Around the Homestead ~ Christmas Decorating, Oven Breakdowns, Crafts and Bookshelves!

Goodness it’s been a busy week here.  I’m glad to finally  have a little time to sit down and share!  It seems that every fall as winter approaches things just love to break down. (sigh)  Our “new” stove that we bought from a friend this past summer finally died for good.  We’ve had some trouble with the oven on and off, now it wont regulate at all.  It was less then a year old when we bought it and had hardly been used, since our friend bought it for an apartment he was renting out but then changed his mind.  After a bit of research it seems that Hotpoint ovens are prone to this problem.  Hubby has been talking to the repair shop we use and it could be one of three problems.  It could be the oven thermostat, or a computer part inside, or possibly a loose wire.  He’s going to have to rip it all apart and check the wires, then if that doesn’t fix the problem he’ll take both parts into the shop for them to check.  So it’s added to the list of things to fix.

Last weekend the weather was really nice!  Sat. we spent visiting with a dear friend on her birthday.  Then on Sunday the temp jumped up to 17C!!  It felt like spring outside.  I took advantage of that to clean off the front porch and wash down the front doors.  Our door on the deck had little painted hand prints all over it.  Hmmm  Then I started decorating a little bit.  I started with some garland around the door, then today I added some red bows.  I’m going to paint the edges of some pinecones white then wire them on to the garland as well.

This week I also became inspired to start cleaning out my sewing/craft room.  Oh my that is quite a job!  I have it about half done now.  I also found some nice warm corduroy material that I wanted to make skirts out of for the girls.  I brought that out and measured everyone then got to work.  I managed to finish all four in one afternoon.  Ok, so I added the elastic waists in the evening, but still getting them all done in one day is a record for me!  I love this fabric, but I thought it was BROWN when I bought it!  Looking at it at home it is a very dark purple.

I’ve been playing around with some crochet stitches and came up with a granny square snowflake.  Now I need to try and recreate it and write down what I did!

Another project I’ve been hoping to get done for some time, is to get more bookshelves in the house.  Hubby finally had time on Wednesday to help with that.  He put up two long book shelves on the wall above the piano.  Then he built a new hutch for my desk.  We decided to go with ruff wood to save money right now and just get it DONE.  With stacks of books and papers everywhere I just needed the shelves ASAP!  So I’m still working through stacks of books and trying to organize them.  I’ll share some photos of the new shelves soon, but the scary thing is I’m almost out of space already.   Hubby mentioned that maybe we should buy a library.  Yes that would work, but we might have to add on to it. LOL!

The down side to all of this building and moving things around is my back is hurting.  So I’m trying to do just a little at a time then rest it.  It’s hard though, because I really want to just get it all done!

What have you all been up to?

Kim Mills on Google+