I suppose 2020 has been crawling for some people, but not for me. How in the world did we arrive at August? It’s almost time for another First Friday Freebie, but before that, let me introduce you to July’s winner –
Shirley from Boonville, Missouri
Shirley enters often and this time she’s won the beautiful fabric covered remembrance book/journal.
Congratulations, Shirley! Whether you journal your thoughts or just let it rest somewhere as décor, I hope you enjoy your First Friday Freebie.
If you’d like to see the original First Friday Freebie offer of this great Tuesday Morning find, click here.
Past winners of my First Friday Freebies are on my Freebies! pagehere. First Friday Freebiesare for email subscribers only, so be sure to subscribe today if you’d like to enter to win.
Shirley’s name was drawn from among those who commented as instructed after reading the post that appeared on the first Friday of the month. Becoming a subscriber is the best way to avoid missing what’s new here on the blog because you’ll get an email reminder each time there’s something new – like when there’s a FREEBIE on the First Friday of every month.
Comment as directed on the post and you’ll be entered to win.
I love it when you share my blog posts with your friends via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest. That helps me reach more people and gives them the opportunity to subscribe and win also. Subscribing is free. Freebies are free. That makes life good.
August’s drawing will take place tomorrow on Friday, August 7th.
A winner is chosen at random from those subscribers who enter before midnight on the day of the drawing.
REMEMBER: Should your name be drawn as the winner, you will be notified via the email you used to subscribe. That means you’ll need to check your email often in the week following the drawing so that you can respond and keep the prize from being offered to someone else.
Take a moment make yourself familiar with the complete Freebie Rules by clicking HERE.
These four simple steps will have you ready to enter to win on Friday, August 7th, 2020.
Spread the word and, most importantly, look for tomorrow’s post and enter to win!
Sometimes, it’s the little things in life that make all the difference. For instance, Smuffy’s custom “farmhouse sink” installation. That certainly breathed new life into the old kitchen! But, alas, I suppose I’m one to never be satisfied, because I found myself wanting more of life’s little luxuries.
The last few weeks have brought some advancements that have at least gotten the kitchen back into the kitchen. If you’d like to see my “Not-A-Kitchen” which was in the dining room, click here. With Smuffy’s addition of plywood along one kitchen wall, we now have a countertop (sort of) and I’ve cut my trusty vinyl tablecloth in half and moved it onto the counter to be able to wipe up messes and keep the plywood from getting icky. Just in case you’re wondering, those don’t rank high in durability. The poor thing has lost its luster and has a couple of melted spots and will soon be ready for the trash can. Bless its tacky lil’ heart, though, it has helped it make this giant leap into actually cooking in the kitchen!
In order to allow for adjusting the base cabinets, there are gaps in the temporary countertops. This makes food prep interesting as I try my dog-gone-dest not to drop food and utensils down inside those holes. While I am grateful for each baby step forward in this kitchen remodel, I do have to admit, if I am being totally honest, that there are some days when I’ve had just about as much ugly as I can stand. And weird storage made of cardboard boxes stacked on their sides. And this hot plate that is second only to my old stove in the category of “burners with minds of their own”.
I am loving the giant drawers Smuffy made. They hold a lot of stuff and I’m loving the smooth glide.
This has all gone on for so long now that I feel the urge to go over next week and personally escort the countertop installers to my door for my appointment just to be sure they don’t get lost or end up at the wrong house or something. Perhaps I should also deliver nourishing meals to their door between now and then to reduce the likelihood of them calling in sick on the Big Day.
I like to find my bright spots where I can and when Smuffy finished my pantry, I was over the moon! He advised me to cram it tight “for now” and wait for the final touches until the kitchen was much further along. I vetoed that idea, knowing that it would give me a much needed mental boost to have a spot of loveliness and an area of organization. I added the large red and cream medallion print wallpaper I’d chosen as a backdrop for all my pantry goodies and headed to Hobby Lobby to stock up on lots of nice jars and chalk labels (at half price, of course) for my ingredients. The tall, antique ten-pane casement window will show off my efforts. My theory is that you can always put anything unsightly in a nearby closed drawer.
As you can see, all my ingredients are conveniently at hand for making THM plan-friendly meals – my Gluccie, beef collagen, gelatin, baking blend, stevia, Super Sweet, Gentle Sweet and all the rest. It’s really been a stress reliever to have this small area of the kitchen complete. The pantry goes floor to ceiling, so I overlapped three photos here. That’s the explanation for any oddities in viewing.
All the shelves are adjustable with strips and clips that make them easy to move, but it took me longer to get those exactly where I wanted them than it did to wallpaper the whole thing!
Some of the items won’t stay in the pantry, such as my food processor, blender and mugs, but right now they have no other home, so…
This concludes Part 5 of these special episodes of my Life With Smuffy. With each completed step, I remind him that he’s my hero. He’s not all about remodeling – not by a long shot – so check out his page if you need stories to curl your hair and broaden your smile.
Next week, when I finally stop kissing and stroking my new countertops, I’ll be back to share the joy!
I’m curious. How do you organize your kitchen? Do you have a pantry? Do you stock it only with food and ingredients or pots, pans and small appliances? Do you have any great organizational tips? Leave a comment!
It’s July! The heat and humidity has arrived here in the Midwest, but so has the First Friday Freebie, so that’s refreshing, isn’t it?
I haven’t figured out how summer can be lazy and crazy at the same time. I suppose the songwriter was grasping for rhymes or perhaps was just bored to tears between parties or something.
I’ve forgotten what lazy feels like, but I refuse to refer to my days as crazy. “Wildly blessed” – How’s that?
Having made it through the first half of 2020, I think we all have to admit that it’s been a corker. Most of us are fed up with events and the lack thereof to the point of wanting to throw a real hissy-fit and scream, “Can’t we all just be together, and normal and nice to each other at the same time?”
Anyhow, it’s been a half-year for the record books and that brings us to this First Friday Freebie.
This beautiful fabric covered remembrance book/journal (a great find from Tuesday Morning) looks handmade and is ready for you to record precious memories, daily happenings, observations on life or perhaps tuck in photos. The way things are going, a few prayers wouldn’t hurt. As an item of décor, it’s lovely! French themed and measuring 7″X 4 3/4″, it has the appearance of having been passed down through the generations. Aged prints decorate the inside covers. The blank pages, appearing browned with age, are simply secured to the binding with satin and lace ribbons that run through the metal rivets of the cover. This allows the individual pages to be easily taken out in case you’d like to remove them in the future for sharing or copying.
Some people love to journal. Some don’t. If there’s ever been a time in your life to jot down your thoughts – it’s now. You’ll want to leave behind your version of the historical times we live in. I have a friend who loves to have ladies over for tea as much as I do and I envision her using this journal as her guest book. You might find that keeping a “treasure book” such as this a great thing to have handy so that you can quickly record the milestones or just the cute things your children or grandchildren do or say.
To enter to win this beautiful journal, you’ll need to “Leave a Comment” on this post, saying, “The pretty journal, pretty please!” Be sure to do that before midnight TONIGHT, July 3rd, 2020!
First Friday Freebies are for email SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, so subscribe now over to the right sidebar or use the menu to navigate to the “Contact” page and subscribe to Midwest Storyteller if you haven’t done so already.
Your friends will enjoy the stories, recipes, laughter and, of course, the FREEBIES here on the blog, too, so share with all your friends and family through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest.
Subscribers win every single month! On the “Freebies” page, you’ll be able to see what they’ve been winning.
Once again, a winner will be chosen at random from those subscribers who enter before midnight tonight by leaving a comment which says, “The pretty journal, pretty please!”
Click here for complete First Friday Freebie rules.
Four simple steps!
Don’t let the day slip away! Subscribe now if you haven’t already, and confirm in your email before you forget!
May your summer be spent with the people, places and events you love and cherish enough to record in this beautiful book!
My goodness! What a month! I won’t get into the whole story while I’m announcing the freebie winner, but you’ll see in an upcoming post why I’ve had little time for blogging lately.
June’s First Friday Freebie goes to a three time winner –
Ruth from St. Louis, Missouri!
To give you a hint as to how distracted and busy I’ve been, you can see here that I’ve had to do a little bit of hurried, and unprofessional, photo editing of Ruth from one of her past wins. (I’ve had some major problems getting to the post office lately and that left little time for us to send, receive and get a photo back. Sigh…)
Ruth enters almost every month and it’s paying off! This time, she’s won three copies of the U. S. Constitution. I’m sure she’ll find a couple of friends to share the extras with who may already know and love this great document that grants us our rights and freedoms or maybe she’ll give them to someone who needs to get acquainted with it.
Congratulations, Ruth! I hope you enjoy your First Friday Freebie – again!
If you’d like to see my original First Friday Freebie offer and find out why I chose to give away copies of the U. S. Constitution, click here.
You can see past First Friday Freebies and their winners on my Freebies! pagehere. If you’re not yet a subscriber to Midwest Storyteller they might entice you to become one – First Friday Freebies are for email subscribers only.
Ruth subscribed by entering her email in the subscription area here on the blog and then confirming her subscription when the confirmation email arrived in her inbox. This is the best way to avoid missing what’s new here on the blog because you’ll get an email reminder each time there’s something new – like when there’s a FREEBIE on the First Friday of every month.
Comment as directed on the post and you’ll be entered to win.
Freebies are my way of reaching more people with the stories, recipes and more. When you share with all your friends via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, you’ll give them the opportunity to subscribe and win also. Subscribing is free. Freebies are free. Get the idea?
July’s drawing will take place tomorrow on Friday, July 3rd.
A winner is chosen at random from those subscribers who enter before midnight on the day of the drawing.
REMEMBER: Should your name be drawn as the winner, you will be notified via the email you used to subscribe. That means you’ll need to check your email often in the week following the drawing so that you can respond and keep the prize from being offered to someone else.
Take a moment make yourself familiar with the complete Freebie Rules by clicking HERE.
These four simple steps will have you ready to enter to win on Friday, July 3rd, 2020.
If you’ve won one of my Freebies in the past, leave a comment today and let me know how you liked it. Did you gift it to someone special or keep it for yourself?
Just a quick note today to announce that once again, one of my stories has been accepted for publication in the Columbia Chapter of the Missouri Writers’ Guild’s annual collection of poetry and prose! “Well Versed 2020” makes it’s debut this Saturday, June 13th! My story, “The Eyes of Love” is among the entries chosen for this year’s book.
I was honored to be chosen for publication in this anthology last year (Well Versed 2019) with a story called, “The Brown Wedding Dress” a true-life depiction giving but a snippet of the great love story of my Aunt Martha and Uncle George who were married over eighty years and shared a life and love that I was privileged to witness and record.
I share more of their story this year with “The Eyes of Love” which tells of a horrifying incident that occurred shortly after they married and which, though it brought them shock, pain and responsibilities that any of us would shrink from, drew them into a greater knowledge of love’s sacrifices and brought healing to Martha’s soul.
My apologies for being so late with this announcement. It seems there’s something about keeping a five-month-old while in the midst of this kitchen remodel that keeps me from getting things done quite the way I’d like.
Further apologies for having to announce that if you’d like a copy, you will have to email me at barb@midweststoryteller.com no later than Friday, June 12. (I told you I was behind on things!) They are $11 and if you need me to ship it to you, they will be $14 if you’d like to get one directly from me. You may also respond to my Facebook announcement in the comments. They will be available on Amazon at a later date.
Mine is one of the many contributions to this anthology and I offer my congratulations to all the other contributors!
If you’d like to have get to know Martha and her family members, glimpses into their lives are found along with other family stories can be found right here on my “Laugh” page.
Welcome to the first Friday of June. That always means there’s a freebie for you, should you be a subscriber, comment as instructed and be so blessed as to have Smuffy pull your name out of the random drawing. It’s a one day only type of thing, so do it now before you forget! Subscribing is easy and every bit as free as a freebie.
We are on the one-month count-down now to Independence Day! I’d like to issue a reminder right now for you to begin referring to it as just that, especially in front of your children and grandchildren, rather that “The 4th”.
How often have you been asked, “What are you doing on ‘the 4th?'” Every month has one, after all. Let’s really celebrate the birth of our nation this year with the kiddies, the grand-kiddos, the cousins, in-laws and others with renewed appreciation for what it means. In the light of everything going on in the world right now, we need a fresh look at freedom and the founders who wisely and prayerfully mapped out a course for us to follow in order to maintain it!
Smuffy shares his birthday with the Good Ole’ US of A. Needless to say, he’s gone about the day in the full spirit of the thing all his life and we’ve never been short of fireworks around here.
This special First Friday Freebie is one that I’ve offered before. Considering our nation’s challenges and the likelihood that the majority of our citizens genuinely need a deeper knowledge of its roots and their own freedoms, I may start doing this every year. I would have offered it in July, but I wanted you to have it before the big day! If you happen to be one of my fellow citizens of the USA, you are privileged to live in the finest nation on earth! It may not be perfect, but it’s the best!
Now here’s June’s First Friday Freebie!
The U. S. Constitution
Nobody’s perfect. Nothing this side of Heaven is perfect. But the U.S. Constitution is as near to a perfect document as has ever been crafted by humans (and, I believe, with Divine Guidance).
Most of us studied it in school, but, let’s face it – we did it to pass the dreaded Constitution Test, not because we were overly fascinated by it.
I’d love to send you these three copies of the U.S. Constitution –
It’s time to give this little booklet another read. This little forty page book outlines our freedoms. People all around the world wish they had the liberties outlined in these pages.
There’s a copy for you, one for the kiddies (whether they be children or adults) and another for the grandkiddos. If we do not teach the generations to value this precious document, we will lose it!
To enter to win all three copies, “Leave a Comment” on this post, saying, “I love the USA!”
SHARE this post through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or send the link in an email to all your friends so they can enter to win!
Previous freebies can be found on the “Freebies” page. Take a look at the gifts subscribers have been winning.
Once again, a winner will be chosen at random from those subscribers who enter before midnight tonight by leaving a comment which says, “I love the USA!”
And now, here are the complete rules:
First Friday Freebies are available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY. That means if you have come to this post through social media or someone has emailed you a link to it and you haven’t become a subscriber yet, you’ll need to hop on over to the right sidebar and do that really quick. If you are on a phone or tablet, the easiest way is to go to the “About Me” page. All it means to be a subscriber is that you’ll receive an email each time Midwest Storyteller has something new, which won’t likely be more than once or twice a week. It keeps you from missing out on all the fun and FREE STUFF! And, I’m not sharing your emails with anybody.
IMPORTANT: After subscribing, you MUST check your email to confirm the subscription or it will not appear. Then, sadly, you won’t be eligible to enter.
To enter the drawing, scroll back up to the top of this post (or all the way to the bottom, depending on your device) and click on “Leave a Comment”. Subscribers who comment as directed before midnight on Friday will enter the drawing, provided they are already on the subscribers list and live within the continental United States.
Three simple steps!
What are you waiting for? Go! Go! Go! Subscribe if you haven’t already, confirm and comment to enter before midnight tonight, June 5th!
If you’ve been keeping up with me here on the blog then you know why I’m slow in getting this announcement made. Smuffy’s grand remodel is all consuming and I do have to stop once in a while to clean what can be cleaned, snuggle Phoebe June, have a little melt-down and, of course, play toys, read books and sing songs with my Lil’ Snookie. He’s five months old now, sprouting teeth, rolling over and liking his grandma to be as interactive as possible. (It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it. Tee-hee!)
May’s First Friday Freebie has found a new home in the Ozarks! Let’s meet the winner –
Carol from Branson, Missouri
Carol may have had time to finish reading her free copy of “All That Matters” by Diane Yates by now! If so, please comment and treat us all to a book review.
Congratulations, Carol, and I hope you truly enjoy it!
If you’re curious about this great read, I encourage you to check out my interview with author Diane Yates here where you can also read my review of her first book, “Pathways of the Heart”. I would encourage you all to visit Diane’s website at dianeyates.com and take a look at what she as to offer. I’ve also read her novel, “Melissa’s Fate” and I know you’ll be captivated by the story in that book. Diane has a brand new novel out now called, “Impossible Fate” and you can find that on her website as well.
If you’re wondering what “All That Matters” is all about, see my original First Friday Freebie offer along with my comments here.
You can see past First Friday Freebies and their winners on my Freebies! pagehere.If you’re not yet a subscriber to Midwest Storyteller they might entice you to become one – First Friday Freebies are for email subscribers only.
Carol subscribed by entering her email in the subscription area here on the blog and then confirming her subscription when the confirmation email arrived in her inbox. This is the best way to avoid missing what’s new here on the blog because you’ll get an email reminder each time there’s something new – like when there’s a FREEBIE on the First Friday of every month.
Comment as directed on the post and you’ll be entered to win.
Freebies are my way of reaching more people with the stories, recipes and more of the stuff of life. When you share with all your friends via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, you’ll give them the opportunity to subscribe and win also. Subscribing is free. Freebies are free. It’s one of those “I win – You win – We all win” situations!
June’s drawing will take place tomorrow on Friday, June 5th.
A winner is chosen at random from those subscribers who enter before midnight on the day of the drawing.
REMEMBER: Should your name be drawn as the winner, you will be notified via the email you used to subscribe. That means you’ll need to check your email often in the week following the drawing so that you can respond and keep the prize from being offered to someone else.
Be sure to take a moment make yourself familiar with the Freebie Rules by clicking HERE.
These four simple steps will have you ready to enter to win on Friday, June 5th, 2020.
If you’ve won one of my Freebies in the past, leave a comment today and let me know how you liked it. Did you gift it to someone special or keep it for yourself?
We still have no kitchen as we live in this cluttered world of hitches and compromises. So, you may ask, how does a Trim Healthy Mama who is dedicated to eating healthy managing to keep on track during all this? Let me introduce you to my Not-A-Kitchen!
These photos are really embarrassing, but hopefully will make the end reveal all the more glorious. And, please forgive the spastic decorating. I find that as things change, I keep poking things onto empty nails “for now” and the house is starting to look like I’ve lost my marbles. The chairs will go also – just gotta give Smuffy the time to get my new old ones re-done. Poor fella.
I’m hoping the reveal of this mess may help someone else who is going through something similar and knows that you can’t eat out all the time – not if you want to be trim, healthy and pay for a renovation! The last thing we need around here is for me or Smuffy to get sick in the middle of the remodel. That happened to us years ago and I still have PTKSS (Post Traumatic Kitchen Stall Syndrome) from that experience that put us three weeks behind and left us with a two-year-old and nothing – nothing – but a microwave in the otherwise empty kitchen for the whole time.
I followed my original plan for daily function by shoving my dining room table as far over as possible to make room for incoming cabinets and then filling it with everything we’d be needing on a daily basis. I covered it with a felt-backed vinyl tablecloth first so that it would survive the ordeal.
Tall items at the back included a rack of plates and bowls, a spice rack and the mixer. In front of that, I lined up glassware and often used items such as salt and pepper, olive oil and salad vinegar, nuts, jars of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and other things we grab to snack on and, of course, my big, fat jar of Dutch cocoa powder because, though I may not have a kitchen, I’ve gotta live!
I left an empty strip along the front for food prep and placed a cutting mat there. This area also serves to hold the hot plate, crock-pot or whatever else may be in use at times when Smuffy is pounding away and I can’t get into the kitchen at all.
Smuffy had built huge new drawers for the new kitchen, but prior to them being installed, I stacked them on one another and filled the top one with flatware and utensils so they’d be in easy reach. Needless to say, we fill our plates and head into the living room to eat.
My “buffet” (I think this is, in reality, a gentleman’s dresser that has seen changes over time) now serves as Appliance Row with the food processor, blender and toaster oven perched atop a towel and ready to go when I need them. One of my old wall cabinets got its doors removed and is shoved against a wall and filled with plasticware and other food prep items we might want to grab.
Over in the “new” kitchen, once Smuffy got the base cabinets in, I was relieved to find that the holes in the tops were the perfect size to catch the rims of my cookie sheets! We take our small blessings where we can find them and give thanks for them. I filled in an area and plopped in some cutting boards. Then, as if in direct answer to prayer, Smuffy discovered that one of our old cabinet doors dropped in perfectly to another cabinet top! We celebrated that discovery by placing the hot plate there and felt like we were really getting somewhere! Sort of.
The problem remained that we had no water. Family came to the rescue, sending us jugs of drinking water, but as for rinsing things for the dishwasher and washing up anything extra, we were running back and forth to the bathtub.
That is, until that glorious day! Smuffy, that man of many talents, installed a true farmhouse sink!
I’m feeling mighty stylish over here! This is where we stand until countertops are finalized. I love the way he placed the decorative part to the front so I would remember not to insert the grandchild.
Take heart if you are in the midst of a makeover. We’ll get through. When? I have no idea. In the meantime, I’m fixing healthy, balanced meals or pulling out frozen versions of the same that I prepared in advance and stashed in the freezer. In case you didn’t notice the bottle warmer and formula in the photos, I’ll point out that I am caring for my four-month-old grandbaby most days in the midst of it all. I have to admit there are days when I’m just a tad pooped.
If you have a friend in the middle of a renovation and finding themselves disheartened, share this post. It helps to know you’re not alone.
That’s the tour of my Not-A-Kitchen. Stay tuned for what I hope will be next – my pantry and remaining cabinetry and their insides. Then, countertops! I’m expecting to be downright giddy when that happens.
Now I’m leaving you hanging again. I’ll bet this has your curiosity piqued more than back when some of you were wondering who shot J. R. Others will have to do a search on that. Life With Smuffy is never dull. That’s why he has his own page here on the blog. (He’s not all about construction, you know.) If you need adventure and laughs, check that out.
I’ll be sharing some of the meals I made ahead in order to get through this. and some of the ones I was able to whip up without losing my marbles in my Not-A-Kitchen.
Can I have your kitchen remodel ideas? What would you have in your dream kitchen that you don’t have now? Leave a comment!
I promised to keep you posted on Smuffy’s monumental project. Welcome to the third and hopefully, most painful, installment. It’s a little late in posting as the clogged internet has been refusing to put photos in my posts.
Earlier, in “A Glimmer of Hope and Stainless Steel”, I shared the little chunk of the project that propelled me forward into the world of a glorious new refrigerator, wall oven and fancy-schmancy dishwasher. After that, we took time out for Thanksgiving, Christmas and to become grandparents. Smuffy then entered another busy season with his business while it was way too cold to be in the workshop messing with wood. Now, at last, we are making progress again!
If you’d like to see my embarrassing kitchen “before” photos, click here, but read the whole post so you’ll have a little compassion.
Have you ever had one of those uneasy feelings – as though you’re being followed by a mysterious “something”? Your Pollyanna nature tries to reassure you that you’ll never have to turn and face it and that it is probably just a series of spooky shadows, but eventually, you round a corner and there it is – the “thing” you knew was there but dreaded meeting face to face. Trying to duck your head and peer at it through only one squinting eye doesn’t help. We’ll, sooner or later it happens to us all and it has happened to me.
Smuffy is a marvel when it comes to undertaking almost any project, but he’s a numbers kinda guy and likes things in columns and rows. Nuance and the artistic sense elude him in some instances, though he does have appreciation for it. For some time, even though I’d labored over the perfect off-white paint for my cabinetry and the antiquing glaze that would go on over it followed by a couple of coats of polyurethane, I’d been deluding myself into thinking Smuffy would be the painter of these glorious creations. I should have known. Full of the can-do spirit he is – gifted with an artist’s touch he is not.
He got the primer on and the first coat of paint and asked me to inspect. I murmured a prayer and did so. Difficult as it was to declare them a tad crummy, I forced myself to be honest. It was mere practice as I then pushed past my lips the notion that perhaps I needed to paint these myself. (Though painfully slow, I am neat as a pin.) Smuffy’s eyes lit up and he rushed to hand me the paint buckets and all the rest of the supplies. I’d known, deep in my heart that Smuffy’s painting style and choice of tools, while fast and thorough, might not produce the results I desired. He’s an expert at detail work, just not this particular kind. That lurking instinct had caught up with me and how here I was, holding the brush, the mini roller and newly sanded face frames, shaking my head, groaning a little, but not surprised that I hadn’t managed to outrun this dreaded task.
First I used a Benjamin Moore trim paint in Fresh Narcissus with Floe-trol (from Home Depot) added to make the finish smooth as buttah. After letting each coat of this dry overnight, I mixed one part paint in a Benjamin Moore Devonwood Taupe into 8 parts clear latex glaze. I brushed this on and wiped it away with lint-free rags. It doesn’t appear too impressive here on the face frames, but will show nicely on the finished cabinet doors where it will collect in the grooves of the panels and give definition. Once this dried overnight, I applied two coats of clear polyurethane, allowing each to dry overnight. This is because the antiquing glaze is not as hard as trim paint and will wear off if not sealed in between the layers.
Once ready, we started Demo Day for the lower half of the kitchen. In order to have some functionality, we opted to complete this phase and tackle the upper portion once we can actually cook and have water again.
Chaos reigned. Smuffy ripped and tore. I shoved, shifted and fetched. Phoebe June, caught in the cross-fire, opted to enjoy the exploration opportunity of a lifetime. When cabinets, bags and boxes filled with the kitchen cabinet contents began filling every room on the main floor, she considered all rules null and void and flung herself into the spirit of the thing with wild abandon, jumping into bags of canned goods and strolling through utensil drawers. After a while, I just shrugged and made myself a mental note that it could all be washed and wiped down later. To say she was wide-eyed with excitement would be an understatement.
By the end of Day 1, we had uglified the kitchen to the point where we were committed to completion whether we liked it or not and as I looked around the house for a bright spot, I found myself thankful that our little grandson has yet to reach the walking stage. I have a feeling he’d make Phoebe June’s escapades seem like nothing at all!
With the lower cabinets in place, we’ll now attached the face frames and anchor everything in place so that Smuffy can begin the process of installing his beautiful walnut countertops and the oak furniture piece that will serve as our sink base. Oh, to have water again!
I’m going to leave you hanging there and end this special episode of my Life With Smuffy. Coming up soon, I’ll give you a peek at my “not a kitchen kitchen” that will have to serve until the counters, sink and gas cooktop are installed. I’m hoping that is very soon!
(After writing this post and struggling to get the photos inserted, we hit some snags. I’ve had to give up my design for the oak furniture piece and I may be having to part with my walnut countertops. I must confess to having two or three mid-remodel meltdowns already. I’d love to think this is the last of them, but… old houses are full of surprises and unless you open up a wall and find a chest full of gold and jewels, they are never really good surprises.)
I’d love to have your input on a kitchen remodel? What one mistake have you made that you’d like to un-do? What feature of your new kitchen do you love the most? Please comment! I need all the encouragement I can get.
Can you believe it’s May? We’re promised about a half week of frolicking weather and then (so the weather lady just said) we’ll settle in for another little stretch of chilly stuff. I’m over it, folks. The upside is that it might give some of you a little extra snuggling in time because this month’s First Friday Freebie is another great read!
You may recall that a little over a year ago, I wrote a book review of a true story called “Pathways of the Heart” and interviewed the author, Diane Yates. If you missed out on that or need a refresher, you can catch up on that here in “An Interview with Author Diane Yates”.
Today, I’m offering one of you a free copy of the sequel –
You may be distancing yourself from some of the people you know, love and care about right now, but there’s no need to separate yourself from a story like this one!
“Pathways of the Heart” is the story of Diane’s mother, Clella. “All That Matters” picks up where “Pathways…” leaves off and follows Clella’s struggles, her joys, her decisions good and bad and her love story as she demonstrates her strong will and discovers “All That Matters”.
If you read “Pathways of the Heart”, I know you were rooting for Clella, nudging her forward and shedding a tear as if she’d been your own mom. Diane related the story just as it was, weaving the story from her own experiences and the accounts shared by her parents and family members. If you haven’t read this book yet, you might want to check out Diane’s writings here and get yourself a copy! While you’re there, you’ll want to pick up the two new novels she has written as well.
Like “Pathways…”, “All That Matters” causes us to connect with our own hopes, dreams, shortcomings and disappointments, while it pulls us along with hope and promise. Though it tells of real people making real mistakes, it is in no way too graphic to share with your teens.
While the original story began in the Ozarks of the 1920’s, this sequel follows Clella (now called Catherine) from 1957 as she finds herself starting over in Texas with her new love. Again, with her, you’ll experience love, loss and the search for an everlasting love.
To enter to win “All That Matters”, you’ll need to “Leave a Comment” on this post, asking, “May I have this great book?” Be sure to do that before midnight TONIGHT, May 1st, 2020!
First Friday Freebies are for email SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, so hop on over to the right sidebar or use the menu to navigate to the “Contact” page and subscribe to Midwest Storyteller if you haven’t done so already.
Your friends will enjoy the stories, recipes, laughter and, of course, the FREEBIES here on the blog, too, so share with all your friends and family through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Subscribers win every single month! On the “Freebies”page, you’ll be able to see what they’ve been winning.
Once again, a winner will be chosen at random from those subscribers who enter before midnight tonight by leaving a comment which says, “May I have this great book?”
For the complete First Friday Freebie rules, click here.
Four simple steps!
Don’t let the day slip away! Subscribe now if you haven’t already, and confirm in your email before you forget!
May the merry month of May bring you glorious, sunshiny, flower-filled days and may you finally get to spend them with the people you love!
Comments or questions? I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment telling me what good books you’ve read lately. And, I always love to ask – what is your favorite book of all time?
