Global Climate Change: Right in My Backyard

It's been a wacky, wacky winter.  We had a sprinkling of snow back in November, and since then, nuthin'.  So I wasn't too stunned when last Tuesday's forecast called for sunny skies and temps in the mid-fifties, although thirties had been the norm for a few months.

I rounded up the troops and the spray paint, and took care of some projects that have been languishing on the back burner, waiting for their (literal) day in the sun.  Shani quickly amused herself with a stick and some dirt (she's nothing if not able to self-amuse, thank heavens!) and I got to spraying.

Short sleeves, folks.  Mid-January.

I found this huge, hideous/marvelous frame in someone's back alley when we got back from camp.  I'm planning to put a chalkboard inside, now that it's all shiny and chrome-y.  It used to be all peel-y and dull bronze-y.  Ugh.  Shiny makes everything better.

These jobbies are on their way to becoming mini-chalkboard signs for my craft-fair table.  Tip:  When spray-painting balsa wood, stick it down to the surface you're painting on with a scrap of duct tape.  Otherwise, you'll find yourself taking some much-needed (but less-wanted) exercise as you chase the wily little bits of wood around the yard. 

And here's what Wednesday brought. 

Finally!

That's more like it!

Hope you're enjoying the weather where you are, too...

Not enough paint in the world.

I've been playing around with my booth setup all week, getting ready for my show on Sunday.  This is what it looked like this morning, before I decided to ditch the little corner shelf on the right and go with my original idea---reusing some windows I picked up at ReStore (my favorite place in the world) a few weeks back.

They look like this.

Well, they did before I knocked out all the glass.  Despite hubby's instructions to carefully cut out the caulk, then remove the glass panes in one piece, I headed to the trashcans after roughly four minutes of painstaking progress-less-ness and resorted to this.

Which was messy and nerve-wracking and not a little bit stupid, but yielded the quick results you know I crave.  I did a bit of tidying up afterward with a razor blade and some pliers and the orbital sander, but all in all it was relatively painless. (Look, Ma!  No band-aids!)

After being sanded and patched and primed, they looked like this.  And then, of course, I ran out of spray paint.  (Again.  The guy at Home Depot is certain I'm a graffiti artist, despite my fervent assertions to the contrary.) So now I'm off in search of some more Dark Walnut.  And then I'll be back, to show you the finished product, I hope.

But before I go, here's the original hardware, all primed and waiting to be painted up shiny.  You like?

Sukkah pics, anyone?

I made sure the troops were dressed in time for pictures this week.  Little did I know, however, that there was to be a mutinous attempt from the smallest rugrats to derail my photo-taking venture.

We took things out to the porch in hopes of coaxing a less-than-stoned expression from mes petites, 

but, alas!  No such luck.

The boys were strangely cooperative, for once...

...but that didn't stop them from mugging for the camera.

The sukkah itself is holding up pretty well in spite of the rain and high winds it withstood.

Festive, no?  (I spray painted the Chinese lantern roughly 16 minutes before candlelighting. 

It was looking a little drab...)

Check out our little outdoor hand-washing station! 

Finally got a decent smile out of the little creeps.

Also, tired people shouldn't be given too many M&Ms.

Just sayin'.  But at least she draws pretty pictures to compensate for her cruelty to confectionery.

Pre- Yom Kippur Photo Shoot

The girls got dressed with minutes to spare, so we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and snapped a few photos.

 Oh, and the shoes.  And the headbands.  (With thanks to the folks at Krylon for inventing Glitter Blast.)

There are pink matching shoes, too, but somebody wouldn't take them off long enough for me to take pictures.

My Creative Space: Before and After

When we moved into our house in Rochester, a pair of these nifty little night tables were part of the package.

.

  

They proved useful, if not comely.  

Since it's been unseasonably warm this week, I decided to bite the bullet and make them less hideous.  (Yes, there was spray paint involved.  What, did you think I was actually going to use paint stripper and other scary stuff like that to refinish something?  Really?)

We started with the traditional nightstand-in-the-kiddie-pool-cum-paint-dropcloth scenario, as usual.  (Seriously, BEST dropcloth ever.)

A couple of coats of primer and things were looking good.  (Well, better, anyway.)

But here's the real improvement:

Even The Huz, who is violently opposed to the painting of wood, voiced his approval.

~If anyone's wondering, I used Rust-Oleum's Dark Walnut and Stainless Steel.~

Brain Dump

I should be washing the dishes.  Or flipping the laundry.  Or wrestling to hang the just-washed shower curtain before I forget about it, and somebody heads up to shower in its absence.  At the very least, I should be taking out the recycling, or unpacking another of the endless boxes that are still choking the basement and the garage.  Instead, I'm at the computer, staring out at this gray, gorgeous, drizzly morning and not getting much of anything done.  Rosh Hashannah is a week and a half away.  There are challahs to bake, menus to plan, guests to invite, and freezers to purge.  (How on earth can my freezer be so FULL when I've only been home for a month?)  I've finally bested the camp/moving laundry pile, and am back to my standard 2 loads a day.  The kids' rooms are all basically situated (we painted Esti's last week!) and the bookshelves have journeyed upwards from the basement.  My room is partially furnished and utterly closetless, so I'm trying to make some sense of things up there; mostly by spray painting things.  Yesterday my lamp got it---I set up shop in the garage to fight off the gray drizzlies and painted it a shiny silver---and things felt much more organized, somehow,  for the effort.  The kitchen would be lovely if only people would stop cooking and eating in it.  I made quinoa for the first time since camp this week---with beef stock and craisins---and it was amazing. 

My Creative Space: Spray Paint Season

It's Spray Paint Season here in the Midwest---the cool, crisp days that cry out to be filled with glossy swaths of toxic color.  Loyal Midwesterner (okay, newly minted Midwesterner) that I am, I'm only too happy to do my bit.  Much has succumbed to the spell of the Rust-oleum in the past few weeks, from Esti's once-blah-now-blue dresser to the heinous, beat up metal shelves that have been knocking around the garage since our Rochester days.  A coat of Safety Red now adorns the shelves and a previously avocado-hued stepstool, making them the stars of my new, aqua and red kitchen.

Not bad for four bucks, hmm?