Rock house

Yesterday I gave you a glimpse of the old rock house. I've been enamored with it since my first visit to Kansas. It's made of limestone and my brother-in-law's dad lived in it as a young boy.
It is a bit rough around the edges, but has endured decades of blizzards and tornadoes.

the old front door

The wise man builds his house upon the Rock,

and the house on the Rock stands fast.

Room With a View

When I go to my sister's house, I have a lovely room with a view. I awake to the glow of the morning sun, and a view of this old abandoned stone house across the field.

I love to wake early to watch the sun rise

As I watched the sun crawling up out of it's sleepy bed,
I was surprised to see a coyote stealthily making his way across the snowy field
(he's hard to make out, but is pretty much central frame)
It's a new dawn,

It's a new day

It's a new life...

and I'm feelin' good.

Not in Kansas Anymore, Dorothy

Here are some scenes from North Central Kansas for my friend Katie at Radiance from ruins. [Blogger isn't wanting to link up this morning for some reason...but check her out!] :)

FONDER?

If Absence makes the heart grow fonder....you guys must be lovin' me!!
I went on a little secret sabbatical. "Mum" was the word, because my dear Sister in Kansas, who is also a faithful reader, was turning 50, and my other Sister and I flew out there to surprise her. It couldn't have gone better! She was completely blown away, hadn't a clue we were coming, and we had a wonderful week together.

The best time of each day was around the dinner table at night. We had simple, delicious, leisurely, candle-lit meals, and they were seasoned with wonderful stories and conversation.
We forgot to bring a candle for her cake, so a tea light was called into service.
One night we had pizza and watched Julie and Julia together. We had each seen it before with other friends, but wanted to see it together. Meryl....you were just delightful....again!

One day, we had a jewelry party. Dot brought out her drawers of bracelets, earrings, and necklaces, and had us select things we each wanted. She's so generous.

Little did she know that Jen would give her a beautiful necklace for her special day, and the next day, she received a Red Box birthday package from Kate, with these pretty, new bracelets in it!
Dot, I hope you enjoyed your birthday as much as we did! Miss you, already.

What month is this?

You're kidding!

Does this mean we have to "plant" plastic flower tulips for Easter?

Pottery Barn Cafe Stripe Pillow

I like this sweater pillow, and plan on making it too.....but loved this little coffee sack lumbar pillow when the catalog came. I've ordered from PB before, but actually my budget is a bit more "cow barn".

I decided to make one. I had a $2 dishtowel from Craft Wholesale, painters tape, and craft paint.

I taped off and painted the middle stripe first....

Gently pulled off the tape....

Then gently placed tape again and again.......

Until I ended up with this.....

If I were doing this copy cat again, I would use a stencil brush and/ a drier brush, for a look closer to picture #1.

Now if I could just find the buttons I bought for it.........

Office Re-do #1

BEFORE: For the past 6 years, the walls were painted a dark khaki green. It had a very cocoon feeling. I loved it, my Mom hated it. After re-painting, found out one daughter was not a fan....and the one who lives here didn't even realize when I re-painted it white.

As I said before; Besides being a cluttered mess, this desk was falling apart and I disliked it immensely.
I decided to build a sawhorse style desk. After browsing the internet for some sawhorse plans I liked, I happened on Ana at Knock off Wood. She is a girl after my own heart! Using her sawhorse plans and the desk top from the old desk, and sanding and finishing it with good old Polyshades American Chestnut, I'm very happy with it. It blended the raw wood of the base and the oak top, nicely. And it matches the old chair well. The room has a fresher, more airy feel now. Stay tuned for more installments!

Sweetheart Jammies

What do you imagine?

Red satin?


Pink flannel with red valentines and cupids?


I bet it wasn't these!

????????


Some simple plain muffin batter, in this little silicone pan from Target's $ bins.

With a little spoon of store-bought raspberry jam. Our homemade freezer jam would've been prettier, but may not have held up as well in the baking process.

Some more batter on top, to cover. Baked at 400 degreesF.

This was as Valentine'y as I got this year.

The soft song

of the dancing rain,

drifts through
the open window,

luring me

towards a downy pillow,

like a

dreamy lullaby.

~laura shelton

Coming of Age Books

This was a new book at our library. Jamie Ford's debut novel; and I enjoyed it very much. It made me want to take another Seattle jaunt, and check out out Chinatown there, and other landmarks he mentioned. A very good read, about a boy coming of age during WWII and the bigotry, suspicions, and Japanese internments, during that time.

This next one is not a new book. I've read several of Anne Tyler's books, and I think it was my favorite.
Maybe I identified with the klutsy, meddling Mom? I disturbed Jim alot, because I was cracking up. This woman mourned the loss of the childhood of her children as the youngest was heading to college. She wanted so very much for her son's marriage woes to be ironed out. She wanted her own marriage to be young and vibrant again. The more SHE tried to "make" things happen....the worse everything was...surprise, surprise.
One of those empty nest/older coming of "AGE" sort of stories.

Girls Dinner and Not a Movie

The girls and I met up this afternoon, and had a nice leisurely time at the Olive Garden to celebrate Anna's birthday together. It had been awhile since we had all been together, so there was lots of catching up to do. We spared Anna the "birthday song", and didn't even bring the groucho marx nose glasses this time! Must be getting to be "potty poopers" in our old age.

We had planned on going to a movie afterward, but changed our mind and went to Target shopping together instead. We had a fun time buying out the store....right Kate? And I can sleep easier tonight knowing I have Kate's birthday present bought already....sure hope she likes it! ;)
I loved hearing my girls teasing and chatting with each other.

We have the loveliest chauffeur, in Sarah. I always con her into driving, because even though I'm decent at it, I don't like driving. She is always gracious and obliging. She may have felt she was a bit too gracious and obliging today though......she left a candy dish of the most deee-LISH valentine jelly beans out on her bar, and I'm not sure she has any left now. We all loved them! Oops, forgot to ask where she got them. ???

Last night, I heard what could quite possibly be the absolute worst rendition of "Happy Birthday" ever sung. But the heartfelt wishes were there. Happy Birthday to Anna.

Her birthday supper request was filled.....and so were we! Stuffed as the home-made lumpias and store-bought potstickers we consumed. And, as if that wasn't enough, the fried rice we used to wash it all down, finished us off. (Who am I kidding, here? Jim and I are both already eyeing the leftovers for our lunch today!)

I was bummed, I couldn't find my favorite asian dipping sauce recipe, that I used for these.

It's so yummy, I could drink it, and Anna likes it too. There are so many different variations on line, and I ended up making one, but it wasn't as good.

Ouch, maybe another reason to get the recipe box cleaned out?

Scrabble Babble

The female side of this family loves "words". (I'm sure the males would agree with that....though we're talkin' written words in this particular instance. ) :D

After seeing Kim's (at Twice Remembered) magnetic scrabble board project for her studio, I really wanted to make one. She always has cute ideas! Jim and I went "antiquing" a couple of weekends ago. We left the first shop without buying anything. I turned around to say something to him as we were leaving, and my eyes lit up. There it was... big as life; a sign.... "Dictionaries 1/2 off today"! We went back in and found one that was perfect. Old enough to be interesting, not so old as to make me feel guilty about tearing it's poor little pages out.

Instead of building a frame to fit the metal sheeting, I opted to use an old picture frame that had been Jim's grandmother's. The glass had gotten broken and damaged the picture beyond repair.
For the backing, I used a piece of scrap luan from the shop, and liquid nailed the metal sheet to it, after cutting them both the size to fit in the frame.
Then did the modpodging of dictionary sheets to the metal and finished it off with clear satin spray (3 coats) It has sheets with family initials, and bees and hives, and "King's English" and "faith", and "type". Favorite things, or just for fun......
As Kim suggested, we got the rare earth magnets off of EBay, and super glued them to the 100 pk. Scrabble letters that I had in my craft stash. Wish I could remember where I got the letters......

Folks, I gotta tell ya.....these magnets are AWESOME!
I liked to have never gotten them out of our mailbox! (Just kidding)
Seriously, they are like nothing you can get at the craft store, home depot, etc.
They have got some power!

It's such a fun project, but where to put it? We have a house made up of windows and doors.
There is actually very little wall space.
There is a corner in our kitchen, near the coffee-maker, where the girls always seem to congregate when we have family gatherings. I thought it would be fun to put it there.

If that doesn't work out, it may go in the library, as a memo board above my desk.

Just seems more interactive this way.

Thanks Kim!

Verse of the day

There's a new addition to my side-bar.
If you check my blog everyday....even if I haven't posted a new entry, there will be a new fresh verse of the day. It's blessing me, and I hope it does you, as well.

Kitchen Sinks

Everybody and their sister has been blogging kitchen sinks this week!
Our February project is kitchen repairs.
First on the list was replacing the defunct leaky faucet.
The goal: No more towel underneath, to catch the drips, welcoming mold etc.

I had been checking out faucets for several months, and actually wanted one with cross handles, but couldn't come up with one in our budget range.
Our old faucet was a gooseneck style, and I liked it pretty well, but at canning time I always wished it was even a tad higher.

I think this one is going to to work out great.
Pretty AND Practical.

And no leaks! Can't beat that!

I'm still puttering away at the library project. January has come and gone, and I'm not finished.

So much of the month was dealing with sickies, it seemed the tasks got done in slo-mo.

I still have some sewing, picture framing, decorating type stuff to do in there, to pull it all together. But the desks have a fresh coat of finish on them, and the cleaning/sorting is almost done. The Guiness book of world records recipe box has been relegated from the library to the kitchen month. You don't know what I'm talking about? You will.

Sunday Drive

You might say, Jim and I took the long way home yesterday afternoon.

It was a peaceful, lovely time.