A Fabulous Wind Up

Had a great end to the week today. Visited with Nutmeg, took a delivery of grassfed beef for our second freezer from a local farmer, picked out paint for my new trash table project, made another apple cake, did some picking up around the house, ran the laundry and generally kicked some patootie.

This latest apple cake is a strange animal. A really yummy strange animal, but an odd one nonetheless. Its not really a cake. Its maybe a pastry? Coffee cake? Pudding? Not sure exactly, but as it isn't a cake it isn't gonna be able to take the prize. Its still not what I was looking for although as noted, its good.

 It has a shortbready crust, a lot of sliced apples piled in the center and then a thickening dairy laden sweet batterish thing poured on top and then a streusal over the whole thing. Oh....and you bake it in a springform pan, and it requires a genuine European pudding mix to make it just the right way. The fabulous things you find yourself mixing up and tasting when you let your brother-in-law sail away to Europe and bring back an extremely lovely woman as a wife. Thanks Gigi! Its really yum!

I also am finally ready for the full reveal on the living room paint job. See? Raspberry...not Barbie. I told you. Whew!

I think its good although the mirror needs a frame and needs to be raised and I'm nervous about the balance and arrangement of all the "stuff" I have in here to decorate. I am never sure if I'm arranging correctly or if I'm over-cluttering which is my tendency for sure.

And look at the new valance I put up in the kitchen? Isn't that winning? I love it. Now I'm just dreaming of a narrow little glass shelf mounted halfway up the window to put houseplants on.

And one more treasure, witness this intricate mother-of-pearl crucifix I found in the cellar! And also this beautiful antique malted milk bottle found in the same treasure hunting spot. Gotta love old houses. I cannot even tell you how cool I think it is to find these little hints of the past that were left here. Major bonus.

Oh....and one more thing. You should all go check out my wonderful friend Sam's website. Sam is a cartoonist (for real, that's his real job) and he lives in Vermont and he's an old school friend of mine from my theatre days. Does he get cooler? Perhaps, he's only in his 20's. Isn't life grand? Anyhow...his website where he recently featured my family in one of his cartoons can be found here. Stop by, check his stuff out and tell him I sent you. He's a good man, is Sam.

Radiators, Restoration and Garden Rehab

Its getting cold and its time to wear socks every time we go outdoors now and test out radiator life indoors. I love our radiators. It makes me happy turn the thermostat and hear them hum and hang my towel on one in the morning.

I started carving out the first of our garden beds this morning and have plans to ask our next door neighbor for the use of his chainsaw to remove the yews all across the front of the house. Am looking forward to the open look and all the possibility it allows. The gardens I made this morning are super cute and I have plans for a climbing rose on a trellis on the stone wall at the back, an arbor in another section of the yard, and am hoping to divide and transplant the peonies, irises and daylilies that we inherited with the house. I can't wait to see what color they all are. I will bet on pink for the peonies and my landscape designer friend things the daylilies  might be stella d'oro which would make me quite happy as they are a little more controllable and interesting than giant swaths of the orange variety.

"Before" of where I put the two new little beds. I love this doorway and can't wait to frame it beautifully.

Cutting and rolling up the sod to make it an open soil area for flowering plants!

Sod rolls

A kind of chopped off "After" shot...shows all of the small bed on the left and part of the bigger one on the right. They are both half moons against the stone. Climbing rose will go on the wall to the right.

Here's where I envision the arbor. Right in that gap between that pole on the ground and edge of the new bed. I think it will be a great entrance to the garden from the drive.

 

 

A view of some of the yews across the front of the house that will require a chainsaw.

Have chicken and baked potatoes in the oven and a table I trashpicked off a curb that I'm working on restoring. If only I had a magical stash of spray paint to pick through and use, I'd love to paint it and also the changing table I made and the days for painting large furniture outdoors are drawing to a close. Pretty soon paint won't dry well because it will be too cold.

Legs of my trash table

And the oh-so-separated at the moment top...trying to figure out how to put it back together.

Am stoked for a weekend as I have made a new plan, run errands on weekends and thus eliminate manic insanity on the days when I have the car during the week. It should help me keep the dashing around minimized during the week and help me actually get into some sort of a home routine again. As is we're either totally grounded and cozy-home or running our heads off with three quarters of us in tears by the time we run home panting at the end of the day and realize there aren't any dinner plans. Can't have that.

Autumnal Beach Explore

We took a little picnic lunch down to the shore that is a stone's throw from our house and had what I was calling at first the "Last Beach Outing of the Year." Heh. What was I thinking? It was gorgeous. Not super sunny and not over warm (high fifties) but there was no real wind and it was warm enough to be quite comfortable in our light jackets.

We explored a new beach we'd never been to (fun to learn our new neighborhood a little more), ate peanut butter in jelly in a hurried way and then spent a long time exploring the edge of the tide. So much wonderful stuff had washed up...oyster shells by the pound, pearly, purple mussel shells, claws from crabs, bits of horseshoe crab shell, and all kinds of fabulous sea weed.

Anyhow, all that to say that it was a great way to celebrate the baby turning five months old and it will in no way be our last outing of the fall.

I can't wait to go back! I forget how wonderful it is to just wander around bent backed, looking at all the ocean detritus that has rolled in and watch the boys chase seagulls and drive away with the scent of salt water rubbing off your hands onto the steering wheel.

Yay for living by the sea!