Galveston Day 3

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Today was beach day! We got up early to catch the ferry to Bolivar Peninsula. We got in line around 9:15. I had heard the wait could be long but I figured on a Thursday, not at a peak time, it wouldn’t be too bad. After waiting an hour we decided to back out and leave.

Unfortunately this was our view from the backup camera. We decided to just ride it out and about 15 minutes later we started loading. We actually did see a school of dolphins.

They were right where this picture was taken but those suckers are very fast swimmers. The weather had predicted overcast yesterday which was why it was history day and not beach day. It turned out to be sunny and today started out very overcast.

I had heard that the best place to look for shells was to make a right at Stingeree Rd. We didn’t want to go to Crystal Beach because we weren’t planning on staying on the peninsula for very long.

As you can see there was quite a bit of seaweed. Didn’t bother us though. I think the high tide brought a lot of it in because we had no problems walking along the shoreline.

We walked for quite a ways picking up any cool looking shell we saw. We wanted to head back to the ferry before it got too busy. We also had planned to visit some pocket beaches on the East side.

It was easy peasy coming back. There was only about a 10 minute wait. It was sprinkling so we just stayed in the car for the duration of the ride back to Galveston.

The first beach we wanted to go to was the one by the Tipsy Turtle.

It was a nice uncrowded beach. There were, however, a lot of man o’ war there.

The breeze and the weather turned out to be so nice so we walked both ways down the beach.

Our plan was to have lunch at the Tipsy Turtle, but I wanted to go see the hurricane statue that was on the seawall.

It’s such a poignant piece of art.

By this time it was getting late in the afternoon and we were starving. Instead of driving back to the Tipsy Turtle we decided to go to our favorite place.

Of course, The Spot. This time we chose to eat in the Tiki Hut. I ordered the shrimp diablo tacos and Donny got a burger. Both were so good! The drink of the day was a creamcicle margarita. Yes, I had two. That makes the grand total of drinks I had on the trip seven. I didn’t have anymore after that. They were quite delicious though.

We needed to get back to the Airbnb because we both needed showers. We wanted to go drive around and find the carved trees that are in the historic district. When Hurricane Ike hit the island in 2008, it destroyed a lot of trees. Instead of having them just be stumps, artists carved different statues out of them.

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This one was called Venus on the Half shell. We saw a few more but I didn’t take anymore pictures because they are in people’s yards . We also were awed by the gorgeous homes all over the island. Just beautiful.

The one on the left is called The Easter Cottage.

We really didn’t know where we wanted to have dinner on our last night here. Katie’s Seafood was recommended to us, but that was on the water, by the Strand, where all of the construction was. As we were driving through the Eastside Historic District we saw this.

It’s the oldest Mexican Food Restaurant in Texas established in 1916. We absolutely had to try this gem that was right in the middle of a neighborhood.

I got the cheese enchiladas, my normal order anytime we go to a Mexican restaurant. Donny got the fajitas. It was all wonderful and you just know the restaurant is truly good when their salsa kicks ass.

We actually closed them down being one of two tables left in the restaurant.

It was the perfect ending meal to our time here.

After our nightly walk on the seawall where we almost got run over by two undercover police cars who ran the red light as we were crossing, we returned to our humble abode.

Donny and I both love Galveston so much. He doesn’t really care for beaches, well, it’s actually the sand he doesn’t like. Here though you are surrounded by water but you don’t necessarily have to walk on the actual beach. We like it here so much that we were actually driving around seeing houses for sale and looking them up on Zillow. Maybe one day. Now we had to go in and start packing because we were heading out in the morning.

Galveston Day 2

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We woke up early to go to the Bryan Museum. The museum holds a portion of J.P. Bryan’s collection. It is housed in the rebuilt Galveston Children’s Home that used to be one of the orphanages on the island. If you didn’t know, Galveston was hit by a catastrophic hurricane in 1900 that demolished the island. Over 8,000 people were killed. It is the largest natural disaster to ever hit the United States. At the time there was no sea wall. Afterwards they built a 17 ft sea wall because the storm surge was 16.3 feet. If you ever get a chance to watch the movie/documentary Isaac’s Storm, I highly recommend it. I saw it several years ago and have always been fascinated by everything that went wrong on that day. There are also several good documentaries on YouTube about the storm.

We got to the museum at 9:45 not realizing that it didn’t open until 10. This gave us a chance to walk around the grounds.

There are so many monuments around the island that pay homage to the 1900 hurricane.

When we went inside to buy our tickets they asked us if we wanted to pay $5 each to see a documentary about the storm. Of course I said yes. So in we went.

Can we just marvel at this restroom for a minute?

The museum is 3 floors and is filled to the brim with artifacts from all over the world. I swear Mr. Bryan, who by the way is 86 and still collecting, is a modern day Indiana Jones. The artwork itself is incredible.

The top 3 on the right are by Andy Warhol.

This one was my favorite. It’s much darker in person. I love the way the lights just shine.

Donny was telling me that Mr. Bryan must have known Donald Sutherland because this was Donald’s house. Donny either did not have his glasses on or something because look at the description card.

We did get a good laugh at that.

I absolutely love Folk Art.

There were some amazing pieces.

There was just so much of so many different artifacts.

We thoroughly enjoyed our 2 hours spent here. Worth every penny, except for the documentary. I found it very strange that it didn’t mention St. Mary’s Asylum orphanage. Every single documentary I have watched always mentions it because the story is so heartbreaking. There was no warning of the hurricane for any of the residents. The nuns at the asylum noticed the water rapidly rising. The orphanage was right on the beach. They tied the children to themselves with clothes line. No one made it.

After the museum we were getting hungry. Definitely weren’t going back to Fish Tales. I had heard of a place called Mel’s Blue Plate. It was located in a Valero gas station. Oh lawdy, that was some of the best shrimp I’ve ever had.

It’s only open for breakfast and lunch and who cares if there’s no water view because the food is out of this world delicious. By the way, calories do not count on vacation.

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Literally inside a gas station.

I had wanted to see the Rosenberg Library. It’s the oldest, still operating, library in Texas. The building was finished June 22, 1904.

The 4th floor was remodeled to look exactly how it looked when it was opened.

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There was a whole section on the hurricane. They did a great job on that exhibit. You could push buttons and the narrator would talk about the pictures. There was a big screen that Donny pushed the button for and guess what was on it? The Great Storm. The exact same documentary that we had paid $5 to see at the museum. Donny just said, “we were bamboozled”. LOL

I had walked up to the 4th floor and Donny had taken the elevator. Because I’m deathly afraid of heights I decided to take the elevator back down so I wouldn’t have to look down all the way to the first floor as I was walking down the stairs. We stepped into the extremely small elevator car. The doors closed. Donny said, “This is a Westinghouse elevator which I don’t think they make anymore”. We pushed the button for the first floor. Nothing happened. We tried pushing other floors. Nothing. Donny said, “Push the door open button!”. I have never been out of an elevator so fast in my life. Needless to say I will take the heights over being stuck in a small box.

Next we decided to go to The Strand. It is the historic district with shops, art studios and restaurants. Donny and I both follow an artist named Mike O’Quinn. We love his work and love to watch his videos of how he makes each piece.

The woman who works there had just sold 20 something pieces to one person which is why there are so many spaces. I loved the smiley face on the far right. I don’t know why we didn’t buy one, but I’m thinking I’ll be getting a piece for Father’s day for Donny.

We went into the Witchery which I thought was really cool.

I hadn’t been to the Strand since I was about 13. It’s changed a lot.

The architecture is amazing. I love the fountains.

One of the other things on our list for today was to see the two churches that were raised after the hurricane. These were done without the modern tools that we have today. With each 1 inch raise the workers had to make sure that the buildings were completely level else they crack in the middle. I can’t even wrap my head around how painstakingly slow that must have been.

While crouching down to take this picture the wind blew me over right onto my butt. Slightly embarrassing, but extremely funny.

We were getting hungry again and decided to find a place to have happy hour. That is one thing about Galveston, it has some fabulous happy hours.

We were a little hesitant to try The Spot. It’s several venues in one and looked a little like a tourist trap. Boy were we wrong. It’s privately owned and is fantastic. It became our favorite place to hang out. We decided on the 21 and over Rum Room.

We ordered fried pickles and diablo shrimp. Both were amazing. The servers were so incredibly nice. The drink prices were so cheap. I had two Pina Coladas which makes 5 if you are keeping track. We chatted with a server that grew up in my hometown so that was fun. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon here.

I will say that having rich alcoholic drinks in a body not used to either creates quite the “I’ve swallowed a bowling ball” effect. We went back to our Airbnb so I could take a nap. Unfortunately while I slept, Donny was stuck inside because he didn’t know the codes to the doors and couldn’t get back in if he would have left. Luckily I didn’t take a super long nap and I was ready for our nightly walk on the sea wall when I woke up.

Did I mention just how perfect the weather was?

Galveston Day 1

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Donny and I actually got an early start. We were on the road at 9:30. We knew that we couldn’t check into our Airbnb until 4, but we wanted to do a little sightseeing and arrive early enough to be able to do it.

The drive wasn’t bad at all. It took us about 4 1/2 hours. We could smell the salty air as soon as we got on the island.

We were ready for lunch and I thought that the Lucky Lounge did taco Tuesdays. They didn’t really have food, but we had some drinks. I had the first of a few Pina coladas that I sipped on throughout our trip.

Such a cool place and the bartender was so nice and was giving us recommendations of places we should check out. We definitely needed food. I had read about the Fish Taco Company. It’s off the beaten path but the reviews were so good I wanted to give it a shot.

The tacos were SO good. Donny and I both got the Captain Johnny Shrimp Taco. I don’t how it was made, but it was delicious. I really wanted to try to eat here again, but we just ran out of time.

Their logo is so cute.

When we were getting in the car to go check into the Airbnb, Donny said, “there’s your house”. It was the cutest house that was quirky and colorful and suited my tastes to a tee.

The location of our little apartment was perfect. We dropped our luggage off and decided to go walk around and see what there was around us.

This was a 5D theatre that wasn’t open. (since we were here mid week there were some things that only opened on the weekends) I googled it and the reviews were awful so I guess we weren’t missing much. We wandered into some Tshirt shops that were WAY overpriced. We saw the Beach Break shop and decided to check it out. The prices in this store were amazingly cheap compared to the others we had looked in. This store also had two sides and one side was a boutique-ish store. I really never get souvenirs. I don’t ever wear shirts of places we’ve been, it’s just not my style, but Donny found the cutest items for me and yes, I had to have them.

I absolutely love these pants!

and this purse is just the cutest thing.

We decided to walk down to Murdoch’s which is two souvenir shops with a big deck overlooking the waves in between.

It’s the building on stilts.

Another great place to get tshirts and whatnots because their prices are also really good. We grabbed a drink and sat in the rockers to enjoy the breeze.

If you’re counting, that’s my second Pina colada. 😉

We wanted to take a selfie and right as I pushed the camera button the wind almost blew my sunglasses off of my head.

Second try.

The place we were staying was a very short walk to Pleasure Pier. It’s not open during the week right now, but we weren’t planning on going there anyway. We did like the lights from the ferries wheel at night though.

We really didn’t have plans for dinner. We had made a quick trip to Walmart and picked up some snacks and drinks and by the time we decided we were hungry it was after 8. There was a mustang car show in town so we walked over to where they were staging it. It was mainly the souped up racing cars, not the vintage ones that we prefer. Since they were at Fish Tales that night and according to Donny the restaurant was “walkable” that’s where we decided to have a snacky dinner. I didn’t want anything really heavy because it was getting late and because we had an early day planned for tomorrow.

There is a reason that we do not like to eat at chain restaurants, especially anything under the Landry umbrella. The hostess who seated us looked like she hated her life. No smile. no talking just laid the menus on the table and walked away. Our server seemed even more miserable. He took our drink orders (3rd Pina colada for the count) and we only ordered 2 appetizers, crawfish eggrolls and dynamite shrimp. The view was gorgeous minus the loud engine revving from the mustangs and the racing up and down the seawall. There were actually cheers from the other customers when a cop pulled one over.

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We waited forever to get our order. Our server came over and told us that the bartender was overwhelmed and that was what was taking so long. Did he not realize we had a direct view to the bar and the bartender was in no way overwhelmed. Plus there were hardly any people in the restaurant. Since I was once a server it was obvious that he just forget to put in the order. Honesty is always the best policy and it’s much more believable. When he finally brought our drinks and food, he just plopped the two plates down with no appetizer plates at all. I had to get up and ask another server for two small plates. The food was so bad. The egg rolls were mushy and the dynamite shrimp was so over breaded and the shrimp inside were hard as erasers. We couldn’t even finish the food. All in all it was an awful experience. we were not going to let that dampen the trip. We were just hoping that we didn’t get sick from the food.

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Do not eat here!!!

We ended each night with a walk on the seawall. The weather was perfect.

And as a post note, I have meant to get these Galveston blogs out so much sooner, but I was the last person in our family to get the dreaded, evil, awful cold virus. It hit me full force late Friday night and I stayed in bed with a fever, body aches and more congestion than I can ever remember having, all day Saturday and Sunday. I got a steroid shot today and am finally feeling a little more myself.

Change Of Plans

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

For over a month we had an Airbnb booked for a two night trip to Granbury and Glen Rose. We also already had our tickets for Fossil Rim, the drive through safari. We were looking forward to staying on the lake, kayaking and doing some antique shopping. Just a nice little getaway in the middle of Donny’s vacation time.

We kept our eyes on the weather as the dates approached. It was not looking good at all. Stormy nasty weather was predicted on all 3 of the weather sites I use. Luckily, the Airbnb allowed us to cancel with a full refund. My daughter, who lives in the DFW area, can use our Fossil Rim tickets for her family. So that worked out well.

Our problem was where do we go. Every place that sounded fun was getting the same bad weather. Then I thought of a destination that I hadn’t been to in years, Galveston. Starting from scratch with the Airbnb s is daunting because I have to go through every minute description and read ALL of the reviews. I had decided that we needed an extra day because the drive was double of what the original trip was going to be and there is so much more to do in Galveston.

I found many, narrowed them down and went to Donny to have him look at them. Monday through Thursday is what I had added to my wishlist. I was so relieved to have that out of the way until Donny let me know that he had changed his vacation days to Tuesday through Saturday. This meant that my original list of airbnbs would not be accurate due to the different dates.

Two hours later I had whittled my list of 29 down to 5. Donny and I went through them and he and I both picked the same one.

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It’s so cute, cozy and right by the beach. It will fit our needs perfectly.

We leave tomorrow and I’ve been racing around trying to get everything off my list accomplished.

Is anyone else a list maker? I think I’m just a type A trip planner. I feel like it makes it so much easier once we get there to know we have everything that we need. I also make a packing list that I take with me so that I don’t forget anything.

And with all of my planning, Donny will just throw some clothes in a backpack and he’ll be done.

I honestly cannot wait to get away even if it’s only for a few days. Kids are in charge of the house. Let’s pray that my garden and chickens survive.

Speaking of bird, we have had martins build there nest in the soffet aria of our house since we have lived here. Every year a baby will fall out of the hole. Martins only have 1-2 babies and last year they only had one. It fell out of the hole twice and we put it back in. The parents scream at us until we come out and find it. It didn’t make it and the parents mourned that baby. I can’t have that happen again so I made a baby bird catcher.

No baby bird is going to die on my watch again.

Avalon Faire

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I feel like it always rains on Easter weekend. I know it did every single time when we lived in Baton Rouge. Saturday was a bit unnerving.

Even though the tornado sirens were going off for what seemed like forever, we luckily did not see one near us. The wind was crazy and the rain was blowing sideways.

Because Avalon Faire is always in April and only open on the weekends, Easter Sunday is the only time that Donny can go. I gave the kids their Easter basket along with Olivia and Gavin and Donny and I headed out. Because we did go early the crowds were not bad at all. Surprisingly it wasn’t even muddy.

We didn’t go last year and they had made quite a few changes for the better.

There are more bridges and wooden walkways. There seems to be more food options. Donny got a beef sandwich and then we both got sausages on a stick that were really good.

My favorite shop used to be the Marrakesh Market because they used to have a whole wall of pottery. It’s still there, but it’s more in line with costumes and baskets. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to get a mug. We did see a tent where there were mugs, but there wasn’t really anything that I loved enough to pay the price they were asking.

We watched a skit that was funny.

We always get a bottle of Mead. This year we our choice was Apple Pieser that tasted just like apple pie. Donny Found a tumbler/koozie that this man makes out of leather. He had so many cool pieces to choose from. The lids are interchangeable so it will be pretty handy.

We had made our way around the faire twice and I really didn’t see anything that caught my eye until Donny saw this shop that had leather purses and pouches. The sweet older couple that makes everything were so incredibly nice. I found the perfect crossbody bag that I later found out is called a Viking Druid pouch. I love that it holds everything that my other purse did.

We saw part of the jousting, but I was more interested in just how close we could get the these birds that they use in another show.

Sometimes the pond isn’t as full as it was on Easter, but thanks to the rain it was to the brim.

The whole faire is just so pretty and the weather was amazing. We even wore long sleeves and didn’t sweat a drop.

When we got home the kids were flying their kites in the backyard.

What a glorious day it was.

Progress

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

It seems lately I’ve only been posting about our garden, but truthfully, that’s what we’ve been working on the most. We’ve gotten some decent rain lately, like today it’s been raining all day, so the plants have really taken off.

The squash and radishes are getting so big. I had to use Google Lens to see what one of the plants was because there seemed to be several popping up and they didn’t look like the traditional weeds I see normally. Turns out it’s Morning Glory which can be very invasive, but if it’s grown on the perimeter where no other climbing plant is, is is a great pollinator.

The tomatoes, zinnias and basil are still doing well. Donny went in and pruned all of the sucker stems off of the tomatoes so that should help them grow taller.

We decided it was time to build the trellis for the tire cucumbers since they have gotten so much bigger.

We also added bamboo stick so the potted cucumbers will have something to adhere to.

The cats have started digging in the raised beds so, even though it’s not pretty, we put some of the reclaimed wood across until the plants get bigger because they don’t seem to dig where there are larger plants. There is a lot of unplanted areas in the purple beds because I still need to plant my seedlings and we needed a space to do that once they get to the stage where they can live in a larger bed.

How do we know that the warm weather is here to stay? We have a seasonal cat. Monkey stays inside as soon as it starts getting cold. When the weather starts warming up she will only go back outside once there is no chance of cold weather. Every. Single. Year.

And I don’t know if I have mentioned it on here, but I despised my watering can. It is supposed to sprinkle water out, but it sprinkled out of the top holes and poured out of the bottom ones. Drove me crazy!

I found a different one at Walmart and it’s works perfectly. Just the right amount of sprinkle that doesn’t drown my plants. It’s also in my favorite color.

I also wanted to add that I have NEVER been able to grow cilantro from seed. I now have two plants that are actually looking like cilantro finally.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Relax

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Yesterday when I went out to check on the garden I saw that cats had been digging up my potted cucumber sprouts and flower sprouts that were also in pots. The little rascals had not been digging in the front bed with the cucumbers because I saw the opening where they were getting in and I strategically placed some flower pots in front of the opening. I, however, did not know what to do about the pots that were in front of the enclosed garden until I remembered seeing some wood that a neighbor down the street had put on the curb for the bulk pickup.

This was the first load I picked up. The woman who lives in the house came out and told me to take as much as I wanted. It was stacked up like a Jenga game so it was a bit difficult to not knock down the whole pile that came up to my chin and was longer than my car. I think it was from a deck they removed.

I stacked some of the pieces under the pots to see how that would work to deter the cats.

I sent Donny these pictures and asked him if he thought I should go pick up some more because they would be a good barrier border around the chicken coop. We have had some problems with possums getting in. He was all in so I went for a second trip.

It was hard sweaty work to load and unload all of this wood, but luckily I decided that this was enough. There were screws in most of the boards. It took me a while to figure out it was the star bit that I needed. I worked on getting the screws out.

When I come outside to do some yard work, I always have a helper. She can hear me come outside and jumps over her fence to hang out with me.

I did catch her standing in the middle of one of my raised beds, so we are working on leaving the garden alone. When I go back inside she runs home and bounds back over her fence.

After all the hot back breaking work I decided to take a little rest in the backyard. When the shade hits the back part of our yard is feels so cool and breezy. I grabbed a blanket, cushion, cold drink and my book and headed out.

Can we just say it was a gorgeous gorgeous day?

O’malley likes it when I chill with him in the yard.

And a big thanks to our chickens who are finally laying again. We are pretty sure it’s because we have been adding the pepper flakes to their feed.

Party?

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Tomorrow Hannah turns 20. She came down with a horrible cold a couple of days ago, so she isn’t sure she is going to be up for her get together. She wanted to sit out by the fire pit, play corn hole and board games with her core group of friends. The way she feels right now would not be fun for her at all. But, things could change in 24 hours so that meant that I had to get the yard ready just in case.

While I was mowing I noticed that the mulch was piled up over my cucumber plants in the front bed. I thought Donny might have done it when he was watering. Nope, it was the cats. I dug them out, measured the length and width, and we headed to Dollar Tree to get some kind of barrier. I had seen some in Kilgore that I thought would work. Our Dollar Tree hardly ever has anything because it sells out so fast.

They had 11 left. I didn’t know if it would be enough. Donny said it would, plus they were all tangled up so I just scooped them all up.

He was right, it was exactly the right number that I needed. I didn’t even notice when I bought them that they have the same curly scroll that the big one has.

While I was waiting for Donny to get ready to go to work I decided to paint the sun on the front of the house gold. It was bronze and teal. I just didn’t like the way it looked. I think this is much better. I am planning on painting the black cord white.

While I was mowing the back I found this hot wheels bread truck from 2014. It’s missing a wheel and was full of dirt, but it’s so cute.

We have a pretty big backyard, but 2/3 of it is wonderful but that other 1/3 is so lumpy. I have no idea why. It makes it so hard to mow that side. Luckily the good side is the side where you walk in.

We are doing a bulk trash pick up because there was a huge pile of branches that had been sitting by the gate (you can see the big dead spot) for over a year. Not only are those on the curb, but the blue chair and some other trash we have will soon be added to the pile.

The fire pit needed some help so I used the hoe to get rid of the weeds. We have had a 50 pound bag of sand just sitting by the patio. It wasn’t going to get used. We got it for the chickens put its not grainy enough. It works great for around the fire pit.

The weather was so beautiful today that I just didn’t want to go inside. My cat O’malley is the chicken protector so we laid on the grass and just chilled with the chickens. I did try that thing where you fall to the ground and play dead to see what the animals will do. The only chicken that had any interest was Penelope, one of our oldest. All she did was cautiously walk up and peck my belly button.

I spend so much time in the front yard and hardly any time in the back. I think that’s going to change because in the afternoon there is so much shade from the trees it makes it so nice to be out there.

And just because, I made a lamp out of my solar lights. I didn’t know what to do with them once I hung up the electric ones. I think it gives off a nice little glow.

P.S.

Even if she is feeling better the party might not be here. Gavin is house sitting for his neighbor while they are on a cruise. They gave him permission to have a pool party which Hannah is more than agreeable to use for her birthday. I guess we will just wait and see.

Estate Sales + Catch Up

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On Thursdays Donny and I like to go to estate sales. Today he asked me if there were any that looked interesting. The two from our favorite company didn’t really look all that interesting. There was one about 30 minutes away in Gilmer. We decided to take a little drive and go to that one. The last 4 miles of the trip was a 1 1/2 lane road that had drop offs on both sides. It was beautiful though.

It was unfortunate that the sale itself was not very good. Everything was way overpriced. The company that held it was one we had never been to before and I don’t think we’ll ever go back to one of theirs again.

Last Thursday, however, there was a sale in my very favorite neighborhood in Longview. Nugget Hill is one of the oldest, if not oldest, neighborhoods with the most amazing houses.

This house was across the street from the home where the sale was. It’s always been one of our favorites. I looked it up online and even though it’s not for sale anymore realtor.com still has the photos up. The address is 814 Charlotte if you’re interested.

This was the house of the sale.

I cannot tell you the love I have for old houses. The house seemed like a maze and had some very cool items for sale. Since I have pretty much finished the inside of our home I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular and just actually came to see the house. I did find some flower pots outside in the garage area that I picked up for $2 a piece.

I also picked up this Himalayan salt tea light holder.

The rest of Donny’s time off last week was spent buying some plants, cleaning off the patio and working on the coop.

Planted some lavender and repotted my avocado tree whose pot was broken in the storm.

My little cilantro seedlings and some rosemary have new homes.

I used some of my propagated pothos to plant in the wall pots.

The bird feeder that I had in the garden area was not being used by the birds as they preferred their hanging feeder. I decided to turn it into a bee watering bowl instead.

Wiping down the patio was my baby. Pollen is heavy and the dirt that blew in with the storm was making everything a real mess.

This is what was covering EVERYTHING. It took several hours to get all of the fabric and rugs washed and pollen gunk cleaned off. I found the lemon sage castile soap at Drug Emporium. It got an excellent rating on Yuka and was 1/3 the price of Dr. Bronner’s. Plus the smell is so yummy.

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It was so worth all of the hard work.

We have a trunk on the patio that we picked up at an estate sale several years ago and had never really paid attention to what was inside.

We soaked everything in vinegar and cleaned them up.

I feel like I’ve been burning the candle at both ends so today after we got home I watched a lifetime(ish) movie, complete with a unbelievable plot and bad acting, and took a nice long nap complete with Milo and Baby Ruth.

A Wild Hair

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Outside StuffLeave a comment

Donny and I have been busting our butts in the garden and just outside in general. He went back to work today. Turns out the twang in my ankle didn’t miraculously heal overnight so my day started like this.

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There was one project that I had on my list that I really wanted to get done today. I had already painted one tire and planted my cucumber shoots in it, but since I seemed to have WAY over planted seeds and have about 21 tomato plants I needed another container to grow them in. That meant I needed to paint the other tire. Thankfully Donny had brought it into the front yard and had washed it down so it was ready to go with minimal walking for me.

I thought I wanted to paint it red, but once I had finished painting it I didn’t like it. It was just TOO red. I had a thought and mixed some of yellow and red together. I liked the outcome.

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It was a kind of flamingo orange and was much better than the red.

Ever since I painted our shutters I have not liked the color. Our door is a dark turquoise/teal color and the shutters were a baby/light blue. Every time we went into Home Depot I would gravitate toward the paint samples and bring home the ones I thought would work. Several years of doing this and I still couldn’t decided. After I saw the tire I knew the color I wanted. Not the flamingo pink because it was too “Miami vice” for me, but I had some of the brown exterior paint that I thought would darken the salmon color up to where I wanted it. I dumped the rest of the tire paint into an old coffee can, added yellow, red and a couple of dollops of brown.

I did not plan to paint my shutters, but once I mixed the paint I couldn’t wait to get started and get rid of that horrid blue.

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It is exactly what I had in my mind.

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Can we just take a moment to realize that the blue was in fact awful.

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The blue color clashed horribly with the front door. Now the colors work so well together.

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It was worth every painful step up and down the ladder. I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. I also didn’t have to buy any more paint because I just used what we had and was lucky that it was all exterior paint. And yes, I have no patience so when I have a project in mind I need to get it done then and there.