The Part of Summer That Tastes Good

We are to the part of summer that begins to taste really good. I picked up our first CSA share this afternoon and walked back to the car with my arms full of more delicious meal prospects. The bounty overfloweth! The lettuce has started to really tumble out of our garden, there are broccoli spears to snip and the tomatoes are blossoming!

I noticed that the Lutheran church on the corner is having a Strawberry Festival this weekend. We may all have to walk down and stuff ourselves with shortcake and meet more neighbors. Somebody pinch me, I can't believe I live here!

It's a good thing summer tastes good. We're gonna need a few large and icy slices of watermelon to ease us through tomorrow's 100 degree temps. I plan to spend the day doing nothing but eating Popsicles, playing in the sprinkler and organizing the basement. You think I'm kidding? I am so deadly serious. This Northern girl does not cope well with extreme heat. I am lettuce. I wilt.

Spotlight on the Playroom

Whole lot of paint on my fingers and toes lately as we start to really get into Remodeling Land.

Little mini-tour of an evolving room in our house today. I have shown you bits of the playroom before, but today you'll get a little glimpse into its hopeful future too. Right now, we are mostly calling it "the playroom" by default because it is the place where all the toys and many of the kids books live, but it will also be the room where we will homeschool.

The walls are all faux-wood paneling in a dark brown which makes the room feel very close and cave-ish. But, that is changing! We are now halfway through painting the walls with a gallon of flat white paint that, believe it or not, I found in the basement. (How fabulous is that?) The beauty of knowing that everything will be eventually getting painted and that the floors will eventually be refinished is that kids can paint too! No worries about "messing it up" really. The boys think that's the best thing ever.

Finished walls...just trim left.

Art hanging finally! Love that purply watercolor on the right...Dee's work.

Kid measuring chart, a cool housewarming gift from the next-door neighbor

Where I've stopped at the moment...and you can see our new stand globe, the recently hung curtains and our two free chairs that will belly-up to the table I'm still looking for.

I got a gallon of soft periwinkle blue ('Blueberry Buckle') for $5 in the reject paint section and slapping that on some or all of the walls will be the next step. I think once we've opened the space and made it more breathable with the white its going to be fun to add a little character and homey love with a touch of color.

Found this old metal tray and the two wooden crates below it at a free neighborhood swap. Am planning to have Dee help me organize the rest of the Matchbox cars in it.

Other ideas on the way include:

• A thrifted heavy, very large baroque style frame, painted gold mounted on the wall, around a chalkboard, right at kid level. Something like what this woman did.
• This giant zebra rug, made with just glue, scissors and felt
• A big, sturdy table of some kind that I am hoping to find for free on Craig's List or else curbside
• Some of these nature posters
• A cheap cd player/tape player for listening to books on tape or music together
• A frame like this, and a rotatable set of "The Great" artist's works to put inside
• A simple, big  wall clock with hands and numbers
• And...one or both of these very cool cupboards which the sellers left down in the basement 

Ode to a Clothesline

Well, hello world! Here I am typing away for what somehow feels like the first "real" time in my new house. The office where I will be rattling off my posts is a real place with our big desk all moved in and the computery types all humming away with their cords sashaying in writhing company behind them. The room has a door to shut when A works from home and there is even a closet where we can hide papers and electric bits we don't want the children to find! We will someday have a little loveseat here so that A and I can snuggle while we watch Instant Netflix movies at night after we put the kids down and we are also searching for a swank metal filing system to hold all our important papery bits but for now its the desk, the chair I'm sitting on and a lot of dreams. But, it will be a fine place to write...dreamy places are the best for writing.

I never really meant to go on about the office. It just happened. What I really meant to tell you all about was my new clothesline!!!! YAY!!!!!

Four cheers for A who got all handy this weekend and cleaned a gutter, mowed the lawn and hung my clothesline for me. I am so very happy, and wow did he please me when he did all that stuff for me. I would have been forever doing them myself.

It is deluxe to have my own line for hanging out clothes in the summer when there is still the occasional hot breeze and loads of sunshine to freshen all the baby things I'm planning to pin up. I think I looked out the window about five times an hour today just to make sure my first load of wash was indeed still out there flapping, picturesquely in the wind. Twenty shades of fabulous. Nothing less.

Now I need to make or buy at an estate sale a pretty old peg bag for my clothespins....and uh...buy more because I didn't get enough to do a whole line of clothes. Heh.

One of the most exciting things about buying an old house is all the little quirky bits you discover as you live in the home. I have to admit this is also one of the "too exciting" bits occasionally. In our dear house for example, the dryer is not vented to the outdoors, it just blows directly into the basement which means: 

1. The basement is often the hottest part of the house.

2. There are wads of lint coating the wall behind the dryer and all the floor and floating about waiting to leap into our lungs! Yay!

3.The basement is extremely humid...not good for basements anyhow as they tend to get moldy but especially bad if you're trying to dry your clothes. They never get dry.

Did I mention that I love my new clothesline?