Any Port In A Snowstorm

We got just the right amount of snow this weekend. Enough to hole up and be cozy, but not so much that we lost power, as some of our neighbors to the east did. I’ve got the start of another slab pie simmering in my magical instant pot (carnitas with a cornbread crust), and various other projects and plans are in progress. A sampling….

Just as I was cleaning all of my old insurance cards out of my wallet, this painting tutorial popped up on the “A Beautiful Mess” instagram feed. I had a few mini-canvases squirreled away for a rainy day (and my stockpile of paint is enormous), so I didn’t even have to venture out for supplies.

I ended up giving one canvas to Little Miss to re-paint, because I didn’t love it, but the other two are now proudly hanging on my wall. (So quick and easy and satisfying!) I think they look like abstract cacti.

And I’m working on a new hat for Sweet Husband. I joke that he loses them almost as badly as the kids. (But he makes me coffee every morning, so my resentment at making new ones for him is much, much lower.) I love this hat for guys, because it’s a little more interesting to knit than a plain ribbed hat, but—in the end—it’s a plain ribbed hat.

And of course, there was sledding. We rounded up a few of the kids’ friends yesterday for an hour on a local hill. The Kid is pretty independent these days, but Little Miss still needs a little help. (Mostly getting back up the hill. And “needs” might be too strong of a word. But it’s a good workout, so I mostly oblige.) The kids are already making rumblings about going back today, and I think we still have enough snow to make it happen.

Brain Floaties [The Falling Asleep to My Pie Book Edition]

I bought a book about slab pies just after Christmas, and I keep trying to read it before bed.

It’s really good, and pie is something I’d like to be better at so I have good motivation to keep working through it. Nonetheless, the prose is written in such a cozy way that I keep dozing off after just a few pages. I get all warm and thinking about pie and….zonk.

In slightly more successful reading news, I’ve been listening to The Girl in the Tower, the second book of the Winternight Trilogy, and if you want a snowy, Russian-inspired fairy tale, I can’t recommend it (and it’s predecessor, The Bear and the Nightingale) enough. They are particularly enjoyable in audiobook format, because the names and places are so beautiful to hear spoken aloud. The final book comes out next week, so I’ll just be right here by my fire listening away.

But on to movies: Has anyone seen the new Mary Poppins? I begged and pleaded with the kids to go while I was off with them on break (and their favorite babysitter did the same), but they are just Not Interested. I feel like I’ve failed them. (Or they’re failing me, the little traitorous beasties!) I should probably just go by myself, but it’s much more logistically difficult.

Speaking of logistically difficult, though, as you will know if you follow me anywhere else on the internets, we finished the Hogwarts Castle Lego set last night. Our niece did something like the first 20 bags while she was here on Christmas-proper, and everyone else has been slowly chipping away at it since. It’s the second largest Lego set currently in existence, so I’m pretty proud of our solid group effort. (Although now I feel like I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting it from harm. And from Sweet Husband, who wants to take it apart. [<—What kind of monster does this?!?!])

Moving on from logistically difficult to more just straight-up difficult, one of my besties plied me with gin on New Year’s Eve and talked me into signing up for the “Golden Hawk”, aka every single race our local “Trailhawks” running group puts on in a year. (I mean, I was thinking about it already. She was just encouragement. And she makes a damn good gin punch.) Three 5K’s, one 10K, two 10 milers, one marathon…and a partridge in a pear tree. The marathon is a little scary, I’ll admit. Maybe I need to get an audio version of my pie book and listen to it on the treadmill?

I’ll leave you with one more of Hogwarts. Aren’t the little windows magical?!

Kinda Finished And Not Finished At All [An Update On The House]

We had a battle plan before we moved in. Bathrooms first, then paint, then the next thing, and the next.

Does that ever work for anyone? Because, we've only done this twice now, but somehow--both times--the plan has immediately been scrapped in favor of one simple question: What is making us craziest today and how can we fix it?

In that vein--the bathrooms that were first priority? We bought a few shower curtains and new towels, and they've been bumped to the 3-5 year plan. On the other hand, the backyard fence got done really fast. (Because walking Dame Maggie ten times a day is not a thing that my schedule will accommodate for long.) And then painting the living room and then these bookshelves. (Because how can you unpack your boxes of books if you don't have shelves?) 

And then, because we had painted, I had to take a quick diversion to put some family photos on the walls.  (Because family on the walls=home.)

The carpet is the current thing making everyone nuts, but we had to get onto our Dear Contractor Friend's schedule for the replacing of that, so we've moved on to the kiddos' rooms.

Little Miss's space is almost done. I ordered some art from Etsy that still needs to arrive...and I think a few family photos, perhaps...but she's painted and definitely closest to being officially "finished".  (If that's even a real thing. Which I doubt.)

The Kid's room is the next to-be-painted space. And then art...and shelves for his Legos, because obviously that's of prime importance.

Our room is still kind of in shambles.  I mean, I know this looks nice, but you're not seeing the piles of stuff on the dressers and in laundry baskets strategically out of view. It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but the walls in there are actually dark grey. I want to paint eventually, but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get around to it for awhile.

(Our nice little "LOVE" photo fit so perfectly over the spot where I was testing paint colors. If that's not a message from the universe that painting in here can wait, I don't know what is.)

And then, there's this space, which is the outer end of the "not finished at all" spectrum. 

The dining room is oddly long. It would be perfect for a farmhouse-style table, but we have sentimental attachment to our old one, so it's staying. 

Instead, I'm thinking about putting a little reading/coffee drinking nook on the far end under the window, but I'm waiting for the universe to deliver up the perfect squarshy chair. (Squarshy=very technical term.)

On the whole, there's still a lot to do--and little by little we are--but getting the bookshelves up and the photos on the wall has made it feel so much more like this is our home now and not just the place where all of our stuff is.  And that is a very cozy feeling...despite the fact that I promised Sweet Husband that I would get the Kid's bedroom prepped for painting today, and must leave you now so that I can follow through.

A Few Of The Things

We're still painting, and there are still an awful lot of boxes in our dining room. But after a season of upheaval, I'm loving the idea of settling into a summer of simple, silly, happy things, even as we continue to unpack and settle in. 

I want to read a book and go through at least four more jugs of bubbles and make grilled pizza and pick the basil that's going crazy in our garden.

A few of the things getting us off to a good start:

The Kid's first summer camp triathlon....

OMG, little kid triathlon is my new favorite thing! The Kid actually did the biathlon, because he's not super confident on his bike yet, but his seriousness about it was all at once hilarious and heartwarming. (See that super-fast transition up there? Very serious.)

Dance parties with the tape deck....

One of the extra "grandma" parts of our grandma house is that it came with it's own wired-in, mounted-to-a-kitchen-cabinet tape deck. We had no tapes when we moved in, but friends have been providing. We have "British Hits of the Sixties" and (as of tonight) a whole basket of one of my high school friend's old mixtapes.

I don't know if it's nostalgia or the surprise of not knowing exactly what song will come next, but it's making it impossible not to have dinner time dance parties.

Some good times behind the camera....

This photo is a favorite from a session I did this spring. (First time really playing with photoshop.  Need more practice, but it was fun.) This weekend I took pictures at the sweetest little wedding, though. It felt so nice to have my camera back in my hands again for a few hours, and it reminded me that the county fair is coming up and I have a title to defend!

Digging Out; Catching Up; Taking Moments

I write to you today from Little Miss's gymnastics class (which we were 5 minutes late for and haven't attended in over a month). Although I have showered since the last time I painted, I can see four splotches of white paint on my body without even really looking hard. Sweet Husband optimistically left for work this morning hoping that--in the full light of day--the living room ceiling might not require a second coat, but--at some unknown time this afternoon--I'm going to have to dash those dreams. And get some more plastic sheeting. And remember to buy dog food.

But, we are gradually eradicating the "nude bra beige" walls. (Color name courtesy of Sweet Sister.) We cooked dinner at home almost every night this week. And, as I enjoyed my coffee on the couch this morning (on the couch that's in the kitchen temporarily), I noticed that the river birch branches outside the windows make the dining room feel like a bit of a treehouse. That made my heart happy.

A few other things we've been up to lately....

Our summer bucket list has been hung, and we've even crossed off one item since this photo was taken (the "ice cream pizza" pictured at the top of this post, which was the Kid's invention). Amazon says our badminton net and rackets are arriving today, so I suspect that another "cross off" is not far behind.

The Kid went to Cub Scout day camp for a week at the end of May. Signing him up for Scouts was one of the most spur-of-the-moment decisions--and one I was initially a little hesitant about, to tell the truth--but it's been great. I think he's like his Mama in that he likes to do a lot of different things, and Scouts helps feed that. Also, I really like the community service aspect. We could do some of it on our own, of course, but Scouts helps give us some goals and structure.

Little Miss has been more intense than her normal self lately, which I'm chucking up to the crazy amount of change her little three year old brain has had to absorb. Nonetheless, she had a blast on school break with a new babysitter, and has enjoyed the string of doting family popping in and out since the move.

And Dame Maggie is quite pleased that our backyard is now fenced. It's still a bit temporary in one or two places, but the largest swath is finished.

This year's garden is a single raised bed with a few tomato plants and some herbs, but--in the few quiet moments we have--I'm enjoying looking and thinking and dreaming for next year. We have a really pretty space (or we will once just a leetle bit of tree debris is cleared away).

And we even managed a little party. Nothing fancy--just take-out pizza and drinks and bubbles with our close friends--but it made me feel a little more at home.

Gymnastics time is up. Time to head home and think more about where I really want to put the big bookshelf. And whether we can get away with skipping paint on the hall ceiling. (Signs point to yes.) Happy Saturday!