Pics Fix

After 18 months in storage, and after living 18 months with blank white walls...WE HAVE PICTURES.  Oh, how I've missed you!  Everything that I hang has a special significance. 

A tiny (and only remaining) photo of my great-grandmother's house, where I spent many happy afternoons playing in her garden.  A photo of my landlady from my college days, a wonderful surrogate mother to me, along with her daughter.  A Western Union telegram from the Navy to my great-grandmother in 1945, asking if my grandfather was old enough to enlist.  And a children's art piece - bears and bees - both great loves.

I also added a quilted wall hanging to that corner.  It's so bright and cheerful now!

A photo of the grandparents who raised me, with the "surprise!!" letter from my grandpa to his parents, informing them of his sudden wedding.

A hallway lined with my favorite children's art...a trio of framed Victorian bird puzzles in the entryway...and lots of other beloved nature prints in other areas of the house.  Other favorite family photos, too, like this one, which shows my grandpa and his siblings riding in a goat cart in 1926 (note:  my great aunt is still alive!).

Lest I seem like a wall hog, Todd is happy with whatever I want to put up.  :)

It's also been so wonderful to see my pottery again!  My Emma Bridgewater mugs and dishes pair nicely with my navy-colored German pottery.

There are still some stacks of things that don't seem to fit anywhere just yet, like on the bottom shelf of this cabinet...

...but things are slowly falling into place.  It's amazing! 

Now that these things are done, I can turn my attention to some seasonal tasks.  Dahlia tubers don't do well in our cold winters, so they must be dug up in the late fall...

...and stored in some water-retaining medium, like compost, until spring. 

Mice are loving our slightly-warm barn, and the live animal traps have to be checked and emptied daily. 

Todd walks them out to the edge of the property and releases them.  They'll find another place to live, or become food for one of our beloved outdoor animals. 

This season brings such beautiful sunrises.  Winter is my absolute favorite with creams, peaches, and pale blue.

We get some bright colors too!  I can see the sunrise from my office window, and it's amazing how every day is a bit different.

Meanwhile, the cats stay blissed out on their heat mat.

But they're also kissing on the couch...

...or participating in fabulous late-afternoon group naps.

Have I mentioned that I love this season?  There are no group naps in summer!  :) 

Have a great week!

the dispatch of a nine patch...

We've just had our first 'big blow' of the season!

Three inches of snow was just the right amount for a beautiful blanket on the fields, and the bright sun made it extra pretty!

Lots of mysterious animal tracks...

...and the not-so-mysterious.  Here's Leonidas, coming in from the fields for his morning treat.

I love seeing the birds...

...and the horses.

The skies have been gorgeous!

It was the perfect time to finish a quilt, and I did...although the top was completed when we still lived in South Carolina.  It's a very simple nine patch called HOPSCOTCH with a slightly updated version of 1930s fabric.

It's quilted with a simple diagonal.

This is the best job I've ever done with finishing a quilt, and it's all thanks to my new sewing machine.  It's so much easier to work in 11 inches of space, rather than 5.  My shoulders are very grateful!

The cats have been staying warm, too, in their very own beds...

...or anywhere else where they can snuggle in.

Total opportunists.  :)  

Have a great week!

Political Animals

I was walking around the side of the house in the dark last night (a cat messily eating a mouse on your doorstep is a great incentive to find an alternative entrance) and I froze in place.  Something was moving stealthily through the dead leaves.  It was big...it was mean...and it sounded very, very hungry.  I whirled around, and, oh!  It was just a horse.

We've got horse farms across from us, catty-corner, and a few houses down, and they're frequently up by the fence line and therefore quite close.  It seems like they've been feeding more heavily in the fields lately, even through the night, so the fierce creature I heard was just pawing through the leaves to get to grass.  Phew!

Speaking of nighttime visitors, we still have Trey Snouty visiting quite frequently.  It's easy to see that he's been in some kind of tangle...besides the dragging leg and the shortened tail, his ears are chewed to ribbons.

We have another possum that's started coming around, too.  He's bolder, more robust, and Todd gave him a great misnomer: Snoot Gingrich.  Ha!

Besides trying to keep up with the growing crowd on the front porch, we've been frantically unloading storage units and hauling boxes around.  The barn looked full enough before...

...but is even more full now!

Thirty boxes of books and craft supplies were hauled upstairs to my office and I spent 3 full days in pajamas, digging and sorting and piling (with frequent trips to the barn for my regular work). What a job!  But it's finally done and everything (except for my paper cutters and rubber stamps, location TBD) is put away.

Fabric, stickers, felt, ink, glitter, adhesives, buttons, quilt supplies, yarn, ongoing projects, embroidery supplies, watercolors, colored pencils and paper, construction paper, embellishments, card stock...all tidily sorted, labeled, and put away. 

More work needs to be done in my office...a cabinet built for puzzles, a scary-looking gas wall heater removed, another bookcase added (opposite wall is just bookshelves!) but it feels SO much more peaceful and home-like up here. 

We also brought about 30 boxes of household goods in...baking supplies, pottery, wall art, odds and ends...so you can imagine how messy the downstairs is right now.  But it feels so good to see our things again, even though it's still incomplete (fireplace to be built, trim in dining room, curtains).

Progress!

Looking forward to getting this finished up over the next few days so that we can take a cue from Bosewichte and...