Cold, Colds and Mundane Tasks

I was surprised when I realized it had been two weeks since I lasted posted something here.  We've moved from St. David, Arizona to Gold Canyon and will move to Mesa on Monday and we've done very little during that time.  Denny and I have both been fighting colds or allergies of some sort--our symptoms come and go over a period of days.  Thus we've stayed home a lot, or simply taken long drives as we look in different areas of southern Arizona for any place we'd eventually like to call home.  I've come to find I'm not a fan of cookie-cutter zero lot line plats of homes although in this economy we could certainly pick one up at a really good price.  Our current campground is expanding their offerings with a new section of manufactured one bedroom/one bath adobe style homes with roof top decks that have a great view of the Superstition Mountains but also the propane tank sales and service business in front of the houses.  The homes have been beautifully decorated and landscaped but in size are only 780 square feet to our current 400 square feet so I don't see the point of purchasing something like that.  It's pretty obvious I'm really not ready to settle down yet once I start listing all the bad things about an area or plat of homes instead of the benefits and attributes.

We have played golf a couple of times and this week when we finally felt up to it we started our remodeling project; removing the original window treatments in the main living area and building new valances/lambrequins/window toppers.

The old: charcoal gray material with beige paisley pattern gathered over a piece of wood with side panels in beige.  All the curtain rods at the bottoms of the windows have snapped off due to poor placement (they are all at a height where the chairs bump into them which meant that most of them were broken one month after we took possession of The Beast.)

When we took the original valances down, we discovered the six inch tall valance was made by stapling six inches of material into gathers around a 2 1/2 inch wide piece of 1/8 inch plywood.  The black velcro is for holding the side curtains to the valance.  Wonderful workmanship, no?

A trip to the local big box hardware store netted us a small piece of plywood to create a new topper, the local senior citizens' playground (aka W*lmart) in Benson had a great piece of material in colors that reminded me of the desert and a second trip out to a different big box hardware store had me walking out with a new staple gun that not only was more comfortable for me to work but it could also shoot brads--bonus!  Denny cut the forms, I found a suitable jar lid to create a rounded edge to the corners of the side pieces (hey, Denny gave up his jig saw and other handy-dandy fancy saws when we sold the house) and we used the truck bed as a work bench for cutting the wood.  Because the day was lovely and Patches decided for the first time to actually sit quietly outside (while usurping my chair) I took advantage of the sunshine and covered the wooden topper with quilt batting and the new material.  Win/win.

The result? A more finished look, I think.  The colors have been heightened by my use of the flash; they are much more muted and blended in the natural light.  One (small) window down, seven more windows to go, including one that is six feet wide.  That will be fun!  We'll wait until next week to buy a large sheet of plywood once we're in the new campground since we have no room to store it until we're ready to start work on the next window.  After all, tomorrow is the Superbowl and there won't be any work getting done then!

Needless to say, I have to add the totally gratuitous photograph of a sunset before closing this post. Hope whichever team you are rooting for wins tomorrow; me, I just watch it for the commercials.  ;)