Back to Unreality

I spent a long weekend at the cabin....from Friday afternoon through Tuesday morning...but am now back at the apartment in Boulder and 94F degree temps!  

I had to drive to Longmont yesterday afternoon to the chiropractor.  The chiropractor's office is about a block from the Longmont Goodwill so, although I avoided last Saturday's 50% off sale by driving to the mountains, I just had to stop by the Longmont store after my appointment to see what they had.  

Actually I am quite practical these days and, because of the temperatures, purchased this cute little fan and some interesting ice cube trays...

I only had two ice cube trays and thought long rectangular fingers of ice might be a fun addition to my lemonade.  Hey, it's the little things that make life bearable and I got both of these for 99 cents less my senior discount.  

The fan sort of has that "in" industrial look and I've been wanting another fan to supplement the box fan I bought from my friend Olive earlier in the summer, something I could actually have blowing right on me at night that wouldn't be as forceful as either the box fan or the fan on the window A/C unit but would still lull me into thinking there was some air circulating in the bedroom.  

Why I didn't plug the fan in at the store, I don't know, but I got it home, plugged it in and saw the blades turning so thought everything was a go.  Later in the evening I went back in the bedroom, put my hand in front of it and there was no air movement being generated at all.  I even put my hand behind the fan thinking maybe they had the blades in backward!  A rodent on a treadmill could have moved more air.  

I thought the clerk at Goodwill might have had a little smirk when she told me to leave the tag on anything marked E&M (electrical and mechanical?) until I was sure it worked.  I wonder how many times this thing has been purchased and returned.  It was only $3.99 and I got my everyday senior discount, so it wasn't a huge expense, but I'll return it and get a toaster instead, which was something else I was looking at and they had several that were this same price.  I'd rather have a more versatile toaster oven, but haven't seen one of those at a thrift shop recently.

I had hoped these temps in the 90s were over for the summer and I was spoiled because the temperatures at the cabin are about 20 degrees cooler.  It was in the 70s during the day and the 40s at night the entire time I was there.  

It seems as if the temperature on what is called the Diagonal Highway between Boulder and Longmont...you see the start of it here in the upper right hand corner of this map...
 
Map courtesy of AaccessMaps.com

...is at least ten degrees hotter than either Boulder or Longmont, both of which are old towns with lots of big shade trees. 

This highway, which follows a busy railroad track, cuts through prairie that looks like the prairie in every Western movie you've ever seen.  Think Cheyenne in a wool cavalry uniform.  And, of course, I have no air conditioning in my car. 

Inevitably, on my return from these afternoon chiropractic appointments, I hit Boulder and every red light just at rush hour, my car starts overheating and I have to turn on the heater to bleed off some of the heat.  I was really glad to get back to the apartment.  Even though it wasn't that cool, it was a lot better than a car with the heater blasting in an ambient temperature of 94F degrees.

I had a productive few days at the cabin.  I'm finally almost finished with all of the little decorator touches I'd wanted to make before my sister and her husband come out if they finally decide to.  They've been doing a lot of traveling since spring so aren't that anxious to leave home again I guess.  I still want to make the draperies for the bunk area and paint the floor, but both of those will take some funds I don't have available right now so I'm contenting myself with small projects that cost nothing.  

I knew when I decided to paint the interior of the cabin dark charcoal brown that the color would hide any damage from the blow-back smoke from the wood stove that's such a problem when the winds are high in the winter and would provide a great backdrop for my thrift store porcelain finds, but would also require lots of reflective surfaces to keep it from being too oppressive.  I had several mirrors in that storage unit I cleared out when I moved into the apartment and one that had been in the cabin from the beginning in 1939 I think.  I finally figured out during this last visit where I wanted all of them.  

I hung this thrift store find...

...on the east wall.  The frame is a very heavy metal and I like the oak leaf and acorn motif.

I hung this frameless, probably a five-and-dime, mirror from the 30s on the west wall next to the secretary/hutch....

There's nothing like enlarged photos to reveal every wart and pimple.  I see I need to have another go at this with the Windex.  I was going to hang the rectangular mirror here, but decided it and the hutch were too much the same shape.  Oh, and the little dials?  Well, they turned out to be kind of a fun solution to this...

...Blue Light Special that someone brought out to the cabin.  I kept trying to figure out what to do with this...no White Tails here although I did see my first Mule Deer just as I was leaving Eldora on Tuesday morning...so I popped the three dials out and hung them under the mirror sort of like miniature international clocks.  I'm saving the frame so if someone is absolutely in love with this thing, they can restore it.

The third mirror project had been hanging over my head since last fall when I bought an oval mirror on sale at Hobby Lobby, along with some black velvet ribbon with which to hang it.  I wanted it hung over the wash stand and knew it would have to hang in front of an existing shelf.  The old round mirror had been hung from the shelf and even I had to bend my knees in order to see myself in it.  Hanging the new mirror in front of the shelf would mean hanging it from a ceiling hook and I thought I'd need to drop a plumb line in order to get the hook in the right spot.  

I had purchased the ceiling hook at least two months ago...

...I got the swivel hook because it was the only black one Home Depot had...but still I procrastinated because by that time I'd hurt my arm and the thought of attempting this just seemed daunting.  

Monday I bit the bullet and got it accomplished.  I marked the middle of the shelf and then just put a yard stick flat against the shelf and ran it up to the ceiling to mark the spot for the hook rather than dropping a plumb line.  

Then I started "reading" the instructions for the hook...

...almost no actual verbiage, just illustrations and large X's indicating "do this, NOT this" and showing you how to reinsert the hook to the base, but not how to remove the hook from the base to start with.  

So I did my chimp-being-observed-and-recorded-for-science routine thinking maybe the illustrations were in French since Cobra Anchors Corp. appeared to be in Montreal as well as Temple, PA.  I finally figured out, after starting to screw the provided anchor into the ceiling (shown magically keeling over horizontally after it passes through the surface), that it only needed to be used if the hook was being inserted into dry wall.  Otherwise, the hook base could simply be screwed into "madera" which must be wood in French, something I didn't recall after three semesters of the language.  

The next big challenge was figuring out how to remove the hook from the base and this really did make me feel like a monkey with a puzzle, but I finally deduced that one side of the base was flat and that had to be turned to slide out of the slot that was the same shape.  Yep.  Sure enough, it worked.  So, I screwed the base, sans hook, into the wood ceiling and slid the hook on.  

I decided I didn't want to rely on the ribbon to hold the weight of the mirror, which is fairly heavy, so used some picture wire.   Then I decided I didn't like the look of that so set about making a sleeve for the wire...

I thought I could "turn" this ribbon tube, once I got it doubled over and sewn shut by hand, but absolutely could not get it started.  I could have taken out all the stitching and folded it with the velvet side out, but by that time I was getting pretty well burned out so decided to just leave the flat side out, fed the wire through the sleeve and re-affixed the wire to the mirror.  Then I used the rest of the ribbon and made a little rosette to cover the hook...

  Here's the finished product...

...and I can actually see myself without bending my knees.  If some day someone gets bored, they're free to remove that sleeve and sew it with the velvet side out!

That's it for today.  I took 91 photos while I was at the cabin, so will post some more tomorrow showing additional shots of cabin life and chores, some Rocky Mountains scenery in late August and an update on the foxes.  The latter not good, I'm afraid.  Teddee

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

Thanks Again, Walmart

Although I think Sam Walton's children have too much money and Walmart employees don't have enough, I'm hard pressed, as a Walmart customer, to find much to complain about.  

Yesterday I pulled together, for return, all the bits and pieces of a double curtain rod I had purchased several weeks ago at Walmart thinking it was exactly what I needed for the draperies I have planned for the bunk beds here in the cabin.  I'd even spotted it in April and waited until I got my May Social Security check to buy it because it wasn't inexpensive.  

Yes, I knew it was intended for wall mounting, but with my usual spatial deficiencies, I could not visualize, until I got it out of the packaging and tried it, that ceiling mounting simply wouldn't work.  Both curtains would have been on the same plane instead of one behind the other!  

It was packaged in that really hard shell-like plastic and I absolutely had to cut the packaging into shreds in order to access it.  There were two rods, three supports and all the plugs and screws necessary for mounting.  I wouldn't have been surprised if they had refused to accept it for return even though I had my receipt, but when I drove it back to the Longmont Walmart and took it to customer service, they didn't blink an eye and gave me cash back.  

I also noted, and heard one of the Customer Service clerks comment to that effect, that they're no longer waylaying people coming back into the store with merchandise for return and marking it.  I stood around at the entrance for a bit waiting for someone to descend on me with the familiar stickers, and finally gave up and walked the curtain rod, cut up packaging and zip-lock baggie full of bits and pieces to Customer Service unchallenged.  That was a plus.

Although there were numerous items I needed, I knew I could easily have spent my entire refund, so went for the critical things....a broasted chicken to keep me and the foxes in protein and...some cover-up for my black eye.  The bruising is drifting south.  My dark glasses no longer cover it and I'm tired of trying to see inside in dark glasses and of getting those looks.  I had stopped at Walgreens and they had nothing...pancake make-up seems to be a thing of the past...but Walmart had this terrific cover-up...

I'll tell you, if they sold this in those five-gallon white spackle pails, I'd start using it on my entire body!


Here's my eye as of today with no make-up...

...here it is with my regular make-up base...

...and here it is with Glamoflauge...

I think it's a lot better.  At least it makes me feel less self-conscious even though that lump above my eyebrow doesn't seem to be getting any smaller and is still numb.


This was a really busy day.  It was warm and sunny, but too windy to paint, so I decided to put the oil cloth on the very weathered wooden picnic table and benches...

I was able to do this, tipping the table over on its head, cutting out the oil cloth and affixing it to the furniture, using the electric stapler, without pain to my injured arm, but by the time I got to the last bench, I noticed that my right arm muscles were trembling and not really obeying brain signals very well.


So I was ready to call it a day, then my neighbor, working with another resident whom I didn't know, came and took the old hide-a-bed away for the free Nederland trash pick-up tomorrow.  I suffered blog fog and forgot to take a picture of it riding away in the back of the pick-up with a bunch of other junk.  Then, he and his wife decided they were ready to take some of the free furniture they are cleaning out of these other cabins down to my apartment.  

Here is the chest of drawers, which the previous owner obviously had started to paint or prime, sitting on my neighbors' patio waiting to be loaded into the truck...

The hardware came with it, but I may eventually opt for something else.

I had loaded my car earlier in the day with stuff to take to the apartment and also needed to take my June rent down, so I led the way to the apartment building, and after my neighbors ran an errand, they returned and unloaded everything and put together the computer desk...

...I've even managed to get a television set out of this although I've been without T.V. for so long now I'm not sure I want to get back in the habit, and the apartment is right across from the Boulder Library.

Yesterday when I was in Longmont I stopped at Goodwill and was unusually sensible and disciplined in my shopping.  I saw four engraved water goblets in that color of glass I love...bronze? champagne?  They were $2 each and I thought, I can get 1.5 Cheap Chickens on Wednesdays for that, so passed them up.  Instead, I got a small bathroom waste basket and one of these shower caddies...

...you can see I just ripped the purple tag off of it, hung it over the shower head and I can't tell you what a thrill it was, after two years, to be able to hang up my bath brush...yes, it's actually a clothes brush but the bristles on the brushes usually sold for the bath are way too soft for me...and my wash cloth and to put my soap and shampoo in place.  I hope whoever patented these caddies got rich...they sure are useful.  I had seen a very snazzy chrome version at Goodwill in Boulder a couple of months ago, but didn't know if or when I'd get an apartment so didn't buy it.  Now I'm sorry I didn't nab it. 

My neighbors headed on back to Eldora and I stayed and had a shower then drove back.  Vixen was waiting for me...relaxing in the in the yard.  She ate and took off, and I just looked out the west window and saw this wonderful sky...

red sky at night sailor's delight...so had to get a quick shot.  When I opened the door, Valentino was waiting for chicken, so he's been fed too.  All's right with the world and I am exhausted and heading for bed.  Teddee

Eclipsed

Do you live in an area where the solar eclipse was supposed to be visible this evening?  Did you get your eclipse glasses?  I did last week when I stopped at McGuckin Hardware, a famous independent Boulder hardware store....

They were selling them for $2 a pop at all their cash registers.  I wonder how much money they made?  Especially because it appears it is going to be so overcast the eclipse is not going to be visible.  There are a couple of hours to go.  It has been cloudy most of the day.  This is what the western sky looks like right now...

That's gray with clouds, not blue with clouds.  The sun bursts forth every once in awhile, but I just heard thunder.  I think it may be coming from the east, though.  This is what the sky looks like over the plains...

...so we wait.  And while I'm waiting I decided to do a little light sanding on some rough areas on the secretary I brought home a week ago from the Longmont Goodwill, remove the hardware, tape off the glass in the doors...

...and settle on a paint color.  I had considered selecting something really splashy since I'd gone so dark with the interior cabin paint.  Shades of marigold are one of the "in" colors right now and I thought about a very dark hue of this color palette...

...but I kept wondering how I'd feel waking up being slammed with what would have been a very eye-catching object in this small space.  Might have been a brave choice, but I backed off and selected this shade of palomino yellow that I still like...

I have an entire shelf unit painted in a similar color in storage in Missouri.  It had been that color for almost two decades and I'd never tired of it.  This thrift store metal basket served as another "inspiration piece."  I have some dark colored paste wax (my purchase at McGuckin last week along with the eclipse shades) and I'll attempt to use that over the painted surface to get a similar antiqued effect.  The long-range forecast is either showers or breezy for all of next week, so I don't know whether I'll be able to even get the primer applied.


And the fox came to eat for the second time today but her little body is still looking the worse for wear...

She gets a cup of kibble and, most recently, after she finishes that she's helping me get rid of an entire package of pork chops that had gone off in the cooler despite the fact that I still have part of a chunk of ice in there.   

She had finished her kibble and come up on the deck for her treat here.  She really was that close...and with her eyes on the prize...what a sweet little face...

In the interim, we got a little rain shower while the sun was shining.  I thought there might be a rainbow...solar eclipse and rainbow...get out the goat entrails...but no rainbow.  So, it's 6 p.m.  According to an "eclipse calculator" I pulled off the internet, the eclipse is supposed to start a 6:22 p.m.  Right now it's hazy, but sunny, so I don't know what we might be seeing.  I'm going to try to take a photo without blinding myself.  Just point and shoot I guess or put on my eclipse glasses and see if I see anything in the viewfinder.

Well, I needn't have worried about sun blindness.  Somewhere behind this veil of clouds miracles were occurring...

I had to settle for this "painterly" shot of a smaller miracle closer to earth...

Have a wonderful week!  Teddee