almost before, and almost after, and she came back!!!

 First the "she came back" part...Miss Old Kitty went missing, I didn't see here at ALL yesterday.  I drove up and down the road, called her from the deck, opened the door several times all day expecting to see her, checked every room in the house...this is a house cat, she goes outside for little tiny amounts of time and prances back in the door...if she sees one drop of rain falling, she'll turn back around and change her mind.  She is a princess of a kitty, an arm-of-your-chair purrer.  So when she disappeared yesterday, I was imagining the worse.

Then this fine morning, Jon was up getting ready for work, and she came in when he was leaving!  I don't know where she was, but she's extra purry today.  And I am extra happy, I cannot tell you how desolate I felt about it.  

A day late and a dollar short, because I never remember to take the "before" picture.  We have a coffee table that I bought on marketplace for a hundred bucks during covid.  I was fully planning to have a project, but when I got in here to the living room, one of two things happened:

I kind of liked it the way it was.

I didn't actually feel like doing a project.

The really nice sander I got for my birthday was just screaming to be used, and yesterday it was used.  I think I was inspired by this photo, and want to try to do the coffee table to look like this:

This is not my table, it is for sale on marketplace, but I love the look, the golden fresh wood on top, and the gold pulls, the color paint on the bottom is coconut cream.  It's a huge-0 table, but it's attractive.

This is the only actual "before" pic I could come across, when Achilles was having his birthday candy cake, ha.  See, a nice enough table.  But since then, it did get splashed with nail polish remover :(

So, yesterday morning, I started sanding.

I sanded some more...

It needs a bit more, just to get the last bits of varnish off...then some higher grit sandpaper to get it really smooth.  The bottom will just be lightly sanded and primed, then painted.  I have some Sherwin Williams paint from Camille's vanity makeover, called marshmallow, I love the name, but it's too white...I want a little creaminess.  I'm thinking to just put wood paste wax on the top, instead of polyurethane, but I have to do some more research.  I might put the whole thing up on the kitchen table so I can work on it without leaning over so much, and just finish up the top last. Hmmm, but then again, if I do the top first, it will dry and set, while safely up on the table, hmm.  (shh, I scroll through videos, watch snippets, read hints and helps, then do what I want, ha.)

Ah well.  We had a little birthday celebration for Miss Camille Anaya on Sunday, and here's a funny story.  If any of you have been reading this blog for a while, you will know that Cam is our 17th child (we have 16 kids, and Baby Robert was stillborn after Sonja and before Jonathan).  We also had some miscarriages, so when I was expecting Camille and having all the signs of miscarrying, I assumed that is what happened.  Cramping, bleeding, the whole awful nine yards.  Then a check up like six weeks later, just to see how I was healing up, and the pregnancy test was still positive.  The dr. said that sometimes happens, and sent me to get some bloodwork.  I did, then went home, and the next morning got a call from the midwife.  She said my numbers were extremely high, and that I should come in right away.  Well, I had been feeling awful.  I didn't bounce back from that miscarriage, I was tired and nauseaus, and blah.  So I immediately knew I had cancer.

As soon as I walked into the office, the midwife and the dr ushered me right into the sono room, and there on the ultrasound screen was a 15-16 week baby, all happy and waving at us.  The thought perhaps I lost a twin.  I was in shock.  All those weeks of mourning a pregnancy while having pregnancy symptoms still ha, and there was a baby in there.  So this isn't the funny story, btw.  I went off on a tiny tangent.  

We named her Camille Anaya, Anaya means God Answers.  I thought that was very apt.  The funny story:  we always said "An-ay-uh".  Then I was in the dr. office a few weeks ago, and the nurse called for an Anya...a young girl with her mom.  Her mom said, No, it's Anaya, pronounced An-eye-uh.    We've been pronouncing Cam's middle name the wrong way all along, oops.  

 Sonja bringing her the cake...the candles were ridiculous, you had to do math to figure them out...(she's turning 17). 

Darius, Rhys, Cam, Ophelia, Evelyn, Lydia, Achilles, Kathryn

cousins:  Achilles and Denzel

Rhys having a little rest with her dolls.

Lydia was being an old lady, in this dress I had in the closet.  

I'm ready to do some more sanding...once I start a project, it's all I want to do...:).  Have a really good day, and I hope the election is fair and that Trump wins.  :). I still love you if you don't agree with me, unlike the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul...she said something along the lines, "If you vote for any of these Republicans, you are anti-women, anti-abortion, and anti-American."  Okay, how nice of her.  Shh, I AM anti-abortion, but then when you've had a baby "born" at 12 weeks, right into your hands, and see how perfect and absolutely awesome it's little self is, you just cannot imagine in your wildest dreams how it could be okay to dismember such a tiny infant, it's no clump of cells.  But anyway.  One thing I love about life is how God made us all so very different.  We are called to be one, in the bible, and I think that oneness comes in spite of our differences, it's a oneness in spirit, where we love and respect each other.  

Anyway, have a really nice day!