something to heal the doldrums...

ah-ha!  I think I found a couple of activities to get me motivated to LIVE again!!!

We were driving home from work last week and noticed that someone had blue bags hanging from their trees...I immediately remembered that my sister and I had discussed collecting sap to make maple syrup and now was the time to do it!

When I got home, I went onto eBay to see if I was right about those blue bags, and YEP, I was!  So, I thought about it for a bit, asked one of the sellers a bunch of questions and then ordered a kit of 5 four gallon bags, bag holders and spiles (taps).  They came in the mail the other day and it is time to tap the trees.

We only have two maple trees on the property and both are large enough to be able to be tapped.  One will only use one bag and the other can use two. One of the maple trees is a black maple and the other is a ... I don't know maple but I've heard you can tap them all.  The sap might be a bit cloudy in the one but it still works fine.

Wish us luck, as we figured (mostly mathematical genius, Jerome figured out) that we only need to collect 12 gallons to make enough maple syrup for the bottles that we have at home...we'll see...should be fun.  I will take pictures this evening as we attempt to tap our trees and share them later.

The other little activity was something that I had seen on Pinterest.  

I had put some pictures of the kitchen on Pinterest; some before and after and then one only of the after and so far 99 people have repinned it!  Sometimes when I have the time, I check out the people who have repinned my picture and see what else they have repinned.  

One girl had this really cool pin of a KitchenAid Mixer with vinyl decals on it.  I thought that was so clever!  Jerome and I had talked about buying a new mixer in Red to go with our accent color but KitchenAid's Mixers are really expensive.  So when I saw that someone had decals on them, I thought this was a really great way to update the appliance without spending a pretty penny.

I bought a set of decals from The Word Nerd Studio on etsy (the Pinterest pin had a link to this lady's shop).  I was able to choose my colors, which were red, grey and dark brown.  She and I had some conversation back and forth and pretty soon the decals were delivered.

I love the transformation and the fact that if you get tired of the design, you can remove them and get another design or just remove them without hassle.

If you happen to go to her shop on etsy and you wind up buying something, let her know that you heard about her from me - I told her that I put her info on Facebook and she was very appreciative.