did you give up on me?

I have largely disappeared from blogging & well most online life the past couple of months.  There have been lots of varied reason, but I'm feeling like its time to get back into the swing of it.  I have lots of things to update, but for practicality reasons I decided to start with a simple before & after.

We have been working away on our remodel.  It will undoubtedly be a long process.  A large chunk of the house we hope to finish this year but other things will probably take several years for us to get them exactly as we'd like, but its kind of nice to have the perspective that we plan to be in this home for a long long time and its okay if things  don't happen overnight.

Moving to a new house has made me look at the things I already own in a new light -- things have been repurposed, sold and acquired to better suit our new space many things have been given new life. Going into this house I knew that I wanted to be really purposeful in the things I brought into the house rather than just haphazardly throwing things together.

Before we bought our last house my mother-in-law gave us this secretary that has the most charming size & shape & all together bones, but was looking definitely worn and tired.  I had always intended to paint it red or perhaps white, but never got around to it in our old house, but when we moved I knew if I brought it into the house it would stay thus and so the rule I made for the move, was that items stayed in the garage until they were ready for the house (meaning refinished, etc.)

This proved to be quite motivating because I wanted to use my garage and so I got around to refinishing this one a few weeks after we moved in.  After stewing about it I decided to restain it and be true to the piece itself.  I still may or may not change the hardware, I go back and forth, but I love how she turned out with the stain -- lately I've been painting furniture lots of colors and my mom for one (who does not like painted wood) was pleased to see this beauty just brought back to her former glory and in this case mom I think you may be right.

before: 

 

after: 

  
(yes these are just poor iphone photos, but you get the idea right?)

HI September

As you have notice posting has been more than sparse since we moved (although Instagram is my new BFF).  Which is fine by me, though I do hope to get back to it more regularly since I'm horrible at journaling otherwise.  Right now the bulk of my days are spent:

1.  Being a Mom

2.  Canning (its that time of year)

3.  Working on the house.

I've been inspired by Jule's William Morris project (read more about it here and here) and in the new house I am determined follow the dictum:

 Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
–William Morris.

 This is tricky because along with the purging we are still renovating quite a bit. I have been scheming a long term & short term plan of attack and I think that has helped, who knows maybe I"ll get ambitious and post it on the blog, but for right now it is mostly scribbled in the margins of my planner.

At the lake 2012

A short trip, but a great one nonetheless!

we caved........and bought iphones. definitely a good decision!

We're definitely behind the curve on the smartphone movement but for so long couldn't validate the extra money for a smart phone plan. Recent events changed our minds and we are now the proud owners of iphones. Oh no! I can already tell I'm going to become one of those people obsessed with their phones I've always made fun of.......its awful, but I can't keep myself from gushing about instagram (you can follow me here). Now I may actually take more than one picture a month of my own children.

 We are still busy working on the reno, but every time we get a chance we head out to our front porch and sit on the rockers (yes we are pretty much old fogies before our time). When we were looking at houses I told Jordan I needed three things:
 1) large front porch
2) Wood burning fireplaces
 3) big trees.
Those requirements may sound weird to some people, but they make perfect sense to me.  Can't wait to share more pictures of the house once we get unpacked....but thanks to my new little ipal I'm sure I'll be instagraming them as I go.

a lot of life has happened

Yes I haven't updated the ole blog in ages. But as stated, a lot of life has happened. Probably most significantly, we moved! Yay! We closed on our new-to-us home on June 18, and since then things have been pretty crazy. My parents were in Europe for most of the summer so we took care of the farm while working on the house and moving. We are now completely moved into the new house, but not nearly settled as we are renovating most of the house. I can't wait to share more details about the new home, but most likely posting will be somewhat scarce for a bit as we find our feet. So far we are thrilled with the new neighborhood, house & new projects ahead of us. However sleep has been in low supply -- this is a picture my sister-in-law posted of the "boys" in my life on Sunday. Lets just say Jordan was more than a little hung over from the 2 am floor installing fest we had the night before.

Book Review: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Crossing to Safety has been on my "To Read" list for what seems like ages.  I have read a lot of Wallace Stegner (mostly back in college) and have greatly admired him as a writer, but this is by far the best book I have read that he has written.  It is breathtaking.  This is a story of relationships -- a story about friendship of two couples and how their lives intertwine over forty years.  From that description it perhaps sounds like it would be boring-- it is anything but boring!  I found it fascinating and more importantly moving.  Not to mention the writing is impecable.  Towards the end I found myself underlining passage after passage of poignant observations about love & friendship and beautiful metaphors.  Stegner made these characters so real for me and yet they are types -- you find yourself identifying strongly with one or even a bit with each of them.   I could go on and on about this book, but this review and this review pretty much sum up how I feel.  Read it!

Jandee Rating:  10 of 10 stars
Content Rating: PG-16  --There is essentially no content (swearing/sexuality/violence) in this book, but definitely you would have to be an adult to really relate to the themes and focus of the book.  I am sure when I read it again in five, ten, fifteen  years I will even have a different take on it as it seems to me like a book that ages with you.

Book Review: The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies

This book takes place in a Welsh village in WWII.  I won't go into details on the plot because you can read the summary of the book at the link, but here are some bullets of my impression.

• The book is quite beautiful to read, there were so many places (especially in description of the landscape and characters emotions) where I was very transported.  Found myself underlining beautifully written passages.
• At first I could quite figure out how the different narrators would intersect or even how there would be a cohesive theme, but by the end I decided this book was really about belonging, what it means to belong and to accept  yourself and your place in this world.
• Hess was hard to relate to as a narrator.
• Life isn't pretty.  The ending of this book isn't necessarily what I was hoping for as the story developed, but somehow it felt right because it felt real -- a mark of good historical fiction.
• Beware there is some language (mostly from soliders) and an instance of rape -- though it is definitely not explicit, but an integral part of the story.
• Definitely a perspective of WWII I haven't read much of (and I've read TONS of both nonfiction and historical fiction surrounding WWII)
• The downside of this book was that some of the storylines were underdeveloped for me, found myself wanting to know more backstory and post story on several characters -- which I guess as a positive means I was invested in them, but ultimately left a bit wanting more.

Jandee Rating:  8.5 of 10 stars, beautiful writing a bit underdeveloped in some places

Content Rating:  PG-18 for language, war related violence, a brief description of rape.

funk much?

Lately I've been in a bit of a funk. A myriad of reasons have contributed to it -- some good, some insignificant reasons. The problem is that I am much more of a pragmatic person than an emotional person, so I have little patience for myself when I find I have been swept away on some emotional dalliance. Observations I've made about myself over the past month reconfirm:

 1. I am not good at waiting for things to happen. I like to make things happen now. If an idea strikes me, I want to act on it immediately. Heaven help us if I ever decide to knock down a wall -- I'd probably pull out the sledgehammer and bring the whole house down upon our ears before I've checked to see if its load bearing. Waiting is hard because I spend half of the time being antsy and wishing for the time to come and the other half of the time chastising myself for being so impatient and antsy.

 2. When I am exhausted (which thanks to Ike's current episodic nightmares and ensuing wakefulness means pretty much all the time) I find myself eating....all.....day.....long....just to cope. As you can imagine this is not helping my fitness goals much. I think I may take up my seventh grade habit of writing on my hand and write in big letters -- YOU'RE NOT HUNGRY, YOU'RE JUST TIRED. STOP EATING!

 3. I find myself being jealous of other people's children. Or rather, jealous of their relationship with their children. This is ironic because obviously my idea of what their relationship is like is based on brief interactions usually in very planned/organized/fun environments.....its not like I'm showing up at their house fifteen minutes before bedtime. Isn't comparison a beast. If I was the swearing type I would have said its a b****, but you know that pretty much just stands for beast right? A friend of mine posted a quote on her blog from President Theodore Roosevelt, "Comparison is the thief of Joy." Amen Theo. Of course I adore my children -- mostly what I'm referring to is my feelings of insufficiency as a parent.

 4. A lot of big changes are coming my way this summer. For the most part I like change and I'm pretty adventurous, but lately I haven't been feeling so confident. This feels odd because I'm usually unnaturally optimistic. But like I said, I've been in a bit of a funk.

 So this week I've been giving myself a good talking to.....I've said, "Self, stop wallowing! Get Happy! Go forward with Faith and not Fear. And MY-LANTA!, stop eating everything within a ten foot radius of you! And for goodness sake beat that monkey of jealousy/comparison off your back -- you don't need back scarring when your front is scarred up enough from all those babies!"

 Mostly this mantra has been helping (except for that episode with the chocolate chip cookies last night), but hey we're all human right? So hopefully this is me getting out of my funk.

Book Review: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

I read this book after hearing that it was one of J.K. Rowling's favorite childhood books. I was not disappointed. First off I should state that this is children's literature. But reading it as an adult I enjoyed it as well, probably because I spent a lot of time channeling my inner ten year old. When I was ten years old, if I remember correctly my favorite book was Magic for Marigold by L.M. Montgomery (BTW of course I love the Anne series, who doesn't?, but at ten it was all about Marigold). I can't figure out for the life of me why this book is out of print! Anyways, back to the matter at hand -- I loved the Little White Horse for the same reasons I loved Marigold. It has an aura of beauty to it -- the descriptions are filled with old castles and meadows of flowers, dainty animals, a wishing well, hand carved furniture, charming antiquated clothes. It makes it easy to imagine something beautiful and enchanting and then the story has such a sweet tenor, while still having a good sense of mystery and excitement. Of course its a bit predictable and of course everything ends up perfectly (its a fairytale!) But that only made me like it more, I'm not looking for something to throw me for a loop and in children's lit. Can't wait to read this one to my little girl (if I ever have a little girl, that is). Jandee Rating: 10 of 10 stars (for a charming children's read) Content Rating: G

its may

 

*Do you have things that are hard to part with? For me its mostly books. I seem to have a hard time letting them go even if I didn't LOVE them on the first read. Another things that I've found myself hoarding the last several years is clothes. It seems when something doesn't quite fit right or if it gets a stain, I decide I should hang onto it and try to refashion it, mend it, etc. The problem is that I now have a lot of clothes I'm storing that I don't wear. So the deadline has been set. By June 1 every item of clothing I have has to be wearable -- it has to be mended, stain-free & fit right. If it doesn't I'm donating it. So this week has been a refashion/mending party. Plus I've already donated two big garbage bags -- and it actually feels great. Why in the world have I been hanging onto some of these things -- I mean am I really going to spend one hour refashioning that target shirt I got for five dollars about four years ago? (I mean I'm all about repurposing, but mostly things that deserve to be repurposed -- not ill-fitting stained cheap items). Well at least thats the new me. Am turning over a new leaf, and consequently am wearing one of my "new" dresses. I sewed pockets into this one and immediately decided I should put pockets into ALL of my dresses & skirts. I mean they're just so practical and who doesn't love pockets?

 *Listened to this talk the other day (you can read it here, or listen to it here) while I was working on my mending. It was fascinating, and a good reality check to remind me to study things that worthwhile. Also I am a word nerd and thought his discussion about the word "finalize" was hilarious. The talk was given back in the seventies and I can only imagine how appalled Dr. Butler would be if he could hear typical conversation (or read most blogs or websites for that matter) and see how language has continued to be degraded over the past thirty years. (I mean you hear the word finalize quite a bit right?)

*Made this recipe this week. I pretty much love anything roasted so I assumed I would enjoy it, but I LOVED it. Who knew I would be dreaming about beets? Seriously its amazing, just try it.

   

*Everyday I read outside on a blanket while they boys play with trucks/tractors. Well really its like I read for five minutes and then hunt potato bugs & jump on the trampoline for twenty minutes, then read for five minutes...etc, etc. Right now one of the books I'm reading is The Little White Horse, which I picked up after I read that it was J.K. Rowling's favorite book. So far I can see why she adores it.

   

*My Rhubarb plant is out of control -- its practically a small bush. Any good recipes out there. Of course I've made lots of strawberry/rhubarb pie, but would like something different.

 *Apparently I'm not the only one who enjoys sunbathing.