Dragon collection part 2

Dragon collection part 1

my sister's collection of Dragons

this one was unintentional.  Can you see the dragon in this one?  I did - one with gold wings

I did the wood burned piece and painted the lacquer painted dragon

Outside Work/Inside work

Last week we hung the trays that were a Hanukkah/Christmas gifting from our wonderful cousins

Mom has also been hanging some of her collectible plates

Outside we're working on the garden and repainting the pavers.  Our wonderful handyman power washed them last week (which took off the peeling paint) and we're repainting them with texture paint, hopefully to reduce the risk of slipping on the darn things.

It's a bit of a task - not only with the bending/sitting but also from going "snow blind"!  The bright sunlight bouncing off the stark white paint is bright!

Cats, Cars, Yard Work

We've spent the last two weeks getting yard work done (of course, it's now time to mow it again but it's not a jungle, thankfully).  We're going to have to get creative with replacing the railroad tie retaining wall.  They've been there for decades and are rotting away.  We're considering putting yard fabric mesh over the ties and doing a cinderblock wall right in front of the ties with drainage holes.  The ties will act like a "French drain" and the mesh will hold dirt from seeping out and the cinderblock will ensure our foundation to the house isn't undermined.  So, we'll start gathering cinderblocks and rebar.  Ack

We got my car registered.  Instead of the $300 we were warned against, it was $38.00 - blink, blink.  Run that by me again, please.  $38.00 and we don't have to worry about emissions tests - the Bronco is 25 yrs old, its exempt.  Yay!

I've gone through and organized the fiction books along with the non-fiction books (including the cookbooks) and we have well over 1,000 books. 

Others can see why my favorite gift for Hanukkah is a gift card to Amazon.com!

My sister has been putting up shelves in her room for her collection of dragons and shelves in Mom's room for her turtle collection.  Next will be my room for my action figures (yes, I know I'm weird - I think my next one will be a Moses figure complete with burning bush and commandment tablets).  I painted the boards with a pale yellow to compliment my sage green walls.

Another fun thing we've done lately is to hang my old hammock chair.  There is nothing like sitting in it during a thunderstorm or just past sunset when the lightning bugs/fireflies are active and watching the bats going for mosquitoes (while we stay cozy behind screening.

And here's one of our supervisors that specialized in overseeing the sweeping and moping today.

Note her comfortable supervisor's seating.  I guess watching the Olympics on tv and us working around the house was exhausting.

Another interesting new project is that I am taking a literature course online from the University of Michigan.  The first week was Grimm's, 2nd week is Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass, next Dracula, then Frankenstein, Poe, Hawthorne, Bradbury, Le Guin, Doctorow.....
all within 10 weeks.  It's challenging!

Books, Chairs and Headboards

I've been working on sorting the books and then inputting them into an inventory program.  I'm done sorting.

Books sorted and separated by Dewey decimal and the fiction books are in alpha order.

Cabinets (holding DVDs) $60 each. Habitat for Humanity ReStore
Bookcases - Big Lots
Drums - mine and family

Balalaika - mine

We added a wonderful wooden office chair (yard sale $20)

Found the headboard and footboard for my sister's bed.  We'll sand the headboard down, paint gloss black, add gold Fleur d'leis.  Goodwill ($10 for both pieces)

The footboard is too much for her room so we've got an interesting idea for that.  More later

Treasure!

For the last few days I undertook a project - catalog the books and rearrange them after getting another bookcase.  I'm not sure I was ready for this.

We had to shim up the bookcases because the walls aren't plumb (Note: construction speak!) 

Here are the non-fiction books - our treasure

So - the project entailed inputting the ISBN into a program I have and hopefully get the Dewey Decimal number.  If not, figure it out.  Translation: carry a stack of books to my desk. Look up books one at a time. Write down numbers in small tag in book.  Carry small stack to the floor, separate into basic numbers: 100s, 200s, 300s etc  Sort through books, alphabetize under Dewey and shelve books

Oh yeah - I haven't done the cookbooks or fiction books yet.  Ow

Living room Floor - day 3

Day 3 (we took a day off)

The damage revealed once we got the old tiles up.  No way we could put tile down on top of this stuff.

And only my sister does renovation projects in striped purple socks and fuzzy house shoes

We chiseled out some of the damaged pressboard subfloor and then pried up the long piece.  We cut out the damaged part of another long board and then cut new boards to fit in the spots.  After chiseling edges to fit with chisels and screwdrivers.

Today I nailed the replacement boards down, cleaned the rest and laid the new tile down

We had supervisors!

I have the edges left to do and some baseboard and threshold work and to clean some of the glue that came up between some of the tiles.