Snowing Again

I was going to be back here with a post about our newly patched, painted, and decorated bathroom (not the pepto bismol bath but the other one) but I feel so whiny about the snow that was just dumped on us that I have to post photos of that instead. I just calculated a couple of days ago that at this time last year we were out working in the yard in t-shirts. Yikes!

I promise to come back soon, not whining about 3 more inches of snow but with photos of the bathroom.

Rainy Afternoon

I'm in an organizing mode today and don't have very good light for photos so I'll just post this one photo of the leaves beginning to turn outside the study window. Have a lovely and cozy afternoon!

And. . . An Afternoon in the City

Wandering in the Country

Three (French?) Hens

We picked up our little hens yesterday. Three Buff Orpingtons. Petunia, Mildred Pearce, and Georgia Brown. I don't know that there is much to say about chickens but Patrick and I are both very excited and looking foward to lots of fresh eggs in January.

Patrick built this lovely tractor for them (there is now chicken wire over the part on the left).

Another Busy Week

Monday: Basketweaving class at the Home Textile Tool Museum. Followed by


Patrick-made dinner on the porch with the mother-in-law, and my favorite game:


Tuesday: Fresh-pressed apple cider at Sonoma Falls (the apple crop in New York State is early this year so we get to have cider early too!)

Wednesday: Finally made a batch of kale chips. They're not very photogenic so I'll spare you the photo but just say, from a non-vegetable-eater, that they were fantastic!

Thursday: Sketching and swimming in the Delaware, a trip to the new saloon, and homemade pickles (more on that tomorrow).

Lots of family visiting this summer = instant staycation. And all kinds of busy fun. Back on a normal schedule on Saturday.

At The Bandstand

The Past Week

With my parents' visit over the past week came

my birthday and fennel ice cream (we had to follow Molly's suggestion since she's from Oklahoma City),

lots of hiking

and work on the house (my birthday gift from them was this wonderful faucet which doesn't spit water all over the place as my old one did),

a trip to a local sheep farm I'd been wanting to visit, and much much more.

Thanks for the great week mom, dad, and Patrick!

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

We're having guests up to our house for the first time this weekend. This is the view from their bedroom window. (In case you're wondering, that bizarre white thing in the foreground in the 2nd photo is a window-box. And yes, those are shipping pallets. I have a pattern for a seedling cold-frame built from a shipping pallet. Apparently they also make a good woodchuck-house.)

Miniatures

Photo by David Azia for the New York Times

To be honest, I rarely pay any attention at all to the "featured" stories any of the places that I visit frequently, like my e-mail or flickr. But today the blog post on the main page at flickr caught my eye. And I was so happy that it did that I couldn't help but share it here too!

I love miniatures, in just about any form (I even like cross-stitching at a tiny stitch-count just because I like the small things it produces) and this obviously has to include dollhouses. I've been known to go hugely out of my way on vacation just to visit collections of miniatures I read about and my favorite museum as a child was my favorite just because it contained a HUGE miniature house. So there. Now you know. I am one of those people.

As anyone can see just by taking a look at one photo of my house, Modern is not my style. Not at all. But these Modern Dollhouses written about on the NYTimes are just about the coolest miniatures I've ever seen. I love the idea that they are so geometric that the collectors can build things for their houses themselves. I have always wanted to design and build a dollhouse, from the ground up. This could just be the inspiration for a new project! (someday, when my real house is a bit more under control, of course)

Alabama Studio Style

What have I been doing since the giant snowstorm, you ask? I've been obsessing over Alabama Studio Style, just like most of the rest of the world's crafters, of course! Everyone needs a break from house-painting and curtain-sewing once in a while. So I've been following, with huge interest, the blog tour of Natalie Chanin and I've also signed up for her workshop in Brooklyn on Sunday! I'm hoping it'll be the push I need to finally find some cotton jersey and get started on some slow crafting.

This will, of course, to Patrick's dismay, require my journey into the city on a non-work-day but I think it will be worth it to attend a Natalie Chanin workshop (and it's not quite as far as I would have to go for one of her Weekend Workshops). And did I mention that there's a free party afterward? What more could I want?

Snow Day 2!

It's been snowing all day long. We're supposed to have 18 inches by the time it's done. And I think it'll get there!

We're warm and toasty in our house with the new boiler but we had to take advantage of the snow some as well. Can't let good snow go to waste. I saw a sled in an antique store window down the street yesterday but it's closed for the season so sledding will have to wait a little bit longer. In the meantime, we made snow cream (Patrick had never had any before!) and snowpeople on the roof outside the study window.

at MoMA

1. with Frida Kahlo, 2. Jeanette(s), Matisse, 1910-16, 3. Mobile Matrix, Orozco, 4. Sculpture Court, 5. Goat, 6. Tim Burton

On the Bandwagon

My friend and I decided to jump on this homemade deodorant bandwagon after reading Amy's original post on the subject. And, since then, I've been additionally inspired by several others and their enthusiastic reviews. It was super-easy and a lot of fun! Even if I did make my usual mess when doing any type of powder-based measuring or oil-based cleaning. Thanks a million to Nana for ordering the supplies and allowing me to mess up her house (and my jar, as you can see). Day 1 so far, is going very well, odor-wise. I can't even smell the deodorant itself and I like that.

I'm here

I'm sorry to have been away from here for so long. The truth is that I got caught up in the book I was reading (Cold Mountain) and just couldn't seem to put it down. Not even for a few minutes to write a post. But I've finished it now (sadly — I never wanted to finish it!) and am reading a new book (Barchester Towers) which, although still fun to read, is not quite the same distraction. At least I got one of my points on the Read for Fun Challenge out of it (Read in Bed — I didn't even fall asleep!)

The other two points, in case you're wondering, are Wander through a Bookstore (McNally Jackson (formerly known as McNally Robinson) is the mostly lovely store) and Try a New Recipe (I made brownies from the Vermont Beekeepers' Association cookbook last Tuesday and they were VERY tasty — and without sugar! AND I used a cookbook that I bought over a year ago and had yet to use.) This challenge is a lot of fun so far, even if I didn't start it until about 2 months into the summer.

Since I've been away, the deadline for the Art of the Notecard: Gocco Swap has come and gone. I did get all of my cards out on time but never posted anything about them here. So here they are! I lined the envelopes with Snow and Graham paper and did the drawing of a row of brownstones in Brooklyn Heights that caught my attention.




I received a few of my cards in the mail yesterday and am so excited about every one of them. Thank you Sarah for hosting and thanks to Diana and Shannon for the beautiful notecards! I feel inspired to send notes to everyone I know just to pass on the excitement of getting something in the mail. But wasn't that the point?

Saturday of Random Things

I've gone back to the quilting again (AND the same quilt that I posted about last time, no less).

And polishing silver that my grandmother found in an old house that she bought and gave to me (over 4 years ago but, hey, sometimes getting around to polishing a bunch of flatware takes some time!)

And getting to use my teakettle (finally — it took 3 weeks to get here after we shipped it back from Oklahoma).

And making use of one of my wonderful berry bowls I bought from Melissa!

And then, just because it doesn't fit in at all with anything else that I did today, I've been playing Thirteen with P while we watch Arrested Development. I don't think that it could have been a more random (or productive, really) Saturday so I'll just leave you with my set of pictures.

Oklahoma!

I promise that I will soon stop putting up long posts about my trip to Oklahoma (we got back almost a week ago, already!) and I will stop making titles for these posts containing exclamation points. But I must do this post first. It is just NOT an option to leave this part of the trip out. Discoveryland! Rural Oklahoma! Rogers and Hammerstein! "Wild West" kitsch! And not to mention a great big fantastic dose of Judd, the surly farmhand. AND, on top of all of that, we got to go with some very good old friends. So I'll leave it at that and a series of photos. Please keep in mind that the whole show is outdoors and full of real horses and gunshot. Do not be alarmed!

The Trading Post at the top of the amphitheater

Judd's smokehouse

Curly the Singing Cowboy