Well, I’m about sick of this home decorating topic…you?

I couldn’t get more of the striped fabric to add to my curtains and couldn’t find a plain gold to match the background so ended up buying a more yellow gold to augment the curtains and play down all that pattern. Oh yeah, and I thought dingly balls would be a nice touch (don’t worry, you’ll see).

So….the lighting in the fabric store was quite different from the lighting at home and it turns out it was a lot more yellow than I thought. So…..the paint I had (Peach Veil) was now in conflict with the fabric.

So….by now I was getting kind of fed up and went ahead and bought a different paint…’Bisque’. Which, really, when you get down to it was just a brownish olive colour that goes with all the fabric. I painted the ensuite bathroom last week and this week have tried to get the walls done in such a fashion that that I could hang the curtains right away so my nightwalking shiftworking husband could sleep. (Better than having a nightstalking shiftless husband eh?).

Last night I finished the last two walls.

The only thing left to do is make some kind of wooden support to put the curtains tie-backs on. Sure enough, if we mount them on drywall they’ll pull out in now time. Those suckers are heavy what with the fabric, the black out lining and the decorative lining. But, no light will dare to come through them so that is good!

The valance for the bathroom window matches the bed skirt and I finally have a colour coordinated wall to hang the picture of a Greek street scene that friends brought me from the Islands about 15 years ago. See, there is a silver lining in there somewhere!

In the meantime, Ron has started working on the basement…he wired, framed, drywalled, mudded, and taped a new storage room. I painted it ( the beautiful Peach Veil), and he installed a suspended ceiling. Once the crap treasure is all stacked in there we can start working on other rooms. I think the bathroom will be next because that requires smashing up part of the floor and putting plumbing in. You know how we like to make big messes!

So, the bedding is pretty much done.

I’ve been thinking of making curtains along this line (I’ve just hucked raw fabric over the existing rods that why it looks weird).

Anyway, I think that’s kind of an overwhelming amount of the leaf pattern so want to make the side curtains out of the same fabric that the bed skirt is. Unfortunately, the fabric store only has 1 meter of that left so I have to wait some time to get the 5 meters I need. So, I guess it will be on with the painting for now.

(I know this is deadly dull but my silent observers at the coast want to know what I’m doing)

We’re having one of our delightful cold snaps. Monday, I kept the kids home from school but yesterday we ventured out. I’ve never seen the temperature indicator on my Explorer get this low:

The poor thing gets confused apparently at -40 so it alternates with another meaningful message in case I’m not prepared:

Anyway, I’ve completed the new duvet cover:

and am working on the tailored bedskirt:

….drapes will be next then its on to painting!

See this mess?

I’m going to try to improve it.

Here are the raw materials, a big bucket of paint, and about 20 meters of fabric and a white dog.

I’ll keep you posted. Casper wants to help. Actually, Casper just wants to go for a walk so he wishes I’d get finished with all this nonsense!!

I got a message from my girlfriend Nancy yesterday pointing me to a website that raises money to feed rescue animals.

Please go click the purple button…it only takes a second, then you can come back.

(This is the note that we got from the Rescue organization:

Hi, all you animal lovers. This is pretty simple… Please tell ten
friends to tell ten today! The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble
getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of
getting free food donated every day to abused and neglected animals. It
takes less than a minute (How about 20 seconds) to go to their site and
click on the purple box ‘fund food for animals’ for free. This doesn’t
cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertiser s use the number
of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in
exchange for advertising.
Here’s the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

http://www.theanimalrescuesite. com/ )

Thanks for dropping by the new roost.

Looks who’s here to welcome you!!

This morning I went to school with Grant and we built a candy castle. As I don’t have an artistic bone in my body it was mostly up to him. He did great!

Life is a matter of perspective….how about if we look at the castle from another angle:

Dear old Casper. He is such a good dog. Such a good dog, waiting for an opportunity! Study the body language… he’s feigning disinterest yet the back end is poised for a quick lunge….hoping fervently that I suddenly am incapacitated by a lightning strike or some other act of God! No such luck.

To my family and friends and many dear blogging buddies around the world, I wish you the very best of the holiday season. Peace and joy are a lot to ask for…but that is what I wish for each of you!

My blogspace at www.kyahgirl.com is up for renewal in February. I”m thinking that I’ll probably give it up and come back here to a free blog.  So, this is just preparing for the future.

Its been awhile since you’ve seen the fine hockey players in my house…here they are:

Everyone is always asking me what I do with my time. Well, when I’m not painting, decorating, running the kids here and there or reading a book, I’m driving to every dinky little town in Central Alberta for hockey games. We’ve got a lot of little communities with a whole lot of pride. In fact, a ridiculous number of towns claim a wide variety of the “World’s biggest” items. Here are three towns that are in the league we play with.

There’s Andrew, which boasts the world’s biggest Mallard duck:

Mundare, with the world’s biggest sausage ring:

Smoky Lake, home of the world’s biggest pumpkins!

Luckily we’re not driving out to see the worlds biggest Pysanka….yet. Its just a matter of time.

So, I finished paintingNicole’s room and have made her curtains and a valance. I have stencil in some flowers on the wall but that will have to be after I’ve learned how
Wall before and after:

With new curtains and valance.