Simple Project that took me 3 Years to Do

See this table? It has looked like this for about 3 years. I had always planned to refinish it, but it just never happened.

Until today.
I said to myself, "I am REALLY tired of looking at this worn finish."

I then grabbed a piece of sandpaper and took the little table out on the deck to sand. It took about 5 minutes.



Then I wiped off the dust and applied tape around the edges. I grabbed a can of black spray paint and put a light coat on. It dried in about 20 minutues. I applied 3 additional coats of paint.


Here it is finished. I like it so much better now.

Calphalon Katana Stainless-Steel 5-Inch Santoku Knife

After 30 years of cooking, I have finally broke down and purchased a good quality chef knife. I just ordered it on Friday and expect to get it within a week. I am expecting all the frustrations of chopping vegetables with a dull knife to disappear once I get this little beauty in my hands. The sales pitch reads, "Calphalon's Katana Series is an all-purpose Asian-style knife that's designed to cut meat, vegetables and fish with little effort. The indentations along the blade's edge prevent food from sticking while slicing and its straight edge sharpens easier than ordinary stainless, maintaining its edge longer. You'll feel like a pro chef when using this knife to slice, dice, mince and cut." I can hardly wait to test it out!

Busy Day Today

I decided to make frosted sugar cookies (DH's favorite cookie). I don't make them very often because they are waaaaaaaayyyyy too much work! When I do decide to put in the extra effort, I always make a double batch and freeze them.

Today I discovered the joy of meringue powder. Does anyone ever use it? What it does is make a nice hard frosting, so you can stack the cookies and they won't stick together. In the old days people used raw egg whites; now meringue powder is used because of health issues. They seem to be setting up quite nicely.


I also cut down the last of the deck plants (dahlias and canna plant). Everything is now gone from the deck and all of the containers are stored away for the winter. It feels good to have that done.

I still have plenty of fall chores to do. TONS of stuff to cut down, but if I don't get to it, it can all wait until spring. If we continue to get nice weather then I may cut more down this week.

There really is only one thing left that I must do and that is spray all the evergreen shrubs and cherry trees with spray to keep the deer and rabbits away. I ordered some stuff off the net in June that supposedly only has to be sprayed once and lasts for six months. The problem is that the paper directions that were in the box were shredded by mice and now I don't know what it is or how to mix it. There is no name on the container itself. So I am now off to search the net to see if I can find it. I only know that it is made by Nott Products.

Sweetest Day Surprise

DH and I tend to ignore all of the "Hallmark" holidays (the ones made up to sell cards). So imagine my surprise when he came home from getting groceries yesterday with this little miniature rose bush. He's a sweetheart!

Some nice fall color yesterday

Are these aphids?

 
Every year I bring my hibiscus trees into the basement for the winter. Every year they get like this by January (this is a picture from last year). I am assuming these are aphids, but am not really sure. I have tried spraying them with soapy water, but it does not seem to help much. Even though it looks horrible, there really does not seem to be any damage to the plant. When I bring them outside in the spring, I soap them up and spray with a hose and the little nasties just seem to disappear. It has been happening for four years now, so I have just accepted that it will and I don't worry much about it. But if anyone has some idea what I can do to prevent them this year, I am open to all suggestions. 

Whatever Happened to Christopher?

Does anyone know where he disappeared to? I was hoping he would be getting a new show on HGTV when TLC axed him, but so far he has not shown up any place. I used to like his show and really miss the decorating inspiration.

With the autumn season I always get the urge to change things, so I have been looking for some new project. So far, though, I have not found one.

Seed Packs

If you are in a garden club or are participating in some other seed-swapping event, you may want to take the time to make your own little seed packets. I made these last year and had quite a good time doing it.

I got the idea from this site, where the webmaster so generously shared her pattern.

http://www.pigs-etc.com/seedpack1.html

You can use them as is, or do as I did and personalize with photos of the blooming flowers of the seeds within so that the recipient will know what to expect.




Here are the back sides

Sunday Day Trip

I rarely stay home for an entire weekend. During nice weather, DH and I like to take little day trips almost every weekend. (It is one of the benefits of being aging empty nesters!) I am a very early riser, so Sunday I got all my housework done before 8 a.m. and we were off by 9 a.m. I was hoping for some nice fall color, but there really wasn't much. I can't tell if we are a week away from "The Peak", or if we aren't going to get much color this year.

So I had a lovely weekend. Saturday night's wedding was very nice as was Sunday's day trip. And I have not had to cook dinner since Thursday! Although I did some baking Saturday -- banana cake and pound cake.

This is a rest stop with a nice view of Lake Huron


This is the Mackinac Bridge. Of course, they are doing construction on it. I have never gone over it in the summer months when they weren't doing something to impede the traffic flow.


Have you heard of Mackinac Island? The Grand Hotel? No cars--only horses... famous for fudge. A Christopher Reeve movie was made there, but I forgot the name. 'Somewhere in Time' sort of sticks in my mind, but that could be totally wrong...I almost never watch movies. (I bet Dianne knows as she seems to be really up on movies!)I am just wondering how far away people know of this Island. Anyway, that is Mackinac Island out in the distance.


The Mackinac Bridge connects Michigan's two penninsulas



This is called 'Castle Rock'. It is a huge natural rock formation. You can walk up to the top and there is a viewing deck up there. We did not walk it yesterday, but we have many times. You need to be in pretty good shape to climb this rock without using the resting benches provided every 50 steps or so.

Unique Planters

I really like different unique planters. This big ceramic shoe planter is one of my favorites. I keep it in my kitchen filled with (gasp!) artificial flowers.

I am still not getting email notifications on most of the comments. It is very strange. I seem to always get them from Girl Gone Gardening and Alice, but not from anyone else. Even when I reply, I do not get the email.

So if anyone has commented on an older post and I have not replied, it is because I did not see the comment. I contacted Blogger Help, but they were not much help. They said it may be a spam blocker, but I don't believe I have a spam blocker.

Is there any guru out there who may have a clue as to why this is happening?

Friday Night Dinner

I was not in the mood to cook. I rarely am on Friday nights. I also did not want to go out to eat. When I get home on Friday night, I just want to stay home. So we ordered a Pizza Hut Pepperoni Lover's pizza. Quite good and no dishes to do. I won't have to cook dinner tonight either as we have a wedding to go to. I do have a bunch of bananas I bought last week and did not eat. I may make a banana cake today to use them up.

Trip to the Apple Farm

A quaint country shop after a beautiful fall drive








Ahhhhh, the joys of Autumn...
I am not a very accomplished pie maker, but I must say, I am quite proud of how these turned out.

Just Another Day in Paradise

Today at work I had to have a man arrested for “defrauding an innkeeper”.

Yes, if you don’t pay your hotel bill, there really is a law that will get you some alternate lodging at a pretty low price. LOL

This man checked in on Sunday night and paid cash for one night. On Monday he did not check out by noon, so we called him to see what his intentions were. He said he would be out soon. He was called at least three times and finally he said he would be out at 3pm or he would come down and pay for another night. I left assuming he had checked out.

Today when the housekeeper came on duty she went to clean his room and was surprised to find that he was still there.

The front desk rep called him AGAIN to see what was up. He said he would be down to pay in a few minutes.

Forty-five minutes later, he still had not come down, so I called him.

He told me he did not have any money. I asked for a credit card. He gave me a credut card number. It was declined (no surprise to me). I called him back and told him I was calling law enforcement to evict him. He asked if he could take a shower first.
Expecting him to bolt before the law officers arrived, I and our Chief Engineer went to stand guard outside his room. True to his word, he was in the shower! (we could hear the water running)

The two officers arrived quickly and we knocked on the door. He let us in and was standing with a small towel wrapped around his lower body, water dripping profusely down his body and on to the carpet.

Awww geez, WHY ME?

I had to stand within two feet of this nearly-naked man while he was being questioned for at least 30 minutes. I thought for sure that towel would drop to the floor. I tried to keep my eyes downward as I was not too excited about seeing all he had to offer. It was bad enough having to stare at those gnarly wet hairy toes!

The officers thought the man was very suspicious (none of his identifications checked out, etc.) He said he was having money wired this afternoon (the same thing he told us yesterday). They asked him why he stayed another night knowing he could not pay his bill. He had no answer. They ended up handcuffing him and escorting him to the city slammer.

This is the second time I have had to have a customer hauled off in the past three months (the last one was beating up his mother. He had just been released from the mental unit at the local hospital).

I really do not like having to do this sort of thing. I find it quite disturbing.

Changing Profile Picture

I am already quite sick of seeing my profile picture, so I decided to change it. It was much more time consuming than I expected. I had, of course, forgotten how to do it. I had to search Blogger for the directions. I believe I finally got it changed. I think I will change it frequently just for the sake of change.

Do you see the Swans?

My little town has a 13 mile paved walking/biking trail system that links the downtown area, the waterfront area, fairgrounds, our Island Park area, and the wildlife sanctuary. It is really a first rate trail and I enjoy walking it. The Island Park is an actual small island with no inhabitants (other than wildlife). It makes for a very pleasant walk and on a lucky day you will see a few swan families peacefully floating along the river. If you look very closely (or click the picture to make it bigger) you can see some swans in this picture.


Another part of the island

















A part of the walking trail about a mile from the island
My town is right on the shores of Lake Huron, so we have water everywhere!















We often take for granted the amenities our own city has to offer. When I look at these pictures, I realize what a great resource our walking/biking trail is. I like this shot looking through the trees to one of the main streets. I am only a short distance away from all the noise and car pollution, yet it feels like I am way out in the peaceful wilderness.

Manicure/Pedicure

Every once in a while I like to do something a little different with my nails. This is especially bright and cheerful, don't you think? LOL

Time to Bring out those Fall Decorations

The Beginning of the Rockwall

I am still working on transferring all of my picture files from floppies to CD's. I came across this old picture from 1990 when I was making the rockwall garden. As you can see there is no rockwall yet, just some big boulders which have remainder in the exact spot I found them.



















Here it is today taken from almost the same spot

Beautiful October Weather

Nearly 80 degrees today and I spent the day dumping more plants. It is supposed to be nice and warm all week. This is very unusual October weather in Northern Michigan. As I am dumping perfectly nice plants from their summer home, I just couldn't toss them onto the compost heap. I decided to take them from their pots and just plop them someplace in the rock garden where I can still enjoy them for a week or two. I just set them on top of the ground behind boulders, etc. They have grown an extensive root system so the soil just stays in place even without the pots.

So for the next couple of weeks I have new things to look at...and you all know how much I like change!

Fall Tablescape

This morning I decided to set my dining room table for fall. I started with a neutral color tablecloth and my silver charger plates.
Then I added a dinner plate and my fall-leaf salad plates and glasses.









I decided on a green-checked napkin. I usually like the napkins put into the glass for added height and color. But I did not want to hide the fall pattern on these glasses so I had to come up with another solution. I couldn't lay them across the plate as that would hide the leaf on the salad plate. Finally I decided to fold them into a fleur de lis and set them to the left front of the plates.

Looks very complicated, but is actually quite easy to do.






I added fall leaves to the chandelier and little "welcome" sign for fall.


For the centerpiece I used a big bowl of apples and a scarecrow. I added some leaf-shaped candles to the side of each place setting and some more candles on opposite ends of the table. I will probably make a floral centerpiece later today as I plan to use the apples to make apple crisp.







Here is the completed table.