Photo Friday part 3

Do I even need to say anything? I went out Sunday for about 30 minutes while the kids were napping. Are you sick of pictures of the mountains yet?

First plant, planted! Lilacs

Few things remind me of childhood like the scent of lilacs floating on the warm breeze. Scrib's talks fondly about the lilacs outside his childhood home.
Last year when we moved to the farm I ordered Syringa Bloomerang Dark Purple Lilac from White Flower Farm. The plant arrived in October, ready to be planted and remain dormant for the winter. I was so impressed with White Flower Farm, I had ordered a different lilac that I saw in a magazine, they called me to say that the one I had chosen wouldn't grow well in our area and offered some suggestions. The man I spoke with (who's name I can't remember) was very helpful! I'm impressed that they called, instead of just canceling or sending an email. Here's how the plant arrived.

October 2014

Planting was super easy, follow the directions and pretty much forget about it. 

February 2015
I was beginning to get a bit worried when everything had buds except for our little lilac. Turns out I just need some patience.

I'm not expecting big things this year, but can't wait for next year, we should have some good blooms! I want the kids to have great childhood memories with sticky popsicle fingers, skinned knees and the smell of lilacs.

Monday Motivation

Last week was busy and flew by! I accomplished almost everything I wanted to, writing it down definitely help keep me focused and on track! I even went out and took some photos. It was a beautiful weekend, I couldn't have asked for more. This week I hope to

• Finished all the painting and touch-ups in my dining room! Hurray! Pictures to come this week! It's a good before and after!
• Finished deep cleaning and organizing the bathroom. I finished my February deep clean a whole week early! Pictures coming soon! I had no idea it was so gross in there! How do you get dog hair on the ceiling? I'm ready to start another room for March, but can't decided between my bedroom or the Laundry room.
• I need to get my lawn cut! I started cutting it last week and ran out of gas. Oops! We mow about an acre with a push mower. It's a project.

I didn't finish N's dresser. I have 1 spot left to touch up. One of the drawers was pushed over by the window while the big barn door was opened. There's a big chunk of paint that needs to be fixed. Oh yes, and I need to spray paint the handles. This week it will be done!

Some of our garden supplies arrived this week, that means it's time to get out butts moving! There was frost Friday night for the first time in about a week. Soon it'll be time to plant! We haven't even started prepping the garden yet. There will be a big post on that coming up in a few weeks.

How beautiful this that mountain? I'm going to be a bit sad when the leaves come in and my views are obstructed! What are your goals this week?

Photo Friday 2

We had the most beautiful foggy sunrise a few weeks ago. The rest of the morning was a delightful foggy dream.

This week flew by! Scribs' days off all been all over the place which lead to a bit of craziness around here. Mainly I had NO idea what day it was even after checking. I erased a bunch off of my to do list! And am motivated to keep this productivity kick going! Maybe Monday Motivation helped? I think so!

This weekend will be more of the same for us, playing outside in the warmth, walks to the river, N playing with bugs. I've got something things I'm looking forward to sharing in the upcoming weeks!

I hope your weekend is productive!

Monday motivation

I'm going to try something new on Mondays! Writing what I'm looking forward to for the following week, what I'd like to accomplish, what we did on the weekend and what's been going around here. I had this lovely post crafted in my head. Then I walk into the living and find the dog, (whom has never peed or chewed anything in the house) peed on the carpet. Not happy. Lovely post out the window, muttering profanities under my breath top priority.

This week I will finally be 100% finished painting my dining room. I have little touch ups left and I'm hope I'll be able to get that done this week or early next week and be able to show you! This has been lingering for what seems like an eternity. I'm also hoping to get N's dresser finished, again feels like a project that has been going on for way too long.

Our drains have been gurgling when we flush for longer than I care to admit. I climbed up on the roof the other day to try and rinse the vent free of debris, no luck. Time for more aggressive measures, getting a plumber auger. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure. TNT?

This weekend was beautiful! (Sorry East Coast!) We played outside most of the days, I did some much needed cleaning including taking apart N's window and giving it a good scrub. Good lord, it was DISGUSTING! More on that another day.

Today will be more of the same, it's supposed to be another nice, warm day. Outside we will be, with a few errands in-between. My laundry for the day is already hung outside, blowing in the breeze. I'm hoping it isn't too breezy and I lose my towels! The grass is beginning to get a bit long, maybe I'll get the lawn mower out of the loft today and get some yard work done this week. Who knows, spring is definitely here on the farm!

We had a beautiful sun rise Sunday morning, lots of fog! I loved it! What are you hoping to accomplish this week?

Photo Friday v.1

I'm going to start something new, and I'm calling it Photo Friday. I take SO MANY pictures I think I'd rather share a few every week instead of a giant photo post. I love taking pictures of what we're doing and what is naturally happening around us, unfortunately I don't always have my camera and I don't like using my phone for everything. So we get what we get!

My favorite subject as usual, the mountains. This one actually required a little more work (ahem, walking for a whole 5 minutes). Are you bored of mountains yet? I could take pictures of them for days!

I feel like I'm living in a Bob Ross painting. What a nice way to end the week, I hope you have an exciting weekend!

My Great-Aunt Barbara

I found out this morning that my Great-Aunt Barbara died last week in her sleep. Can't really ask for a more peaceful way to go. My heart is heavy and my emotions are very raw.  I've been crying on and off most of the day. Although I haven't seen her in about 10 years, I have wonderful, joyful memories of her. I'm not sure what I believe in terms of afterlife but I'm hoping she's reunited with my Great-uncle and her sisters.

I don't deal with death very well, I get very upset and pretty fall apart which doesn't work when you've got two little kids that depend on you.

This is how I will remember my Great-Aunt (on the left with my Granny). Being Great. Her dress is pretty amazing, right? I have no idea where this picture was taken but it makes me smile.

Everything I write to conclude this feels cliché and fake.

I'm done.

My breakfast recipe Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal

I eat oatmeal for breakfast 363 days a year. I spent most of the last 4 years being pregnant, nursing and worrying about milk supplies.
I wasn't a big fan of oatmeal until recent years, every Saturday at work in Providence, my co-workers and I would get a BUCKET oatmeal with about a cup of berries and 1/4 cup brown sugar from Meeting Street Cafe and that would last most of the day.

Eating the same thing everyday gets boring, even for a mono-eater like myself. I've added pumpkin, apples, jellies and jams but my favorite is banana, peanut butter and chocolate chips.

Here it is!
3/4 Cup oatmeal
1 Tbsp ground flax seed
1 Tsp peanut butter (Heaping)
1/2 frozen, over-ripe banana
6 chocolate chips. No more, no less!

Cook the oatmeal as per your preference. I use water (about 1/2 cup) and the same mug every day. 2 minutes in the microwave dump everything in and stir. Let it sit for 3-ish minutes.

I know 6 chocolate chips seems odd, but it give it just enough chocolatey goodness without overpowering everything else. I figure if I'd eating chocolate for breakfast everything had better be good. And it's still delicious without the chocolate chips. I make this for house guests the first morning and this is usually the only thing they eat for breakfast. I'm hungry now!

What are you eating?

2015 goal Finish Under the Sea blanket. Progress!

This month I have made a pretty big dent in my under the sea project. I have 3 more stripe repeats to go!

This is what a typical night looks like for me! Sitting on the floor, working, laundry basket and toys on the floor. I don't know how blanket knitters do it!

I have yarn for another blanket but to be honest, I have zero desire to do another intarsia blanket. EVER!

Check out the progress since the last update.

The second Wednesday of each month I'm going to do a WIP Wednesday (Work in Progress) to keep up with what I'm working on.

Living room part three Paint choices!

Picking paint colors is hard! Who knew there was so many greys and whites! Do you go with what you like or the old adage "Take the color you like and go two shades lighter"? We wanted something classic to go with our 100 year old farm house. 

We brought home about 20 different grey paint chips. They all looked great in the store then we got them home and put them on top of the wainscoting and waited. And waited. Finally we narrowed it down to two greys and two whites. 

The paints we were considering are

Valspar Metropolis (Top Right of each sample)

Valspar Voyage (Top Left of each sample)
Valspar Bistro white (Top white)
Valspar Ultra-white (Bottom white)

We went back to Lowe's and bought 4 samples. Always buy samples! They're cheap and SO worth it. We painted about a 18"x18" square on two walls. Why two walls? One has direct sunlight in the morning and one is ALWAYS indirect. The colors look different depending on the time of day, natural light and even the bulbs in the lights, as you can see in the above photos. Both pictures were taken at the same time of day. Big difference! We left the paint samples up for about 2 weeks before choosing the winners. I'm going to be honest, the samples I picked where not the winners and I definitely can't tell the difference between the whites.

Which ones did we pick? Wait and see. The transformation is so good! What would you have picked?

Get caught up with Living room redo part 1 & Living room redo part deux

30 day photo challenge review

I completed most of the 30 day challenge. I definitely skipped some of the days, subjects and didn't post some as well. I did use manual settings for each day (without starting in auto to check the settings, that's cheating!) and by the end of the month I had a pretty good idea what settings to use. I consider the challenge to be a success. I learned a lot, and I think took some good pictures. These ones are my favorite.

I think the heron would be my favorite as it obviously wasn't planned. I would put every one of these on my wall except the one of me, that's just weird. 

I think I might try it again in the summer when everything looks different or I will try another as I had said before that is more technique driven.

Here's the challenge links 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 21, 22, 24, 26, 28

The things we do for an attempt at a photo.

I took the dog out to pee this morning and for some reason decided to take her out behind the barn. To my surprise my buddy the great blue heron was on top of the barn in the moonlight.
Let me set the scene, it's 6:45 am, it has been raining for the last day. The ground is soaked, worms and very bugs squiggling around and here I am trying to get my camera settings right while trying to get a picture of this bird. Did I bring a tripod, nope that would have taken too long and been the right way to do it. So I'm laying on the ground, getting wet whilst trying (poorly) to steady my camera.

A little blurry, not what I was hoping for but there he is. I think he was just waiting for me to take his photo. I guess that's the risk you take photographing nature, by the time you get everything just right your subject has flown into the night.

One day I'll know my camera and settings well enough to have everything just so before heading outside (even if it's just for a few minutes.)

Random strange sightings.

There has been litterally hundreds of black birds flying  over our house and feild for the last 30 minutes. The trees lining the river fill up then empty. Again and again. I have no idea where they're coming from or where they're going but it's very strange. They aren't loud like a murder of crows. In fact they made almost no sound at all.
I can't imagine that they're all migratory. Very strange indeed.
As quickly as they came, they disappeared again. The trees and the sky are empty.

Clean up my messy house February project

Cleaning my kitchen was a big project! I expect that cleaning and organizing my tiny bathroom filled with junk will be easy in comparison. We have a lot of stuff that we don't need or use shoved into not a lot of cabinet space. 

I just put everything in there when we moved and called it a day. There are still things in ziplock bags that we haven't used since August or earlier. Here's our messy truth. 

Not terrible, not great but could be better. Yes, there is always a sink full of bath toys! I think I need to start putting them back in the tub after everyone was bathed. My goal for this month is to deep clean the bathroom, everything out of the vanity, clean and adjust the shelves, clean the drawers, and under the sink. The floor and grout needs a good scrubbing and the tub, toilet and sinks could use new caulking. I'm glad I picked the smallest room in the house for the shortest month of the year. I still need to finish the baseboards for the dining room and put them back on. And paint N's dresser. 

I really want to replace the vanity but I'll settle for fresh paint, but that's a project for another day!

Compost

This morning I was feeling rough! To say I was tired was an understatement, no amount of coffee could stop the yawns. After dragging my butt all morning and being a lazy mom by letting the kids watch TV until nap time, I went outside to do some work. I sanded the baseboards for the dining room, put another coat of paint on N's dresser and went to check out the yard. Most of the grass that we mow is going to be a garden and our compost heap is out of control. I went to turn it, pick out the random stones and trash that made it in and try to make it more manageable.

Nothing wakes you up more than hard work in the cold rain! My hands a blistered, there's tiny bits of dirt still stuck under my nails and I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow.
The compost is amazing. I always forget how much life is in there. It smells earthy and clean, there's worms, spiders and little beetles doing their magic.

The picture isn't great, it's blurry and from my phone but you get the idea. That's what is living in one pitchfork turn. I understand what is happening and why, but I don't ever think "Yes, it's a living breathing thing." I tend to just think of it as the place I dump my scraps. I can't wait to start planting, teaching the kids about growing our own food and eating! What kid doesn't love eating right out of the garden?


I could have taken a nap  but I don't think that would have helped. It's just one of those days!