The Oldest Girl Doing Her Thing

By now everyone knows the oldest girl is back from college for at least another month and a half. While she is here, she is always willing to help me with whatever project I am doing at the time. She has really been a big help so far and I will miss her when she goes back.

She has two more years of learning to do before she transfers back home to get her masters or better. She started off in a dorm and found out real quick that was not for her. Then she moved to an apartment and the same happen in about the same amount of time. I guess it's hard to grow up in the country and then be thrown into city living like that. Now when she goes back in August she will be moving into a real house with a real yard where she is planning on having a garden and a chicken or two for eggs.
Her major need is furniture. We all know that college kids don't have much of anything and what they do find on the side of road is wore out and ready for the dump.

Instead of going through the expense of buying new like some kids do with rich daddy's, she decided to make her own, so she went down and raided the barn.

She found an old night stand and hideaway sewing machine a friend of mine gave her years ago, then sanded and painted them both.
  

Here is the cool part, she rebuilt the sewing machine cabinet it into a vanity with mirrors and working lights. She kept the old leg switch so she can adjust the intensity of the lights when she is fixing her face and hair.

When closed it will double as her desk. 

She also found a big desk at a garage sell for free and cut it down to a bench. Then she stuffed the top to make it a pillow where she will sit at her window and read.






Now she is looking to make a bed. She is wanting an old fashioned rope bed, but I don't think that will be comfortable enough for her. In a few weeks I will have enough corn husks to stuff it with but that may be going too far back in time.

I am really proud of her for reusing old junk and making it into something usable again. All she actually bought was a light and gallon of paint for all this. 

Chili, Chores and Children

I didn't know how much catch up work there would be after coming back from vacation.
After nine days of no maintenance and not doing the everyday "little" things around the Mini Farm, all those "little" things have built up. Almost every night this week I scramble home from work, change my shoes and get back to work till after dark. On top of everything else, the weeds in the gardens are relentless. Plus, on top of all that I ended up catching a head cold and all I really want to do is go to bed., but through my watering eyes, running nose, sneezing fits and hacking up a lung, I press on.

Last night I finally caught back up with the work and had some time to play in my shop. I missed the old girl and she missed me too. Just in one week a thin layer of dust settled and a few spider webs formed on my work benches and tools. I can't ever remember a time when any tool of mine had dust on it from lack of work. It's time to get busy.
Sunday after we do the Mother's day thing I plan to summer-ize. That means loading everything up that has to do with solar heating and winter and store it in the barn. I have already de-junked about three loads of stuff collected over the winter by loading up my friends trucks while they weren't looking so I am almost happy with the way things look out back.  

The oldest girl made it through another year of college. She will be a Junior in August, time is flying by. I am happy to have her home for the summer. The middle girl graduates high school this month and the youngest will be a senior.
Though I would not change much, I would do it all again in a heart beat. I miss their youth so much. If I could afford it I would adopt more children just to have all that again.

It is going to busy the next three weekends. Chili cook offs are all over. Tomorrow we will be in Collinsville TX for a big Mother's Day fest. The oldest girl, her boyfriend and the wife will be on my cooking team for that one.
After that we will be cooking in Denton TX for a huge festival on the Square and then off to the Southwest Chili cook off in Southern Oklahoma, that's a big one.
It is already getting too hot for me to cook chili and these three back to back to back will be the last until the end of September. If you are close, come by and cook with us or just drop by and say hey. Email me and I will give you directions, I hope to see ya there.


That's all I got for now. I hope everyone has a great Mother's day weekend and I will see ya on the flip side. 
MDR