Did you miss anything in July?

Last month, I decided to try out doing one of those monthly recap posts, mostly-I'm not going to lie-to make myself feel super productive and fancy. And it worked!

So I'm doing it again.

Here's what I've been up to this month!

Kennedy and I did a little mother-daughter faux-distressed paint job on these convex mirrors. I thought I'd try to pass down some of my skills and tricks of the trade, but, as it turned out, she schooled me.

Once my ego healed, I found a great place to hang them up in the livingroom.

I also showed you the old ladder that was hanging on the back of our house outside. It went right next to the mirrors on the wall and it may or may not lead up to a secret fort in my ceiling, depending on who you ask.

Work continued on the front hall, 15 minutes at a time.

And included a semi-failed attempt at a no-sew cafe curtain made from a flour sack dish towel.

There was a vintage tractor parade that went by right in front of our house,

an update on the goings ons in the veggie garden,

And a tutorial on how to age shiny ugly brassy things.

Finally, I did what most good bloggers do when it all comes down to it. I overdid it on the pillows and tried to find a little balance where I could in this crazy life.

Oh! And one more thing! Maybe the most fun thing of all!

My Fall Fantel from last year is being featured on the Better Homes and Gardens website! I'm beyond thrilled. Beyond beyond.

Hope you had an amazing July as well!






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Balance is not a Show-Off

Me and Balance, we're best buddies lately. We hang out daily and I tell her all my goals and hopes and dreams. She helps me work towards them and maybe even reach some of them. Only, slowly. Like, really slowly.

I'm not a patient person. I like instant-gratification. I like right-now. And I like attention, praise, people looking up to me, all that good stuff.

I've told you all before how that's not working, and how it's making me crazy. Have you seen this quote around?

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

Sometimes it looks like the world and everyone else is just a-harvest reaping left, right, and centre. And evidence of it pops up on my screen about once every 30 seconds. Or more. Fancy rooms, great ideas, happy kids, delicious dinners.

I've been trying to be a harvest reaper too! Why can't I reap myself a dang harvest now and again? In my head, I'm the queen of all harvest reapers. I don't have a clue how this all comes to be, but I see it, clear as when I actually wear my glasses and somehow manage to keep them smudge-free.

The thing is, I just keep naturally going about planting seeds lately. Because it makes sense. And it's the only things that calms my fear of neglecting things. Whatever "things" may be. I just keep going back to it. And at the end of the day, I look around and feel like I've done nothing, because I have nothing to show for it. Yet. But really, I've actually done a little bit of everything. It's the only way to tend to the crops of the different areas of my life and grow them all slowly and robustly. I see these people with great broccoli gardens and I think "Hey, why doesn't my broccoli look like that?" And they do have great broccoli, but maybe that's all they have. Maybe that's the one thing they really really want and that's all they grow. So it's darn pretty. But the thing is, I want more than just broccoli. I want lettuce and tomatoes and maybe even some honey dew melon in there too. It just takes more time. And balance.

Just in case there's any confusion with the garden metaphor, on account of the fact that I actually do have pretty nice garden, yeah. It's a metaphor. Because of that quote up there. You're following me with this crazy rant, right?

So I don't get to show off as much as I'd like to lately. I don't have the big ta-da moments. On this here blog, or in real life, actually. But I do have lots of real life, and a whole lot of seed-planting. That makes for a better story anyway, don't ya think?

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A Perfect Moment

Thursday, 8:17 a.m.

I'm never that type of person who can get a good photo of a bird. No patience. But there he was, sitting on the little pine tree right outside my window, framed by the kitchen door window, the wreath, and the mudroom window, with that lovely cornfield in the background.

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My chair is unsittably pillowed

You may remember seeing my living room before around here from time to time.

Welcome Back! Today my living room is the scene of a bit of an oddity, the unsittably pillowed chair!

I'm sure many of you reading today have a pillow problem as well. It's not that I necessarily buy or make too many (OK, Chris may disagree here), it's just that once I get the right pillow in the right spot, it. is. staying.

That's gold, people! Such a rare thing to encounter. I feel like my pillows never look quite right. They look wrong, even.

But this thing we have going on here, it doesn't just look wrong, it is wrong. From a functional perspective.

This is what guests see when they come to my home:

How rude.

I've even tried to perch my butt on the edge, only to give up and just sit on the floor.

And yet, there the pillows stayed.

I didn't put them there on purpose, things just sort of happened. They were moved there to clear space elsewhere, all at separate times, and serendipity took over.

Am I about to cross serendipity?

So there they are. All three of them.

Maybe I'll just bring in another chair to go beside it.

 And maybe just one little pillow for that one. Or even a throw.

It's a slippery slope.




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In a bit of a sticky situation with these floors

The front hall project continues!

I've been trying to tackle the floors a little at a time, but only when Kennedy's out of the house, because of the toxic adhesive remover and all that.

The problem is, the adhesive remover actually smells really good, all citrusy and clean, so you kinda want to smell it. It's a bad situation, but it's working!

This is after a couple of go-overs with the chemical. You can see there's still a bit of glue with some dirt and cat fur in it, but it's starting to look a lot better!

Here's how it started out waaay back in October.

Now you can even see a bit of shine! Through all the dirt and cat fur, I mean.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't want these floors to look all perfect and new. Just maybe a little less filthy dirty. Everyone always asks us if we'll be refinishing the floors. Ideally, if I could get them to look decent but still maintain all the been-here-forever-ness, that's what I would do. So that's plan A.

Besides, I love looking at the worn-down path down the middle of the hall. It always makes me wonder about what kinds of footsteps passed through here everyday for the last 112 years or so.

Hmm....

Well, anyway, it just keeps getting better everyday!

So that's what I'll be up to today. Inhaling toxic chemicals and making things shine! If you see any weird facebook postings from me today, you'll know why.



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How to Age Brass

Do you have any of those shiny yellow-brass circa 1993 doorknobs around your house? We have a whole assortment of different eras represented on different doors around here, but the one in my front hall was the lame-o shiny kind.

But I fixed it up good. Yes I did.

Originally I had thought about maybe just spraying it with a little Oil Rubbed Bronze, but then I remembered that warm metals are awesome.

Someone had installed a little slide lock on the door at some point and it was made from some kind of cheap brass. I guess because of its cheapness, it had tarnished quicker than the door knob and it was exactly the kind of old-looking finish I was looking for.

OK, maybe pretty isn't the right word for it. But it's more what I'm looking for to add character and stand out against my crisp new paint job.

Here's how I worked my magic!

The first thing that needed to happen was to remove the clear varnish that was keeping the brass from tarnishing.

I read that a little vinegar mixed with salt and applied with a scouring pad does the trick. I'm not totally sure if it worked, but I did notice the finish becoming less shiny and yellowy and more raw looking. It was a bit of a lighter color as well. So it must have done something.

Next I rubbed the whole thing with a bit of sandpaper. At first I felt like I was doing something terribly wrong, but in the aftermath, I see if really did help the look overall.

So at this point it just looked like a scratched up, slightly lighter-colored 1993 brass door knob.

I read somewhere that heating the brass up with a flame would help it tarnish quickly.

I grabbed my candle lighter and got to firing that brass knob.

At a certain point it occurred to me that what I was actually doing was holding a flame up to a part of my beloved house and heating that part up more and more.

Um, no.

As usual, I didn't want to wait to see the results of the natural tarnishing so I grabbed my trusty dollar store craft paints and did a little faux magic, instead of you know, setting my house aflame.

-Wipe on a dab of black everywhere, including in the nooks and crannies. Wipe off.

-Wipe on a dab of burnt umber everywhere. Wipe off.

-Wipe on a dab of gold. Wipe off a little bit, but leave it on mostly.

So that got it half-way there. Over the next couple of days, the natural tarnish filled in and the fake and the real came together in perfect harmony.

So what started out as an experiment and a maybe sorta OK temporary solution ended up being one of my very favorite parts of the room.

Now I just wish I had more brass knobs!


This was my favorite project this month for sure! I'm linking up with Traci's party!

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Only in the Country

So a couple of weeks ago, on a Saturday, we were sitting in the dining room eating our lunch. Chris was reading the paper. He looked up and said semi-mockingly, "Oh no, we're going to miss the Dover Cruise this weekend." we were heading out to the beach in a couple of hours.

"What's that?" "I don't know." he did know but didn't feel like getting into it further. That's kind of an annoying thing to do, isn't it? Anyway....

A moment later we heard a strange put-put-putting coming from outside.

We peeked out the window and saw a tractor. Then another. It was the Dover Cruise!

Around here, almost any tractor passing is reason enough to run out waving like a crazy person. For Kennedy, not me. Usually. Not that there's any shortage of tractors passing by all day, everyday. Kennedy just really likes them.

But these were vintage tractors. Hundreds of them. On parade. Thought the middle of nowhere.

So out we all ran to the front lawn. Out the front door we never use, even.

And it was the highlight of the day. For all of us.

Only in the country.

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Our Wild and Crazy Garden

Oh, this garden. I just can't keep up with it lately. Kennedy and I took these photos last week and it looks nothing like this now.

It's suddenly much, much fuller.

This is the time of year when the corn grows taller by the hour,

And you give up on fighting weeds and bugs altogether.

You just run out with little planks of wood everyday and try to cradle the melons and cucumbers and keep them safe until they're ready.

And take a big metal bowl to fill up with your harvest as fast as you can before the sun gets too hot and your courage for dealing with bees buzzing around your head wears out.

And then you forget once again to rinse off your veggies BEFORE coming inside and scream at the little buggies that come crawling out into your sink.

Yup, it's exactly that time of year in our garden right now.







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