A Fresh New Outlook....

For as long as I can remember I've left Christmas Trees and decorations up until New Years Day.  But not this year -  I was oh so ready to have it all down and packed away until next year.  I had big plans for the new year that I was in a hurry to begin.

You might remember that in May of 2013 we were hit with an F1 tornado that destroyed all our outbuildings.  During the recovery process, we had to make some major changes to ingress/egress due to the death of our Farmer across the street.  All of these changes meant that the total time from destruction to recovery was (a very long) 2 years and 2 months.  Our new "barn" went up the end of June 2015.

Once that barn was built, there were (and are) a few more things that needed doing; we brought in more rock for the new driveway and repaired the last of the damaged fencing that had been being held up by mature Jasmine, but we took our time with these things for the remainder of the Summer.  When Fall rolled around, we pretty much took a vacation from all the work of the past 2 plus years.  And then, right before Christmas, I was hit with a vertigo attack that meant I spent four days lying on the couch and looking at the neglected house. 

The Tornado did damage the house and most of the repairs were taken care of by the Insurance company in the months that followed; but a house that is above grade will show additional damage as time goes on.  Not to mention that 14 months after the tornado, we were hit head on by straight line winds estimated at about 120 mph taking down another of our ancient trees! Anyway, this is what had happened inside; any vulnerable spots in mudding and sheetrock began to show cracks; baseboards shifted and lost their caulking as the house settled back in after being buffeted by major winds twice in less than 2 years.  

Those four days, I was staring at all of that damage that I had been ignoring (deliberately - I had rearranged wall hangings to hide the damage until it could be tackled!) until the outside chaos was back under control. So, the Christmas decorations were away only three days after the celebration!  And I was at the paint store on January 2nd!  And as of today, two downstairs rooms have been mudded, sanded, caulked, mudded and sanded and caulked again and finally painted in brand new wonderful colors!  

And of course, new colors means that old colors may not work any longer....so what to do? Grab that crochet hook and some yarn and make it work!

  

These old lanterns used to belong to my late Mother In Law.  She also lived in a 100 plus year old house where power outages were frequent; they sat in a cabinet built by my Father In Law for their kitchen, so despite the fact that their green base no longer matches my color scheme, I wanted to keep them part of the decor.

I simply crocheted a "jacket" by starting with a single crocheted circle; after that circle was the right size to cover the bottom,  I stopped doing rounds and began doing rows -  increasing and decreasing rows as needed while leaving a side open to use a "string" to draw it tight and tie a bow at the back of the lantern when completed.  I set the lantern on the  table in front of me and continued to place the growing jacket on it to keep the fit snug.  

Anyway, it was time for a fresh new outlook on life and what better way to start off a new year than with freshly painted walls and trim...especially if I was going to have to do all that mudding and sanding and mudding and sanding anyway!  More photos to come.