Finally the Fun Stuff

I'm finally doing some of the fun decorating stuff at the cabin.  I got these vintage (and huge) snowshoes...

...that I found at Savers several months ago hung in the only place they'd fit, up behind the wood stove chimney.  They are 48 inches long.  No wonder snow shoeing was once considered a real challenge.  Here's a shot of some of the newest snowshoes.  


 

They've come a long way!


I also got this great clock hung that I've also been holding for several months.  I think I may have found this at the Goodwill in Longmont...

It's double sided and huge for the space and is sort of a joke because the last time my sister was out here she was complaining she couldn't see the clock!  I'm actually loving it, but sure wish I had had someone here to hold the sucker while I was getting those screws in.  It's heavy and my arm was complaining, but I prevailed.

Let's see, what else...This hide-a-bed, which my sister brought out and says is really comfortable, is covered in a white floral fabric that's been grating on me ever since it appeared.  A country cottage perhaps, the seashore maybe, but not this rustic mountain cabin.  This covering is just makeshift since the first time anyone opens the hide-a-bed to sleep on it, it will necessitate removing this fabric, but I just had to see what it would look like.  I had bought this fabric at a Savers for $5.99 and I actually think I bought it while I was still living in Phoenix.  I wish I could afford to have the hide-a-bed reupholstered, but this is going to have to do for now...

I am so in love with this fabric...the elk...

...and the pine cone and acorn motifs...

and this pillow, another Phoenix find, I've had for years just waiting for the perfect spot...

...it looks and feels like oil on canvas.  I found this in a bag with some other pillows two winters ago when I returned to Phoenix to try to clean out the three storage units I (still) have there and brought it back with me.  This is why I can't just close these storage units down without going through everything first.

I made these curtain tie-back rosettes last week at the apartment and brought them up with me....

They were fun and easy to make.  I just tore strips of the curtain fabric about three inches wide and 36 inches long, folded the strips in half lengthways then turned them and coiled them, hot gluing as I went to hard cardboard circles.  I had spray painted the clothes pins black and glued the rosettes to the clip clothes pins.  Now I have rosette tie backs instead of just clothes pins.

I also hung this wooden "Welcome to the Mountains" plaque that I found in my storage unit...

 ...and this welcome pineapple cone...

 

...on the side of the secretary/hutch.  Yep.  Nailed 'em right in there.  I've done this to most of my case goods over the years and really like the effect, but guess it's a good thing I don't have really high-end furniture!

This morning I hung this cute Bear Crossing sign, another Savers find...

 

...just around the southeast corner of the cabin where the bear had actually been crossing earlier in the spring. So that's some of what I've been doing since I arrived at the cabin on Friday.  

Since this will be my last blog for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd also throw in what I'd done to my bedroom at the apartment.  I had some fun with it.  I decided to put the old steamer trunk in that room against the north wall...

 
I've been looking for months for a lampshade just like the one in the photo that's just a bit larger...

I just love the way this marabou fringe moves in the draft from the air conditioner.  I have several of these little folding pastry stands, but the others are in storage in other states.  I like the rusty patina of this one and am using it to display a candle and two little similarly colored lamp chimneys...

This urn was looking for a home and seems to fit here after I raised it in height by putting it on a book.  I loaded it with some outsized rusty looking keys and a rusty metal cone...

The metal stag head fit in this little metal bird feeder, which also is holding some colorful hat pins and that strange-looking thing on the left is a small scrying ball.


I also was able to pair up a beautiful bird cage that had been out on the balcony with a little inexpensive crystal-clad chandelier, an antler bowl I believe I bought at the Orange Tree gift shop in Mesa, Arizona, and a ceramic dove...

...I just love the patterns this throws on the walls.  I've been turning this and the little lamp with the marabou trimmed red lampshade on...

 and everything else off when I go to bed just to enjoy the lights.


I also threw this beautiful piece of fabric...

another Phoenix find that I'd uncovered in storage two years ago and brought back to Colorado with me, over the bedroom window and the light coming through this is an added delight.


Makin' it mine.


Stay tuned, Teddee

Back at the Cabin

This is the longest I've been away from the cabin since last July.  This time last year I was getting ready to drive back from visiting my brother in Tacoma.  During this current hiatus I've actually made some major strides toward making the apartment in Boulder livable.  The big game changers were a couple of small pieces of furniture I got half price last Saturday at a Goodwill in Lafayette, Colorado.  It's hard to convey how this little settee...

...and matching chair...

...have actually changed my life at the apartment.  Because I have no seating in the rest of the apartment except for the one straight-backed chair I blogged about in my last post, I have used these two pieces of furniture to transform my tiny balcony into a really pleasant place to sit, have my morning coffee or an afternoon cold drink, read and just people watch.  

The latter activity I learned to enjoy from my maternal grandmother who could, and did, weave wonderful stories about all of the people we would see on Saturday afternoons in the closest town to our farms where people still said they were going into town to "do their trading," a leftover phrase from earlier years in which they actually did take their eggs and cream and trade them for groceries.  

We didn't link up with my grandparents every Saturday afternoon, but when we did, my sister and I would pile into their car and listen with fascination as my grandmother pointed out one citizen or another as they went about their business or met up with and talked to other area residents and concocted interesting, usually funny and often irreverent stories about what they were saying and doing.

But back to the "furniture that changed my life."  First off, I almost didn't get the settee moved from the store.  I had to make two trips back to Lafayette, one on Sunday during which I did get the chair in the back seat, but determined the settee simply would not fit inside the car.  On the second trip, which I made on Monday morning, the attendant in pick-up and receiving, managed to get just the back of the settee into the car trunk and with the help of two bungee cords, which he provided, made it quite secure for the trip back to Boulder.  I wrestled both pieces into the apartment building, onto the elevator and down the long hall to my apartment.  The chair was not a problem, but the settee almost got the better of me.  My arm is still not healed, but as long as I keep it below my waist, my strength seems pretty good.

I'm not finished "decorating" the balcony, but have confirmed I can put in a work order and have maintenance come and hang things on the balcony walls.  Right now, I've created a couple of vignettes that have made this small space seem a little more like a room...

I put this artificial topiary, which is in a white pot, inside this rusty bucket and teamed it up with these similarly colored candlesticks, raising one by placing it on another up-turned candle holder of the same color and fronting it with a green metal fern-like votive holder that picks up the green in the topiary.  This is on top of the air conditioning unit and I hope I'm not told I can't place anything on the a/c unit.  I may just move this when maintenance comes to hang the things I want hung on the walls.

This metal owl, which I built up by placing it on a metal can..

...and what I guess must be a metal wine carrier complement each other and are on the floor next to the chair, along with a couple of brown bottles in which I put small strands of white holiday lights right after I moved into the cabin.  They are very romantic at night.


All of this goes with the fabric that's on the chair and settee now which I'm not finding that objectionable.  I will eventually sand and repaint the wood and am thinking of recovering the seats with this fabric...

All of this stuff was in my Boulder storage unit and had been piled in the living room, so it was fun to find a use for it and not have to give it away.


In addition to the lights in the brown bottles, I found these grapevine lights...

...that I had tucked away in storage.  They look cute draped over the back of the settee, but aren't practical here since you can't lean back on them.  I've determined we can have lights on the balcony railing so will probably affix them there even though there aren't enough of them to cover the entire railing.


I also made this artificial succulent arrangement...

...in a container I found in storage and put it in this plant stand that I bought from another cabin owner the first summer I was in Eldora at a moving sale.  I put this bamboo wine holder up behind it to provide some height in this corner behind the settee.  I had purchased these succulents at a wonderful store in Phoenix called Crown Imports before I moved from Arizona.  They specialize in very high-end (and high-priced!) artificial florals and these were fun to work with.  It had been years since I'd made a floral arrangement and I had no floral wire or picks and no wire cutters, but managed to produce something I like.  

I also created this little side table out of a folding base I had and a bamboo tray.  I had intended to bring the tray up here to the mountains and spray paint it black but forgot.  Perhaps the green picks up those touches of green in the candle vignette and the floral arrangement?  And I also want to work in this quixotic life preserver.  I don't know if this is a real life preserver or a prop of some sort, perhaps made for a prom or something, but it caught my eye.  Right now I have it hanging on the balcony railing, but I originally had it hanging on the back of the chair and think that's where it will end up.

Among the things I had in storage, I also found these metal leaf cut-outs and this beautiful piece of sari fabric...

 
I think I'm going to have maintenance hang the two metal art pieces along the west side of the sliding glass door, one above the other, and, because there is a metal girder that runs all along the patio roof right in front of the door, I think I'm going to get two or three expandable curtain rods and have them wedge those in between the wall and the girder and drape the fabric over those so it wafts in the breeze like orange sails.  I don't seem to get much wind inside the balcony.  There was a pretty strong wind blowing the afternoon and evening I was working on this and at least from the direction it was blowing it didn't seem as if it would blow things down or away the way the winds do here in the mountains.  

I hope these maintenance guys are good tempered!  I also want them to hang a mirror, which you can sort of see in this photo...

 

...which is just setting on floor next to the settee right now, and a large metal leaf candle holder (not shown) on the wall behind the plant stand.

Well, while I've been trying to create this blog and waiting and waiting, as usual, for my photos to upload, I've used the weed whacker on the weeds around the cabin.  The drought seems to be over up here in the mountains...my neighbor tells me they have been getting rain almost every day...and everything has greened up very nicely, and grown like...weeds.  I could hardly find the fox bowl when I arrived yesterday...

...and, in fact, it was raining and we were without electricity for about an hour after I arrived.  

I did not see Vixen at all the last time I was here just for a few hours, but she came just a bit ago.  I heard something really crunching the kibble I'd put out and had moved up on the deck while I attacked the weeds.  When I checked, it was she...

...I gave her a couple of eggs and two small pieces of chicken that had been in the refrigerator at the apartment too long and which I had deliberately brought up here for her.  Her coat is so strange.  Very sparse and curly.  If she doesn't get a better coat before cold weather I don't see her surviving the winter.

It has grown quite dark so I think we're probably in for more rain.  I'm glad I got the weeds "whacked."  I've got to bring in some things I've been spray painting and I'll blog more about those and some other things I've done here at the cabin since I arrived as well as some decorating I did in the apartment bedroom last week.  My internet subscription here in Eldora ceases at the end of July and I may not be able to arrange for internet at the apartment for a couple of weeks, so I'll try to cram in as much as possible before I dismantle the computer and move it to the apartment on Tuesday.

More later, Teddee

Introducing Victor/Victoria

 Here's cutie pie....

This is Vixen's baby.  Isn't he a cuddler?  At least I think it's a male, but since I'm not sure, I've dubbed him Victor/Victoria for the time being.  And he really does have his Daddy's eyes!  He came and ate kibble and egg with his mom this morning and also got his own chicken because she was growling at him when he tried to dodge in and get some kibble.  I took a lot of photos and this is the only one that really turned out.  He is as jumpy as a wind-up toy and the sun was so bright he was over-exposing and even with computer magic I couldn't fix the rest.  Now I'm really glad I came back up to the cabin.

Have you seen, read or heard about the periodical Where Women Create?  It's a wonderful magazine that features the studios and work spaces of artists and other creative women.  Well, this is where this woman was creating today...


It started out on the picnic table...sewing machine, travel steam iron, makeshift ironing board with towel on picnic bench...

If you must sew, there couldn't be a prettier place...

I discovered, after a very long time, during which I measured, measured, cut, remeasured, remeasured again, pressed up edges, remeasured, etc., that my sewing machine wouldn't run off of an extension cord.  I guess Sears was afraid I'd fry myself.  So then I had to tote the sewing machine inside and set it up on the table, which necessitated moving the computer keyboard and monitor, something I had hoped to avoid...

Then it clouded up and started to rain and I had to bring in everything else, using the top of the cooler, which I'm keeping inside for now, and the area around it as craft central.  Water is for hydrating DIYer and steam iron...

I did any further cutting and measuring here in this little floor space in front of the door...

Do you think I might merit a page in Where Women Create?  Here's the finished product...

...two panels for one window and this took six hours!  As usual when I'm sewing, if I could figure anything wrong I did.  I intended to make the curtain for the big south window first and did all my calculations...depth of rod pocket, amount of turnover, depth of hem, amount of turnover...and, of course, did them incorrectly forgetting that I had to turn over raw edges twice, not once.  So the first panel was too short for the south window and too long for this window and I had to cut a chunk off.  Then I tried and tried and tried to get the patterns to match up on the top and bottom of the first and second panel and finally just gave up I was getting so frustrated and angry.  These look OK if you don't inspect them carefully.  If you do make the mistake of looking at the back of the first panel and the hem of the second you might think a small child from a country with no child labor laws had sat on the ground with her little sewing machine and turned these out for pennies.  If anyone asks, I'm going to say I bought them in...pick a third world country.


Hopefully the next two panels will go more smoothly although I don't ever seem to learn from sewing experience.  Each time is a new adventure and every time I measure anything when I'm sewing I get a different number.


I also want to make a skirt--yes, I know I said I was sick and tired of everyone skirting their cupboards, but the doors on this one were so warped they wouldn't stay shut--for the cupboard right under this curtain.  I took the doors off a few months back and the contents--cleaning and laundry products--have been on full display ever since.


Yesterday evening while I was waiting for various spray painting projects to dry I recovered the top for this little bench...

...I didn't want to miter the corners--I wanted a softer look--and tried to gather the corners, but I'm not sure I'm pleased with this, so may have to pull out a few staples on the corners and try again before I screw it back onto the bench.  Although I hate to sew, I love fabric and had hundreds of pounds of fabric in my storage (take my word on the weight!) so had numerous choices.  I think this pattern looks nice with the ornate wrought iron.  This will probably stay in the cabin to use as a side table by the bunk now that the steamer trunk is gone.  You can see why my motto is "Not Your Mama's Mountain Decor"!  I've been giving some thought to this idea I had for the cabin--and for my dream shop should it every happen--and it is an idea I've used in decorating some of the other places I've lived.  I think it is the combination that resulted when women who lived in more cosmopolitan cities homesteaded in more rustic or ethnic places, taking their most beloved household furnishings with them, and augmenting them with local, handmade treasures.


That's all for today.  I'm not sure I'll post tomorrow.  Kind of depends on how the sewing goes.  Oh, and by the way, for some reason I re-read yesterday's post and fixed that egregious spelling error...let's just say I was not at my peak!  Teddee

I'll Have the Kibble, the Egg, the Chicken, Oh, and the French Bread, Too, Please

I returned to the cabin yesterday afternoon.  I was getting so depressed in that apartment I had to get out.  I sure hope I haven't made a serious mistake in taking it and that this is just transition angst.  So, life is already brighter.  I have had multiple visits from Vixen since I arrived...

I knew some fox was over east of the cabin when I arrived, the car loaded with things I wanted to spray paint, material to make into cabin curtains, as well as kibble and a chicken that I'd picked up in Nederland for the foxes.  The magpies always set up a ruckus when a fox is around and they were making a lot of noise over that way.  I think perhaps the foxes have started hanging around this cabin across the road east, called The Shire, that's been vacant since Apollo and his family moved a few months back. 

While I was unloading the car, Vixen trotted up from that direction, so I got the groceries out, set them on the floor just inside the cabin door, pulled out the chicken, the kibble and the eggs, carried them over to the kitchen end of the cabin and made her a dish of the latter two right away.  I always wait to give her chicken because the minute I give her chicken, she quits eating and runs the chicken back to the den.  

I gave her a great chunk of chicken breast eventually and off she went, returning almost immediately.  I gave her a few smaller pieces of chicken, hoping she'd eat them herself on the spot.  But, no, she felt obligated to take them back to the den.  However, she seems to have a built-in scale and when the amount of food she's contemplating taking back to the den doesn't quite measure up, she hesitates, waiting to see if I'll add more to the scale.  I didn't, so she carried them off.  She returned a third time and I gave her a drumstick and, again, she trotted off to the west and the den.  When she came back again I told her she needed to finish her kibble or the chicken wasn't going to last more than one night.  I put another raw egg in what was left of the kibble, returning inside the cabin but leaving the door open.  

I'd walked over to the kitchen end of the cabin to cut off a little more chicken for her, heard a crumpling noise I couldn't quite identify, turned around and could see that something was missing from the groceries I'd left on the floor.  I went to the door and there she was, halfway across the meadow, with an entire loaf of French bread, still in the plastic, crossways in her mouth like a bone!  And this wasn't a little baguette.  It was one of those big, flat loaves that I'd found on the day-old rack that was cheaper than the cheapest sliced bread.  No, of course, I didn't have my camera out!

About this time it started really raining...yes, our drought seems to have been broken...so I'm sure, if she and the rest of the troop were able to tear off the plastic back at the den, they just ended up with one big dough ball.  I think she thought if I was going to start staying away for days on end she was going to get anything she could while the getting was good.  What a character.  

She was here first thing this morning and as proof that the drought is broken, I had a wet fox...

...wet grass...

...and a dish pan full of water that I caught off the roof...

Today I've been trying to catch up with my e-mail and have been exploring internet options in Boulder.  So far it seems as if Century Link has the best deal, either $29.99 a month for six months, any speed, going up to $45 at the end of six months or $34.95 for one year, any speed, going up to $45 at the end of the year plus a free modem, which it appears could cost as much as $99 otherwise.  I tried Xfinity, the new name for Comcast, and got so fed up with their phone menu and automatic call-back procedure that I went on line, but they can't beat the Century Link deal.  

I need to do something so that apartment isn't quite so cell-like.  I love to read and haven't missed T.V. here at the cabin at all, but I've been able to get the weather report, the news and stream music on the computer and before that was able to play tapes.  I had left the old radio with tape deck and all the tapes up here at the cabin thinking my sister and her husband might enjoy those if they make it out this summer.  Since I'm paid up on internet here through July I'll definitely be taking the radio and tapes back with me when I return this week.  I haven't been depressed in years so will take whatever action I can to keep it at bay.

I had gone to the Boulder library, which is literally across the street from the apartment building, on Friday and got a temporary library card--they wouldn't give me a regular card until I brought a copy of my lease in, just one of the annoyances that made last week frustrating since if I had just kept my mouth shut and let them think my permanent address was this cabin as shown on my driver's license, I could have got a permanent card with no problem since Eldora is in Boulder County--checked out three books and finished two of them before I started up yesterday.  I decided I'd return those before heading for the cabin even though they weren't due for weeks, parked in the library parking lot and found myself thoroughly confused by the parking signage as I am by all of the parking signage in Boulder...and I've lived in two very large cities...but if this makes sense to you, tell me what it means...

...First of all, it was a Sunday, so what's applicable on Sunday?  Now, Monday through Saturday, it sounds as if you can park there for up to three hours if you're not a library patron as long as you pay, but if you are a library patron, it's free for the same amount of time between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.  What about after that?  And how do they know if you're a library patron?  And, they don't make it easy for you to pay.  There are no meters.  You have to trot over to a kiosk, put your money in, get a receipt and put it inside your car on the dash so it can be seen through the windshield.  I expect parking fees are one of the biggest money makers for the city of Boulder if for no other reason than many people simply give up understanding what they're supposed to do and go for the ticket.

I've already received a $25 parking ticket for parking in a spot on Walnut Street, the street that runs along the front of the apartment building, that the property manager told me belonged to the apartment building and was unrestricted.  Sometime after I parked my car there on Tuesday evening upon returning from Denver and the eye doctor, city workers dug a hole right at the halfway point on my car and plonked in a sign indicating parking was restricted to two hours and had to be between the signs.  Then another city worker gave me a ticket because the back end of my car was on the other side of the sign that hadn't been there when I parked!  I felt as if I was in a bad cartoon.  During a call to the city I was told that if the property manager gave me erroneous information I'd still have to pay the fine, but if she knew something about a special arrangement they didn't know about, I should have her call them.  I tried to locate her and she was on vacation until sometime this week.

What else might have left a black cloud hovering over my head?  Even though I wrote an extremely polite letter to the Director of Property Management at Boulder Housing Partners on June 25 with a copy to the office manager--who had helpfully given me a bag of ice for my eye and his card and her card the day I jettisoned into their front door--inquiring if they have liability insurance that might help pay my burgeoning medical expenses related to that fall, I have had no response. When I called a week ago, both of their recorded messages indicated they were on vacation.  I think she gets back sometime this week and he next week, so I've still not signed up for physical therapy for my rotator cuff damage and just canceled Wednesday's follow-up appointment with the physician's assistant since there was nothing for her to follow up on.

My trip to the glaucoma specialist was hot and on the return there was an accident just south of the stadium coming through Denver and a portion of the trip that should have taken ten minutes took forty-five with stop-and-go traffic traveling between zero and two miles an hour all the way.  It took almost that entire time before a patrol car responded and when I finally passed the accident, it just looked like a fender bender.  They used to call those accident delays "gaper's blocks" in Chicago.  Nothing really keeping the traffic from moving except other drivers slowing down to gape.  The pressure in both my eyes had gone up two points since my last visit so I'm now on three different glaucoma drops and have to go back to see if this combination is working the first week of August...another medical bill, another tank of gas, probably another hot trip.


I worked on this mess...

...the results of emptying my storage into this one-bedroom apartment and, early the morning of July 4, getting my huge steamer trunk and a futon delivered by my neighbor and another Eldora resident.  I got it mostly put to rights July 3rd through 5th.  I haven't taken any photos of the aftermath, but, trust me, it's vastly improved!  I've put quite a few things on the "free table" at the apartment building, taken a few others to Clutter Consignment which is just around the corner, dropped off some at Savers and Goodwill, wedged a bunch more into the storage closet and have actually been able to use some of them myself!

Here are some photos of the baker's rack after I played around with it...

That light switch presented some challenges.  I had to put the mirror, which I intended to hang behind the top, behind the bottom, so decided to hang the little palm tree print, which was narrow enough it didn't interfere with the switches, behind the top.  I kind of like it peeking through the wrought iron.  

I also had a lot more variety in the first shelf under the top originally, but the more things I unpacked the more of this bronze stemware I found so I eventually had the entire shelf filled.  You'd think I was a real party hearty girl.  I told my friend Evelyn in Phoenix once that if I had a party I'd have to invite her friends since I'm such a loner!  I actually enjoy planning a party, but would just as soon disappear once the party begins!  Did I miss my calling? Caterer?  Party planner?

I also started removing the gimp from what I call my faux faux bois chair...

I had to borrow some pliers from one of my neighbors in order to get this double layer off the chair back.  I don't recall that when I bought this chair the back was damaged, but it has been through the wars.  I brought it back in my car from Arizona two winters ago and then had it shoehorned into my storage and things had shifted when I got in there to vacate.  I had intended to paint this chair black, which might at least camouflage the soil.  I can't see going to the expense of having this "wicker" replaced and don't think I can do it myself, so expect I'll just have to live with it and I don't know how I'm going to get rid of the dried hot glue filled with gimp lint...

I really would prefer no trim on the back, but if I can't eradicate this I'll have to use something.  This is my only chair, so it is going to have to serve all purposes until I get that remedied, either by getting some of my things out of storage in Missouri or buying some additional chairs.  

It had been too hot to use the balcony--it would have been too hot anyway, but the a/c exhausts right onto the balcony, which is not much bigger than a Juliet balcony.  However, the temperature had dropped Saturday evening so I tried moving the chair out there...

...but the balcony is so narrow and the chair is so straight I felt as if I were on display in the red light district in Rotterdam.

While I've been waiting for my photos to upload, always an issue with Blogger, at least for me, I've been spray painting a few items I brought up with me with my favorite Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.  I couldn't think of a way or place at the apartment where I could spray paint without annoying the other residents, many of whom have ailments of some sort or another that probably would be exacerbated by paint fumes.  At least the fumes dissipate quickly here in the wide open spaces...

...the large item is a small stool that could also be used as a table and the smaller item is sort of a twiggy candle holder.  I'm also painting this frame which came with a print, actually just a note card I discovered when I took it apart, of a square-rigged ship that I liked...

I'll take photos when I get this put back together.  

It has started to rain again...and no I'm not complaining.  We have needed it so badly and I am so enjoying the cool mountain temperatures.  I had my electric blanket on high last night and had to have one space heater and a wood fire going for a bit this morning.  

In Boulder, another apartment resident finally loaned me a fan toward the end of the heat wave and has now offered to sell it to me for $10 so, although I don't have the money to spare, I'll pay it because well, Olive is 88, she and her dog Kooky are both adorable, it's a great price and the fan really made a big difference in how hot the apartment was.  I was just about ready to move my table and chair into the bedroom and set up shop right in front of the a/c before I got the fan and it still isn't what I'd call comfortable, just passable.  I noted this morning that it's going to be 95F degrees by the end of the week in Boulder so I'll be going right back into it.

So now that it's raining I'm going to start covering stool tops with fabric, which I brought with me, using the electric stapler, and then tomorrow I will have run out of excuses and will have to move the computer, figure out how to get this heavy "portable" sewing machine up on the table with one weak arm, get the bobbin filled with black thread, thread the machine, get the fabric cut for the two curtains I must make (I found two ready-made curtains I'd put in storage that fit the east and west windows that almost match this other fabric) get out the little portable iron, iron up the side seams, etc., etc.  Have been putting this off since last November!  Wonder why?  How anyone can think sewing is fun is beyond me.

More before I head back to Boulder.  Teddee

Back in My Little Mountain Home

After spending most of last week in Boulder, days making trips back and forth between the storage unit...

 ...after the first load was removed...

...almost there!


...and the apartment building and nights exhausted on the foam mattress on the floor of the very small bedroom, the only room in the apartment that can be kept cool, I'm back in Eldora in the cabin.  I arrived yesterday afternoon after having made the final trip to the storage, leaving it empty for the proprietors to find this morning.  Even though I was paid through July 14, I just wanted to get the task completed and they were anxious to start double dipping since they give no refunds!  

So now, everything is in the one-bedroom apartment.  I've opened all the boxes and unwrapped everything, made some attempt at sorting the items, taken a few things down to the "free table" in the apartment building and will try this week to take a few of the better items that I don't want around the corner to Clutter Consignment to see if they might be interested in attempting to sell them.  I have been on their e-mail list ever since I got my computer and attended their open house last year celebrating their one-year anniversary,  having no idea I'd be living around the corner a year later.  Some of the residents of the apartment building apparently have had good luck selling things through the store when they were downsizing into the small apartments.


I had found a few things as I unpacked boxes that I thought might go in the cabin and also needed to get on the computer, which I've left in the cabin because my internet service here only costs $30 a month and I haven't had the opportunity to determine what it may cost in Boulder.  If it's as expensive as I've heard, I may just have to leave the computer here...a good excuse to return at least weekly!


The foxes are aware when I return and come to be fed.  Vixen came once yesterday and Valentino has been here twice.  I had no chicken, but came prepared with a dozen eggs to augment their kibble as well as some cheese, and they seem to be accepting what I'm able to provide.  The last time I came to the cabin, a third fox was flirting around in the background.  I think it must have been one of their kits.  He (I don't know why I think it was a male) was so cute.  Almost full grown, so healthy looking with a wonderful coat and full tail.  Maybe all that protein his parents have been taking back to the den!

I, on the other hand, have been eating primarily free fresh produce, which appears in the apartment building common room every Friday morning. We've received berries, cherries...

...spinach, artichokes, asparagus, corn on the cob and melon among other things...

...these turnips were wonderful...so mild...and it had been years since I'd shelled peas...

...this was always something my mother, sister and I did as a team.  I invariably pulled my thumbnail away from the nail bed and ended up with a sore thumb afterward, but there weren't enough of these to cause injury.  

When the produce is delivered...between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. each Friday, the early risers descend on the free food like locust.  If you time it right, you can be one of the locust.  If not, you get the leftovers...five blackberries, three strawberries, a couple of beets...and the only sign of the food delivery a few hours later will be a few wilted leaves in the elevators!  

This past Friday, the produce included some over-ripe pears at which most residents were turning up their noses.  I took several, peeled, cored and cooked them with a little Stevia.  They'll be great.  Already the 2nd.  Only nine more days 'til the second Wednesday and the S.S. check!

I must go back to Boulder today.  I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon south of Denver with my glaucoma specialist and didn't even bring a change of clothes with me, plus I need to drop off my rent check.  We have until the 5th to pay, but three days isn't going to make any difference to me.

Now that I have everything centrally located in the apartment I'm hoping I can turn my attention to the exercises I'm supposed to be doing for my rotator cuff strain.  I did them for two days and then they got lost in the process.  I wrote to Boulder Housing Partners last Tuesday inquiring if they had liability insurance that might help with my medical expenses and haven't had a response, so I'm not signing up for the recommended physical therapy until I know the answer.  My arm is getting stronger daily so I hope I regain full use of it, but there are still extreme positions that still cause pain, so I need to do my part. 


What else?  The last time I was at the cabin I thoroughly cleaned the wood stove and blacked the top...

...as I think I mentioned in my last posting, I did get the glass out of the doors of the hutch...

...someone had kindly left an old single-edge razor blade here at the cabin and by very carefully pushing it between the glass the the wooden insert I was able to get glass out, clean it and paint the wood underneath.  So, all done...

...I had fun "styling" the hutch.  Of course there was only half the amount of space I needed...always the case in my case!

I'd like to be painting the floor, but my current budget will not allow for the purchase of the paint and I haven't quite decided yet what color I want to paint it anyway.


I purchased this rug many weeks ago...

...this captures the colors very well.  I'm tempted to go with ebony, as high gloss as I can get floor paint!  Somehow painting the floor the background color of the rug doesn't appeal to me.  I'll have to pick up a few paint swatches and see where they lead me.


Well, I'm heading back down to the heat.  It's going to be 98F degrees in both Boulder and Denver tomorrow and here I am with no a/c in my car for that trip to the eye doctor!  The new clutch is definitely not in the budget.  It will only be 81F degrees in Eldora tomorrow and the high temps are going to be in the 70s with lows in the low 50s for the rest of the week after that.  

My neighbors were busily making homemade "No Fire" signs yesterday to supplement any official signage, concerned about the usual influx of July 4th visitors.  All I can do is keep my fingers crossed.  Every time I depart, leaving my computer behind, I'm anxious.  Here is a photo I took of the smoke from the fire that has been burning up behind the Flatirons in Boulder for the last week...

...no municipalities are having fireworks from what I've been reading.  Hope for a safe and fire-free holiday.  Teddee