What the Heck has Holly Been Doing?

Hey Folks!

Let me tell you about what's been going on 

in my neck of the woods these days.

While everyone on Pinterest

has gotten the spring cleaning bug,

I've been busy doing a little cleaning

but have gotten the 

"Let's do a project" bug!

A few months ago I decided to change out

the colors in my house.

I went from reds and yellows

to blues and yellows.

While it was very pretty,

it never felt like my house.

I kept walking into the living room

wondering who lived there.

It was so NOT my style.

Fortunately, I didn't spend a lot of money

to make these changes.

The only semi expensive piece I bought was the 

blue ottoman in the picture above.

After trying to love it for a couple of months,

I sorta went crazy the other morning and 

moved my reds back into the living room and kitchen.

I'm home again.

I think it's impossible for me to be happy

in a house without red and yellow.

 This picture looks like I have yellow walls.

I do not.

That's just the sunlight coming through the open door to the right.

They are off white but I'm digging the yellow in the picture.

Hmmmmm....

The blues all got moved into the bedroom

since it's still a work in progress.

As for the projects,

well, 

I just sorta went nuts.

I've been seeing a lot of DIY chalk paint

on Pinterest lately and thought I'd give it a try.

I'm a goner now.

I am head over heels in love with chalk paint!

You can do no wrong with it.

It doesn't show brush strokes

and it's very forgiving.

There's no preparation,

you don't have to sand before painting.

It drys very quickly.

I'm a horrible painter

which is something my daughter pointed out to me 

just a couple of weeks ago.

I hate the preparation.

The waiting for the project to dry.

For the chalk paint I used 

JamieLyn's recipe 

at I Heart Naptime.

It was so simple to make and I was hooked.

Please excuse the photo quality

on all of these.

They were all taken with my iPhone.

Here is an old before picture from my previous house

 of an end table that I bought

 at Goodwill several years ago.

Not bad but the honey pine 

just wasn't doing it for me.

I forgot to take a before picture

prior to this project.

I used Behr Pale Honey on the bottom

and Minwax stain in walnut for the top.

I love the soft yellow.

The picture below shows the color more accurately.

Then I sorta lost my mind and 

decided to pull out an old dresser

that I've had forever.

I had bought it for $2.00 at a garage sale

a few years ago.

I had gotten around to sanding it

and there it sat, just like that for over two years.

Crazy right?

Because in just over an hour it went from this:

To this:

I used Behr Awning Red.

I was shocked that I found my perfect red on my first try.

If you're thinking about painting a piece of furniture,

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE CHALK PAINT.

Also, I've been playing around with color

in the house.

I have some fabric that I bought a few years

ago and love it.

I actually loved it so much that I never wanted to

cut it and use it.

Am I crazy?

I finally decided to attempt to use it.

I bought six of these chairs on Craigslist 

after we moved into this house.

While sturdy, they are a little boring.

I CUT MY FABRIC!

I attached it to the seat pads with

upholstery twist pins

 and I'm liking this happy fabric 

on my chairs.

If you can look at this fabric

and not smile,

then I just don't want to know you.

The chairs themselves need some work.

They are dried out and in need of 

a good wood conditioning.

I bought them off Craigslist from a guy

who raised St. Bernard puppies.

Teeth marks add character in my book.

Next project.

It's just a small one.

I had an old outdoor tablecloth

that I never used anymore.

I made some pillows out of it

for my side patio.

 And now I had better get to the spring cleaning.

And then I may just run to Goodwill to see what needs painted.

Also, if you could say a prayer for

my dear friend, Kris at Simplify.

Her Momma had surgery today.

Kris has the most amazing family.

Keep them in your thoughts and prayers today.

xxx-ooo

Holly 

I'm linking up to The Golden Sycamore

So You Think You Want a Puppy?

Two blog posts in two days!

That's gotta be some kinda record.
Someone throw me a tiara!

I want to talk about something important here.
But first, let's look at some pictures.

Meet Ranger.

 He was cute here.  

And here.

 And here.

But then he started to grow very quickly.

Look at those paws!

The incredible growing dog.

What?

How does this happen in such a short period of time?

How does one dog eat so much?

How does one dog poop so much?

How did he become such an oaf?

How does one adoring mom take so many pictures of her dog?

Now, I am not just writing this post to show you cute pictures.
I also want to help you out a bit.

I'm sure that everyone at one time or another
has had a puppy,
or been around a puppy,
or knew someone that had a puppy,
or accidentally ran over a puppy.


Puppies are irresistible,
if you are not planning on getting one,
then stay away from them all together.
If you see, smell or hold a puppy,
you will take it home with you.
You are not strong enough to walk away.
You have to trust me on this.

God loves puppies so he gave them

sweet puppy breath,
the ability to chase their tails and 

to fall asleep with their heads in food dishes.

This is where they get you.
Then you take one home and
God laughs and laughs.

Listen up People!!

I want to tell you why you don't want a puppy,

and offer some advice if you are bat shit crazy and  get one anyway.

1)    If you get a puppy, you will need to work from home.

         This is quite difficult to do if you are, for instance, 

         a plumber or a Las Vegas Showgirl.

         Lucky for me, I am neither, so I was able to stay home 

         and work with him on potty training during the day.

         It is also necessary for you to be home because 

         you will need to take a lot of naps (see #2).

2)     You will need to take a lot of naps.

         This is because for the first five nights, your sweet puppy

         will scream like a howler monkey on crack even though he is only

         two feet away from your bed.

         There is nothing you can do about this.

         There are books out there that tell you to put a stuffed animal and 

         and a ticking alarm clock in his bed to comfort him.

         This is a lie.

         These things will only piss him off.

3)      Dogs shed.

         Even dogs that don't shed, shed.

         I have a friend that has a hairless cat and it sheds.

         Okay, that was a lie.

         But seriously, most dogs shed.

         We have a yellow Lab (see adorable pictures above) and I have never

         seen so much hair fall out of an animal in all my born days.

         If you do get a puppy, only choose the one in the litter 

         that matches your couch.

         You must buy a Furminator.

         Seriously, people, listen to me.  This thing is da bomb!!

  

4)      Puppies are expensive.  Been saving up for retirement?

         Forget about it!

         Dog crate, dog bed, dog food, well puppy checks, vaccinations,

         spay or neuter, Furminator (see #3), leashes, microchip, collars, 

         toys (see #5), exploratory surgery because you bought a 

         couch coordinated half witted dog that eats rocks (true story).

5)      Do not pay for toys.

         Your dog will not play with the cute squeaky bunny that you bought 

         at Petsmart from the Martha Stewart Collection. He will also not play with

         the rope toy, the variety of different size bones, the blinking balls or the 

         stuffed raccoon that you bought for him.  

         He will only play with the 16 ounce Diet Mountain Dew bottle 

         that your husband brings home every day after work.  

         And rocks.

         He will play with rocks (see #4).

6)     Dogs need consistency.  If you don't want your dog to be allowed

        on the couch, you will need to say "NO COUCH!" approximately

        3,256 times a day until he gets it. 

        Once he gets it, you will then start on "NO CAT TURDS!"

        This one is extremely important if you have a garden 

        and feral cats in your neighborhood.

 

7)     If you get a male puppy, he will hump stuff 

        and he won't care who knows it.

        Most likely it will be your favorite microfiber throw or your bed pillow.  

        He will be proud of his cleverness 

        and want to show anyone that happens to come over.

     

  

  

 I hope we've all learned something here today.

So why did we get a puppy?

Because we're morons.

And he's cute.

And a pain in the ass.
I can't imagine life without him.

Welcome Home Ranger Danger.

             

xxx-ooo

Holly

Do You Remember That One Time I Had a Blog?

Do You Remember That One Time I Had a Blog?

5 months.

No blogging.

I can't believe that Blogger hasn't kicked me to the curb.

Apparently, no one is monitoring 

this crap.

I'm giving it another shot.

I got a call from an old friend the other day.

She told me I needed to start blogging again.

I began giving excuses as to why I no longer posted.

"I only have my iPhone to take pictures with."

"It's too time consuming."

"Sometimes I don't feel like commenting on other blogs 

and it's bad blogger protocol to write posts and not

comment on other's blogs."

(Yes, I'll admit it, I still look at each of your blogs 

and I don't comment because I'm lazy 

and I don't want you to know I've been there.)

This is not nice and I take full responsibility for my actions.

(I probably won't change)

For those of you that follow me on Instagram

or Facebook,

you are all caught up with my life 

and don't need to read any further.

Have a nice day.

For everyone else, all 2 of you,

here's what's going on around here.

Spring has sprung in Phoenix.

We had a very mild winter unlike many of you out there.

This I know because I read your blogs.

And didn't comment.

Even though you probably needed 

to hear some words of encouragement.

Sometimes, I'm a douche canoe.

We had an issue with roof rats.

Rats!

 (not my rat)

These are somewhat common in the Phoenix area.

They love to eat the citrus off the trees.

Many of them make their way into attics.

We were fortunate that our attic was sealed very well 

and didn't have any in ours.

They were living in our orange tree though.

 This pic was taken the day we moved in and

everything was overgrown.

You can see the grapefruit tree on the left and the 

orange tree on the right.

This orange tree had been planted right up against the house 

so trimming it was not an option.

It had to go.

I will miss my fresh squeezed juice.

After the orange tree was brutally mutilated,

the rats moved into our huge grapefruit tree.

Since it was not near the house, 

we were able to trim it up and get all the fruit off it.

The rats moved on to the neighbors.

This made me happy.

(Douche canoe, remember?)

Brian was little sad because he really enjoyed

sitting on the patio in the evening 

and shooting them out of the tree with his BB gun.

They kind of scream when you hit them.

You can see why he's bummed.

We've been digging up old ugly bushes

and planting new pretty ones.

 I think we are really going to enjoy this 

Yellow Bell as it grows.

We have some purple Lantana around the pool

but decided to get some red that will provide ground cover 

under the Yellow Bells.

See Facebook friends?

I told you that you needn't continue.

We are having the front yard tree trimmed today.

This picture was also taken the day we moved in.

The tree is much bigger now.

I'd take a picture of it for you

but I'm not getting dressed to go outside 

and no one really cares what my tree looks like.

Am I right, or am I right?

 

 I'll catch you up on more stuff tomorrow.

Hopefully.

In the meantime,

Happy Birthday to my amazing husband.

You spend way too much time sitting on the couch.

You have no idea how to load a dishwasher.

I've been waiting for 3 months for you to replace the light

in the garage.

You snore like a wart hog.

You leave your beard trimmings in the sink.

All in All,

you're perfect for me.

xxx-ooo

Holly