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Haint Blue

As a Christmas present in 1985, my parents gave me an antique chest of drawers that has needed a facelift for at least two decades now. The date on the back is stamped 1926, and it is made of a dark hardwood. Some of the original knobs fell off, and one drawer needs to be repaired at the bottom. It’s a lovely piece, and the feet resemble the posts on my twin beds that I slept on as a child and that are now pushed together to form a King Size bed. Believe it or not, I still sleep in these beds today with my husband and our three schnoodles.

I couldn’t get rid of the beds. They came out of an old house on Sea Island Georgia, a smaller island off of St. Simons Island, where I lived as a child. The undersides are painted Haint Blue, a common practice on coastal islands in the southeastern United States, rooted in the belief that this color wards off evil spirits and ghosts. Sherwin Williams even has a paint color named Haint Blue. In addition to painting this color under beds, people also paint it onto porch ceilings as well. 

Example of a Haint Blue porch ceiling (not mine)

I’ve had paint sample colors, paint stripping paste, and all sorts of brushes and tools ready to give some of our furniture a new life for six months now, and I’m finally getting around to the actual work. That Christmas gift from 1985 was at the top of my list, even though my grandmother’s kitchen table started the big avalanche of projects.

This week, I’ve watched about a half dozen YouTube videos and talked with my furniture flipping daughter on how to use chalk paint and all the variations and ideas for using it. I started simple – – with a can of Greige (a Behr paint color cross between grey and beige) and some new black knobs for the chest of drawers. I learned that a quick sanding is all that is needed, and that chalk paint dries in about 30 minutes, allowing a few coats and a complete project finish in an afternoon except for the wax wait time to cure. I used a small furniture roller and got to work.

Before:

Chest of drawers with trial replacement knobs attached

After:

Finished, waiting for wax to dry and cure (applied in a circular motion, which will show for a week or two) between buffings

I’m lining the drawers with contact paper to give it a fresher look, and moving on to my next project – – a small end table that I use in my reading room for my coffee by my reading chair.

I’ve chosen Sparkling Sage for the table and will finish the top with a white wash.

Let’s get sanding. 

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Happy Birthday to My Husband

Here’s a great big Happy Birthday cheer for the love of my life. We share life, we share dreams, and we share challenges. I’m grateful that the good Lord sent him to be my husband. He’s a keeper, and I cherish him. 

We recently visited my brother and father in South Georgia for Christmas, and when we arrived, Ken was outside blowing off the back porch. It looked like the leaves and debris were headed clear down to Florida, as powerful as this blower was. 

My brother left shortly after we arrived for an appointment, and as soon as his car was out of the driveway, Briar picked up the blower and walked out along the path in the back yard to test it out. 

Briar’s blower might be able to blow out one candle on a birthday cake on a full charge, but Ken’s blower could peel twelve layers of pine pollen off a porch screen. Both blowers are battery operated, giving full range of an area without a cord to trip over.

It was one of those moments when I paid attention when I needed to. Rarely do I get a gift as right as I felt this one would be. And I realized even more that I’d nailed it when I’d had to stop by Home Depot and Lowe’s the weekend before his birthday so I could get chalk paint and wood stain for our kitchen table. While I was looking for just the right color wood finish, he said, “I’m going to be in the tools for a minute. I want to see if they have that blower like your brother had.” 

I did my best to give a quizzical look of confusion and vague memory.” Oh, yeah, that blue thing you were playing with out in the back yard?” 

There was already one of those blue things in the back of my car under a blanket even as he looked around for it, so close that I’d had to jump ahead of him with the buggy to load our bags of paint and be sure he couldn’t see his birthday gift awaiting him.

Happy birthday to the man who likes everything clean and always helps make sure it stays that way! 

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Flipping My Grandmother’s Kitchen Table

One of my daughters flips furniture and has garnered a social media following, sharing what she does in time lapsed videos as she breathes new life into pieces that need a fresh start. I’m always amazed by her before and after photos of the projects she envisions and creates. So when I finally worked up the courage to flip my grandmother’s kitchen table that I’ve had for many years but was scared to refinish for fear I’d mess it all up, I picked up the phone. 

My grandmother’s table (leaves in) with paint samples spread across the top, before refinishing

“What do I do?” I asked her. My (almost) sister-in-law had suggested chalk paint, and I loved the idea of a modern farmhouse look.

Ansley told me, and I set out to get the things I’d need: an orbital sander with 80 and 220 grit sanding pads, a 180 grit sanding sponge or paper, a can of Behr chalk paint in Farmhouse White, a good name brand chalk paint brush and wax brush, a tub of chalk paint wax and a lint-free rag, a quality 2-inch stain brush that wouldn’t shed bristles, a drop cloth or other floor covering, and a can of stain mixed with polyurethane in a satin finish. I chose a warm pecan color. 

I wore a mask and sanded the dark finish off the top with the 80 grit paper outdoors, then wiped it all down and lightly sanded the bottom with a 180 sanding sponge. Back indoors, I lined the floor with paper in case of spills (I’m so glad I did) and painted the bottom part of the table with 3 coats of chalk paint and the top with 3 coats of the pecan stain/poly mix, sanding with the 220 grit in between coats. Although I paid the price of bending down all weekend with a Monday morning backache, I completed the project in two days and now have a whole different kitchen table. 

My grandmother’s table refinished with my daughter’s vision in my kitchen (leaves are out for drying)

We normally don’t have the table situated with the leaves out, but in the picture above, they’re open for drying and the table is pulled apart into its different sections.  I’m letting the table dry for a couple of extra days since the leaves will fold in half and rest with tops touching once I roll them back inside the table and lock it shut.

I can hear my grandmother, Georgia Lee Haynes, cheering her granddaughter Ansley’s skills and choices from Heaven as I stand here in my rural Georgia kitchen between the two of them, one in Heaven and one in Kentucky. I’m the one holding a dripping paintbrush with a splotch of white paint in my hair, standing next to the table that will bridge generations from long ago to many years in the future. 

Pull up a chair and let’s have a cup of tea and play a game of dominoes – – and feel free to grab a paintbrush and stay awhile…..the chairs are next. 

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Body Aches

My arms and legs don’t want to go to work today. The rest of me is dressed and ready, and my mindset is already thinking about the day ahead. My lower back will clock in at some point once I get moving, but my body is protesting Monday with tired, sore muscles after we refinished the kitchen table and a couple of chairs over the weekend. I can’t wait to share some before and after photos once the project is complete, but for today, I’m keeping my One Little Word front and center (pray) and my diopter word of the day is stand. I’m praying I can stand up and step out and struggle through the woes of an aging body trying to do what my younger body did without all the grief and agony the next day.

Why Old People Walk Bent

                 refinishing chairs

              sanding, painting, staining slats

              bending, straining backs

Photo by Mike Bird on Pexels.com – Photo for topic only – this is not my chair. 
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It All Started with Cookies

I was scrolling through Pinterest and Facebook for table refinishing ideas in December when I came across these Christmas cookies. The color scheme was perfect! We’ve been doing some upgrades to paint and furniture here and there recently, and I knew when I saw the cookies that I’d found the basic colors and inspiration colors that I’d been seeking.

Imagine that! Finding a color scheme in cookies. 

The past couple of Colors of the Year include Evergreen Fog and Blank Canvas – both of which are variations in this collective scheme. We’d used a green and white in our master bedroom, and the nightstands needed a makeover from the 1980s whitewashed pine look. Everything has been everywhere as we have been cleaning up, cleaning out, and recovering pieces, but here is the before picture of one of our two matching nightstands, below.

A quick few coats of chalk paint in Swiss Coffee (Behr) for the base and Evergreen Fog (Sherwin Williams) for the knobs and feet turned out just like I’d envisioned these pieces for a room-brightening change. 

I’ve applied the sealing wax, which won’t be completely cured for 2 weeks but enough for initial use after 24 hours. We can’t wait to have a place for our bedside lamps once again!

Next on the list is a chest of drawers in our guest bedroom, where the color scheme includes gray and black. That will be for another day – – meanwhile, I’ll be looking for some new paint colors on the cookie pages. 

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They Know Me

For Christmas, my grandchildren made me hand-stitched birds. The love that went into each stitch is precious and was a labor of love and patience for them and for their mother. They will adorn my new office space as soon as we get moved into our new building. These are far too lovely to hang only once a year on a tree. I need them where I am reminded daily of my blessings, for those times I get caught up in the work day and forget that there are so many reasons to smile and take things in stride. I love that their mother is already teaching them that the key to the fine art of gift giving is in the heart of the recipient – and that handmade gifts are the most special of all!

A great big thank you to my grandchildren!

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What Rescue Will Do

Boo Radley now

We have three schnoodles, all rescues, who came to us bruised and battered, scarred and scared. 

We understood.

Going from abandonment, abuse, neglect, and betrayal to a shelter or foster home, to a forever home must be filled with all sorts of emotions and confusion – and I am a firm believer that dogs have emotions.

That’s why we forgave Boo for biting a couple of times at the start. Here was a dog who was shivering with fear in the back of a van in a wire kennel. He was matted and thin, dirty and smelly. 

He almost wasn’t ours. We’d found dogs online twice that we’d come to adopt, and both times we’d completed paperwork only to find that when we arrived, our dog had “just been adopted” by someone else. Right out from under us.

Boo Radley a/k/a Einstein at the rescue - picture sent to us by the organization on his intake day

A dog they dubbed Einstein for his wild hair had just arrived in the parking lot on one such occasion, and was being held in a van until he could be processed. They could not put him out for adoption with the other dogs yet. I think the lady who’d promised us the cute female Maltipoo with some sweet little Hawaiian name truly felt bad that we’d driven an hour to adopt her only to find she had just left with another family, so she’d added, “But there is one other possibility. I can’t let him go today, but he’s just arrived. Want to take a look?” 

We did.

We followed her to the parking lot, where she’d opened the van doors to reveal the most frightened dog we’d ever seen, visibly shaking and unsure of what was happening to him. 

I stuck my head in and spoke softly to him, and he calmed down. I asked to hold him, and the woman reluctantly allowed it after explaining that the landlord of a nearby apartment complex had brought him by and begged her to take him. She told the woman that the dog’s owners had left two weeks earlier, that this dog had been abandoned in a duplex, and someone must have thought he would be found immediately. He wasn’t. They’d left food and water down, but it was all gone by the time the cleaning crew showed up to find a huge mess teeming with flies and one terrified dog.

Boo Radley the day we picked him up from the rescue

We adopted Einstein and named him Boo Radley. He had no reason to trust anyone anymore – if he ever had – and we had a lot of ground to gain with him. He snapped and bit at first, but with love and time, he has come to be a loving companion, despite his many lingering issues.

Boo Radley watching the driveway for his people to arrive home (he’s a full time inside dog who wants to wait outside for his family following his afternoon walk)

This is the dog who will cower to the laundry room and shake when anyone’s cell phone dings. Let it ring with music and he will howl at the moon.. He becomes agitated and obsessed with killing flies if he sees one buzzing around. If he smells the heat of a toaster, he will shake with fear and seek a lap. If the smoke alarm (or any timer or noise such as a clock) goes off, he goes into a tizzy. We think that somewhere along the way, he experienced a fire.

Boo Radley – ready to play keep away with his ball. Where other dogs fetch, Boo has trouble sharing his toys.


But this is the same dog who sits awake all night at our heads, guarding us as we sleep, then sleeps all day. This is the dog who sits at the head of the driveway and doesn’t want to come inside until both of us are home from work. He knows he has a family, and he knows his role is to protect and love us – as ours is to protect and love him. This is the same dog who knows he will never again be abandoned or abused or neglected. The same dog who now rests assured of his place in his forever family.

This is what rescue will do.

Boo Radley – sleeping like an owl in the early morning after guarding his people all night (don’t let him fool you: he’s a fierce working dog, not a mere lap dog).
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This Photo Wants to Be a Poem

My friend Margaret Simon of Louisiana hosts the weekly Poetry Friday Roundup by posting a photo and inviting writers to compose a poem inspired by the photo. Last week, she visited the North Georgia mountains with her family as a Christmas gift to her children and their families, and she posted her cherished moments of making memories with them. She invites us this week to write a poem about this photo of her mountain house. 

Margaret has been using the elfchen form, also called an elevenie, in which the lines fall into the sequence of 1 word, 2 words, 3 words, 4 words, and concludes in summary fashion with 1 word that ties it together. She will announce her One Little Word tomorrow, and hints that it may be the last line in her own poem (Connection), so I’m giving an enthusiastic nod to her choice by using a form of connection as the last word in my own poem. You can read her post here, along with other poems that were written about the photo, and her picture that inspires her poem (and others) is below:

Mountain House photo by Margaret Simon

Presence

unhindered

time spent

unhurried memory making

letting presence be presents

connecting

Try an elfchen! These are fun to write, and what a fabulous way to preserve memories – using photos and short forms of poems. I like the way just a few words can encapsulate an entire experience and bring all the memories and good times rushing back. 

A special thanks to Margaret Simon for inspiring my writing today. Some of my greatest blessings are my writing community friends, who encourage and inspire me to be better. 

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Goals and Aspirations for 2024

At the end of each month for the past decade plus a few years, I’ve reviewed my yearly goals and spent time reflecting on how I’m living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. The process I’ve been using has been helpful in guiding steps of intentionality and observable differences – – it has put teeth of quantifiable measure in the conversations I have with myself whenever I might attempt to believe that I’m making progress and provided a way to articulate exact progress so that I’m not merely shuffling things back and forth and deceiving myself. I make a table, establish goals, and keep an accountability log of accomplishments and action steps through month-end reflections. I learned this system somewhere in my early years of teaching and it was reinforced by my doctoral chair, Dr. Rachel Pienta, who assured me that it would get me to the diploma at the finish line with fewer tears and less frustration. 

She was absolutely right.

This year, though, I’m tweaking my process by a few degrees to get to the things in life I need to accomplish. Everything on my list is not an ongoing action goal – – some of these are aspirations, and I need to recognize the differences and prioritize my efforts. Weight loss is an action goal that needs quantifiable progress markers with a timeline. Downsizing and retirement planning needs quantifiable progress markers with a less strict timeline. But gardening and hobbies like knitting or quilting or canning fig preserves are not as high on the list of priorities, and they’ll fit in between the more challenging goals where time permits.

So this year, I’m using a different system. I’m evaluating my progress in bold areas monthly, and all other areas quarterly. 

I’m looking through a proverbial viewfinder for the big areas of life where I need the presence of some focal lenses, and I’m thinking of the smaller aspects of those larger lenses as I adjust the diopter lens and take snapshots of my journey. 

2024 underway, taking us on a new scenic journey. The conductor punched our tickets at midnight – – (and where we live in rural Georgia, our front door literally shook with a sonic boom from someone’s Tannerite explosion welcoming the new year). 

It’s here, folks! Welcome 2024, and cheers to you and yours!

The Viewfinder

Optical Lenses of FocusDiopter Lenses of Possibility     Snapshots of Success
Hobbies
and
Life Outside Work		Sewing, Knitting, Quilting
Traveling and camping
Gardening
Birdwatching
Monthly reading group with Sarah J. Donovan
Writing with Ethicalela.com
   5 times a month, and every day in April
Writing with Two Writing Teachers at the Slice of Life
    Blog every Tuesday and every day in March
Writing with Spiritual Journey Blogging group on 
   Thursdays
The Stafford Challenge – a poem every day starting     mid-January
Writing group book proposals

These columns will be shared as progress occurs each month or quarter.

For starters, I am sharing my blog post on Slice of Life today. And just like that, I’ve taken a step into 2024 with a hobby that I enjoy. 

Career and Work LifeFinancial Strategies
Retirement Plans
Downsizing home, possessions
Continuing Education
Networking
Spiritual LifeChurch Life
Prayer Life (OLW)
Family LifeWeekly Dinners and game nights
In Person Visits
FaceTime Visits
Group Texts
Traveling together
Celebrate Red Letter Days
Mental and Physical HealthReach top of weight range (I know this number) by June 1 and maintain it throughout 2024

Walking

Hiking campsite trails

My Table of Plans for Focusing on Success

My One Little Word for 2024 is pray. Today’s diopter word is step. As I pray for 2024 to be a productive and fulfilling year, I must step into it with purpose, and take the steps necessary – to do my part – to make it a great year.