LIVING LARGE IN A SMALL COTTAGE

I HAVE MOMENTS WHERE I GET EXCITED THINKING ABOUT when the COTTAGE is completely remodeled and we're living in it full time.  Getting to this place will take great effort and time.  Slowly we are making progress.  Slowly.  Slow is better than not at all...yet a faster pace would be appreciated.  

Remembering when my Grandparents redid a log cabin and made it into more of a RANCH style habitat.  They stuccoed over the logs, made walls inside the structure for rooms, etc.  They were in their 60s and I thought them soooooo old to be doing this.  I am 67.  DO I feel soooooo old to be remodeling a COTTAGE?  Sometimes I do.  Sometimes I don't.  

Grandpa and one of his brother-in-laws did the work taking an empty log cabin structure and turning it into a very nice livable HOME.

I saw photographs of them laying the linoleum tile in the dining area.  Two OLD men sitting on the floor working away.  My Grandparents lived there from the 1960s until they moved into town living in a huge bungalow in the mid 70s.  Grandpa would pass away in this bungalow in 1978. While taking a nap that he didn't wake up from, he passed away so peacefully after his morning walk about the neighborhood.  

The only time I ever saw my Grandma cry was at his funeral as she stood alone looking at him in the coffin, she cried out loud, "What am I going to do without you..."  This is itched into my memory.  Grandma lived another 12 years or so.  She'd relocate to Syracuse, Kansas to be closer to her sister.  Grandma had grown up in the Syracuse area so back she returned.  She was contented, I think.

What we have in our COTTAGE is something to work with.  I will be a painting fool in the next few months as I will be painting inside the COTTAGE as well as painting in the main house. Part-time GIG.  This week-end I hope to finish priming the tall Kitchen cabinet then next week actually applying the paint.  Once again I can visualize the finished product.  This keeps me going.

This afternoon I was working at planting a coleus clipping that I had rooting out in a throw away cup.  Beautiful root ball and ready to plant.  As I worked on the patio planting it, I heard a noise overhead that I thought was a squirrel in the tree.  Down came a small branch falling on my head.  It scared me as I thought the squirrel had jumped into my hair.  Ha.  Nope, it was a tree branch.  Now the timing and location had to be just right for me to be standing just where I was to be the target of a tree branch to fall and hit me in the head.

I let out a scream.  I wasn't hurt.  Still, it makes me wonder if God is trying to knock some sense into me.  The last few weeks I have had some accidents and this one tops the list.  Thinking back...as I worked in the COTTAGE closet a large heavy box fell on my head rolling off my back. On a different day, a stack of cabinet door fronts fell over onto my right foot.  Scratched it was all.  No pain.  I tripped over a box of floor tile and landed on my right hip.  I jarred my back was all on this one.  A week later, I tripped going up the porch steps landing on my knees.  This one hurt worst of all.  Both knees hurt plus wrists and hands again jarring my back and neck...now a tree branch fell onto my head.  Okay this is more than enough accidents.  I think I have outdone myself.  Enough is enough.

OFF TO THE COTTAGE to paint and go through old papers.  Beautiful week-end.  I have to stay focused and stay busy getting downsized and organized.  My newest HOBBY.  A phase in life right now.  A part-time job.

Living LARGE in a small cottage hopefully will not be all about being an obese woman in a small house.  I have this ongoing issue about losing weight at 67.  Lord, I pray that the vegetables will help me shrink.  Being healthy is desired so no more tree branches on the head.

~d