Happy 60th Birthday My Handyman

This is My Handyman.
The love of my life, though I've only known him for 11 years.

He has been such a blessing. Not only to me, as his lucky wife, but to my entire family as well.

He is the most caring man I've ever known.

He puts up with me and all my wacky ideas.

He shares in my joys as well as my sorrows.

He loves my daughter, who was 18 when we married and calls him Daddy, because he has been such a good one to her, in the absence of a "real" father.

He loves my son, who has sometimes been a challenge, but has grown and changed into a very good young man.

He loves to fish.

He loves being outdoors.

He loves his family-all of us, both blood and steps.

His Momma and Daddy did a REAL GOOD JOB raising this man!


He calls my children's children, his grand-punkins and he calls this little sweetie (his son's little girl), his button, 'cause she is, as he says, "cute as a button".

Her Mom & Dad are expecting a little boy at the end of July - he calls him "Beau" - as in "button & bow"!

I thank the Lord EVERY DAY for bringing him into my life.

We married after I had been a divorced, single Mom for 13 1/2 years. At our wedding, when the preacher asked if anyone had anything to say, he said, "today I consider myself the luckiest man in the world!"

Happy Birthday my darlin'. And may we share many, many, many more!

Another Finished Knitting Project

My youngest granddaughter in the Confection Baby Shrug that I made for her. Don't you just love the model's pose!?! I had to ask her Mom to take some pictures of her wearing it 'cause the ones I took were no good.



Here it is from the back.

This was a really quick knit and I'm a SLOW knitter! I used Loops & Threads Impeccable yarn (Lavender) that I got at Michael's. It was actually the remainder of a skein that I used for another sweater. If you haven't tried this yarn, you should. It's soft and washes up really well. I've used it for many, many projects.

If I can just round up my other granddaughters long enough to get their pictures in the sweaters I've made for them I'd have more FO's to share!

Finished and Nearly Finished Projects

I was lucky enough to have a 3 day weekend off so that My Handyman and I could get some projects finished. Fortunately the weather partially cooperated-it was nice and warm and sunny, but the wind refused to quit blowing. Blowing wind, as you know if you've ever tried to paint outside, is no friend to the painting process. That is, unless you LIKE little bits of grass and dust clinging to your beautiful painted finish!

My Handyman worked on this project. This is the 1923 footed tub that I bought off of Craigslist last year. Here it is when I first bought it. My Handyman got it out of the living room, by himself (don't ask how), and set it up on blocks, bottom up, so he could clean it up and get it painted. After a LOT of cleaning with sandpaper and a wire brush, he was able to paint on a beautiful new white, oil based coat of paint. He used what we thought was supposed to be a chrome spray paint on the feet, but it came out looking more like pewter. Here it is all painted with it's tennis ball shoes in place (they will make it easier to slide across the floor when we get ready to put it in the currently being remodeled bathroom). The inside is in pretty amazing shape. Not pristine, but good enough that I don't feel the need to go to the expense of having it refinished. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the inside.

And these are the finished chairs from my previous post. We got them all sanded and primed and put on a pretty new coat of black spray paint. Then I wiped on some polyurethane and let it dry really well. I recovered the seats with the latest and greatest fabric that is sweeping the Internet blog world - a canvas drop cloth from Lowe's. I paid a little over $4 for it and I still have enough to cover a couple more chairs or use for other projects. My Handyman is working on sanding and painting the triple dresser. One of the advantages of having a husband who is currently "laid off" is that he is home to do projects and he is actually willing to do them, with little or no grumbling! Love that Handyman!

More finished projects to follow.

New Old Chairs - For the Front Entry

I've been looking for a pair of chairs to use on either side of the triple dresser that I've put in our new front entry. I found this pair (actually there were 6, but I only needed 2) at the Habitat Home Store in Nashville. They aren't the exact, perfect chairs that I was looking for, but I liked them well enough to go ahead and buy them. However, when I first spotted them I realized that the price was only a week away from being slashed to 1/2.

If you aren't familiar with the pricing practices at Habitat, when an item first comes in it is given an "original" price. Then several weeks later it is marked down, then marked down again in another few weeks. If the item hasn't sold within 30 days of the last mark down, you can buy it for half of the last marked down price!

So I waited, hoping I would get to them before someone else, but knowing I wouldn't be really upset if I didn't. Well - I got lucky and bought them for half of the last price on this tag: That's $12.50 each. More than some would pay, but a good price for me. They are sturdy chairs, now that My Handyman has put the old wood glue to work on the wobbly backs.

They will be part of the project that me and My Handyman will work on over the 3 day weekend.

Come back and see how they turn out.