Goings on…. November 25, 2012

Still continuing on the remodeling.  My bathroom is the latest project.  We’ve put in new white vanity with black marble countertop, new cabinets, repainted the shower, put in new showers doors, new light fixtures, and Ray has put cedar on the walls around the shower and the vanity, giving it a spa look. 

We thought the painting of the rest of the room would be the easiest thing to do.  When we moved in, the room was a horrid Dusty Pink color.  I decided I wanted the walls to be a light grey, so I went with the color Going Gray.  First coat of paint, wait for it to dry—it turned a light blue.  Blue!  So second coat of paint.  Let it dry—AN EVEN DARKER BLUE!  Where is this blue coming from?  So back to Lowe’s and we buy a primer in white that is guaranteed to cover anything.  And a new gallon of Going Gray. 

Primer goes on.  Wait for it to dry.  Again, it goes blue—through the PRIMER!  But we decided to try the Going Gray anyway and after it dries, we get a BLUE that is Bluer than ever before!  How can this be happening?  Do we have haunted walls?  I didn’t have this trouble when I painted the bedrooms.  But then I painted them Blue!  Maybe the house just wants to be blue through and through.  It is a blue house, after all.  Maybe it will only let us paint it blue or red, red being the color of the trim around the windows outside. 

So back we go today to Lowe’s and Ray has let me pick out any color—as long as it ISN’T from the blue family of colors. (He SO wants to just paint the whole room BLACK and be done with it.)  So I chose a dark grey—Gibraltar Gray.  On the way home, just in case, I cast a spell on this latest gallon of paint.  The salesman says it will work.  It is a paint and primer in one.  I will report back.

Speaking of haunted, I forgot to mention, I think, that the road we live on used to be an Indian Trading Trail and history mentions that on a small hill just off this road sat a tepee.  We live on the small hill in question, I believe, so possibly we are living an old Indian homesite. 

Last weekend, I drove down to Atlanta and Laura flew in and Diane (Russ’s mother) drove down from Marietta so that we could go with Katie to pick out her wedding gown!  So exciting.  Never in a million years did we think this decision would go so smoothly, but when you find the gown that was obviously made just for you, it is an easy decision.  She tried on about 8 gowns, and looked beautiful in all of them, but when she put on The One, we all knew that it was IT.  She looks stunning in it and we were all so happy for her.  I am sworn to secrecy about gown details, but as soon as I can, I will expound on the dress that fit her to a T and needed not a single alteration.  She even got to take it home that night! 

We had such a fun time shopping for work clothes for her and Laura on Sunday—we decided we needed to have girls’ weekends more often. 

Thanksgiving was nice and quiet and I got most of my Christmas gifts wrapped, except for the ones that haven’t arrived yet. 

Photo of reflection of mill across the pond in front of our house.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck…..?

Just have to say that I love living in a place where the day’s weather forecast calls for a “starry” night.  Isn’t that just the best way to say clear skies?  I also have forgotten to mention the woodchucks we see frequently when we drive over the mountain to get home—just sitting right alongside the road, chewing pieces of wood, it seems.  A flocks, or ganders of whatever you call it, of wild turkeys every time I turn around.   I feel like I need to give them some friendly advice about moving on or being quick as the season they probably dread most is fast approaching.  The white squirrels are still very abundant—in the park and even scampering around in our front yard.  ***Just looked it up and you can call a group of turkeys a “rafter” or a “gobble.”  You know which one I’m gonna use. 

And I think maybe the ghost from the mill takes a break and comes to sit awhile to rock in my new rocking chairs on the front porch.  Either that or the wind gets the chairs going, but I prefer to think it’s the ghost. 

On the home front, we are in midst of remodeling my bathroom and I’m so happy about the updated features.  It was very depressing in there until now.  The wall colors were a Tuscan peach and gray and we’re repainting white.  I am updating to a white vanity with black marble countertop and dark wood floors.  My shower is to be refinished in white instead of the tannish color it is now—yuck—and a new door installed.  Hopefully it will be much nicer when we are done.

We still have SO much to do.  It seems like every time I mark something off the list as done, I add 3 new things. 

So so so so very happy and relieved about the election.  Number one—it’s over and no more ads in this swing state.  It had gotten ridiculous.  Number two and most important—Obama won!!! 

I don’t know if any of the people who ever check my blog realize that the main reason I keep it is to store memories for myself.  I gave up scrapbooking when it became too cumbersome and expensive, so my blog is the way I can look back at travels and experiences and smile.  I can’t tell you how many times I have used it over the years to jog our memory about where we were when such and such happened.  And it has solved many arguments over those differences in memories.  : ) 

So for my own safekeeping, I am putting in this link to Rachel Maddow’s show the day after the election.  She kind of sums up all the reasons why I am so happy about the results of the election:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show#49736294

Hope everyone who reads my blog is warm and safe, and happy and healthy. 

The Haunted Mill of Willow Creek

We went to our neighborhood Halloween Party last night and had lots of fun.  Haven’t laughed so hard in a long time.  We have really good neighbors here.  The party was held in the old mill that sits just across the large pond from our house.  So I got to see the millrace and the stones where the Cherokee Indian women used to grind their corn. 

Barbara, the neighbor who bought the mill, has remodeled the inside and it is wonderful.  There’s a restroom under the stairs that’s just big enough to get inside but you have to stoop to do so.  On one side of the millhouse is a porch that she screened in with heavy bamboo curtains and there is kept one of the millstones that she has turned into a firepit, keeping the porch very warm.

The biggest millstone is underneath the house.  When Barbara bought the mill, it was sitting in what is now the kitchen.  THIS millstone is the one where was found one of the former owners with an arrow through his back.  Barbara says that the only ghostly thing she’s experienced in the mill is that one of the lights near the porch turns itself on and off  all by itself.  Our scary, though not ghostly, experience came at the end of the party when we had to find our way back from the mill to our house in the total darkness—crossing the bridge (without rails) that goes over the creek and avoiding both the creek and the pond as we tentatively made our way home.  Our house sat so beautifully at the other end of the pond with its welcoming new porch light on. 

Found out that Steve Martin lives in Brevard--may just have to frequent the pubs near there. 

And Georgia beat Ole Miss yesterday--Yay!!!!!!!

 

Halloween Trip to the ER

So….we were sitting here Tuesday evening and heard what sounded like an explosion very near to our house.  We did a thorough search and found nothing.  So This morning, we are getting ready to go to my eye checkup and to Lowe’s (since we don’t seem to be able to go a single day without having to buy something for home improvement), and Ray presses the button to open the garage door and nothing happens.  Ray checks it out and finds that the spring to the garage door has SPRUNG!  Explosion mystery solved. 

So, Ray tries to lift the door, which is a double garage door so extremely heavy.  He gets out his winch to hook it up and is fairly successful, just until the point where the door comes loose from the winch and comes crashing down—another loud boom.  Unfortunately, Ray wasn’t quick enough letting go of the handle on the garage door.  I run out to see what the crashing sound was and find the most gruesome site.  Ray’s middle finger on his left hand is definitely not where it should be.  It is all crooked and bent out of shape—definitely dislocated and possibly broken. 

We hurry to the ER at the hospital and after a long wait and X-rays, find that it is SEVERELY dislocated but not broken.  Then comes the time for the Physician’s Assistant to RE-locate the finger.  She numbs it up then she tries and tries, but it keeps popping back out of place.  So she calls for Dr. Novak who pops in to see what’s going on, and he tries and tries, and when he has the finger bent all the way in the wrong direction!!!!! (straight up at a 45 degree angle!--no exaggeration!) I have to turn away, and that’s when we hear a pop, and the finger is back in the right place.  Whew!!!  Then he says we need to get another X-ray because HE may have broken the finger getting it back in place.  I was just glad that the surgery that had been talked about wasn’t necessary.  New X-ray showed no fracture, so our Halloween morning was off to a great start. 

I would post the two pictures I took of Rays' Crooked Halloween Creepy Finger, but I'm afraid that without warning, they are too disturbing.  The finger is doing much better, and we had a very quiet Halloween.  No trick-or-treaters.  We had been warned that we have none in our little cove as no children live here. 

It's very cold here but also very beautiful.  And the horses we can see at the large horse farm that sits in the distance out back are trotting around and chasing the geese.  And the white horse is wearing a coat!  Makes me wonder if white horses are more susceptible to the cold.  Hmmmm.....

Close Call

It’s interesting living in an area that has snow warnings.  We’ve been pelted with 50-60 mph winds since Sunday afternoon.  I sat outside, rocking on the front porch under a blanket, yesterday while Ray worked on redoing the front porch area.  I supervise very well. 

The winds are so strong right now that the winds are peeling the bark off our big oak tree in back.  We came home from getting supplies to find the neighborhood bench tumbled over and part of the gazebo’s roof torn and blown away.  No snow yet but just a few miles north, the mountains are expecting 2-3 FEET tonight.  It’s already snowing heavily even further north nearer to Asheville. 

We played with the generator that came with the house this morning, just in case we lose power, and found that all the circuits were labeled incorrectly, so that has now been corrected.  Our little house is incredibly cozy and warm.  No drafts like in the cottages we stayed in in Scotland. 

I’m very glad that we had the foresight to do our tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway LAST week as I am sure that there aren’t many leaves left on the trees now.  We live in a little cove but have mountains all around us and as the wind comes blowing over the top of the mountains, it makes this incredible sound of whooshing and roaring. 

It’s Tuesday morning now and the reports on New York are terrible.  So sad to see.  So many without power, 74 lives lost, 111 houses burned down in one fire, people still stranded on Fire Island with contaminated water, and the horribly scary pictures and videos of the roads and tunnels and subways flooded. 

We are expecting up to an inch of snow here with possibly icy roads, but we definitely dodged the bullet of Sandy.  Mt. Mitchell is closed as is much of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We have been extremely lucky.  Not even a loss of power.  Thinking of all those not so lucky.  : (