Mother Goose August 18, 2008

Are you familiar with Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes?

Mary had a little lamb….
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool…
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle…
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe…

Jody and I went to the flea market on Sunday, and I found an old Mother Goose book for sale. It was really thick, and wasn’t in the greatest condition, but it was only $5 so I bought it. The copyright page was missing, but the man who sold it to me said he thought it was from the 19-teens (does that make sense? 1910-1919) And searching online estimates it was published around the same time.

Now, I don’t like to read, but I thought I could handle some nursery rhymes so I flipped through the pages once I got home. And what I found made me question Mother Goose’s sanity. Sure it had the well-known nursery rhymes, like the ones I listed above, but there were some odd, lesser-known ones in there as well. Example:

All begin with A. Oh, except for those last two I mentioned.
(P.S. She is actually saying the word “all” begins with the letter “a”)

Here’s another winner:

Gee, I’ve never thought about it… what would we do? We certainly couldn’t eat all of the apple pie laying around. And this poor illustrator had the difficult task of coming up with a way to portray these bizarre concepts. I’m not sure he succeeded on this one.

I was surprised to find so much violence in many of the nursery rhymes, like this one:

Rope, my buddy! Listen, I need to ask you for a favor. You see, there’s this butcher that refused to kill an ox for me because the ox wouldn’t drink water, because the water wouldn’t put out a fire…it’s a long story. Anyway, I need you to hang this guy. That’ll teach him to say no to me. Thanks!

Mother Goose also liked to use some, um, colorful language:

That dirty slut! I wonder why that one never caught on. It doesn’t even rhyme. Maybe the meaning of “dirty slut” was different 100 years ago. I saw the word slut in at least three nursery rhymes.

She also wanted to teach kids that the color of a person’s skin is not as important…

…as how much money they have.

And I’ll end this on one of my favorites…..enjoy!

Hello! August 12, 2008

I have once again reached a point where I am only getting on here periodically to give you updates. So here we go:

1. My neighbors decided to move from Georgia back to their homeland (California), and did not want to pack up and take all of their stuff with them, so their home was temporarily turned into a retail store. Jody and I walked away with two rocking chairs, a shed, a small apple tree, a small peach tree, a couple of lamps, a set of drinking glasses, extension cords, solar lights for the yard, assorted baskets, and lots more small random items.
2. No updates on the house moving adventure. It is still in its original location. Not sure what is taking so long.
3. No sales so far on my Etsy store, but that’s OK. I’ve had two people tell me that they love the fabric shown in my store banner and would like a wall panel made from that fabric. One problem: it’s not fabric. I made that design in a Photoshop one day. Perhaps I should consider getting into fabric design…?
4. Um, I think that’s it.
5. Yeah, it is.

I don’t have time to write this July 31, 2008

Quick note, I finally added a few items to my Etsy shop: brookberrys.etsy.com

The super duper secret item that I did not want to describe is that top item in my store - the blue light-up thingy. It’s just a panel that lights up. Big deal, right? But I seriously couldn’t find anyone else who sells it, so that’s why it was so hush-hush. I think Jody’s thought was for me to sell that item and only that item, but I don’t really want to concentrate on just that. That’s why I only have one up so far. And because I had a lot of problems with the materials that I bought for it. Did you know light doesn’t go through a fabric labeled “100% heavyweight canvas” very well? Oh, and 8 inches is tiny. Not as big as I imagined it to be in my head. I bought who knows how many stretcher bars (for the frames) only to realize they were too small.

I have more stuff made, but I don’t have pictures of them yet.

To my grammar-nazi friend, CJ: In my item descriptions, I wrote “ready to be hanged on a wall” - is that correct, or should it be “ready to be hung on a wall”? My extensive 2 minutes of research indicated hanged was right, but it sounds funny.

No Worries July 24, 2008

Death is not in my immediate future.

Actually I don’t know that to be true. I should say that the possibility of being murdered by Jody for life insurance money just went down to around 0%. But I still have a good chance of dying on a bicycle.

So, do you want to the answer to the riddle?

What can you get with:

• My birthdate
• My social security number
• My address

Riddle Me This… July 23, 2008

What can you get with:

• My birthdate
• My social security number
• My address

I received the following phone call this morning:

:::ring ring ring:::

Me: Hello?
Jody: Is your birthday 10-18-1983?
Me: Yeah, I think so. Why?
Jody: No reason. Hey, what’s your social security number?
Me: What? Why?
Jody: Don’t worry about it, what’s your social?
Me: Why do you need it?
Jody: I’m getting a loan for $50,000, and you’re cosigning.
Mysterious woman in background: Haha - Don’t tell her that
Me: No, really, why do you need it?
Jody: Personal reasons. I said don’t worry about it. I’m just going to give it to this lady and she’s going to give it right back to me.
Me: Huh?
Jody: Just give it to me.
Me: (confused) ::sigh:: OK, it’s xxx-xx-xxxx
Me: Does this have anything to do with money?
Jody: No.
Lady: Not until you die (I actually don’t if this is what she said, but I SWEAR that’s what it sounded like she said)
Jody: Ok, thank you. Bye.

:::click:::

So I ask you again, what can you get with my birthdate, social security number, and my address? Jody had asked me what my address was a few days ago, which I only assume is related to the phone call. There’s no other reason why he would need my address.

Want to know what I think?

He is obviously getting a life insurance policy on me, and in a few months he’s going to kill me. Don’t you think so?

Updates on Nothing July 21, 2008

I’m doing it again.

I’m ignoring my blog.

I don’t do it on purpose. I just don’t have anything interesting to say. There are no house updates yet. We have the land cleared, and it looks really good. The spot is in a thick wooded area in the back of the field, and is really private. You can’t even see the driveway from the road, which at this point is big enough to fit the house through. Hopefully no one will even know that we are back there. The house mover guy hasn’t given us a date yet, so we’re just waiting for him.

I’m still working on creating stuff to sell. The item that I originally planned to sell didn’t work out as great as I had hoped. I managed to make a few of them, but I had some issues with the materials I bought online, so the 20 or so I planned to make ended up being closer to 10. But I’ve made other things and my plan is to have items listed on Etsy no later than August 1st. I’m still not sure if anything will actually sell, but if not, I will have lots of Christmas gifts already taken care of

Let’s see…anything else happening?

Oh, I finally received my economic stimulus check - all $600 of it. I was worried I might not get $600 because both my mother and her husband received $300 each when they thought they were getting $600 each. $500 of mine went to buy materials for the foundation of the house. $100 went in my pocket.

I expected Jody to receive his at the same time as I did, but it never came. Turns out, his taxes for this year haven’t been filed yet.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

I thought his mother had already filed them. I swear, they do this every freakin’ year. She starts preparing in January, I give her all of his information way in advance, and somehow his taxes never get filed on time. She doesn’t even do them - all she has to do is drop off the paperwork at the CPA’s office, and they do all the work. So I have no idea what is taking so long. Nor do I care. It doesn’t affect me, my taxes were sent in February.

Humble Abode July 8, 2008

This is it! This is Jody’s house. Almost. The deal is not finalized yet. But if everything goes as planned, this house will be relocated to the field, and we will make it pretty again.

And trust me, it needs a lot of work. Don’t believe me?

This is the hallway leading from the front door. All of the rooms look similar to this - carpet destroyed, debris everywhere. If you can see the door in the back of the hallway, there are holes in it. This is how the walls look in the rooms. In fact, the hallway may be the least damaged part of the house.

This is the kitchen, in the back of the house. And, yes, the wheelbarrow comes with the house. Score!!! ::high five::

Jody and I have already figured out that we have very different views about what needs to happen to the house. He wants to make very few changes, structurally, whereas I want to almost double the size of the house. I’m thinking about my future child(ren), and how big of a house I will need to get away from them when they are teenagers. And there are only two small bedrooms, and one tiny bathroom now, which I do not intent to share with 2, possibly 3 other people. We have the opportunity to customize a home, why would I not use this opportunity to make sure that I am comfortable for the rest of my life? The only thing that we have agreed on is the roof - it will be red tin.

This is the layout of the house now. The image is terrible, but it was all I could find on the county’s website. The black lines in the interior of the house were added by me to show where the rooms are, and the green areas are screened porches.

This is what I want to do:

And I didn’t include it in the illustration, but the porch will be extended to meet the edge of the additions. I’m not asking too much, am I? Oh, and apparently the attic is HUGE (I haven’t been up there to verify this claim), and will become even bigger if/when the additions that I want are added, so, if possible, I demanded we have decided to close in the attic and that will be my huge crafting area.

Dog House, Part 2 June 30, 2008

The dog house is finished!

Dog house:

My house:

Do you see a resemblance? We painted the dog house to look like a mini version of my house. I plan to add the number 112 1/2 to the dog house (my address is 112). But I still have no idea what to do with it. The bottom (the floor) of the dog house comes out, and it would look really cool if I had some flowers growing up from underneath and out the door, but I don’t think flowers will grow too well under it because they would get zero sun. If you guys have any ideas, I’m listening…

Now, to continue the tale of the house. The other house I mentioned in my last post - the one we plan to live in one day.

Some guy bought a bunch of land, and on that land was old house, built in 1914, we think. This guy just wants the land, and he was planning to have the fire department come out to burn down the old house, until Jody heard about it and called the guy. By the end of the phone call, Jody had a house on the condition that he move it.

Conveniently, Jody’s dad happens to own a bunch of land, including a field where Jody has always imagined having his dream home. And he’s a nice man, so he let Jody have a piece of land in the back of the field. All we have to do is move the house from Point A to Point B. Easier said than done.

For a while I did not think this would ever happen. In fact, I was already working on Plan B, which was a new construction in the field. There were too many problems with moving a house, the most expensive being the fact that there are lots of power lines (30+ in the path), and people use those lines so we can’t exactly tear them down, and obviously we can’t go through them. They can be temporarily moved up a few feet, and that ONLY costs about $12,000. The cheaper alternative is to cut off the roof. Yeah, cut off the roof. I don’t know how that is going to work out, but Jody seems to know what he is doing so I’m letting him handle this.

So now, we have a plan. I think someone is out in the field today clearing out a spot for the house. And the mover guy (who is a mere 18 years old, by the way!) needs 5 weeks to get permits, etc, so the house should be ready to be moved by the end of July. Of course, I plan to document the entire thing. I’ve already let my boss know that I may have to take a day off to take pictures of our house driving down the street

I think the fact that we are moving a house is the most exciting part for me. How many people can say they have moved a house before? So cool! Of course, we won’t be able to move in for a while. Structurally, it is OK, but its not livable yet. Some crazy kids in a nearby neighborhood have literally knocked down walls inside, and broken almost all of the windows.

And it is small, so we will be adding on. A lot. And we’re doing it all ourselves. And because Jody is completely against getting a loan, it could take years. But Jody’s brother-in-law has restored two homes already, and he loves this type of stuff so he’s going to help us. And Jody’s dad as well. This really is a big toy for all of them. They are just as excited about it as we are.

Dog House June 27, 2008

In this post, I mentioned the following:

3 Projects I would like to get started
-Paint a dog house that Jody bought
-Clean out my closet
-Move a house (to be discussed in a later blog)

Let me go ahead and say I will probably never get around to cleaning out my closet. It’s been on my to do list since I bought the house a year and a half ago. So I won’t be discussing that today. Instead I will address the other two items.

First up, the dog house. Jody was driving through a neighborhood, and saw a perfectly good dog house sitting by the road (in really good shape, almost new), next to a person’s trashcan. This was on a Sunday night, and trash is picked up every Monday. Wouldn’t you assume that they intended to throw the dog house away? The correct answer is yes, you would assume that. So Jody rings the doorbell and asks if it is trash, and if he could take it off their hands.

Of course, they claim it is not trash, and they were planning to sell it on Craigslist for about $45 cough BS cough – sorry, I must have something in my throat — anyway, Jody loves to bargain and was able to talk them down to $15. After bragging to me about his bargaining skills, I say to him, in my best smart-ass voice: “You do realize we don’t have a need for a dog house, right?”

Lilly already has a home (our home) and his three labs would literally eat it. Really, I’ve seen them eat a couch before. They ATE, digested, and pooped out a whole couch. I’m not joking. So this dog house was not for them, or Lilly. He said he thought I would want to paint it and use it in the yard or something. So I now have a dog house to paint. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with it, but I’ll paint it.

Alicia mentioned that she would like a before and after of the dog house. I don’t have a before shot, because Jody was impatient and had to get the primer coat on the dog house immediately. And I didn’t tell him that I wanted to take a picture, so I’m partially to blame. But he’s mostly to blame. Although I want to point out that after 5 years, he should know that his girlfriend, who is a crafter and a blogger, will want to take ‘before’ pictures. So, basically, he is 100% at fault here.

But I did find a picture of it online:

It’s a tiny picture, but you get the idea.

Oh and I also don’t have any after pictures either, sorry. I haven’t finished painting it yet. But I only have trim work to do, so I should be able to show you the final results next week. Stay tuned!

The other project I mentioned was to move a house. Not move from my house into another - we are (hopefully) going to pick up a house and move it from point A to point B. Doesn’t that sound fun? And expensive? It is!

And you’ll have to wait to hear more about the house moving. This post is already long, and the house moving stuff will also be long, oh and I’m starving and need to find some food. And they’re trying to make me do work around here (they are always trying to boss me around).

More about berries… June 25, 2008

First up, Brookberrys - just so you know, I don’t even have the supplies yet to make the things I’m going to sell. My plan was to wait for my economic stimulus check, but I don’t even know when I’m going to get it. They are sent in an order based on the last two numbers of your social security number, and both mine and Jody’s ends with 9_, so we’re the last group to get them. On top of that, both of us have to wait for it to be mailed. I might go ahead an order everything next week. But I will definitely let you know once brookberrys.com and brookberrys.etsy.com are up.

The next berry on the list, blackberries! I have some growing behind my house. I could really care less, but Jody has had his eye on them, and decided to go berry picking last night. I made a slideshow, but WordPress sucks so you will have to click on the link below to view it (opens a new window):

Berry Slideshow

And because I thought they were cute, I’m throwing in some random pictures that were on my camera:

Jody continues to take pictures of Lilly and I sleeping, or like in this picture, when we are waking up and trying to adjust to the light. Please excuse Lilly, who is exposing her lady parts to everyone. She insists on sleeping in the nude. I just don’t know what to do with her.

Lilly had too much fun picking berries with her daddy last night, and had to get a bath afterwards.