Outside, and it’s nice and chilly!

Since fall arrived, we have taken to walking around Six Little Acres. It’s just such a pleasant place to be, this respite from the many, many hours we worked before retirement.

Here are some snippets of life here today.

Two thirds of our pups: (Our oldest Boston Terrier can’t play anymore)and I promise, they are BEST friends, they just love to play hard with one another. Just moments before I began recording, they were running laps around Ninja Man and me. Miele (Mee-luh) is the Boston / Sneaky Neighbor Dog mix. Winston is the Boston.

And this:

This is the grandLittle’s “Climbing Tree”, and in the summer and spring its branches are full of giggles.

Then this:

Ninja Man had to repair some fencing. It’s the fence surrounding the dog’s yard. They are 100% indoor family members, but have their very own door when they need to go.

He didn’t waste a minute figuring out how to stretch that wire.

Quick repair, all done!

After our walk about, we settled into the little garden in front of the house and discussed whether or not we should cancel our $50 a month YouTube TV. We have this conversation about every six weeks or so.

We shall see.

Thanks for stopping by and God bless!

Kathy Bo

It’s Fall, Y’all

We are enjoying retirement at Six Little Acres! This morning we sipped from our coffee cups while the wind chimes played with the breeze.

I really wish I could find an AFFORDABLE set of those old wind chimes we had back in the ’70s. The sounds they made were just perfect for a day like today! Do y’all remember them?

By the way, Wren’s latest MRI was “stable”, which means no growth in the tumor. Her MIBG is next week. Please pray for benign.

Thanks for stopping by, and God bless.

Kathy Bo

Master Bath at Six Little Acres

Our home is small but we have a nice master bath. It’s on the same layout as the previous one, but we rebuilt everything, from the walls to the floor and ceiling. We also added a big vanity, put in a soaker tub and a huge shower.

The decor went like this:

During my grandLittle’s chemo, I was in quite a state- driving from Savannah to Atlanta, staying in hotels, Ronald McDonald House and my daughter’s guest room. There were many times I’d wake up and not know where I was.

We rented out our house in Savannah and moved into the RV, about an hour closer to Atlanta. This was our launching pad for a solid year, all of our things in storage, him driving to Savannah to work every day, me driving to Atlanta for a week at a time.

Well, retail therapy was one way I was able to cope. I was frugal enough to wait for sales, use coupons and check out the clearance items as I began to gather things for my someday home.

There were times I could just go to a store and be lost among other shoppers. I liked that and it was somewhat cathartic.

So that’s how the bathroom decor (as well as most of the other decor in the house) came to be. I’ll tell y’all, I’m not a fan of the wall color. We were given a huge quantity of paint and it is all the same color. I’ll change it at some time but it’s not a priority just yet.

And here’s the master bath:

The sinks: IKEA

The vanity: an old painted dresser I found in an antiques store. It was just perfect.

Decor: TJ Max, Hobby Lobby and Michaels. I’m planning to do something pretty fabulous to the tub area. That will be a blog feature later on.

Thanks for stopping by, and God bless.

Kathy Bo

The Six Little Acres EBR

This is how we created a huge transitional space that is in constant use. Let me warn y’all, it’s different!

We are retired and our kids are grown. Our most recent home in Savannah Georgia has three bedrooms, and we are currently renting it out until we sell it.

We moved to West Georgia, and renovated this place at Six Little Acres. One thing we knew was that we did NOT want the traditional “spare bedrooms”. We decided to make the two bedrooms on one end of the former doublewide into my crafting studio, which turned out absolutely perfect! In time, I will blog with pix or a video on the studio, but for now we will check out the EBR.

The EBR is a 44′ long by 14′ wide addition. It has a space for guests (we can sleep four) and a multipurpose space. When I say “multipurpose”, I’m not kidding! Everything in the room can be moved to make new space. The sky is the limit! Well, actually, the ceiling and walls are the limit, but you know.

The guests have privacy, as far as the rest of the house goes. They use the full bath in the studio, have complete access to the kitchen and porches, can bring their pups, and otherwise are comfy cozy. Note the doggie door on the bedroom side- it leads out to an area as big as any pup could ever want. So far, all visiting pups have fit through it just fine.

“But what about their “own” room?” You may ask. Well, it’s like this: the house in Savannah as well as most of the homes we’ve owned have at least three bedrooms. We were just keeping those rooms in the event someone may come to visit. It just didn’t make good financial sense to us. Unless you live in a huge house, rooms are at a prime and we want to utilize every inch.

Besides, since our kids grew up and moved away, we simply didn’t need two extra rooms to heat and cool, or to pay taxes and insurance on. While I kept one room for guests at our Savannah home, I used the other one every single day for a small crafting studio.

So we designed this home to have one bedroom, the master, and the multipurpose room where we do the following:

Accommodate weekend guests

Accommodate weeklong grandLittles

Host Bible Studies (see the tables along one side)

Host card making classes (I’m a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator) shameless plug: https://kathybo.stampinup.net

Host spaghetti / taco / hotdogs and burgers dinners for as many as 20!

Take naps

Sewing, lots of sewing!

Set up a projector and a movie screen for the kids, mattress on floor so they can all stretch out, and popcorn and snacks during the movie

Yoga

Exercise (There’s a Wii Fit)

And lots more than I can recall right now!

So you’re probably wondering why we call it the EBR, right? Well, we moved due to our grandLittle Wren’s need for us to help out. She was diagnosed with neuroblastoma at 16 months old. She will be FIVE in two weeks, y’all! Anyway, we had some tremendous emotional baggage as a result of her catastrophic illness along with our subsequent move and unprecedented difficult journey trying to get settled.

So we named it the Emotional Baggage Room, aka: the EBR. And we have seen more emotional baggage than our fair share!

So here’s it is, folks. I don’t have a “before” and “after” because we created it. It’s just right for us, and we hope our guests enjoy it too, regardless of their baggage!

There will be curtains eventually, but it’s not a priority yet. We have considered a room divider but we aren’t sure if we want one or not.

Those quilts on the wall cover shelves that hold fabric for our sewing projects. Yes, I said “our”. Ninja Man actually made the quilt you see hanging, the one with dark blue lines. It’s all machine embroidered too!

Well, that’s the story of the EBR, the room that makes some wonder but makes perfect sense to us!

Thanks for stopping by, and God bless!

Kathy Bo

The Dogs of Six Little Acres

While every day is officially Dog Day here at Six Little Acres, apparently it’s “National” Dog Day on Facebook.

I thought I’d share some awesome pix of our babies with you. As most of you know, we are retired. Now we share our home and lives with three sweet pups; two Boston Terriers and one Boston / Sneaky-neighbor-dog mix (it’s a rare breed, y’all).

So in honor of National Dog Day, here are the babies:

This was me with the Boston mix and our oldest Boston. Pic taken before our grandLittle Wren was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. I’ve aged 20 years since 2016.

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Thanks for stopping by, and God bless.
Kathy Bo

Home grown preserves with Stevia

While I was at Bible study this morning, Ninja Man went to the Muscadine and scuppernong bushes to see if he could go about making some preserves.

Y’all.

He collected enough to make a sweet little batch of Heaven.

Wow.

Considering the fact that I’m type 2 diabetic and he and I are rather fluffy, he made them with Stevia. There is still sugar in the fruit and of course carbs in the croissant, so not to say we aren’t tempted, but nobody’s going crazy over here!

But y’all. It is SOOO good! I can’t wait to have some more.

We used this recipe from pallensmith. Ninja Man tweaked it for the Stevia.

I’m a fan! And it’s so wonderful to have something to harvest here. We are talking about a garden next year, so hopefully there will be lots more to come!

(By the way, it’s still warm in the pix.)

Thanks for stopping by and God bless!

Kathy Bo

Today, three years ago.

The story below showed up in my Facebook memories today. I am SO thankful we are past that season. As I write this blog post, I am using my phone, in the car, with Ninja Man driving and little Wren in the back seat. We are taking her to the Children’s Hospital for a checkup. She is on trial meds for the neuroblastoma that was found in her neck when she was just 16 months old. She’s a MAJOR joy and such a trooper. I wish we were going somewhere fun, but this is our new normal, this time with hope. And best of all, this precious Little will celebrate her 5th birthday in September. She says hi to all of you! (THAT DIMPLE, YALL!)

On to the memory:

There’s a story here. We shall title it “A Pane in my Glass”.

A) It’s moving month. Yeah, it’s not moving “day” any freakin more. It’s moving freakin month. Apparently that’s the way we do things.

B) I have a nice IKEA setup in my studio. Among its attributes are two glass topped desks. You will note I’m sweeping up one of those two desk tops with an itty bitty broom. More on that in a minute.

C) it was a freak accident- at least that’s Ninja Man’s story and he is sticking to it. I only “heard” the crash because I was about 100 feet away in my new natural habitat: a freakin storage unit.

D) thankfully it was tempered glass. That meant it broke in a gazillion chunks. I know. I counted.

E) I called the storage people to ask for a broom. The guy was kind enough to direct me to Dollar General to buy a broom. Honestly, in my storage-induced stupor, I hadn’t thought of that.

F) There were no “real” brooms at the dollar store. There were only whisk brooms with mini dustpans. I succumbed to the lack of choices and grabbed a tiny set. I should have bought two because Ninja Man made the impulse decision to suggest that I missed a piece – right over there. Words cannot even describe.

G) Did I mention the pups were in the car the ENTIRE time? Oh yes they were. I have a neat little remote thingie and can start my car over and over. It runs for 10 min and I start it up again. The pups were in air conditioned bliss while the humans were sweating like the servants we are. Oh, and that remote starter thing? It’s not for keeping pups in the car for 3.5 hours while I mini-sweep the parking lot at the freakin storage unit in freakin August, but there’s nothing in the directions that says I can’t so I did. And let me just say they watched me the whole time.

H) while I was sweeping the parking lot with my mini broom, a storm was on the horizon. I decided right then and there that I was gonna sit and sweep up every teeny piece until lightening struck me det. The lightening didn’t strike me det so I decided to sit in the pre-storm breeze, sweep the freakin parking lot with my freakin mini broom and dustpan, enjoy the mist on my face and pretend it was a real bath.

That’s the story from my point of view.

Now for Ninja Man’s prospective:

A) Some glass broke but it’s ok. It’s tempered.

Bedtime. I’ve earned it.

Thanks for stopping by and God bless.

Kathy Bo

Sometimes.

Sometimes I wake up at Six Little Acres and just go about my busy day.

Other times I run across pictures of where we were, and I absolutely marvel at the absolute grace of God.

This was our situation during demo.

And this is us now. I’m so very thankful for our humble home. It’s all ours, and that’s enough for me.

Thanks for stopping by. For anyone going through renovations, remember that we go THROUGH things- we don’t just stay there.

I hope this offers encouragement.

God bless,

Kathy Bo

Harvest time

Ninja Man proclaimed the figs were ready.

This is always a welcome proclamation at Six Little Acres. The fig “bushes” are actually trees at this point, and they are very mature and healthy.

We also have a pear tree or two. The pears are often deer food, so we have yet to gather many. I think ours are Kieffer pears, which are best for preserves. I keep saying next year, next year, but I keep missing out on gathering them. The deer, however, don’t miss a beat.

The blueberry bushes must have been started years ago along with the fig bushes because they too, are huge producers.

Our daughter used to keep up with these things but since she and her family moved it’s up to us.

Here’s how I keep up:

Me: “How about the blueberries? Think they are ready?”

NM: “Probably.” (That’s Ninja Man’s answer for lots of things I ask.)

Too lazy to put on my snake boots, I admit I forgot to follow up with the blueberries in question.

I came home from knit group this afternoon and found he had gone out and picked some of the blueberries AND figs. They are DELISH, y’all!

There is an estimated gazillion more, so as soon as it cools off I’ll go out there in snake boots and pick ALL THE THINGS!

Enjoy the pix, we will be making stuff and freezing the rest. If we are successful, I’ll share that too.

Thanks for stopping by and God bless!

Kathy Bo

Six Little Acres: the Skyline

It’s July 5 here at Six Little Acres and here in Georgia, the summer has already proven to be absolutely sweltering.

Even at 92 degrees it isn’t nearly as unbearable as summers in Savannah were. The combination of heat plus humidity plus gnats was a deterrent for any outside activities between May and November. I stayed inside as much as possible and even scheduled necessary trips in early morning so I would not be out in the “heat of the day”.

This will be our third full summer here at Six Little Acres, and since the fervor of getting settled is over we are enjoying early mornings and late evenings on the porch.

This evening we were drawn out of our recliners by a yellowish sunset through the living room blinds. We went out to the yard and y’all, it was breathtaking!

The pix don’t do it justice of course, but storms were on either side of us which produced the amazing “skyline”. God is an awesome artist, y’all!

Hope you enjoy the pix, and by the way, that last one is our sweet Winston checking in on Ninja Man. Winston doesn’t let him out of his sight!

Thanks for stopping by and God bless.

Kathy Bo