A Dose of Pretty

 

 

 

 ... just in case you need a dose of pretty for the weekend. 

May your weekend be filled with beauty and moments that stir your soul.

Bathroom Fairy

One morning I was surprised to find a shimmering bathroom, right down to the sorted-by-color hair rubber bands (!!!). Then, I found this note:

I bet you wish YOUR house had bathroom fairies, huh? 

PS. How great is my computer being, letting me blog this whole week long?! Thank you kind computer.  You're swell.

Our Anniversary DATE, a few days later

Date nights are pretty rare for Matt and I, so any night on the town-just the two of us-is a treat.  But for our 10th anniversary, I really wanted to do something out of the ordinary.  Then a librarian friend told about a not-so-far-from-home dinner cruise that she and her hubby had gone on and my wheels started turning.  After looking into it, it turned out to be surprisingly inexpensive.  For just a few bucks more than a dinner and a movie date- we got a five course meal and a three hour boat tour with live entertainment!  

Good food.  Bluesy entertainment.  Wooing from my better half.  Beautiful views.  Sunsets and crisp night air.  Wooing from my better half.  The sway of the water.  The awe of  'cottages on the lake' spotting (which, incidentally, made me realize how POOR we really are! hehehe)  Wooing from my better half.  It was the best date ever. 

On our way home that night, Matt and I talked about how, when it comes to date nights~ we ought to think outside the box more often!

Bliss.

Our (free) Anniversary

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

August 24th.  The day we were wed.  10 years ago.  (The BIG 10!!)

We weren't able to go on a date on our actual anniversary thanks to Matt's work schedule, but you know me- I couldn't let the day just PASS.  So we celebrated twice this year. (lucky girl!) Once spending not-a-dime and going no-place, once doing something extraordinary (and spending quite a few!)  

On our actual anniversary we had a FREE date.... in the backyard.

The big project of the summer was building a treehouse/fort for the children.  We finished it a month or so ago (and no, I haven't shown you any pictures of the finished project.  Whoops.) and it came in very handy; on our anniversary. I stole it for the night!

The idea, of course, was to do something extraordinary to set the night apart. 

SO while Matt was at work, the children helped me gather every single candle in the house and every single pillow and take them out to the treehouse.  We used lawn furniture cushions, couch pillows, bed pillows, chair pillows, an old featherbed.  I laid white tableclothes over all (so it didn't look insane) and it was marvelously cloud-like (both in appearance and comfortableness).  We draped a bunch of sheer curtains around the walls and set up a few pictures and strategically located some matches and my camera.  The children were as excited as I was...almost.  Then we waited and waited.  

It was Friday night, so a pizza and a movie later, the children tucked into beds, Matt taking a shower... I taped a note to the bathroom mirror "Find me in the treehouse and I'll rock your world" or something along those lines (hehehe)~ I stole away to light all the candles and get drinks and cheesecake ready.

  Stars.  Peepers.  Owls.  Fresh, summer air.  Flickering Candles dancing upon sheer, ethereal walls.  Two slices of cheesecake.  Happy reminiscing.  Quiet reflections.  Hopes spoken.  Laughter.  Love.  It was a beautiful night.

The Not-Quite-Twins' birthdays

 

Corynn and Judah had their birthdays on September 2nd.  On their birthday morning, the first morning glories began to bloom.  Exactly two.   One birthday glory for each of them.  A very special present.



It seems surreal that our firstborn could be nine years old.  NINE.    I remember when Matt and I brought Corynn home from the hospital, we looked at her with stars in our eyes and talked about what it would be like when she was nine and we laughed and said we couldn't imagine it.  And now she IS nine, that very age we had talked about in disbelief.



But it is upon us, the LAST YEAR of her SINGLE DIGIT life!  And with it comes a whole new season of "big girl" joys, problems, character developing, temptations and worry.  I'll admit, I am feeling pretty unprepared and inadequate for being the mother of big kids.  I suppose though, if you are the mother of little ones, the end result IS for them to grow up and the only thing for me to do is to rise to the occasion.



And then there is Judah who loses the last of his babyness with each passing day and each new word he utters.  This too is somewhat surreal.  I have never met a second birthday without a blossoming belly and it seems just a bit odd, no new baby promise to ease over the ache of a baby-turning-boy.   Thank goodness he still has his cyclops brow.  When that goes I will be REALLY depressed!





 



 
Having two birthdays on the same day complicates things just a bit (one can only eat so much cake, after all) so this year I decided I would decorate a cake for Corynn and decorate a pan of icecream for Judah.  Thataway, they each get their "own" but I don't waste most of the cake by giving it to the chickens.  Corynn had explicit ideas about her cake~after honing in on Andrews birthday cake and the toys that he got because of it, she requested a horse cake with green grass and hard plastic horses.   (I am loving these little animals for cake decorating.  I wouldn't spring for them-they are expensive,considering- if it weren't part of the 'present' but it is so much easier to plop a fake pony on a cake than to try and draw one with icing, let me tell YOU!)
 

Judah got a tractor "cake" with lots of dirt (oreos), boulders (Whoppers) and manure (hot fudge).  I realize how strangely odd it is that we would gladly eat anything coming off a manure spreader but, hey- what can I say?  This is the country, after all.  People do STRANGE things in the country.



Among the ponies on her cake and a few very good, very interesting, very LOOOoooooooong good books, Corynn got herself a magic kit.  (You'll see in the next few posts why she has a sudden affinity for magic!)  So that night, we were all given a magic show.

 
  

It was very entertaining.

Weekending

 

While Matt works on building up the foundation, I am busy cleaning mud-tromped floors, canning up spaghetti sauce and preparing foods for the picnic/party we are hosting tomorrow.  Meanwhile~ there is a tornado watch in effect (great picnic weather, no?) complicating our efforts.  But unlike last time, I am safe at home and if the electricity goes out, at least we will have spaghetti sauce to eat!  

What are your weekend plans?

** pictures from the very first tomato harvest of the year **

Fallishness

Dinner making these days is utterly satisfying to me, going to the garden to see what is for dinner depending on what is ready for harvesting, and then, while getting it to the table having the stupendous realization that the entire meal is homegrown.  Ham and Cabbage.  Boiled potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Canned cinnamon applesauce.  Rosemary steeped vinegar.

I can't help but take a picture of it. 

For my less cultured children,  it is less impressive. Adele' just wants to eat it already! 

Remember how I said I wasn't ready for fall?  I am now.  Utterly. 

I light candles every day again.  I love the spicy ones especially, like pumpkin or cinnamon, and almost always have sweet ones like vanilla or buttercream.  yuuuuuuummmmmmmmm.

I begin to look forward to cold weather food, like ham and cabbage and hot soups for lunch every day.  I start thinking about making homemade bread again (something I gave up in the heat of summer, I admit.)  I crave sitting under an afghan and doing some handiwork.  ANY handiwork!  I haven't had time for handiwork of any kind all summer long and oh-my fingers miss it.

Chatty

In which blogdom utters in surprise "She LIVES?!?!"

My computer is still wonky and I don't think there is any hope for the likes of it at this point.  Just when I finished my "camera fund" I have to begin a "computer fund."  argh.  Nevertheless, I want to blog so I am taking a giant leap of faith that the computer will play nicely, not shutting down before I get to blog.  A BIG gamble, let me tell you.  The current time frame between sudden shut downs is about 4 minutes.  And you know how chatty I get--- 4 minutes ain't much.  But maybe if I save it every 3 minutes, I can beat the system?  We shall see.

One of the biggest tragedies of not being able to blog easily (or well) is that these last three weeks have been some of the most excited, busy weeks of our entire summer.  So much we have done, so many pictures I have taken.  About 20 minutes ago, (after the second random shutdown of the afternoon) I tried to get the pictures off of my camera (Matt said he thought he had fixed the computer problems, so I had hope) only to be told that I didn't have enough memory left to save that many pictures.  Guess how many were on my camera?  From three weeks?  Any guesses?  426.

426 pictures that I would love to share with you but can't.  Do you see how agonizing this is for me?  Here is a rundown of a few major happenings these last three weeks and a bit of jabber on the current goings-on.  I am chatty, I know.  Pictures forthcoming, someday.  I hope.

What has happened in the last three weeks?

~ Matt took a day off and we went to the fair as a family and ate cotton candy.  And when I was putting Judah's shoe on him (for the twentieth time!) Adele' wandered off and got lost.  When I found eventually found her, I wanted to just go home and never see a fair again.

~ We lost an 8 year old and got a nine year old.

~ We lost a one year old and gained a two year old.

~ Matt and I marked our 10 year anniversary two different days and two different ways, with a treehouse and boat.  Both were divine.  

~ I had the last yard sale of the season and earned $108.00 to go toward school books, which I still have not bought.  (Now that I have some money, it will happen THIS WEEK!  Not that I can stall any longer anyway.)

~ Thanks to members of the family who shall remain unnamed, we often have several dozen eggs that fall through the cracks as to  how old they are.  I, on the other hand, ALWAYS mark the dates; which is why it is so horribly cruel that I was the one to bear the stench of a rotten egg bomb blowing up on me.  It was the NASTIEST thing I have ever endured (and I have endured many a nasty-thing.  TRUST ME.)  Oh.my.goodness.  You have NO idea.  (gag.)

~ I started to re-do the school room.  The goal was to get it done before school starts but I have had a few major setbacks.  The biggest being~ when I tried to paint over wallpaper, the wallpaper peeled onto my paint roller.  So I peeled a layer of  wallpaper off and then another layer and then another layer and then it started chipping away at sheet rock.  I tried to paint over it, and it didn't work.  More wallpaper pieces would come off.  It was in tears that I realized as I worked into the morning, that I would have to get creative with that wall.  Either spend more money to re-sheetrock, spend more money to put up paneling or spend more money on more wallpaper.  But I don't WANT to spend more money.  So I am going to try something entirely different.  I am scrounging up all the old maps I can find and I am going to paste them up all over the wall.  (Anyone have any old maps, by the way?!)  It will either turn out amazing or horrendous, and I am not sure which at this point.  Wish me luck.

~ I made soap for the first time ever.  It stunk.  (NOT in a good way.)  I think I might have used rancid essential oils or something.  (They were old.)  But even still, I had great fun and I learned it was far easier than I have worked myself up to assume.  I am excited to get going with it.  I have lye and coconut oil already ordered.

~ We hunted and hatched our own Monarch butterflies.  That is always so thrilling.  I love August just for monarchs.

~ Our house currently stands on only two solid sides--- the other two have huge holes in the basement foundation wall.  The house is piled up on two sides with dirt mountains and then deep dirt caverns, exposing the foundation and the embarrassed, holey cinderblocks left standing.  We have the crazy and daunting task of re-doing two sides of our foundation and somehow living in it, open and exposed, with four bouncing children until it is done.  Daunting doesn't seem to quite cover how I feel about this.  

~ We have two picnics coming up- poor planning on my part- because now, instead of beautiful green grass and pretty flowers they get dirt mountains and deep dirt caves.  

~ I got two amazingly long letters in the mail IN ONE DAY, one included handmade goodies (swoon) and I haven't been able to make my feet touch the floor since.  Does it make me a loser that I love snail mail that much?  If so, I totally am.  A loser, that is. THANK YOU LEAH!  THANK YOU AMY! for making my day.  Heck, my WEEK!

~  Thanks to a school room vomiting wallpaper, pencils and books from Friday, a yard sale on Saturday, two birthdays on Sunday and a foundation repair on Labor Day (and into the unforeseeable future)...this house is in a state of mass pandemonium.  Don't judge me.  And NO SURPRISE VISITORS- do you hear?!?  And oh yes-  let's not forget the dead skunk somewhere over in the field which is saturating our upstairs with skunk stench as we speak.  Lovely.

Now would be a good time to visit someone....will anyone take in a poor, struggling and overwhelmed woman for a week or so?  Have mercy on me!

No seriously....PLEASE?!

:-)