Antique Buffet Reveal!!

This is a photo montage of my Great Aunt Carrie's buffet before I re-finished it. The white color is from 50,000 tons of water hitting it when the fireman axed through the window in the dining room that it was resting under. The red color is the wood stain that it was before the fire. It's beautiful cherry wood, Duncan Phyfe style. I love it. Partly 'cause I loved Aunt Carrie. She was my Grandpa's little sister and she was kind and good and a lovely person.  I remember this buffet sitting in her bright pink stucco (think flamingo birds!) northern Indiana home, heralding the entrance to the Blueberry Farm she and Uncle Gay ran for years. My sisters and I picked what seemed like gallons of blueberries there every summer. Good memories I'm not in a hurry to let go of.

The buffet was still in pretty good shape after 1 1/2 years of drying out. There wasn't a lot of warping from the water damage, though it did still smell. I sanded, primed, painted, sanded, re-thought the paint color, painted, sanded, painted. Then I sanded and added a coat of polyurethane. I sprayed the hardware a silver nickel color and added the 2 remaining pulls from our kitchen cabinetry.

And here she is:

I also primed the inside of the cupboards. They still smelled like thick, black, nauseating smoke.

No more! Kilz to the rescue yet again.

They are bright and white and smell just fine!

 The black does a great job of hiding the few pieces of missing trim.

What do you think?

Check out Sisters of the Wild West for more inspiration

Thoroughly Fun Homeschooling

20 Years in the Trenches

and

Thoroughly Fun Homeschooling 

are my latest articles over at The Heart of the Matter on-line.

Since I've been buuusssy this week reclaiming my porch, building the library cart from Ana White's site, putting the finishing touches on my be.a.u.tiful restored newly ebony buffet and redeeming my latest Craig's List score I thought I'd be my own guest blogger.

 I'd love to hear your feedback!

(and yes, pictures will follow...)

Blogging Distractions

Sand, prime, paint buffet & hardware
Sand, prime and  paint, decorate (Americana theme) enclosed front porch.
level drain field dighaul rocks from field where the mongo-pile was
leveledburn brush pile in south pasture, even and seed
burn chicken shed
seed fields and lawn
corner round, mud, tape master bedroom walls and closet
 paintmud, tape, small bedroom and closet, cut closet door to accommodate folding doors.
mud, tape closet in H's bedroom
sand, paint, stain main stairs, guard rail and baseboards (paint the risers, clear stain on the treads)
sand, paint, stain attic stairs (chalkboard paint on the risers, color on the treads)
finish sanding drywall and paint laundry room area
paint saying in laundry room area
garden- weed, harvest, put food by: strawberry jam, grape juice, pesto, tom. sauce, sauerkraut (?), herbs, etc.
Small bathroom-- touch up paint, add saying to the wall
Craig's list- pedestal sink and toilet, antique light fixtures (groan)
Sell gently used curriculum (groan again- I so don't want to go there, but I so want these 2 boxes turned in to cash).
paint light fixture for downstairs bathroom dk. brown
plan school for  fall/ includ. creative writing class if that makes
buy curriculum for fall
book a week - kinda, sorta
School- lite with kids.
Build from Ana's site: 2 leaning bookshelves, library cart, craft table (see my plan for a school room here), 2-4 cubby shelves.
Celebrate holidays and summer birthdays
Write several articles
Landscaping

Add to that reading out-loud, regular camp-fires, hanging out by the notoosmall/nottoobig pool, family visits and the regular needs of living. I need more summer!

Chicken Redemption

I think I've mentioned before that I've about filled my life-time quote of chicken. Last week I found 2 recipes that are making me re-think my stance:

Small World at homes inspired me with Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken. I modified it by just stuffing the chicken with cheese, 2 basil leaves, and topping it with pesto. Served with fresh picked, roasted green beans.  A perfect Sunday dinner.

We also made the fresh broccoli/ chicken dish from my new fav cookbook: Serving Up the Harvest. This recipe alone is worth the price of the book!

I was going to do 7 before and after’s for today's post.  While I definitely have for more than 7 before’s,  the "after's" are poking along.

1. Buffet re-do. Sanded the confederate blue and re-painted it black, re-sanded, re-painted, sprayed the hardware  a silver nickel color (to match our kitchen pulls) , and got it inside. LOVE it. BUT, I decided to go ahead and paint the inside of the 2 doors black and Viking Man and I decided it really, really needed a coat of clear stain over top. We need to haul it back out to the front porch but I've been knee deep in windows (see # 6)

2. Laundry room. It's still an old farmhouse basement laundry room. But it does have a chute now (nice for a 4 story house!). That being said,  don'tcha love the color? It's sour apple green, not orange like I was thinking. I went paint shopping with my mil, who has a penchant for green. It's perfect. And the chimney turned brown. We switched around the folding table and put the antique drying rack in the side-yard for summer. It will go against the chimney when it comes back in. We we-organized the tools, took the hanging rack (i.e.KB's closet) to the large basement dorm room and reveled in something else completely.finished.

3. Dining room lighting and usable outlet on the front porch.  Thanks Grandpa Bob!!
4. Powder room off the kitchen, re-painted the area next to the ceiling and added saying. Those small swipes of not-mixed white paint near the top of the walls were driving my compulsive side nuts.

5. Fresh, organic garden produce handcrafted into delicious, healthy meals. I felt like I was the star actress in "The Victory Garden Cooks."

Cole-slaw, green beans and onions, cukes and beet green quiche -which was surprisingly good. Not pictured was the beet/potato salad and broccoli and chicken with cheese (both delish!). I am loving my new cookbook: Serving Up the Harvest

  6. Front porch. HAHAHA. It's so totally in the "before" stage it's not even worth mentioning but I'm going to because we've spent hours on it already. The ceiling is painted, the floor is scraped, the windows are removed, some of them scraped and some of them cleaned, waiting for a coat of fresh paint. 12 windows, count 'em, 12 on the porch alone. Not counting the other 25 throughout the rest of the house. It's one of the reasons we fell in love with the place. We'll have stained or painted all of them before our little house re-build project is done. I still love the windows, yes I really, really do.

7. Hard Work & Relaxing. Went to see the city summer light show last week before Miss. R returned to L'ville. Interesting area history. And of course a great time clambering over the rocks at the falls and checking out area wildlife.

I did read this week: Escape ; a fascinating look at sociopathy and debilitating dependence. What a contrast to In the Land of the Believers . Thoughts on a post about both are percolating but between the house, cooking, gardening and Viking Man's class he is teaching on-line it's been a slow perk.
What did you do this week?

Bounty

We are coming down off a week of company (I am tiiirrred). During that time we got lots of rebuild projects done, but barely stepped foot in the garden. More's the pity because we could have been eating green beans the whole time. The kids and I spent a couple hours weeding and harvesting this morning. Look what we came up with! New potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, beans, cukes, basil, parsley, beets, hot pepper, curly parsley, lettuce (it's been cool for summer time, our lettuce is still bumper cropping), a few onions pulled accidentally,  and cutting flowers (actually, that sweet little bouquet was created by Miss. R. I put cutting flowers in one of our beds this year and I think it's going to be a permanent addition.
On the menu for tonight: steamed green beans, cucumber salad, beet and new potato salad, cole-slaw and fish with pesto. (I'm only throwing the fish in 'cause Viking Man eats meat. Seriously.)

How does your garden grow?

5

~~*~~

Summer Break

*1*

House Work  - got boatloads of housework done with the crew from Ohio. The front door opens (PTL!), all of the wood trim is hauled upstairs and stacked neatly, outlets are drilled with plate covers over them, the kitchen is organized, fans are installed in the bathrooms, the laundry room is almost finished and much more that I am not remembering right now. Tons of little jobs that take forever. WOOHOO. Thanks you Builder Bob and Wendy, and Dan too!

*2*

More house work - we have ceiling and ceiling/wall mudding to do in the bedroom that goes to the attic. Everything is covered and ready for mudding. And we can get to the front porch now that it is mostly cleared. I hope to get it painted and finished soon because that is a whole 'nuther room to live in. Plus it's enclosed and the perfect 3 season room; perfect. Need to borrow or buy a paint sprayer and texturizing machine soon. Anybody out there have one they want to loan or sell?

*3*

Shakespeare Camp was a fantastic experience. The kids did an awesome, stupendous, fantastic job.

*4*

For this amazing recipe go to Janell's blog here.

Fireworks at our house was double the fun because, as usual, there were folks at the river (which borders our south pasture). The cool thing was that they were shooting off fireworks intermittently with ours. The 4th found us at our friends house, surrounded by friends, food, and lots more fireworks.

*5*

Harvested our first cabbage. It is lovely. Beets are up soon and I still need to can the strawberry jam.

Feeche harvests hay with our Green Acres neighbor. He loves working with Stan and loves working outdoors.

*6*

Book list: Escape, The Housing Boom and Bust, The Islamic Tsunami, Crash of the Titans. Over the Edge of the World, Devil in the Details, The War of Art.The boys are still deep in to Lawhead. They finish one and start another. No complaints here. He is a master story teller.

*7*

Pinterest. 'Nuff said.

The Relatives Came is a delightful book that we've read for years and I am reminded of every time we get a visit from family. This week Grandma, Grandpa, Cousin Dan and Miss R came on their way to and from other family get-togethers. They were happy to pitch in and help with the house.

It's amazing what gets done with a larger work-force. Today we got the decrepit front fence down, finished mudding the laundry room and got that 1/2 painted, got the light fixture in the dining room installed, sanded a bedroom, drywalled and mudded 2 large holes in the upstairs landing, switched the refrigerator door handle, addressed the frig leak, hauled the dead freezer up from the basement and re-organized the kitchen.

We lurve our power tools!

Refrigerator doors are surprisingly cumbersome! This was a 2-boy, 1 Grandma job!

 

Builder Bob

Macbeth- Homeschool Style

Saturday from 6:30-8:30 p.m. 24 homeschool high schoolers, under the imitable direction of Mrs. K gave a stellar performance of Macbeth. Using the Dover edition as their script the kids worked for 6 days straight, practicing for 6 hours a day. Costumes created by Ana & Jannell (click on their names to see even more fantastic pictures and a video!), make-up by another high schooler, dry ice, smoke bombs, sound and group t-shirts provided by Shelly and Nora. It was...AMAZING!

The weird sisters.

Miss. I (the black haired witch, above,  did the choreographer). Fantastic performances by all 4! Viking Man recited the "toil, toil" speech right along with the hags. 

Lord and Lady Macbeth. Stellar performances by Feeche and the beautiful and talented Miss. A.

Take note, boys. This is the kind of gal you don't want to catch!

Banquo gets knifed. He perished admirably. Really, a great on-stage death.

 Banquo returns to torment the evil-do-ers.

 Great costuming, great on-stage movement!

 Macduff confronts Macbeth.

The 2 Lords and Lady Macbeth. C. (on the left) played Macbeth for the first 2 acts and set the stage admirably. Feeche took over from there.

The gangs all here. I'm so proud of them I could burst

 and all I did (besides go over Feeche's lines with him several times) was to show up and applaud!

The beautiful and talented Directress, flanked by her girlie and the crazy lady.

The Best of...

...the week.

Best view of our yard.  Here's the garden looking towards the road. We are hard work blessed with 10 acres, which were sorely neglected and abused when we moved in. We have spent the past 8 years hauling and burning tons of trash, removing downed barbed wire and forgotten farm implements, clearing brush and weed piles, re-seeding, weeding and growing gardens. I'm only showing pictures of the good looking beds. If you want to come see the real thing (the weedy, overgrown ones crying for attention you have to come and visit me ; )

French intensive style. Maybe I over packed ? Cukes, cabbages, beets, bush beans, carrots, eggplant, potatoes.

Wildflowers  amidst tomatoes. Someone spilled a packet of tomato seeds- I've transplanted a couple dozen though I have no idea what variety they are.

Squash, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, onions, and way down the row, parsley, basil, spinach and lettuce. Strawberry's on the left and our other over packed bed on the right.

Best Drink: Strawberry, lemon slushies with fresh parsley. The perfect retaliation for the 100 degree weather.

Best food: Fresh homemade pesto. There's none left to take a picture of. Make your own by processing 2/3 c. fresh basil, 1/3 c. fresh Parmesan, 1/3 c. olive oil, 2 Tbs pine or walnuts, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. pepper, 1 clove of garlic. Perfect on pasta, crispy french bread, dressing for meat or salad, with carrots or celery, etc. etc. 

Best Deal:  I walked in to a store and found shoes with a good foot bed- a requirement for my ailing knee- and found, not 1, but 2 pairs of decent looking shoes in my size, long and not wide, 1/2 off. It's a minor miracle).

Best Pets: Our pile 'O Kittens. 6 cutie patooties. We have been having a blast watching them and playing with them.

Best defense against the long, cold, hard winters of the territories. Lots of stored summer goodness; above, dried parsley.

Best activity: Macbeth, performed tonight at a local park.

Little By Little

*1*

My quote for the summer is going to be, "little by little, one travels' far." (Tolkien). I am out of umph but seems like there is lots in our lives that is still requiring it. I'm a "get 'er done" kinda a person and I will be working to the bitter end if that's what it takes, dragging along whomever I can grab ahold of with me in order to.get.things.done.  I am just so beyond that in terms of energy this year (not to mention the fact that my natural walking pace of "fast" might be forever gone) and am contenting myself with much smaller bites. It irks me to walk away, however slowly,  from projects (like rooms or floors) and leave it till "later." And yet, that is exactly what I am doing, day after day. This week we finished the master bedroom closet and got 3 coats of paint on it (dryboard is thirsty stuff). I doing the woohoo dance, even though there are more closets, and more rooms and more drywalling and painting and sanding and staining and etc. left to do. It's good enough for right now.

*2*

Ana has more fun and fabulous pictures of Shakespeare Camp posted over at her blog. They look like they are having a blast. How could they not be? It is a combination of intellectual challenge, drama and fun with friends. Winning combo!

*3*

The notsolittles started on their nature journals this week, beginning by creating illustrations featuring beavers, one of our many critter neighbors. KB's dog has actually swam with the beavers that live in our river and we saw beaver kits this spring. It is so romantic and yet they have destroyed an entire stand of young trees, which is just down right irritating. I'm checking out books on North American Wildlife so that they can write a paragraph to go along with their drawings. We are using the Draw Write Now books as inspiration.

*4*

The only other schoolish thing we've done this week is to go over a brief synopsis of Macbeth so that the kids aren't totally lost during the performance tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

*5*

I've read little but Science News and Ranger Rick articles lately. Did you know that scientists have already created and implanted computer chips in the brains of paralyzed patients? Or that ancient pre-hominid type females moved away from home as adults, whereas males did not? My theory is that the shopping was probably better somewhere else.

*6*

4th of July at our house is a holiday. Viking Man loves fireworks and his little tribe of 5 have caught the fever. Flower has been doing the "can't wait till June is over so we can spend big bucks on explosives" countdown for about 2 weeks now. Sunday we are going to blow things up. Monday we'll go to a community event and watch more things explode and in between we'll eat cole-slaw (KFC copycat recipe here!), water melon and shrimp ka-bobs. George Grant writes about An Experiment in Liberty. 

*7*

A beautiful blog post by my friend Lydia on gratitude. I've written enough this year about working on holding more than one thought at a time in my mind. Grief and loss along with thanksgiving. The realization that things are gone and gratitude for what it's been replaced with. Forgiveness and release along with recognition of what was or wasn't. It's been a difficult balancing act and I have failed more than not. My husband keeps telling me, preaching to me really, that we are not made for this world. That we are heavenly bent and so our hopes and dreams will always ring shallow and hollow here.

Little wins. Little by little, one travels far.