Mr. Kitty Boy

Pretty often, I am prompted to send a picture of her cat.

After he realized she was mostly not here, he began trying out different places to hang out for the day.  

This cat is an in all day out all night sort of guy.

Except tonight. 

He doesn't get to go out blackcatting around on 31 October.

Tonight I will forget to let him out.

random stuff

Hurricane Michael has come in barreling through Port Saint Joe, where CC has done volunteer work for several summers. We sent and received almost simultaneous texts yesterday hoping "her kids" are okay. Those kids are almost entirely without resources, most of them tended by one grandparent who would most likely be unable to evacuate. The young and poor are very vulnerable. Hoping to hear something today.

That is a picture I snapped of our banana tree. We started out with one two gallon container holding not much more than a single stalk with a couple of raggedy leafs and a promise. Here, just a year after buying the plant, we have three separate containers of palms and a bit of overcrowding in the biggest pot, home to several vibrant stalks sporting leaves that reach up over my head for the sun. it's been practically tropical in our yard this summer because of the rain. The plants that were planted earlier this year look great. 

Because of the rain I have been working mostly inside the house. Here are pictures of where I'm at on the "landing pad". It looks a lot better. I decided to go with the matte/high gloss tone on tone stripes after all. My daughter, II, helped me realize that my favorite stencil, while perfect for me, is rather taste specific. Once the actually measuring and figuring for stripe placement began I was so glad that I didn't have to match the edges of a stencil especially in the corners! So - before and after, but not finished, painting complete, but I still have the lights and mirror yet to do.

 Here is "before". The door frame looking isn't really blue, that's lighting.

 It still sort of amazes me that the entire house, walls and ceilings, was painted this brown color - it was just so dark!

Already lighter but still needing another coat of white to cover that brown.

Taped off for the stripe pattern. I'm not keeping those light fixtures, they came with the house and are a bit glitzy for me.

These two show the finished stripe. The high gloss white looks grey. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I did think it would be whiter. I like it a lot. Still have the cabinet to paint and I'd love to replace the vanity top, but that is not at the top of my "fix-it" list right now. I'm shopping for a 36" round mirror for that back wall.

We are going to make something like this for the two lighting fixtures in that room. I'll put a picture of what we "put together" on this post once I get them done. 

This is the exact stencil I want. Our house has a weird little room which is entered from the bedroom and serves as an "entry hall" to either the bathroom on the left or the closet on the right.  There is a built in dressing table straight ahead, with two dangling Barbie's Dreamhouse chandelier-ettes and a huge framed mirror.  I call it the landing pad. Initially we were planning to incorporate that space into a master bath remodel, but now that we have almost decided to sell this home in a couple of years, we know we wouldn't get our money's worth out of remodeling a perfectly okay bathroom.  So that space is kinda the perfect place for me to try out "accent paint".  In our last home I really enjoyed the tone on tone (matte and high gloss) 24" wide stripes in out foyer and down a hall.  Like, I loved the effect. It was very subtle and felt very clean.  My walls here are too janky (the finish) to accept a truly straight line. I've been looking at stencils for a couple of weeks now and I just can't find one I like better.  This stencil costs 66.95 plus probably both shipping and handling. That's a lot. I've seen a couple that would probably be alright  for twenty some odd less, but they are just alright. I'm going to continue searching for now. Why isn't there a site for purchasing "used" stencils? I mean, once you finish your project it's unlikely to be used again.  I might use that high gloss and matte monotone again, but for the landing pad I'm leaning towards just a little lighter grey on white than is pictured (with the perfect stencil).

It's rained a good bit here. So much, in fact, that I have realized a water fall measuring device would be fun in the yard. I can't really believe I don't already have one. 

I wonder if most people cut the ends of along with the tops when they're working with vegetables.