lots of work progress hard to find!

I used to inwardly roll my eyes when someone went on and on about having work done in their house. I used to think "How bad could it be?" Well, now I know! One the bright side everything that is being done is necessary and will add to the value and comfort of my house. On the side I see and am living with every day , there is more dust then I thought was possible. I'm not even doing the work and my hair is always dusty. everything has extra hidden STUFF .WRONG. Everything takes three times as long and is costing way more then I expected. BUT my brother is doing this for me at cost during a slowish time of the year for him. Or it was slowish until he started working for me and then he got quite a few emergency jobs.
The more I do around here the more I want to get done! Yesterday I changed out the curtains in the kitchen, painted the window sills and window frames, the bathroom door and in general decluttered the kitchen & this was after going to Home Depot, Lowes, Linen & Things, the Library and the A&P. This morning I hopped put of bed, drove over the my sister's house to get my grandmother and her twenty bags and boxes of stuff, get stuck on ice and had to chop out a ton to get out of their driveway. Since I've been home, I've been rubbing off the grout haze on the bathroom tiles, cooking for everyone, doing laundry, finishing work on the kitchen and taking care of my grandmother. My grandmother is 96 and really a pip. She said today that she will be no trouble to me at all and I should just go about my normal stuff. Yes, she is not trouble but she needs three cooked meals a day, help with showering and getting around, and always needs just a bit of help with her hearing aide, or walker or something. Monday, we start with the plumber, roofer and his helper and my brother and his helper, all over again! Tonight my son is coming for dinner and to drop off his laundry. I'm not complaining but another full week of this and I'll be too exhausted to go back to work! AND I HAVE GOTTEN NOT A STITCH OF KNITTING DONE OR EVEN GOTTEN TO OPEN MY LIBRARY BOOKS!!!!!

Correction to previous post!

The previous post has a mistake!!!!I don't know how that slightly naughty beach picture got into my bathroom and scone post but here are the photos that really go with it. I've tried to correct it and I think that blogger is off for the weekend!

not finished bit at least it's not pink

We've had a very mild, warm winter in NJ until recently. Now it's so cold that those warm day seem years away. As my brother continues to work on my bathroom I am finding out that the pinkness of it was the least of my troubles. Whoever installed it had a unique sense of plumbing. The overflow pipe just dumped onto the flooring under the tub, there was NO insulation in the bathroom and it was cold enough that the pipes were frozen. Well I could have told him that everything in that bathroom was frozen! AND assorted other odds and ends were discovered. I'm very lucky that my brother is doing this for me at a slow time for his business. I would be flipping if I was paying full price for all this work. Do now I own lots of new plumbing and none of it is pink and there are signs of progress ---a new white tub and insulation! See the pink shelves in the closet? It was covered with shelving paper while I've been in the house but at one time it was the color of the ENTIRE bathroom. What a treat that must have been.
I have not gotten much knitting done this week, just working on that never ending black sock. I've been baking for my brother and his workers every night so here is my favorite scone recipe.

Cream Scones

2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
a good shake of salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 to 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
extra sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Place flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a food processor. Whirl a few times. Gradually pour in 1 cup of heavy cream while the machine is on. Add another 1/4 cup if needed to have a ball of dough form. Turn of processor as soon as a dough ball is formed.

Lightly flour a counter or board and gently flatten the ball into a disk . You can make one disk of full size scones or two for smaller ones. Cut each disk into eight pie shaped wedges. If you want soft edges bake keeping the pieces together. If you want the edges crispy separate them on the ungreased baking sheet.

I brush the scones with some of the reserved cream and sprinkle lightly with sugar and cinnamon. Bake around 15 minutes until barely brown. Check the bottoms and don't over bake.

Progress

When I moved into my house Steven was in 2nd grade and Caroline was in 1st grade. They are now 24 and 22. My bathroom on our main floor was every shade of pink known to man with a PINK and BLACK floor. It was seriously ugly. We were going to renovate it right away. One thing lead to another and we never did renovate the bathroom and all my weak decorating attempts were no match to the pinkness of that room. My kids grew up never encouraging guest visiting of the bathroom. We do have a normal bathroom done in restful shades of almond downstairs. I'm not even going to talk about the top floor bathroom's turquoise toilet! Well today that ugly pink tub is sticking out of a dumpster in my driveway and the pink toilet is finally out of sight forever! That ugly room was ripped out to the studs. It really looks better! In the next few day hopefully it will be transformed into the only room in the house where everything is new, matches and even works! When it is finished I am going to have a dinner party and serve only liquids and encourage bathroom visits!
On the knitting front, I am working on an endless black sock fron Lisa Souza yarn oil slick colorway. I really like it and I know I will wear ir often BUT it is really boring to knit. Just black with a tiny bit of green and some slipped stitches.

Got a swap box from Sweden!

What a generous box I got from Klara in Sweden. This is from the Townsend Knitalong Sock Bag Swap. In the top left corner is the bag with sewn on embellishments of patches and buttons. She send tea, chocolates, flower seeds, a scented soap, nail oil, note cards and a beautiful postcard. The knitting part was a really overkill! Sock yarn and an intersting pattern, mohair yarn for a scarf and an interesting pattern and a set of beautiful stitch markers. I've already enjoyed one of the chocolates and I'll be starting the yarns soon!
I'm in the process of doing some needed repair work around my house, fixing and repairing boring stuff like roofs, gutters and backyard gates and replacing a bathroom from top to bottom! The bathroom part is fun BUT the whole project is very stressful for me. I've never done anything like this on my own and of course it is costing way more then I planned. I also find that I am happy with what I have until I start going out and seeing what else is available! NOW I get greedy and want everything! SO to pay for all this stuff I'm probably going to stash knit for years. What is really sad is that I can do it!