Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Make Do, or Re-do

I was admonished the other day (by my mother and, honestly, my own little conscience) about neglecting my dear little blog.

Honestly, after all the snakes, I haven't had much to write about other than possibly running into more snakes, picking blackberries, new chickens, preserving apples, and terrifying nightmares I have about snakes.

And a few other somewhat boring ideas I've had. Honestly though, I've been too busy to sit and write, and far from inspired to turn stories of my mundane and boring homemakerly little life into something slightly interesting to read.

Unless you want me to describe, in detail, the nightmares I have about snakes.

We're expecting our first REAL visitors soon! Thus the busy-ness. So I've been trying, slowly, to make the house look slightly less... like it does. I have my little pride and would rather our house not continue to look like it walked out of the 50's (or something), and our guests to sleep somewhere comfortable and warm.

Most of our furniture and, well, pretty much everything else we own, was given to us by a plethora of friends. Or people my husband was moving and they decided they didn't want <insert piece of furniture> and we needed it, and so we got it.

Really, almost nothing in the house matches or goes together. But our moto is "It'll do". Or that's what it became one day when my husband started laughing after we'd used it for the 10th time that day. The making do works, but I am a woman, and I have desires to make things look... homey. And so, in the past 6 months (or 7?) we've been living in our little tin house, we've slowly been moving from "bachelor/dead bugs lives here" to "Young married couple trying to save money for tickets back the the States".

Our first "big" change was our desk. This is what it used to look like:

Then a friend/my husbands boss came over and laughed at it. We honestly didn't see it for the pile of, well, crap, that it was (an old fish tank stand Phillip's mom made, a box full of camp cook ware, plastic filing cabnit things, and yes, that lamp is STILL used as an antena for our internet!)

It's just... beautiful. It worked. And we had nothing else to use, honestly.



Then Phillip moved someone who was getting rid of an old teachers desk. It was pine, yellowish, stained, chipped, one drawer smelled like mice had peed in it... but he brought it home, I spent a week sanding and refinishing it, and ended up with this:

The streaky look on top? Happened on accident. I LOVE it. Unfortunatly, I'm bad at before pictures, but the same guy who came in and made fun of our orriginal desk/pile o' crap always comments on how nice this one looks. Because he remembers how ugly it was before.

Of course, after a few months of use, it started to look like this:

See! The lamp/antenna! Also, the sock on the floor is a cat toy. 
And we also bought a used office chair. It' remarkably comfy.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Snakes on a path!

Hmmm, tired of these stories yet?

I guess not, since my view count says more people are checking out this blog than before. Or the same five people are looking are it twenty-odd times a day.

Anyway, I was walking my mile-ish walk to the lovely large family to spend the afternoon with them, yet again. It's been rather cool the past week, compared to what it was last week and the week before. (By cooler, I mean in the 70's, instead of burn your eyes out and skin off heat). So, while I like to think I expect snakes every time I walk this particular walk, I thought that this cooler day had extra potential for snakes. The cooler temperature makes the gravel and black top seem extra tempting, I would think, if you're cold-blooded. 

And of course, as I was walking and thinking this, JUST behind me (as in, right where my feet had just left stepping) I hear the telltale loud long slithering through dead leaves. I looked behind me and saw this: 

Now, I was about 4 or 5 feet away from it, but the Tiger Snake (I'm guessing about 3ft long?) had only slithered down a small embankment into a drainage... area (not a drainage ditch but I don't know what else to call it). And then it just stayed there. Not moving. So, feeling slightly stupid, and thinking that I needed some of my own snake photos for this blog (instead of just stories where I see or hear them), I whipped my little camera out and, with a slightly shaking hand, zoomed in and snapped four photos that are nearly exactly the same. And then quickly walked away. 

While the daring photo nature loving side of me wishes I'd been able to get closer and get better and different photos, the more practical side of me would rather not risk being sick in the hospital for weeks or months from a snake bite. Or the chance of death.

But still.... kind of cool, right? It is a fairly pretty snake...