Very quickly and done out of guilt for not posting since June, here is an entry on our revamp of the upstairs landing. We finished that project at the end of June, but had visitors soon afterwards – and then every month since. We are still working on painting the house exterior, and will give an extra push on that (along with the backyard carriage house exterior) before Winter, now that the weather is nice again.
For our 24th wedding anniversary, Kenny and I gave each other the four brass animal heads you see in the photos and that jolted us both into action. Kenny took up the carpet and cleaned the hardwood flooring beneath – which is imperfect but charming enough to keep us content with its “character” for the moment. We plan to come back later and refinish the floors, but we have a full to-do list right now and anything is more satisfactory than the old, grungy, carpet he removed. Have I mentioned before that I hate carpet?
Kenny replaced the hallway boob light with a brass art deco fixture and vintage shades I purchased in 2018. We have an extra set of antique shades in blue, white, and yellow pate du verre, so we can switch them out.
The exhibition poster of Andy Warhol’s “Elizabeth Taylor” was the twentieth anniversary gift I gave Kenny in 2021, so it was nice to finally get it hung on the wall, along with all our other art waiting for installation.
Right as it started to get hot here, I began painting the exterior of the backyard carriage house that my art studio and garden shed live in. Kenny was not happy with my choice of color at first.. and probably still isn’t.. but it is my art studio. I am the only person who needs to love the color and I am completely thrilled with it!
This photo was taken before I painted the trim on the window and eaves, but it is the only one I have at the moment. You will also have to take my word that the oak tree branch isn’t still setting on my roof.
Ziggy’s “porch” on her doghouse, however, is still a mess – she’s a young, German Shepherd, after all.
I have to inform you that our Pekingese, Pop, died on August 7th. It wasn’t announced on social media because I wanted a break from grief sharing. It seems like we have had a pet die every year since 2019… While it was the expected mortality of our pets that were closely staggered in age, it’s still very sad.
I just really didn’t want to talk about it for a while. I still don’t, but she deserves to be remembered, so:
Our Pop defied death for a very long time, making it to 16-1/2 years. Her breed usually lives around twelve years, maxing out at fourteen, so she did pretty well for herself. She was old and frail and we understood that we were probably getting close to the end, so we tried to make the last year of her life all about her.
She very much enjoyed bossing us all around for treats whenever she crossed a threshold of a room, so we doled out as many as she could stand. It made her feel important to bark commands at us and we let her.
For months she’d had respiratory and eye infections that wouldn’t go away with antibiotics, so our vet suggested we have two of her teeth removed that could be the source of infection. Pop didn’t handle the anesthesia well at her age, so she lost much of her walking ability, and went seven days past the procedure without a bowel movement. We were really worried about how much pain she might be in soon, understood our duty to her quality of life, and let her go. To say it wasn’t an easy decision is a massive understatement.
Pop goes on now we hope to join her sister/cousin, Moosh, who died the day before Thanksgiving in 2023. They were cousins biologically, but we considered them sisters, what with the toxic love and sibling rivalry.
Our calico, Celie, grieved hard for Pop. The first thing she would do when she got up every morning was check on her bestie. We were never certain that Pop shared Celie’s sentiment, only Celie’s love for her Pop.
Sorry to be morbid, I don’t like it either. 💔 Here are photos of Celie to pull us out of the hole I just dug.
And brighter news to close out this entry: here is the ceiling medallion I painted for our friends, Mitch & Michelle. I am pretty proud of the blue paint I mixed for it – look how close it matches their wall color! 💙
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