Seeking Comfort

This week… well… this week is one I’m hoping to put behind us as soon as possible. With an accidental head injury that caused an emergency trip to the hospital, it’s been a struggle—quite literally—to stay on our feet. Unfortunately the blog had to sit on the sideline for a bit while we figure out how to keep our little one still and calm. We need some time for rest to allow that little body to heal.

Today my mom came from out of town to stay with us for two weeks, and the timing could not have been any better. I am so grateful that she’s here. To show my appreciation, I made her an omelette with some butter braised radishes, pea shoots, and radish greens from the garden with a bit of ham and feta. Omelettes are one of our preferred comfort foods here, and making a few is one way I have tried to restore some sense of order and normalcy to help wrap up this week.

I guess if taking pictures while you make and eat your food is what you might consider normal, then we may have seen a tiny glimpse of it today.

Making It Yours

Slowly, but surely, I’ve been making progress on my son’s room. The girls are getting itchy for me to start on theirs, but I need to get his room a bit more situated before I start on another.

For instance, maybe I could find a chair for his desk?

I mean Geez Louise! Poor kid! He was upstairs using this little foot stool as a kneeler for two days before I noticed what he was doing. So I went and grabbed him a chair from the little desk up in the library to hold him over while I explained that we’ll find him something nicer when I refinish his desk.

It’s a great desk that just needs a little love and attention. I’d like to remove the little scrolly-peice of wood above where the chair would be and I want to paint it red with some sort of nice wax finish, maybe something a bit metallic. I need to play around and see what I get before I decide, but I have a few ideas I’d like to try (of course, not before the hutch is finished!). Overall, though, the little guy was pretty excited to hear that this is the next piece I’m planning to work on, or “decorate” in his words. Well, if he manages to keep his room tidy… part of the deal I have to admit, his excitement at getting a new red desk has really helped focus his energies on keeping the room pretty acceptable.

So imagine my surprise when I walked in today and saw this spread out all over the desktop. Not quite what I meant by “tidy”…

Well, until I saw this!

LOOK MA! It’s all decorated!!

That kid went to TOWN!

He made it his own.

You go little dude! Use all the tape and paper we have. I don’t mind one little bit.

The urge to make it your own is something that seems to run all through this family. Not to be out done, his little sister also decided to do some personalization today by decorating her pants…

with scissors…

“accidentally.”

Next up… how to make it your own with a needle and thread!

What a Week

And, I might add, it’s not even over.

There is no surer way to invite disaster than to go and make plans when the first grader is off of school. So, to celebrate having her back home, a whole bunch of us went and got sick. Fevers, chills, sniffly noses, coughs… The kids are mostly feeling better, but now I’m down and out and all I can think about is how much longer it will be until I can crawl back to bed. It makes for long days.

Doesn’t matter how I feel though, I still have meals to prepare. Time for Make-Your-Own Soup… That’s a fancy name for ramen noodles.

I have some ramen stashed away for days like these, a natural brand with less sodium and no scary names on the ingredients list. I try to assuage my mama guilt by getting the kids excited to “make their own” by adding a bit of extras: a thinly sliced omelette made with two eggs and sesame oil; a chopped up cucumber; shreds of basil; some edamame in pods. Sometimes I have bits of chicken, peanuts, or broccoli; this time we added some toasted sesame oil.

See that pyrex measuring cup? Yeah. That’s how we roll when Mama’s sick. It’s not all crystal and china ’round here… OK, fine. It’s never crystal and china here.

The edamame is great for nights like tonight, when the kids need something to keep them occupied, and I need to burn through some time. Oh, and it’s healthy. Guess that’s a win/win/win.

Here’s the craziest thing about these quick “make your own” meals we do; I’ve found no better way to get my kids to try new things than to let them spoon, or smear, or sprinkle it over something themselves. Who knew ramen could be the gateway drug to broccoli and basil?

I mean, seriously, this is what my son, that we call the walking talking cheerio, put in his bowl. And he ate it all. That’s BASIL people. It’s green!

Doesn’t look so bad for ramen noodle soup, right?

First Harvest

Last night I had to thin out my radishes. It’s a little bittersweet for me, getting rid of all that potential just to give the others a chance to grow and thrive. I find the metaphor hard and discomforting.

But the bounty is surely sweet.

Dinner was a baby radish sandwich on a lovely slice of locally baked quinoa bread with thick slab of butter and just a touch of salt for good measure. Tonight I ate the baby greens with a bit of lemon, salt, pepper, and hazelnut oil.

They were tiny, they were tender, they were sown by my hand, they grew in our ground, and for all of it—all of it—I am so truly thankful.

 

Another Project :: Stage Two

Onto stage two!

Last year, with two of the kids and a cousin visiting from overseas, we took a trip to California. It was right before we closed on the house, and after more than two years of renting, I couldn’t wait to get into it and make it our own. And then I came across this paper. Seafoam green and fire engine red, the very colors I wanted in my dining room.

The paper has been patiently waiting for its debut while I tried to figure out what to do with it. Once I saw those chargers I knew exactly how they and my lovely patient paper were going to come together.

To get it all done, I first needed to adhere the paper to the platter after I got it all shiny and silvery gold. A thin layer of mod podge was how I rolled with this one.

I dry brushed a bit of the silver wax and buffed it to take of the excess.

Just enough to make it, you know, shiny.

Then I added a letter (with some instant gratification, I mean, hot glue)…

and another…

and two more, and then I hung them all up.

Simple enough instruction right?

Now that we have a few readers in the house, I’m hoping they’ll use this as a gentle reminder of what we do in this room…

…and if what we do in this room is DINE hopefully it will lead to less toys left here and more kept in the playroom.

Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

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:: Linking Up To ::
Funky Junk Interiors

Another Project

A few weeks ago I found four wooden chargers in our local consignment store, just waiting for a good home. Far be it from me to leave them waiting, all alone, covered in dust, under a table.

I had a plan.

Took me a while to get to it, but stage one is now complete! Three coats of Rub n’ Buff, first applied in Antique Gold, then in Silver, then hit again very lightly with a bit of the gold. Those three coats took me less than twenty minutes to complete for all four chargers. When I think of how long it would’ve taken me to spray paint them, with all that cut work, and all those light, steady coats! Oy! So happy I used the wax!

I love how it left some of the dark in the crevices, making it looked antiqued with an aged patina with really no effort on my part. I think it’s going to work well for the next part of the project, to be completed tomorrow! Can’t wait to show you!

Door Decor :: Take Two

Have you seen these drool-worthy magazine highlighting the spaces where creative women work called, what else, Where Women Create? I was thinking maybe I should enter my little work area; what do you think?

It’s not everyone that would think to spread their stuff on the floor instead of the desk…  all that space! And I’ve brought a bit of the outside in with my fabulous grass rug.

Alright, I’ve had my fun, but seriously, I needed to work on those buckets today, as I was finding it completely distracting having them on the to do list when they were already supposed to be done.

One of the first things I realized was that I was going to have to paint the buckets again. That beautiful blue that I normally love, was just a bit washed out and faded for what I wanted. After I collected a few things while running errands yesterday, I gathered all my materials along with a few cans of spray paint to see what might strike my fancy.

While I was out I stopped by several different stores to see if anyone had any pinwheels… I had pinwheels on my brain. I struck out everywhere but hit the jackpot at the dollar store that I ran into as a last ditch effort. Yay!! Three mini pinwheels for a buck! Can’t really beat that. I also came up with another idea for later in the summer that I’m a little excited to try out, but you’ll just have to wait and see how that pans out. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if it’s a disaster.

Anyway, I think this version works a little better… what do you think? It’s a good deal brighter than what I originally envisioned, but a little bit (or maybe even lot!) of brightness to welcome Spring doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing. Besides, isn’t neon the new thing now? Wouldn’t want my door to miss any major trends, right?

Here’s the side door version; a different color of pinwheel so no one gets confused.

Something about those pinwheels is really making me happy, which is good because I sure do have a lot more I need to use.

Door Decor

Last night I sat down to write my post, but after downloading and editing my images, I decided I wasn’t happy with what I made after all. So I didn’t post. Today I decided that I was going to post it anyway, since not every idea I have is a winner, and if I don’t like what I make, I’ll just call it a work in progress until I figure out how to make it work. We’ll consider this the first installment of a new series Door Decor.

A few days ago, I bought some beautiful pussywillow from a local family run nursery while I was out hunting for berry canes…

…and I found two of these little buckets on clearance at another nursery.

So I slapped some paint on the buckets, threw everything together with a teeny tiny birdhouse and a pinwheel I had lying around, and put up both of ‘em up on our fronts doors.

Meh… I’m underwhelmed. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to fix them, but I have a few ideas. We’ll see which one works out tomorrow, or maybe the day after. I’ve been running around like crazy getting things off the list and maybe, possibly, putting on a few more.

Welcome to the weekend! Are you doing anything exciting?

Bye Bye Bunting

Someone, age five, is finally getting his bedroom fixed up just a bit.

His sisters have had some nicely decorated rooms in previous homes, but this is his first nice big boy bedroom.

He’s quite fond of telling everyone the color of the paint on his walls (even if he’s only just met you three seconds ago) :: Dill Pickle. A pretty good name for a color.

Years ago, right after he was born, I found a set of nicely framed travel prints on sale that I tucked away until it would be time for his own bedroom. I dug them out of a box one month ago and finally got them up on his wall.

When I was growing up my mom always had our rooms—OK the entire house—decorated so nicely, and I remember how much I liked to sit with her and pick out new curtains and bed spreads and other things.

I’m hoping to make some of those memories with my kids too.

I made the bunting out of paper airplanes I folded using scrapbook paper and old maps I bought in a batch on eBay.

It really didn’t take that long to fold, although I did get distracted by some writing I found on the vintage maps; I began to daydream about who the writer was and why they were traveling to Florida. In my head they looked achingly similar to my grandparents, who have been gone for a few years now. The maps had a slight musty smell which only added to the nostalgia my imaginings brought on.

They’re attached to the wall with picture hanging nails and some DMC thread. I stapled the base of the plane closed to keep it on the string.

It was a quick project, and someone was very excited about the new addition to his room. There were signs of happiness everywhere I looked, literally.

And happiness, I’m happy to report, is something we always welcome around these parts.

 

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On the Agenda

“Well,” said my beloved step-father as I walked him around the house, “You have more irons in the fire than most.”

Yes, indeed.

Easter was wonderful, quite full yet somehow relaxing. We had family in town, which was such a gift although the time we spent together was much too short.

What little time we had was spent doing and making and talking and laughing. Our kids are such natural comedians at times ::

“Look Mama, Look! The Easter Bunny brought us our favoritest!”
“Oh! How fun! What is it?” I ask as she shows me the little jar of play dough.
“I dunno,” she shrugs as she walks away.

This week I have many projects to tie up in a bow, document, and write up. There’s a sign my mom made which needs to be hung; a little boy’s room that needs some attention; a playroom in desperate need of a thorough Spring cleaning; a website to build; a science fair to plan (an entire science fair! I’ve never even attended one before!); a hutch to finish; another bed or two or three to build; plants to harden off; seedlings to sow (yes, more, crazy I know!); clothes to organize, size up, and put away; children to tend; floors to scrub; laundry to wash and fold and put away… you know, the usual.

Unfortunately, I’ll also need to do some more cooking, as we’re sadly out of leftovers. We made some good old fashioned Polish food in time for Easter; kielbasa, ham, pierogie. This time all of my kids ate it—something new—which means less for me and the husband later in the week. Really, not such a terrible problem to have.

And my parents helped me fill the bed with the freshly delivered compost. We had exactly enough, not a bit more or less. Amazing.

It’s good that the bed is now ready to plant because I am totally out of space.

No, I haven’t been thinking about a greenhouse… well, not seriously, just daydreaming.

I definitely have a problem.