December In a Snapshot { picture heavy! }

I'm going to try to do this each month.... This is our December in pictures. Some you've seen, some I was too lazy to put up before now.. Side note, ordered Rae some new glasses with thin frames and NO TINT. Drives her mama crazy that either the frame is blocking her eye, or she is looking a bit Elton John with her constant sunglasses. I miss seeing my baby's face.

Growing

Coming from a long line of super handy do-it-yourself folks, I'm a handy girl with a do-it-yourself attitude that I've been stiffeling for the last fifteen years, for some unknown reason. Whenever a "handy" project would come up I'd leave it to someone else. Why? I'd always end up slightly frustrated because the project didn't get done in the method/time frame/quality/etc that I would have done it. Something has come over me lately and that is all starting to change. I have the damn skills and knowledge to get this sh*t done, I don't need anyone to do it for me.

Three days ago I shopped for the perfect trim & the worlds cheapest miter box and cut, sanded, primed, painted, sealed, assembled, liquid nailed, spackled, and touched up the most fantastic big black frame for the builders quality mirror glued to the wall in the downstairs bathroom.

 

The day before yesterday I completely disassembled the toilet and cleaned out all the nooks and crannies before I painted the balance of the bathroom rather than just having the one bold wall as originally intended. Yes, it's a crazy bold color that won't go well for a re-sale, but we're here for at least another five years so I don't give a hoot.  I also painted and sealed all of the trim a deep black after sanding down all the flaking paint from the cheap and unsealed white the builder used.

 

Yesterday I stripped, sanded, stained, stained, stained, stained, varnished, varnished again, and reassembled the cabinet under the sink. It's a black stain and looks rustic black in person, but it looks dark brown in photos. Go figure. It looks fantastic with the blue and solid black trim in person, I promise!

 

Today I'm stealing my handy brother-in-law's compound miter saw and adding a framing trim all along the ceiling. The sad cheap plastic miter box  that didn't have it's miter cuts go all the way to the bottom and kept pinching the saw and shredding my thin concave quarter round previously purchased somehow managed to get backed over with my car. Several times. It's a mystery as to how that happened. No worries, said brother in law assures me I'll be getting a long safety lecture on the use of said saw when I informed him that I didn't need him to do the project for me. Handy as my lineage is, it's also short more than a few fingers.

 

And who knows what will happen tomorrow. Re-finishing that counter top? Laying some new flooring? There's got to be a stain for that....
Re-claiming my handy heritage, one random unnecessary house project at a time.

Then and Now

Well... I can definitely feel and see a difference, but it really doesn't show in pics. This is November 18th and today, January 2nd. It's good for me to see this, there is really no change in the pic as far as I can tell, so I need to seriously UP my arm routines. In a month and a half there should be more change. Still tiny guns, ( but they sure do feel quite a bit more firm!)

The Squeaky Gift

 

 

Were it not for her shedding, Squeaker may very well be the worlds most perfect cat. She really only likes the family, but there's not an aggressive bone in her body. The kids can manhandle her and she does nothing about it, but she will vacate the area when she's done with them. She tolerates the dogs until she doesn't,and then it's a well timed puff and hiss to get them under control. She sleeps on my feet and knows better than to get near the head of the bed at any time. She uses the auto litter box in the garage that Matt has rigged into a contraption of such magnificence that I only need to deal with poo issues once a month or less. She reminds me to fill the dog/cat water bowl by hunting me down and squeaking at me till it's full ( she is so aptly named, she literally does squeak and not meow.)She races me to the top of the stairs to demand a once daily belly scratch, aggressive rubbing please. She only comes down stairs if you've earned her time but when she does, she's just damn cute about it. She gifted us with her presence nearly every night since Christmas, and her chosen sleep spot made absolutely no sense but was the most adorable thing EVER, so I forgive her the pounds and pounds and pounds of cat hair she leaves all over my home.

I am NOT a cat person. But our Squeak is just my kind of kitty.