I’d like to introduce the two furriest members of my family:

Kylea…my 13 year old Keeshond fur-baby.

..and Shia, my 7 month old Keeshond fur-baby.

  For those who have never heard of a Keeshond * correctly pronounced Kayz-hahn, but in the US it is improperly announced quiche-hound *, they are a Dutch breed. These dogs are often named the Smiling Dutchmen because they smile all the time, and their people and families call them Fuzzbutts…because they are, and do have them. They are fantastic dogs unlike any other breed I have ever seen. They are not *lawn ornament* dogs that one can get and stick in the back yard. They crave people and interaction. They are intelligent, mischievious and scary smart.

  I am a Keeshond person for life!

Katt *ReddKatt*

I am going NUTS!

We have 4 inches of snow on the ground, and are expecting from 4-12 inches more in the next 36 hours. It all depends on what way the two storms that are headed this way decide to move. So what am I doing? Am I outside prepping for the storm? Nope. Am I inside prepping for the storm? Nope.

I am at the computer drooling over flower seeds.

I am SO ready for Spring. I don’t mind winter at all, actually. I love the snow, which we generally get low amounts of here in Maryland. I even don’t mind the cold weather.  Except for what the nasty cold fronts are bringing in this year. We have had 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 17 degree days constantly these last 3 weeks, with perhaps 2 days in the 30s and 40s. WHEW. The Canadians can have their cold fronts BACK. Now. No, really RIGHT NOW. Its only 18 degrees outside at the moment. ACK!  HATE IT !

   I am craving sunlight in the worst way. I have no energy, even when I take my vitamins. I think I need a sun lamp..I wonder if I am one of those “SAD” people *seasonally affected disorder* who need to supplement their sun exposure during the winter. We haven’t had many sunny days, and I definitely notice that after we do have a nice sunny day, even when it is bitter cold, that I feel better the next day. Hmmm… coincidence???

  Anyway, back to plants. I so want to get my hands into some nice, moist smelling earth. I want to pull weeds. I want to plant plants and water them. I want to be able to go out in the fresh of the morning looking to see what new has bloomed.

  This year I have decided to start as many plants as possible from seed indoors. With the winter being so bitter cold, I have a feeling that the plants may be a bit late awakening this Spring. I want to have lots of annuals I have started from seed to have lots of color in the garden as early as possible.I also want to save money on plants! The best ways to combine these two things is to start seeds indoors, or winter sow as many seeds as possible. Never heard of winter sowing? Check this out on gardenweb to learn about it: http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/wtrsow/ . So far I have about a dozen 2 litre soda bottles saved, and as soon as there is a day that the wind chill isn’t below 20, or that the weather is in the/ high 30s, low 40s, I plan to get cracking with seeds of plants that need cold weather to germinate, and also with other seeds to see how well it works for me.In addition to that, I am going to use those grow light tubes, and a rack that a friend got me from his work * they were TOSSING this awesome lab rack that had never been used for anything but storage*. I have to figure out how to rig up the lights, but I plan on putting the whole assembly in my garage, cover it with plastic and VOILA! Mini greenhouse. I will heat up water and pour it into containers * gallon milk jugs and similar containers * and put those in the * greenhouse * to help raise the temperature. I also may buy an inexpensive * $10-15 * fan heater and plug that in on low and set that up to circulate warm air in my seed starter. This is the first year I will have done this, so I will be experimenting! If I am successful enough, I will not only have plants to share but to sell on the weekends at the end of my driveway. I figure if I sell enough plants, I will be able to pay for the materials for the seed greenhouse, and also supplementals for the garden. WOO HOO!

   In celebration of my planned success at starting seeds indoors, I bought some seeds from eBay. MAN are they pretty! I bought lemon grass seeds, which is a perennial tropical plant whose leaves are used in cooking, and it is also a great mosquito repellant. Tasty and smells SO good! I love to make curried chicken and use lemon grass. I would have some except I forgot to bring some of it inside.  The cold got the lemon grass early on, and now I have to pay to replace it. Other than the lemon grass & pineapple sage, I saved everything else from the garden that was a tender perennial.

  I also ordered seeds for a blue morning glory…..

And for a blue poppy….

And a balloon flower mixture…

And a gorgeous “Candystripe” perennial geranium….

  So what do you think? Good choices, hmm?  I just found out that Frank’s Nursery and Crafts is having their seed sale this week! Starts today. 50% off all seed packets…and they have a HUGE variety to pick from. I will be going over tonight, or first thing tomorrow. I want to find as many of the seeds I want as possible, so I don’t have to order through the mail. I can save both on the seeds, and the shipping that way. I hope to get a lot more perennials in this year, so that the annuals will just be nicely seated around the garden borders to provide additional color.

   Here’s hoping there is a week long warm spell in February, so I can get honest-to-goodness garden earth under my nails and ground into the knees of my jeans. Until then,   I may not be able to have my hands in the dirt, but like most gardeners at this time of year I can dream, plan and think about it.

Katt *ReddKatt*

Wooo lookie here! 2 posts in 2 days. This could get addictive! ;o)

 More about *house* stuff…

 Everyone has heard of Habitat For Humanity right? Well if not check their site out http://www.habitat.org. This is a not for profit group that specializes in building affordable homes> They give those a chance to own their own home who might otherwise never own their own homes. Former President Carter has lent his name, face, and back to this cause for many a year. Now THAT is the way to spend your retirement years!

  Anyway, HFH has stores around the country called Habitat Re-Stores. They are what you could call * thrift* stores that specialize in housing materials. Contractors, builders, and those who are remodeling will bring excess supplies, extra materials, old cabinets, stair rails, windows, tiles, paint, eletrical components…anything having to do with building, to the Re-Store. The items are then sold at a very reasonable cost to those who shop there, and the proceeds go towards HFH’s building efforts. The closest one to where we lives is about an hour away, so we went on a road trip this snowy day. Last night we had about 4 inches of snow, as did Lancaster County, where the Re-Store is located. Let me just say… I don’t care for how PA tends to their roads when it snows.  What is up with only plowing 1/3 of the visible roadway? Ah well, we made it up and back safely, and because of the snow on the ground all the lil ole peoples that like to slllowwwly truck up to Lancaster to see all the “Amish People”, stayed home and didn’t block the roads up in front of us as we traveled north.

  In addition to the dining room painting * which I didn’t get to finishing today  because of our road trip*, my next project is the kitchen. We have a nice big kitchen, but the cabinets need MAJOR a facelift and eventually I will have the whole thing redone and enlarged so as to add a mudroom on the back. Until then, the kitchen will have a European Country flair. Well, it will when I am done! Right now it just shouts * Old Farmhouse *. Not that that is a bad thing, mind you. But the pale yellow cabinets * gack * and the 1930′s-40′s melamine on the counters ….well let’s just say I won’t be sad to see it go!

  I am in the process of building and island for the kitchen. The kitchen doesn’t have much counter space to speak of because of the way it is structured. there are FIVE doors in the room: into the family room, into the dining room, into the breakfast room, into the cellar and the pantry door. Add to that a big picture window that faces almost due west, and the old window that faced out front that is now facing into the breakfast room and is full of shelves, it doesn’t leave much room for cabinets. That is why I want to enlarge the kitchen towards the back yard, put all new cabinets in, add a mudroom and turn the laundry room downstairs into a bathroom. THEN I will have the perfect kitchen! *G*

  Anyway, back to the Re-Store. I found terracotta tiles for the top of the island, for 25c each! 31 exactly, and I need 30, so I best be caarreffful with these babies.

  We also got a gallon of Ralph Lauren metallic gold paint, for $5! WOO HOO! That stuff would be $30 EASY at Home Depot. That will be PERFECT for detailing painted furnature and other projects. Can’t beat that!

  Then there were the facing bricks…

  Ok…who out there watches the deocrating shows? Ever seen how they take facing bricks and attach them to the wall, then make it look as if there is plaster breaking away to show the brick. Ok..ya with me so far? That is what we are going to do in the kitchen. We bought for of the above boxes for a total of $9. Those boxes are normally $9 EACH. Thanks, Re-Store!

 Last but not least, to feed my garden addiction, er, lust, er…love..ya..there’s a better word, I have been planning to start a plethora * that means a whole freaking lot * of seeds indoors starting next month. I am tired of paying near a fortune for perennials. We have a lot of room for gardens, and I am going to keep a-plantin’! That was one of the major pluses of this place. A bit over an acre of land with plenty of room to garden, and then there is still plenty of room for playing and yard for kids and dogs. Anyway, so that I can plant lots of flowers, without paying a fortune, I am going to set up a seed starting station.

While in the restore, we chanced across a HUGE pallet of 24″. 20 watt flourescent Agro-Lites for $2 each! I know these sell upwards of $10+ each. I bought 10. Now I just have to either find the right size flourescent fixtures for them * at a reasonable price*, or I will buy ballasts and make my own. Looking at the prices of the fixtures tonight, * make my own * may be where we wind up with that.

  I also bought one handle to * test run * it for my cabinets. It is EXACTLY what I want, but it is BIG and I wasn’t sure it would look right. HERE’S HOPIN’!This isn’t the exact handle, but it’s close. The one I bought is still in my van and it is WICKED cold out. I just don’t feel like going out and facing the 17 degree weather. The handle is like this one with the wrought iron basket on the handle. The handle is black iron.

  So that was the successful shopping trip of the day.

  Now all I need is energy in order to get everything done!

Katt **ReddKatt**

   Lesee..it’s been many months since I posted. I won’t bother backing up about what has been going on for the last ..5? months. I will just start with this week.

   Thanks to the encouragement of my loving hubby, we started painting the dining room. He really wanted the room red, and red is realllly purty but I just don’t think the color would flow with the rest of the colors that are going to be downstairs and in the house. So I suggested purple. Aubergine to be exact * eggplant to those who don’t know the language of looveee …French*. And a white ceiling just WON’T do of course!  Behr makes this awesome metallic paint that is sold at Home Depot. So I wanted to throw caution, and $20, to the wind and paint my ceiling gold. Yep. Metallic GOLD. And OH MY FRIENDS does it look NICE! It took a coat of primer, and two coats of gold, and my poor hubby had one wicked sore neck from painting it, but it is looking fiiinne.

  The walls. Ah the walls. Four HOURS to take off 2 wall borders. God bless the people who we bought our house from 2 years ago this past December. You see, our house is an old house, the oldest part which is dated to at least 1774. There is also a 100 year old portion, a 75 year old portion, a large garage which was built in the 1950s, a porch that is probably from the same era * but they TORE OFF the wrap around porch AHHH *. The house was owned by the same family up until about 25 years ago or so, and when the prior owners bought it they did a TON of work on it. All we have to do is dress it up, put in some insulation, and paint. Almost everything is white, and white is SO dull! lol We wanted to live with the house a while before we painted. Well its been two years and now we are painting. We spent all of our time working on the gardens * which there weren’t any * and that has taken a LOT of time. They are looking REALLY nice.I will be sure to post pictures as things bloom….but I digress…

  The dining room is a beautiful room in the 200 + year old part of the house. Large, about 14 x 14, with a 3 window bay and one more window. There are wood floors and an enclosed fire place that I hope to one day open up and install a pellet stove or a wood burning stove * which I would prefer, but hubby wants a pellet stove ..we will cross that bridge if or when we get to it. Now back to the dining room walls..

  The people we bought our house from took 4 or 5 layers of wallpaper off the walls in the dining room, which uncovered the original horse hair plaster, which was/is in very good shape. They then painted the wall bottom green to chair rail height, and yellow above that with a border in between. The room was white when we moved in, with another border applied over the original PAINTED border * ARGH *. Thing is, the bottom border was applied directly to the horse hair plaster with NO sizing. NO primer * or the wrong or cheap primer *. GADS. It took me four hours, using a clothing steamer * thank you LORD I bought that last year! * to get the border off. Man … someone remind me how nasty wallpaper is to remove if I EVER think of putting it up! Give me paint anyday. Oh one thing, when they removed all those layers of wallpaper, the very bottom layer was handpainted wallpaper dated 1774. Nice eh? Gives us a base date on the house, because the original deed was filed in 1800. It wasn’t filed before then because there was no place to file a deed in the county. I still need to go to the Historical Society and find out all I can about the house.

  So we then painted the room with a primer that was tinted close to the base color of the walls. I have two darker shades from the color strip which I am going to mix with a water/glaze mix and either do a ragged,  plastic bag or color wash technique. I am going to do some tests on the wall soon and see what looks best. I can’t WAIT! Then I can paint the ceiling fan flat black with gold accents, hang my curtain rods, make my curtains, and hang my Pier One mirror. Eventually I will refinish my side board. That will be a summer project though.  I am so excited.

   I  think I need to get out more.

    So this weekend is part two of the dining room painting. I will post pics as we get more done. Mike took before pics and some in progress pics, but I have no idea where he put my digital Nikon.

Kattt*ReddKatt*

OK..ya its been ages since I posted. WOW. Ok..I am bad. I need to
get on the ball and post occasionally.  No excuse will suffice.

But for the moment, I am going to try and test something for a friend. Lets see if I can get some emoticons to work!

Katt