The big re-cap

Well. Here we go. There hasn't been any real excuse for not blogging except that life sort of got in the way. And I should know better. When one waits until the last minute - it usually takes hours. There is so much I've been meaning to write about, but alas, I just haven't gotten to it. Luckily I've been taking a million pictures so that helps jog the memory. Also, I watched Julie & Julia last night - and I don't know if I have readers - but - I'm writing a blog darnit all. Okay, so I'm not writing in relation to the greatest woman-home-construction-role-model ever (who would she be anyway?)- I'm just writing about me. Maybe that's a little vain? Well, thanks for reading. Some of you I know and some of you I don't - thanks all the same. By the way, I disabled the comments because I was getting an incredible amount of spam. But I wonder if I can just turn moderating on .... will let you know.

For this episode of Tara's life, for those interested, we (Jacques and I) offer:
Chapter 1: The window stripping project
Chapter 2: HOT
Chapter 3: Sewing stuff
Chapter 4: Package from Babette
Chapter 5: W0rkshop
Chapter 6: Garden
Chapter 7: neighborhood changing
Chapter 8:?? all the rest I forgot to mention

Chapter 1: The window stripping project.We are moving long. Not as quickly as I'd hoped, but probably more realistically. I called it my summer project. It probably will not be finished by the end of the summer. I am, however, getting the hang of things. I'm keeping the CitruStrip company in the black - that's for sure, and the steel wool manufacturers have nothing to worry about either. The thing about stripping paint is that it is immensely satisfying for the first few layers. But the little cracks and crevasses which don't want to relinquish the paint - no matter how often you smother them with stripper - those are frustrating. I even have a sharp little awl I'm trying to do some careful scrapping. It's hit or miss I tell ya. What is great though, is applying the stripper to mostly clean wood, using the steel wool to wipe it off, and then cleaning the rest off with mineral spirits. What a fabulous result. It gives me confidence that it will be gorgeous when it's finished! Stay tuned.

Chapter 2: HOT
Yeah, well, I know I posted about this before - but truth be told, things haven't really changed. We got a few days of reprieve and then wham-oh! - the furnaces of hell were lit again. Seriously - I can't believe how hot it's been. I've kept my air on for about a week and a half. It simply was not bearable. I had a BBQ on Saturday - which had to be absolutely the WORST day so far. It was 100°F, and probably 90% humidity (well I have no idea actually, but might as well have been), and we just never stopped sweating. Just sitting there trying to have dinner - everything was dripping. My hair never really dried, I decided to wear a black dress which was good because you couldn't' tell it was soaked, and the other good thing was - we were all in the same boat - just big dripping water fountains of sweat. Unbelievable. The menu for the BBQ? mmmmm:

Melanie's marinade for the chicken:
Cornell Chicken
chicken legs and thighs (I used a dozen of each)
¼ cup salt
1 cup oil
2 cups cider vinegar
1 T. Poultry seasoning
1 t. pepper
1 Egg
Mix together, marinate? - 24 hours is best. When cooking: turn every 15 minutes for about 45 minutes depending on how hot the grill is. Before turning - re-dip chicken in the marinade.
Lick your fingers when finished eating.

My favorite potato salad from Bon Appetit: Potato Salad with Toasted Cumin Vinaigrette
If the link doesn't work - you can find it on epicurious.com OMG - the best potato salad ever! There is never any left over for me.

Jessica made a really amazing salad:
diced watermelon (small)
diced jicama
diced Asian cucumbers
Thai basil
mint
lime
yum

Desert? Blueberry pie- with fresh picked blueberries (from the Joy of Cooking - the recipe not the blueberries - those were from Massachusetts), and chocolate ice cream. How did I manage to bake a pie in this heat? I have two kitchens. :) One on the first floor in the studio - one on the second were I live with air conditioning.

Chapter 3: Sewing stuff
A big part of the reason I haven't blogged is because I've be re-hooked on sewing. Ugh. It's terrible!! I've forgotten how easy it is to get sucked into that, and how much time it will just suck away from your life. My first endeavor was to recreate a skort I'd had back in my 20's. I'm sure I thrift-stored it - sadly. So I've tried again, and now I have two semi-successful projects. This one:
And the other one with some very goofy pink/orange/yellow battiqued fabric. Both projects are semi successful. The pink one is too long, and this blue linen one just doesn't sit right, no matter how hard I try, but it's getting better. I'll probably try to make it one more time, maybe three is the charm.
One of the other projects I sewed was this red dress which is a Vogue pattern. I love it. It was very easy and it is very comfortable.
Sorry about the picture quality - I'm just too tired to try to take more pictures or do a better job fixing things. I made a few other things as well, but again - you'll have to use your imagination. One of the things which just has changed my life though, ... I bought a serger. It's just cooler than cool. But it didn't solve all the problems I thought it would. I still couldn't hem properly on stretchy fabric. So I went to my little local fabric store and the owner gave me the best lesson in sewing machine needles. I'm all set now. It turns out that when you are sewing stretchy fabric you need a double needle, and two spools of thread - still one bobbin. Who knew? Now you can sew a double row of stitches at exactly the same place. It also turns out you can adjust the pressure of your presser foot. You want a lighter pressure for stretchy fabrics. It feels so good to conquer these problems which have plagued me since I was 16.

Chapter 4: Package from Babette
Towards the beginning of June a packaged arrived from Babette. It was full of fun goodies:
CD's of her son's band, The Genes (who are great - check out their website), a canvas bag, greyhound footprints, and best of all - two artists books! One from Babette, and one from Heather Matthew.
Heather is working on a fantastic collage project, one per day for one year. You can check her work out here:
She's been using stamps a lot in her work and I got this wonderful little book of stamps of the queen. I just love it - and I got a little collage of my own which is a lovely faux envelope with my address on it.
There was also a fun one-page book from Babette, a commemoration of her visit with me. She did some need things with accordions, and put lots of fun memorabilia in the book.

I haven't not abandoned books entirely this summer: I did this little mockup after Don Rash came to give us a leather restoration workshop at work. He mentioned this little structure, raised cords with leather covering and a paper case. I think it's really great and fun (and ALOT less leather paring)
And this segues in nicely to the next chapter:

Chapter 5: W0rkshop
I took a workshop in Western Massachusetts. Leather inlay and onlay. (sorry again about the bad picture). We made these five little cards with five different ways of working with leather and color. As usual it was a great class and I learned loads. I'm excited to start adding it to my work.
I stayed with my friend Melanie, who is doing a million amazing things, including a talk about her residency on top of Mount Greylock. She made some incredible work. Fabulous. Her talk was last night - (how'd it go?)
We also had the chance to pick 16lbs of blue berries. Probably more since every other handful went into the mouth. We had a dog with us, who kept freaking out about something. We both figured it was a bear and didn't worry too much about it. Turned out we were right, but should have been a bit worried. The blueberry patch owner said that a mother bear and her two cubs have been down in the patch at lot lately. Then Melanie spotted them in her lower paddock a few days later. I'm glad we had the dog with us. He kept barking and the bear was not seen. Good thing we didn't stumble upon her!
This is the flat I brought home. I baked a pie, froze enough for two more pies, and made a double batch of jam. If I could go back up there tomorrow for more, I would.

Chapter 6: Garden
And my garden? Was neglected for a while. Somehow I managed to throw my back out. Wow - I've never been in so much pain! If you move in the wrong direction even slightly you can feel the pain start. Then it grows and blooms all over your back, around your sides, you clench your stomach and hope you stay upright, and then you remember to breath. Oh brother. I was pretty miserable. But I was very generously given an acupuncture treatment by a friend and, yeah, well, I'm now a convert. It knocked the pain in half! I could move again, and I didn't have any more flare-ups. It was amazing! I started doing some very slow, easy yoga stretches and now a little more than a week later I feel pretty good. I'm still taking it easy, and trying to sit more, not lift anything heavy etc. But the pain is gone.
I was able to do a little bit in the yard, not as much as I wanted to but... you know one has to accept one's limitations.
Things are growing and blooming and are very exciting.
Teddy bear Sunflowers. These are absolutely my favorites. They are so beautiful and fuzzy. I've got quite a few of these.

Orange Cosmos. The purple one's are fine - but they are not these. These are so great. They've got these red streaks on the edges and they are so brilliant orange. I really love them.

The mystery plant. I can't remember what this thing is. I know that I propagated it, but can't remember what it is for the life of me. I'm waiting for blooms of some kind. But so far, nothin' doin'. I had another pot of mystery plants I grew in the apartment. But when I went to transfer them to the ground I found the little tag that said, Chinese lanterns. I hope that's what they are and that they bloom like crazy.

I also tried my hand at some cockscomb, and they've just started "blooming." This flower is a weird one. It looks more like coral than a flower. I'm pretty excited to see what it does.

In the edibles department we have interesting things happening too:
My cherry tomatoes are ripening. I got my first substancial harvest last weekend. A beautiful little dozen, don't you think?
I promptly went inside and made an omlet with tomatoes, baby portabellas, green onions, and feta cheese. Yum.
My green onions are moving along nicely along with my gigantic bush of thyme. I should take some to work today. The best summer recipe which must have thyme follows below:
Cook pasta of your choice. In the mean time, brown an onion in olive oil, a couple of cloves of crushed garlic, add diced zuccini and yellow squash - as much as you want (or need to use up), add the leaves of a couple of fresh thyme sprigs, and a bit of salt. Sautee the squashes about five minutes, add about 2 tablespoons of water, cover and allow to steam for about 5 minutes. Add the cooked pasta and maybe a bit more olive oil, and mix all together. Serve with a little cheese.
If you forget the thyme - it doesn't work. Bon Appetit!

I'm also trying to grow cantelopes. But it occured to me that this might be a plant where you have to have more than one for pollination to work? Anybody know?
My plant is pretty happy where it is, growing like crazy, lots of flowers, but that's all it's been doing for about a month. This weekend, it attacked on of my cherry tomatoe plants. Gotta keep an eye on this one.
And my new crop.... dandadadah! Two new blueberry bushes! When I was at Home Depot last time they had blueberry bushes for something rediculous like $2.67. Usually they are about $20 each. So I got two. I'd like to get them in the ground soon - but I'm not sure about my back yet. We'll play it by ear.
And Jacques is stil keeping watch in the garden. Remember this table which had a foot and a half of snow on it back in February? Well, it has survived another season of the elements (so far) and now it is Jacques throne. Chapter 7: neighborhood changing
And sadly my neighbor hood is changing. And not in a way I'd like it to. My wonderful neighbors decided to buy a house in Western Pennsylvania. They still own their house next door, and will probably be back and forth some, but it won't be the same. Their son will be living upstairs and while we get along, he's not like Mr. El. They also took their dogs with them. There is a big silent hole next door. I miss them. It was comforting to know they were there. I guess their son will be getting a dog too. A pitbul. hmm. We'll see how that goes. What I'm most worried about is how Jacques and the dog will respond. That chain link fence isn't the strongest. We'll have to see what I'm going to do about that. I am really going to miss them.

Chapter 8:?? all the rest I forgot to mention
Right now I don't think there is anything else I wanted to mention. I think I got it all. The heat finally broke on Sunday with a big thunderstorm. I opened all the doors and windows and let the cool air flood through the house. I was finally able to shut off the airconditioners. I just have a fan on and it's pretty bearable. So that's nice.

Hope all is well with all of you. I think I'll put the comments onto moderation. We'll see how it goes.

Catch up post to come soon

Greetings all,
Sorry for not posting for a while. The next one will be a novel as long a Moby Dick - hopefully an easier read though - so get ready. There will be lots to recap workshops, the window stripping job, sewing stuff, moving stuff, cleaning stuff, cooking stuff, and of course how I threw my back out and learned the meaning of the phrase "blinding pain."
So, for the next post, make yourself a cup of tea, coffee, cocoa - whatever suits your fancy and curl up on the couch or in bed with a nice.....er,..... laptop.
:)
Tara

2nd post for Sunday: HOT, herbs, fruit, recipes, squash, sewing, yard, hearingaids, you name it....

It's hot. Very hot. Unbelievably hot. Jacques is just about wilting every time I make him stay inside - the favorite place is on a chair in the kitchen under the ceiling fan. And I just found him locked in the shed. Apparently after I was finished doing the yard around noon he snuck in there and I locked him in. How dreadful! Poor guy. I heard him meowing pitifully, barely, and decided to check the shed. Silly kitty. It must have been so hot in there today. Poor baby.
I had a kind of crazy weekend. Shorter than usual. Don Rash is coming on Monday and Tuesday to give a leather restoration workshop at work. I'm pretty excited about that. But I had to go in on Friday and get a bit of a head's up on next week. I've got too much to do, not enough time ... same ol' song and dance....
But yesterday and today were great. I didn't/don't really have any obligations at the moment. I probably should be working on my lesson plans for September, but it's still June for cryin' out loud! Last Wednesday we had a book fair for the Rare Book and Manuscript Librarians conference which was held in Philadelphia this year. It was pretty good, I say that because I sold two books. :) And for now the pressure is off at the moment in that arena.
So with no pressing obligations I dove into the search for my patterns. I knew I had packed some of my favorite patterns when I moved out of my house. I realize now that I didn't keep all of them. Silly me. But I did finally find the good ones, and then I went through fabric like a mad-crazy person trying to match up what should go with what. It brought back tons of memories of all of the things I've sewn before. Dresses I used to have, fabrics, patterns, etc. I know I dumped a bunch of things at the thrift store. Too bad. But I had no one else to give them too, and I wouldn't fit into them now, that's for sure. Oh well.
In my quest for new patterns I went to Chestnut Hill yesterday because it's the closest shop that has patterns in stock. But they only had one brand. And it's terrible when you can see on the models that the pattern just isn't all that. So I decided I would go to Jo Ann's Fabrics on Sunday.
But as fate would have it, I parked outside of an antique shop in Chestnut Hill. Look what I found:
Six champagne, um, schalen, what the heck are they called in English? Well, they are perfect for that, or a desert cup, or my new favorite summer cocktail:
Barefoot Zinfandel
a handful of fresh raspberries (from one's own vines)
a dousing of the lime flavored soda water from Trader Joe's

I really didn't need to buy them, but they were so beautiful and then because we talked she said, 10% off and I said, OK. I love them.
On my way home from Chestnut Hill I stopped by my Amish Farmer. he had some squash that was quite something: they were supposed to be picked quite a while ago, but ahem, "the wife and daughter let them go too long." So it was one dollar and I thought, well, I can experiment. Maybe I'll grill it or something.
My raspberries are still going strong, if you can believe it!
I'm still getting about a cup per week. Today when I was working outside, I pulled them all up and moved some and gave some to a friend - shoots that is. The rest of these will go into Zinfandel cocktails - or ice cream - haven't decided yet. Speaking of raspberries I called my great aunt this morning to see how things were going. Apparently Germany had just beaten England(?) in the World Cup so we're fine with that. However - I had to listen to an earful about the bloody hearing aide. Ugh. And she still couldn't hear me on the phone. I tried to tell her about my raspberries, Himbeeren, and she understood bears, Bären. The funny thing is you all can understand this because it's a cognate in English. Berrys, - you know, and it does sound a lot like Bears (the animal). Same in German. So she thought I had a bear in my yard. And I couldn't understand why she was so worried about what Jacques thought about that. Finally after the third time I shouted into the phone she figured it out. Who's fault? Mine - because I didn't pronounce things correctly. And somehow those two have gotten it into their heads that my aunt needed the hearing aide because I couldn't understand her. !!! I could not convince them that I had no problem understanding her, she couldn't understand me. HA! what a cruel irony.
I also made Apricot Sauce this week. Yum. Recipe:
very ripe apricots
a little bit of water to get them boiling
cinnamon stick
cardamom pods
light brown sugar
Melissa leaves
And of course I fooled around with this recipe the first night and got it perfect. Didn't get it right the second night when I had more apricots. The problem with seasonal fruit is that you'll just have to wait for a more accurate recipe until next year. But if you're brave you can try this one, just taste as you go along. It's really really good. But seriously, do not use dark brown sugar. It's the wrong flavor.
What are Melissa leaves? They are my new favorite herb.
My grandmother always used to use a Melissa oil for her bath and it smelled divine. Then one of my former students emailed to say she had made tea with fresh leaves. They are lemony but not sour. Perfect in all kinds of things. In addition to the apricot sauce, I put them into my rice tonight:
Rice:
sesame oil
5 green onions chopped
3 slices fresh ginger
1 cup rice
1 ripe tomato
1/2 t. cumin
1 t. coriander
one sprig Melissa leaves
a bit of salt.
2 cups of water.
saute the first 3 ingredients. Add the water and everything else. Bring to a boil. Cook as normal for rice. Enjoy.

Seriously?

This is the news story I woke up to this morning on NPR.
Background: It is not possible to purchase any alcohol in grocery stores in Pennsylvania. Two Buck Chuck? ... is a myth at Trader Joe's in Philadelphia. This is a pain when you have to got to two different places to get all of the things you need because the Wine and Spirit stores are conveniently located nowhere near any other stores you want to shop at.
Here's the story:
The state liquor board would like to try a pilot program of selling wine in grocery stores. The program involves a kiosk where patron will have to insert their driver's licence, then stand in front of a camera for verification. A state liquor board employee will monitor the kiosk from a remote location to verify that the driver's licence is really you. The kiosk is also equipped with a breathalyzer to be sure no one is drunk.
Said a spokes person for the state: "We feel that jumping through a few hoops for the convenience of being able to purchase wine easily located next to the cheese shop or butcher, is a small price to pay for being able to match your wines with nice foods." (I'm paraphrasing - a bit - but not much.)
A couple of things spring to mind here:
1. 1984?
2. I'm not convinced that people who are going to the grocery store to match their fine foods with wines are the ones we really need to worry about, and anyone will to jump through those hoops is really not someone to worry about.
3. Actually, the liquor store is the closest thing to my neighborhood - the grocery store is three blocks further. (but let's not get into that issue in this post.)
4. Why can't I buy cooking sherry, or vermouth in the grocery store!? If I'm going to be matching nice wines to what I'm cooking, how about making it a bit easier access to some of that stuff.

The things you notice - because of your Dad...

New Pennies are being minted! For reals! This would have just been some mundane fact had it not been for my dad. My dad collects coins. Pennies too. He gave me one of those penny collecting books when I was about 9. We had lots of conversations about pennies, which years were hard to come by because of the war, shortages of copper, and the change in the design. I remember asking him if it was hard getting used to switching from the wheat stalks penny to the Lincoln Memorial penny. Thinking at the time that I would never EVER experience such madness as redesigning money. I mailed one of the new ones to my dad for fathers day - he seemed excited about it.
Thank you Daddy for teaching me to pay attention to the details of life. Happy Father's Day!

Catch up

It has been a crazy week.
Monday started me off in the emergency room of Wills Eye Emergency Room in Center City Philadelphia. Believe me this is not where I wanted to end up. Last Thursday I developed something in my eye. It was red and then on Friday it really started to hurt when I blinked. When I looked at it it seemed to have some sort of infected blister on the white of my eye. My theories were 1. some more sumac attacked me (because I seem to have a plantation in the back yard), or 2. when I was stripping the window, I had a reaction to something.
I had an appointment to see my doctor Monday night. My eye was completely bloodshot, painful, and looked teary. People couldn't talk to me without saying, "what's with your eye?" . The doctor in family medicine took one look at me and sent me over to the eye emergency room saying she couldn't do anything for me. "Don't worry," she said, "it's not like a regular emergency room, you'll see someone right away."
Pshaw!
I walked in and there were at least a dozen people in the waiting room. I registered and it took an hour and a half to see a doctor. I finally got in the door and a nurse took my vitals, etc. and then sent me back out to the waiting room with a fancy bracelet with all of my specifics. An hour after that the other registrar took all of my insurance info. I asked her what the timeline was like and she told me it was hard to say. There was a teenager who wouldn't let anyone touch him (I'd already seen him come out into the waiting area cussing a blue streak about people not touching his f***ing eye!) and then a little boy had been admitted who needed emergency surgery.
Finally, four hours later, I saw a doctor (who I have to say was very good - completely stressed out it was obvious - but she was good because she was still very personable.) She didn't know what was going on, looked at my eyes, told me I had a freckle on the back of my eye ("did you know that?") then decided to dilate them. Oh yeah. And then she started poking my eye with a Q-tip. "Does that hurt?" Yes! dammit!
After that - she decided she didn't know what the problem was. She thinks I have "scleritis" - an inflammation of the sclera (doesn't that clear things up?). She said they didn't know what causes it. The treatment is an enormous does of ibuprofen and then because the dose is so enormous, (which might cause stomach bleeding), another dose of something else to deter the stomach bleeding. This is modern medicine? I didn't take the prescription.
At about midnight on Monday, in center city Philadelphia, I was released from the emergency room with my eyes completely dilated. Yay. I caught a cab home, thought it was safest. And it was. Except that I couldn't see the credit card machine to swipe my credit card. I gave the guy a big tip, told him what was up and asked him to watch me get into my house. He did.
And then, there is always icing on the cake....
I had let Jacques out before I went to the doctor and didn't put him back thinking I wouldn't be gone so long. Watsuki must have let him in at some point in the evening which was great. However, she didn't' have the key to apartment so Jacques was stuck in the stairwell. Poor guy. I was so relieved to be home, even though I could barely see and I made it almost to the top of the stairs... when I stepped right into the poop Jacques had made 2nd stair from the top. sigh. One can only laugh at this point. I didn't even see it. I let him in - fed him and then went back out trying to see out of the corners of my eyes to clean everything up. I did the best I could.
I've been trying to recover since Monday night. The junk the doctor put in my eye seems to have helped. The infection started going down by the next day. The redness was quite reduced, and today it's very minimal. I was supposed to go to the doctor on Friday, but then they said I had to have a referral from my regular doctor. (?) Which I tried to take care of but you all know how bureaucracy works. So I postponed the appointment until next Friday. Hopefully I can get the referral - I just really want then to check on things and make sure everything is as good as it can be.
Needless to say, I've been recovering from that evening ever since.
I'm still working on my window sills. I tried using my heat gun but after I burned the wood I decided to stick with the liquid paint stripper. I did try to use the super fast stuff - and promptly burned my arm with that crap. From now on- the Orange Stripper is the only stuff for me. It might be a bit slower and smell funny, but it does the job, it doesn't burn my skin if some accidentally gets on, and yeah, well, that's enough.
This could possibly be the summer project. It will be worth it once it's done. I'm sure it will be beautiful! Plus I'll be able to close shutters. I'm pretty excited about that.
And lastly, while I should have been making a graduation gift for a friend of mine's daughter, I worked on a dress. I feel a bit guilty about it - but I think I really needed a break from my "to do" list.
The dress sewing was prompted by a co-worker, who has been trying to sew an apron dress for a while. I found the pattern she was looking for in my stash-o-patterns when I was cleaning my studio. Ever since then I've been craving the chance to sew my own. I know it has been at least two years because the last time I sewed was in my apartment. And if I'm right - the last time I sewed any clothes was even on South Street which was back in 2003. Oh, no, I did sew some blouses for myself on Spring Garden St. But that was back in 2005-6. So at least four years since I've sewed something for myself. And with this co-worker talking about it quite often - I was feeling the itch to cut some fabric.

This is what I made.
It's a dress I've made once before, with ultramarine raw silk. Backless. But I was 22 at the time. When I tried this on without the yellow addition, I realized, that I can't go backless anymore. For one thing - I still have the tan-line from two years ago when I was wearing a tank top in the garden and got a sun burn. This doesn't look too good backless. So I added the golden piece which covers the rotten tan line, and that part, I think, looks okay. But I did also do some "inventing" on my own and made the skirt a bit wider than the pattern calls for. I'm not sure it looks great. Hmm, We'll have to see. I'll have to try it on for someone I trust to give me an honest opinion.
This week is the Rare Book and Manuscripts Librarians Conference in Philadelphia. There is a big book fair on Wednesday. I should be working on things for that. Instead I'm sitting in front of the fan trying not to sweat too much. There is only so much a person can do in one day.

Jeff's back! Fixing the dormers on the 3rd floor

Well wouldja lookit that! (Compare the left one with the right one). The left one has brand new aluminum capping on it, the right one is still the rotten wood. I've got to see if Jeff will paint the blue stripes back on there - of if he'll let me do that on Friday while the scaffolding is still up. I'm pretty sure I still have some of the paint in the basement.
Jeff talked me into the aluminum siding. He said it would be less expensive than wood and the wood just won't last as long anyway. He said I'd have to replace the wood in 10 - 20 years anyway. He's seen that happen on some of the work he did on houses 10 years ago. The wood just doesn't last long enough. "Wood just isn't made the way it used to be" (huh?) Well, lets hope he's right.
Short post because I have to go to work and still put out the spray foam which I forgot to get for him yesterday.

Back to workin' on the house

Ever since my fabulous real estate agent said, oh look you might have shutters painted shut here on the first floor in the bay window, I've been dying to strip the "molding" around the first floor windows and find out. I decided my summer project would be to strip the paint around the bay window. Even if I don't have shutters back there, having the real wood show through would be more beautiful anyway. What a mess. I don't understand why anyone would paint 15 layers of paint over such beautiful wood. This house must have been amazing back in the day. Everywhere where I find the original stuff, it's gorgeous. Remember the banister? Beautiful Mahogany.
After two evenings of lots of orange stripper stuff, lots of scraping, then sawing, because the shutters were actually nailed opened at one point, my hard work paid off:
I do indeed have beautiful shutters stuck in the walls there. How could anyone ever! paint these open!? The insides haven't been touched - there are cobwebs and a little dust, but I think if I just wipe them down they will be as beautiful as they were to begin with. I also found a lottery ticket from 1983. Wonder if it's still good - or even worth something. Would that be terrific!? And another cool thing is that the shutters are in two halves. Top half and bottom half. So the top half could be open for light, the bottom half closed for privacy. I can't tell you how excited I am about these.
But before I can really enjoy them, I have to finish stripping them. That's going to be a lot of work. At lease now I know there will be a big reward when I'm finished. Yay!
In other news, I finished my other sock. Yep, on Sunday in 90 degree sweltering humidity I sat here knitting. But now, I am all set for November. Problem is, I don't know what to knit now.
Oh, and by the way, I did buy the gold shoes.
What do you think... are they me?

Oh and PS: Jeff's back. (of the fabulous bathroom). He's going to fix the leak on the third floor and pull rotten wood off everywhere and make things look good and be airtight again. Sigh, I don't have enough to pay him for everything that needs to be done, but at least its a start. I've got to look into that lottery ticket.
And then next week that lucky duck is going backpacking through Yosemite. I haven't been to Mammoth for too long. (that's the back side of Yosemite - our summer family vacation place) I should go back.

Home again

Oh boy, home again. Glad to see the cat - he's clearly glad to see me. Had to wake me up every two hours to be sure I was still there. Now he's lying in his basket, snoozing. Poor guy - I have to give him flee stuff today. He's not going to be thrilled.
To sum up the last of Germany, I guess some good things happened. The hearing aides are happening, and my aunt should have them sometime next week. She seems to be excited about them. She keeps turning to my uncle, pointing her finger at him and saying, "you just wait until I can hear again!" I also managed to have a good talk about meals on wheels with both of them. So I hope that happens as well. It would be good for them. It was clear to me by the end of the week that my uncle is not eating enough. When I first got there, he had no energy. Everything was extremely difficult, he really didn't want to do anything and there was no fight in him, like there usually is. I cooked all week, he ate everything I put in front of him, big plate of food, cake, torte, strawberries with cream (he's not supposed to have cream according to my aunt - well, what she doesn't know....) So by Thursday he was happily explaining everything my aunt was telling me as usual, even though I understood everything in the first place. I really hope they get that meals on wheels, they need it.
In the meantime, I'm home, it's really hot and humid in Philadelphia, and my garden needs some serious reigning in. The grass went wild, weeds too, but the tomatoes grew a bit and my raspberries:
Here's my first serious crop of raspberries and there are still more. They are so sweet! I have no idea what to do with them, pancakes? ice cream? preserves? muffins? Or maybe I'll just keep eating a few every time I pass the bowl. I also have a billion potatoes still, I think I'll make potato salad today. That will keep for a while, and will be super yummy.
And since I have to go to market anyway..... maybe raspberry ice cream? Hmmmm :)

The roller coaster ride from hell

Well, lets start with something positive, shall we?
I may actually like knitting socks.
I forbade myself from purchasing too much yarn this time around. However, I did buy this stuff - and knitted these. I'm finished with one now I have to start the other. But these are FUN! They twist! and then when you use the recommended yarn (Regia - designed by Kaffe Fasette) The twists turn the pattern into diamond boxes. I can't wait to finish the other one... which shouldn't take to long....

So the roller coaster started last Thursday evening, when I got to see a friend of mine whom I haven't seen in almost 10 years. So we sat on the patio, it was cold, we talked until 1 in the morning, and I caught a cold. Yup. I was miserable on Friday. All my fault.
Friday. I try to get ahold of the hotel I'm supposed to stay at in Kissingen. (where my aunt lives). We finally get through to a very strange lady, who, when I asked for directions say, well you come to Kissingen and before you come to the bridge you turn right, right before the bridge!! I asked if there was a sign - yeah yeah! call me when you get there, I don't stay there, but I live very close. Me: I don't have a phone - I'll call you this afternoon when I know when I'll be there. Okay Okay - I'll be waiting for you then.
No. First of all, it was left, and second no where near the bridge and third I would only have seen the sign if I were coming from the other direction. It's nine when I get there - and 10 when I finally get out of the car, and ask another hotel where this place is and find it. Oh, says the waitress, it's hidden, and she gives me directions. Hidden is not the word, and it was completely dark. No one anywhere. I find a pay phone - the phone number she gave me answers with something to the effect of, "this phone number doesn't function" Now what. I have no money because I didn't think I needed any - I try call the booking agency with my last three euros, no help. Finally out of money, and completely frustrated, I walk across the street to where there is a beer sign hanging on the door and there is a sign that says, rooms available. I know it's 10:30 at night. I ring the bell. The nicest people I've ever met great me - take care of everything I zonk out.
Saturday - I wake up and I'm feeling much better from my cold and I get myself to my aunt and uncle. All I have to say is that old people should not take care of other old people. Just imagine the smell. It was overwhelming. I ran around opening windows, tried not to freak them out by being upset, but of course by the afternoon I lost it and fell apart in tears. I tried to talk to them about people who could help, nurses who could help. Nope - they don't need that - every thing's been going fine, and it will still be fine. It was horrible.
Sunday - same thing but worse. I fell apart again because I found out some more horrible things about about the way they were functioning that made me so upset. My uncle and I argued, I couldn't hold it together and said I would leave. Then I was forbidden to leave - I finally manage to get out... and it may not have been such a bad thing.
Monday - I run errands. 1. Reading glasses for my Aunt. 2. new house shoes for my uncle (his toes are peeping through the others. 3. other unmentionables 4. talk to someone about a hearing aide. 5. Introduce myself to my uncles nephew whom I've never met - find out he is a great guy, and he's been having the same conversation with them for years. We are all just banging our heads against the wall. Make my peace with the fact that I can't do as much for them as I wanted. Go back to them, they are happy to see me,I find out my aunt almost fell this morning and it scared the crap out of everybody. Their ears are a bit more open now.
Today - the hearing aide guy is supposed to come. Talk about an exciting day. Good lord. What will my aunt wear? This is a two hour conversation. Trying to convince her to get in the wheel chair to move her to the kitchen - forget it. The guy comes - she has 20% hearing in one ear at 105 decible. (that's practically nothing) and 60% in the other ear. The one ear is pretty much blocked, the other is okay. She likes Mr. Müller because he speaks properly, the rest of the people can't speak properly anymore, they all just mumble. Mr. Müller tries to explain that everyone speeks just fine, she just can't hear, she doesn't seem convinced. After an hour of checking things out, my Uncle is exhausted - he can't handle all of this, the hearing aids are going to cost 900 and something Euros each. The best part of all of this is? Mr. Müller recommended some which are self adjusting. She just has to put them on. My uncle the "optimist" says this will never, never work - we can't do this... blah blah blah. My aunt says, "When do I get them?" Now I've got to work this out with the nephew and hopefully my uncle won't manage to sabotage this. It would be so good not to have to scream at her everytime we need to talk. Even though its pretty comical.
"Where is he?" in "Porto"
"Wolfsberg?"
"PORTO"
"ah".
sigh.
I'm trying to get them to have some meals on wheals - I'm trying to think of the best place on the wall so that I can start slamming my head against it.
Oh, and I also had the nerve to bring flowers - my aunt loves them, my uncle ... well - it might have been better if I'd have brought cow pattys. He walked around all afternoon muttering and I finally heard him say, "scheiss Blumen" - (basically f*** flowers) Poor guy.
Alright - bedtime, one more day.

Grüße aus Deutschland!

Yes, I'm in Germany. I'm visiting friends and relatives for a couple of days. And so far it's been great. Even though it rained all day today. that's not fun. But I do need to back up a bit and catch people up.
So last week Watsuki moved into the third floor! I have a tennant! Yay!
And then last weekend my cousin from Germany, who was working in Lancaster for a few weeks came to visit on Friday and Saturday. We haven't seen each other in something like 15 - 20 so it was interesting to see him, catch up, hear about the family - and we "skiped" with his mother and father (my mother's cousin). Okay - that is way coool. Now I've got to figure out how to get into that. Watch out Daddy - you will probably be the first one who will get roped into this.... :)
Anyway - I took Marc-Michael on a Mural tour of West Philly. Saw neighbor hoods I'd never seen before - saw Murals I'd never seen before which were amazing. So that was awsome.
And then it turned out that it was strawberry time at my Amish Farmer. Of course I had to buy a flat before I went to Germany to be sure I had a chance to make strawberry jam. I put Marc-Michael to work. - he was very good at quartering the fruit. We got some very nice jam out of all of the work - and he took two jars home.
Now I'm here in Mainz which family friends which is great. Dietlind and I ran around in the city today and this time instead of buy heaps of wool, I'm going to buy some shoes:
Dietlind is desperately trying to convince me to buy a golden pair. (I can't steel the image so click here to link to the website - okay just tried to put a link in and it won't give me a link to the shoe I want to show you, just to the home page! Grr) They are super comfy but they are gold... yeah, enough said. And then.... they are really really cool, and they looked so good with what I was wearing. I could have worn them. Ugh - decisions.
In the meantime - my book arts friends: How do you like this? Hans (Dietlind's husband) must have the worlds smallest board shear:
I'm so jealous.

Ps: for this post - the spell check insists on being in German (because I'm on German internet service???) - so of course everything is highlighted. I'll fix it when I get home, if I remember.

A Major Misshap

I spilled/broke a bottle of black nail polish in my bathroom. Now it wouldn't have been so bad if it would have just dropped and broken leaving a big black oozing puddle on the tile. Instead it hit the edge of the toilet, broke the neck of the bottle which then spun around, flinging nail polish in all directions before it shattered on the floor. Needless to say - there are tiny black drops of stuff everywhere! I think I'll probably be finding them for years to come. sigh.
Well - at least it comes off with acetone.
This is a project for tomorrow. My friend Babette has been here for the weekend from Australia. We've had a blast! Australians are wonderful people. They are tenacious, positive, happy, and enjoy good conversation. Babette did a residency in North Carolina before coming up the east coast to see me (!) and family. It's been lovely having her here and I'm going to miss her when she's gone.

Happy Anniversary to me!

Yup - signed my life away - two years ago today. I can hardly believe it. But I sure don't regret it. I love this house. Love living here - and slowly, very slowly things are falling into place. I'm getting some important things done, and some things I want to get done. Things are good.
The first update is the 3rd floor. Time for before and after pictures:
The ugly green room before: and after: It looks beautiful. I just have to put the molding in. But first I have to finish painting the baseboards in the bedroom and the hall, and put the molding into the bedroom. That required another trip to that orange do-it-yourself store I am single-handedly keeping in the black. I bought ANOTHER 5 gallons of white eggshell paint. Hopefully this will do me for a while. Lugging 5 gallons up to the 3rd floor is a different matter all together. 5 gallons isn't exactly light! I also had to purchase a few miles of blue tape to do the baseboards, and an electrical cover. I'm starting to do pretty well at my local store. I can find almost everything without having to ask an orange apron.
This past week I worked really hard on the 3rd floor. Finished that front room, painted the hallway and prepped the molding.
On Friday I was able to get out in the yard and finally finish that back part. I had to go out there in full regalia, since I couldn't track down a hazmat suit. Jeans tucked into my socks, longs leave shirt head scarf and hope that I didn't encounter any more poison ivy, although I'm beginning to suspect it was actually poison sumac. I found some of that back there. I'm on my third day of prednezone and it seems to be working. I'm not itching as much as I was before. But my friend was telling me she had the same thing and that it had entered her blood stream and she was getting the mirror image on both sides of her body. Well, I definitely have that! Ugh. I'm also slathering on the Benadryl cream and following up with Tea Tree salve. It's working pretty well. But, well, in the mean time, ...
Jacques is thrilled that I cleared all of that brush from the back there. Can you guess why?
It is the perfect place to take lots of dust baths. Lots of them.
And... my kitty has decided he can climb chain link fences. I discovered this when I wasn't paying enough attention to him because I was talking to my neighbor through her chain link fence. So he went to the back area, and as though it was a ladder, just stuck his paws in between the links and "walked" up to the top. Then he had to show off is balancing act of walking around on the top pole. !!! I'm not making this up.
So what's next? I get to re-clear the other side of the back because it's all growing back again. Yay me. I planted a bunch of seedlings yesterday as well. Let's hope they take.

For all of you mothers out there - happy mother's day. :)

What I have to show for it.

In my last post I talked about working more in the garden.
I scooped up about five large trash bags full of stuff. Three bundles of wood, two more giant bundles of evergreen boughs, and lot of weeds and dandelions. And even though I still have a bit more to do, I was feeling pretty good about it all. Until.....
In the middle of the night on Saturday night I woke up scratching myself. I've gone through this before, I scratch until I break the skin. So in my delirium of sleep I thought - well - what if I slap myself instead? Maybe it will stop itching. It did and I went back to sleep. Great idea right?
Sunday morning I woke up to about five inches of bruising and more itching and scratching.
I painted in 90 degree heat that was building to a thunderstorm with long sleeves because anytime I touched my arms I would scratch.
This morning I woke up and not only were my arms still itchy, but my legs started itching. I threw in the towel went to the doctor.
I now have a dose of a steroid, prednesone, to help fight my nice little case of poison ivy. Lucky me.
Since I still have more to do in the garden, think I'll do it in a hazmat suit. Anyone know where I can get one?

3rd Floor Bathroom? check.

Remember this? Now it looks like this.
SO much better. ¿que no?
And now to tackle the last hideous color left in the house... the green room:
There it is in all it's glory with no flash - yes, that's how dark it is.
And below is an image with the flash so you get a good idea of the color. Lovely.
Seriously, what are people thinking?
I also worked in the garden on Friday for quite a few hours. Slowly slowly I'm managing to clear things away in between keeping everything else from taking over. I have a tray full of seedlings that need to be put in the ground soon.
There are a ton of morning glories, poppies, Shasta daisies, cock's comb, columbine, three different types of sunflowers, echinacea, hollyhocks, sweat peas, cosmos..... can't remember what else. Can't wait for them to bloom - they will be lovely.