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.

A $12 Picture Frame

This is the 6 foot by 6 foot wood window that I bought at the Habitat Home Store for $12 a few months ago. You should have seen the look on My Handyman's face the day I brought THIS home!

After I explained to him what I had in mind, he decided it was a great idea. So one day, while I was at work he cleaned it up and put a good coat of primer on it.

The next day he painted it a nice glossy black and hung it on the wall in our new front entry, which is another work in progress. It is really heavy so he screwed in some heavy duty screw in hooks at the top of the wall and into the wall studs and attached the screw eyes into the top of the frame. I was really thrilled when I came home from work and there it was - EXACTLY like I had pictured it (pun intended)!

And here it is hanging above the FREE tripple dresser I got from my Mom - Thanks Mom! It needs some work too, but we'll get to that eventually. At first I thought I'd paint the whole thing black, but we live WAY out in the country and get A LOT of dust, so I'm not sure thats the way to go. Feel free to offer your suggestions.

My Handyman just propped some family pictures in the openings so that you could see how the plan is coming together. Now I need to make a trip to Michael's for some mat board to put in the openings and mount the pictures. I will be able to swing the frame away from the wall to change out the pictures as all the grandbabies grow and change. I think I'll add something about FAMILY using some of those great vinyl letters that you can get from so many sources these days.

What do you think? How have you used old window frames in your crafting?

The Chicks Have Arrived!

These 6 were the first to arrive. They were about 3 days old when we first brought them home. In this picture they are 2-3 wks. old. The lighter colored ones are Buff Orpingtons. The darker ones are Rhode Island Reds. All are supposed to be pullets (female).

This little cutie is one of the Buff Orpingtons. They are said to be good Moms and good egg-layers. They are also supposed to be a friendly breed. We currently have a Buff Orpington mix hen that is NOT friendly at all, she is the head hen of the current flock. Hopefully these 3 new BOs will be much sweeter. They will lay brown eggs as will the Rhode Island Reds.A week later the second 6 arrived. This little girl is a Barred Rock. She is about 1 wk old in this picture. She is currently the most friendly and least flighty of the 12 new babies. We bought 2 of these little ones and I look forward to seeing how they change as they grow and feather out. They will lay brown eggs.We bought 4 of these little ones. She is a Americauna and will lay BLUE eggs. Doesn't she look precious with her little puffy cheeks and the coloring of a chipmunk?! I can't wait for the BLUE eggs to start coming. The grand babies and my coworkers will be really surprised. They are growing and changing so fast it is amazing! I'll take new pictures of them this weekend and post them next week. The 3 Buff Orpingtons and 3 Rhode Island Reds have moved into a fenced off are in the "Big House" (Chicken Coop). The Barred Rocks and Americaunas are still living in my house in a large dog kennel. They will be there for another week or so and will then join the others in the "Big House".

That will make room for the other 12 that are coming in the next few weeks! We should end up with a very colorful flock.

Finished Objects 1, 2 & 3

I promised I'd show you some of the knitting I've been doing the last couple of months, and here is the first of several.

I had to wait to post these until they were off in the mail to the recipient. I sent them by UPS on Friday, so they should have them by now - so I think I'm safe.

My former co-worker, ZD and wife K had a beautiful baby girl a couple of weeks ago. When I first found out that they were expecting I started on these knitted items for her. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas came along, as did the knitting of 15 pr of fingerless gloves, and this project was put aside.

I pulled it out again in January, that was in the dead of winter, with snow all around! And finished them. Now we are into daylight saving time and the weather is getting warmer, so I'm not sure they will get much use, but off they went anyway, with a note promising to send some more summery gifts in the future.

These are made with Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick in one of my favorite colorways - Oatmeal - which their website describes as "natural beige with strands of chocolate and black". I like it because it looks "earthy" to me. And the Thick & Quick made the project move along pretty quickly. I also like it because it comes in worsted weight as well.


First is the precious little cocoon made using this pattern, which I found for free on Ravelry. I'd seen some photos from photographers using these and thought they were adorable. And so practical IMO:

I added the pink ribbon to make it a little more girly, by just weaving the ribbon in and out of the stitches, tying a knot on the end and bringing the other end to the "V" and tying in a bow.

I had enough yarn left over to make the cute hat on the left using this pattern, also found on Ravelry for free. Then I decided it was too big for the new babe, so I found this pattern, and made one out of the worsted weight version of the Oatmeal Wool Ease yarn. My Handy Man thought it was the cutest little hat he had ever seen. Plus I have lots of yarn left to make at least one more tiny hat.

I put all 3 items in a zippered pillow cover and washed them in my washing machine using Woolite and Downey. Then I rolled them up in a bath towel and pressed the excess water out of them and laid them out on some towels until they were dry. They came out really soft and I loved the way they all looked together.

Z & K and big brother B and baby Z should have the gifts by now. I really hope they like them!

If you haven't checked out Ravelry, be sure and do it. There are lots of great free patterns and lots of great patterns that you can download for almost no $$! You do have to sign up to use the site, but it's FREE too!

I still haven't bee able to round up my little models to show you the cute little Spring sweaters I made for them. Soon as I do I'll post those pictures as well.