365 - continued (Looking for merit in my ideas)

I would like to see if there are 4 or 5 of you who want to join Anne and I in a creative journey.

First, like Noah says, the rule is there are no rules.  I want you to just try a few even.  A few, that is all.  You will LOVE it, I am certain of it.

If you don't believe me, check out his blog at http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/

Very quickly I did find a girl who used her two bassets as her muses. http://365bassets.blogspot.com/  I immediately wrote to her and told her how she had stolen my idea.  Now I have to think of something really original.

I had thought to do "quilting" but I realized after looking though the book and thinking of the ways I would do things, I needed another base idea.  I am thinking that I would do the "quilting" idea and not limit the subject or the venue to anything specific.  And if it didn't work out to be a quilting project, then I would adjust.

For instance.......one day says to work underwater by filling a bowl with water and creating something inside it.  I guess I could make a quilted fishy and put him in the bowl.  Or make a small quilt and put the water bowl on top of it and look through it.  See, there might be some merit in the "quilting" idea after all.

Hmmmmm........ I shall think more on it.

Off The Wall Friday -- The Least Creative Week Ever Takes a Dive

The least creative week, you bet!  Between my eye poking incident and the tile going on and on and on and never seeming to end, I have just not had time nor the opportunity nor the sight to do any creative work.  But keep reading, I have a new thing I want to do to get those creative juices flowing again.

If you want to see some people who actually got work done this week, go here to see Nina-Marie's Creativity Off the Wall Friday Group.

I really do like the way Nina-Marie pulled her lilies together.  They really are looking like the real deal now.  I was wondering, but I think you have finally hit on the way to make it work.  I thought the background was not going to work, but I am seeing it come together and work.  You added a sun (or the moon?).  And it made so much difference in how the background fit to the whole.

Oh, my eye, cornea specialist says I did lift the flap of the lasik and there is epithelial cells growing under the edges, but he thinks they were there before the poking accident.  And since the vision is 20/20 in that eye, he is happy to leave it alone.  YES!

So this is what I want to do now.  I found a journal of creativity called 365: A Daily Creativity Journal (Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life) by Noah Scalin  You can get it at Amazon.com at anywhere from buck fifty to $13.00.  Basic idea is that you create something every day using the guidelines he suggests (can be changed, enlarged, made smaller, modified, skipped or folded/spindled/mutilated) and your creativity develops in ways you never dreamed.

For example, I thumbed through the book and found a suggestion that said:  Take a 5 minute walk from your house and stop.  Look around.  Make something with something you find in the vicinity.

What Noah did was to choose a subject, skulls.  And he made a Skull-A-Day using these suggestions.  He learned new techniques, enhanced old ideas, met new people, changed his life, went on TV, wrote a book, sold art.  Traded art.

He says you will not always have a winner each day, you will not always get it right the first time or the fifteenth.  But the majority of what you do will be better art than you can believe.  And you will grow.

I want to get a group and do some days.  How about it?  Interested?  How about for a month?  And if you like it you can continue with us.  Or get your own group?

Leave a message and let me know.  I am so excited to do this.  I am feeling so creative just THINKING about this book!

365

Rug in Room

Dogs on Rug being happy

Here is the new rug.  Complete with dog hair I am sure.  It has
Southwest undertones but is not blaring like my beloved Navajo Fire Place Rug.  That is what I really wanted.  This is a compromise.


Let me tell you about the book!  This is exciting.  The basic premise of the book is

Rug in Gallery

to put you into the practice of being creative. The author, Noah

Navajo Rug

Scalin, decided to create a project for himself because he felt he had hit the wall in his art.  So he decided to choose skulls as his subject and do something creative every day centered around them. In the process, he learned new techniques, stepped outside his box, met new people, got several book deals, was on TV several times and created designs that would have never happened.

Close up of SW Cow Skull

I hear people all the time saying they are doing the same quilt over again because it is their fall back, they don't have the eye to create their own.  That has never been my problem.  I can think of different ways, but what I can't do is to create new.

My mother, who was an incredible seamstress, would go to the store and buy fabric.  She would then buy the pattern the fabric would become.  She never made a quilt by herself, but she did work with me on several.  She had an ginormous stash of fabric and magazines and patterns but could never make one because she could never get the exact same fabric she saw in the photo.

I thought that was odd since her way of creating garments was so opposite.  I have to tell you, she was bound up in OCD all her life, which  as a child I thought was just stupid rules to make children's lives miserable but realized in later life that she was handicapped by those rules.  I now know why I was criticized so much for not being the "perfect" image of a little girl with blonde curls and pink petticoats.  (She married an Italian for Pete's Sake!  I could never be blonde!!!!)

So......Back to the project.

I want to learn to become more creative and become more comfortable with with I produce.  To do that I need something like this.  For most of my life I have had the critique of my mother, my unhappy father and Frank (who used to think everything I did was anti-American or occult. Try living with that.)  If it was not traditional and "normal" he had his mother telling him how bad it was.    Now, he has learned to nod and make "liking" noises rather than say he thinks it looks like garbage.

I may need this more than you.  If you want to join in some of the fun, please do.  If you want to share with the group, I can open up a Flickr page for people to post their creative urges.

Noah says, not everything works the first time, or the fifteenth.  Not everything is going to be on the mark, but many things will be artist grade and wonderfully creative.  You can change, bump, twist, expand, shrink or modify any of the suggestions he gives.

If you think you want the journal, go to Amazon and key in his name or the title:  365: A Daily Creativity Journal  (Make Something Everyday and Change Your Life!)  You can get it from a buck fifty to $12.  (Amazon is amazing, isn't it?)

Noah created a separate blog, but I think I want to keep this one intact and expand on it.  We shall see how that works.  I am excited.  As I was looking through the suggestions for the year,  I had visions of how I could do things.

That is getting the creative juices to start flowing, don't' you think?

Ohhhhh.  And Danielle says this today (is this not a sign for you to join me?)

Almost any decision is better than no decision -- just keep moving.

______________________________________________
Addendum:

Oh, the eye doc -- he says there is a layer of epithelium cells expanding from the cut toward the center of my eye.  I have 20/20 vision in that eye and no problems with it, and he thinks it is from one of the re-surgeries from the lasik 7 or 9 years ago.

Bottom line, he is not worried about it, and we are going to recheck in 4 months to confirm there is no growth in those cells.  If it grows to inhibit vision, then we can worry about it.  But now I am fine.

Good news!

Quilting??? Who me??? I need to be creative

That is about how I feel.  I have not done anything more than work on the Blue Jean Quilt in the last month.  I have the appointment with the Cornea Specialist tomorrow, I can let you know how that goes.  Frank must be a teeny bit concerned because he said, do you think I need to go with you?  Like if he deadens your eye and you can't see anything?

I have the house back together....for the most part.  And the new rug was delivered yesterday.  McGee promptly threw up on it ......  This is the dog with the cast iron stomach.  Wonder what that was all about.  I'll bet Chloe dared him to do it..........

The rug is antique Southwest.  Carrie actually changed her plans for a hour on Sunday and went with me to prevent me from "making a huge mistake and getting something really garish and Navaho."

Ohhhhhh!

I have been waiting for a book that will be a special project for, hopefully, the next year.  I will tell you more about it in the next few days.  And I would love for you to join me.  It is an inspirational exercise in developing your creativity...a day at a time!

I am going thru the first parts of the program and learning how it works.  It is really exciting just THINKING about it!!!!   I am looking forward to working on getting my creative juices swirling!

Astronaut Knits and Quilts in Space!

Wouldn't you love to have some of the fabric that went into space?  Sine I am still putting my house back together and dealing with my eye jabbing incident, I thought you might light to hear and interview with a quilter who happens to be an astronaut.

Try not to get lost in the rest of the incredible videos that you can see on the side lines.  You won't have time to quilt if you keep looking at them all!

http://www.space.com/21177-astronaut-to-knit-in-space-video.html

Raffle to Benefit CAAWS Spay and Neuter Programs

I am going to put this out there, because I believe in what we do.  I have been with CAAWS (Capital Area Animal Welfare Society) since 1989 and on the board for the last twelve years.

Front

Back

The River City Quilt Guild lovingly donated a fabulous Puppy Quilt for us to raffle on June 30, 2013.  Chances are $5 each which you can purchase by going to www.caaws.org and downloading the form and sending it in to Libby ( the good looking blonde with my husband there.)

Lily - who could resist that face?

The quilt is 74 x 80 and was quilted by Charlene Harp who did my Elephant Quilt!  100% quilt shop quality fabrics for sure.  It is so beautiful and really a fun quilt to own.

What we do at CAAWS is amazing, but we are always looking for ways to bring money in so we can accomplish the saving of lives.  We receive no public support and exist on donations and

fundraisers from the generous people who open their hearts to animals.  We have no paid staff, we all work tirelessly to save future litters from suffering and find homes for what those cats and dogs who can come into our program.   We provide $25 coupons for use at local vets on S/N services and low income families can apply for our free S/N spots each month.

We placed over 70 dogs and 60 cats in loving homes last year and issued over 900 of those $25 coupons.   75 dogs from low income families were S/N and we S/N 350 feral cats across the city.

That's a lot of work!  Help us to keep going by buying a raffle ticket for this beautiful quilt!

Let me know if you have any questions.  And please consider purchasing a couple of tickets, you may just win!

Off the wall Friday

I have been doing this instead of sewing or anything fun like that.  I did start to do some Works style hand quilting with cotton crochet thread on the blue jean quilt.

 Someone commented that it looks just like tiles!  Go figure.  Must have been Freudian.

Check out what other way more exciting people have been doing by clicking over to Nina Marie's Creations.

OMG!  I am Number One !!!!!

Tile is Finished - Over - Done - Kaput!!!!

Before

After

NEWSFLASH -----------  They finished up at 2:55 PM today!  All I have to do now is to mop with vinegar and water three or four times.  You know how large that area is?  388 sf in the bedroom plus 508 in the hall and den.  Just three or four times, that is all.  You don't know how large the rooms are until you move all the furniture out and have to mop it three or four times.

last two tiles to go in

I was getting my keys to grab the dogs when Frank say, hey, don't you have a meeting at 3 with the financial guy?

OMG.

DiNozzo under the table
we fit where we can

Yes, I called him, he was there already and I profusely apologized and claimed, truthfully, that the tile guys had just left.  We had a good meeting, I need to bring him some stuff so he can set up an accounting system within the Shelter Management Program we bought for CAAWS.  That will be a tremendous help to me when working in the financial stuff.

Then I had to head back to the vet and get the dogs.  You know, Frank has that car than no dogs can set a paw in.  So I had to swing by to get them.  But that is not really a chore, they were so blasted happy to see me they flew down the long hall in the vet's office from the kennel and into my arms.

Smooth transition to foyer, nice!

I was entertaining the front desk crew with my wild tales of midnight runs around the house.

For the last two nights we could not walk down the hallway.  So we had to go out the front door, across the porch, down the driveway, into the back yard and into the door in the bedroom.  That was every time you had to go pee.  Or get something you forgot, you would have to retrace your steps.

So at 1 AM yesterday morning, I had fallen asleep on the sofa in the breakfast area, and needed to pee.  So I went out the front door, across the porch, down the driveway, into the back yard and to the back door of the bedroom.  I realized at that point I had forgotten the key.  So I peed in the back yard in the moonlight.

Just me and the owls.  Yep.  The owls.  And the crickets, and the mosquitoes.  Yep, just me and the mosquitoes.

Eye Update

At the eye specialist this morning his nurse says, glen?  Lois' glen?  OMG!  She was Cheryl, Bill's daughter.  Lois passed away about 8 or 9 months ago.  We re-upped with each other and talked for a while.  It was so good to see her.

The eye doc wants me to see a cornea specialist next week.  There was a very difficult time just getting that appointment.  Our Lady of the Lake hospital has just become the area's Charity Hospital. The Charity system has to take the charity patients so it restricts then number of spots available to the rest of us hard working citizens who have their own insurance. They had to open up a Medicaid spot for me to get an appointment.

Who would have thought that someone with insurance would be the least preferred patient?

Today the tile guys are grouting..............and it will be over finally.  Not one dog would get out of my car this morning at the vet's office.  They all staged a sit in!!!!!

I told the tile guys if any of them show up on Friday I will shoot them!!!!!

Just wanting my house back in order!

2 1/2 Inches of Rain Already

At some point yesterday afternoon, I had the realization that the tile guys would not be done today. So we scheduled the dogs for Thursday as well.  I am SURE they will be done by Thursday.

The dogs were so glad to get home last night, they did not want to leave this morning in the driving rain.  In about an hour we had 2 1/2 inches of solid downpour and flashing lightening.  This is the system that hit Oklahoma the other day.  Here in Louisiana we don't get but a few tornadoes sporadically spawned from thunderstorms so we don't really worry about that
aspect of things.

Where they stopped on Tues Night

Undercutting the fireplace

But I am hoping the rain won't delay the tile completion.  Tomorrow they grout and put in the baseboard.  One of the guys swung their huge vacuum cleaner hose around and knocked off my horse lamp.  It is the only casualty so far, they have been pretty good about my stuff.


I am sitting on my sofa, which is now in the breakfast area, and doing some Works style hand quilting on the Blue Jean Quilt.  I have nearly completed the first 5 rows of bricks.  There are either 20 or 25 rows of bricks, I can't remember which.  Whatever it is, it is a lot!

But it keeps me from shooting the tile guys.

Oh, My Life is So Messed Up!

Turmoil! Chaos! Everywhere!

Yesterday they got the carpet up, sealed the foundation, painted on the mastic, and laid only one section of the hallway.

Today they finish laying the tile and then Wed they come back to grout it.

I will have no access to my computer  so if you need me you will have to call me.

To make things even worse, the faucet in the kitchen sink is leaking all over the countertop.  Why, this week?  I hve no idea.  But to fix it Hunter will need to turn the water completely off for who knows how long.  It must be a valve because when Frank shut off the under the sink stuff, it continued to run water!  The tile guys need a lot of water.

Two of my dogs are ill, DiNozzo has special food and Chloe has a bladder infection.  Both have pills.  Which upsets McGee tremendously that he does not get pills iwth them, so I have to invent pills for him.

All this being at the vet for days in a row, coming home at night and back the next day is upsetting to them as well.

We will all be glad when it is over.

Design Wall 5-20-13

My eye is better!  Way better!  No one is freaking out and running screaming anymore!

Since the tile for the second wave of the house will be starting this morning, I will not have access to that "wing" of the house.  That includes the sewing room (booo!) and the kitchen (yeah!).

And the TV.......aughhhhhh!  The only one that has the channel info from the cable company, the others I have to guess.  And all my shows are programmed in and I have no idea what is on when on what day!

So in honor of my new floors, I went to Mia's shop and bought the Chevrons and Dots that her "mice" had on sale.  You know, while the cat's away, the mice will play!  Anita (Mia) is at Quilt Market in Seattle this week!  So her worker people put different stuff on sale every day.

This is my haul:

Nine pieces in all.  I am thinking the squedges maybe!

I know that last little one doesn't go with anything, but I absolutely positively had to have it!

Late, Late Late For a Very Important Date!

Watching Frank Cut Grass

We have worked all morning to prepare for the final installation of the hall/den tile.  The room is so large!  LOL, and empty!

One of the things we had to deal with is the TV with 7 devices connected to it.  This is just the wires from only ONE of the 7!  I will now go through TV withdrawals tonight.  I stay on the sofa until about 1 or 2 AM and watch all the shows, news reports, reruns, crime shows, pawn shop shows until I fall asleep and head back to the bedroom, where Frank has been since 11 pm.

I remember walking into this  room when we were looking at houses 28 years ago

I was huge pregnant for Carrie and we had searched for months for the perfect house we could afford.  This one was nothing I wanted; it was an odd grey brick, the ugliest seafoam green carpeting, only three bedrooms and the backyard was trashed.  But it had just come on the market and our very patient agent wanted to check it out to see why it was so below price in the upscale subdivision.

Little dog in TWO beds

I walked through it and fell in love with the bathroom!  It was larger than my bedroom in the house we had just sold!  Why the tub alone was larger than the bathroom in the sold house.  I was going to live like a queen!  We had the first bid on it, followed by 5 more that same day!

Chloe is where the sofa USED to be!

Now, while it may not be a showplace, it is very comfortable and very up to date and very much mine.  We paid it off over 12 years ago using the proceeds from the company I just sold and doubling up on the mortgage payments every month for the 5 years before that.

9 yards of fun

To treat myself while in the middle of this the ultimate reorganization of my life, I went to Mia's shop for some incredible dots and chevrons.  She is at the Seattle Market and the mice are reducing the prices on something different every day!  Friday it was dots and chevrons and Saturday it was red/white/blue fabrics.  Here is my haul! And here is my report!

used this week	0
Used May	-4.5
added this week	9
added May	11
used YTD	-52.83
added YTD	34.5
stash reduction	-18.33

Off the Wall Friday - rocks and polyester

Tile Guy auditioning for
my next nude

This is my Off The Wall Friday post.  For more exciting projects from a lot of creative people, hop on over to Nina-Marie's Creations page.

I had a problem this week, I jabbed my eye with a piece of wire and sliced a 1.5 cm cut in it.  Not to be outdone, the uninjured part of the same eye decided to react to the ointment they gave me and now it is all inflamed and really ticked off at me.  So sewing has been out of the question since I am afraid that my fingers will suffer at the sewing machine.  And I can't go back to the ER for a while, lest they begin to recognize me.

And we are having tile laid in the bedroom (this guy is auditioning for my first male nude!) and all the furniture is in the den/living room and I can't find anything in the clothing I tossed on the guest bed from my overstuffed closet.  (The tile is ceramic but looks just like wood.  It will be gorgeous when finished.  And the dogs cannot scratch it up!)

The truthbomb spoke to me this morning:

                              You have everything you need. Right now.

I am pretty sure they don't mean fabric though.

I decided to sit on the patio and try a technique that didn't involve sharp thin instruments I couldn't see well.  I am tying rocks into a polyester scarf I found among my mother's things as I was clearing out the bottom of my closet.  I put it in the Purple Cow Recycle bin and then thought to

take it out and play.

I can't find the original post, but what I will attempt to do now that the rocks are all tied in the scarf, is to wet it and dry it with a hot blow dryer. 

The end effect is supposed to be a pebbling effect that will hold shape in the poly.  The next Fiber Challenge is Movement.  I think I can get a stream bed out of these pebbles.  I wish the scarf was blue, but I will work with what is at hand.

The Pond with the Loon and
the Turtle Rocks 

see the ripple in darker grass?

We have a rock walkway that was built to be a Rock Stream into the Japanese Garden Pond.  I will have to show you that one day.  It is really cool.  So these are my Japanese Rocks from the Rock Stream.  I sat on the Dam (bench) to put them together and listened to the birds call and the leaves rustle.  The the "water" pours over the "dam" into the larger "lake" and you can
see the ripples we made with the grass.  Cool.  I will have to get a picture of the ripples for
you.

Well, the idea didn't work.  I wet it and dried it with my hair dryer.  Nothing.  So I whipped up some 50/50 water/starch, nothing.  I went with 100% starch, nothing.  Did you know you really can't starch poly scarves?  LOL.  Really.  I gave up to watch Jodi's trial phase.

While I was watching the opening statements, I did some research on the web and it said to best do this effect with polyester scarf material you need a 200 degree conventional oven for 8 hours.  And you have to vent for the noxious fumes. 

Well, that ain't gonna happen.  I need to look further and find that post was where I saw this.  Darn.  I wish I had an implicit procedural memory!

Sometimes things just don't work.  More later, when the eye is better.

Plumber's Butt

The haiku is free floating silk

banana flower and tyvek

What a morning!  Busy, busy, busy!

Last night was my Fiber Group meeting. Here are some of the pieces from that meeting.  The quilt below is a project that Renee (she received a grant) is doing called Kids Quilt For Kids.  They use Marvel Fabric Markers and draw sea life, she pieces it and quilts it and it is donated to kids in need.  Don't you love it!  My piece was the fork, remember that?

The guys are grouting the tile this morning.  The dogs are at the vet once again.  My eye appointment was easy, getting there was in the morning traffic.  Madeline, my GP's nurse, called me back with an appointment time in 45 minutes so I was pretty rushed!  But I got there in time to fill out paperwork and sign my name a dozen or 50 times.  

Kids Quilt For Kids

Doc said it appeared I lifted the corner of my lasix flap.  And that was the irritation.  But the big problem was that I was reacting to the gentab ointment.  He said my eye was pretty well inflamed! But I knew that!  He advised me to stop doing surgery on myself.

New drops now feel better.  The reason I had the lasix in the first place was because I have a lazy eye and they could no longer correct for it in glasses.  I was falling off stairs I didn't know was there and stepping "down" lines I thought were stairs. My depth perception was gone.  The first lasix was for that eye, the second to hone the correction on that eye.  The third for the

other eye, and the 4th because I developed a bubble under the flap and they had to smooth it out.  Then the driver's license bureau found I had a cataract in one eye when I couldn't see a bank of numbers on their eye chart.  And the next 4 year renewal showed one in the other eye.  I was in my early 50s by that time.  Doctor said he was seeing cataracts earlier due to the air pollution.  

I had 20/20 in one eye and 20/15 in the other.  I loved it.  My eyes had kept me from getting a job with the FBI as an investigator.  I was so happy to be able to see for the first time in my life!

I had to show you this picture.  I think my tile guy, bless his heart, is auditioning for my next male nude!

Some women like  large biceps, or hairy chests and neanderthal unibrows.  I have always been a sucker for a nice tight male buttock.  But doesn't the tile look good?

We can move furniture back tonight.  And they will be here bright and early on Monday to start the hall and the den.  The dogs will have the doggy spa for the first three days.  

Eye update

I happen to be sitting in the office of an eye specialist.  My own guy, with whom I have been through 4 lasix surgeries and 2 cataract surgeries and numerous yearly check ups, can't give me an appt for 3 weeks.

I called my GP and he got me into someone they use within half an hour.  Of course that meant I had to leave immediately, fight traffic and parking around the hospital.  Fun, fun.

My guess is that Frank will either change his appointments this morning or just let the guys in and leave.  Atleast we got the dogs to the vet erly!

And this begins all over on Monday!!!!!

Denver Quilt show

Some photos taken by Patty Sliney from the Denver Show

http://snowcatcher.smugmug.com/Quilts-Plus/2013-Denver-National-Quilt/29268950_SgQsrV#!i=2492836139&k=BJjwg39


Make sure you paste the whole thing to your address line.

I Told Them Not To Leave Their Equipment Laying Around!

Eye is better today. Although it still hurts.  I guess it is better.  I can't see it and Frank says, I don't know..........geez.  If it were him, he would be in the hospital with bandages around his head like the Invisible Man had.

The dogs are once again at the kennel.  McGee refused to go back with the girls and I had to walk him.  With his Arnold Schwarzenegger
 build and stubborn determination, there is no way he is going if he doesn't want to!

Chloe was so cute yesterday and
again today.  When you open the door to the vet's office you see the desk and three or four people behind it.  She rushes up to the desk, which is booby high to me, and jumps up as high as she can to see them!  She loves seeing people.

Before the guys left yesterday, I told them not to leave their stuff laying around for McGee to steal.  They thought it was funny.  So last night he took the cover bag off their tile saw and shredded it.

And he began to chew all the corners of the tile boxes.  This morning there is ripped cardboard all over the walkway.

I told them!

Today they will finish the laying of the tile and tomorrow they will grout it.  I can't find anything.  We searched for the cat food container all last night.  This morning when I put the dirty clothes in the washer, there it was mixed in with the clothes!

Tile Installation Slowly Progressing

Last night, Frank decided I was right, we should have taken the bed apart on Sunday.  As you can see, my bedroom is of Moroccan flavor.  The Elephant Quilt will hang behind the bed at some point in time.  The bed, even though it looks small, is a queen sized bed.  It acutally dismantled fine once Frank listened to me.

Can you see the "column" on the far wall? I got three of these plaster shelves from Kirkland's from the clearance table.  Like for $10 each.  And to me they looked like the tops of columns.  So I got some molding and cut out the top so the shelf bottom would fit, and made myself three columns in the room!

I think I just saw a new way to photograph quilts!  LOL.  Hang them on the top of the bed posts and drape them down!  Yes!

See, it pays to look at your stuff in a different light.


Here is the stencil that looks like a lace curtain on the long wall.  And these guys are over the bathroom door.

This palm tree doesn't really need the rest of the trunk because I have a tall dresser that sits in that alcove.  It used to be a make up desk and mirror but who puts on make up?

Here is the carpet torn up and the floor being worked on.
Lunch!
It is about 1:30 PM and they came back from lunch ready to put

the mastic on the floor.  There were a number of cracks in the foundation that needed to be filled.  The consensus was that there should be no further settling, no doors we couldn't open and no uneven floors that are signs of problems with moving foundations.

So they are putting a mastic on the floor after filling the cracks that will allow the tile to break away rather than crack should there be more movement.  David was not concerned about future movement however.

And the mastic smells so I am glad the day is pretty and cool and we can open doors and keep the air moving.

The cat is not happy, however.

Tile Goes In on Tuesday!

Bedroom stuff in den

We just have to take the bed apart and there will be only the chair I can't lift left in the bedroom.  The guys who come tomorrow will have to help Frank with that.  It has taken a good three days to get the stuff out of there and stowed in various rooms.  I took 3 boxes of stuff to Purple Cow, one box to Carrie and I have a box that will go to Ann at some point.  It looks like I have a lot more left to live with still.

The dogs will go to the kennel tomorrow while the work is being done.  I also asked if they have one of the luxury suites open and I could come stay in there wile the work is being done.  There is a TV, they take you out a couple of times a day, feed you, play with you and you get to be with all the dogs all day long.

What my eye sees today

My eye is sore, like I have something BIG in it.  But it is not continuing to swell and redden like it was yesterday.  The ointment puts a film over that eye and I can't see well.  Although I see well enough to play my card game on the iPad and watch NCIS, Bones and Castle in between Fox News.  I miss the Jodi Arias Trial not being on.  I could just listen to that and do other things with it in the background.

I don't want to do much and stir up any dust in my eye.

Chloe and I sat outside for a while

This is my chair on the patio

I have lost some 10 lbs in these last 4 weeks on that diet from Dr. Oz, the Fast Metabolism Diet.  And I like the way you eat, lots of fresh meat and veggies and lots and lots of fruits.  Tonight I made skewered shrimp, a Cuban dish of wild rice with black beans and a couple of mandarins   I could have had a nice salad with it, but Frank worked on the skewers and I did the beans and rice.  I can't touch shrimp, I am highly allergic to uncooked shrimp.  So I used heavy latex gloves to peel them before I marinated them in lemon, olive oil and garlic.    Sorry, I forgot to take a picture for you.

I will get you some photos of the tile going in tomorrow.  That ought to be fun fun fun!