where I do not want it... 

But all in all, the black wall will look beautiful once the room is done!

 

Sorry, I didn't take a picture with the finished black baseboards.

So do you have a "drama" wall of a dark color?

Half the wall

I went "online" window shopping and saw this blog post at "i should be mopping the floor" 

about how she painted only part of the wall a dark color and the rest she did a white 

so this design is called "board and batten".

Click HERE for the entire tutorial!

I find this is probably a better idea 

than the entire black wall I had my heart set on.