Highway Of Heroes

In Canada, we honour our fallen military personnel by naming portions of the Trans Canada Highway in their honour. ~

If they fall in a foreign land, they are brought home to the Trenton Air base.  I was born on that air base.  Today, I listened to the serviceman who, for many years, had the job of escorting the hearse and the family members from that base, along a 170 k stretch of highway that has 50 bridges.  He said the families were grieving as expected, but each time they passed under a bridge, they smiled and waved and commented on the show of support for their loss and the ultimate sacrifice paid.

That's because with each fallen hero brought home to us, this happens. ~

photo courtesy of Spendthrift And Dreams

Not one hero passes along this highway alone!

Today, we give thanks to all the brave men and women who have risked their lives for our freedom.  We bow our heads in memory for those who gave their very lives for our freedom.  We think of the shattered lives and terrible struggles so many have suffered from the trauma of action.  We are grateful and humbled by  their selfless devotion to their homeland and the ideals we hold so dear.

My hero joined the Royal Canadian Airforce, by special letter of permission, at age 17.  He'd already lied about his age and enlisted at age 15 and was very close to being sent overseas before he was found out. By 18 he was stationed in Britain and was a tailgunner on Lancaster bombers.  He knew full well that there was no escape for tailgunners, should the plane be shot down.

When the war in Europe ended, he immediately signed up for the war in the Pacific.  He was sent home on a thirty day leave and, on the 29th. day, Japan surrendered.  He had done his duty and then some!

Thanks, Dad.  I'm so glad you did not return via the Highway Of Heroes.  I'm so glad you had the courage to stand up for your beliefs and I carry on your ardent support of our service people.

I'll always remember! ~

This press photo of my Aunt Molly, a decorated Canadian Nursing Sister, is taken in Flanders Fields.  These poppies are a beautiful symbol of remembrance and hope that someday no one needs us to greet them them as they make their silent journey down our Highway Of Heroes!

Budget Kitchen Redo - Part II

I can't wait any longer to show you this amazing transformation on the kitchen knobs!

The kitchen reno was scheduled for after my rental property sold.  Alas, that hasn't happened yet and it's sucking the financial life out of me!  Now, I'm scrambling to give the kitchen a new look the cheapest way possible.  If you missed Part I of how I got into this click here.

The original handles on the 1985 cabinetry disintegrated a couple of years ago and I replaced them with some chrome and porcelain knobs that were in a clearance bin for $1 each.  They were pretty boring but only intended for temporary use.  Now, I have to find a way to jazz them up.

I changed these into these! ~

The cost was zero and you won't believe how it's done!  I'd pinned this technique from a blog called Teal & Lime.  She has great ideas and you should pop over and check her out!

You are supposed to use a porcelain marker but she got the bright idea to use a regular Sharpie to colour the porcelain.  I gave the knobs a good scrub down and dried them off. ~

I had one Sharpie in the house and it was dark blue.  Cobalt blue is the colour I'm using for accents in the kitchen.

I coloured in the porcelain bits, moving in the same direction for all the strokes.  This is super simple to do and took all of about 10 minutes to do 17 knobs.  The ink will smear so try not to touch it until it has a couple of hours to dry.

After they have dried for a couple of hours, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and put the knobs in for 30 minutes. ~

  
They came out a perfect cobalt blue!  The metal isn't damaged from the oven heat and the ink is set enough to withstand the wear and tear of kitchen cupboard use.  ~

I love them!  They have a glossy sheen and pick up the light beautifully.  Although the camera seems to pick up the lines in the close up, you can't see them at all normally.  That may be because I used a dark colour. ~

Jackie, from Teal & Lime did hers in a Teal and treated the lines as part of the gemstone look. ~

This is such an awesome way to personalize those cheap, boring porcelain knobs!  Heck, you can do it with any ceramic that can take 30 mins. of 350 degree heat.  Dresser drawers will never be the same around here!

Cost for this part of the kitchen redo was ZERO!  Thanks, Jackie!

I'm sharing this great idea with ~  Sunny Simple Sunday, Inspire Me Monday, Fantabulous Friday, Simply Creation's Link Party, Wildly Original Link Party, Creative Blogger's Party & Hop, DIY Project Parade, Make It Pretty Monday, Nifty Thrifty Tuesday, Transformed Tuesday, Link It Up Thursday, Creative Things Thursday, Inspiration Friday, Feathered Nest Friday

Budget Kitchen Redo - Part I

All I wanted to do was hang a shelf!!!

I'm a sensible woman.  Well, at least I'm trying to be!  As an interior designer, I know how costly a kitchen reno is and my home being 200 years old guarantees that hidden issues will surface and the costs will escalate.

The cabinetry is circa 1985.  While most of the rooms in this house have been gutted and rebuilt over the years I've owned it, the kitchen still has old drywall over lathe and plaster.

I accepted that I could not get into this kind of major project but what harm can there be in removing an old, hideous, useless microwave shelf? ~

Face it, putting some cookbooks and mason jars up there isn't doing anything to pretty this up!  Even Maeve's kitty butt can't help with pretty here!  She liked the shelf as a perch to watch me wash dishes.

Off comes the shelf and I stare in horror at this! ~

 This is bad.  This is really bad!  Sooo - I figure I'll put on my pro decorator hat and a pair of work gloves and lets see how cheaply I can spruce this kitchen up.  I've hit blogs and Pinterest for ideas and techniques and I'm sharing this makeover in the hopes that you'll get some ideas for your own projects.  I'm keeping careful track of the costs and I think I'll come in under $200.

Of course, busting out the plaster and fixing the cracks and holes was the first order of business.

I picked up this shelf at a yard sale for $1.  Someone had stripped it and found it wasn't worth refinishing.  I wanted a place to display vintage tea tins that belonged to my Grandmother. ~

I painted swipes of different shades of blue on it and added a crackle medium before putting a final coat of Benjamin Moore 2108-50 Silver Fox.  That's the colour I am painting all the oak veneer cupboards.  I added some numbers in a cobalt blue craft paint and three, hand forged, antique hooks that I bought at a flea market for $4 each.  ~

The hooks display a little collection of vintage cream pitchers. ~

Now, hanging that shelf was another whole ballgame!  This house was built by a pioneer, in between pulling stumps and ploughing fields with a horse.  Nothing is standard and I couldn't find a stud to anchor the shelf.  My brother in law came to help and he brought some self drilling anchors and spent a good hour trying to get the shelf up.  I kept saying, "All I wanted was a shelf!  Can it really turn into such a big deal?".  He was saying ummm - nothing.

So two weeks into the shelf fiasco, it's finally hung.  The doors are removed from the cupboard above and the oak trim painted in the Silver Fox.  I'll leave this as an open cupboard and next post I'll show you how I dressed up the interior. ~  

Wanna see the before again? ~

And the after! ~

I'm putting a lot of man (okay, woman) hours into this kitchen but I'm actually having a ton of fun with sticking with my Thrift, Gift, Reworked & Found goal!  

Wait until you see how I reworked the hardware! 

I'm sharing this with Saturday Nite Special

A Little Hallowe'en Tale

The big night has come and gone and all eleven children, who came trick or treating, were duly impressed that I believed they really were what they were pretending to be.  One little boy felt he had to explain that he wasn't really a zombie, just dressed as one.

Maeve gave the town something to talk about by posing as the perfect Hallowe'en cat.  Perched on the back of a chair, back arched and tail puffed, she held her stance until the kids left.  She's not fond of kids and really hates kids in costumes.  I wish I'd had my camera handy!

But this isn't the kind of tail I'm telling. ~

Right beside my house is an old graveyard. ~

When my daughters were little, they cooked up a plan with my sister's boys to walk to the back of the graveyard, on Hallowe'en night, and touch the the farthest stone.

The two dads cooked up their own plan.  Scaring kids witless is almost as much fun as blowing things up to men!

So, my brother in law dressed up as one of these and hid behind a tombstone. ~

My girl's dad hid in the church ready to play some scary music on the old pump organ. ~

As the kids headed back, the music started and the mummy rose up, moaning and flailing it's arms.  Three kids ran for the sidewalk.  The fourth, my nephew, tore off toward the back.

At the back is a thirty foot drop into the river. ~

The faster the mummy ran to save his son, the faster the kid ran to escape certain death from the mummy!  Daddy/Mummy did catch him, spurred on I think by my sister's angry screams.

The moral of this tale, and all good tales must have one, is NEVER let men plan Hallowe'en activities for children!

Happy (and safe) Hallowe'en to all!

The Storm Has Passed!

It's been a crazy few days around here!  There I was with the kitchen all torn apart to redecorate and primed cabinet doors drying all over the living room, when my brother in law decides to use the warm, sunny weather to convert my garden shed into a chicken coop.  The plan was to bring their three chickens over here to vacation with Gert and Maude for the winter.

We've been worried about keeping them warm enough in a cold Canadian winter in these flimsy coops we bought. ~

He and my sister knew I was busy with the kitchen and were doing most of the work themselves.  Of course, I had to help empty the shed and strew my stuff all over the yard.  ~

It was all taking a little longer than expected.  A window was installed, a leak in the wall was repaired and an area was fenced off for a bit of storage.  A girl has to have somewhere to keep her off season tires and chain saw! ~

By Sunday, we realized Sandy was really going to hit here and we were nowhere near ready to move the girls into their new coop.  A quick phone conference and we decide to brave the rain and cold and finish the job.  With only two breaks to wrap our frozen hands around mugs of hot coffee, we sawed and drilled to make perches and nesting boxes.  The raccoon repelling dog cage was dismantled and moved over to the shed.  The back wall was cut to make an entry from the cage to the shed door and the whole thing was bolted in place.

Then, we had a chicken rodeo to gather all the girls up.  Gert was easy because she basically just jumps up into my arms.  Maude got loose and made quite the run for it.  You'd have died laughing at three soaking wet and frozen idiots chasing that chicken around and around the yard.  I was not finding her all that amusing!  On to my sister's house and start the round up all over again!

Cool new digs! ~

Gert doesn't like the visitors and she's not coming off that nesting shelf that I put her on! ~

That box is the infamous microwave shelf that started the whole kitchen fiasco!

Evening is coming and I still had to get all the stuff we pulled out of the shed stowed away somewhere and the patio furniture secured.  

Oh, and all this stuff has to come off the porch! Yikes. ~

The very last thing to do was snip these last rose blooms so Sandy doesn't get them.  I'm not giving them up! ~

The storm arrived and the ladies were snug as a bug in their new home.  This village sits in a hollow and the wind wasn't too extreme but there was the strangest roaring sound overhead for the night.  I guess the wind was higher up.

The only fallout I have to deal with is this downed tree on my rental property. ~

Well, that and a very bad head cold!

The Connection Between Music And Damaged Walls

I had a million things to do this week and my stupid back went out.  I don't have a back problem.  This is just something that happened twice in two months.  Really, I DON'T HAVE A BACK PROBLEM!

Sooo, I'm lying on the couch looking around at the room I planned on redecorating and feeling really peeved! By day two, I'm feeling like I can tackle some small jobs and wander into the kitchen.  I know, I'll take down that old, giant microwave shelf and replace it with a cute vintage one I painted.  Simple, right?  Wrong!

Whaaa! ~

Who puts a few pieces of Masonite around the edges and leaves the rest blank?  And how about the lovely crack?  Looks like there are a few layers of wallpaper to deal with, too. ~

 
I'm not ready to replace the counter and backsplash.  That's a nice way of saying I can't afford it right now.  So, whatever I do (and I certainly can't leave it like this!) has to be a cheap, temp fix.  Some plaster and paint are going to be in order.  Since I'm painting the walls, I might as well do the cupboards at the same time.

Haul the cupboard doors outside and scrub them down with TSP. ~

Get ready to prime them and have the weather turn to rain for two days.  Push back the furniture in the living room (the room I planned on decorating) and roll up the carpets.  Now, I hate prep work so I decide to entertain myself with a DVD set from the 1985 Live Aid concert that I borrowed from my friend Wendy.

The day just flew by!  I saw old friends perform and artists that just felt like friends because their music was such a big part of our lives.

This guy was a groomsman at a friends wedding.  For this concert he does a riveting performance of All You Need Is Love.

You know I'm breaking every copyright law in the world by showing these pics. The lawsuits are going to be crippling! 

A highschool friend of mine is the producer for U2.  When they first came to my studio, they weren't very well known.  This was during the Unforgettable Fire days. ~

This is for those of you who keep asking for music stories.  Right after the release of Joshua Tree, U2 did a concert in Toronto.  My husband and I had All Show passes, which meant we could enter any Joshua Tree concert worldwide, for free, and had full backstage entry.  It worked fine in NYC.  The Toronto concert was outdoors and it was absolutely freezing.  We had no problem entering and going to the VIP section (which really means where the press people are).  A CPI security guy ran up, in a big flap, and demanded we give him the passes. NOT!  Then, he starts begging us to give them up and come with him.  He says the band has their own security, there are tons of forgeries of the passes and they are throwing out anyone who has one.  His boss has told him to find us and get us safely away.  You see, his boss is another old friend from high school.  I look over and see the producer's girlfriend being literally tossed over the fence, while she's screaming that someone is going to pay for this.

I'll probably get tossed somewhere for showing the U2 security guys in the yellow shirts. ~

Off we go, as hostages, to the security trailer where the mean, yellow shirt Irish guys are all yelling and carrying on.  That gets my Irish up!  I'm wearing cowboy boots to be cool, my feet are frozen and I can't  feel my toes.  I start yelling back (I didn't used to be as sweet and mellow as I am now), "I'm supposed to be meeting friends backstage but you'll be doing me a bloody favour if you throw me out!  What kind of Irish idiots plan an outdoor concert, in Canada, in October!".  The biggest, meanest one looks at me and says, "She can stay.". I replied, "Well, I'll be staying in this warm trailer with you guys."  And I did!  There, you have your story.

I should add that the guys in this band are all great people.  The Edge is one of the smartest, most thoughtful men in the biz.  That same year, he and his wife Aislinn sent me this confusing gift for Christmas. ~

Yup, it's a squeaky, rubber Ronald Reagan head! (ignore the dust, I'm sanding walls)

Now, I have to leave memory lane and get back to fixing that wall!  

Thanks to everyone who has passed on the button in support of Malala!

Some Burning Birthday Questions!

As if turning 60 this year isn't bad enough, my daughter turned 40 yesterday!  Ekes!

While going through old photos to put some then and now shots on her Facebook birthday page, I developed some burning questions!  Maybe, you can help me out with these.

Is it EVER all right to let your toddler dress themselves? ~

What's it like to be forced to dress like Laura Ingalls for a prolonged period of time? ~

Is she old enough at 40 to be told that, the Prince Charming who proposed to her this day in Disneyworld, was paid $5 by her granddad to do it? ~

Should Mommy's dress ever be shorter than the preschooler's? ~

The biggest question of all is what kind of voodoo pact has Farm Girl made, to look so unchanged from 16 to 40?  Tell me there isn't some Dorian Grey thing going on here! ~

16 & 40

Does any of it matter if she grew up to give generously of time and money to charities, works to save abused animals and is loved and respected by all her friends and family?

Best of all, she's a great mom to these guys! ~

Uh huh, you're counting right.  There's six of them!

To my knowledge, she has never worn a shorter dress than her daughters or made them dress in period costume.  I'm sure she is doing something else that will make her cringe when she sees the pictures forty years later!

Thanks for forty wonderful years Farm Girl!