We had a great weekend with my brother's family, and especially getting to hang with Natalie and Marissa all day Saturday.
Books were read...
...water was spilled...
...and mopped up and spilled again...
...herbs were picked...
...and cheesy grins captured.
Everybody curled up and watched Robin Hood (the animated Disney version) on Sunday morning while it poured rain outside--very cozy.
I was really thrilled, on Saturday, to get to introduce the girls to my favorite childhood movie, The Sound of Music. Marissa wandered in and out for some of it, getting Todd to play hide-and-seek with her or read her a couple of books, but Natalie stuck it out till the end. It was hard to explain nuns and Nazis to a six-year-old (nuns = "women who want to love and worship God all the time so they live in a special place and wear special clothes"; Nazis = "bad guys who did some really bad things") and I fast-forwarded through a couple of the boring talky scenes with the Captain and the Baroness, but she loved it. I was glad. What a great memory, getting to watch it with her.Whenever the girls come to visit, the house always seems a little sad and quiet after they leave.
Love those two girlies.
I still had my cold all weekend, which is why we had a low-key Saturday watching a long movie and playing with water, and today I'm just really tired. Took a nap yesterday afternoon and slept hard all night long, and I'm still dragging a little today. Definitely on the mend, just...tired.Oh--I finally have my car back! We picked up Todd's car Thursday night. Today I went to the park and walked and got groceries, and it felt like such a luxury after three weeks of car-lessness. I'm glad life is back to normal and I can go wherever I want whenever I want!Hope everybody else's week is off to a good start, too.
This is one of the other items I found on Monday while shopping in Westerville.
There's no publication date, but I think the book is at least 100 years old, based on the condition and style, and also on the clothes the kids are wearing in this picture:
There are a few little pictures and stories like this in the book, but the real treasure is all the full-page color plates.
I think this one is my favorite:
That's about half the pictures--there are also plates of a turkey, squirrels, a calf, a foal, a donkey, a "sly cat" lurking through a barn, a goat, and then pictures of a boy herding sheep and a hunting dog coming up out of a river. Aren't they gorgeous? The book has completely fallen apart, so I will have no guilt over taking some of the pictures out and framing them. They would look so sweet in an old-fashioned nursery or child's bedroom, but since we don't have any of those in this house, I'm thinking maybe in the foyer or upstairs hallway.I love framing old postcards and pages from books. When you think about how much even the cheapest generic prints from T.J. Maxx can cost, it really can be very cost-effective to find your own art and frame it. Plus, it's completely unique!
It's May, and that means that Kim at Twice Remembered is hosting her third annual Cottage Charm Giveaway. This is my third time to participate, too, and I'm excited! I especially like doing this giveaway because it coincides with my "blogiversary" (four years!) and also because I always find new and wonderful blogs to read when I visit all the participants.
May has been a weird month for me, with no car on a regular basis, so I decided to go "shopping" in my house and then supplement that with a walk to the thrift store. And I found some terrific stuff. This time I'm doing a "baking" theme, and here's what you'll win if I draw your name from the comments list:
-a vintage cookie cutter
-a bowl scraper from King Arthur Flour
-a stack of recipe cards with some of my favorite cookie and muffin recipes
-a sweet little vintage plate to serve your baked goodies on
-a hand-embroidered table runner to place the plate on
-a red toile tin to package some baked goodies in
-a set of four mise-en-place bowls to hold your ingredients while you bake
-a nifty push-up measuring cup, especially nice for measuring things like peanut butter, mayonnaise, honey, etc.
-some tea bags so you can sip while you snack
-an apple-pie scented Yankee candle in a pretty votive holder
-a bar of cinnamon-oatmeal soap from Ellie's Handmade Soap
-aaaaand, a lovely little cookbook with recipes and gift ideas for each of the four seasons.
Whew! If I find any more treasures between now and the end of the month, I'll add them, but this seems like plenty to start with.
The rules are simple: just leave a comment on this post between now and midnight on Saturday, May 30th. Please include your e-mail address if you don't have a blog or some way for me to contact you. I'll announce the winner on the 31st.
And definitely check out all the other giveaways listed here! You could win something really wonderful, and maybe find some new friends and inspiration, too.
Still no Hyundai. I was going to take Todd to work this morning so I could go grocery shopping, but I was too tired to organize my coupons last night, and today I am coming down with the cold that Todd has been fighting for almost a week. Such a generous husband, giving me his cold. Such a sweetie!
So, stuck at home again, I hauled out some of the stuff I bought at Michael's last weekend. They were clearancing out a bunch of the home decor stuff they've had out since January, and I finally made my move and snapped some of it up.
I keep a low bench right outside the front door with various decorative items on it, and when I found a bunch of birdhouses and pitchers at Michael's, I decided to get a bunch of it and re-do my arrangement on the bench.
The bench was made for me by Todd several years ago, and I painted it a sort of maize yellow, but that doesn't go with the stuff I bought last week, so I also got a couple cans of spray paint and hauled it out in the yard and painted it today. Of course, I forgot to take a "before" picture, but here's the "after":
I'll have to see if I can find a "before" picture on the other computer later. I need to fill in a couple of gaps with more tchotchkes, but you get the basic idea. I'm hoping that little ceramic angel survives...our porch is like a long, narrow wind-tunnel and I have had more than one treasure blown off the bench and broken.
[Edited to add: I found an old shot of the front door with the bench beside it...this was right before Christmas 07. I got rid of the red chair on the other side today--I've had it for five or six years and it's looking very ratty, so it went to the curb:]
Then I took the same can of spray paint and overhauled this little table that sits between the wicker chairs on the other side of the porch:
Again, I didn't take a "before" picture--what's wrong with me?! My problem is that once I get all revved up to do a project, I have to plunge right into it and I don't want to take the time to track down my camera. This is a huge improvement on this little thrift store table, though--the legs were pale yellow, and the top was off-white with a big apple decal in the center, and a painted checkerboard pattern around the edge. Sort of folk art style. I think plain khaki looks better, esp. with the dark brown chairs. Now I need to find some small, cute plant to set on it...again, something that hopefully won't get blown away when a big storm comes through.
I am a spray paint novice, but I'm always reading other people's blogs and seeing all the wonderful transformations they create with it, and I am totally convinced now. It took about fifteen minutes to spray the bench and the table, and by the time I got deadheading all my hanging petunia plants, they were dry and ready to put back up on the porch. Very impressive.
These birdhouses have been sitting on my front door bench with a couple of baskets and a grapevine wreath, but they didn't go with the scheme any more, so I just set them on the porch steps with the grapevine wreath propped behind them and another little Michael's angel next to them:
Speaking of items that got blown over and broken, this is one of them, a very cute glazed pot I picked up at a garden store in Portsmouth. I couldn't bring myself to throw away the bits, so they've been sitting pretty much where they fell. A couple weeks ago I stuck them in the garden and pulled up a spare sedum to plant in front of them.
Here's the McCoy vase I picked up in Westerville on Monday:
I have a similar vase that I bought years ago when we were living in Ohio:
Here's the bowl I got on Monday, I still haven't found a spot for it to sit yet so it's hanging out on the kitchen counter. Someday when Todd makes shelves for our living room, I'm going to display all my pottery together.
What a gorgeous day today is, sunny and cool. I need to do some cleaning and tidying before my brother's family comes for the weekend, and plan some meals and get some groceries. I hope this cold dries up and goes away fast!
We got home from Columbus at about 11 last night...it was a great weekend! Angelo was very, very excited to make his First Communion. He was running around the yard the night before saying, "Tomorrow I get to take the blood and body of Christ!" which is not something you'd typically hear from an eight-year-old boy! And when he came back up the aisle after the communion, he had a look of pure joy on his face. I'm so happy that it was important to him to take that step in his life.
Our present to him was a sterling silver tie tack to go with his snazzy new suit and tie.
Such a cutie pie!
Here's Angelo with his dad Craig and his mom Julie:
I only got a couple of pictures at church...here's my father-in-law John with Gianna:
Look at this gorgeous boy!
Here are the kids with their mom Julie and her boyfriend Andrew. This was the first big family event since Julie and her husband Craig split up a couple of years ago, and since Andrew came into their lives, so everyone was feeling a little nervous about how it would go, but everything went really smoothly. The kids come first, for all of us, and I think that has helped. It was nice to get to spend a few days with Andrew and get to know him better.
"Can we stop smiling now?"
Todd's dad, Todd, the kiddies, me, and Todd's sisters Julie and Lisa.
We took a nice picture of Todd and his sisters later on:
So that was Saturday--we had Mass/First Communion in the morning, and then a big lunch with Angelo's dad's family. They had three cousins all celebrating their First Communion together, so it was a really special day for their family.
Sunday we took A & G out to pick up some crafts to work on together. Angelo and Todd made a wooden plane and helicopter:
(Angelo was making goofy faces, in case you can't tell)...and Gianna and I made some little bobblehead cats that we blinged up with gems and glitter:
We spent the rest of the time just hanging out, playing cornhole, kicking the soccer ball, playing on the swingset, etc. The weather was great, a little cool, but mostly sunny, so we could be outside a lot.
Look at this gorgeous picture I got of Miss Gianna:
Monday morning, everyone went off to work or school, or to catch their plane, but Todd and I didn't have to fly out till late afternoon, so we went to the used bookstore, a couple of antique shops, and had lunch at my favorite restaurant so I could have their Fruity Chicken, which is just a scoop of the world's best chicken salad served with melon, strawberries and grapes piled all around it. It used to come with a muffin, but now you have to order your muffin separately, which I did.
We used to live in Westerville, so it was fun to drive around and see how things have changed and visit a couple of the places we liked to go when we lived there. We also got hamburgers on Sunday at the best burger joint ever.
At the antique stores, I found a McCoy vase and a McCoy bowl for excellent prices, so I had them wrapped up really well in bubble wrap, and then we hit a Goodwill near the airport and found a duffle bag/knapsack so that I could put the pottery in there along with my purse and carry it on the plane. I also had to mail a couple of books and a couple other antique store finds, plus some scrapbook paper, home to myself, so I'm hoping that package will show up here tomorrow.
Since we only had a fifty-pound limit on our suitcase, we had to do some shuffling of items, and it was a good thing I mailed that extra stuff home, because we were right over the limit when we checked in. We grabbed a couple things out of the side pocket to bring the weight down to 49.9 lbs. and then we had to figure out where to cram those things into our carry-ons, too! It's a good thing we restrained ourselves on the shopping, because there was just no more room anywhere.
I unwrapped my bowl and vase this morning and they survived the trip just fine. Now I'm working my way through laundry and hoping with all my heart that we can pick up our other car tonight so I can get my regular life back!
STILL no car! That Hyundai had better run like a top after two weeks in the shop! I crammed my errand-running into two days this week, and now today I'm relaxing at home and doing the laundry so I can get my suitcase packed.
We are going to Columbus, OH for a few days to attend our nephew Angelo's First Communion. I'm so excited to see him and our niece Gianna and both of my sisters-in-law, and hopefully we'll have time to visit a couple of our favorite haunts from the days when we used to live there, which seem so long ago now (six years.)
Todd and I are sharing the big suitcase so we only have to check one bag--do you think we can get four days' worth of clothes and shoes for two people into one bag? I'm dubious. Not because of him, but because of me. Just the shoes alone--sneakers, casual, dress, and maybe sandals?--will fill half the bag. I try so hard to pack light, but I always feel like I have to cover every contingency...dress-up clothes, of course, but then you need long-sleeves, short-sleeves, a jacket, jeans, comfy pants, maybe something semi-dressy in case you go out...before you know it you have a stack of outfits and no room in the bag.
I am far from being a clotheshorse, and maybe that's the problem. I'm indecisive and insecure about my clothes, and the dress code in Columbus is way more upscale than here in this grungy city. I actually kind of like living here because at any given moment on the average street corner or shopping center, I'm one of the best-dressed people in sight, with no more effort than throwing on nice-ish jeans and a long-sleeve tee. That absolutely never happened in Columbus! I always felt like a hobo in Columbus. Part of the reason I feel I could never visit New York is that my crappy clothes would immediately mark me as a tourist and between the outraged fashionistas and the muggers, I'd never get out alive.
I guess there's something to be said for living in a place with lowered expectations. It's a lot less pressure, that's for sure.
Off to polish my shoes and pack some jewelry and make-up. It's good to raise my standards every so often!
I've been feeling a desire to do some kind of needlework--it's been a couple of years since I've stitched anything--so last night I dug through my sewing box and found this:
I started this unicorn needlepoint when we were living in Idaho--say, about 1994? It was a big splurge: I bought a brand-new (then) hardcover of Flowers, Birds and Unicorns: Medieval Needlepoint by Candace Bahouth for the pattern, and a big canvas, and a huge pile of wool yarn. A large expenditure fifteen years ago, when we were still practically newlyweds.
Todd was very much into the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) then, a medieval re-enactment group which had a very active branch in Idaho Falls, so we had a lot of medieval books and such, and I was very much into cross-stitch then, so when I found this book and was able to find all the supplies at the very nice needlecraft store downtown, it seemed like the perfect project. I think it was the third (and last) needlepoint project I ever attempted. Here it is in the book, completed as a pillow:
I got it about 70% done, and then abandoned it for fifteen years, crumpled in the bottom of my sewing box. Every now and then I would paw through and think "I should finish that," but never seriously. Somehow something just clicked last night and I pulled it out and started stitching and am having a grand old time with it. I like needlepoint a lot--it doesn't seem to age as badly as counted cross-stitch has. And I'm not sure why. Cross-stitch's heyday seemed to coincide with that cutesy-country period, and so there's a lot of just lousy cross-stitch out there in the yard sales and thrift stores. Needlepoint seems to have a more timeless look--except of course for plastic canvas. *shudder*
(I do have to say that I have made a lot of really terrific cross-stitch projects that still (in my opinion) look good, and the wedding sampler pattern that my mother-in-law stitched for us still looks quite up-to-date 17 years later. But we won't talk about some of the odds and ends at the bottom of my sewing box...)
One danger of abandoning a project for that long a time is that you won't find it appealing or to your taste after so long, but I do still find the unicorn and the design really beautiful, even if we're not quite as heavily into all things medieval as we were years ago. And the colors will still work in several different rooms in our home.
Sometimes when I look at a piece of stitching I've done, I can remember so clearly which apartment we lived in, and which of our old couches I sat on, and can pinpoint the year from there, but not with this. I have no clear memory of working on it. But it does stir up a lot of memories of the three-and-a-half years we lived in Idaho. I miss the big sky and the foothills of the Tetons you could see from town. Maybe someday I'll dig out some pictures from that era and post them here--that would be fun!
Anyway...here are a few other things from my life right now...the first two roses from my rosebush out front:
Once or twice a day when I'm in the kitchen, I just pick them up and take a few deep sniffs. Mmmm.
I bought this little Homer Laughlin bowl for $3.00 at an estate sale a few weeks ago:
I LOVE the little inset details--love, love, love.
I bought seventeen--yes, seventeen--of these small (maybe 5x6") encyclopedias at the thrift store last week. They were published in the early 1930's, and they are in perfect condition. It was one of those things where you're loading them into your cart and thinking, "What is wrong with you and what on earth are you going to do with these?" but I couldn't help myself. They were dirt cheap and just so cool. I love the design on the spines.
They don't have many illustrations, but the ones that are included are quite nice:
It's not a complete set, but that's okay. I think I have a fear that in another 20 years books will be a total anachronism, and I feel this need to grab all the oldies I can find and take good care of them. These books are already an anachronism--do encyclopedias even exist any more?And speaking of anachronisms, here's the globe I found at another estate sale five or six weeks ago:
I was so excited to find it, because I didn't have a black one yet, and the price was very fair. The colors are so nice, and I believe it's about 55-60 years old, because Israel is a country, but Korea hasn't been divided yet. I love dating globes, it satisfies the utter dork in me.
And with this purchase, I am officially out of room for globes, except maybe a few more of those little globe banks, which are getting rare as hen's teeth, but way more expensive. Time to buy a bigger house, right?
We are still without our second car, which is getting the automobile equivalent of triple bypass surgery right now--a gamble on an eleven-year-old car, but we agreed that neither of us had the energy for a new car search right now. Nor do we have any burning desire to make car payments again. It seems like a law of our lives: within six months of when we get one car paid off, the other breaks down or gets in an accident and has to be replaced. But we're going for the surgical option this time, with fingers crossed that we can get another two or three years out of this car if we do the work on it now. But I am ready to have my car back and start running useless errands again!
I was feeling bad about not updating my blog, but I've been making the rounds of some of the other blogs I read semi-regularly, and I see that there are many other people who are otherwise occupied, too! Is it something about spring? Are we all too busy planting flowers, buying capris and flip-flops, and driving around with the windows down?
The only one of the above things I've been doing is planting flowers. I hate capris, although I need some, and I have enough flip-flops. (Well, maybe.) And I'm not driving around with the windows down this week because Todd's car died while he was en route to the big air show at Langley on Sunday, so it's in the shop and Todd is taking my car to work this week.
I could haul myself out of bed at 5:15 AM and drive him to work so I can have the car, but frankly, nothing I need to do is urgent enough to warrant getting out of bed at 5:15 AM. And it's been kind of nice to be at home, not having to run errands. I'm getting some spring cleaning done, and it's quite relaxing. Better than sitting in traffic on scruffy Warwick Boulevard.
It was also in the mid-90s here for a few days, and I'm not going out in that mess unless it's truly necessary. So it hasn't been a hardship staying inside where it's cool. Tomorrow we're supposed to get weather that's a little more seasonal--quite a relief, as I am not remotely prepared for the summer hibernation to start yet. Every summer I feel less able to cope mentally with the heat and humidity. I wish it didn't bother me so much.Anyway, I'll be back soon. Hope everybody's enjoying springtime.
I've been anxious to get some hanging pots up on the front porch, because it's that time of year, when the mourning doves come and nest in the pot of their choice, so when we found some lovely red petunias at the grocery store Saturday, we brought them home and hung them up.
Not a moment too soon, either--look who I found when I peeked out the front door just now:
Meanwhile, daddy bird is fluttering about with bits and pieces to help out...here he sits on the front steps checking me out to make sure I'm not going to interfere:
I can hear them out there right now, clucking and chattering to each other and scolding all the other birds who get in their way. We've had doves nesting on the porch every year--for all I know, it's the same parents every year--and it makes me so happy to see them getting their spot all ready again.
The only problem is that it makes it impossible to do any dead-heading, and virtually impossible to do any watering, so the plant usually dies. I'm going to try to at least keep it watered this time--but I have an extreme aversion to baby birds, so it's a very shuddery experience, because I'm so afraid of tipping out a creepy, slimy baby bird if I get too close. Maybe I'll make Todd do it.
We had an extremely productive weekend--got our taxes filed, got some financial stuff taken care of at the bank, bought a carload of plants, totally re-vamped the corner flower bed and built two low rock walls across it, filled the bed with plants...that's all I can remember, but I'm sure there was more.
This year I've decided to go for it with the gardens and landscaping--that is, fill up those beds with plants and hang the expense. (Within reason, of course.) I'm going to pull out every single one of my flowerpots and fill all those up, too. By July, I want this house to look like a freaking flower festival.
One good thing is that after three years, I have a good idea of what will grow well in our dry and sunny and hot conditions, so I can make more informed purchases. Another good thing is that I have a lot of established perennials, so I can concentrate on filling in the gaps with lots of colorful annuals.
When I get a minute, I'll try and find some "before"pics of the corner bed, so the new-and-improved version can be fully appreciated. But believe me, it's MUCH better!
Todd got his 15 minutes of fame this week. He spent several days e-mailing people about this issue--it's crazy that we live on a peninsula almost entirely surrounded by water, and yet there are only a couple of places where you can actually get to the water. And then the bad seeds have to ruin it for everybody. Sheesh.
I realized what a mistake I made, not having kids...free labor! First my e-mail friend Bonnie told me that her 23-year-old son loves to tackle all her home improvement projects, and then I had to go and hire a kid (my friends' son Matthew) to help me weed the front flowerbeds yesterday. If I'd had my own kid when we first got married, I'd be reaping the benefits right about now.
Nah...still not worth it! Besides, Matthew is a delightful yard work companion. And if he was my kid, I'd go broke just trying to keep him clothed, the way he's growing.
Um...what else? I bought a cool black globe at the thrift store--it's about 60 years old, I think.
We're going to watch "30 Rock" on DVD tonight. I love Tina Fey. Todd hates her glasses.
I'm planning my big projects to do when Todd goes to the Outer Banks next weekend: washing windows and planting flowers are the two biggest.
This weekend is tax weekend--we can't put it off any longer. Sigh.
My gosh, we are living some dull lives right now! Not that I mind, necessarily, but it doesn't make for scintillating blog reading. I can't even comment on current events because I am keeping the news resolutely off. "The Daily Show" doesn't count as news, right?
I really dislike holidays and holiday weekends, so this time around I'm pretending there's no holiday at all. It's worked well so far. I may make some deviled eggs, though.
Back later.
I finally got my car cleaned out, and it gave me an idea...you know how people nowadays are taking "staycations" where they stay home and do fun things instead of taking expensive vacations. My idea is called "New Old Car," because I couldn't think of a clever name like "staycation."
You just take your old dirty car, scrub it up, polish the windows, spring for some new floor mats, and maybe run it through a car wash and voila! All the benefits of a new car without the costs.
It works best if you really let the car get filthy before you clean it up, so the contrast is even better. Like to the point where you feel like you should be wearing rubber gloves to touch the gearshift. Where the dead leaves, bits of gravel, and nameless crud on the floor are at least 1/4" thick. Where you can't push your seat back because of all the empty plastic water bottles crushed underneath it.
My experience was also greatly improved by removing the cloth covers from the leather seats (we covered the seats a couple of summers ago so our thighs wouldn't pan fry when we sat down)--I had planned to take the covers off and wash them, but they disintegrated as I pulled them off, so now I'm sliding across luxurious leather again, which feels ever so new and nice. (I'll have to put new covers on in a couple of months because of the pan-fried thighs issue.)
If the car is paid off, the satisfaction is even sweeter--a new car with no car payments!
It's all about the small pleasures, isn't it?
A couple other small pleasures:
My phlox is phlourishing: (I had to say it, I had to!)
Note the careful cropping of weeds from the viewfinder. The weeds are BAD. I'm at my wits' end with this garden, I have no idea what to do with it this year. I need some classes, or an intervention, or something. Maybe if I go out and weed, some kind of inspiration will come to me. It's the arranging that I just can't figure out--how to make a ton of disparate elements all flow together. Should I hire somebody to draw me up a plan? Maybe it would be worth the money...
That's all I've got today. Just busy with the regular boring stuff: laundry, groceries, looking at weeds. I've gotta get out there and start yanking and digging and moving stuff around, I've just got to. Somebody give me a push!
Do you get grumpy in the afternoons? From about 3:00 till about 6:00, I just feel dreadful most days. I know part of it is a blood sugar problem, but even with a snack, I still feel so out-of-sorts. Even when I start out the day in a fabulous mood, by 3:00 life looks ever so bleak.
I LOVE the picture on this blog today. I wish I could go back in time and take a road trip in a big old car and stay in little tourist camps and get an ice-cold Coke at a gas station like that. The photo makes me think of a fave childhood book called Judy's Journey by Lois Lenski, written in that same era. Judy's family were migrant farm workers that traveled all over the southern U.S.--not a luxury road trip, but it was fun to read about all the different places they stayed. I love books and movies that deal with road trips..."National Lampoon's Vacation," "Harold and Kumar," Blue Highways...I know I'm forgetting lots.
I baked my first successful loaves of wheat bread yesterday and I'm still basking in the glow of achievement. I am so sick of nasty store-bought bread that tastes like chemicals. I tried a recipe from my King Arthur Flour baking book last week, but I think the yeast was too old--it rose, but not a lot. It was also sweetened with molasses, which was too overpowering. And it weighed about ten pounds.
I will try that recipe again with fresher yeast and maybe some honey instead of molasses, but for my second attempt I tried this recipe: Kid-Friendly Wheat Bread. That worked much better. I'm mostly looking for a bread that will serve as a good delivery vehicle for homemade lemon curd, and this fits the bill admirably.
Next I think I'll take on my mom's wheat crescent/cinnamon roll recipe--you can use the dough for either crescents or cinnamons, and it tastes awesome either way. Can't wait to try!
I'm starting to think the sun has gone away forever. It's absolutely bizarre to have so many cloudy days here. I went out to clean out the car this afternoon and ran the battery down listening to the radio while I cleaned. I thought a car battery had more juice than that--I barely got started! And oh, is it a sty. I am embarrassed to have people travel in it with me. So I'll tackle the rest tomorrow and maybe (fingers crossed) there will be a little sunlight to clean by?
I don't usually get up at 5:15 with Todd, but I was inexplicably tired last night and went to bed early, so I am up early, too. Usually I wait till the sun has peeked out before I wake up. But it's very peaceful, getting an early jump on the day, taking time for more of a breakfast than a granola bar, sipping some tea, getting the first load of laundry started, surveying the "to do" list, and listening to the birds chattering outside in the dark.
One of the benefits of reading a lot of history is that it makes you more grateful for the peacefulness you live in and more aware of what a rarity it is, in the course of time, that you get to get up each morning, go about your business, think what you want and do what you want (mostly) and not be quite so buffeted about by forces beyond your control. Of course, we are buffeted about by forces beyond our control, but not quite to the extent of someone living in say, Tudor England or Poland in the 1940's, to name two tumultuous times I've read about recently.
So things are quiet here, which is the way we like them...I have painted most of the master bathroom and we've hung a new shower curtain rod and window curtain rod in there. Todd has ripped off the countertop and today I'll be sanding the vanity and hopefully putting on a coat of primer, at least.
The guest bath is still awaiting a medicine cabinet, but it's done apart from that, and we've been using that bath while the master bath is torn up. So glad we have two bathrooms upstairs!
The paint in the master bath looks awesome (Benjamin Moore, Woodlawn Blue), and I'd take a picture if it wasn't dark right now. The only bit left is behind the toilet, where you practically have to stand on your head to get back there, and when we replace the floor and the toilet comes out, I'll be able to get that bit done. I think I'll be needing a new shower curtain in there, too, as we've mounted the new rod higher than the old one, so I guess I need to start looking for fabric. No hurry on that, though.
Now my attention is turning to the front flower beds and yet again trying to figure out what to plant, what will survive the heat and sun and benign neglect of summertime. I wish I liked to garden more than I do. I thought I did, but I guess I don't!
And we're making plans for putting in new porch rails and painting all the trim on the front of the house. It has that dingy, wintertime look, and now that the weather's getting warm, it's time to bump up our curb appeal, especially since our next-door neighbors are selling their home and have really spruced it up. We're coming off badly in comparison!
I'll be back with more interesting stuff later, promise.
...water was spilled...
...and mopped up and spilled again...
...herbs were picked...
...and cheesy grins captured.
Everybody curled up and watched Robin Hood (the animated Disney version) on Sunday morning while it poured rain outside--very cozy.
I was really thrilled, on Saturday, to get to introduce the girls to my favorite childhood movie, The Sound of Music. Marissa wandered in and out for some of it, getting Todd to play hide-and-seek with her or read her a couple of books, but Natalie stuck it out till the end. It was hard to explain nuns and Nazis to a six-year-old (nuns = "women who want to love and worship God all the time so they live in a special place and wear special clothes"; Nazis = "bad guys who did some really bad things") and I fast-forwarded through a couple of the boring talky scenes with the Captain and the Baroness, but she loved it. I was glad. What a great memory, getting to watch it with her.
Love those two girlies.
