"There's no way around grief and loss: you can doge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left." -Johnny Cash

In my last post I was so excited to be writing about how much fun I had at the Becker Family Reunion and how lucky I was that all my aunts and uncles were still alive on the Becker side. I am so very sad that I can no longer say that. My Uncle Kenny at the age of 76 died on Friday.

I am very happy to say that I am lucky to have had such a great uncle and that I have so very many good memories of him and going to his farm as a child. What fun we use to have in the barn and running around with the ducks and chickens and just being kids getting into trouble. I was also very lucky that I got to see him last Sunday at the reunion and gave him a hug hello and chat with him. When a few of us cousins started to plan the reunion one of our biggest reasons we wanted to have it was that the aunts and uncles were all in there 70's now and how lucky we were to still have them around and we wanted to get together with them again at a happy time. I have never  felt so thankful that we pushed on with the reunion even when some did not want to have it. I have been blessed to have such a wonderful extended family and blessed that I have always felt loved by everyone of them.

I am so sad to say goodbye but also feeling very lucky that I got to know and love such a wonderful man. 

On Monday and Tuesday we will say goodbye to Uncle Kenny. He was a good man and will be missed by his wife of 55 years, his children , grandchildren, great-grandchildren, sisters and brothers and many many other friends and relatives. He will be missed greatly by my Dad who is not only loosing a brother but his best friend.


Give someone a hug today.....
Sharon 

"Family is not an important thing. It's everything." - Michael J. Fox

The final touch to our front door is done. This is the whole reason I wanted to paint the door. I love it! I found it on Etsy and you can get one and lots of other vinyls for yourself here  

A couple of months ago Rick got this sewing machine for me. It was a perfect addition to my sewing room.

I know these are random things but I thought I would start my blog out with them just because I like them! 



On Sunday we had the Becker Family Reunion for the first time in 18 years. I was really happy with the amount of, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Second Cousins and even Third Cousins that made an effort to come spend the day together.  It was great to be able to see everyone and visit with them. The weather was perfect and the food was great. I think everyone had a great time. Time goes by so fast and before you know it 18 years has gone by. I am so lucky that all my Aunts and Uncles are still alive on the Becker side and I am glad that I got to spend an afternoon with them. It was also great to reconnect with all the cousins and actually get to visit with them. Below is a few pictures from the day.


                                                This is Aunts and Uncles

                              The Aunts and Uncles and the spouses

                                                              The first cousins

                                                            The second cousins

The third cousins-we never thought we would get all the kids to sit for a picture. It was pretty funny trying to get them all together and smile at the same time as you can see.

Enjoy your day, and remember to hug your family and tell them you love them!

Later Sharon

Upcycling part two.....

So we are getting closer to getting done with the entryway remodel. As promised I have pictures of my upcycled screen door. The above picture is of the door when I got it. I had already removed the old screen and just cleaned it off. It had about 20 years of dirt and dust on it.

I decided that I wanted it to look old to go with our barn wood wall so I used Weathered Crackle Glaze to get the look. I was pretty nervous about using it because I wanted it to look good. I did the back side first since I figured no one would ever see it. Since it was already painted I got to skip that step and move onto applying the crackle glaze. I let it dry for 2 hours and then painted it with flat white paint and the crackling began. I love the way it turned out!

Next Rick took it to Waseca Glass and had them put a full length mirror on the back of it. Lastly Rick installed it in the house. We replaced the bi-fold closet doors in the coat closet in the entryway. I think it looks perfect with the wall. 

Now onto the steps This is a picture of the steps and railing that we took out. When we moved in we were not sure what we wanted to do with the steps so we just put some left over carpet from the living room on them. I have hated the railing since we moved in so I was happy to see it go.

Well we found out that picking out a new railing and post was no fun. The post and spindles are not cheap! After going from store to store and back again we finally decided what to do. We did not buy the pre-made stairway post. Instead we just bought fence post and cut them to size and then I varnished them. It was a much cheaper way to go and they look great. We decided to go with the iron spindles. They had a $3.00 rebate on each of them so that saved us a lot of money. We need 23 of them to meet stairway regulations. We still have not decided what we are going to do with the floor where we removed the planter on the top of the steps. The picture below is when the railing is pretty much done. It is so much more open then the old wood railing and stone planter that was there before.  

And now to the steps. We decided to do pine for the stair treads and use barn wood for the toe kicks. I again just varnished the pine. I love the look of the light pine against the dark barn wood. 

                                       Here is a couple more pictures of the done look

We don't have very good lighting in the house for pictures so I took one with the flash and one without so you can see all the colors in the wood.

Lastly I wanted to paint the door. As you can see it was painted with brown paint that they had tried to do some type of antiquing on. It was not a very good look. Of course I could not decide what color I wanted so I got a ton of samples and then just started painting them on the door. After looking at them for two days I finally picked out some colors.

I went with red for the outside of the door. I have always wanted a red door and I think it looks good with brick on the front of the house.

For the inside of the door I went with a dark turquoise. I was going to go with a lighter turquoise but after looking at the sample that I had painted on the door I decided it was just too light for the rest of the look in the house. Rick also replaced the old trim around the door and on baseboards with barn wood.

So there you have it. This weekend the steps going down to the basement will get done and then the entryway will be complete. It was a lot of work but well worth it!

Later Sharon

A world without seedless watermelon....

When I was a kid watermelon had seeds in it. I remember those long ago summers when our mom's would cut open a watermelon and hand us all a slice and we would stand outside and eat it spitting all the seeds out on the ground and having contest to see who could spit there seeds the farthest. It was not a summer without having a watermelon.

Then in the 90's they introduced seedless watermelon to us consumers. My world was changed! No more spitting and digging out all those seeds. Now I could eat watermelon without a huge mess! It was pretty much the best invention of the century! 

I have been binging on watermelon all summer and was appalled the other day when by mistake I actually put a seeded watermelon in my shopping cart! It is a good thing I noticed it before I bought it. Who in there right mind would would to buy a watermelon with seeds in!

It is sad to think that my grandkids will probable never know the joy of having a watermelon spitting contest on those hot summer days with there cousins like I did......But not as sad as not having seedless watermelon...

Later Sharon

 

Upcycling.....

                                                           This is what we started with

                                               Taking all the wood off

                                             5 hours later we are getting there.....

                                            The wood after putting a thin layer of varnish on it

The stone planter as we were removing it from the house. We are upcycling the stone into a fire pit in the back yard. Hopefully I will have some pictures of the done fire pit before the snow falls :)

                                                  The wall all ready for the barn wood

                                          Getting there....

Another upcycling project. Rick got this door for me at a job he was working at for $15.00. I removed the screen and painted it white with crackle paint. I am having a mirror put on the back of it and then I am going to replace the by-fold closet doors in the entryway. You can see the closet doorway in the corner of the next picture. I will of course put pictures up when I have it all done.  

And here is the last picture that you are going to get....The wall almost done......

We have been busy! A friend told us that he was taking down an old shed/corn crib at his brothers farm that had barn wood on it. He asked if we wanted it and I jumped at the offer!

So on Saturday armed with hammers and crowbars Rick and I started our weekend (well maybe more the a weekend) project. I will gladly admit that I am not use to manual labor! It was so hard getting the wood off and doing it so that we did not break the boards. Then after getting the boards off I had to pound all the nail out. My hands were so sore by the end of the day that I could hardly move them. I am weak! But it was so worth all the pain. It took us around 5 hours to get most of the wood off and loaded into the truck.

Sunday we got up early and went to Menards and picked up 2 gallons of varnish. We decided the put a light coat of varnish on the wood to seal it up so the paint does not chip off and to keep the slivers in. We did not want to sand it or plane it off because then we would lose all the beautiful red and white colors in the boards. We had hoped to get some of the wood on the wall but by the time we got all the wood stained and started to prep the room we ran out of time.

Good thing Monday was a holiday and we both had it off. We decided to remove the stone planter that was at the top of the steps. I have hated it since we moved into the house. We were happy that it come out pretty easily. The cement pretty much fell off the stones so we decided to upcycle them too. I hauled them all the the back yard to be use for a fire pit. It should look much better then the old tire rim we are using now.

After a lot of figuring out Rick got the closet framed out and was finally able to start getting the wood on the wall. While he was doing that I started working on the new closet door. It was a little stressful putting on the crackle paint. You really have to be very careful about putting on the paint. I am so happy to say that it turned out great! I just have to put on a clear top coat to seal it up and then I can take it to Waseca Glass to have a mirror put on it.

Rick got the whole wall done! It looks so good, the pictures do not do it justest.  I am going to make you all wait to see it until we have everything done. We are taking the carpet off the steps and putting wood ones in and replacing the handrail with a more rustic one. I am also going to paint the front door. Hopefully this coming weekend we get get most of the work done.

Later Sharon