If I knew then what I know now

I wouldn't have accidentally deleted this post or may not have done the redo on the den paneling in our house. 

Ugh to both. 

I sat here in stunned silence when I realized I'd deleted the almost completed post. But sometimes, there's no going back when I've screwed it up. Ugh again. So, I walked away and took some time to reflect. That's not all true, but I did walk away.  

As I said in the deleted post, that's now this post, this reno of our den paneling was a hot mess. The process was terrible and there was dust on top of dust on top of more dust. As I sit here, I can hear the dust settling and it will just be a matter of hours until I see a layer of it on all things. I'm not quite to the point of thinking it was worth it. Yet. And I still have a small amount in the kitchen to do.

Update: Since I rewrote this earlier, the kitchen has been spackled, now it must be sanded. I can't even face it. That happens tomorrow. 

For now, here's the process from start to finish in the den. We still have more to do, but we are closer today than last weekend. Sing hallelujah and praise the Lord. 

I don't know what I was thinking with some of these colors. 

All of these borrowed testers were not good.

This striped effect never grew on me.

And sadly the floor can't be changed any time soon. 

Finally decided on this light gray for the color.

It's very pale, but that's what I wanted. 

Last Saturday the final push began to get the sanding completed.

It was a full day of working. 

Trying to shield as much as we could. 

The dusty pepper showed it worked a little. Trying to move this picture earlier is what caused me to accidentally delete my post. Jerk. 

After seeing the dusty pepper, more sheeting was put in place.

Caitlin came in to show her support.......not.

We could do the science experiments on the Declaration of Independence like in National Treasure. We just need lemons and the Declaration of Indy.

This is even with doors closed.

Addy couldn't sneak anywhere.

She hasn't been supportive of the house reno. It's very disturbing to her. 

You can see the pile of dust on the floor up against the wall.

John was covered. 

I wore a super cool shower cap to at least protect my hair, but made sure no pictures were taken.

Primer.

Final color.

This is how the process ended up going. Put joint compound into the grooves to level them with the wall. Then the joint compound shrunk into the grooves. Put more compound in the grooves. Sand the grooves. Paint the wall. Put more joint compound in the grooves. Paint primer on the wall, touch up with more spackle and then sand the touch ups, then the final two coats of paint. It felt like it would never end. Mrs. June always says, "You'll know how to do it when you're finished." 

But I vow to never do it again. It was the worst. 

And now I'm going to watch more Friday Night Lights. 

And dream that dust has forever been eradicated....

At least until tomorrow.

Don't anyone ever name a child Dusty.

I will not like it.

Back to Pennsylvania and McConnels Mill State Park...and the Amish!

The new harebrained scheme in the ongoing home improvements is trying to eliminate the look of paneling in our den. That process requires mudding the grooves, letting it dry and then sanding off the excess. Sanding inside the home is a nightmare. I can smell the dust, I can feel the dust, I can taste the dust. Everything we own has dust on it, and after I wipe it off, everything we own has dust on it. It's quite the mess. My wallet INSIDE my purse had dust on it. It's not good.

These are not normal looking walls. I'll be updating the progress, as soon as there is some. So far there's very little completed.  

It starts out looking like something weird crawled across the walls, if that thing had crawled through spackle. 

There's a lot going on here and you really can't tell that the grooves are filled. Multi paint colors have been tested. None of these are in the running anymore. 

Picked a paint color today. So glad about that. Picture an ice cube, or at least that's what the paint color says it is. Or ice rock, or rock ice, or something like that. FYI. No paint colors match their names. Don't call something true white and have it show up all gray on my walls. Just don't do it. They should all be called the color they are pretending to be. Like...blue, another blue, bluer, another bluer, really really dark blue. Not, ocean breeze....an ocean breeze has no color!

Caitlin and I met Emma at the paint store, we discussed colors and chose three to buy as testers and came home to test. Picked one, Caitlin and Olivia went back with me to buy it and as we were leaving with the paint Caitlin said, "I knew when I came with you we were gonna leave with the paint bought." And when I asked her how she knew she said, "Because I'm a closer Mom." I guess she is, cause I have a color. Picking a paint color is one of the worst jobs I'll ever have. 

Now that the improvement part of the post is out of the way, I'm going back to our trip up north and then move onto Corsicana and July 4th. 

Back to it.... 

Our trip to Pennsylvania was always to help clean out John's family's house after the death of his mother. Sandwiched in between that chore and the flood of memories, we tried to view as much of the lovely countryside as we could.

On one of our breaks we stuffed in a full day of McConnels Mill, searching for the Amish as well as Lake Eerie. All in all it was a 12 hour day of hurriedly driving from place to place.

Our first stop was McConnels Mill and the surrounding park. We'd been there once before a long time ago, and it was just as lovely as I remembered it. I love the red covered bridge, the trails and the rushing water. I could have stayed for hours just sitting and enjoying the day. Other people could not. Caitlin's not so much the nature lover as she is the hurry up and lets go somewhere else person. The beauty of the lovely Mill area was therefore lost on her. I'd point out something quite lovely and she was all like, "Let's keep it moving!" It was unsettling or highly annoying to say the least. 

I still managed to take plenty of photos in the 7 seconds we were there. And here's an MM story. John dropped us off and then had to turn around and go back up a hill to park. While he was stopped to let us all out, the back gate of the car was opened so someone could get something out. We then walked off and he left in the car. Well, when he turned around and passed back where we had stopped, he saw something in the road and decided to see what it was. It was Emma's UGG boot! One boot had fallen out of the car while we were stopped. It would have been a terrible loss for her. One UGG boot is just a reminder that you don't have two. But it was also a possible funny story about chipmunks using her boot as a home in the winter. Tough luck for the munk. 

Scroll down to see what we saw...

I love a covered bridge. 

It was a quiet day with few people there with us. 

My peeps taking in the surroundings.

Not gonna lie this color has been doctored a bit. 

They were mostly semi-cooperative about the picture taking. 

Trying to be artistic. 

Sissies make the best friends. Not cheesy at all. 

Brother barely made it into the photo. 

I have many photos of them in front of the bridge.

But I pared it down to just two.

Foot on rock. This is as close to nature as Caitlin even wants to get.

Then I saw Olivia in the background and tried the small thing versus the nearer thing again. I haven't accomplished it and it's very disturbing to me. 

These leaves look like a butterfly. 

There were ferns everywhere.

I love a fern.

There's a nice path to walk along the water. 

It's quite enchanting. 

A rolling stone gathers no moss. I don't know. It just came to me.

I culled many fern photos as well, but it was very difficult to do.

Goobers in the background. 

The one in the pink was all like, "Keep it moving people, nothing to see here. " But there was so much to see there!

Clearly Olivia and Owen didn't commit to the moment.

John caught sight of this tiny little mushroom. I have no idea how. 

Someone in orange wasn't cooperating. 

My peeps on a walk bridge. 

Group selfie.

I kept all these in because they amused me.

Owen's over it.

Caitlin looks all enthusiastic here when in fact...

This was her real attitude about nature.

These pictures...

Are a real and true depiction of her as portrayed in nature.

Caitlin is lying here. But Olivia, snapping away, could not be brought down by her sister's bad attitude about or lack of love for the outdoors.

Posed.

Emma is stunned and shocked because Caitlin had just gestured a finger in my direction. Emma after all had never seen that gesture before. Muahahahaha. I chose to eliminate the offending picture because this is a family blog. Another tidbit about the gesture, I hadn't seen it til last night when I was editing these photos! What a little pill, the girl in pink that is.

People were hurriedly trying to take pictures as we were rushed out of the park by someone.

Hemlock tree.

Inside the covered bridge.

On our way out, we had one last chance to see something we wanted to see.

Chipmunk sighting! It was close to almost not happening, but we saw one.

On our way to our next stop, we saw these lovely flowers that look like Phlox to me.

Our next stop was Volant Pennsylvania expecting to see the Amish. Only the Amish weren't there. What we did find were some small shops, but there were no Amish shops or shop owners. I was discouraged. Then, Caitlin got on her goggle machine and literally found Amish lane and BOOM! Amish pay dirt. OK, it wasn't really named Amish lane, but when we turned onto the road she found, it was Amish everything. 

I was happy as an Amish clam. 

We saw Amish buggies.

Amish barns.

Amish women plowing a field. Umm no.

Amish buggy crossing signs.

Another Amish barn.

And BAM! Amish lady driving a buggy while holding an Amish baby! 

I was excited to say the least.

Love the Amish fence and farm in the background.

I didn't take a picture of her front. I didn't want to be rude.

The road was very picturesque. 

Amish boys!

Day made times ten.

And there's the Amish part of our trip. Sigh... It went too fast. I could have ridden up and down that road until they called the police about the creeper riding up and down the road. BUT. The Amish supposedly don't have phones therefore I could have made tons of passes with no problem. 

I miss the Amish. But screw plowing fields with just a plow. Hello Amish people! Modern times and technology for the most part is AWESOME. Buy a tractor, take a load off. 

While I enjoyed SEEING the Amish, don't confuse that with wanting to BE Amish. Uh uh. I like tractors and air conditioning. Modern times has me at 100%. That will never change. 

I'm off now to start another post. Home improvement is continuing through the working on this post as well as others. It's taken me many days to finish this. 

Hope to be back soon, but my den is a nightmare. 

Oy vey.

If I listen very carefully, I can hear my pillow calling my name.

Call me pillow...I will answer.