Labor Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend up at the cabin. We had vacationed there in July, when it was cold and rainy. When we returned in September, it was bright and sunny and the water was 70 degrees! Weird!

Day 1:

Mark kept throwing a ball far into the bay for Lexi to chase, and then another ball near to the shore for Lucy, who doesn't like going into the water if she can't touch the bottom (she usually just jumps from rock to rock). Most of the time she did not feel that the ball was well-placed enough for her preferences, and would just stand on a rock, staring alternately between the ball and us, as if to say, "You'll have to do better than that."

...and she would do that until Lexi, having fetched her own ball out in the bay, swam back to snatch Lucy's ball, too. Of course, no water is deep enough to keep Lucy from besting Lexi.


O played with Grandma:

and read with Nana:


I took photos of pretty things. Surprised?



That night JB, Grandpa, Mark, Marty Feldhake and I went salmon fishing. Well, I did not fish; I was the staff photographer. No fish were injured in the making of this trip, much probably to PETA's pleasure, but our dismay.

Grandpa and Mark fished from Pooh Bear. The lake was smooth as glass!


JB and I took to the waters in Marty's boat.



Us girls also went shopping in Detour, where Olivia wowed the shoppers and shopkeeper with her love of jewelry. Marian would put a bracelet on Olivia's wrist and Olivia would hold out her arm to admire it. She's a girl through and through!

We also stopped at my favorite jeweler's: Dave's Up North. He seems to have erratic hours, so it was a treat to see him open. Oh, the treasures! There were 3 pendants that I loved, totaling $375. That's affordable, right? :)

All in all, it was a fun first day!

Confessions of a Picky Eater

My entire life I have been picky. I prefer to call it texture conscious.

As far back as I can recall I've suffered from this affliction. It used to be so extreme that I wouldn't eat bread crust and I would scrap EVERYTHING off of my slice of pizza. While my brother called dibs on crust, I sulked when my food demands were not met. It made my culinary life difficult and as I've aged it has made my diet somewhat less healthy than it should be.

Routinely April comments that she would like me to be around as long as possible while she plies me with a salad. Begrudgingly I've come around to her point of view - if I want to get in better shape, I need to eat better. This means battling my food neuroses. God help me...

I've been attempting to incorporate the strive for five approach suggest by my friend Jessica. And it's rough. I'm actually not too bad with the veggies, it's fruit I've got issues with. Sure the idea of an apple sounds great, but when I get down to it...


A plate of peels and a halfheartedly gnawed core. It's never as easy as I'd like it to be, and apples aren't a especially exotic fruit. The peel isn't enjoyable. It's waxy and gums up when you chew it. The flesh is what I'm interested in, but the above example didn't live up to my expectations. Too crisp. Yeah this is going to be a long journey...

I'll keep you posted.

Extreme Bedroom Makeover

The latest room in our 1924 that I consider completely finished is our bedroom. It's actually been pretty much finished for a while now, but I wanted to wait until we hung our handmade drapes for a finishing touch.

(To anyone who wants to make their own drapes: BEWARE. Sure, making curtains for a normal window is probably easy and fun. But drapes, which are lined, and drapes for large windows are no easy task. Just ask Marian and I, who, in this 1924 non-air-conditioned home, sweat over massive panels of fabric in the hot August of 2008. I was so pregnant and so about to pass out the whole time. And despite our maniacal efforts, we still only finished two panels, out of six. I finally finished the rest a few months ago.)

Here are some before shots. Notice the stylish light fixture with exposed wiring. It had been like that for YEARS. No one bothered to fix it.


You can't see, but the door didn't have a doorknob either. Not even a trashy, painted-smeared dollar store one that the other doors had. And I don't think the closet had been painted since the 60's. And the floor was gross. And the trim was gross.


OH, and the windows had not been cleaned since the 70's. For real. Which explains why every window had the shades pulled on them. I will not bore you with my research on discovering that. Just trust me. We used razor blades to clean the grime and smeared paint off. And the SMELL while we cleaned the windows! I could not get the scent off of my hands for days.


Here is the room during the fixing phase. Lots of awesome guys (Mr. Reimbold, Austin, Mark, Neil, JB) helped with rewiring the whole house. See all the white? That was the patching job (thank you Mark!) after they ripped out all that area for rewiring. Knob and tube, good bye!


And now, ladies and gents, the finished product!


JB made the headboard. We like it quite a bit.


The botanical prints you see following were found at an estate sale. For 50 cents each! I had them matted and framed and they are my favorite thing to look at. Every night I admire my sunflower print before I go to bed.

The quilt on the rack was hand pieced by my Grandma Teague. I quilted it a few years ago by hand. My first quilt!


See how shiny the floors are? Thanks, Mark and Marian, for the gift of refinished floors!




A full view of the drapes:

I rocked my baby tonight

I rocked my baby tonight.

I really wanted to read more of Dick Francis’ The Edge.

and to shop for vintage books online.

I wanted to research Alfred Meakin’s Denmark china pattern, circa 1891

or sew Olivia’s windmill quilt and to fancy different ways to quilt the final product.

But I rocked my baby instead.

I should have unpacked from our Labor Day trip to the cabin,

or emailed a woman about starting a Book Club.

Perhaps paid some bills

and put a clean handtowel up in the bathroom.

But I rocked my baby instead.

I rocked her because every time I rock her in her light blue room,

I look at her half-open doorway with faint light spilling in from the hall

and see a 20-year-old girl standing there,

looking at me, saying,

“Mom, have you seen my book?” or “Mom, can you drive me back to college tomorrow?”

And I realize that one day

I will never rock my baby again.