December Photo Project

Today was decorate-the-church day. SOME of us, meaning me, go for the good time with friends. While others are who are REALLY GOOD at decorating do the work or tell me what to do! It's amazing what they come up with. I think it's different every year.
This post is especially for our friend Kristy who we missed terribly this year!

December Photo Project

For awhile this December Photo Project will be about our latest hold-back-decay project. Last night we took down chair rails and scraped off wallpaper. I found paint at Lowes that's the same colors as what's in there, so we're going to be all fresh and clean for the new year.

Will scraping off the wallpaper! It was kind of fun, like peeling your skin after a sunburn! ha!

December Photo Project

This year I've decided to join the DPP. It will help me to blog everyday, at least with a photo. And since we have another major project underway, I'll be taking photos anyway. Then we'll be able to see when Christmas ACTUALLY got started around here because no decorations are going up until the project is finished!

Jaime is in the family room even as I write, scraping away all the bad stuff. He did a fantastic job here in the kitchen last summer, too. Nice guy.

We moved all, or almost all the furniture in to the front room. Last night the three of us sat in our new "cozy room". Everyone LOVED it! I makes me want to have friends over to sit in close conversation. Feel like I'm in my Scottish friends', Janet, Janie or Bessie's sitting room. Just need that fireplace.

A big Christmas project

Everyone likes their house to look especially nice over Christmas, especially when all the family is home. We did the kitchen, got rid of broken/bowed cupboards, and the mice who made the most of them. However, we have wanted to fix the botched drywall job on our ceiling and walls in our family room. It"s the room where we LIVE. It faces south, has lots of windows and is warm in the winter. What better time to get it done? We bought the flooring for it last summer, but could not bring ourselves to start another project right away. Now that we've recovered, in more ways than one, from the summer project, we're going to tackle this one.

The drywallers are coming tomorrow! They are going to scrape off the bad stuff, rip off the bubbling, peeling, cracked drywall tape from the seams, and then remud and texurize the ceiling.

Of course doing this job means everything moves out of this room! We are going to leave that armoire and the piano in here. The bookshelf comes apart. Since Monday evening we've been doing bits. We took down the shelves, packed away the knick-knacks, emptied the bookshelf, emptied the electronics from the armoire. Wires, wires, wires! Wireless can't come soon enough for me!

This is what we started with.

This is what it looks like now in the family/living room.

And this is where it all went!
 

These are a girls best friend! They also come in huge ones that you can just put under big furniture, move the furniture and then take them out. I have the stick on ones under all the really heavy stuff that I'll move around like the cedar chest and the baker's rack. The "dining room" is now a cozy living room. Senza television. Hmm, nice idea...

Before I put everything back in to the family room, though, I'm re-thinking the arrangement. Any locals (Rhonda!) who have a bit of time to give me ideas, I'd love them!

Now to carry the extra chairs downstairs.

Grandmother's House

Since it's Thanksgiving weekend and we're all thinking about "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go.", I thought I'd write about my grandmother's house.

Since my aunt passed away, we as a family are thinking about what's going to happen to Gramma's house. Aunt Grace never married so she was with Gramma much of the time. She lived away from home most of her life, but she lived near enough to come home weekends and holidays. Then, when she retired, she moved in with Gramma and took care of her until Gramma died in 2004. Since then Aunt Grace has lived there with her dog Corky.

Now we need to figure out how we can keep the house and some of the land in the family. The house was built in the early part of the last century by my grandmother's aunt and uncle. They came from Sweden.

Another thing that makes letting it go to strangers difficult is that, for all of us grandchildren, it has been the one constant (yeah, kinda like baseball) in our lives. Many of us have moved around in our lifetime, if not while growing up at least since becoming adults. So Gramma's house has been one place we could always go back to and it would still be the same. It is comforting.

Not only is the house associated with our wonderful warm memories of our gramma, it is in a peaceful setting, far from traffic noise, stop lights, light pollution and neighbors. When I go there I feel like I'm in Narnia, or someplace far away from the real world. The starts pop. The Milky Way is a silver light across the black velvet sky. And yes, it makes one poetic. I love the sound of the wind blowing through the trees at night. And the stillness. Somehow, it drains all the tension away and puts troubles in perspective.

It is also a house of happy memories of times with our large extended family. Uncle Paul and the snapping turtle, picnics on the grass, the forbidden pump tower, Christmas gatherings, going to bed by the light of the kerosene lamps, the smell of coffee and the warmth of the kitchen by the wood stove, Aunt Grace's stories, Gramma's dire warnings, long walks, stones in the creek.

So we're trying to see if enough grandchildren, and even great grandchildren, can scrape together enough cash to buy at least the house and SOME of the acreage to keep as a place to go "home" to. To keep those memories alive, to share them with our children and grandchildren.

It is literally over the river (the Kettle River) and through the woods, deep into the woods on Bear Lane!

The Indian Ocean?!

Andrew phoned me yesterday. From HERE!

He is in the Seychelles for a port call and having a wonderful time.

I had to go look at a world map for the specific location. South of the equator, east of Kenya and Mozambique.

Maybe the Navy isn't so bad right now.....


Photo credit: http://www.lastbeach.com/asia/island-beauty-of-seychelles/

The Scone Maker

This afternoon Will decided to try one of the recipes in my Scottish Teatime booklet that my friend sent us for our birthdays.

Tea and scones sound lovely on a November afternoon.

They turned out super!

Now curl up with the kitty and enjoy the company!

PS There were several photos of the process, but Blogger would not allow me to post photos that were vertical! But these are the delicious ones.