A few weeks ago I shared how excited I was about this journey with buying the cabin we were beginning. Once it sank in that this was really going to happen, well, I did the first thing any woman would do. I set out on a Pinterest binge.

If you don’t know what Pinterest is, stop reading right here. Save yourself. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. For the love of all that’s holy. Don’t start. It crack for DIY’ers. Crafters. Overachievers (like that bunch of aunts I was born into 🙄). I would elaborate on the Aunt thing, but that’s another post for another time. That one would take all day.

Forget wine and Netflix. Give this gal Pinterest and a diet dew, and I’m ready to take on the world. My ADD kicks into overdrive and one second I’m looking at all in 1 dishes and thinking “Who is sick or having surgery I can fix that for” and 2 seconds later I’m convincing myself I’m going to retire from making shower melts from Vick’s vapor rub. Yes, we laugh about this, but both of these are true stories. Truth will stand when the worlds on fire.

Fast forward 2,539 pins later, 378 thrift store runs, and 97 hand scribbled lists that I managed to lose half of, and it’s time. Time to turn this cabin into my vintage, farmhouse dream. With bears. I have to have bears. I’m kinda obsessed. Gah, I love bears. Especially nice bears….told you I had ADD. 🙄

Thursday morning. Time to hit the road. This was after me asking my husband to be up and ready to go when I got there. The man had one job. Wash his hind end, pack and be ready. I had done the hard work and gotten all the stuff we were taking together. I walk in and he’s walking around in his drawer tail, hair sticking up like Shaggy from Scooby Doo with a confused look on his face. Let’s just say that went over like a turd in a punchbowl. Then we had to backtrack to go cash a check, pick up my wallet I left at Granny O’s and run to the pharmacy. Let’s just say our ducks aren’t in a row.

Y’all, I literally pinned ALL THE WAY TO SEVIERVILLE. I walked thru the door at that Hobby Lobby like Joanna Gaines herself. I had remembered my list and I was on a mission. My biggest project of the weekend? No-sew burlap swag curtains this woman had just “thrown up” over some large twigs she found in her yard. This gal here is the first one on my list. I will hunt her down and roll her yard when I’m not exhausted.

Number 2 on my list? The fabric lady at Hobby Lobby who said that the Pinterest lady was wrong and I should NOT use landscape burlap but regular burlap. In a moment of Pinterest doubt, I agreed with her. I mean she cuts fabric at hobby lobby. Who am I to doubt? All I gotta say is she better be glad I can’t drive good at night and my hubby refused to take me back. There would have been a royal rumble on the fabric table. Y’all, there were tears. It was bad.

I decided to wait until the 2nd day to tackle the curtains. After climbing the cabin stairs 94 times to unload what was the equivalent of an American pickers monthly haul, I was exhausted. And besides, all I had to do was sling it over the rod, tie a knot and ravel the ends. Easy peasy!

Day 2. Beside the tub looks like something out of Southern Living. My vintage brick mold is hanging on the bathroom wall. My little wooden bear is perched on the brick mold. The new shower curtain is hung. Hey, Kim. Better get to work on the curtains.

How many of you know burlap isn’t easy to work with? It doesn’t smell pleasant, it isn’t soft at all, and as an added bonus, I’m apparently allergic to it. And it’s heavy. Especially when you have a whole bolt of it and you can’t cut it because you don’t know how much one window will take. It was at the point I made my first “wrap” something told me this wasn’t going to be easy. Now keep in mind I was coming down from a successful Pinterest recipe I had just made that was impressive. Paula Deen who? Here I come, curtains.

Sensing my frustration, my husband asked if maybe we could wash it to make it more “workable” and pliable. Wait. Didn’t the Pinterest lady say the landscape burlap was more pliable? Note to self: Hobby Lobby woman was not your friend. She tricked you. Off we go to the laundry mat. Google said wash it but don’t dry. Ok. We got it. We take it and stretch it across the porch to dry overnight, hoping like heck Lester the raccoon who visits doesn’t tote it off. Husband mentions we may have to iron it to get all the wrinkles out that washing had put in it. I blocked out his words (Bc remember this is a whole bolt, not just a yard or two) and go to bed. Saturday it’s on like a chicken bone. I was gonna have a burlap fairytale in that cabin. Slept like a rock.

Day 3. My last shot. Do or die. No, really, die because someone is checking in tomorrow and they won’t have curtains. The burlap wasn’t dry. Back to the laundry mat to dry it. Walk into the middle of an argument between the attendant and a guy who was only wanting to dry his river soaked clothes. She told him he had to wash them first. Hey, their business right? No, he has to tell me that I have to wash my stuff too and blocks the dryers. Pretty sure he and the attendant saw the crazy in my eye when I said “I’m putting this in that dryer” and marched past them. They knew better. They went back to arguing among themselves.

I literally watched that burlap spin for spin around that dryer. It was almost as if I was willing it to come out a soft, pliable dream. I was also trying to keep my eyes focused on something besides the young girl with the daisy dukes on had the front of her shirt stretched back over her neck, showing all of us what the stork brought. God love her. I know she had a mirror at home. She did, however, do a nice rendition to “Last dance with Mary Jane”….glad my honey walked over to Ace Hardware because he might have run off with her.

Ok, here we go. My wonderful husband irons every inch of that bolt of burlap. I wish I could say with love but he was on the porch and it was hot. Did I mention there were mosquitos galore this weekend?

I set out with my knot, wrap, fluff, wrap again, try to make the distances between wraps the same. Give up 2 or 3 times. Sit in floor have a red headed fit. Convince hubby to go back down the mountain for safety pins. No way it was staying without. In my mind I’m picturing the Pinterest lady and the hobby lobby lady and I convince myself they know each other and set me up. I start plotting their death.

My safety pins are here. I’m on the back of the couch, my plantar fascists riddled foot with the heel spur is burned into the couch frame with the intensity of a roaring flame. I have 6 splinters in my hand from free falling and sliding down the cabin wall. I’m crying. Whining. The crying begins to reach a fevered pitch. It is now after 1 AM. I hear my precious, kind husband mutter something under his breath. I freeze. “What did you say”?? He looked at me so calmly and said “To the ground. I will burn this cabin to the ground”. I believe there was a mention of him shooting me in the process. Delirium has set in. On both of us.

What happened? Well, the curtains are on the windows. They have enough safety pins in them to fix every woman in the Smokies falling bra strap and they looked like hammered Doo. Nothing like the Pinterest picture. . But they are done. And the cabins still standing. And well, he didn’t shoot me.

But I am sure of one thing. Pinterest is a liar. And I ain’t falling for it again. Well, maybe for that vintage rope pully/tin bucket thing full of flowers that would look SO GOOD on the cabin porch……Jesus, take the wheel.

Later y’all…..