fall tablescape

Since Halloween is, like, so last month, I updated my dining room table for fall.

Also, my little candy centerpiece only lasted so long before my grubby little fingers dug into it.  As in, I devoured all that candy in a week.

So this is what’s currently on the table.

A big ceramic pumpkin, three orange candles, and a bunch of mini-pumpkins stacked on top of my Aveda metal platter.  The glass candle holders have some beaded branches in them that nicely complement the berries & branches runner.

And I added a little fun to the chair in the corner.  I call this masterpiece “bucket of dead stuff”.  I grabbed a bunch of dead stuff from the yard and stuck it in this metal bucket.  It’s subtle and fall-y and I love the different textures of the different plants.  Even more, I love that it was completely, totally, 100% free.  Gotta love free seasonal decor!  And!  As a special bonus, I even got a free eye roll from the husband for thinking that dead stuff = home decor!

What’s on your fall table?

weekend update

We had a really great weekend.

Friday night was lazy and awesome.  I worked on a baby blanket for our friends Kitty and Mike, who are expecting their first baby in December.

I saw the polka dots when I was at the fabric store buying fabric for a super-fun Christmas project that I’m working on and had to have them.  Fortunately, the zoo animals were close by and were a nice little complement to the dots.  And the fabric was a soft flannel, so I think it will be perfect for a little baby!  I’ve never sewn flannel before, nor have I used the machine to bind a quilt, so I was really happy with how this one turned out!

Kitty and Mike (and their adorable doggy, Gracie) drove up from Chicago on Saturday to visit with us, and we had a great time showing off the house, walking through the woods, and watching the dogs play Barley and Jezzie bug Gracie and Gracie completely ignore Barley and Jezzie.  It was hilarious.  And deafening.  Our little doggy has quite the high-pitched bark.

I still can’t get over how big Jezebel is getting!  She’s certainly living up to the nickname my brother gave her: Jezzy-bear.  Because when she rears up on her hind legs and growls at Barley to get him to play, she looks just like a little bear.

We also call her our little bully.  Because she’s some sort of bulldog, and also?  Totally a bully.  She’ll kick Barley out of his bed and steal his toys, and he lets her.  He also tattles on her when she’s naughty (he’ll come over and stare at me when she’s chewing on something that she’s not supposed to) and runs to find her when she gets lost in the woods (lost in quotes here because she’s usually not lost, just matching the leaves and invisible to my near-sighted human eyes).  Their doggy dynamic is pretty cute.  Kind of what I imagine human siblings to be like, only with less growling and chewing on sticks and bones.

Yes, bones. Like, RAW ANIMAL BONES found in the woods that Jason and I did not give her.  You know, BONES that deserves caps + bold + italics because the whole situation is disturbing and disgusting and I can barely handle it, except that she is so darn cute that her cuteness makes up for the nastiness of the bones, at least when she’s sleeping.  Yep, our little doggy has an amazing capacity to find bones in the woods.  As in, she’s found 5 big bones in the last 48 hours out there, and my explanation is that the previous owners hunted and threw the deer bones back into the forest, and if you ruin this and tell me it sounds like we live on ancient indian burial grounds or like the movie Pet Cemetary or any other spooky haunted movies I will totally lose my cool.  Big time.  Because I am a big scardy cat.

Moving on. The temperatures here were in the 60s over the weekend – perfect fall weather.  I woke up Sunday morning to some serious fog rolling through our neck of the woods and snapped some photos.  It was simultaneously eery and cool.

Yesterday, Jason installed new motion-sensored lights around the perimeter of the house and garage.  Our old ones were broken (only about 1/2 of the light fixtures would even hold on to a lightbulb) and we wanted the lights to be on motion sensors for a little additional security.

I bought our first rake, raked for 20 minutes, decided that even though it was a well-spent $7, raking was miserable.  So I stopped.  Still have not worked out how we’re going to get rid of all 4.2 trillion leaves in the backyard, but am certain that when all the leaves are removed, I will deserve a trophy.  Or a margarita.  Instead, I spent yesterday afternoon working on some furniture I’ve got sitting in the garage.  I hope to finish my garage projects in the next few days, since we’re supposed to have super-warm (read: 50-degree) temperatures this week.

time to be thankful

I think I mentioned that I’d show you the pictures on our staircase today, but I changed my mind (and the big frames have stock pictures in them still – maybe I’ll get around to printing new pictures for them this weekend).

Instead, I thought I’d talk about something that’s on everyone’s minds this year: giving thanks.

This week, I am especially thankful for work that I enjoy doing.  Or will enjoy doing.

I got a job offer a few weeks ago and signed the paperwork this week!  Not just any job – a job that, after much reflection, is exactly the type of job that I want.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I gave a lecture at localsmallprivate college, and since then, I have been asked by localsmallprivate college to create and teach my own course in my area of expertise this spring.  Granted, it’s only part time and only spring semester, but it’s something.  A really cool something. I’ve taught college courses before, but never had the freedom to design and implement my own course on topics of my choosing, so I’m really thrilled to get this experience.  It will also be great to see the difference between teaching at largemajor university and smallprivate college – I am sure that I will learn a lot in the upcoming months.

In the meantime, I’ve found another job teaching elementary school kids in an after-school program.  I just started on Tuesday, and have only taught three classes, but I really like it.  And I come home absolutely exhausted.  A big high-five to all of the elementary school teachers out there… if I am this tired after one hour with 10 kids, I can’t even imagine what 8 hours with a classroom of 24 kids is like.  I’m learning very quickly that classroom management is slightly different for elementary vs college students – with elementary school kids, I’m constantly asking them to be quiet or sit down, and with college kids, I’m usually asking for class participation!

And, it looks like I might grab a third job this winter as a ski coach.  I learned to ski when I was 2, began racing when I was 6, and raced through college.  I, unfortunately, haven’t had as much time to spend on the slopes in the past few years, and when I wasn’t out on the slopes all winter, it really felt like something was missing.  So I’m kind of looking forward to grabbing a season pass, setting some courses, and watching little racers learn to love skiing.

What I’ve found most interesting about not being gainfully employed the past few months and picking up some of these small side jobs (instead of continuing on the career track that I was on) is that I’m really truly happy.  This is not where I thought I’d be a year ago, or 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago.  I mean, who envisions themselves as a 28-year old stay-at-home doggy mama with an advanced degree?  Last winter, when Jason got the job in Michigan, I knew that if he took it, it would mean a drastic change in career trajectories for me (because there are no openings here to do full time what I did in Minneapolis).  I didn’t know, though, that it would be a good thing.  A really good thing.

Last year at this time, I couldn’t imagine being unemployed (especially after 8 long years of higher education + 2 years of post-graduate training).  I enjoyed my job, and thought it was a viable career.  Yes, it was stressful much of the time, as I imagine any job is when you’re constantly trying to prove yourself, show your skills, and do your absolute best in spite of challenges.

Deciding to move here was a huge challenge in teamwork that Jason and I faced as a newly-married couple.  Moving here was not in my best interest career-wise, but it was in our collective best interest.  Having not been to this city before agreeing to move, I had to put a considerable amount of trust in Jason that this would really work for us.  And, as someone who always wants to make her own decisions and do her own thing and figure things out for herself, this was really really hard for me.

But!  We’re here.  And I’m really happy and thankful that we are here.  Even if here is not where I ever thought I’d be.

And, even on days when the dogs are driving me nuts or I’m sick of cleaning the house, I am so thankful that my husband is so good at what he does and that he’s able to support our little family.  I’m thankful that I have the freedom to explore a new career avenue, thankful that I have the flexibility to take care of and set up our house to really make it our home.

To end on a lighter note, this week we’re also really thankful for:

1. Country vets – because Jezzie has a pinworm and a vet visit + fecal sample + medication cost us a whopping $26.  Those of you with dogs will know how ridiculously amazing that is!
2. A new faucet! Thanks to the folks over at One Project Closer!  YES!
3. Some DAP goodies that will be coming our way, compliments of the DAP people.  You should all know by now that I hate spending money heating the house… so getting rid of holes and drafts and eliminating our heating costs will make me very happy.
4. Friends!  Our sweet friends Kitty and Mike and their doggy, Gracie, are going to come visit us this weekend!  Yay!

What are you thankful for this week?

the downstairs hallway

This has sort of turned into an impromptu “hallway week” so I’m going to roll with it and show you the rest of our first floor hallway.  Thrilling, I know.  (Okay, actually, I am a little thrilled about it because we’ve actually hung up pictures in almost every room in the house.  We haven’t seen some of these pictures/frames since 2006 – we never really got around to hanging pictures in our last two homes before it was time to move on…  Anyways, the hanging of the pictures is making me feel like this is really *home* and it’s a happy feeling.)

Here’s a view of the hallway from the back of the house.  You can see our little landing strip up near the door.

I love this picture of a hallway with a whole bunch of mirrors, and would love to do that in my own house.  Our hallway is so dark, that a few big and strategically placed mirrors might help reflect a little bit of light around here.  On the other hand, do I really need to check myself out while I’m wandering the house in my pj’s all day?  Maybe I don’t want that reminder that I’ve been wrestling dogs and not brushing my hair.  Hmm.  Will have to think about that.  What do you think?  Are all of these mirrors cool or creepy?

From Design*Sponge

For now, we just hung some silver picture frames and small mirrors – because that’s what we had already. But I’m not sure they’ll stay forever.

I took pictures of the dogs’ profiles and used photoshop to turn them into little doggy silhouettes.  And I love them.

Also, note the positioning of the mirror in the above picture.  Mirrors should always reflect something pretty, right?  Like the view out the kitchen window.  Mirrors should certainly NOT reflect ugly things… like last night’s dinner mess that someone didn’t clean up yet.

The little picture trio in the front of the house is nothing really to write home about… a few black and white photos of our trip to Hawaii in 2004, and another mirror reflecting the photo goodness on the wall behind it (more on that tomorrow).  Again, the mirror reflects pretty stuff (and not the mess on the steps that I moved to take the picture.  Looks like I’ve got some cleaning to do today!).

So that’s our little hallway… made more homey with pictures.  Yep, it finally feels like we’re getting settled in here.

our landing strip

Just inside our front door, we’ve got a little hallway nook that’s perfect for a little landing strip.  And by landing strip, I mean that one spot in the house where you drop everything the second you enter the door.  Do you have one of those?

After repainting the walls a fresh griege-based whitish color (Martha Stewart’s Mercury Glass), we hung our little “welcome” sign with hooks (purchased from Urban Outfitters last winter) and a mirror (so that I can check out my hat hair come winter).  The bench was from Lowe’s a few years ago, and has a shelf for shoes and a secret bench compartment for storing gloves, hats, and mittens in winter.  Speaking of, I woke up to 30 degree temperatures this morning… it’s only a matter of time before the snow starts flying here…  YIKES!  (Coincidentally, that’s what the orange sign hanging on the hook says.  It was in the halloween section at Michael’s, but I like it so much that it might get to stay up for a while.  YIKES!)

Here’s a view of the entire area… a metal star on the other side of the door balances out the mirror, and we’ve got a little orange bucket with umbrellas for rainy days.  Luckily, we’ve got a coat closet nearby to store extra shoes and coats, so this area can stay clutter-free and full of only the things we need easily accessible on a daily basis.

For a glimpse at some other little landing strips that I love, check out Young House Love or All Bower Power.

hallway picture grid

I’ve long been a fan of pictures hung in a grid.  Like so:

From Things That Inspire

From Apartment Therapy

From Metropolitan Home

So when I came across a box of the frames we used as our wedding table markers, I quickly figured out what I wanted to do with them.

You can’t see the full frame in this picture (believe it or not, this is the best picture I have), but each frame has a picture of Jason and I at the age numbered in the frame.  Or a close approximation of that age.  Actually, one of the pictures is of Jason’s brother, Kevin.  Oops! I made these when Jason was away one weekend and had to guess at some of the pictures.

Anyways, after painting our hallway a fresh neutral (it’s sort of white with greige undertones – Martha Stewart by Valspar’s Mercury Glass), I pulled out the box of these frames and got to work.  I used some serious math skills, a yard stick, and a level, and it took about 45 minutes.  I’m also insanely proud of the fact that I didn’t put any unnecessary holes in the wall (a rarity in this house – usually hanging pictures involves at least one misplaced nail hole).

(Ignore the pinkish tones in the below pictures – I  blame our craptastic recessed lights for the weird coloring here.  I’m sure I’ll rant about them sometime in the near future… maybe after I rip them out and replace them with something that actually, you know, gives off light.  Because the increasing lack of sunlight + small windows + these craptastic old recessed lights that don’t fit energy efficient lightbulbs or give off nice amounts of light = seasonal affective disorder.  Rant over.)

After spending hours making these bad boys, I am very happy to have somewhere to display them over and above the few hours they were displayed on our wedding day.  And, we’ve decided that if and when we have kids, it would be pretty darn cute to replace our childhood pictures with pictures of the kids on each of their birthdays!

What do you think?  Anyone else a fan of the photo grid?

leaves!

Every day for the past few months, I’ve been admiring the magnificent fall beauty in my yard and smiling.  How lucky am I to live in such a beautiful place?

Check out the progression of leaf coloring here:

(and try to ignore the super-huge-gigantic satellite dish that is partially obstructing your view)

Pretty, right?

And then, a huge gush of wind came, and what looked like a leaf blizzard fell (it was actually really pretty).

And our yard was covered in leaves.  And we played a lot of a kind of scary game called “Where’s Jezebel?”

Because our newest addition to the family is dead leaf colored.  Who knew?

She could be less than 10 feet from you (and usually is less than 10 feet from you) and you’d go into full she’s escaped into the woods and is being eaten by coyotes panic, begin to yell her name frantically, and then look down to see her staring quizzically at you.  Like, “What?  I’m right here.”

When we weren’t looking for Jezzie, we were watching the dogs run through the leaves.  I’m not sure why, but our doggies love playing chase through dead leaves.

And then, this weekend, we decided that we should probably figure out what to do with all of these leaves.  When Plan A (mulching leaves with lawnmower, letting them sit in the grass all winter) dramatically failed due to the excessive amounts of leaves we have, Plan B went into full swing.

Unfortunately, Plan B was sort of an exercise in stupidity.  We didn’t (and still don’t) have the right tools for the job.  As in, we used the blower function on the shop vac and a snow shovel for leaf removal.  It took all afternoon, and we only removed leaves from half of the yard.  I spent the first 10 minutes of my leaf-shoveling experience wondering if I was too old to jump in the gigantic leaf piles I was making, and the subsequent 4 hours and 35 minutes understanding why the Duggars have 19 kids.  IT’S FOR LEAF SHOVELING!  THAT MUST BE IT!  BECAUSE IF I HAD 19 KIDS, I THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE BY NOW.

So, Santa, we’re adding a few things to our Christmas lists:

1. rakes
2. gas-powered leaf blower
3. the cyclone rake (+ a riding lawn mower to attach it to)
4. someone to use the above equipment come next fall

Happy (early) Halloween!

I thought I’d sign off for the weekend with a picture of our only remaining halloween display – the pumpkins we carved during our trip to the farm with J’s brother, sister-in-law, and our niece and nephew.  I’ve always carved a pumpkin for Halloween, and even though there are tons of pretty pictures of painted or otherwise glammed up pumpkins floating around on the web, I couldn’t do it.  I had to stick with my elementary rendition of a jack-o-lantern, made possible by my lack of control with a carving knife.

The moral of the story is that I *heart* holiday traditions.  Even if a third-grader could have done a better job.

We did learn a new carving trick this year, though: instead of making a hole at the top of the pumpkin, cut out the bottom of the pumpkin.  It’s much easier to get the guts out, and you don’t have to worry about the pesky lid on your pumpkin rotting away and falling in.  When it’s time to light the candle inside the pumpkin, simply life up your jack-o-lantern, light the candle, and put the pumpkin back down over it.  (My pumpkin – on the right – was done using this method.  Jason’s – on the left – was not).

(On a side note: remember that halloween candy-filled centerpiece?  Ha!  What a joke. I think it lasted a week.)

We’re planning on a low-key weekend.  J will be watching the world series (he’s a huge Phillies fan), and I will likely be making photo Christmas cards for a few -ahem- clients, and writing a book chapter that I should have written a long time ago.  And, if we’re lucky, and the weather is nice, we might even get to clean up some of the fall mess that is plaguing our yard.  Thrilling, I know! 

Hope you all have a spooky Halloween!

our fancy sink

When our little nephew, Peter, was visiting a few weeks ago, he noticed that we had a “fancy” sink.

No offense, Peter, but I respectfully disagree.  Love our on-the-cheap kitchen update… hate our sink.  The inside of the sink is stained and is small, which makes handwashing dishes (we don’t have a dishwasher) a bear.  And the faucet!  Don’t even get me started on the faucet… not only is it ugly and the enamel is starting to come off, but it flings water everywhere and is at the exact wrong height to successfully wash any dishes while expecting to stay dry.  Boo!

Given our recent heater/heat pump purchase, though, a faucet and sink is TOTALLY out of this month’s budget.  But then!  Enter One Project Closer… and… Could it be?  ANOTHER contest?  This time they’re giving away a Price Pfister faucet, and boy-oh-boy would I like to get my grubby little hands on it.

I’d totally pick the Ashfield faucet in nickel.  And it would look smashing.  See?

Much better.  And while I’m daydreaming about sinks, why not add in a big old farmhouse sink and new countertops?

And, hey!  Might as well get rid of the nasty off-white floor tiles that the previous owner glued to the wall in lieu of a backsplash, right? Here’s what a shiny new glass tile backsplash would look like…

Much better!  Now THAT is a fancy sink…

 

heater, heater, pumpkin-eater

This is officially going to be the lamest blog post in the history of blogdom.  Bear with me.  I’ll even intersperse doggy pictures to keep you entertained.  In fact, why not skip the text and just check out the pictures.

We bought a heater!  And a heat pump!  Yay for warmth!  Boo for the big expense on something that is not at all pretty!

When we bought the house, our inefficient 18-year old heater had cracked heating coils (and we didn’t have an air conditioner).  We anticipated buying a heater before it got too cold here, and finally decided to take the plunge the first week in October.  We learned a few things during our heater shopping that I thought I’d share, just in case any of you are in the market for a heater.

We looked into geothermal heating for a minute, and it seemed like a pretty cool thing.  Energy efficiency, lower bills, what’s not to love?  The upfront cost and the digging up of our yard were a bit much for us to swallow, though, so we opted against it.  (Geothermal heat is about twice as much as a regular heater to get going, not to mention that they’ve got to dig several wells deep into the ground.  Since we fell in love with the land that this house is on before we even purchased it, destroying our beautiful wooded lot was not really an option.  We were also told that because of our location in the woods, we’d need to have an open ended loop – meaning that the water circulating through the geothermal heating pipes would be freshly pumped from our well and then dumped after making it’s journey through our house.  This didn’t seem ultra-efficient to us.)

We ended up going with a Lennox furnace/heat pump – mostly because we felt comfortable with the guy selling it and also because the company we purchased it from (Bel-Aire Heating) could install it the following week.  My parent’s friend (a heating specialist) also confirmed that it was a good brand.  Sold.

The furnace has a variable speed blower and modulating heat output, which is fancy language for it comes on only as much as you need it to and when you need it to.  Excellent.  The heat pump will operate as our air conditioner in the summer (if we even need it), and will also heat our house until it’s about 30 degrees outside, at which point, our furnace will take over.  Since our furnace runs on propane (no natural gas out here in the country), and propane can be crazy expensive, our electric heat pump should save us a bunch of cash during spring and summer, and minimize our need for propane.

Of course, we also had to throw in the humidifier and a good filter (lots of allergens out here in the country + dog dander + occasional whiff of stale smoke from previous owner who died 10 years ago = good filter needed).  We could have gotten a filter with a UV-light that is supposed to kill pretty much everything that enters, but when we found out that this option could be added on later for $100, we decided to skip it for now.  My parent’s friend mentioned that this UV-light filter was sort of hit or miss – some people notice a difference, others don’t.  And we now have a fancy schmancy touch screen programmable thermostat to play with.  As soon as we read the instruction manual to figure out how it works.

Mind you, I learned all of that in the last 3 weeks.  I am now a tome of information that no one wants to know.  Let’s all hope I have something more exciting to write about tomorrow, and that I haven’t lost all 5 of my readers at this point.  (I mean, the dog pictures should have kept at least 3 of you interested.  Right?)

Our nephew Peter was pretending to sleep; Jezebel was really sleeping.  Note that he was sweet enough to share his special toy – his cuddle bear – with her!