Crazy Days of Summer

Oh, my goodness, how did that happen? It's been almost a month since my last post!

This one will, of necessity, be mostly pictures. Lukie turned two, we dorked around for a couple weeks, and then, we spent 2.5 weeks in Illinois! Most of the Illinois pictures were taken with an iPhone, so please excuse the graininess, but we were out and about moving and that meant I just didn't have time to grab my camera very often!

First, Lukie's two-year-old photos. I expect by the next time I take photos, it'll be a little easier to keep him still. Right now, though, not so much.

He's also really into hats right now. He requests a hat every morning by pointing to his head, and then when we put it on, he rearranges it by pulling it almost over his eyes and cocking it to the right. If we take it off, this happens:

...until we put it back on.

House work also continues. I've been working on painting the hallway. It was a nasty color of peachy-beige, which I lovingly referred to as "soul sucking burnt flesh," maybe a little over-dramatic but still fairly accurate. I've been painting it a nice clean white, and I have to say, I love the results.

The white color brings out the woodwork so nicely, and it bounces light around like a light trampoline. It's so much cleaner looking!

Finally, we went to Illinois for 2.5 weeks. It was a long but thoroughly enjoyable trip. First, Lukie had a birthday party at MoMo's house.

He is certainly not confused about what to do when a flaming cake is brought to him. We had to hold him back until we could finish singing.

His cousin Mindy, who has four girls and two nieces and has been waiting forever to buy a birthday present for a little boy, got him a Despicable Me fart gun. It was a hit (maybe more with MoMo even than with Lukie, but Lukie loved it, too).

And he played with his cousins Phoebe and Avery in the swimming pool. The game consisted mainly of jumping into the pool, getting out, running halfway across the yard, running back to the pool, jumping in, and repeating the process for 45 minutes. Where do they get the energy? (Sorry for the iPhone photos.)

Then we went north for a week to see Peter's family in Hinckley, IL. Grandma Cindy threw Lukie a second birthday party.

And Lukie ran around like a crazy person with his cousin Roland (and his other 7 cousins--- the 8th joined us a week later).

After a week in Hinckley, Peter went to Canada with his best friend for a fishing trip and I took Lukie back to my folks' place for 8 days. We had lots of fun.

Fun included Lukie's first trip to Jarlings, a Chambana staple for decades.

That was the gist of our summer trip. We had lots of fun, but as usual, we are also glad to be home among our stuff and in our house with our dogs and bed. We always miss Illinois, though! We are Midwesterners through and through and the whole region feels like home. See you at Christmas, IL!

Happy Julyfest!

Happy Julyfest, everybody! 

What is Julyfest, you may ask? Only the most important month-long holiday on the calendar. Pete started Julyfest right before we started dating in order to impress me (I really don't know how that was supposed to work?) because we both have birthdays in July. When Lukie's due date was figured, we really, really hoped he'd make it all the way to July. When July 1 rolled around, I told him he was free and clear to make his entrance into the world because now, the whole family could celebrate Julyfest. I don't know what will happen if we ever have a second child...

All of this to say that, you guys, Lukas is TWO. It happened last Friday. He went to bed on Thursday night not two, and woke up on Friday morning TWO.

The problem, really, was that he also went to bed sick on Thursday evening...so he was kinda punky on his birthday. Yup, my kid got a cold on his birthday. On July 3rd. The season of no colds. He wasn't the only one, either. The rest of the daycare has been getting it. Pete had it. I have now had it. WHO GETS SICK IN FRIGGIN' JULY???

We do.

Anyway, didn't stop us from eating cake.

Now, I don't really do cake. I bake a cake maybe once per year. That's a big maybe. The thing is, pie>cake. At all times and in all situations. We had pie at our wedding reception for gosh sakes. So, given the option, I will choose to bake a pie. I did, actually, just this morning.

But birthdays require cake, and birthday cake requires frosting (not all cake requires frosting, though- Pete actually prefers his cake without frosting, which is just one of his many opinions on EVERYTHING).

So, I made a vanilla cake (because Lukas doesn't like brown foods, even if they are chocolate ice cream and/or chocolate cake) and made blue frosting (because Lukie doesn't communicate yet what his favorite color is, so he gets my favorite color for frosting). Pete told me I should smear the frosting on the wall, it was so close to my favorite color. DON'T MIND IF I DO, PETER NOLL!!!

Anyway, we ate cake on Friday night, just the three of us. Lukie will have a big birthday party at Momo's house in a week and a half.

Sniffing the cake (above). Everything gets sniffed in our house before he puts it in his mouth. Only, he doesn't understand what sniffing is. He's actually blowing OUT of his nose instead of sniffing IN.

After eating cake, we spent a low-key weekend getting over our colds and working on house projects. There have been more more more house projects.

First, I've been agonizing over painting the living room (please ignore the literally-falling-apart Craigslist couch...it will be replaced shortly but I'm not going into debt over a couch, so we have to save up). I've been labelled a lover of gray by both Peter and my mother, who likes to ask me which color of gray I plan on painting (---insert anything here---), so I thought I'd go with a nice gray-ish blue in the living room. I tested three different colors, picked the best one, and started painting. With a brush. Because painting plank walls with a roller doesn't REALLY work very well.

That's just one wall. The others are done now. I haven't decided what to do because I kind of don't love it and wish I had just gone with gray. Figures. We'll see if I can learn to love it (especially after buying a new rug, but who knows when that will happen) or if, someday soon, I find myself inexplicably standing on a stepladder holding a paintbrush slathered in gray paint. Or white paint. but probably not blue paint.

Pete has also finished the doors on the bottom of the built-in cabinet in the dining room. They are currently painted, but now need re-painted since he fixed the planing on one of the panels. Next step is making glass doors for the top two shelves. And possibly painting the inside of those shelves a different blue. Because I'm not sure I like that color either. But it won't be grey. Promise (she says while crossing her fingers behind her back).

For the last three years, our mailbox has been bare wood and messy paint. I fixed that last week. I'm going to landscape it next year, but with that being kind of icky soil, I want to wait until the spring to get some things in there so they have a better chance of establishing roots and making it through the winter.

Oh, and Pete is ripping apart the porch.

See, we have a nice big porch on the front of our house. It's the defining architectural feature on that side of the house. Buuuut, the posts and rails were built out of untreated lumber and never planed for shedding water. Which means that there is some serious rot on a porch that's less than ten years old. It's been giving Peter serious anxiety for about two years, so this week, he started knocking it down and building it back up.

That's a good thing because, as it turns out, the posts are approximately half rotted. Who knew, right? Not really what you want SUPPORTING THE WEIGHT OF THE PORCH ROOF. Oy.

So look forward to more updates on that...

Lastly, Pete and I did our birthday shopping for each other. Our birthdays aren't until the 12th (mine) and the 20th (his), but we found ourselves with some open space on the calendar last week, and we both kind of knew what we wanted for our birthdays. Coincidentally, both of our gift choices were available in antique stores...so for two days last week, we went antiquing.

Pete wanted a giant wooden screw that he had seen in the Greeneville Antique Market approximately a year ago. He negotiated the price down eight whole dollars and I bought it for him for his workbench. It was dirty and gross, but he proudly paraded it around the Chinese restaurant, where we saw a former student of his. Then he came home and cleaned it.

I wanted a white stoneware pitcher for my new dining room cabinet. I was willing to buy new if it was the only way to get a decent price on one, but really preferred antique if I could find it. I didn't necessarily need it to be the most ornate or beautiful one out there; in fact, I preferred simple but heavy. After going to Kingsport, TN looking, we finally found one and it was on sale. Score!

We think this is a lovely birthday tradition and saves us both the hassle of figuring out a gift. Plus, it combines birthday shopping with Date Day, which is nice.

Oh, and I couldn't resist this little apothecary bottle when I saw that it was from Monticello, IL, which is near my hometown. So that came home with us, too, for $3. It's got a chip in it, but I don't care. I like to put flowers in them, and they're one of very few doo-dad type things that I like. I now have a whopping TWO apothecary bottles in my collection.

Summer Vacation Begins!

Last August, I accepted a full-time position at Walters State Community College's library. I LOVE my job- I get to do work I'm interested in and good at, I spend my days with co-workers whose company I totally enjoy, and the place is just, in general, a really great place to work. My new job also came with a nice little perk that I doubt I'll find any other time in my library career:

I work a 10-month contract. That means, as of June 15, I am off for the summer! It's been a strange adjustment, to be sure. It's been a long time since I've had a chunk of time off, and I had almost zero vacation time at my previous position, so it's been a huge relief. 

And here's the thing: we have to continue paying for daycare, otherwise Lukie would lose his spot at school. So, I'm working to find the right balance of extra time with my son and some time to get things done on the house. We have two years of deferred maintenance (ahhh, the child gap) to catch up on at the house. There is a lot of painting to be done, cleaning, organizing, all that fun stuff. Pete has to basically rebuild large sections of the porch and its railing, and we have three outdoor decks to paint, as well. So far, our summer schedule has been something along the lines of Lukie going to school at about 8:00 (after his pancakes and obligatory Mommy Snuggle, which has become a morning routine), I work until after his nap (he sleeps better at school, anyway), and then I get him and we come home and play. It's a pretty great life...can't I just always be a stay-at-home mom whose kid spends half the day at daycare? No?

As Pete put it, it's nice not having a job when you have a job. To be fair to myself, I'll note that I have worked my bottom off while at home. Last week, I painted all the bathroom trim and its two doors, in addition to touching up the trim in the kitchen. I planted a new rose bush and have been keeping up with the garden. On this week's schedule: paint the mudroom, paint the dining room trim and finish painting the new dining room window, work on an embroidery project that's been haunting me for possibly 2 years, process an insane amount of basil, and go through the kitchen for things to donate. Whew.

All while spending Tuesday at the Kingsport Splash Pad with Lukie and my dear friend Rebecca.

Now, for some pictures.

Blooming in the garden right now:

Above, those are black eyed Susan vines. They're on a neat trellis Pete hooked to the side of the house. They're right next to the new deck he's building. Below is a picture of the newly painted side door and the brand new dining room window. That's the new deck. Pictures to come when it's finished.

I'm a little obsessed with this flower, below. It's a coreopsis variety called Heaven's Gate. It's pretty and pink and lacy and I love it. I think I'll order a few more next summer...though I need to move this one because it ended up being a lot taller than expected.

I'm also really into this hosta, below. It's an Abique Drinking Gourd, and the leaves have this awesome curl to them which makes them almost cupped. It's in the corner of my new hosta garden. All the plants in here will get much bigger by next year, and whenever we leave this place, I'll definitely be taking starts. This hosta in particular is supposedly really neat when it's full grown; when it rains, the cupped leaves catch water until they are too heavy and then tip it. Apparently, it's like watching a living sculpture. I can't wait to see it next year!

That's also a deck that needs painting. See? Lots of painting to be done.

On to pictures of the inside of the house.

Our house has only one bathroom, but admittedly, it's pretty fabulous. We have plans to possibly add a second half bath upstairs, but they won't be happening this year, I don't think. The trim was poorly painted when we moved in, and over the years, it's taken a bit of a beating. I painted all of it, and also painted the two white doors to match the dark warm gray of the kitchen. I love it when a house flows from one room to another; seeing decor repeat itself in creative little touches makes it seem so much bigger and more cohesive.

The kitchen has undergone a major change or two in the last six months, as well. First, Pete built me a beautiful pantry cabinet for Christmas. Originally, we painted it mustard yellow, but in that small room, it just didn't work. I think in a larger, brighter kitchen, a big, colorful piece like that would have been fun, but in our kitchen, it looked a little forced and a lot too bright. So now, it's a nice charcoal milk paint color that blends with the trim, but has extra texture.

More pics of that to come later; Peter has since sealed it with a coat of polyurethane, so it's darker. I think I'm going to add a house tour page to the blog that I can periodically update with things we work over. So...I guess more on that eventually.

Pete's currently prepping for our big trip up North later in the summer. He bought some new rubber boots to wear when he's fishing in Canada, and Lukas has been very enamored of them.

And finally, I've also had time to work on a project I started a year and a half ago. For Lukie's first Christmas, I wanted to start making a map that would show all the places he visits throughout his childhood and trips we take as a family (and before we were a family). I bought a huge map, and Pete mounted it on foam core. I started embroidering it. I actually put our wedding trip out West on there, and then got busy with life and baby and work and stuff. I finally finished the wedding trip last week, and moved on to trips Lukas has taken. It's going to be fun to see it get filled up with lines as he grows up. Pete is going to build a frame for it, and I have to decide where it will go. I used to think above our bed, but I think maybe the dining room would be more fun, because we could show it to people and Lukie could tell them about his trips!

Above, our wedding trip. We started in Champaign-Urbana, drove to the Badlands, Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon (Idaho), northern Oregon, Cape Disappointment in Washington, down to the Oregon Dunes, and then inland to my Grandma Dot's house in Ashland, Oregon, where we got married. Then, we went out to the coast for a few more days, and finally high-tailed it back, stopping in Iowa before getting to Illinois. We camped the whole way and had so much fun...we can't wait to take Lukas on a southwest version of this trip when he's older. And, Pete and I plan to take a trip to the Northeast next year for our 5-year anniversary!

Lukie's trips, so far, have been mostly local to the South. He's been back and forth to IL a lot, of course, but he's also taken trips to Kentucky, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.

See? It's huge! Pete will be making a BIG frame, and it has to be removable so I can keep up with our vacations. Incidentally, this is not an easy project to embroider. After bruising my finger repeatedly, I finally lighted on a technique of using a pushpin to chart my course and then coming back and flipping the map over and over as I embroidered with floss. There's a lot of looking back and forth, especially since the needle often gets lost in the foam core between the front and the back.

I think the whole project will be worth it, though. Imagine what it will look like when he's a teenager!

Anyway, that's what's been going on lately! I'll be adding a house tour page sometime soon! Lots of things are changing around here!