Fall Decor and a Birthday Boy

I got all of my fall decorations up this week. Although I am a reluctant celebrator of Fall, I always like the way they look. 

I made this wreath by wiring garland on a wire wreath form. It was a real pain and I'm glad it's done. 

I originally planned on putting 5 pumpkins on it but they didn't look right for some reason, so I settled for one little pumpkin! It's a little plain looking but I like the colors against the blue door. The more I look at it though the more I think it needs a few more pumpkins so I'll probably add them at some point. 

Here's the rest of the decorations. 

A few people in our park are going crazy with Halloween decorations. I thought this was clever. 

One of those giant skeletons with 3 spiders on leashes. Too cute! The house across the street from us is really going bonkers! I'll get some pictures and show you next time! 

In other news, our Levi turns 5 years old today! His party was Saturday and we had a lot of fun! We got him a child's video camera and he loves it! 

So fun celebrating this sweet and sassy little boy! 

That's it for me for now. See you the next time and thanks for stopping by! 

Plant Update

You may remember back in July I posted that I have decided to try to grow some houseplants. I already had a snake plant and a Thanksgiving cactus that I've had for a long time. 

The snake plant was way overgrown with the roots coming up above the soil and the plant going every which way. 

I cut all the roots apart and replanted it and it looked much better. 

 Here it is today. 

I looked on Google to see why the leaves aren't growing straight up and most of the websites said it's getting uneven light. It's by a window so I have to keep turning the plant every few days. Hopefully it straightens out. I may have to stake it. It's doing well though because there is new growth coming in. I just have to be careful not to water it too much. 

The next plant is this polka dot plant. 

It was nice and healthy when I got it. 

Then it started to get these long stems growing and they were getting flowers on them. This seems to me to be a particularly fussy plant! Supposedly it gets these long stems when it's not getting enough light, but if I put it directly in the window (still indirect sunlight) it wilts within a day or so. I cut all of the long stems off and put it back on the plant stand. It needs a lot of watering though. 

Here it is today. 

Not as healthy as it was when I first got it but I'm working on it! 

Then there is this star plant. 

It hasn't changed much since I got it. I think I was overwatering it because the outside leaves seemed to be rotting on the bottom. I cut them off and cut back on my watering. Also I moved a lot of the stones out of the pot. 

Here it is now. 

Then there is this crispy wave fern. 

And here it is today. 

I don't know about this one. No matter how much I water or don't water, move it to different types of light it just doesn't seem to be doing anything. I'll keep trying but may just give up on this one! 

The one plant I was worried about not being able to grow was the African Violet. Here is what it looked like when I got it. 

And here is what it looks like now!  

It's doing the best of all the plants! It's the easiest to care for in my opinion. I just keep water in the tray underneath it and it takes what it needs! 

I took a cutting from an Eternity plant and a hunk of a peace lily from the plants at work so I'm going to try to see if they will grow. 

In other news. I finally got my hair cut back to pre-pandemic days. 

 It's a little more work than just pulling it back into a clip but I like it. 

That's it for me for now. See you the next time and thanks for stopping by! 

Fall Craft

 A very long time ago I made a bunch of these little pedestals by gluing a small plate to a glass candle stick. 

I gave most of them away but kept this one for myself. I used it for holding jewelry on my dresser or once I even put candy on it for some family get together. Anyway, I saw a cute craft idea on Pinterest and thought I would finally get this out of the storage box it's been sitting in and try to make something similar. 

I got this fabric pumpkin at W@lmart,

And these silk flowers at the dollar store.

Then I painted the dish black. 

Added a little brown because I thought the black was too harsh. 

I cut down the stems of all the silk flowers and leaves and arranged them all around a piece of green styrofoam. 

Then I glued it on top of the pedestal and the pumpkin of top of that.

And there you have it!  

I think it came out pretty good and will make a nice centerpiece for our table whenever I decide to give in and decorate for Fall!  

In other news, the boys started school yesterday. 

Their teachers took these pictures and sent them to Shauna. 

It's going to be a great school year for them! 

That's all for now. See you the next time and thanks for stopping by! 

Wicked Weather and an Estate Sale

We had some wicked weather roll through these parts on Wednesday and Thursday. Severe thunderstorms and high winds. Wednesday night I laid awake watching the constant flashing and thunder for nearly 3 hours! Normally I find thunderstorms in the middle of the night soothing but this one was strange and long lasting. It was extremely humid out that day and night, so the atmosphere was very unstable!

Thursday night another thunderstorm rolled in but this time this alert came on my phone! 

My sister-in-law Debbie who watches the weather radar like a hawk sent me a message to take cover there is a tornado heading our way! Plus the warning sirens started going off! 

We have an inside closet in our house that I cleared out for shelter. It's not as good as a basement but at least it's away from windows.  However, if a tornado were to hit our house directly we would probably be goners!  

Thankfully a tornado did not come close to us, but Shauna lives in Canton and one went through the park about 3 miles from her house. They were all in the basement and the boys were scared but thankfully it turned out ok. 

They did have a lot of flooding, though! 

This is the street on the side of their house, the driveway and the sidewalk!

I heard later that there was 6 tornados that touched down in the Metro Detroit area! That's normally about what we get for the whole state for the whole year! 

We did lose our power though, for about 48 hours. Thankfully the weather had cooled a little so it wasn't too hot. It's sickening the amount of food I had to throw away though! 

Anyway, I did manage to get to one estate sale!

This house. It wasn't for sale but Zillow valued it at $598,000!

The best part of this house was the kitchen! 

The oak might have been outdated, but there was so much cabinet space! There was 6 big deep drawers and 2 semi big deep drawers, not to mention two pantry sized cabinets, two cabinets with glass doors and misc other cabinets and drawers! It was fantastic! I loved it! 

The whole house was full of antiques. This was an antique lovers dream sale!

I thought these oil lamps were interesting!

They were $750 each. 

There was this cuckoo clock. 

Priced at $125

There was a closet full of almost brand-new shoes and boots for $5 each. 

 I really loved these boots. Unfortunately, they weren't my size! 

Lots of yarn and cross stitch kits. 

$1 per skein. Most of them looked brand new. 

This is what I bought. 

This pretty silver garnet ring with 3 heart shaped stones and a couple little teeny tiny diamond chips on each side! 

I spent $10 on it and normally I don't like to spend that much money but I wanted it, so I did! 

That's about it for me for now. I have kind of been looking for another job but truthfully I'm pretty spoiled. I don't want to work with food, or kids, or animals, don't want to work too late at night or too much on the weekends. And I want at least $14 per hour! Is that too much to ask?

LOL! Well, when one door closes another opens so we'll see what comes along. 

I'm off to visit with you all because it's been too long! 

Thanks for stopping by and see you the next time! 

Random This and That

On my last post I got a few comments about the feral chickens my son feeds at his house in New Hampshire. People actually dump chickens in the area he lives in! Have you ever heard of such a thing?! Anyway, I'm not sure what he is going to do when the weather turns colder. Knowing my son though, if they are still around, he will definitely make something for them to shelter in. He won't just leave them to the elements. 

I got some bad news a few days ago. The CBD store I work at will be closing at the end of October.

The lease is set to end and the owners have decided not to renew it. It's just not a profitable enough business for them to continue. 

I completely understand. The economy has taken a toll on a lot of small businesses, but this means I am out of a job and have to find another one. It's not urgent but I do like to get out of the house and the extra spending money is nice! 

Something will come up but, in the meantime, it's thrown me into a little bit of depression. Ugh.

Anyway, on to happier things! The boys were over last week and we took them to the park. It was hot and sunny. 

Here they are with Rich taking in a little shade under the play equipment!

I did manage to get to one estate sale. It was in Novi which is an area I seldom go to but happened to be in the area. This is the house. 

It just sold for $356,000 which is pretty cheap for this area but it needed to be completely updated. 

I didn't get a lot of pictures of the inside. It was packed with people and one of the workers kept following me around trying to push merchandise off on me! At least she didn't ask me why I was taking pictures! 

Here's a few interesting things that were for sale. I thought this lamp was very cool. 

Tiffany style lamp with two small owls on the branch and a small bird on top which is kind of hard to see. They wanted $300 for it.  It was pretty dusty and dirty. I would love to see it cleaned up! 

And this.....

Sexy Native American picture for $20! Actually, there were several of these kind of pictures throughout the house. 

This lamp was pretty in a Victorian or bordello kind of way! 

 

I thought this drum set was pretty too! 

I think it's a Christmas decoration. 

This clock was cute for a laundry room. 

 

Oh look..

Another sext Native American picture. Actually, I thought they were beautiful! 

Here's what I bought. This CK black bag. For some reason the lighting makes it look dirty in this picture, but it wasn't. Actually, it's in brand new condition. 

And this pair of earrings. 

Total spent: $6

That's about it for now. Last night we were sitting on our deck watching the hummingbirds at our feeder and I managed to get a film of two of them landing on the feeder at the same time. Since blogger won't let me download a movie for some reason I managed to take this screenshot. 

It's the first time we've had two at the same time. We were pretty excited to see that! Sometimes it's just the little things that can brighten up your day a little!

See you the next time and thanks for stopping by!