Back in April, my uncle Stanley passed away. Danny and I were talking about how Stanley will never be around again to make everyone laugh. And boy, could he make every one laugh. He seemed to remember thousands of jokes to re-tell over the years. Danny shared his favorite story told by Stanley. And it wasn't a joke. It was true.

Stanley and his wife built a new house some years ago. They did almost all of the work on it themselves with the help of some of their friends. One day Stanley had to crawl under the house to repair a leak. He got his tools and went into the crawl space under the house. He had a flashlight and was making his way toward the leak when he came face to face with a snake. A water moccasin, no doubt.

Stanley was greatly afraid of snakes. But apparently he was less afraid of them than me because there would be no way on this earth that I would be crawling around under a house unless maybe my child was stuck under there. I mean seriously. I would hire someone to fix the leak or it could keep leaking until a lake formed and the house was swallowed up. No house is worth messing with a water moccasin.

But on with the story.

Stanley froze in place. He admits that he may have screamed in a very high pitched girl-like manner but there were no other witnesses so he couldn't be sure. He began inching backward at a swift rate. He left the tools and flashlight behind and got out of there as fast as humanly possible.

He burst out from the crawl space opening and ran into the house. Without saying a word to his wife who was standing in the kitchen, he went to the liquor cabinet and took out the bottle of tequila and a shot glass. He commenced to taking tequila shots. And shaking. Really badly shaking. It was only mid-morning so his wife was greatly concerned to see him taking shots of tequila.

It took awhile for him to catch his breath and tell his wife what happened. He never went back under the house. His wife called someone else to fix the leak and retrieve Stanley's tools.

The story isn't quite as funny when I tell it here. But when Stanley told it, the story took on his special brand of story-telling magic. He had a soft southern drawl and he would act out the parts of the story. We will miss him so much in the coming years. But you know, I guess Stanley isn't really dead...he just went home.

For the most part I am optimistic. I am happy and think the best will happen. I look for the best in people.

But then I have those days like today. When things just won't go right. And to top it all off Rue McClanahan dies. What will the world be without the woman who made Blanche Devereaux famous?

A synopsis of my day:

It was my daughter's last day of school and there was much excitement this morning. Then she freaked out while we were driving away from the house because we left 2 minutes later than we normally do.

Prior to us leaving the house this morning, I think Toot must have watched the YouTube videos of Poker Face and Bad Romance about, oh, I don't know, 33 times. I have Bad Romance seared into my brain in a never-ending spool.

I have been working at the kitchen table for the past three days since there is intense painting going on in the room next to my office. But the kitchen table is at the wrong height to sit and type on my laptop. So I have a very painful neck and shoulders. I'll move back to my home office tomorrow.

Got some crappy news at work today.

Did not get enough done on my to-do list here at home. Feel pretty darn overwhelmed by it all.

Spent too much $$ at Lowe's over the past month. Home improvement is expensive!

Oh, and the pile of unsorted mail continues to reach Sears Tower proportions because I hate, hate, hate to sort the mail and file/dispose/deal with it. I pull out the bills when the mail comes in, pay them, and let the rest sit. Until it threatens to topple onto an unsuspecting dog or child and then I deal with it. Yes, I do.

But on a brighter note, we finished up the day with an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. Ice cream cakes are known to cure lots of things. That, and a Guiness. Magic.It is always best to end the day on some sort of bright note. Even the small things can help pull me out of the doldrums.

Let your taste buds do the polka and register to win a free Shiner t-shirt on my food blog.

I took this picture while on a day of driving around south central Tennessee last August.

It is an old abandoned house down a country road. It captured my attention because of the shape of the roof line and the two chimneys in the middle. The roof and chimneys actually looked like they were in fairly good shape but the rest of the house had gaping holes and vines growing through the walls. This house looks like it would have belonged to a family of long ago who could afford to build a larger house like this. When you drive around the curve of the road in front of the house, you can see the house from the side and there is another wing jutting off the back.

I always wonder who lived in this house. Who left it to die by itself. And I say die because somehow I think houses that are left alone deteriorate faster because there is no life in them, no one to keep them company.

Rather than spending Memorial Day at Surfside beach, we continued our painting of the interior of our house. This morning I jumped right into cleaning and prepping our library for painting. This the room that Toot spends a lot of time in. There is a tv in there in addition to all the books. And the closet holds all of her art supplies on shelves. She tends to clutter up the entire floor with her huge assortment of little stuff that she likes to play with.

My mother-in-law and I cleaned up and organized the library and closet. Then we decided to go ahead and paint all of the room including the book shelves and trim. Originally we were only going to do the walls but upon closer inspection, we decided to paint everything. Off I went for yet another visit to Lowe's. I am getting to know the people who work there quite well lately.

So we made some progress. I will post some pictures soon. We are also having new flooring installed in the library but that won't come until later this week. The walls are painted and the first coat of paint is on the bookshelves. I also painted the mudroom in our house because it is small and fairly easy to knock out fast. Tomorrow is a work day for me so I won't get as much done but I have family visiting who will help out, thank goodness.

Yesterday the day was sunny and hot. Then a sudden storm developed. The wind was whipping around and the sky was dark. Toot and I walked outside onto the driveway and stood in the wind. It felt great. The day had been so hot and muggy but it was suddenly cool and windy. Leaves were blowing around us. We walked towards the end of the driveway where we have a large tree with low-lying limbs. Toot climbed up onto the lowest limb with a boost from me. She sat there while the beginnings of the storm raged around us and leaves blew in all directions. Then the rain started so we ran back into the house. Danny had gone to the church on his motorcycle and he came rolling back into our garage just in time before he got soaked by the storm.

It is nice that Toot is not scared of storms. I have had many friends and family members over the years who were very fearful of storms for various reasons. But not me. I love to sit on the porch or covered patio while a good rain storm rages. Lightning and thunder don't scare me at all. I suppose if I ever get struck by lightning or attacked by a tornado, I may change my thinking.

Then on Facebook I saw that three different friends in our area here were doing the same thing as us and sitting outside enjoying the storm rolling in!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I overheard two old guys at the gas station this morning discussing the BP oil spill in the Gulf and of course, how it should be fixed. It reminded me of back when we owned a family-style restaurant and all the old geezers would come in each morning for their coffee and biscuits while they solved the problems of the world among themselves. There were always big ideas floating around their tables.

One of the old guys this morning said that BP was just getting back at us for the fact that the US was once a colony of Great Britain and we threw off their rule and became our own successful country. He said that the British have been waiting over 200 years to get back at us and now they have. They are ruining our coastlines from Louisiana to Florida and beyond.

Wow. Talk about conspiracy theory.

I am mad as heck about the oil spill too but I don't believe that the whole country of Great Britain is on a mission to "get back" at us. I mean look at some of the good things they've given us: ...um well, what are some good things they've given us? I'm pulling a blank here. Oh yeah, Queen, the greatest rock and roll band in the history of the world. Yep, they gave us Queen.

Head over to the La Wooden Spoon page on my site and enter to win a free 1-year subscription to Bon Appetit magazine, my favorite cooking magazine.

Luckily for me, the former owners of our property planted nice flowers and shrubs. Lucky I say because I don't really have a green thumb. The only plants I seem to be able to grow and keep alive with any degree of success are vegetable plants. I am pretty good with a kitchen garden.

But other plants? Not so much. This is the latest flower to bloom in our back yard in addition to the huge stand of oleander and canna lilies.

We have completed the total remodel of the exterior of our house. Now we are steadily working on the inside remodeling project. We are repainting almost all of the rooms of our house plus getting new flooring in a couple of rooms. We are almost done with the master bedroom. I will post pictures of that part of the project soon.

Now we are working on the master bath and closet area. This area is the primary reason I wanted to buy this house. It is simply amazingly designed and laid out. I completed the painting of my end of our closet today. It doesn't seem like much but it turned out to be a large amount of work.

Our entire closet area in the master bedroom is about 30 feet by 6 feet. There are four parts to the closet. As you step down two steps from the bathroom, you face a tall built-in area of cabinets and drawers. Turn left and you are in the area where I have my shoe shelves and hanging clothing. Walk on through and you come to another walk-in closet where I hang dresses along one wall, belts and scarves on another wall, and robes on a third wall. There is also a tall skinny window in this area that looks out on the back yard.

Turning back and walking to the steps again, if you had turned right, you would be in Danny's end of the closet which has large, deep built-in shelves on one side and a long rod for hanging clothes on the other. Go down to the end, there is a door that opens into another walk-in closet that is completely lined with cedar.

Here is a picture of my end of the closet:

It was very difficult to get the colors to come out correctly but this closet used to be all white walls with white shelves. I painted it a Valspar color from Lowes Laura Ashley Home collection called Taupe 4 in matte finish. The shelves, trim, and cabinets are basic black done in a semi-gloss.

This project has taken forever to get this far. All of the trim, shelves, and cabinets had to be primed. Then painted a first coat. Then painted a second coat. The walls had to be painted. And finally it all had to be touched up. Quite frankly, I am sick of painting! But I can't wait to get all my clothes and shoes back in place and organized. At the present time, everything is stashed all over the guest room. My cousin says that this gargantuan closet of ours is not a walk-in closet. It is a drive-in closet. Of course, he lives in San Francisco. In the Haight. So my closet probably seems like a palace. In fact, if this closet was in the Haight right now, I could probably rent it out as a studio apartment for big bucks.