Pain and Rain

 Nearly all  of June has been under clouds and giving us plenty of rain. I'm ready for a sunshine break! Everything is lush and green but I can barely keep the grass cut let alone do any of the yard projects I have had in mind. I want to turn our front yard into a Woodland wonderland with some edibles dotted amongst the flowering bushes and shade trees. It will have just some pathways of grass to mow and I want to mulch heavy to conserve water and deter weeds.  I have to wonder what the City will say to that as they go around handing out notices about the grass needing cut at the first sight of sunshine but the grass is still too wet to mow. VERY infuriating..... so I want to do away with most of the grass. 

Sunday we decided to drive over to the boat ramp to see how high the river is at the moment and Scott spotted this fellow walking along in the ditch along the road by the wastewater treatment facility. It was 3 to 4 foot long. Quite an interesting thing to see.

We took some photos and came on back to the house and started painting on the brick wall in our bonus room. We are planning to re-arrange Scott's hobby space out there and set Greg up out there as he needs a new space of his own as we don't like him vaping in his current bedroom so my plan is to relocate him out there... we will see how it works out. His cats stay out there most of the time as they don't get along very well with our three in the house. Things are improving between them but they still get sassy with one another from time to time. 

Back to that brick wall. We scrubbed it good with wire brushes, vacuumed it down with the Shop Vac and then I applied a masonry bonding primer. Let that set 4 hours then we double teamed the painting; we used the same "smoked tan" that's in the kitchen and den. We really like how it has turned out and plan to do the second half of wall once we get things re-arranged out there. It was quite a workout and we are both hurting in our shoulders pretty bad. It was worth it though; here are the befores and afters.

Getting that area where a window used to be painted over has made a world of a difference in that walls appearance. I am usually dead set against painting brick but in this case I think it was just what we needed to do. I AM THANKFUL the remaining half of that side wall is MUCH smaller than this section was. Next I need to get the ceiling painted in this corner but I need a few days for my shoulder to recover before I brutalize it again.

Once I get the ceiling painted I will be ripping the carpet out of there and start moving things around. This room needs replacement windows and new flooring but they will wait until the economy has recovered a bit more so we aren't paying twice or three times the cost . We are also planning to install a wooden step over the concrete step that goes into the kitchen. And it would be nice to get more light in there. So many ideas floating around in my head.

I made this tote as part of the #apgstitchingtogether monthly stitch along challenge. I will use it for toting crochet projects when we start traveling again. The challenge is still open until June 30th . Here is a link that tells all about it...

https://www.allpeoplequilt.com/magazines-more/stitching-together

I am hoping to get back into sewing more again.It definitely makes my heart happy and I end up with useful items and new clothes. I hate the clothes in the stores these days. So watch for more sewing to show up here.