GB #1 Paint, Boat and Utter Bliss

We worked really hard in GB #2 to get it to this point. We found a lamp that better suits the room but we are still looking for window shades. The odd sized windows allow us to be reeled into paying hundreds of dollars to get the right fit. I'm not willing to do that.

And so we wait until the right shades come along. Other than that the room is ready and has a temporary panel in place to be let down at night. 

The double door closet has been turned into a  great cubbyhole to hold the chest of drawers. We will be putting up a rod for hanging clothes soon.

Here is another perspective of the closet area. No matter how much we think we are done with a room, it seems we constantly find more things to do. I still want to put the R E L A X letters up over the closet. I also want to paint a mural at the side of the other twin bed.

We have gotten really far with the next room. Grouting the porcelain tile left the floors messy. But once again, after following the same cleaning method that Bob Vila highly recommends, the floors look great. Baseboards are back up and the bed is finally in GB #1.

Furniture pieces and other decor is still being painted. Meanwhile, we are trying to decide on the guest bathroom tile. This is one option.

This is another option, one that I really like.

The two options together. Mi Miguel and I both like the one on the right.

Both guest bedrooms are ready for comfortable sleeping. We are down to just finding the right decor. I've had these black lamps for years. They were a splotchy brown when I originally purchased them. I used them in our master bedroom in St. Louis with the black paint and yellow shades.

The blue matches the deeper blue in my inspiration fabric remnant.

So far the colors are looking nice. It's slow going though to try to go all beach/garden cottage paint with the furniture and such. Yet, keep the room from being girly. My goal is to have no pink or purple in the house. I also don't want a lot of floral or anything overly feminine in design.

Those  yellow shades I mentioned. I'm in the process of making them cream. Pretty cool, huh? Some other things have been painted, two nightstands, an obelisk just to mention a few. But it's slow going with trying to balance the reds, blues and greens in this room. We still have lots of little things to finish up and I'll be posting the "after" photos of GB #1

Yesterday while painting the lamps a really loud noise caught my attention. I had no clue what this really loud contraption is called.

I took a few more photos and then sent them to Mi Miguel and my dear friend in the St. Louis area.

Mi Miguel said it is a swamp boat with the motor on top of the boat to keep from hitting the bottom of swamp and getting stuck.

My dear friend said it reminded her of Gentle Ben. For those of  you that grew up with me, you know I was never a television kind of girl. I was a true outdoorsy kind of kid.

Because of spending my childhood running around from dawn to dusk like my butt was on fire, I now have no clue about a lot of the shows that were on in the late 60's or 70's. I've heard of Gentle Ben but I always thought he was a mountain man. I had no idea that a boat exactly like this one was ever on the show.

It turns out not only was there a swamp boat on the show but there was also a bear. Gentle Ben is that bear. Gentle Ben is not a mountain man. After seeing the boat in our canal, I'm curious to watch this show.

Last evening I posted that I experienced something pretty amazing while Mi Miguel and I were swimming at our favorite spot.

We donned our snorkel masks when we first got to the beach and then went shell seeking to try to find unusual shells for my sweet friend that was so kind to send us several boxes of our favorite boxed spaghetti dinner. Which by the way we found several more shells for her.

After about an hour, I still had my head underwater when I felt Mi Miguel yank me up out of the water. He said, "Hurry up, get up and let's go." He had a fearful look on his face as he watched the water behind me. So of course, rather than hurrying along, I stopped to see what had him so afraid.

I saw a fin, the same fin that had Mi Miguel so concerned. I know nothing about ocean life or sea creatures. But for some reason I wasn't afraid of that fin. I just stood and watched it get closer to us. 

I excitedly said, "It's a dolphin!" It continued to get closer to me. I started doing my best dolphin call. Which sounded more like I was trying to communicate with aliens rather than any kind of mammal. 

He circled around me and then came within two feet of me. He made eye contact with me and I continued with my "dolphin" call just looking at this beautiful creature in awe. I think I could have touched him if I made the effort to do so. Mi Miguel just watched in total amazement. And then as the dolphin slowly started to swim away...

we noticed that there were two. I don't know why the dolphin swam towards us, circled me, looked at me and then swam away. I can tell you that it left me with an utter sense of peace. At first it put me in a state of bliss, and then this peace just came over me. 

After we got home Mi Miguel and I were still talking about the encounter with the dolphins. He said that he too, experienced a sense of peace. After we got showered and cleaned up, we started reading about dolphins online. Others around the world that have had wild dolphins randomly come up to them have also experienced this feeling of bliss and peace. I'm not at all religious, never have been, never will be. But randomly seeing two dolphins, looking at one that swims freely in the ocean, right in the eye is healing. In fact, it settles absolutely well with my soul.