Busy Weekend.... and I did it all Myself!

OK... I know that I sounded a bit down my last couple of posts.  And I was... still am.  But it is all part of the grieving process.  I read a wonderful article today about grieving that I think is going to help me some.  I guess I have been upset about all of the damn changes that are being forced upon me, things that I am having to adjust to that are not making me very happy.  But they are what they are... and so I dove into a couple of projects this weekend and really have a feeling of moving forward, which is more than I can say I felt I was doing several days ago.

Yesterday I started digging into the small piles of pictures that graced the walls of the house in Maryland.  I really liked the pictures that we had collected in Maryland and did not really want to get rid of any of the ones that I took down and brought home to Pennsylvania.  So yesterday I took a couple of pictures down off the walls here and started laying out the pictures I had brought back form Maryland.  I finally decided which ones I wanted to go where.  So, hammer and hangers in hand, I went from living room to bedroom to bathroom... yes, bathroom and hung all the the pictures I had in pleasing arrangements.

Below is a picture of the corner of the bathroom around the toilet.  The wooden lighthouse was made for us by Jim Rees (He died a year or so before Rudy died.  Jim and Lorraine were friends that we met camping in Fenwick Island, DE.  The year after we bought at Indian Acres, they came and bought some lots just down from ours.  Jim got into woodworking to keep busy and really got very good at it.  I really love this piece and since my bathroom is going nautical, the lighthouses... including the wooden one and the other pictures/stitchery in that corner.  Gives the whole place character.

The other pictures are 3D lighthouse scenes/  The receptionist at AGS (Anita) presented it to Rudy the day he retired/  I love these too, so they are over the towel rack across from the toilet.  The door hides them when it is open, but they are in view when the door is closed.

These pictures are in my bedroom.  This first grouping is replacing a large blue abstract of a ship that was painted by a high school classmate.  He was going to throw it away and I convinced him to let me have it.  My ex-father-in-law re-stretched it and it has hung in my house since.  Sad to say, it will no longer, but this grouping is a hummingbird watercolor that I adore and three small drawings by Julia Winter, an artist that I collected for several years.  I also hung an embroidery that I framed to remind to keep moving forward and a picture of Rudy and his Best Friend, Donnie Jackson when Rudy caught a BIG Bass in the pond at Indian Acres.  It was one of the things he loved doing and the reason we had been at Indian Acres for 20 years.

The other grouping has been growing more slowly.  The two pictures are original water colors by Polli Trumbore, a very talented woman whom I knew as I grew up.  The one in the larger frame I have had for years.  The smaller framed one belonged to my Dad and it lived in Maryland.  The clock is the atomic clock that was in Maryland.  I have one just like it in the Living Room but could not bring myself to leaving it behind.  The feathery thing is a Mardi Gras mask from a Red Hat Event.  Another thing I just had to save.  This area is next to my tiny closet.

Today I decided I was going to mount two shadow box shelves I bought.  This past spring I was at the PABA awards dinner and bid/won several items.  One of them was a collection of Cat's Meow buildings that depict historic buildings in Parkesburg.  There were 13 individual buildings, six churches and seven other buildings.  There was a 14th one, but it was a duplicate of one of the churches.  They are designed to go on the trim over windows and doors, but with my 7 foot ceilings, there was not room.  So I found these shelves on Amazon and figured they would work to group the buildings.

To put them up I needed to get anchors in the wall and then get them mounted on the screws that went into the anchors.  This is something that Rudy would have handled and would have done it much better and much faster than I did.  In fact, this was an all day adventure for me.  But, as you can see by the pictures, they are up, the buildings are displayed, along with a couple of other items.  It replaced a painting that was done by the ex-father-in-law which is now at my son, Brian's house. There was another painting by the ex-F-I-L in the house, but I shipped that one to Rob and his wife, Kate, in Fairbanks, AK.

I really think it turned out well.

And I did it all by myself.  I am guessing I had better learn to do more or find a trusted local handyman I can pay to do some of the things I cannot do!  The problem is that these days, there are fewer and fewer people who can do the mundane fixer-upper things well.  Everyone wants to have the cushy office jobs.