A Pesty Kind of Day

Yesterday, I was picturing myself sitting idly by, perhaps coloring one of my trapunto quilts or stitching, while a team of workers installed the new porcelain tile floor in my kitchen. I had worked like a dog last week to empty out the kitchen, right down to the shelves in the pantry.

No dice- no tile! When they went to pull my order, they found that the tile did not have the same dye lot numbers. I understand this problem very well, being a fabric and fiber freak, but it did not make me very happy. It may be another week before they have tile with matching dye lots. Meantime, the cupboard is bare. Ever been so mad that one look could peel wallpaper?

Well, I was not that mad. But I did start peeling off the kitchen wallpaper. I had not planned to do that before the floors were installed, but I washed the walls last week. The wallpaper was looking really dingy and when I took down the pictures and quilts, you could see fading. And the paper started peeling off.

DH's solution was to put up bigger pictures.

I started peeling the wallpaper off. The vinyl part comes off easily in one big sheet.

The glue and paper backing was a different story. A combination of Murphy's Oil Soap solution, Downy Fabric Softener sprayed on, and my Scunci Steamer has been getting it off, but not without a lot of muscle.

While I was on a ladder overlooking one of the windows to the back yard, look what was looking back at me!

Now, I do not like snakes. I am a wildlife lover, but that does not extend to snakes, especially when they are approaching my back steps...or under my bird feeder!

I went to put on my tennis shoes in the garage, and a five-lined skink jumped out of my shoe. These skinks tend to inhabit my garage, and I really don't mind them at all. I often see them scurrying around in there. They only bother me when they jump out at me in a snake-like manner, especially when I have just seen a snake!

As I approached the snake, he straightened out and slithered under my deck, home of the riding lawn mower and other junk that I was not about to enter in search of the snake.

Went back in...a big black spider was on MY kitchen chair.

I finally realized that all the recent rain from Hanna has probably brought a lot of these pests in search of dry ground. Or maybe the spider was lurking in a corner of the kitchen ceiling.

Anyway, I finished peeling all the paper off the walls except for the area behind the cabinets.

Here is something more fun to show you: I spent my entire fee from doing the blue and green quilt last week on a new toy: a set of 84 Neocolor II watercolor crayons.

I have been admiring Fannie Narte's beautiful work with these, and really wanted them. I got them at a good price from Cheap Joe's, a wonderful art supply source.

Actually, instead of ordering them, I could have driven up to Boone to get them last weekend. Joe Miller began his business in a drugstore there...read his interesting bio on the website.

Last weekend in the mountains, I was planning to do a scientific study a la my blog friend Vicki Welsh of Field Trips in Fiber. I made a gradient of each color, from intense to light. My plan was to number each color, and divide in half, applying water with a brush over half to see the difference. That has not happened yet.

Better go and finish my peeling project!