Creative Spaces

With the bulk of our house construction now finished, Gage and I have been turning our energies to other pursuits. (I know, I know ... we still have doors to hang, trim to touch up, etc. etc ... we will get it done eventually!) We are blessed in our new home to each have our own "creative space" Both of our rooms are right off of the living room - mine has a wide door (or will have a door one day ... ) so that when I work on projects, I don't feel closed off from the rest of the house/family. However, the door will be essential, so that when I make really big messes, I can hide them. :) An aside: last night I was commenting that since moving into the house, the excitement of some of the conveniences we had been living with out has since worn off (washer and dryer, etc.) However, one thing that I used to often view as a chore I have yet to get even remotely tired of in our new house - cooking. Last night I think I figured out why. In past houses, my kitchen has always been a separate little room, so I was literally shut off from the rest of the house/family when cooking. With my new kitchen, it is really smack dab in the middle of the action. I think I love cooking so much more now because I get to create yummy foods while still being around Gage and Emily. Wow, that was the tangent for the day ... Below is my creative space/craft room from the living room. As I said, neither Gage nor I have taken time to really work on our rooms until now, but we both have great starts! The feature I am currently most excited about in my room is the desk ... this was Gage's that he no longer has a use for, so he gave it to me. Yea! Great crafting space! I'm trying to decide whether to paint it cream (same as the cubbies) or a dark espresso color. I think I am leaning more toward espresso, though I don't really know why ... Here is what is happening in Gage's creative space ... Yum! Shitakes! I'm going to have to start searching for recipes. Gage's creative space really looks more like a lab ... fitting I guess. We don't have Emily's desk set up in her room yet, but she has a creative space, too. Unfortunately, she has to share the space with my treadmill, but I don't think she minds. :)

Finishing Projects

This weekend was monumental - Gage finished the stonework and it looks amazing! Roger and I have already been thinking up other stone laying jobs we think Gage outta do .... I came up wtih laying stone on the front of the kitchen island. Roger thinks he should do a stone cooker in the back yard. :) Someday. The point is, when someone is that good at something, you can't let the talent go to waste, am I right? Two mantels will go on top of the stone walls on each side. The walls are about a foot different in height - just to keep things interesting. :) Inside the walls will provide wood storage. We also found time to catch a few fish this weekend. :) Emily caught this catfish, and Gage and I both caught a bass (mine was bigger ...). Yummy fish for dinner! Back in the garden - about a week after planting my seeds, the tomatoes are sprouting away! In fact, they are growing a little toooo fast. I put them right under the light, but they are still getting a little spindly. Luckily with tomatoes when you pot them up, you can simply plant most of the stem under the soil, leaving just the leaves exposed and the stem will root. The pepper seeds are just starting to sprout, and my flowers are mixed - some sprouted right up and others are taking a little coaxing. I'm finding there is definitely a connection between ease of growing a plant and price you pay for it at the store.

Valentine's Day Treats

Favorite Valentine's Weekend Treats: 1. Making Cookies with Emily 2. Mom and Dad coming to visit 3. Lobsters! 4. A rose bush and fishing pole from my husband (I gave him a mushroom growing kit ... yes, we're weird, but we sure are a good match!) "Okay, but this is the last picture. Can we just eat the cookies already??" It has been since September since mom and dad last came to visit (they were set to come in December, but of course things changed a little bit ...). It was so fun showing them around - our first house guests! Good thing they are understanding, as we don't currently have a door up on the guest room. :) Mom and Dad brought lobsters to cook for Valentine's dinner - delicious! However, as it turns out, seeing a live creature get turned into dinner right in your very own kitchen is pretty traumatic for a nine-year-old. As a result, Emily had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. :) Makes me appreciate the life lessons I learned on the farm. Note to self: Reason #589 for getting some sort of livestock: life lessons. (I'm not going to share the story about Koda getting into the trash that night and crunching on lobster shells in Emily's room, because it's just not cool ... thanks mom for helping with that! We promise to get the door up asap!) Due to President's Day on Monday, I got the day off! I worked on various odd jobs around the house ... not fun, but necessary. Somebody should have warned me that caulking one window could potentially take more than an hour. However, Gage did make me promise to find time to plant my seeds. I got the suckers all planted, and then realized I didn't have anywhere to put them. So, for the past three days, they have been living on the warm floor downstairs ... a pretty good place to start them germinating, even if the light wasn't the best. Last night I bought shelves and set up a little grow station on the loft. Most of the time, it doesn't even occur to me that this is weird - having a whole shelf of tiny plants right in the middle of your living space. It's a good thing I have an understanding husband. Like I said, we are a good fit. :) After I had planted four flats of plants, it hit me how extremely crazy I am. Where in the heck am I going to plant all of these??? I can maybe, MAYBE fit the tomatoes and peppers in the current gardens, but the two flats of perennials??? ... where are they going to go??? I am going to have to start work perparing flower beds soon. Check out this little sprout! He had just been marinating in his warm, dark little flat and popped right up even without light. Neat! Now that I have the grow lights set up, I bet they go crazy! This particular little guy is going to be a black-eyed susan.

Time to garden!

After boldly posting last week that I was sure there would be flowers by this weekend, I realized I had certainly jinxed myself and that, of course there wouldn't be flowers yet. Imagine my delight when I found this happy little crocus in my flower bed this weekend! Daffodils, tulips, and grape hyacinth are also starting to push through the soil. As with most gardeners, after the first of the year, I start itching to plant something ... anything! Spring seems like an impossibly long time off, which leaves me with starting seeds indoors. It has been a number of years since I have grown my own seedlings, so I'm excited to try it again! I dug out and cleaned up my seed starting materials, have been reading up on seed starting tricks, and purchased seeds at Westlake. I also have some great, unusual seeds coming in the mail ... how exciting! One thing I do remember from starting seeds before, is that it is easy to get carried away with too many varieties of seeds. :) I just said I remembered. I didn't say I learned my lesson. :) Here is my plan ... plant one flat (72 plants) of peppers, sweet and hot, one flat of tomatoes, one flat of perennial flowers, and one flat of violas. Oh, I just remembered I have lavender seeds coming in the mail! Add to that one flat of lavender plants. Yikes, that's five flats ... I'm going to have to get another table (and some more grow lights). While this may seem like an obscene amount of plants, it is very easy to justify ... really. (As are most obsessions ...). Here is the logic: One tomato or pepper plant costs anywhere from $2-$4 (that was last year ... they may be more now!). One seed packet costs about 2 bucks. With my current set up, I plan to grow at least 8 plants from each packet which results in about a $20 savings per variety! Okay, okay - so there are a few other costs involved, but it still saves money. Plus I can grow things now! (P.S. The savings on perennial flowers really is huge ... they are just a little trickier to grow). I'm hoping to get my seeds planted by this weekend. Last weekend, Gage tilled my gardens for me. Yes, you heard me right ... gardenS ... as in more than one. You can seen last year's tiny garden in the distance in this picture, next to my make-shift garden shed. In the fore front is my NEW garden! Can't wait! Can't wait! Can't wait! Did I mention that I also have 6 raspberry bushes and 6 blueberry bushes coming in the mail? CAN' WAIT! Okay, back to the house. It is really not much fun working on the house anymore. Thank goodness Gage is much more dedicated than I. :) The only fun part of working on the house last weekend was when we realized that the stonework currently looks like two thrones. Yeah, we took a picture in them. And no, I'm not going to post it. I love the picture, but we do look ridiculous. What's a blog post without pictures of the animals, right? The weekend was sooooo beautiful, and Koda was being silly. Playing dead ... Just kidding! Fun in the leaves!

Weekend Creations

Check it out ... the world's tiniest clay Bernese Mountain Dog (quite possibly the world's ONLY clay Bernese Mounatin Dog). :) My camera refused to focus on this tiny creature. Here he is sitting next to a quarter. This little fellow of course belongs with the tiny clay Werner family and Werner house. (complete with two stray yellow cats on the side. Also, note that Ralph has a bowl of food next to him ...) While Emily was hard at work on her clay creations, Gage, Roger and I were hauling rock and making progress on the stonework. It may not look like much progress, but boy was it a lot of work! Yes, I worked ... look at all of the rock we hauled from Roger's pasture! Here's what it looked like by the end of the weekend. Now that we have all of the rock and the base finished, it should (hopefully) start going faster! The temp is suppose to be near 70 degrees next weekend .... great weather to make some more progress! While this wasn't technically weekend work, I wanted to share our cool rustic bathroom pic, which Gage finished two weekends ago. One shower curtain to hang, and we'll be in business! I also wanted to share a new picture of my kitchen .... for no other reason than because it makes me smile. :) Sunday afternoon, Emily was in town skating with friends, so Gage and I took and break and went rambling around the place with Koda and Dusty. Here is what I discovered in my flower bed! Crocus stems! We may have flowers by next weekend! Dusty lives up to his name with a good roll in the dirt. We finished our ramble by playing with Dusty on/in our little garden shed. Nothing like a great weekend of work and play to remind a person how great life is ...