Spray Painting and More

I forgot to mention something that happened last Sunday afternoon.  I continually try to find ways to trim my expenses to be a good steward with the income God has given me and one was to really look at the package I have from DishTV.  Some of you may remember the drama of just going from DirecTV to DishTV.  Well I moved down a package to save $10/month.  I did this while watching the NASCAR race on ESPN.  Within less than two minutes after hanging up I was no longer watching the NASCAR race on ESPN because that channel was no longer available - it said on my tv screen.  Wrong-o buck-o ESPN was still available with the package I downgraded to - so back to the phone I went - and after finally getting a human being again I got ESPN and the race back.  It was later during the week I realized the program guide channel was not jiving with the channels I should be receiving.  It went from Channel 111 to like 179.  Any channel I was to get between those two I had to actually press into my remote..........back to the phone I went.  Again it took a few moments to get a human - and unfortunately for this human English was not her first language so it took a few moments for me to understand what I needed to do to my remote to get the guide to reflect all my channels - but mission accomplished.

I'm still dealing with truly being happy.  I can be happy for a short period of time but it's like it doesn't get below surface level.  I received an email for Joel Osteen's new book "Every Day A Friday" and decided to order it and got it late this week.  Joel's thought is how everyone is happy on Friday (TGIF and all that) and how we can (and should) have that feeling every day.

This week I had my handyguy, Jon, do something in the backyard that will make Dad jump up and down with joy.  I had Jon clean out the space behind my fence next to my neighbor's garage who lives to the south.  I had used that area as the dumping ground for large and small branches and Dad finally told me this summer that this area should probably be cleaned out because it would be a really nice place for snakes to live.  Just what I need a "nice place for snakes to live".  I'm trying to get rid of "nice places" like that.  So Jon cleaned it all out (five lawn bags of stuff), put fabric down and then a layer of river rock - check out the picture below.  Oh ya - Jon only found three snakes back there to kill.  His bill mentioned three more in the back yard so I thought he had killed six snakes total but when I talked to him it was only those three which is three too many.  And weeds aren't suppose to (key word "suppose") to grow through lawn fabric but unfortunately they tend to, so I will periodically check this area out to see if I need to spray weed killer in there.

Today I finally got around to spray painting the pale yellow Adirondack chair I bought earlier this year that sits on my enclosed front porch - I wanted it a bright, vibrant yellow to go with the other bright, vibrant colors on the porch.  I learned a very important lesson about spray painting today - don't take the little dealie out of the front of the nozzle that you press down on for the paint to come out of.  When you do that - thinking the little plastic dealie is a stopper that needs to be pulled out - you mess up the sprayer on the can.  I start to press on the nozzle and paint dribbles out, runs all over and makes a huge mess - including some fingers on my right hand.  Lovely.  I do the best I can do and am not happy with the outcome.  I'll return to the chair in a minute.

My neighbors to the north got a puppy a couple of weeks ago and today after running errands was the first chance I had to go over and meet Arrow.  Talk about energy!  She is three months old and part lab/part Boston Terrier I think they said.  They tie her out in their backyard different times during the day.  So while I'm dealing with the horrid spray paint I hear something rustling off to my left/north.  I look over and there is Arrow, still hooked to her tie out but she's some how crawled under my fence :)  I walk over to her and debate how I'm going to get her back over the fence when Mom comes out and says, "Arrow where are you?".  I replied, "She's over here".  I unhooked her from the tie out and carried the squiggly little thing back to Mom next door.

I go back to the chair and am not happy with the drops of paint and streaks of paint in places so get an old towel and try to wipe those areas - can I make this any worse?  Luckily I had two cans of bright yellow spray paint and something told me to NOT take the plastic dealie out of the nozzle so when I pressed down on the nozzle, paint came out like it should.  And the second can seemed to cover the areas I wiped with the towel pretty good.  Check out the pictures below.

Lastly when I was walking in to HyVee to buy my groceries today I briefly looked at the pumpkins they had for sale and found THE pumpkin Casey would pick.  I don't think there was any spot on the pumpkin that wasn't lumpy or bumpy and I knew Casey would pick it out of all the pumpkins..........

See how nice the chair looks now that it's bright and vibrant yellow instead of pale yellow :)  It goes so much better with the colors on the porch.  I've got the chair sitting on a cloth to make sure the paint is dry on the legs.