Stream of Consciousness

Burying St. Joseph

2012-01-25T15:17:00.000-08:00

Since we have had a break in the weather today, I had a chance to get out and wrap a few loose ends in the yard. I planted the pansies I bought two weeks ago before it snowed. I wanted to fill the window box on the potting shed and put a couple on the front porch for a cheery greeting. I put a final coat of paint on the trim around the window in the potting shed door too.
Then I dug a little hole in the ground in the newly bark dusted backyard. There is a somewhat questionable practice of burying a statue of St. Joseph in one's yard while one is selling one's house the hopes hopes that he will intercede on your behalf. It seems a little superstitious and potentially sacrilegious, but I am willing to try anything that may positively impact the sale of the Laburnum Bungalow. Our Realtors, one of which was raised Catholic although they are New Agey now, have never had clients bury a St. Joseph before, but were eager to have us do it to see if it has an influence.
They sell St. Joseph home sale kits online, but I went to The Grotto on Sunday after Mass and picked on up in the gift shop. I bought the more expensive of the two options which was $15 for a painted resin statue. The shop clerk told me they had been out of stock for a long time on these, and they sell quickly. Hopefully that is a good sign.
The instructions recommend placing the statue upside down (with the feet pointed toward heaven) with either St. Joseph facing the house or towards the new home. The placement in the yard varies also. I opted with burying him in the backyard facing east towards the Mt. Tabor house. My Little Helper took a break from watching the Wild Kratts to come out to help me; the boy rarely misses an opportunity to use a shovel. He did a good job in helping me place St. Joseph and then covering him back up with dirt. He was not as interested in saying a prayer, but he did a fairly good job of making the the sign of the cross.
The kit states that European nuns used to bury St. Joseph medals in land which they hoped to purchase on which they would build convents and eventually the practice evolved into selling homes. "The reasons behind using this particular saint are Joseph's strong connections with families, homes, and moving." After a successful sale one should dig St. Joseph back up and put him in a place of honor in the new home. I have heard that some people leave the St. Joseph as a way of having him protect the home. I may do that as I have my own St. Joseph statue safely packed away in a box somewhere. Will we be lucky enough to sell and close in time to celebrate the Feast of St. Joseph in our new home? Let's hope so!

Day 3 on the market

2012-01-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

As the kids would say, I'm a hot mess. I am so stressed out about being on the market. I went to bed with a headache, I woke up with a head ache, my face is totally broken out. Yesterday was our Dealer's Open, and apparently we had a really good turn out. Our Realtor told us she can't remember the last time they had such a good response. And, from what she told us everyone really liked what we have done with the house and everyone kept saying it was gorgeous. That makes me feel good.
I have to admit that having my house on the market is kind of like having your child in the school spelling bee or first piano recital, I'm so worried how well she will do and if people will appreciate her 'talent'.
Although I still worry that I didn't get everything as perfectly staged as I would have liked. It was hard with the boys jumping on the bed immediately after I made it and tossing everything out of the garbage can. I ended up putting Baby Boy in the crib just to keep him from destroying things, which of course made him scream like crazy. I ended up leaving a giant pile of dinosaurs because I couldn't get to them before we had to leave the house for My Little Helper's dentist appointment; I hoped our Realtors could figure out something to do with them for the Open. I frantically packed up the car with stuff and the boys and headed out only to get half way to the dentist before I realized I'd forgotten my wallet, which I would need to by lunch for the boys since I had no idea how long I'd have to stay away from the house.
In our listing I have requested 1 hr notice. I did this because I want to be as flexible as possible; I anticipate lots of nap times spent driving around in the car. What I didn't realize was that Realtors would take me at my word. I had two of them call to schedule viewings exactly one hour in advance. I guess I expected that to be the exception to the norm, rather than all the notice I would get. I will stick it out a few more days like this and see how bad it gets, but I may have to change it to 2-4 hrs notice, otherwise the boys and I may become a cranky mess soon. As it was the morning nap was spent driving out to Banks with a drive through Krispy Kreme on the the return. But as I headed home we received another call so I took the boys to my mom's and spent the rest of the day there until we met Mr. W in NW for dinner to wait out our final showing of the day.
Today the baby woke up with a stomach virus and barfed on me after I nursed him. No doubt he picked up something on his first day of daycare, so now delayed guilt has set in. I drove through his morning nap today even though we have had no viewing scheduled for today, but we do have one first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully one of these early showings will yield our buyer. Fingers crossed!

We're on the market!

2012-01-23T22:10:00.000-08:00

I am so nervous I could barf! We have been cleaning and fixing and staging and prepping these past few days and I think we have everything ready. Or almost ready. As ready as we are going to be for the Realtor's Open tomorrow. I am freaking out though! How on earth am I going to be able to keep the house in a constant state of clean with two little boys running around, literally pulling everything off the shelves behind me as I put them away?
Today was our Snack Day at preschool, but I let Mr. W double book me, scheduling the bark dust blow in at the same time. Today was also the first day of putting Baby Boy in a daycare. If I wasn't so crazy busy I would have felt more guilty about leaving him there at 13 mo old. So, after dropping off the baby, then starting off at Snack Day, I had to run home to meet the bark dusters. They had already blown in most of the back yard. There was also a man there digging the post hole for the yard sign, so much activity happening at the bungalow! After preschool I made a last trip to Hippo Hardware to get some inexpensive, not sentimental, vintage glass shades for the upstairs bathroom.
By the time I returned home the sign post had been installed and the front bed was looking sharp and tidy with it's new coat of bark dust. I parked the car and felt like I was going to have a heart attack! Seeing the sign post seemed so final. This is really happening! The rest of the yard looks so clean and tidy now. I hope all our efforts pay off and that potential home buyers like what they see.
Later in the afternoon, after I had both the boys back home with me, our Realtors came over for a walk through and to hang the sign. I think Mr. W and I have checked off every item from that list but one, and I may be pulling an all-nighter doing laundry and mopping the floors again. So nerve wracking! But kind of exciting too.

We have a signed contract...again!

2012-01-19T08:35:00.000-08:00

Well, Mr. W was hoping to have a signed contract to buy the Mt. Tabor house for my birthday (early Nov) and instead we got it on his sister's birthday (mid Jan)! Finally! No more negotiating, no more waiting for warring Boomers to get their s* together and respond to our offers. No more waiting for them to decide to whether or not they will fix the issues that came up during our inspection the day before Thanksgiving. We settled on a lower price, which accounts for us buying the house as is. This means that the sewer repair, minor roof leaks, and underground oil tank will be resolved by us after we have possession.
But, we are still waiting to exhale. We still have to sell the Laburnum Bungalow, which goes on the market Monday, and close on it by the end of April per the terms of this contract. So, it could still all fall apart. So, we are crossing our fingers that we have gotten our house in the best condition possible. There is a flurry of activity going on here this week between us and hired workers to wrap up all the loose ends. And that has only been compounded by the snow fall we have had this week! We hope that whomever our buyers are, they will be free from drama, because frankly, I don't know if I can handle anymore! We still have to worry about both our sellers showing up at the closing of the Mt. Tabor house so we can occupy it!
In any event, here are some photos of the exterior. I took these in November when we were still in that innocent, naive, inspection period, before we had to revoke our offer and became jaded. This is a closer view of the front elevation. There are a lot of steps to get to the front door. This may be why the side door is now the main entrance and the legal address. There is a balcony above the porch which is accessed through the hallway window or the window in what will be the play room. This balcony provides a view to downtown and we're hoping will be our fireworks display vantage point.
The tower side has the Povey windows in the bays. We have heard that the original roof to the tower was blown off during the Columbus Day Storm of '62. Our long term plan is to restore the peaked, copper roof there and the cresting on the entire roof.The side elevation includes the oval porch on the 3rd floor, something we have been calling G-ma's smoking porch. It is accessed through the unfinished attic and is very shallow. It is screened though to prevent birds from roosting. There is another balcony above the side porch; this one is accessed through the window in what will be the boys bedroom. The upper bay window is in the guest room, until we have another baby. The lower bay window is in the living room.
The truth is I am very excited although I am trying really hard not to be just in case something goes wrong again. I'm a little afraid I am jinxing it just by making this blog entry. Don't worry, Universe, I'm not getting cocky! I know it isn't ours yet. But it does feel good to hope, and we are making progress in the right direction.
Hopefully by this time next year all this stress will be a distant memory, and we'll be enjoying a fresh, full year in our new Home!

Tonga Room

2012-01-17T10:16:00.000-08:00

I find The Bachelor to be a despicable show, but it happened to be on when I walked into the tv room last night and they were talking about this landmark restaurant that was the setting of one of the group dates. It looked very tiki. I've mentioned before that I've had tiki fever ever since The General's birthday party. So, I Tivo'd back a few minutes to see where the were and it was the Tonga Room in San Francisco.
I looked it up online and it is part of the Fairmont Hotels. It seems somewhat familiar, like maybe Ms H-G has told me about it before. There is a rain feature in the middle of the bar. Anyway I am putting this in my mental rolodex for the next time we are in San Francisco. I guess occasionally good things can come from The Bachelor.

In search of a Chesterfield style sofa

2012-01-14T18:19:00.000-08:00

I hate our futon. I find it extremely uncomfortable to sit on because the cushion constantly slides down and pushes out the seat depth. But when Mr. W bought his first television after we began dating , the futon seemed like the best idea to him because it was collapsable enough to get it upstairs, where the tv room was then located, and it could double as a guest bed. I never liked it though, and have cursed it these past nine years.
Recently though Mr. W has come to share my animosity for the futon. While we both acknowledge that we'll be extremely broke after we buy a house, he and I have both been thinking about how we could squeeze a new sofa into the budget. And while it may or not be wise, we both would prefer leather. I feel it is easier to keep clean. He thinks it is more comfortable and durable.
I have never bought a sofa for myself, but if I had it would have had a camel back with rolled arms. And upholstered in corduroy. Ah, I love corduroy!!! I did eventually develop an appreciation for the Chesterfield style sofa. The tufted back, the warm toned leather, the nail head trim. Delightful! And if it could also have a camel back I'd be over the moon!
So I am spending this rainy Saturday evening browsing online for potential sofas.
EA has a couple in leather, but I think the Chadwick at 86" l would be a better fit in the family room of the Mt. Tabor house.
This Whitaker is a bit more traditional Chesterfield due to the straight back.
PB calls theirs the Chesterfield, but at 96"l I worry it might be too large for the room considering I think we need to have it double as a casual family dining room. But if we end up with 3 teenage boys, I can see that all those ninety six inches would come in handy.
RH appears to only have an upholstered version,the Kensington, which won't work for our purposes, but I do enjoy the tufting on the apron.There are few furniture brands that Parker Furniture carries. The Kent is 89" l overall. I also like the Olivier as a more feminine version. And forgive me for getting distracted, but I would love to eventually have something like the Boudoir Loveseat in our bedroom. Swoon! This would be a l o n g time in the future before we could afford furniture up there though!
T-ville has and interpretation called the Rendezvous which looks extremely comfortable. They have another tufted back sofa called the Ella, which while I like how fun it is, I know I could never talk Mr. W into it.WSH has a Chesterfield sofa, but the leather version is over $6,000...I don't know why everything in that store is so overpriced.
MG has 3 different length options for their Chester.When I ran out of ideas of furniture stores in the vicinity, I did a general online search. The cheapest leather chesterfield I found was $999, but only available in blue leather. I showed it to Mr. W who responded, "No, that is nasty. We are only buying a good sofa."
Hahaha! I love him so much!
This is a good looking version; I like the fully tufted look, but I do worry that a tufted seat is going to be filled with so much gunk from little boys. Plus, I really would not feel comfortable ordering something substantial, like a sofa, online with out being able to test it out in person.
And at any rate, we still don't have a contract to buy as of this afternoon, so we aren't in the position to make a purchase. It is fun to plan though!

Feast of the Epiphany

2012-01-06T21:35:00.000-08:00

To celebrate Epiphany we make borscht; I love beets, they are in season, and I love soup. I made the same recipe I have in the past. With the sour cream and dill garnish it looks so festive. Since we still haven't fixed the dining room light yet, and I'm trying to cut back on unnecessary laundry before we put the house on the market, I set the table in the kitchen. I used the Magi from the children's nativity set and spread left over St. Nicholas Day gold coins. This may not have been the best idea to have chocolate visible before the soup was consumed! I also burned frankincense and myrrh incense. I love the smell , although this brand is very smokey. I decide to try out a new recipe this year. I needed to find something that did not call for powdered milk, I found this Rosca de Reyes recipe, saw that it called for rum and figured I'd found a winner. Surprisingly I was able to locate the anise extract at Freddy's. I think I have finally figured out yeast, that is to say I have finally learned that I must measure the temperature so I don't kill the yeast. I still haven't gone out to get a muneca, or baby Jesus doll, to go inside the cake. One day!
We topped it with a little bit of icing and halved cherries. My Little Helper was very serious and meticulous with this task. I also bought some candied ginger becasue I thought it would make nice jewels for our crown; however, the anise is strong enough that ginger was not a good combination with it. This is not to say that the anise was overwhelming, but I don't care for the flavor if black licorice and really don't care for it with ginger. I think I'd only use 1 TBSP of the anise extract next time. It did look like a pretty crown though!Now I'll confess that between baking a dessert bread, making a stew, and dealing with two destructive children underfoot I was at the end of my rope by the time Mr. W returned home. As a reward for all my hard work he decided to invent a drink for me. He called it the Epiphany, you know so you could say, "I had an Epiphany!" He used Goldschlagger and Hot Damn! It was too strong for me, but I appreciated the thought. He thinks net time he'd cut out the Hot Damn! so there is only one cinnamon flavor. But how cute is he to make a drink with gold flecks in it?!After dinner Our Little Helper got to open his last Christmas gift (we didn't get one for the baby since he doesn't know what is going on.) It was the Robot Pterodactyl that he had been missing. As you can see he was VERY happy!I read from the book of Matthew, somewhat successfully. It is hard to compete with Robot Dinosaurs, but the baby was paying attention to me. We did not chalk the door this year because we are moving...I hope that we will not be the opposite of blessed because of it.

Tartan Tree

2011-12-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

After cutting down a tree this year, we decorated it upon our return from Arch Cape with Mr.W's sister and brother in law. In the past I have covered it in tartan bows, but I couldn't find those shorter ribbons in the box I thought they ought to be in, so I strung the tree with tartan ribbon instead.
My Little Helper was of course helping me with the lights and everything and was very concerned that the tree was "not pretty enough" More ornaments are needed in his opinion. He hung up many ornaments himself, you may notice his 'cluster' technique of about 3-4 glass balls per branch! Mrs. Hg decorated the tree with us. It has been so nice having her here to visit. I really wish we could live in the same city again someday!
She asked me why we have no proper tree topper, a angel or even a star. The truth is I have never found anything Ilike enough. And a little part of me is hoping that I could hold out until our Black Forest sabbatical bike trip. That is a long time in the future, and frankly it would probably be better to go during the winter so we can take advantage of the Advent stalls. Somehow I feel like German Christmas tree toppers will be much better than any made in China thing I can find here in the department stores. So for now I content myself with more tartan ribbon, much to My Little Helper's dismay.
Now that he is one baby Boy is trying to feed himself. Sometimes he hasn't quite figured which end of the spoon to use.But he is learning! And hopefully soon he'll begin to eat more of the table foods I offer him. So far it is a limited number of foods that he won't spit out.

Peacock Lane Happy Hour

2011-12-30T10:09:00.000-08:00

Since this will be our final Christmas in the Laburnum Bungalow, we decided to go out with a bang. Our last big party would be our Happy Hour: Family Edition Peacock Lane. As mentioned in years past, Mr. W's friends started rotating home hosted HHs after everyone began breeding. Most of these events have fallen by the wayside, but since I like to keep Advent and decline most party invitations before Christmas officially begins, it is nice to host this gathering.
I out together the same menu of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I always like to have American cheese on sourdough bread and the more grown up option this year was Swiss & Gruyere on whole wheat.I used the MS Creamy Tomato Soup recipe and had just enough oregano in the garden. I serve it in mugs since everyone is mingling.
Mr. W made another batch of eggnog and this time we used the silver punch bowl, it is so festive I think. We also had coffee and people could choose how they spike it. I made hot chocolate for the children.
This is also a good time to put out all the Christmas cookie we receive. I don't know why eeryone else being on a diet means that Mr. W and I want to take all the leftover sweets, but somehow this is how our family and friends treat us. I bought the peppermint bark during my escaped to Costco for Baby Boy's birthday and the saltwater taffy from our pre Christmas trip to Arch Cape. My mother in law sent the cookies and the fruit cake. Mr. W loves fruit cake!Since My Little Helper's birthday falls before the school year begins I thought it would be nice to invite his new pre-school friends to our HH:FE. Several of them came which was nice since they are on a 2 week winter break. The nursery was a mad hose with all the children and the new toys!!
Having the party on St. Stephen's Day means that lots of people are still out of town for the holidays, but we wanted Mr. & Mrs. L and Mr. & Mrs. HG to be able to visit with people before they left town.
Shortly after dusk we bundled up all the children, filled the travel mugs, configured the strollers and headed out on our walk to Peacock Lane. With a large group like this, it is always hard to keep track of everyone while looking at the Christmas lights, but we are able to meet back up again before returning home. I was a little disappointed that several of the houses did not have their lights on, but it was still a special block for the children to walk down and enjoy the season.

Feast of Seven Fishes

2011-12-28T22:26:00.001-08:00

Just about every year since we have been married we have hosted a Feast of 7 Fishes Christmas Eve meal. I had never of it until I read about it on thenest, but instantly fell in love with the idea. It combines my love of obscure Catholic traditions with Mr. W's love of cooking food that is kind of a dare.
Each year I have suggested lobster bisque, but Mr. W is too squeemish to kill them. He has always suggested that we wait until his brother in law, Mr. L, comes for Christmas. Mr. L is a big time foodie and up for a food challenge. Since The L's and the H-Gs were coming to celebrate our Last Christmas in the bungalow, this was our year to finally attempt lobster. Mr. L is really into the loco-vore movement right now, so he was a bit aprehensive about importing lobster from the East Coast, but we were able to talk him into it by being Pacific heavy with the other courses.
What actually happened was that the Fo7F became a man-off with the men folk outdoing themselves. To begin with, they couldn't narrow it down to just 7 fish, and even numbers are unlucky so we had our first Feast of 9 Fishes. They ordered calamari and mussels from Zupan's, but everything else they bought at Newman's Fish Market. They decided upon live lobster and live crab. Mr. L handled the slaughter. Mrs. L provided the moral support and acted as photographer.
(I frankly don't know where Mr. W was in all of this. I had taken the baby and the H-Gs to The Grilled Cheese Grill for lunch. It was my intention to take My Little Helper too to keep him out from being underfoot, but he had no interest in grilled cheese with live crustaceans in the house.) But here is the team working together.I meanwhile set the table for 10 using the green linen table cloth and mine and my mom's Christmas china. As it would happen, our dining room light fixture broke right after Baby Boy's birthday party so we had a very candle lit meal.I pulled out just about every candle I could, it was actually very pretty.The first course they served was oysters on the half shell. I don't like oysters and I eventually manage to choke down one of them just to be social. All my drama working up the nerve to swallow it and I forgot to take a photo. They are pretty unattractive though, so I don't think we are missing much.
Next up was the calamari. I had been actually been looking forward to this for several days.The third course was the lobster bisque. This was so good, seriously everything I had been looking forward too! I wish I could have had another serving. I hope it was obvious to Mr. L and Mr. W how much I appreciate all the work they had put into the meal for just this soup. I kept oohing and aahing over it!
The next dish was steamed mussels with a shallot and wine broth. I always pass on the mussels, but this year I was ambitious and finally tried one. They look totally unappealing to me, like a female body part, and I can't say that I am a fan. The broth smells delightful though because there is so much butter in it. It seems I failed to take a photo of the mussel course too.
We reached the mid point of our meal by now and we were back to the deep fryer. This recipe for crab cakes came from a date night cooking class at Sur La Tabla. It is served with an aioli. I should mention that the gentlemen had put a lot of thought into selecting the perfect wine for each course. My one contribution was '7 Pastors Pinot'. This wine is a fundraiser at our church, celebrating our centennial and the 7 priests we've had during our 100 year existence. The funds are go towards the restoration of the old church.The following course was new to us this year. Mr. L really wanted to include octopus so he suggested octopus salad with arugula, radicchio, cannellini beans, carrot, onion, celery and parsely. I was apprehensive about eating the octopus; the idea of feeling the suction cups with me tongue is off putting. But the taste and texture wasn't too bad. It felt very meaty to me and not grainy or slimy like I was afraid. The colors looked very festive though. I would eat this again.Another highlight was the lobster poached in butter course. There wasn't a lot of it (this was a dinner plate used as the serving plate), but that which we had was heavenly!Nearing the end of the meal we move into entree type dishes with the traditional baccala or salt cod. Mr. W and I are really acquiring a taste for this.We pair the baccala with broccoli rabe.We usually finish with salmon tagliatelli, but this year salmon lost out to scallops. The fresh pasta is also from Newman's. I signed up to be a Eucharistic minister at the 4 o'clock Mass. While I prefer Midnight Mass, it just isn't practical for the children at this age. This allowed us to return home by 6 PM and have a nice leisurely meal without feeling rushed to leave for Mass. And since we weren't rushed we had our first ever Fo7F dessert! Mom made this white cheese and creme between filbert and chocolate disks. She added raspberries, blue berries and a raspberry syrup. Mr. L called it the perfect palate cleanser.
The two really enjoyed working together. Often times I heard them debating their different views on how best to prepare whatever, but their back and forth banter was enjoyable. Mr. L was actually amazed that Mr. W can ever pull this off alone because it is so.much.work! I agree, I am very lucky to have him provide us with such a special meal each Christmas.
Everyone enjoyed themselves, Mrs. H-G is really the perfect food audience, she'll eat everything happily. It was after 1 AM by the time we finished dinner. And then I still had to wrap presents. By the time I got to sleep it was 3 AM. Fortunately the boys aren't eager to wake up super early to open presents so I was able to sleep in until 8, but it was a long hard day! (Lesson learned, go back to wrapping presents well in advance!)

Christmas Tree hunting

2011-12-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

Mr. W's sister and brother in law, the Ls, came to spend Christmas with us as did my college friends the H-Gs. I thought it would be a good opportunity to go cut down our own tree since we would have extra hands. So, the Wednesday before Christmas we drove out to Estacada before heading down to the coast for 2 nights.
In the past we have just followed Ms. Mc and her husband and gone out H213 and looked for a place that looked good. But being mid week, and knowing we had an even longer drive ahead of us, I didn't want to leave it up to chance so I looked online and decided Bob'z Garden Center looked like our best option. It was like a Pumpkin Patch for Christmas trees. And it is near my Aunt R's log home so in the future we can make a nice trip and visit out of it. Anyway, they have hot drinks, a big fire pit, a shaker, and a wrapper. They also flock, but I don't believe in that on principle.
It was a wonderfully foggy morning as we headed out looking for a grand fir. I learned something on this trip. I thought I liked grand firs. It turns out the species I like is actually a noble fir. I thought that noble firs always have that crazy spacing between the branches, which I don't care for. Turns out nobles can be full or sparse; I like the full ones.
This was the tree that Our Little Helper wanted to take home, but it's far too tall. This is the tree we settled on, but he didn't like it. At all.So we had to take a family photo with out him.This was the tree he wanted. I think this is actually a grand fir. I just am not a fan of these needles. And it was too short. Poor thing is so miserable we won't take this one home.Mr. L and Mr. W cutting down the tree.Hauling it back to the car.

Showing off their skills. Neither of them grew up with real trees in Ohio so this is the first time Mr. L ever participated in cutting a Christmas tree and only Mr. W's second. With the guys carrying the tree and Mrs. L carrying the saw and camera, I was left to herd in the boys. I obviously had to carry the baby, but because he was still pitching a fit I couldn't get My Little Helper to walk back. He would only agree to a piggy back ride. Momma is always a pack mule. It was a long walk.

Little Rookie Baseball birthday party

2011-12-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

I love baseball! My dad raised me as a Yankees fan and when it came time to design a nursery I settled on a red, white, and blue color scheme that I could play up with baseballs, teddy bears, or Raggedy Ann & Andy depending on what my baby's sex would be. Needless to say I collected a gazillion baseball things over the years and the collection quadrupled after my dad died. As a result, I have done baseball themed 1st birthday parties for both boys. I have always done cupcakes decorated like baseballs and for My Little Helper's 2nd birthday I made a separate cake decorated like a baseball glove. When I did that I saw someone on the internet did a home plate shaped cake and saved that idea for Baby Boy. I used box cake mix, but made the buttercream frosting from scratch. Ground up graham crackers are the 'dirt' on the plate.I found some inspiration here and here. I considered ordering the printable package from Dimpleprints, because I thought that pennant 'Concessions' banner was adorable, but I decided I didn't need to spend that much since I wouldn't be printing out all the food labels and such and had other plans for the invitation. I bought the red scalloped card stock for his invitations at Paper Source and the light blue brads and paper at Paper Zone. That's also where I found the apple tote bags for the party favors.
I had left over baseball plates, party hats, and a 'Happy birthday' banner from My Little Helper's 2nd birthday party so I augmented that with these Little Slugger plates.I had bought a tin bucket a few years ago at Target during Easter to decorate the nursery. I thought the little bat on the handle was adorable. It promptly broke. But I thought I could salvage it and turned it into a centerpiece filled with baseballs. I borrowed a crate of gloves and balls from my parents' house. In it I found a posthumous gift from my father. There was a baseball which he had signed for whatever reason. Truly a gift! And just like that, the wind was knocked out of me. Why would he have signed a filthy, dirty baseball? Why would it just be buried in amongst the other balls? Four years, 3 months, and 26 days later I still have moments of complete and total heart break. He had amassed enough equipment for an entire team. Damn, he would have loved having grandsons, clearly he had been preparing for them for a long time. It still sucks so bad!
After calming down and drying my eyes, I used his balls and antique gloves as decoration for the table. The cute table runner I found on sale at PB several years ago.I used one of those gloves as a holder for the autograph ball/guest book idea I stole from one of the sites posted above. I used a couple books as decoration as well. Everybody is a ham so Pete Rose and Babe Ruth have signed the ball too.I spent five seasons working at Oaks Park, but that first one I was only 17 so I was assigned to the food stands. Back then the corn dogs were made from scratch and we hand dipped each one. I love foods on sticks and since we have a deep fryer I thought this would be a cute food to serve for the birthday party. Normally deep fryer season doesn't begin until Christmas Eve in our house, but Baby Boy's birthday seemed a very good reason to open it earlier. I don't remember what the Park's recipe was so I used this corn dog batter. It was way too thick so we thinned it with more milk and it ended up being like loaves and fishes...just when I was sure I would run out, I kept having enough batter.I went with stadium food for the menu and took a trip to Costco with Mrs. F. I was hoping to find soft pretzels and nacho sauce. I ended up only coming home with an enormous bag of corn chips for the nachos and a tub of Red Vines. It took a lot of will power to not eat all the licorice before the party! I transferred them into a glass canister so they'd stay fresher (and look prettier!)I had the nachos on the baseball plate from Fishs Eddy. I also made a simple Concessions sign for the kitchen table.I bought this baseball birthday onesie shortly after My Little Helper had his first birthday, in the hopes that I'd have more children to use a baseball themed party. I loved it because it was exactly like the cupcakes I made.Everyone waiting to sing to the birthday boy.He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he did enjoy clapping at the end of the song.He's not transitioning easily to table food so his first cupcake experience was lost on him. He shoved some of it in his mouth, but didn't really eat it.Double fisting.Babies and little toddlers have short attention spans so I didn't organize any games or crafts. Eating and opening presents is about all they can handle. I was surprised and pleased with how many of our guests came in baseball attire; I hadn't suggested it at all.
Every family went home with a favor bag filled with Cracker Jacks, a bag of peanuts, a pack of trading cards, Baby Ruths, baseball socks and stickers.That vintage bobblehead was from my grandpa's cousin Mr. D. He had an extensive collection of Portland Beavers memorabilia which passed to my father and now me. The mini baseball bats on the table are also Beavers memoribilia I found antiquing years ago. The have Beavers in script on them and whomever they originally belonged to wrote the date, opponent, and score on them. Such a treasure!

The kitchen

2011-12-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

As we continue to get ready to put the house on the market we are staging rooms for the marketing photos. In preparation for the birthday party over the weekend, we shot the kitchen.We haven't done anything in this room. I hate the vinyl floor tiles, I hate that the walls AND ceiling are painted bright yellow. And who paints the window sashes blue? I don't know why anyone would put in black back splash tiles if they weren't putting in under cabinet lighting. With the black concrete counter tops the kitchen is like where light goes to die.If we were to stay I would replace the back splash with off white 3x6 subway tiles and replace the vinyl tiles with Marmoleum (old style linoleum). I was thinking of a ivory and light green on point 12 x12 tiles with a black border along the perimeter. Oh, and of course paint the walls a light green, and the ceiling and window sashes off white.
The previous owner, who was a carpenter at Hammer & Hand installed the cherry cabinets, which I am guessing are stock cabinets, and he poured the concrete countertops. Because he made them so darn thick the range is up on crude blocks so that it is flush with the counters. I actually like the slightly higher work surface though.Overall, it is a very nice kitchen. The cherry cabinets are very pretty and warm. The hardware is subtle and there is a ton of storage! The pantry cabinet to the left of the fridge contains a pull-out 4 bin recycling center. The doors to the bedroom/tv room and basement were stripped of their layers of paint when we did the restoration to that room. I think they make so much more sense now stained rather than painted blue. To stage the room we removed our kitchen table to make it look more spacious and not everyone would need an eat-in kitchen so we are letting people's imaginations roam.When Mr. W bought the house the stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher were all different finishes: stainless steel, white, and black respectively. The dishwasher died shortly after our elder son was born and I commissioned the cabinetmaker who built our nursery built-ins to fabricate a custom cherry front panel for the new KitchenAid dishwasher we installed. I think he did an outstanding job matching the finish considering the cabinets were 15 years old and cherry is known for patina'ing rapidly. I had a hard time finding bin pulls and knobs to match the existing so I moved the ones from the drawer and door to the right of the stove and used them on the new dishwasher panel since they were so close to the others. Then I found comparable iron ones to use in it's place next the the stove. Since it is a bit isolated, it isn't too obvious that it isn't an exact match. This new hardware I had to order from Chown Hardware.The work triangle is very small though and because Mr. W both like to cook together we are on top of each other a lot.

House hunting (again!)

2011-12-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

Since we have receive no response from the sellers of the Mt. Tabor house, we decided we ought to keep our search open. We saw a listing for a Colonial Revival in Irvington with stained woodwork and a remodeled kitchen so we decided to take a break out of our already overcrowded schedule and fit in a viewing. I had done a drive by during a car ride nap and noticed that they had lots of bunting stung across the street and a four square court painted on the street in front of the house. Clearly this is a neighborly block, which would be a refreshing change.
I really wanted to like this house. Really, I did. On paper it is great, only a few blocks from my parish, but quite close to the shopping and dining district on Broadway. A cute inglenook near the fireplace in the living room. But, it just has some weird layout issues and the wood work is actually in really bad shapes. It appears like it was a DIY stripping job; the fronts have been refinished, but the sides of the trim are still painted over and match the wall color which results in the trim losing its depth visually.Some of the wood on the built in colonnade is in such poor condition it looks like it has been scratched by dogs.In the dining room I noticed that it looked like they had just applied stain to the wall because they were missing the apron. But when I got closer, I realized that the apron was still there, it just was now flush with the wall. They must have overlaid the plaster with drywall to cover up damage rather than having it properly restored. Not only that, but the stained trim was covered in micro paint splatter, like they couldn't be bothered to tape off the trim when they rolled the walls. It seems such a shame considering how nice the box beam ceiling is in there.The kitchen has been remodeled and it is nice. The maple cabinets, stone counter tops, hardware, and apron front sink are all lovely. I'm not sure how it functions, but my concern is the island in the middle won't seat our whole family. When I looked at the online photos, I was hoping the mud room in the back would be large enough to accommodate our kitchen table, but it seems probably too small. Also Mr. W worries the breakfast/coffee bar will be wasted space. I love the idea of them, but have never lived with it in application.Upstairs there is what looks like maybe a sleeping porch which has been converted into a bedroom. I say this based upon the casement window hardware and ghosts of awning screens. Irvington may be very tony, but the view is littered with everyone elses rear dormers. That is among the things I feel spoiled about with the Mt. Tabor house. The lot is so large, and there is a large, high hedge, that it feels so private; there is no other house right on top of you.A nice period bathroom. Vinyl flooring isn't my fav, but nothing terrible.The bedrooms in this house are all very small. One has a built in dressing table, which I loved. Now, old drawers tend to rack, especially long ones, so I pulled open the center drawer to see how it functioned. I normally do not open up people's drawers. Well, I found a bong. And not hidden or anything either. Right there on the top front of the drawer. Seemed an odd accessory for a house like this. They bought the house in 1987. I shouldn't make assumptions, but I wouldn't expect pot heads to own this home. Mayhaps it is medicinal marijuana? Anyway, an odd thing to store in a room staged in a nursery. One of our requirements for moving is a separate family room and living room. This house had a family room listed on the 2nd floor. I think it was originally a bedroom though and they removed a wall dividing it from the hallway. This would explain the heat vent in the middle of the floor. The converted attic is listed as the master suite and there is a small bathroom up there. But this is a little too rugged for me. I'd make this the boys' bedroom and let them hoof it all the way to the top floor. It would be SO hard to negotiate an adult size mattress and furniture up there.Don't get me wrong, I love beaded board, but not in my bedroom!
Instead I would want to make the family room space our bedroom, but it lost all its privacy when it lost that wall dividing it from the hallway. I envision children tramping through our room on their route upstairs.You can see a better view of where the wall would have been here. I'd have to pull up all the carpet to see if there are clues in the subflooring for where the door opening would have been. For a master bedroom the closet is somewhat spacious and has a built in too. Another bummer is the original windows have all been stripped fromt he house (there weren't picture windows during the Colonial Revival) and this room doesn't even have sashes! The glass is just wedged into the trim. It wasn't quite this bad in the window openings downstairs, but most of the windows would need to be replaced with appropriate ones which is another expense.
So if I take back the family room for our bedroom, that leaves converting this basement room to living space. Imagine the tv set here. Making it over would be an additional expense; Mr. W is underwhelmed to say the least. Like I said, I tried really hard to like this house, but it needs too much work and it just can't compare to the Mt. Tabor house.

St. Lucy's Day

2011-12-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

After cooking a feast, I then stayed up late to prepare the saffron dough for the luskatore. I have gotten much better at this recipe; the notes I made in the cookbook were helpful in getting it right this year. And last year, after the fact, I realized that the problem I had with baking them was due to our oven being broken. This year it heated right up to 475 degrees in a matter of minutes rather than an hour.
I used the new red linen place mats to line the two breakfast trays and some of the greens from the flowers from Ms. H's baby shower. The mug with the elf like people was a souvenir Mr. W's parents brought him from Norway and the Battenburg lace bun holder was a souvenir my parents brought me from a trip to The South.My Little Helper came down stairs to help me make breakfast. He brushed the egg wash on the buns before they went into the oven and had the brilliant suggestion that I not add the raisins until afterward. I think he is smarter than the recipe! He also remembered that last year I made a letter R and a letter E out of the dough since those were his favorite letters. I continue to be amazed at his memory!
Once upstairs, I put Bay Boy in the nightcap that came with the size 5 nightshirt. At age 3 last year it was too small for Our Little Helper. I chalked that up to my son having a big noggin'. But this year it just barely fits on the baby's head! I refuse to believe that my one year old has a bigger head than Irish 5 year olds; I think the sizing is just completely flawed. However, he does look awfully cute in it!As we ate, I read an excerpt from Kirsten's Surprise from the American Girl's series. I've mentioned before that it was my younger sister's book of which introduced me to this St. Lucia Day tradition. I borrowed the book to explain the Swedish custom of serving breakfast in bed to your parents. I skipped all mention of St. Lucy being a virgin and martyr, rather that she loved God very much, and her name means light hence the candles.
Breakfast in bed can be a recipe for disaster...but is as cute as can be!Easter has it's egg hunt and St. Lucy's Day apparently has it's Cheerios hunt as Baby Boy spilled the bowl and proceeded to eat them out of the covers. Our Little Helper said he thought that we were having a nice picnic. Here he is picking the raisins off. Maybe next year we'll be eating breakfast in bed in a larger room which could accommodate larger nightstands. Things get a little precarious with two little boys schooching around in the morning.

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

2011-12-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

Tonight I made beef picadillo empanadas, roasted chicken in a mole sauce, and Mexican rice for our dinner. I think this is the same empanada recipe I used for Dia de los Muertos two years ago. I've never had mole sauce before, every time I think about ordering it in a restaurant I see something else that I know will be good and order that instead. I know mole is pretty labor intensive, so I wanted to try it before I undertake preparing it myself. I used a store bought Dona Maria brand mole which I found at Freddy's.
Mr. W ended up having to stay late to make a conference call with Japan, so I had to prepare the whole meal, basically making 3 new recipes, trying to coordinate the timing so everything would be ready at the same time, with two little boys underfoot. A recipe for disaster one might say, so unfortunately I ended up in a bad, less than festive mood by the time dinner was on the table. (Sometimes I don't know why I do this to myself!)
The mole was a bit of a problem, I couldn't find instructions on the label (until it was too late) so I kind of burned it because I didn't know I was supposed to add 1 cup water to 1 part paste. Yikes, what a mess! But Mr. W arrived home just in time and we were able to resurrect the sauce and in the end it was quite tasty.I set the table with a vintage poinsettia tablecloth, a OLQoG candle, and an arrangement of crepe paper flowers I bought on our vacation to Arizona earlier this year. I thought the'd look nice since St. Juan Diego collected flowers that Our Lady made appear in winter to take to the bishop to persuade him to build a church.During dinner I told Our Little Helper the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He asks lots of good questions and I try to keep my explanations as simple as possible. Like most 4 year olds he has a short attention span. But he did love those empanadas!
This is also the point of the Advent season when I decorate the mantle with poinsettias and read The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola. He is one of my favorite illustrators. I love his interpretations of stories and legends and this book always makes me cry as I am reading aloud.

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

2011-12-08T21:57:00.000-08:00

All day long I have been singing Immaculate Mary. My Little Helper went to daycare today so it was just me and Baby Boy at Mass this morning. It went pretty well; he did chuck a duck up a few pews. I didn't see that coming. This boy may have the arm that gets me a MLB pitcher!
Mr. W had his firm Christmas party today so it was just going to be me and the boys for dinner. I put together an impromptu white dinner to symbolize Mary's purity. Chicken quesadillas with sour cream and then oranges, bananas, and gold chocolate coins for dessert. Yogurt and cubed chicken for the baby. He still won't eat chicken. He tried oranges too, but that didn't work well either.Since it was just the three of us I decided to have our dinner in the front room with the Advent wreath. I borrowed my mom's Immaculate Mary statue; it is from her childhood and the bottom is marked 1962. She can't remember the occasion on which she received it, but probably her First Communion. I especially like the crown. I also have this little wooden Nativity puzzle my mom bought for the boys last Christmas. I think it is darling! (She can't remember where she got that either, I'm becoming afraid of menopause...)We had a nice little meal and I was able to tell My Little Helper the story of St. Nicholas and the coins again.
In other news, I'm an auntie for the first time! Mr. W's brother and his wife had their baby early this morning after her water broke yesterday. They picked such a great name! I'm so excited for them and excited for my sons since these will be the only first cousins they will have (I'm already projecting that they'll have another baby.) We plan to go back East in April to visit for the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC so we'll have to wait until then to meet him. He's pretty cute looking for a newborn. Welcome baby A!

St. Nicholas Day

2011-12-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

I have been looking forward to today for a long time. Even last year I couldn't wait to get my sons in matching jams. I bought Christmas Hannas last year for both boys and we put the boys to bed in them last night.
First I had My Little Helper hang our stockings and put together milk and cookies for St. Nicholas. I was going to try out recipe from the Cooking With the Saints cookbook, but MLH mentioned that we needed to use the cookies in our cupboard. I usually have a box of Scottish shortbread in case of emergency; some how he remembered that last year we put out a plate of the holiday shaped ones. How he can remember that from when he was 3? I didn't remember; the only reason I knew what he was talking about was because I had recently re-read last year's blog post.
Then we put the boys in their jams and read A Visit from St. Nicholas (I changed the word Christmas to Nicholasmas.) Nerd. And then I read the corresponding story in An Advent Storybook.In the morning we descended the stairs to see what St. Nicholas had brought.New Christmas jams for both boys (from Lanz), a kazoo, dino and T-Rex racers, and Alice In Wonderland for Our Little Helper, and candy canes, chocolate coins and Santas from Sees for everyone. Baby Boy eating the crumbs St. Nicholas intentionally left behind.Mr. W received his traditional bottle of Samichlaus bier, which is only brewed once a year on St. Nicholas Day, and I received a fifth of vanilla vodka. I'm not sure what St. Nicholas is trying to tell me, but I'll take it!

Another snowfake baby shower

2011-12-05T17:43:00.000-08:00

My friend, Ms H is expecting another baby. I'm so excited for her because I think she thought this ship had sailed for her. Her daughter is 7 years old. This time she is expecting a son, so I offered to throw her a shower since there is a big gap in ages AND the baby is a different sex.
She's due February 1st, but is expected to deliver early again since she grows big babies. I thought I could re-do the blue snow flake theme again, this time at home.
I would normally make and print invitations myself, but since Mr. W was in Japan for a week and he is my tech support, I decided to take advantage of a discount certificate I had at Oblation Papers. Their prices were very reasonable to have flat printing done, there is no minimum order so it worked perfectly for me. The even include return addresses on the envelope in the price! I selected a snowflake motif and blue bell ink on white card stock. There was a bit of miscommunication in the proofing, but eventually I got them printed and put out in the post.
One of Ms H's friend wanted to help with the shower. We divided up snacks and desserts. We offered:

Tea (of course! Ms H and I love tea!) I nearly went through a whole box of Lady Grey.
Homemade egg nog. Mr. W made this for me like he does for our Peacock Lane parties. I thought it would be such a pretty, white punch for our snowflake theme. I felt a little bad since Ms H wouldn't be able to have it since it contains raw eggs, but she doesn't like it anyway.
Croissant sandwiches with meats and cheeses. I decided to try out assembling one of these myself rather than buying a prepared one. It wasn't too hard and I think it turned out nicely.
Crudites
Fruit plate
Mini-cupcakes. Her friend made these and I found the fondant cupcake toppers on Kara's Party ideas. When I saw that they had snowflake ones I couldn't resist them, they looked so cute and perfect.
Snowflake cookies. I used the same MS recipe I always use. I intended to ice them with white and blue icing, but in the end decided it would be easier to just use white. I happened to have the silver dragees and they worked perfectly.
Mints, cashews, and yogurt covered star shaped pretzels. This last item was something I found at Target while I was buying mixed nuts. They looked cute and snowflake like. These were a big hit with the little girls.

I used the white feather tree we decorate for the nursery as the centerpiece and strung it with the blue beaded garland. I attached one of the blue glittery snowflakes for the topper. I used as many of the silver serving pieces as I could and my blue Moonlight Rose and antique Beverly china. I decorated the mantle with my new hurricane vase filled with a candle and blue & white balls I found at Michael's and two arrangements of white flowers. I included some more of the foam glittery snow flakes. (Not many survived the flight home from Ohio.) I strung the snowflake garland over the french doors. I found some snowflake candle holders at Pier One and also some candles in snowflake glass holders as favors for the winners of the shower games. That is also where I found the blue and white snowflake wrapping paper.We played the purse game as an ice breaker game. I really need to update my list for that. I don't even have cell phones on it! Man, I'm old! We also played a nursery rhyme identification game.
It was a small gathering, but very nice. My Little Helper helped me to decorate and make the cookies. He declared that it would be "the best party ever!" So I felt a little guilty that I sent him off to run errands with his dad while the shower was happening. But it was so nice to have 3 hours of girliness without two little people crawling all over me.
I can't wait to meet Ms H's baby boy!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T10:52:00.000-08:00

I have a lot for which I am thankful. A husband who is so perfectly suited to me. He is so smart and funny and nice. Marriage isn't easy, but I know he works just as hard as I do to nurture our relationship. Two happy and healthy sons who make me smile whether they are cracking me up, being sweet to each other, or just being naturally adorable. A nice, comfortable home and the potential for an even larger home to fill with love, family, and friends. I feel truly blessed and thank God for all that He has given me. Even the hard stuff. Some times I struggle to decipher what is the lesson I am supposed to be learning from my pain, but I know there is a lesson in there somewhere, even if it is as simple as re-learning compassion and empathy.
I am also thankful for a husband who enjoys entertaining as much as I do. Because Mr. W takes such an active roll in preparing the dinner, I can enjoy my share because I am not totally overwhelmed. After so many years of hosting Thanksgiving I feel we really have our routine down. Adding two little boys underfoot is only a minor challenge to getting the house and the meal together.
This year Mr. W's birthday fell on Thanksgiving so I decided that after years of procrastinating, I needed to make him one of his favorite pies: banana cream or cocoanut cream. I've never made a custard pie, so I've always been reluctant because it looks hard. Plus since he likes them so much I'd hate to make a bad one. I was totally going to do it last year when my Aunt R hosted Thanksgiving because I was pregnant. But, I was 8+ months pregnant and wimped out at the last minute and bought one at a local bakery instead. It wasn't good so I had to redeem myself this year. I used this banana cream pie recipe from MS, including the crust. Hello, butter! I thought having to strain the custard before adding the butter and bananas was a little over-the-top-Martha, but Mr.W assured me it would be quite worth it. Other than that, the recipe and process wasn't that hard. I'd only had one cup of tea and measured out cornmeal instead of cornstarch, but that catastrophe was averted when I realized my mistake just in time.
Not all my cousins were joining us this year, but I did still need to set a second table. I keep track of the seating arrangements and rotate who sits at the auxiliary table. I set it for 3 this year and used this Irish linen tablecloth and the blue china.The dining room table I set with a green linen tablecloth and the Moss Rose china. Mr. W found a special "Happy Birthday" plate with similar flowers years ago when we were antiquing. HE thought it would be a sweet tradition to start. (See, perfectly suited to me!) So I set his place with the birthday plate.I also decorated with pumpkins we brought home from the pumpkin patch. While looking through a PB catalog at my mom's I noticed they used antlers as centerpieces. I thought to myself, I have an antler! Yes, when I was in 7th grade we went on a field trip to the Ape Caves and as we were hiking along I found an antler. This was before I knew it was poor form to take souvenirs from the forest. And since we are hoarders, I knew exactly where I kept it so I made sure to pull it out before we loaded the POD. Admittedly, one more antler would look better for balance. The funny thing about the antler is that it wasn't just ornamental, but it was educational too. It sparked a conversation which lead to a great debate about whether or not deer, moose, elk etc shed their antlers every year, and how could they possibly grow that big every year. Iphones were consulted, answers were shared, and we all were a little more informed after the meal.
Our Little Helper enjoying his turkey leg.
For dessert we had a selection of 4 pies and sang Happy birthday to Mr. W.We also attempted some photos for our Christmas card since we were all dressed up. I had to bribe Our Little Helper with chocolates to sit and smile for 4 good photos.

Baby Boy is 11 months old!

2011-11-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

I can't believe how fast it goes the second time around. I better hold on tight to this boy or he'll be off to school before I know it. We have been so blessed, he is a very easy baby, as was his brother. Here are some of the milestones he is passing:

He is a great cruiser and has stood, briefly, as few times. He also likes to hold on to my hands and take a few steps. I was really worried that he'd walk for the first time this week while Mr. W was in Japan because then I'd have to lie about it. But he is still content to walk while holding my hands and then drops down and crawls off like a shot.
He can wave. He has been doing it for a while, but this week I caught him waving out the window to no one. So cute because that is where he and his brother stand to wave to Daddy! He will wave bye bye to people pretty consistently.
He just started clamping his hands together this week. He's pretty please with himself about this one. He has been dancing in his highchair for some time now, turning his torso side to side with his arms in the air, but now he's got the clap too. (Well, he doesn't have that clap)
Tooth #7 is coming in. He's been a bit fussy about it, but not too bad. I didn't even really notice he was teething until I noticed the whiteness poking through on Thursday.
He's calling me Ma Ma! This is especially awesome! We were at my mom's for the family's fall birthday party and she was holding him and wanted to nurse and he started saying Ma Ma Ma. I thought it sounded like Momma and so did my mom so I considered those two votes to make it official. He has been saying it all week and My Little Helper has been noticing it too. From my experience this seems early. It certainly wasn't among MLH's first words.
He said Da Da today! Mr. W returned home today and got to change a duece at bedtime. He asked Baby Boy to, "Say Da Da" and then he did. We all heard it so that was pretty special. MLH wants Baby Boy to say his name now. That may be a ways off yet, but that will really be special.

Martinmas: Roasted chestnuts

2011-11-16T16:16:00.000-08:00

My Italian Holiday Cooking cookbook has a recipe for Hot Roasted Chestnuts for the feast of St. Martin. Since we gathered a basketful of chestnuts on our foraging walk I decided we could roast them tonight. We have a full week so I thought I would make something simple for dinner like roasted chicken breast, sweet potatoes, and frozen peas. I noticed fresh ginger in the refrigerator and thought maybe I could make a sauce to go on the chicken with it so I seasoned the chicken breast with salt, pepper, and ground ginger. Mr. W had a sauce in the freezer to which I added the ginger. We also tried to have Baby Boy eat the baked sweet potatoes, but he doesn't seem to be ready for them in non-pureed form.
For some reason I thought that you are supposed to put little x's on the chestnuts before you roast them, although that is clearly not in the recipe. They were so bitter and yuck. I felt bad becasue My Little Helper was so excited to eat the nuts he had gathered. But neither Mr. W nor I have ever eaten chestnuts before so we had no idea of what they are supposed to taste like. It was kind of a disaster. I don't know if scoring them with an x first made them dried out or if there are some varieties of chestnuts that are no good. I don't know why anyone would want to write a song about these chestnuts roasted on an open fire! Clearly more research is needed before I attempt something like this again!

POD people

2011-11-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

I'm really glad that the movers arrived an hour late beyond the 2 hr arrival window they gave me. It's not like I had to coordinate around dropping My Little Helper off at the playhouse or baby naps. ::eyeroll: And then once they finally arrived the fatehr was all grumpy and seemed annoyed by the amount of stuff we had. Hello, I'm paying you to be here to move stuff, and we ordered the 16' POD? Why would you expect anything less than a ton of crap to move? I made it very clear when I scheduled that the majority o f items to be moved were located in the basement. There were no surprises. Later I learned that he was tired because they had been in Seattle late last night til 11. So it's not clear to me when they drove back down, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was that morning and THAT is why they were so late. I called him at 10:15 when he was only 15 minutes late to check is location and he told me then that he was almost here and would be about 15 more minutes. Yeah, they didn't pull up until 11:00 AM.
But they filled that POD with all our stuff. It is a good thing I ordered 2 dozen moving blankets. I was actually one short by the end, so I clearly will need to order a ton more when we do our real move. That's the scary part; this was just a practice round. And frankly, our basement is still filled with a ton of crap, a lot less crap, but it isn't anywhere close to being the "clean, dry, and empty" for which our Realtors are hoping. To be fair, Mr. W wasn't able to relocate his wine cellar to our firends house before he had to go to Japan. That will help clear our a lot more space, but our tool bench and shelves with camping and canning supplies is untouched.
I did enjoy the son from the moving duo. He called me Mrs. W all day long. I loved it. Especially because I'm missing Mr. W. Four days down, 4 more days to go. Dear God, continue to give me strength and patience to survive!

The POD has arrived!

2011-11-14T21:58:00.000-08:00

My Uncle M was finally able to return today to help with getting our exterior winterized and ready to sell. Today he cleaned the gutters, brushed off the moss on the roof that her could safely reach from the ladder, did some pruning, and applied a coat of the trim on the potting shed. It was a lot of work and he'll return on Friday to clean up leaves and plant some native plants in the back yard.
It was great that he was able to come the same day the POD was delivered because it turned out that the branches on our hawthorn out front were too low to get the POD perfectly centered in front of the house. (All that work this weekend stalking cars in front of the house and moving both our vehicles to reserve a spot!) SO he was able to trim branches specific to the POD placement needs.
I had reserved a 12' POD, but as we began to evaluate the massive amount of boxes in our basement, not to mention the furniture, we decided it would be better to go with the 16' and not fill it all the way rather than go with the 12' and still have a ton of crap that needs to be moved offsite some other way. As it is we still may need to store more things in my mom's basement after the holidays are over.
Did I mention Mr. W is in Japan on business? He found that out a week ago so I decided to move the POD delivery up a week, no point in waiting until right before Thanksgiving if he won't be around to help pack up his stuff. I'm feeling a little stressed. I have had a headache today, my second this week, and this one isn't PMS.
Tomorrow the movers arrive. I plan to take My Little Helper to the playhouse to avoid any issues while the movers are here. Plus it will be a nice break for me since I am alone with both of them all day with no help. My mom did come to Mass with me this week since I was scheduled to be a Eucharistic Minister and obviously can't watch the boys while I am doing that. Then she came over here to watch them for 3 hours while I did some packing in the basement. When she was leaving he asked when he could play with Grammy again, and I casually mentioned that she might want to come over to visit later this week. I was hoping she might because I can only imagine how burnt out I will be by then. She mentioned that she has things going on every night but Thursday. (Which is what she tells me every week, frankly.) But then said, "And it might be nice for me to just go home so I can have a break." Um, yeah, that must be nice. I swear, it seems so weird to me that I see her so seldom. I feel like if my dad weren't dead, I would probably see her more. But I wonder why I am not seeing her more, rather than less, since he is dead? I feel like he would have been dropping by all the time to see his grandchildren. Don't get me wrong, she babysits practically every time I ask, but I guess I didn't think I'd have to ask. I thought she would just want to come by and see them more often. She makes herself so busy! I can understand wanting to be busy when you are grieving to not feel the weight and reality of being alone, but I would think visiting with one's grandchildren would fill that void better than going to the gym and zumba classes. She does ask to have My Little Helper come and spend the night with her when she "needs her fix" which is great and I welcome that. But she never calls because she needs a "fix" of me. I guess I just feel a little sad and rejected at how she is dealing with her grief. Makes my grief more difficult because I play the "what if" game more.
Wow. That is not where I thought I was going when I started this post! My intended message was: the POD is here and I think I'm ready for it. I better be!

The home office staged to sell

2011-11-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

I was able to finish up staging this room for the marketing photos today. I actually had it ready yesterday, but the light was fading so I decided to wait until today to shoot it.
I moved my lingerie chest from my bedroom here to free up space in our bedroom. The locally made glass vase was a wedding gift from my uncle. It looks really great in here, it gets lost downstairs with the wallpaper. The Steelcase file cabinet we also have to keep so that we'll have access to our files and documents. It needs love, but I'm hoping that by having it in the corner here its flaws will be overlooked.Here's a better shot which avoids that chippy cabinet. I'll probably submit this to our Realtor.I really adore these windows. I wish that our bedroom or the nursery had these 16 lite sashes. I always thought this would make such a sweet bedroom. Actually Our Little Helper does want this to be his bedroom. I might put a few toys in the back corner until we go on the market so he can play in here when I need to let his brother nap.When we redid the Lloyd Yoder Memorial Theatre we also stripped the woodwork in the hallway upstairs including the doors. At the time we just didn't have the money to strip the paint from all the bedrooms too, and it wasn't uncommon to have the bedroom woodwork painted anyway to save costs on wood. None of the trim in this room is original anyway, so paint is our only option. So the door is stained, since it is an operable feature, and prone to nicks and chips it makes more sense to have it stained to help camouflage any damage. Plus I just love the fir grain on 5 panel doors.This isn't the largest room, but is seems much more spacious now that the ceiling isn't dark and the majority of our furniture is cleared out.Here's a nice view of our Steelcase tank desk and the new desk chair I bought earlier this week. I was able to 'shop' our own house for most of the accessories in this room. The little desk lamp was a gift from Mr. W's sister & husband, but had been sitting in a closet in our tv room for lack of space. The planter arrived with the birth of Our Little Helper now with the addition of a "mossy" plant he picked out this week. I couldn't help myself when I saw that giant clothes pin at Cost Plus. And of course the nerdy, Edward Tufte copy of a graph of Napoleon's March on Russia with a new matte and frame. I'm really happy with how it turned out. It isn't really my style, but it is nice and modern looking.I didn't want to spend any more money on hardware than the $40 I already spent for the curtains. So I pulled so white ribbon from my stash and used some 3M hooks as tie back holders. Not as pretty as what I'd find at Rejuvenation, but a good, temporary fix to stage it to sell. I blouse the fabric over the hook so it isn't visible anyway.

I love a good deal!

2011-11-09T13:24:00.001-08:00

I'm not quite ready to post photos of the middle bedroom which we use as an office yet. But here are a few progress photos. I don't have any true before photos because this room has always been to scary to photograph, not an Oprah expose on hoarders scary, but scary nonetheless. Unfortunately it has always been a dumping ground for stuff we don't know where else to put and Mr. W has a bit of a cardboard addiction. This room was the nursery for the previous owners. They had glow in the dark stars and a cardboard constellation on the ceiling for their son. The celestial theme somehow made them think that painting the ceiling a dusty plum color in a small bedroom was a good idea. It just accentuated the low ceiling height here and made this modest room seem tiny. Oh, and they painted all the trim periwinkle blue. Now, I'm seldom a fan of painted woodwork, but periwinkle? Really?So here is where we started prepping the room. Notice that that dormered ceiling slope is not just dark because of the shadows, rather it is painted the same dark color as the ceiling making that little corner a place where light goes to die. Another point I'd like to make is that I have always loved these 16 lite window sashes. That is until I had to wrap each muntin with blue painter's tape. So tedious!!!
Here is one coat of Benjamin Moore's white on the trim and Linen #__ on the ceiling. That sloped plane still casts a shadow, but now it isn't as extreme.
Another view of the white washed room.Here two coats on the ceiling and trim and one coat of #__ on the walls, except for that slope which has the ceiling color. I wanted to be positive that it should be the wall color, so I saved it for last. And my verdict is yes, having it broken up by the ceiling color draws more attention to this funny corner.Painting complete and we're ready for new carpet!One last look at the gross, blue, commercial grade carpet in this room. Seriously yuck, I wish we could have replaced it years ago!And now with the new grey, wool carpet installed. We are only going to move a few furniture pieces back into this room to stage it for moving. The Steelcase tank desk and vertical file cabinet and the black lingerie cabinet from our bedroom. Our Realtor thinks it is too crowded in our room, but I need the storage space so it can't go in the POD. I want this room to look bedroomy too, even though we use it as an office, so I went to Target and bought some simple white, Shabby Chic curtain panels and tension rods for the windows. They are way too long though, but I have a quick fix, no sew idea for them.
I realized after we moved everything out that the Steelcase desk chair form my FIL was leaking oil, and a caster keeps popping off driving Mr. W bonkers. He wanted to pitch it, but I'll put it in the POD too and fix it later. In the mean time I started looking for an inexpensive, moderny looking chair. I wasn't sure if I should go white moulded Ikea style or something a bit more Ballard Design by using an upholstered dining room chair in white, like this. A helpful Nestie suggested this chair which is awesome, but a bit more than I was hoping to spend. Plus, would it work in the Mt. Tabor house? I found this one at Cost Plus and Mr. W approved with the caveat that I had to get a chair cushion for him too. I drove out there and tried it. It was super uncomfortable and hit my back in the wrong spot. Plus it wasn't unfinished metal. The metal patina was painted on; I knew it wouldn't take much for this chair to look like crap. But I found this chair which is similar to the other white leather desk chair, but much less expensive. Plus, all furniture was 25% off so I got it for $97. As I drove home it occurred to me that it wouldn't go to waste in the next house anyway. While it might look too out of place in the formal study on the main floor, It would be perfect as a desk chair in the boys' room. Perfect all around!
On my way home I also stopped to get a ready made frame and a custom matte. It turns out Aaron Brothers is out of business so I went to Michael's. Mr. W has this nerdy engineer graph of Napolean's March to Moscow that he was wanted to frame for years. I thought it would be a nice simple, graphic piece and large enough to fill the wall above the tank desk. Turns out Michael's was having a 40% off sale on all their frames so I got a nice substantial black frame for $29. Yay for good prices on items to stage our office to sell!

The Master Bedroom reveal

2011-11-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

Mr. W and I spent my birthday weekend moving furniture and painting our bedroom and the middle bedroom in preparation for the new wool carpet which was installed Monday. Boy am I tired! I remember when I used to spend my birthdays getting kicked out of bars! And as I painted, I had time to reflect that it has been 15 years since I turned 21. Ouch! But that's okay, being grown up means a new bedroom and hopefully soon a Victorian house!
I'll start with a few before pictures. Mr. W didn't paint anything when he bought the house. I kept thinking that if we converted the basement to living space, we might be able to eliminate the furnace chimney that runs through our closet. As a result I never painted this room because I thought I'd want to strip all the painted over wall paper and get new carpet too. The walls and angled dormer ceiling were a light butter yellow. I wanted an all white bed so the butter sort of worked with that anyway. When we were married my grandmother and mother made a double wedding ring quilt for us and I picked out white and off white fabrics. I also had so ivory matlesse pillow shams. The bed I coveted for years in a gardening catalog, Gardener's Eden or Smith & Hawkin? I love wrought iron beds and I loved the curves on this one.
I have had this dressing table since 1997 when I first moved out on my own into a bungalow in Sellwood with 2 roommates. With one bungalow bathroom to share between us I realized I needed a spot in my room where I could do the majority of my morning routine so that other ladies could get in to shower and brush teeth. I bought an inexpensive desk at Stars Antique Mall, a fresh coat of paint, and new hardware from Restoration Hardware (using my employee discount, of course) I also had a glass top made to so make up spills would be easier to wipe up. Then this dressing table moved to New York and back. It became a bit beat down, but still served its purpose.
So the room looked nice enough, if not a bit cramped.
Over time though I felt like we needed a more coordinated look and new bedding so I bought a lavender Hollywood Regency style set at Macy's. I began to fantasize about painting the walls a purpley grey. Grey wool carpet. I longed for a bedroom make over but it wasn't a top priority for Mr. W. Once we decided to sell though we knew we needed to replace the gross green carpet in the two unfinished bedrooms. There was left over, unopened paint from my sister's condo, so we decided to use that grey from her bedroom in ours and the blue from her living room in our office. Here's a first coat of the grey.And with paint complete. I'll admit I was a little worried it might be too dark, and since we have grey skies so often in Portland I question the logic of grey walls, but I am really pleased with how it turned out.Since we were moving we initially planned to use the same grey, nylon carpet we used for my sister. But in the end, Mr W felt it was worth the relatively small upcharge to go with wool. It will be better to market the house with another green product AND in case we end up staying we'll have better quality carpet for ourselves. There aren't a lot of grey carpet options so we went with this one from . Macadam flooring did the installation. We moved most of our furniture back in with the exception of my lingerie cabinet. I'm giving the dressing table a makeover.This view shows how high the ceilings are once you are in the room and all the light provided by the skylight.This dresser we bought at Restoration Hardware. We had been searching high and low trying to findsomething wide enough to fit in this nook to maximize our stotage space. We had given up the search and had resigned ourselves to having something made at The Joinery. Don't get me wrong, we wanted a nice piece of furniture from The Joinery, but is seemed such a shame to spend $4K on something that no one would ever see but him and me. Then we found this black stained dresser at Resto for half the price and we were sold. The
I totally scaled back the items on our dresser to sell.I reused the same curtains. I bought the purple dupioni silk and ribbon trim years ago at Daisy Kingdom before they went out of business. Then I got frustrated sewing them and put off the project for several years. My second attempt was a snap; it's all straight lines! I lined them with flannel to improve drape and to give a bit more thermal insulation over our then single paned windows. (Although now we have nice retro fitted double panes)

All Souls Day

2011-11-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

I took the boys out to Mt. Angel today to bring flowers to some our our departed relatives as I have done for the past few years. Today was a gorgeous day for it too! Sunny and dry with lots of crisp, fall leaves for crunching.
I decided to have Mt. Angel be our destination this year since I read in a recent Catholic Sentinel article about the new copper roof for the spire of St. Mary's church. Copper roofs are a little dear to my heart these days since the Mt. Tabor house had a copper roof on the tower before it was blown off during the Columbus Day Storm in 1962. I we are able to buy the house, we have plans to restore the tower to its former glory with a proper roof.
There are two cemeteries in Mt. Angel. The smaller, older one in town is the resting place of my Gr. Grandma S's two older brothers who dies as children. I have learned my lesson from past experiences that you need to go there early in the day before they lock the gate and you find yourself having to hope the chain link fence. I had purchased my usual white carnations and lead the boys to the headstones. Things were going okay, not great as the two of them fought over the flowers, the older wanting to use them as swords and the younger wanting to eat them. Finally My Little Helper ran off to explore and I tried to pry the flowers out of the Baby Boy's mouth when I heard a loud BOOM noise. I looked up wondering what that could have been. Then MLH ran back over near me all smiles and I noticed him run up to a nearby headstone and push it over! I was horrified!!! OMG, what am I going to do with this boy?! Why does God think I am equipt to handle not one, but two sons? I'll be honest, I said some things that shouldn't be said in a cemetery, but I was mortified! I had to run around fastening headstones back together. Fortunately for me they had some little rebar, or metal rods sticking out of the ground that I could fit them back on to, mayhaps my son isn't the first to cause so much destruction? In any event, I decided it was time to wrap it up and move on to a more modern cemetery with flat, non-tipable headstones.
But first I drove into the center of town to take a few photos of the shiny new copper roof. So pretty! I hope we can one day spend way too much money for one.Then we headed back out 99E and stopped at the Calvary cemetery where my Gr. Great grandparents are buried as well as 3 of my gr grandma's brothers who lived well into adulthood. Somehow I couldn't find the uncles and their wives today; there is only so much tramping through wet grass with a squirmy baby and a preschooler prone to mischief I can handle. So I contented myself with offering flowers to the Gr. Gr. grandparents. Then we headed back to Portland so I could go to the dentist. Quite the whirlwind of a day!

Mini Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2011-10-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally finished the costumes, and they turned out super cute! Ms. Mc and I have been looking forward to getting the boys together in their costumes and yesterday we were able to enjoys the fruits of our labor. Surprisingly, My Little Helper was excited to get into his costume, even before we made it to the party. Here he's showing off the detailing on the back.Things were more chaotic once at the B household. Trying to get a 5, 4, 2 yr, and 10 month old all into costumes simultaneously is exactly like herding cats. But eventually we were successful. Here John and George try out their musical instruments (borrowing these toys from The General's children was instrumental in getting our boys excited about their costumes, pun intended.)When Ms. Mc was in high school her mom bought her these Beatles dolls. She has posed all 3 of her sons with them as babies. She of course had to get some shots with all the Peppers together. The dolls were the only ones who consistently looked at the camera.
Here's George, the only one willing to have a moustache drawn on. Adorable!John minus the glasses and moustache.Tiny Paul!Baby Ringo!Hallowe'en is Ms. Mc's favorite holiday and she puts together a great party. Melted witches puddles desserts. Colorful, mini cupcakes. Caramel apples just for me (I took home a plate of 5 after the party!) And coffin favor boxes. You'll note one has a guinea pig coming out of it. That's mine as a tribute to my deceased high school guinea pig, Bun.
All in all a good time had by all. Tonight we trick or treat!

Costumes are complete!

2011-10-28T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm finished!!!! What a relief! And I have days to spare before Hallowe'en! I ended up making 3 medals for the John costume; the center one is the one Ms. Mc made with left over ribbon from Paul's costume. She made it entirely out of glie dots which wasn't quite holding for me so I top sewed it a bit with the machine. I used hers as a template though for making mine. There was only room for 2 on Ringo's breast, I probably could have scaled them down a bit more from the John sized medals. Good enough though, right?
I tried a few different ways of doing the swag of cord, but in the end decided it was all too bulky for children, especially the baby, so I just safety pinned them near the center. I finished hand sewing the eye-hook closures, we shall see if they will be enough to keep the jackets closed. I also decided to go ahead and make an ascot for Ringo. He wears a blue one so I used some of the left over fabric from the Paul costume.
All the epaulets are attached with several safety pins and the cording is all hot glued on.
This was fun, but I have a feeling I will be buying costumes for the boys next year.

We put an offer on the house today!

2011-10-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ack!!!! We complied all our paperwork over the weekend and drafted a letter to the sellers in addition to selecting some photos of our house, since we aren't on the market yet. Mr. W put a check in the escrow account. I have two children, but nothing has made me feel more like a grown up that putting in this offer for the Mt. Tabor house. It is a lot of money. It's a big deal. I know people do this all the time, but since it is all new to me I am in awe of the process. And I think a little in shock, it seems a bit out of body to me.
I thought I'd post some more photos of the interior after we initially toured the house in May. However, I discovered that we somehow lost all of those. Too bad. Hopefully they will accept our offer at a lower price and I can get in there again to take more photos. Fingers crossed

Fall foraging

2011-10-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

I signed My Little Helper up for Nature Preschool through PP&R. He absolutely loves it! I loved the idea of it, it's like Outdoor School for little kids. There are lots of time when he doesn't want to go to regular preschool and says, "I want to go to the preschool with no doors and no windows!" They have been learning about mice, birds, spiders, leaves, and this week was mushrooms.
I like to take him on my own fall foliage or foraging walks. The weather has been nice and dry this week so I took both the boys to a pumpkin patch on Tuesday, spur of the moment because it was so sunny, but no one else was available. And yesterday since it was still nice out I decided we'd go foraging for chestnuts. I have tried this before, but I always seem to make it to the trees too late; others have been there before me and picked them clean. First we walked past the chestnut tree closest to our house, but I think it must just be a bad producer, the nuts are malformed and look more like cloves of garlic than a proper nut. I've discovered another close tree on our walk to preschool and there we struck it rich! So many uncollected nuts and they are nice and fat.
I confess that I have never actually eaten a chestnut that I can recall, but I have heard of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and I know one of my season Catholic feast day recipes calls for chestnuts. And foraging food just seems like a PNW thing to do. My guess is that I should wash them first? And then score with an X before roasting?
My Little Helper loved filling up his basket with nuts though! He gathered a few pine cones too along the way from a western white pine tree, we like to use them as kindling. We thought it was going to rain on us, but it didn't so we changed courses and walked over to Laurelhurst Park. The boys enjoyed the playground for awhile and then we walked over to the duck pond. Firwood Lake is looking good now, I especially like these little habitats they made for the ducks to forage naturally. My Little Helper decided that we should race the chestnuts down the big, steep hill. We ended up doing that most of the way home. He always claimed that his nut had won and gone farther than mine. It is so nice to know that there are still some toys you can get for free for little children to enjoy!
It is a little bittersweet walking to Laurelhurst knowing that soon we may move and these will be our lasts walks over there as our neighborhood park.

These embellishments may be the death of us!

2011-10-16T20:44:00.001-07:00

Ms. Mc came over on Thursday with her boys. She brought the orange fringe she had purchased for me for the epaulets. She also made me a medal. I think it turned out really cute. She ended up giving me all of the coin fringe she bought because apparently Paul and George have cross shaped medals and John and Ringo have the circle medals. I think I'll only need about 3 per boy though since their chests are so much smaller. I bought blue and red striped ribbon on my last fabric store run and I remembered I have some striped ribbon left over from GapKids gift wrap a few years ago.
Ms. Mc showed me a sample of her epaulets. They looks so great! She is staying much truer to the originals while I have just fashioned clumsy rectangles. She has been working like crazy on her embellishments while her mom has been sewing the costumes. That is a huge relief to me. It is nice to know I only need to worry about my two boys' costumes and packing up our bedroom and office before the end of the month.
With the last of the fringe I'm in the home stretch now. I finished all the machine work, just in the nick of time because I am running very low on thread for both costumes. I'm just down to the hand stitching now. I hand stitched the epaulets closed. Ms. Mc suggested we just attach them to the jackets with safety pins so that is what I have done. I'm sewing the buttons now and cursing the original costume designers for adding so many buttons to these uniforms.And here are photos of how the backs turned out with the cording hot glued on.

The second Beatle is easier

2011-10-11T14:37:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to prioritize things since I have too much going on. Sunday I pushed through the Ringo costume for Baby Boy. The second Beatle goes much quicker since I know exactly what did and didn't work the first time I pieced the pattern together. I ended up with just the right amount of gold ribbon to do 4 stripes across the chest, one on the collar, two on the sleeves and one along the hem of the jacket. This is all less that what is on the original Ringo costume, but proportions for a baby are much smaller! And one packet of double fold bias tape was exactly the right amount for the size 4 costume and gave just a little extra for the size 1 costume. (I was so glad I found gold bias tape at Joann's Fabric, they didn't have it at Fabric Depot.)I'm really getting excited! I put him in the costume to measure the length of the pants, this is going to be hysterical!
Mrs. Mc told me that she had found orange fringe on the clearance rack at Fabric Depot so I headed back over there yesterday to find it. Fortunately, I found it and it is just perfect, thank goodness I finally got it! I added it to the hem, which was easy, and the cuffs, which was hard, since the sleeves are finished. I was able to get My Little Helper to try on the jacket briefly, but only through bribery. Adorable, even without pants! I think he expects that there will be antenna by the time I finish the costumes, since they are beetles and he frankly has no idea who The Beatles are. He also keeps asking if I will make him a dinosaur or dragon costume next. I think I am going to have to go buy another costume for him. We'll go trick or treating with the B Boys in the Sgt. Pepper costumes and Mrs. Mc is having a Hallowe'en party that Sunday to which I'll bring the costumes. But if we get invited to a party that Friday or Saturday before I'll let him be a dinosaur. And this will be the absolutely last time I ever make him dress as something about which he has no idea!
So here is the John costume nearly complete, I just have to make epaulets and finish sewing on the stinking buttons.And here is Ringo; I started one epaulet.Tiny baby epaulets crack me up! I used hot glue to attach the blue cording underneath. Here's a closer look:Now I have to figure out how I will attach them! Once I sew the buttons on I will attach and swag more of the blue cording on the costume.
While I had the hot glue gun out I also glued the orange cording on the back of the John costume, but I forgot to take a picture.

A weekend of house hunting

2011-10-10T10:21:00.001-07:00

Friday night we met our realtor at the Victorian townhouse in Buckman. I knew going in that I probably wouldn't want it based upon the white painted woodwork and the location on a busy street. But it did have a beautiful, unpainted fireplace mantel and a sizeable corner lot with a garage. I've been admiring the restoration the owners have been doing over the last few years since we pass this house all the time. The interior woodwork is mostly intact and the floor plan hasn't been muddled much. It had an eat in kitchen which we like and need. However because it is a town house the rooms are small, compared to the Mt. Tabor house, the front parlor wouldn't accommodate our sofa and chair well. And like the Mt. Tabor house the only fireplace is in the dining room, which the current owners use as a living room. The upper bedrooms were well sized but only 3 with the 4th being on the dormered 3rd story which is a guest suite and not appropriate or safe for small children. The clincher for Mr. W was a replacement, metal casement window which opened right at floor level at the top of the stairs. He had horrible visions of Eric Clapton's son. :( It did have an awesome wine cellar in the basement though to inspire him.And a view of downtown from the balcony.
The next day we met at a Tudor Revival on Alameda Ridge. I knew the woodwork was still stained and the kitchen looked like it might be original. It also had an awesome jazz age bathroom. I was initially surprised at the asking price since it is on Alameda, but it isn't on the view side of the street, so that is probably why. We came in through the back door and the first thing I noticed was the original patterned linoleum, which I followed down the hall into the kitchen. I looked up and saw the great metal drawer pulls when it hit me: these were metal kitchen cabinets! So awesome! And the plastic laminate counter top was likely original too! The jazz age yellow back splash certainly was. The kitchen is modest, but to find such an intact kitchen is a rare find. Most of the ones I have seen in the photos online seem to be very nice, brand new dated kitchens. That is to say, they look great and impressive now, but in 15 years they won't. It has the sweetest little adjoining breakfast room too. The dining room and living rooms are well sized. It reminded Mr. W and me a lot of the house Mrs. H grew up in, and since I spent half my childhood there, it was very nostalgic for me. I was really beginning to fall for this house, much more than I thought I would. There were some photographs of the owners in the house as far back as the 50s. A wonderful wrought iron banister lead me upstairs to the awesome peach jazz age bathroom. I forgot it had a built in dressing table! It also has a tiled shower stall in addition to the bathtub. Oh how I love this bathroom. I could easily find a period appropriate pedestal sink to replace the existing 50s one. The bedrooms were huge, compared to our bungalow. The master is nice, the largest room I'd have the boys share and the third could be the playroom/guest room for now until we have baby #3.
Down in the basement is a finished family room with a raised hardwood floor and a brick fireplace! This would make a great Lloyd Yoder Memorial Theatre! So the Mt. Tabor house is still my first choice, but this one would make a wonderful consolation prize if we can't get it.

The next house in Irvington I knew was too small, but wanted to see simply for the lavender Jazz Age bathroom. OMG! I was so in love and had to remind myself how dumb it would be to move to a same size house just for a bathroom. But damn! It is awesome!
The next house was a Foursquare in Sullivan's Gultch, but I didn't read the map carefully and didn't realize it was on a busy street with an ugly, infill apartment building behind it so we didn't even go in.
The final house we looked at had a dining room ceiling that literally made me gasp when I was looking at photos in the listing. The exterior though made we worried that there had been a fire or something in its past because the overhangs are missing from the upper stories. Situated right on Vista Ave on an extreme slope, the house seems to be settling and shifting downhill. It is a total money pit and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I know I'm not a West Side girl, I just didn't realize how busy Vista is.
The lesson I learned this weekend is how to comprehend the listing so that I can eliminate houses from our search to save our time and energy. I also think we should focus on packing rather than house hunting to avoid getting our hearts set on something that we aren't ready to make an offer on and then we get disappointed.

OMG, we're moving!

2011-10-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

After months of working with our credit union, and having the first woman quit in the middle of the process, we finally got our loan approval. Mr. W is transitioning to a new type of compensation at work so that made the process a bit challenging as well. As a result we met with our realtors last night. Initially, Mr. W told me he didn't want to live through selling the house while living in it so his first choice was a bridge loan, but that isn't what we got. I think we will be going for a contingent loan. (My lack of knowledge in this subject is vast so I'm quite sure I'm using all these terms incorrectly.)
Here are some highlights and optional plans from our meeting:

The market generally isn't great between Hallowe'en and New Year's. Our realtors will check around for houses comparable to ours next week and do some other research so that they can come back to us with a suggestion of what we could/should list our house. We should be packing everything up and getting a POD to get our house ready to go on the market in 3 weeks (!)
The Mt. Tabor house we love is still on the market even though the 'for sale' sign is no longer posted. Maybe they would be flexible on price?
We want to broaden our search a bit. Mr. W has seen other, larger houses sell for much less than their value recently and he wants to see what else is our there. I want to see other houses so that my head can catch up to me heart that there is no better house for us than the Mt. Tabor house. We set up paramaters for a house search including the following:

4 bedrooms
A separate living room, dining room, and family room.
Off street parking, a garage would be great, but not mandatory.
Our preference is on the east side and we'd be willing to look as far south as Eastmoreland/ Sellwood and as far north as Cathedral Park. I know we have to include the west side though too because there are more Victorians there.
Pre-WWII

It was a bit overwhelming, but also really exciting. We were talking about the possibility of getting in before Christmas. I need to get carpet and paint scheduled for our bedroom and the office upstairs. I need to start packing. This is really going to happen!
I ended the meeting in such an excited, happy mood. Then as soon as they walked out the door and I turned to walk to the kitchen to have dinner round 2, I saw the current state of my dining room. My sewing stuff is everywhere. I am in the middle of sewing 2, possibly 4 Beatles costumes over the next 3 weeks. Can I possibly add packing up half my house to that mix? Not to mention new carpet and paint upstairs? Is this practical? And even if I push it back a few weeks we have my birthday, Mr. W's and Thanksgiving. Our realtors make a good point; I wouldn't want to be house hunting in the winter between the holidays. And since I only had my epiphany in February, wouldn't it be nice to have one last Thanksgiving and Christmas in the Laburnum Bungalow? I didn't go all out last year because of Baby Boy's birth, I'd be sad to not know my last Christmas was it.
I processed all that as I was nursing in the dark and then went downstairs and told Mr. W as much. He didn't disagree. It is pretty overwhelming. Although I must admit that I am a bit annoyed with him. When we met with the realtors in April and I suggested that I start packing up the house over the summer, he poo pooed the idea insisting that he wouldn't live through a sale. He confessed that he didn't think he would actually get approved for the loan. When I asked why did he keep bringing up moving then and getting my hopes up after I kept mentally writing off the idea of the Mt. Tabor house he suggested that he is Bi-housal. Sometime he has house mania and other time he has house depression. It just depends upon which mood I catch him in. While that may be a slightly offensive analogy to his mother and others with bi-polar disorder, it does explain a lot and will be helpful to me to remember so I don't get frustrated with him during this process.
I am filled with equal parts excitement and horror!

PS. Since we had to woof down a dinner before the realtors arrived I decided to skip the feast of St. Francis this year.

Steady sewing progress

2011-10-03T12:08:00.000-07:00

I have finished sewing the jacket for the John costume. I am missing the orange fringe for the hem and the sleeves. I have been all over town trying to find it with no luck. I'm going to be a really sad duck if I can't find it! I can't start the epaulets either until I find fringe.
But, I'm pretty happy with how it has turned out. The double fold bias tape makes a nice finished edge. It was a bit challenging getting it around all the inside and outside corners along the collar, but after some trial and error with folding I figured it out.
Now I need to work on the hand sewing of the buttons. So many buttons! There are 8 for Johns costume and probably only slightly less than that for Ringo's.
Speaking of Ringo, I finally cut out the pattern. I think cutting out the pattern is my least favorite part of sewing. It is so tedious, and you don't have a lot to show for it when you are done. Machine stitching is so much more rewarding because your progress is much faster. But, cutting it out is the first step and now I can move on to the fun parts.

Michaelmas

2011-09-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

Since we have been so busy recently, Mr. W decided that he didn't want to have our big Michaelmas dinner party and roast a goose. So instead I looked through the Cooking With the Saints cookbook and found a few alternate recipes.
We settled on Cotelettes d'Agneau Saint-Michel which is Lamb chops St. Michel with little artichokes tartlets. A little weird, but we were willing to try it out. He ended up buying pork tenderloin instead because it was more affordable.
I set the kitchen table for dinner since the dining room table has been taken over by Beatlemania. Sadly all my Michaelmas Daisies bloomed really early this year so I had none for a bouquet. I was only able to find some sedum, roses, and volunteer chamomile
For desert I made Michaelmas pie which has apples and blackberries. The legend is that when the devil was kicked out of heaven he spit on blackberry bushes during his decent so now you aren't supposed to be eating blackberries after Michaelmas. And in slow food movement terms, this is probably the last opportunity to have fresh blackberries anyway.
These amber carnival glass dessert plates, which belonged to my Grandma A, look very festive this time of year. Oh, how I love pie! The cloves are pretty potent in this recipe so the ice cream is especially good to cut the tartness.
This rag rug table runner was handmade by a Montana woman who was friends with my best friends mother. She gave it to me as a part of my wedding gift.

It's been a hard day's night

2011-09-28T23:47:00.000-07:00

I just knew we'd procrastinate! In March I posted about Mrs. Mc's and my plan to dress 4 of our boys as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. After we bought the fabric, it sat in my dining room untouched. With October and Hallowe'en fast approaching I decided I'd better get to work!
First was cutting out the pattern. I started with John's costume because it will be in size 4, the largest size of the pattern. I have to admit that I think cutting out the pattern is the worst part of sewing. It is super tedious and you don't have much to show for it afterwards.
Once I had it all cut out, I used a measuring tape to calculate the right amount of trims needed to do all the St. Pepper embellishments. I used those same calculations as a guide for Ringo's costume too.
I headed back to Fabric Depot, this time without children, and was better able to focus on cross referencing the list of necessary trims and what was available. For example, the real costumes had military patches from the Royal British Army. Such things aren't readily available at Fabric Depot in Oregon, but I found a patch with the words "Royal Spirit" and a fleur d'li and figure that is close enough for this Momma. I was able to find orange cording for John's costume, but no blue coding for Ringo's. I got just about everything I need for John's costume but orange fringe so I'll have to check another store for that.
But once I got sewing things moved fairly quickly. I started with appliqueing the orange grosgain stripes to the front of the jacket. I may ask my mom to sew the buttons becasue that is another tedious part I hate. If I end up sewing all 4 costumes, buttons just may be the death of me!
But so far, I'm having fun and hope these turn out cute for the boys.

Frenchy birthday tea

2011-09-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I was inspired by Victoria magazine to throw an outdoor tea party. One of the spots I envisioned was my mom's arbor for Mother's Day and another was my grandmother's patio. The timing didn't work out for Mother's Day, but I did put together a Peonies & Pearls birthday tea for grandma. I decided I'd still like to throw one for my mom, and planned for her birthday instead.
While reading another issue of Victoria on the flight to Ohio I learned that Pix Patiserrie is now serving tea. Since she traveled to France for her Girls' Trip this year, I decided to do a French Provencal theme for her birthday. But I've also been pretty busy throwing parties every week for the last month so I decided to use mostly prepared treats. In addition to being a nice short cut, it would guarantee perfect pastries too.
For the first course I went to Le Petite Provence for baked goods. I was just going to get croissants, but was tempted into getting jam and curd filled treats instead. I also bought mini baguettes for the sandwich course. I drove back down Division St. to Pix for the desserts. After reading the Victoria article I knew I wanted the colorful macaroons for certain. I also selected the Opera cake and the Pear Rosemary tart.The first time I was in Paris I was a poor college student and mostly survived my long weekend there by eating brie and ham baguette sandwiches from street vendors. So good and so cheap! I combined brie, French ham, and arugula for the sandwich course.I set the table with a cheery blue & yellow sunflower tablecloth my mom brought back from her most recent visit, and her white everyday dishes. The Provencal tea pot and the yellow pitcher used as a flower vase are also French souvenirs.My dad always gave my mother sunflowers for her birthday and I planned on continuing that tradition. That is until I saw a flier for a dahlia festival posted on Division St. It turns out in the middle of Mt. Tabor there is a small urban farmhouse, Old House Dahlias, where one can buy tubers as well as cut flowers. I knew I'd already missed the Canby Dahlia fest, so this was a perfect opportunity. When I arrived at her house, my mom was so pleased with the bouquet and commented that she had never received dahlias before. I think we may have a new tradition here. I arranged them with some sedum and Russian sage from her garden.Now originally my plan was to set up a little table for 3 under her arbor, but it was too rainy this weekend so I contented myself to her kitchen table and decided to include Mr. W and my sons.I also selected a lavender flavored black tea from her stash.
The green macaroon is absinthe.

September 11, 2001

2011-09-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

The morning of September 11th was the Democratic primary. I was excited to be able to vote for Hillary Clinton as senator since I had voted for her husband for president in my very first election. My polling place was in the elementary school around the corner from my apartment in Spanish Harlem. Like so many things in NYC, it was completely inefficient. The polling booths were set up in the gymnasium which was also where they had all the children line up every morning. It was a mad house with adults and children running and pushing everywhere. Needless to say I was late to work and still on the cross town #66 bus at a quarter to 9.
I had managed to score an individual seat on the left hand side of the bus. The passenger behind me asmswer a cell phone call, and like most New Yorker, spoke with a phone voice loud enough for everyone else on the bus to hear him. A plane hit the World Trade Center? What? The building was on fire? Sure enough, as I looked out my window towards the south I could see smoke at the end of the urban tunnel. As the bus headed east I could see more and more smoke at the end of each avenue; it was getting bigger and blacker. The bus had erupted in a din of conversation as everyone was one the phone or sharing hypotheses amongst themselves. One man was very upset because his daughter worked down there and got off the cross town bus as soon as he could so he could head down there to make sure she was okay.
When I got to work I went directly to my desk without greeting anyone because 1) I was late and 2) I wanted to get ont he internet to learn more about what had happened. At that point I didn't think it was a big deal, the rumors on the bus were that it was a small charter plane. I thought it was more of a curiosity than anything else. My co-workers quickly came to retrieve me and I learned what a big deal it really was. The entire office was in the conference room watching the scene on tv. By then the second plane had hit.
Holy shit.
How could this be happening?
I know it is what everyone says, but it was so surreal. Here I was, living in a city that wasn't my own, where everything that "matters" happens. NYers can be so arrogant and self important. And now I was here when something really important was happening. And I was watching it on tv, as though I were still in the PNW and not just a few miles uptown.
I don't really remember what happened next, it all seems like a blur. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on. What did this mean for my safety? Why weren't they using helicopters to get the people trapped at the top of the buildings out of there? Why didn't they have those planes we use to fight forest fires dumping that forest fire fighting liquid on the building to put out the fire? Where people really jumping? How bad must it be in there for jumping to your death to be the better option?
At some point we began to hear reports that there was a fire at the Pentagon. Was this a plane too? It couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it? The television was mesmerizing. How could this be real? This seemed like it must be a movie. This can't possibly really be happening.
And then the first tower fell. Holy effing shit.
I will never, as long as I live, forget the blood curdling scream that came from my friend Mrs. B. I remember turning around to see who was doing it, thinking someone was being overly dramatic. What I didn't know at the time was that Mrs. B's husband worked in the south tower. So she understandably was freaked the eff out. I don't know if she assumed at the time that her husband was still in the building when it collapsed, but he was killed that day.
I was dumbstruck. I couldn't beleive the building had imploded like that. I am quite sure that I didn't realize how many people would have died in that. I think my naivete made me think that surely everyone must have gotten out. I just didn't want to imagine that the building collapsing would kill so many people.
Stunned, in disbelief, I was still trying to get a hold of Ms. H-G. Although she and her husband had left Brooklyn for Seattle two years prior, she had returned to try to finish up her degree at the Pratt Institute before I left. She was staying with me in my studio apartment and working nights at Bowlmore Lanes. I couldn't reach her on the phone. I was pretty sure she was asleep, but I wanted her to wake up. I needed a non-NYers perspective on what we were witnessing. And then the second tower fell.
To say that I was scared is an understatement. This was bad, very, very bad. Clearly we were under attack and being in NY was not a good thing. What must my parents be thinking? Oh my God, my parents! I quickly called them to let them know I was okay, so far from the damage in my office near the Lincoln Center. My poor parents. It was a terrible day for them. My inbox was full of email from my friends hoping to learn that I was safe. I was still unsuccessful getting through to Ms. H-G, the phone lines were all so busy.
Everyone in my office was leaving, a bunch of people were going to walk a few blocks up to the Red Cross to donate blood. I had never given blood, but if ever I was going to give blood, this was the time. When we all got to the Red Cross there was such a crowd of people there also hoping to donate that they began turning people away. The actress Kathleen Turner was among those who were turned away with us. There seemed to be nothing else to do but go home. So my friends Ms. S and Ms. N and I started walking north. We joined a mass exodus of people heading north. I felt like I was in a scene from a movie, like Gone With The Wind after Atlanta burns or The Joy Luck Club. I was walking away from a war zone.
I was still in a daze. We didn't know what to do. I don't know why going home seemed like it would be better, but where else would I go. I walked north on the West side with them until I needed to turn and head east towards Spanish Harlem. This would be the first time I was alone that day after the attacks. It was creepy. The thing is that September 11th was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining, it was warm, but not hot. And the wind was blowing the smoke off the island. If you hadn't been watching the news you might not have known. As I crossed Central Park I saw a couple women having a picnic with a couple of children. There was no one else in the park. Did they know what had happened? Should I tell them?
When I got home Ms. H-G wasn't there and I started to get worried. There was no way she would have been down there, right? She was asleep when I had left for work. It turned out that she freaked out after she woke up and spoke with her husband in Seattle. But because the phones were all so busy and she couldn't reach me she decided to go to my office and had missed me. Eventually we found each other and huddled in my apartment watching tv. At some point we decided to go to Krispy Kreme and bought a dozen donuts. That's how we survived September 11th. Krispy Kremes and watching Dude, Where's My Car over and over again. It was that kind of mindless bullshit that got our minds off of how scary it was in NY.
We could smell burning World Trade Center in my apartment for weeks afterwards. I wouldn't take the subway for almost a month until I felt assured that they had finally put the fire out. I had recently seen the movie Holland Tunnel in which and all I could think about was how dirty and yuck and filled with grease and debris the subways were it seemed like it would be no surprise if a giagantic fire ball swept through the tunnels. I guess I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Things happened in such succession that day. The other plane bound for the capitol crashing in Pennsylvania. #7 WTC collapsing late in the day.
Ten years later it is hard to imagine that that much time has passed since I lived in NY. Hard to imagine that life has gone on with little disturbance. I'm grateful we haven't been attacked again, but angry we used that momentum to invade another country. Frustrated that we are still involved in two wars with Americans and innocent civilians dying all the time. And yet, my life isn't impacted at all by the wars. Our government hasn't asked us to make any sacrifices and only a small part of the nation is bearing the brunt of fighting the wars. Perhaps if the draft were reinstated and children across all socioeconomic levels were forced to fight the nation would come to a quicker resolution to end the wars and bring them home.

Mock House tour

2011-09-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Last night my mother and I toured the Mock House which was put on by the Architectural Heritage Center. Ms. G, who is the Director, reached out to me recently to invite us on the sold out tour. I was eager to do it and was grateful for the personal invite. Our relationship with the Mock House goes back a long time.
In the mid 80s, when my parents decided it was time to get the heck out of Irvington, we went on a tour of the Mock House when it was on the market. We went in the evening so it was a little bit spooky to me, especially when we were down in the basement, and when you could hear the rumble from the trains down on Island below. But of did I fall in love with that house. I remember there being spandrels above all the door ways on the main floor and my sister and I running around upstairs picking out which bedrooms would be ours, doing a "prom walk" down the staircase, and there was a pool! Granted that pool looked rugged and had been filled in, but at 10 a pool sounded like a terrific idea. Much to my dismay, my parents decided it was too much house (and maintenance) for us and decided to look for property on which to build instead. In the years since whenever I drive by I can't help but look at the house with longing and think of what might have been.
In the month before my father died, before I knew he was sick, I stopped by his studio on my way back to work and he told me about the new owner of the Mock House who was planning a restoration of the project and that he was going to help him recreate several of the missing Povey windows. Apparently many windows has been removed and sold off and my Dad had either repaired them for the new owners or was able to gain access to photograph them in their new installations. My dad was so excited about the project and I was excited for him; I hoped I'd be able to get back into the house with him to see the interior again. There are so many reasons why I lament my father died too soon, most of them personal, but the restoration of the Mock House was one that stands out for me because he spoke of it right before he died. In the months following his death, the new owner contacted me through the AHC to see if we still had the photographs of the windows. I earnestly promised to find them among his things, but as I have written about before, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
So, when I read about the AHC's pre-restoration tour, I shamefacedly vowed to myself that I'd scan those slides and get them to the owner. And then Ms. G invited me on the tour.
When I first arrived at the house I was a little worried that my father's photos were nothing new, that everything I had was still installed in the house. The entry doors and transom have a waterlily motif. The entry floor of encaustic tiles is intact.
The panels for the foyer doors are missing. My father has some additional photos of them. They featured an urn or torch motif.The current wallpaper is a little crazy in the house and the hall "chandelier" is large and in charge, to say the least. To the left is a parlor with an amazing Eastlake style organ. Back in the hall you can see another little waterlily demi-lune window in the coat closet. I also enjoyed this little bench which I imagine to be original. In the Drawing room the demi-lune window with characteristic Povey dogwood flowers is missing its flanking window panels, only the beveled glass within the muntins remains. Here is a close up.The researchers had only a faint idea of what had been here based upon fuzzy old exterior photos of the house. I was happy to know that my father had the photographs of the originals in a new configuration. The windows in the adjoining room are also missing, it is possible that theses windows, which my father had labeled as "Mock House (Yeon- Warrington)", were at one point in this location. While I hate to see that this room's woodwork has been painted white I love that the spandrel still exists, the harp is a nice detail. The fireplace is also amazing with the beveled tile surround and unpainted overmantel.In the Dining Room there is another wonderful fireplace. This room has a painted ceiling, which the researchers believe to be original. The light fixture, while an awesome period piece, is not original to house as it would have had gas. Sadly the woodwork in here has also been partially painted, one can still see the panels of some sort of burled wood. On the back wall of this room there was originally a door which lead to the back yard had was flanked by two small leaded glass panels. The researchers has one black and white, interior photo which was hard to make out. When I saw that in their presentation I knew that my dad had those photographed as well. They are now installed in another house, one on top of the other.A small Sun Room with an encaustic tile floor adjoins this room. They believe the upper sashes in these windows were also leaded glass, the size of the blue and red windows doesn't quite seem to match up here. And I would imagine these panels would have had the same fruit motif in the little sidelights.There is another nice spandrel above the doorway.
The butler's pantry has lots of storage of varying periods. The kitchen has a late 80s early 90s remodel so I took no pictures of this space.
Probably the first bathroom added to the house on the main floor is this water closet on the side porch. To say it is rustic is an understatement! But I do admire that elephant trunk toilet bowl! The worst of the remuddling happened in the Drawing Room. It has been converted into a dim, windowless home office with a drop ceiling and a 60s avocado green bathroom complete with crackle tile and Formica counter tops. The kicker though? Look at the painted ceiling!!! Hello!? Everyone hopes that the other half of the ceiling is preserved above the drop ceiling in the office.Some photos of the stairwell and upper hall.The master suite with adjoining sitting room.This room would have originally been the turret which was remodeled into a Colonial Revival style bay at some point in the 20s.
The closet was converted into a bathroom and I literally laughed out loud when I saw this room. The tile is SO dreadful! Ah, it still makes me laugh!Bedrooms that could have belonged to my sister and me.This small room with added storage was probably the maid's quarters.An enviable little balcony with a view of downtown Portland and the West Hills. The balcony door also has leaded glass.This also makes me long for the house on Mt. Tabor that we are coveting. Note to self: Check with Mr. W to see where the bank is on looking at our finances! There is nothing like touring a great old home of similar age to make me realize that I need to own an old house and that one is pretty remarkable. I don't see how we could regret it.
I am so pleased to know that my father's research will aid in the restoration of the house, even though he won't be able to do the work himself. He was a great historian and a fine artisan. I miss him every day.

Green T-Rex birthday cake

2011-09-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

I decided to make a separate post for the cake. My Little Helper talked about this so much. He wanted me to fit both T-Rexes and Trucks on it, which I briefly considered but then realized I needed to nip the theme in the bud.
Let me start by saying that I don't really like cake, but think that it is important for birthdays. I thought a chocolate cake would please my fellows the most and chocolate ganache frosting would make a nice back drop for the green T-Rex. I used the same MS recipe that I used last year for the Teddy Bear cake. I decided the pattern I made for the T-Rex puppets would work for the cake topper. I knew I wanted to use fondant, but when I looked for ready made fondant at the craft store, I could only find it in quantities large enough to cover a 3 tier wedding cake which was clearly more than I needed. I considered having a local bakery make the fondant dinosaur for me, which would save me some effort. I tried a couple bakers, neither of whom seemed too keen on the idea and one of them informed me that The Decorette Shop had smaller quantities available. I hadn't had a chance to check there yet. Oh, how I love The Decorette Shop! Not only did they have _ sized containers, they had them in pre-mixed colors too with the perfect shade of kelly green.
In the interest in saving time, I used a boxed Devil's food cake mix. I used 2 boxes because I wanted a taller cake this year. I always feel my homemade cakes look so forlorn, so I wanted 4 layers. I used the cream cheese frosting recipe from Bakerella's Cake Pops cookbook and tinted it with green food coloring.
The only serving piece that fit with the T-Rex theme was this animal print cake plate. I started layering the cake with the cream cheese filling. I kind of ran out but hoped I could fill in with the chocolate frosting. I let that set up overnight and then spread the ganache the next day. I took a long time filling everything in, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Holy smokes it is going to be a lot of cake, but the height looks great!I took a little of the green fondant out and rolled it out and then traced/cut my T-Rex template with a sharp knife. I was relieved that the fondant lifted up easily so that I could get it centered just where I wanted on the cake.It was pretty easy to do, had the simple look for which I was hoping, but still looked impressive. Best of all My Little Helper thought, "It looks pretty cool" and that "It's perfect!"
I love this boy! We added four of the green striped candles he picked out to complete his green, T-Rex birthday cake.

A Green T-Rex birthday party

2011-09-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

For nearly a year Our Little Helper has been asking for a green, T-Rex and trucks birthday party. I wasn't quite sure how I'd incorporate the trucks, but I knew I could do the dinosaur part. Earlier this summer we had a nice bbq outside and Mr. W made ribs and called them dinosaur bones to encourage Our Little Helper to eat them (not that he needs any encouragement when it comes to meats!) We thought it would be a great thing to serve at his birthday party and as we enjoyed our outdoor meal we came up with a menu and had different dinosaur inspired names for everything:

Dinosaur Bones- Ribs
Dinosaur'd Eggs- Deviled eggs made green with food coloring
Brontosaurus Beans- baked beans with smokey goodness from the rib drippings
Jurassic Salad- green salad
Triceratops Tortellini- pasta salad with peas
Pterodactyl Punch- fruit punch with green food coloring
Herbivore food- watermelon wedges and corn on the cob
Fossilized Amber- orange jello with plastic flies inside. This was Mr. W's idea which I thought was really clever and creative and I fell in love with him a little bit more when he suggested it.

I also planned to make a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and green colored frosting between the layers. I thought I could fashion a T-Rex for the top out of fondant. I also planned to buy a T-Rex cookie cutter and make cookies as favors, with green icing of course!
So with this in mind I was kick started into party planning mode.
Our Little Helper was constantly asking us to draw dinosaurs for him and, more often than not, cut them out into paper dolls for him. I thought this would be a good craft idea for the party. Crafts were something I had read about on line the year before, but felt like my son wasn't really into crafts nor did he have his fine motor skills for drawing well developed. I thought I could incorporate all the parts of the T-Rex he loved, like sharp teeth, with googly eyes that could be glued on. I love Kraft caramels at Hallowe'en and have been saving the Popsicle sticks that come with them for years. I could glue the cut out T-Rex's onto the Popsicle sticks to make T-Rex puppet that the boys could decorate while waiting for everyone to arrive. I set up the decorating station on the front porch.I had a sample of an assembled T-Rex puppet for the boys to use as a guide. I ended up with colored pipe cleaners and used those for tiny, moveable T-Rex arms.As always I searched the internet to fill in some of my ideas, especially for games and things. A favorite place for inspiration is Kara's Party Ideas which had several dinosaur themed parties with ideas. My favorite was this one because I loved the idea of the dinosaur dig, what a great way to occupy time for the little boys. I also loved the table set up with all the little boys making roar faces beacuse I have a galvanized tub that same size and I could envision our fence as the backdrop for the boys sitting at a long table.
I was able to find the moulds to make the T-Rex skeleton here. I bought plaster mix at Michael's craft store. This Mr. W di d well in advance of the party. We filled up our wading pool with sand that The General had at his house. I found the shovels at the Dollar Store.Here are the bones just below the surface of the sand.Speaking of the Dollar Store, I decided to go check it our for party favors. As I pushed my cart through the aisles looking at cheap plastic toys I found lots of dinosaur options. Then I turned a corner and literally gasped and did the Home Alone face. I found an entire shelf with moulded dinosaur hats! So completely adorable and there were several different ones. And a dollar each. I was quickly becoming a big fan of the Dollar Store! I had to have them as party favors/party hats! They worked out so well, look at how precious the children look doing the dinosaur dig!Dinosaur bones assembled
I found some cute cartoonish dinosaur stickers which I used for the invitations. Then I decided to use them on food tags and the favor bags and the green with orange played right into our color theme. This was my first attempt at the 3 layer invites with printing on the transparent paper and brads holding it all together. I am happy with the way they turned out. Then I used them on the favor bags. I set up the favors in the dining room.Here is what was in the favor bags.
Somehow I managed to get no good photos of the table all set up before the children sat down. I found a cute dinosaur banner that was juvenile enough to tie into our theme and strung that along the fence behind the built in bench where the boys were seated. I filled my galvanized bucket with some wheat grass and covered up the dirt with decorative moss and arranged some of My Little Helper's tiny dinosaur toys to make the center piece.One of the online inspiration parties had arranged the food into two categories: Carnivore and Herbivore. I thought that would be perfect sicne we already had come up with dino names for the food AND we have two built in tables flanking the bench where the boys would be seated. I decided my oil clothe table cloths would be tropical enough to tie into the prehistoric theme.I had a hard time coming up with a good green punch recipe. My Little Helper doesn't like carbonated drinks and I couldn't get him to try white grapefruit juice either. In the end I ended up using this green punch recipe which gets its color from lime jello. I did half the recipe and omitted the sugar entirely. I don't think any of these 3-5 yr olds drank it, but I sure enjoyed it!Mr. W used the __ recipe from __ for the ribs. You can see the tray underneath to catch the drippings for the beans.After they ate, we presented the birthday cake. He was so happy with his cake, which made me happy since he had been talking about it for so many months.One day there will be cake for you Baby Boy.We moved the boys back to the front yard to play a game of hot dinosaur egg (just like hot potato) with a bean bag that he had on hand. Then more time to dig for bones and we opened gifts.A baby dino on the loose.

Big Apple Dinner party

2011-09-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

Years ago, long before we had children, I came across some adorable little red chalkboard napkin rings at PB and had to have them for back to school dinners for my future children. They have sat, unused, in the top drawer of our sideboard ever since. That is until last night when I was finally able to break them out for a back to school dinner for my new pre-schooler. I had visions of red apples, pee-chee folders, #2 pencils and wooden rulers. One a recent trip to Cost Plus this summer I found some larger chalkboard napkin rings and as I was describing my plan to my mom she grabbed an apple cookie cutter for me.
Since the night before his first day of school also fell on September 11th I decided to incorporate New York City into my theme for a Big Apple Dinner. Our Little Helper loves steak just like his Daddy. I thought New York Strip would be a clever cut of meat and some creamed spinach would be a nice addition to the steakhouse idea. When I asked Mr. W for ideas for NY style side dishes, he suggested Delmonico potatoes. Having recently read the Emily Post biography I praised his brilliance and added that to our menu. I really am so lucky to have him. All I have to do is come up with a menu and he does all the rest.
I set the table with a new linen tablecloth that Mom gave me as a souvenir from her trip to France this summer. For a little pop of red color, and to protect the table cloth from messy little hands, I added my red linen placemats. A lot of the NYC items I borrowed from my mom like the glasses from Fishs Eddy (one of my favorite stores there), the Chrysler & Empire State building salt & pepper shakers, and the NYC theme wine charms. I made a centerpiece of apples and #2 pencils.This commemorative mug is also from Fishs Eddy. My favorite building in Manhattan is the Chrysler Building, followed by the General Electric Tower. My favorite building in Brooklyn is the Williamsburg Bank Building. While I was living in NY, I met my family in Savannah for vacation. While shopping at an antique store there I found this Williamsburg Bank piggy bank! It had to come home with me of course!I made Appletinis with floating apple slices just like a bar near Union Square made when I lived there.And a Manhattan for Mr. W.Mr. W opened up a bottle of a red wine from 2001. Creamed spinach with tomatoes from our garden.The potatoes Delmonico . (He used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen) So rich, so delicious!We finished with simple little sugar cookies for dessert.This was fun to decorate, I can't believe my baby is going to pre-school now. I hope he enjoys his time there, makes lots of new friends, and has lots of big boy fun.

PS: As I linked to the Fishs Eddy website I spied these cute memo dishes... I have a feeling I may have to return home with them when we travel to New York next spring...such cuteness!!!

Snowflake baby shower

2011-09-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

My brother-in-law and his wife are expecting a baby this December. I'm pretty excited because they are the only couple among our siblings who will be breeding so not only is this my sons' only opportunity for cousins, but also my only chance at being an auntie! The eloped so there was no bridal shower so this was also my only opportunity to help throw them a shower.
I brought the idea up to my sister-in-law to see if she already had something planned and if she thought it might be a good idea to do something while we were all in Ohio this summer to celebrate Grandpa W's 90th birthday. She agreed that it was a good idea.
Since the baby is due in December, and Mrs. W's name means snow, I thought a snowflake theme would be sweet. And simple since we were all traveling there. White plates, napkins, streamers, etc and I could make tissue paper snowflakes as decorations which would be easy to pack.
I searched the internet for snow desserts and found cherries in the snow, which made from mostly pre-prepared items would be convinient for all of us since none of us would be in our own kitchen. My mother-in-law, offered to help as well since she'd arrive earlier so she would prepare the dessert. She felt that a cake and punch shower would be appropriate and since I'm not from Ohio, I deferred to her judgement.
After we found out they were expecting a boy I decided to throw in some blue accents with the white. I found some cute snowflake ribbon, glittery styrofoam snowflake spears, and a snowflake cutter at Michael's. I always mock Christmas decorations in the sumer, but now they were coming in handy. I also found a couple snowflake containers at the Dollar store to hold prizes for the shower games and a snowflake streamer.
My MIL rented the church hall and my SIL and her husband went early to decorate. We used available bud vases for flower arrangements of white flowers and the glittery snowflakes tied with the snowflake ribbon. My SIL's husband helped to suspend the white streamers around the room. She came up with a good phrase "perfectionating" because he tends to obsess over minute details. I can be totally guilty of that too so it made me laugh. We were positive no one would notice the slight variances in the twists of the streamers. That silly little snowflake streamer form the Dollar Store was more trouble than it was worth; it didn't hang very easily and Mr. L was perfectionating it.
My MIL had put together a very nice display of wedding photos of the parents to be, both their elopement at the NYC courthouse and their Japanese ceremony and reception. We made that the gift table.
She provided the punch and other beverages and had Mr. L assemble the Cherries in the Snow dessert. I felt bad because he is such a foodie and the ingredients include coolwhip and canned cherry topping. But it looked nice in the trifle dishes. It was super, super sweet though!

Chinese salmon

2011-08-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

Just a short little post so I can remember this recipe. Yesterday I asked My Little helper what he wanted for dinner on our way to the store. His answer was Chinese food which kinda surprised me. I was actually craving some fish. He picked out salmon in the store and I baked it in this marinade and served it with rice and broccoli. Since I only had one large piece of salmon fillet I cut the marinade recipe in half.
Today, as I have been doing a hard core laundry attack in preparation for our trip to Ohio, he decided to "help" me by picking a bunch of tomatoes, many of which were not quite ripe enough. I have been trying to eat down the food in our cupboards and fridge before we leave so a bunch of tomatoes wasn't really in my dinner plans. I was able to scrounge up enough ingredients to make a batch of roasted red pepper tomato soup though. Our weather is hit or miss in Oregon so while I don't think we'll get a bumper crop of tomatoes in our garden this year, I am grateful we have enough to make a few batches of soup. Hopefully when we return I our crop will allow me to make some to freeze.

Huckleberry syrup

2011-08-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

My Little Helper and I finally made huckleberry syrup today. I used this recipe as a guide. Against its recommendations I did it all as one batch, hopefully it will still turn out fine.
Since I knew our berry picking didn't yield enough for many batches I decided to use my freezer containers rather than borrowing all my mom's canning equipment. I ran them all through the dishwasher to get them nice and sterilized. Meanwhile we began squishing the huckleberries through the chinois. He always loves this part the most.
Our berries produced 2 1/3 cups of juice and I mixed that with 3 1/4 cups of sugar and the juice of one lemon. Then I brought it to a rolling boil.
Then we divided our syrup between the containers. After they cooled I covered, added labels and stuck in the freezer. I'm looking forward to having a relaxing weekend at home so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor. Hopefully next month!

Making a door from scratch.

2011-08-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

My Uncle M is over again to work on our potting shed. Now that most of the trim is up we need to work on completely enclosing it by making a door. The problem is that the dimensions are so odd that I haven't been able to find anything that we could use at any of my trips to The Rebuilding Center or Hippo Hardware. Every door I was finding would need to be cut down so substantially that the existing panels and mouldings would look ridiculous.
It occurred to me that What I needed was a solid core, slab door. With this I could cut it down in height and width with out worrying about having a lopsided door, AND not have to worry about trying to re-bore for the lockset. I was inspired on a walk to create a Craftsman style door with a window. We could build up the ledge with dimensional lumber and mouldings. We could add a little window and I could get some salvage glass from Hippo. My Uncle was game to try this so I went on yet another search for a solid-core door.
I found this fun little pine door at Hippo, but the dimensions didn't quite work. It was a touch too narrow.I finally found one that wasn't too much bigger than I needed at The Rebuilding Center. I managed to get it for only $10 since the cashier felt I had waited too long for a salesperson to help me and she had to come out herself to give me pricing. That was an unexpected perk! While I was there I also rooted around in the hardware department looking for a lockset. I wanted something smaller scale since this is a mini door. I found this complete set with all the pieces parts, save a strike which I was able to get in the other bins. The salesperson said it would retail for over $100, but that they were asking $15. Oh, how I love The Rebuilding Center!
My uncle cut down the door and we discovered that my solid core door was actually particle board. The sides have about 3 inches of solid wood which is what I saw. It did not occur to me to tip the door over to look at the top or bottom, otherwise I would have seen this. The price is great, but this will make hanging it a bit more complicated because the hinges will have nothing to grab onto, When he trimmed the door on that side we lost all the solid wood. Bummer.
I used blue tape to test out the dimensions of the window before he cut that out. The first was too big.
Just right.
So now the door fits in the hole and we have a window. Next up, I need to find a piece of glass and we can add the ledge.

Refinishing the Boudoir chair

2011-08-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

I set to work removing the upholstery from the boudoir chair I bought on craigslist for my sister's condo. To go with the red, black, and white color scheme I wanted to refinish the wood with a black stain so the grain would still show through. And as opposed to painting, this would be less likely to show chips and dings.
It seemed like there were a thousand staples, but we finally got the fabric and padding removed the first day. We were set up in my mom's garage so it was a bit hot too and I had to keep taking breaks to nurse. So here it is naked:The next day I went back to strip the existing stain off. I went to Powell's Paint and they recommended I use Jasco Paint and Epoxy remover and a scraper. I also bought wood conditioner and and ebony colored stain. First I used a cheap paintbrush to brush on a thick coat of the stripper. This needed to sit for half an hour.It got nice and bubbly and then I just scraped it all off.Since there was only one layer of finish on the chair it came off very easy. I just used the putty knife to scrape everything off. Because it was so hot out sometimes the stripper had already dried by the time I got back down there, even though I thought I was working in manageable small sections, so this took the whole day.
But once I got it off it looked nice and ready to go.
Next we need to tackle conditioning and staining before we take it to the upholsterer next week. My mom is going to do that because I am going camping in Idaho. I asked her to take a picture before she drops it off. I hope it turns out great; I want this to look really nice for my sister.

Making progress on the potting shed

2011-08-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

We finally are working on the little shed in our back yard. I have been waiting on finding a door before we begin work, but the tiny opening we have is proving quite troublesome. No matter what I find it will have to be significantly cut down and the proportions will be off. I decided that maybe "breaking ground" on this project will either motivate me to search harder or maybe even reveal a solution if we create a door from scratch.
I called my Uncle M to do the work since he can use the work and Mr. W doesn't have a lot of time. Last weekend when we were out getting supplies for my sister's condo we also bought the lumber and supplies needed for the shed. We went to Mr. Plywood because they are close and local. Any time I can avoid a trip to worthless Home Depot I'm happy. Plus look at how awesome their signage is?This potting shed is never going to be weather tight, but I am hoping by closing it up we can at least prevent opossums, racoons, cats, squirrels and rats from finding shelter in there or using it as a litter box. I also want to be able to keep out toddlers and babies. I have a feeling I'll always have spiders in there ::shudder:: but maybe fewer? Because it isn't meant to be weather tight we are skipping the step of using felt paper between the plywood sheathing and the cedar shingles. We bought white cedar grade b shingles. I was interested in some fancy cut shingles, like the round or fish scale ones, but they are all special order and have a minimum order anyway and we only needed 16 square feet so it wouldn't be worth it. I keep reminding myself it is only a potting shed and we may be moving soon so I needn't go crazy out here!
The gable overhangs the footprint of the shed quite a bit and we wanted to use that as a ledge for storage in the interior. We used 3/4" plywood there for strength. We finished out the underside/exterior with tongue and groove beaded board for the porch ceiling, if you will. A cove mould finishes the edges and covers the spacing. My uncle and I decided to cover the eaves with beaded board as well. The angle of the roof means there are a thousand little cuts and that board will help to finish off any uneven seams. It also looks a lot nicer and was something I originally considered doing but opted not to in the interest of saving money on supplies.
We bought one bundle of shingles which covers 25 square feet, but with all the little cuts needed we ran a little short. There were 9 round edge shingles in the shed from when the previous owner redid the siding on the house. We used those at the top to make up the difference we needed, but hopefully it looks like it was a detail we always intended to add. Among my dad's tools is a compressor and a pinner but we didn't really have a way to staple the shingles, which is the method the previous owner used for the body. I rented a 1/2" crown stapler from Parkrose Hardware because I was told that they can also sell you the fasteners you need in smaller quantities rather than having to buy a giant box. Their rental prices for 5 hrs or a day are very reasonable and whatever unused strips of staples we didn't use they would return.
I'm very excited! I still need to find a door, I do have a possible solution with materials we already have on site. I'll paint the trim, door, and sashes too as a possible test run for colors on the house if we end up staying here. And maybe I can talk Mr. W into adding some sort of solar powered LED light for the interior since the downside to closing up the place is I have eliminated most of the natural light source.

***Upon returning the staple gun I noticed boxes of flossine on the shelves. I thought, that's odd that they sell that at a hardware store. Then it occurred to me, I'm in the rental department...what if they rent cotton candy machines?!?! So I asked and indeed they do. I am so excited!! One of my favorite jobs at Oaks Park was making cotton candy; it is one of those mindless, repetitive jobs, like ironing napkins, that is very therapeutic for me. I had already been considering a future carnival/circus theme birthday party in the future, but now I know I can make my own cotton candy. So awesome!!!***

Tying up loose ends at the condo

2011-08-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to wrap a few of our outstanding tasks at my sister's condo. Mr. W was going to install a new light fixture in the bathroom and we also needed to add the spacer at the bottom of the upholstered headboard so it would hang vertically. The trouble with the light fixture, which we found in the closet at her condo, was that the mounting bracket was set so darn low and the standard set backs weren't long enough. We searched around a lot trying to find a place that carried a 4" threaded set back. Finally after much colorful language, Mr. W was able to hang the new light. It provides much more and better light than that stupid, dinky mood lighting fixture that was in there when she bought the place. I honestly don't know why anyone would want such terrible lighting when getting ready in the morning! I only put on mascara every day, but still would want better light. My sister isn't a hair and make-up person either, but she does wear contact lenses and needs proper lighting.
The rest of the bathroom is looking cute too. My mom talked her out of her Emily Strange shower curtain, since she had picked out the new bath mat and I based the paint color on that. The shell bath mat was Martha Stewart from Macy's so they bought a shower curtain from the same collection and blue towels. The framed sea shell prints I found at Home Goods and they have all the same colors.
Mr. W and I could have a bit better communication when putting the spacers on the headboard. I was thinking he'd pre-drill the holes for the screws and then I could have put the batting around the wood and poked it through the hole. Maybe he was concerned with trying to line up the pre-drilled holes? Anyway he asked me to wrap the spacers first and when he screwed into the wood the bit grabbed a hold of the batting and ripped a gigantic hole it. So we took the batting off, screwed the plywood spacers on, and then glued the batting on to the main board. It's not pretty, but no one will see it and the batting will still protect the wall from scratches if the headboard gets bumped.
My mom finished the bed skirt too so everything is coming together in this room. I think if it were my room I'd tuck the bedspread under the mattress so it looks a bit more tailored and more of the bed skirt is visible. But this works for my sister and she loves her new room so much she makes her bed every day! I'm impressed!
The curtains for this room had arrived also so we installed the curtain rod and hung one panel. The seamster wasn't sure how many pinch pleats he would eventually need and my mom didn't buy quite enough packets of drapery rings. Each panel needed 13 rings. We used Levelor rings with clips but since we were doing pinch pleats with drapery hooks sewn onto the curtains I had to remove the clips. This way the main ring can slide along the rod and the hooks can slide into the smaller ring. Pretty simple but those little effers were a pain to pull off.
The black out fabric for the backing since she likes to sleep in total darkness. It is so simply attached, I bet I could do this myself for simpler curtain projects in the future.
I don't love that black band at the bottom. I wish that we had been able to get all the yardage in the gray fabric, I worry that band draws too much attention to the drapes, which since they aren't floor length, I don't think they need it. But both my sister and my mom like it so that is what matters. (Next up for this room is recovering the chair)
My mom decided to have drapes made for the office rather than hemming ready made curtains. My sister selected this grape vine window my father made so we selected a fabric that pulls out the green from the grape leaves. (This is why I selected a neutral tan paint color for the walls when we were up in the air about the fabric for the shell chair.) Which consequently we will be reupholstering as well. I suggested my mom look for a textured tone on tone fabric for the chair. With the channel back and the asymmetrical shape we really don't want a busy fabric to fight with the chair. I also suggested a purple color to pull out the grapes from the window.

Wildlife Safari

2011-08-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

One of my cousins got married in Roseburg over the weekend. We enjoyed our time and the setting at the Roseburg Country Club was so beautiful for their evening wedding. I don't get to see this part of the family a lot, but these are the cousins who are closest in age to me. Not only that but the mom and the eldest daughter are old house people just like me AND they both just bough new houses in Roseburg. One is a Lawrence Ellis designed Arts & Crafts style home and the other is a large Colonial Revival. I love house tours! Both have lots of plans to renovate so I'm glad I had an opportunity to see them in the early "before" stages. One thing that I particularly liked about the Colonial Revival was the dining room floor. The oak strip flooring was laid in a picture frame but the center was fir. I assume this was because they would have expected the center of the room to always have a carpet so why use good oak in a spot where it would never be seen. I have never seen this application before, but it is a clever way to economize with materials.
Since we were down there I suggested we go to Wildlife Safari which is only a few miles away in Wilbur, OR. I don't ever remember my parents taking me here as a kid, if they did I was very young. I'm not sure how much OUr Little Helper liked it, but Mr. W & I really had a great time. To start out the cost is per person, but our children are both still free. When we were purchasing our tickets the woman asked us if we were members of AAA, the zoo, etc. I asked, The Oregon Zoo? and she said yes, if I showed her my membership card they would extend a 50% discount! We were so excited, it turned out to be such a great deal!
And the animals get so close to your car. Right inside the gate we saw ostrich right next to the road. Then we passed a water shelter that had a heard of zebra including a baby zebra! It was so tiny and adorable! And the parent must not have liked our car being so close (we were there pretty early) so she escorted the baby zebra up the hill, but right in front of our car!! How awesome is that?
In the brown bear enclosure they were taking a nap inside a little shelter that was right next to the fence. Then as we drove a bit further we saw another one who was awake and swimming in the pond. Again we couldn't believe how close we were to the bears. We drove around the bear enclosure twice we enjoyed it so much.
We also saw two hump camels, which lead to us reciting the Everybody Poops book over and over again as we looked out for two hump poops. Just kidding! I saw a camel in Turkey, but I think it was only a single dromedary. The humps on these camels were crazy, I was amazed at how different the shapes could be. Not unlike women's breasts I guess.
We also enjoyed the Americas section in which we saw a herd of elk. A couple were on one side of the road at a water trough and the male walked across the road in front of us to join the rest of the herd. He had a very impressive rack on him and as he crossed Our Little Helper whispered, "She's amazing!" I am so in love with that kid!

Berry picking

2011-07-24T23:22:00.000-07:00

Last night we had the Fs and Mr. P over for dinner. The Fs mentioned that they were planning on heading out to Sauvie's Island today to pick blueberries. Our Little Helper loves blueberries so we thought we'd join them. It was such a beautiful day on the island. We are so lucky to have this protected farming community within 20 miles of Portland! As we drove across the bridge to get there all 4 mountains were out! I took these photos on the way home.
The tip top of Mt. Ranier on the far left and St. Helens in the middle.Mt. St. HelensSt. Helens on the left and Mt. Adams on the far rightMt. AdamsAnd our own Mt. Hood, or Wy'eastThe Fs decided to go to The Pumpkin Patch for blueberries. They weren't really ripe yet, everything is so late this year because of the cool weather we've been having. But the raspberries were perfect and fat and the Marionberries were ripe too. The boys had a great time running through the fields. In the raspberries. While the mommas were hard at work picking.My Little Helper was holding a box for me as I was picking Marionberries. I kept picking berries, but my box never seemed to fill up; he kept eating them. As much as I told him he needed to stop eating them before we paid for them, I couldn't keep him from snacking. Baby Boy even decided to get in on the berry picking since I had him strapped to me and those non-ripe, red Marionberries were right in his face. I looked down and realized he had picked one too! Good thing he didn't grab a thorn. Unfortunately I forgot to pack a hat for the baby so I tried to keep him out of the sun as best I could. Bad Momma! I think he had a bad reaction with the sunscreen, or he just rubbed it in his eyes because when I stopped to nurse him his eye and half his face was red and puffy. Poor little thing.
Mr. W thinks that picking our own berries is such a great deal, considering Zupan's prices. And especially considering we got all the berries the children ate for free. He thinks they ought to weigh the children before they head into the fields and then afterwards to recoup their losses. I still have a lot of jam from the last time I canned so I am considering making syrup with these.
After we were done on the island Mr. W suggested going to Skyline Burger for lunch. It has been a long time since I've been there so I loved the idea. Can I just say the roads in the West HIlls are super curvy. It took so long to get there and I was so hungry I was beginning to get car sick. All was better when we arrived though, a cheeseburger and a butterscotch milkshake can cure just about anything. I wish they still had their old neon signage that is in the photo on the menu, it was awesome!
From there we headed out to my Aunt R's log cabin in Redlands for game night. We were planning on the drive to count as a nap for the baby. Our Little Helper and his cousin had a blast running circles around the kitchen while the grown-ups played Proletariat. When we left for the evening there was a doe and a rabbit in my aunt's driveway. How lucky for the little boys to see! It was a great day!

Feast of St. Mary Magdalen

2011-07-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

My patron saint is St. Mary Magdalen, I chose Madeleine for my Confirmation name and Magdalena is among my top picks for a daughter if we ever have one. July always seems so busy, but when I remember I like to honor her. Cooking With the Saints has several recipes attributed to her. However the savory main dish just seems like such an odd match for a summer feast day. Who wants to cook a roast in late July? It certainly doesn't seem to fit with the Slow Food movement of eating things in season. But with incredibly rain. cool weather around here I decided this would be the year to make the Rindsbraten St. Magdalena mit Kartoffelndeln, or Braised Beef with Potato Noodles.
The more I looked into this recipe I learned that the wine that is used for the beef is called St. Magdalena thus the odd pairing for the time of year. The recipe calls for "beef, topside, boneless" neither Mr. W nor the butcher at Fred Meyers knew what this was so in the end I decided to just buy a pot roast. Not surprisingly Freddy's also didn't carry this Austrian wine. I really liked this recipe though! I certainly couldn't make it most years, but I might try it in the autumn of winter. The sauce was really good and we had so much left over that I'm saving it to top some steaks later in the week perhaps.
I knew that the 3 of us wouldn't be able to consume a roast on our own so I invited the F's over for dinner. Mr. F asked if we could extend the invitation to Mr. P, who is moving away. I was certainly happy to have him for one last meal. I had seen him briefly the night before at his going away party, I just popped in and then took the children home to bed so Mr. W could stay out.
I wasn't able to make the potato noodles completely because I didn't check to make sure I had enough eggs before I went to the store. So stupid! Withe roast in the oven I couldn't run back out so I had to wait for Mrs. F to come over and she ran out for them and by the time she returned the baby was awake and I had to nurse so Mr. W had to finish up for me. These types of noodles, like spatzel are challenging for him, but I think most of the batches turned out well. The crummy, butter sauce was nice and covered any sogginess.
They guys all liked the roast and the sauce too and went back for several helpings of it and the potatoes with that butter sauce. Everything was a little frantic at the end there so I didn't take any pictures but we had one last meal on the deck with Mr. P.
I had planned to make the Magdalenenkuchen, or Magdalen cake but ran out of time. Nursing and a non napping baby can do that to a plan.

Flamme d' Or

2011-07-22T09:30:00.001-07:00

We have been talking a lot about last July when we went to Japan for Mr. W's brother's wedding. I wrote about it a little bit last summer, but didn't post much about our good adventures. One of them was seeing Flamme d'Or. I only had three things I had on my vacation check list: 1)go to a real Japanese style tea ceremony,2) Go to the flagship Mikimoto store in Ginza, and 3) see the Phillipe Starck building.
I have a soft spot for the Post Modern architects and designers. My favorite is Michael Graves because my first introduction to him was when he designed the Portland Building. My second favorite is Starck. I love his iconic spider shaped juicer. I have a Book called Places for Tea in New York city and I went to as many as I could while I lived there among them the Hotel lobby designed by Starck. I loved it, it is not your typical tea setting.
His building in Tokyo is home to the Asahi Beer company. On the first level there is a restaurant. It is located on the opposite side of the Sumida river so we got off the subway at the Asakusa stop and had to walk across the bridge in the drizzle, but his allowed for more photo opportunities. We visited a few Shinto shrines in that area first and then came back to dine in the restaurant so I could get some interior shots too.
Shrine
A cemetery we just happened upon smack int he middle of houses and shops.
An offering of beer.I didn't get a photo of the main part of the dining room because there was a large group of businessmen and I didn't want to be an ugly American. The restaurant has a serpentine shape. The entire length of one wall is covered in upholstered panels.There is a little station near the entrance where the staff has their supplies. Actually there were a lot of stations like this trhough out the restraunt tht were simply carts, not very Post Modern and certainly not something of which I think Monsuier Starck would approve. But I do like this big, bulbous column treatment. A better view of the upholstered wall and leather banquet, the table and chair. The edges of the tables are angled so that they can be butted together.A detail of the feet on the banquet which reflect the shape of the flame on the top of the building. You can also see that this leather has been well worn since 1989.And then there was the bathroom. Starck's bathrooms are always awesome and this one did not disappoint. The walls were undulating stainless steel and it took some time for me to figure out how to get into the stall. Then once inside it I discovered a Japanese style floor toilet. This was the only one of this kind I found while on this trip to Japan. So I was reminded of our trip to Turkey when I last used a hole in the floor, and this was by far much better looking. Dare I say beautiful? The walls opposite the stalls were frosted. The basin for the sink was beautiful, creamy onyx. There was no lever for the faucet, not did it seem to be motion activated. I finally figured out what those random circles on the floor were for, a foot pedal for the water. The hand dryer was a metal box floating on 3 legs. While we were there Our Little Helper fell asleep on the banquet; the poor thing fell asleep nearly every afternoon and slept through dinner because his little body was unable to adjust to the time change. There were stairs to a second level of the restaurant which I didn't get to go see because he was asleep in my lap. However I loved this space and I am glad that I drug everyone there to see it. My brother in law told me that the Japanese have nicknamed this building the Golden Turd. I don't like that one bit though.

When the Ocean calls, I listen

2011-07-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

I enjoy the rain. And even if July I don't mind it that much, especially considering the terrible heat waves that a lot of the country is going through right now. But, it has been unseasonally rainy this week, even for Portland. i was thinking about how just two weekends ago we were at the coast. It was a beautiful day: sunny and warm, but windy.
I shouldn't mention one of my favorite spots, for fear it becomes too popular, but I really like Hug Point. It has enough points to protect you from the wind, it isn't a super long walk to the beach (although it is steep), and there is a waterfall! And caves! It is very family friendly.
It was sort of a last minute plan to go down. I had an urge to go during the week and mentioned it to Mr. W. Then Friday night we went out to dinner at the Blue Monk. Mr. W is a bit of a regular there so our waiter asked us if we had weekend plans. I mentioned heading to the coast and the waiter said that when the ocean calls you have to go. Aha! See Mr. W that is what I have been telling you, the ocean is calling me!
So I loaded up the car the next morning with everything we would need and we drove out to the beach.
Checking out the surf like his grandfather before himHappiness is running barefoot in the sand

7 months old!

2011-07-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how much fast it seems to go by the second time! Although, in my defense, Baby Boy is hitting milestones at a fast pace than his big brother. Mr. W is convinced it is because he has to escape from his brother. I prefer to think that he just wants to keep up with his brother. In any event our baby is completely mobile!
Our Little Helper began crawling at 8 months which is perfectly normal. This baby becane crawling at 6.5 months. I am amused by the difference though. DS1 's crawling started off fast. I remember the first time I put him on the floor in our tv room prior to it being refinished. He shot straight for the tv components, which were located on the lowest shelf, grabbed the dial and cranked the volume all the way up. I hardly had any time to react! Mr. W thought he must have been staring at the big dial for months waiting to play with it and went for it immediately when he had the opportunity.
DS2 started crawling earlier this month and it has been much slower and determined. He looks like he is lurching around. He had been covering a lot of ground creeping around and moon crawling, then up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth. His wobbly little crawl was adorable to watch and allowed us ample time to prepare for what ever hazards lay in his path.
He cut his first tooth on the 4th of July with a second one that just emerged. Poor thing, growing teeth is hard work.
He also has perfected sitting up. Now we can comfortable have him in the high chair and ride in the stroller with out the infant seat. He kept craning his neck up so his head was no longer resting on the back of the chair. Clearly he wanted a better view of the world around him.
On his 9 month birthday, I found our eldest son smiling and pulled up in his crib. Over the weekend our youngest already started trying to pull up when we were at OMSI for Mr. W's company picnic. I was hopin git was just a fluke, but no, he has been pulling up at home now too. I have mixed feelings about the possibility of him being an early walker. It would be convenient to no longer have to carry him everywhere, but dear Lord, what will my life be like when they are both mobile!?
I also have to reinstall the baby gate immediately. I thought I could leave Baby Boy in the nursery with his brother while I ran downstairs to retrieve my cell phone. When I came back up I couldn't find the baby in the nursery, frantic I began searching all the rooms and My Little Helper told me the baby was in the bathroom. Thank God his lurchy little crawling lead him straight into the bathroom and right past the unprotected top of the stairs!!! I am horrified to think of what could have happened if he had decided to turn left and explore the shiny metal edging of the top step! Clearly his crawling is losing the lurchiness and becoming quick and carefree.
My little baby! I can't believe he won't be so little or baby like for much longer. They are both so easy children, I feel very fortunate.

She is moved in! (mostly)

2011-07-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning the majority of my sister's furniture was moved in. I wasn't able to go over until Sunday to check it out. On my way there I stopped in Woodstock and bought a cute little boudoir chair from a Craigslist seller for my sister's bedroom. I originally bought the shell chair for this spot, but it proved too big. I wanted something with curvy, feminine lines. Maybe something with bamboo so it had a bit of a chinoserie look. Definitely something that I could reupholster so that I could get a punch of red in that corner. This chair seemed to fit all my criteria and the seller only wanted $35. I called my sister and told her about it. I had actually found it Saturday night and thought about it all night before finally falling asleep. I decided I would paint or stain the wood frame black and then recover it in one of the red fabrics we found when we had to find additional fabric for the curtains. I thought that this would be my first undertaking in the world of real upholstery following my debut with the headboard. I was troubleshooting in my head how I would tackle the double welt or if it would be more practical for me to use a black braid to finish it the entire drive from Woodstock to Irvington. However once I delivered it to my sister's condo and placed in the bedroom, it's a perfect fit by the way, my mom said she would rather have it professional reupholstered. That's fine with me too. My sister picked out her favorite red fabric from the swatches we already had. I notice after I purchased it that one of the decorative brackets is missing in the front and I thought I could use a bamboo handle made for fabric purse projects as a substitute. Not only that, once I arrived at the condo and got a second look I realized that I can also swap out one of the side brackets and put the replacement one on the side.The bed is all set up now, with the exception of the headboard that Mr. W and I need to finish. My initial vision for the bedside lamps was either silver finish base or a Lucite look one with white drum shades. When I took her to HomeGoods to look at the selection there, my sister opted for these black, faux croc wrapped bases with rectangular shades. Not my first choice, but a nice juxtaposition with the cabriole legs on the nightstands and the sinewy headboard. One can see that the Emily Strange rug is unpacked already.I returned this afternoon as Mom thought it would be better to keep the boys away while the entertainment center and desk were being assembled. Each has about a thousand pieces parts, just what toddlers and crawling babes like to get into! They were still assembling when we arrived so I wasn't able to finish the headboard; I need a second person to staple while I pull the fabric around that inside corner. Instead I assembled the blue side chair. I originally wanted two of these to oppose the love seat, but now that I have one in place I think that two, plus a side table won't allow enough clearance. Instead I need to find something bright and fun to fill that void where another chair ought to be. The two blue, faux croc nesting tables were indeed too tall next to the chair, but they filled the corner perfectly when I added a cat accessory from my sister's collection. I spent hours last night searching the internet for a corner piece for that spot to no avail. Now I have the height I was looking for without too much weight.The other thing I was tasked with was arranging my sister's artwork and posters. There is a very large sandblasted mirror that my dad did that I originally planned for the bedroom opposite the bed. But the more I thought about it I thought my mom's idea to hang it in the living room would be better because we could bring more color to that back wall from the reflection of the drapes. On the adjacent wall I like two painting my sister did in high school because they pull in lots of color in addition to being very personal. Why not have her work front and center?
Along the same wall but outside the seating arrangement I propose a print my parents' friend made as a wedding gift. Finally near the window we will place an oak Art Deco cabinet and above it I intend to hang her Chat Noir poster. I think the yellow there will work with the drapes and give us some nice height to fill this zone with no real purpose other than future cat scratch towers.
A painting of my father's that my sister wanted above a sofa I think would nicely fill the wall in the dining room, especially given the brand new yellow Provencal tablecloth my mother just brought back as a souvenir.One of our grandfather's cousins was a member of the Mazamas and had a collection of black and white photographs that my sister enjoys. We are thinking we will do some combination of them in the bedroom opposite the bed. We have a lot of framing ahead of us.

The carpet is in!

2011-07-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

I met my mom and the curtain fabricator yesterday at my sister's condo. This was my first opportunity to check out the carpet after it has been installed. The nice thing about my mom being home is that she is taking over a lot of the management of the condo so I can take a back seat and the condo isn't consuming every waking moment of my life.
It is a patterned carpet that my mom and sister liked best so while wouldn't have been my first choice I think the color looks great with the wall color and once we get furniture moved in it won't look so busy. After the carpet was installed the two of them moved in most of her dishes and kitchen things. The whole process of moving is a little overwhelming to my sister. It touches on a lot of her Asperger's and her doctor has up her dose on her anxiety medication. So my mom is moving things in gradually rather than one giant moving day. Smart idea, especially since we aren't in a rush. I forget how many cat accessories she has though! Even for the kitchen! Anyway here is the green paint in the kitchen. I'm very happy with the way it turned out and how well it works with the adjacent blue of the dining room and living room. And not to toot my own horn, but the curtain guy kept raving about how great the green made the red of the cabinets stand out.
I can't remember if I included it before, but the bathroom paint became a bit of an issue. When my sister bought a new throw rug in a sea shell motif for the bathroom I assumed she was planning on having a new grown up bathroom for her new condo and losing the Emily the Strange stuff. I picked her paint color based on the bath mat. When she later told me she wasn't getting rid of the Emily stuff I was horrified at how awful the paint color would be with it. Mom has convinced her to switch to sea shells and no more Emily. her is the finished paint. I still need Mr. W to switch out the light fixture over the sink. I bought a blue shower curtain to tie in with the bath mat and the other day at Home Goods my sister found a few shell prints for the walls. They purchased a particle board desk from Office Depot and it was delivered without notice and just left on the walkway. Good thing my mom happened to be stopping by, but she had to move the whole thing inside by herself, and she has a bad shoulder. Which was the point of paying for delivery. In these photos you can see that she is in the midst of assembling the desk. I hope that works out for her.She also decided that rather than using my suggestion of buying ready made curtains and hemming them up to fit the window in the office that she'd rather pay to have custom ones in this room too. Since the curtain fabricator had to meet me to pick up the additional fabric for the bedroom we had him measure and give us yardage requirements for the office. i want the curtain rod to extend the full width of the walls here with an ample stack back to cover up this poorly placed electrical panel. (This is a dreadful photo)And although I charge up the camera before I left, it died and this is the only picture I got of the bedroom. I really like the textured carpet in here, as does my sister. It may not be the stripe she originally liked, but she is glad I found this for her. I am contemplating using this in our own bedroom if we don't do wool because we buy the Mt. Tabor house. If we stay for another 3 yrs I'd rather have wool. So everything is finally coming together. I think the plan is to have my Uncle D help move the furniture in on Sunday so that should be exciting. The curtains should be ready in about 3 weeks. I can't wait for that! I am still looking for a furniture piece to go in her living room against the wall by the window but I think I'd like to wait until everything is in before I decide on anything. I am also still looking for some sort of slipper or occasional chair to go in the corner of my sister's bedroom. Before meeting up with my mom yesterday I went to City Liquidators but found nothing that would work. I'm running out of places to search. I may walk over to Division St. today, there are a few cute boutiques that may have something for us.

Mom reviews my work

2011-07-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

Since she arrived home from France after after 8 pm on Saturday and had to babysit for me yesterday, today was my mom's first look at my sister's condo in over 3 weeks. We met there in the morning, after a breakfast of bagels at Kettleman's...my sister is so lucky to have this within walking distance of her new home! All the painting was completed so it was also my sister's first look at the green kitchen paint. They both were very happy with the colors I'd selected. We spent a bit of time going over furniture placement and I displayed all the accessory pieces and bedding I'd purchased. They both liked the green lamps and blue croc nesting table for the living room and the black nightstands and lamp for the bedroom. We have decided to put the chrome plated Metro shelving system inside the closet of the office and sequester the least desirable of my sister's knick knacks there. They will also purchase a blonde p-lam desk from Office Depot for this room. And I think we successfully convinced my sister to keep the pair of lamps from her Tom Peterson set in the office.
The bedding they liked best was a DKNY in a chrysanthemum quilted pattern with options in red, white, and charcoal grey. I'm going to let them make all those returns and exchanges to save my boys from another shopping trip.But today we did need to go shopping. My mom wasn't familiar with Home Goods and I needed to help them get all the components for the Ikea entertainment center. I decided I could take advantage of the free babysitting at Ikea for My Little Helper. I also found out the reason why my sister never measured the depth of her TV like I had asked her to so I'd know which base cabinet I needed to specify. She doesn't know how to measure! At Home Goods we found only one more piece of the blue nesting tables, my sister picked out different lamps for her bedroom, and a red framed full sized mirror. We also found a few sea shell pictures that will coordinate with the bathmat she bought at Macy's from which we based the paint color.
Before I was involved in the project they had selected the Besta system at Ikea. We all decided the brown black finish would be best. I specified a few glass doors on illuminated cabinets above the tv in which she can display he car collection. I also included a lot of pieces parts so that she can organize her movies and music with in the unit. As always, finding things at Ikea is kind of a nightmare, and they are often sold out of things, but we were mostly successful. I also convinced my mom not to pay for Ikea to deliver and install. I just feel like that defeats the purpose and is a waste of money. I had asked my other uncle if he would help with assembling it for my mom. I can ask Mr. W to hook up all the electronics for her, in this way no one person is overwhelmed with doing it all.
Now we just need to wait for the carpet to be installed so we can begin to move everything in! I'm getting so excited!

The upholstered headboard

2011-07-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

The more I thought about doing a red, black, and white bedroom for my sister's condo, the more I realized that the hand-me-down brass bed she was currently using just wouldn't look right. Especially up against a red accent wall. Instead I decided that this would be a good opportunity for me to do a DIY upholstered headboard. I found a black, white, and grey graphic fabric that my sister loved. I also bought enough yardage so that we could make a tailored bed skirt, this way we would only need to find coordinating pillow shams and bedspread. I volunteered my mom to make the bed skirt, since she was out of the country and couldn't protest, and Mr. W agreed to help me with the assembly of the headboard.
My mom was returning from France Saturday evening so my original plan was to have the headboard completed that day so that she'd be impressed with all my hard work while she was gone. The more I thought about it though, I realized a toddler and a baby stuck in the condo with us working with power tools was a bad idea. Plus the ocean was calling me. So Saturday we took the boys to the Hug Point for the day and Sunday my mom watched them while Mr. W and I went to work on the headboard.
I wanted a really curvy, feminine shape to the headboard and while I was looking online to find a shape I could use as a guide, I found a step by step tutorial video. The only new step that she did that I hadn't considered was using spray adhesive to keep the foam in place. I'm not sure that I really needed this step though since I have one large sheet of foam rather than a patchwork of three smaller, cheaper pieces. We had mocked up a template with craft paper the previous weekend. Today we finessed it with a DIY compass of string, a push pin, and a pencil to make sure we had perfect curves. I originally planned to have the headboard at 40"h, but today we decided to make it an even 4 feet because both the plywood and the foam were already 48" and we could save ourselves some cutting. After we transferred the template onto our materials, Mr. W cut the plywood while I cut the foam. Here's a tip: make sure to use a new blade at the beginning of the project rather than halfway through. My first few cuts were pretty rugged looking. After I replaced the blade it cut smoothly through the 2" foam.Next we used the spray adhesive. I only sprayed the foam first which didn't adhere well enough so we sprayed both the wood and the foam getting them nice and tacky before putting them together.A twin size piece of batting was all we needed for the headboard with lots of excess for another project. Doll bed quilts perhaps?
Because fabric comes in 54" widths and the queen size headboard is 54"w I thought that I'd have to sew together a few pieces of the fabric so that we'd have enough to wrap around the 2" foam and staple to the back of the board. I was not looking forward to this but had packed my 1954 New Home sewing machine. Mr. W and I decided though that the graphic fabric was non-directional enough that we could use the fabric going up the bolt saving me from having to piece it together and having seams ruin the look.Everything was going smoothly until I got to the inside corners of the the first curve. I knew from regular sewing projects that you need to cut in at angles to get the fabric to go around the curves. However I was not getting the trick for getting in there. We kept worrying that I was going to cut to much fabric. I decided that perhaps I ought to hold off and check the internet to see if I could find a DIY tutorial that would show exactly how to cut into the fabric to make this corner. The brackets I bought for mounting the headboard to the wall did not include screws anyway so we wouldn't have been able to complete the project anyway. So I'll wait and come back with my mom to finish up.
So far though I am happy with our work. I think it will turn out nicely once I solve this problem. At one point my sister and I liked the idea of a nail head trim, but I decided to hold off on that in the interest of saving money and not getting too carried away with the project. Once we get all the furniture placed and the curtains are up we can re-evaluate whether the headboard is complete or not.
Thanks to craigslist I was able to score queen size bed rails for her mattress for $3, although I did have to go to two different sellers' locations.

Fabric issue

2011-07-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't you know it, all that time running out to the Mill End Store last Sunday to meet with the drapery person to give him our measurements and he gave us yardage requirements and he figured it wrong! We met with him at my sister's last Thursday and he realized his calculations were wrong or that he hadn't understood me. The only reason I went out there was because he made it sound like he could avoid coming out for a measure. So now I need to go back to get more of the grey fabric for the bedroom curtains.! Sigh!
Then when I finally went back with my sister I couldn't find the fabric. And then it hit me, we had bought the very last of the bolt! No problem I thought, I can add a band at the bottom of another fabric. Not ideal, but the best solution that won't waste the yardage we already purchased. A darker grey was my first choice but none of them were the right color or weight, and I don't want a lighter color fabric on the bottom or they will look top heavy. So I entertained a black or red band. This would have been fine but I had my sister with me (because I thought it would be a simple trip of getting more of the same grey and the foam for the headboard.) It wasn't and I could tell she was getting as angry and frustrated as I was. I really need to do the narrowing down myself and just presenting her with 2 or 3 options. In the end we walked away empty handed because I couldn't get a hold of the seamster to find out how much yardage we needed for a band.
I went today with the boys after swimming class and bought the same fabric as the grey, but in the black colorway. This is what I was hoping for in the first place but was having a hard time finding it with my sister in tow. My son didn't make it any easier though!
I'm giving him a deposit to begin work on the fabric tonight. We will have pinch pleats curtains in the bedroom. In the front rooms we will be using hardware called Ripplefold. It mounts to the ceiling and will give it a real Mid-century Mod look. I can't wait to see them installed!

Paint progress at the condo

2011-07-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

There was a little melodrama Sunday night with my Uncle feeling discouraged when he pulled up the painter's tape in the office and found it had bled through. He had spent so much time prepping and fastidiously wrapping all the trim in blue tape that seeing the bleed through put him over the edge. I don't blame him, but felt like having my sister follow behind with Goof-off on a rag would remedy the problem. That sort of tedious work is the kind of task in which she excels. However it took me 25 minutes on the phone with him and another 15 minutes on the phone with her to talk them both down and make a plan for her to go and check it out yesterday. I needed a break and was NOT willing to go over there until after the holiday.
I planned on cleaning out the basement with Mr. W Saturday and maybe getting a sitter for the baby and taking Our Little Helper to see Cars 2. Instead I spent 5 hours driving around going to her apartment to mock up the headboard, back to the fabric store since we are short on curtain fabric for her bedroom, and then to Cost Plus to buy an occasional chair for her living room while my coupon was still valid. By the end of the day I was really feeling mad and under appreciated. Next time my mom buys a condo for my sister (which will never happen, this is her forever house) she needs to suck up the extra month's rent if she just so happens to be going out of the country for 3 weeks the day after closing. Arrrgh!!!
So Day 1 of the 3 day weekend was spent on the condo and day 2 was devoted to cleaning up rat poop in the basement. I was disappointed.
Anyway, Uncle M made great progress and my sister isn't bothered by the bleed through on the baseboards. If it doesn't bother her, then it doesn't bother me. And if my mom says anything about it I will have to resist the urge to punch her in the face. Okay, that is drastic, but I'm feeling angry. Thinking happy, peaceful thoughts now while I post some progress pictures:
The office is practically complete in BM Arizona TanA first coat of the grey (BM Cement Gray) and red accent wall (BM Deep Rose) in the bedroom He started cutting in the blue in the dining room and living room She is so cute because she is so excited about the paint color and keeps talking about how things are going to be "popping" with the paint color. I'm glad she likes it.

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

2011-07-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

I find so many great ideas at Catholic Cuisine! A few weeks ago an acquaintence posted on facebook that she was having a garage sale and wondered if she could put a price on Jesus. Apparently among her grandparents things was a statuette that no one was interested in keeping. Of sourse there were several witty reponses, but I genuinely was interested in purchasing it if she made no sale. He looks just like all of my little saint statues. She decided that she really couldn't put a price on Jesus and told me it was mine. And conveniently we would be attending a birthday party for a mutual friend so I was able to collect Him just in time for the appropriate feast day.That is where Catholic Cuisine comes in, I had no ideas for what to prepare and no inspiration in my cookbooks. I liked the idea of the appetizer, but with all the work on my sister's condo, I didn't have the ingredients on hand. What I did have was marshmallows form the camping trip and a box of Rice Krispy treats. As much as I like RKTs, I've never made them before, always relying on my friend Mrs. P-M to bring them to every function. The RKT Sacred Heart dessert seemed like a good solution.
Using what I had on hand I had a little Sacred Heart of Jesus tea party with goldfish crackers as a nod to St. Peter, whose feast day I had big plans for but couldn't pull together because of running around for the condo, and RKTs. Since it was the first time I made them, and I didn't know how it would turn out I completely forgot to add in red food coloring. Instead I sprinkled some red sanding sugar over them. I chopped up some chocolate chips to represent the thorns and watermelon chunks for the flames. After I was done I thought raisins would have been a healthier solution to chocolate. And frankly, watermelon cut into heart shapes would have been the healthiest idea. My Little Helper loves watermelon, so that will be my plan for next year.
This was his first RKT though, and he loved it! And the chocolate. The only problem was we were too sugared out to have a proper dinner. Next year, watermelons for sure!
My great aunt's pink LuRay dishes were the closest thnig to heart color I have so I paired those with an ivy teapot I've had forever and a sweet little vintage ivy table cloth. I love tea time!