I made Black Cocoa Cut-out Cookies and we had our quarantine bubble friends over for a little cookie decorating party.  I love how they turned out and the recipe is tasty too. 

Bea made tapioca pudding. It's usually a treat that Aunt Jennifer makes for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I told Jennifer she could delegate the tapioca pudding making to her niece. I made another recipe from the Baked cookbook – Raspberry Breakfast Bars. I used frozen raspberries and they turned out great. I'll add them to my…

I am so relieved that we are able to celebrate Halloween this year. It's one holiday that we really missed in Switzerland.  I took the girls and their friends to buy pumpkins the other day. And we have our front door decorated. Looks like a vampire squid is eating my sewing machine.

I took a morning walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden today.  There were so many busy birds out. I tried to get some photos of them. I've never really tried to take bird photos before. I sat and watched them and tried to be patient. It helped that the gardens were not busy on a…

We got some much needed nature today. Went to the Ray Lake Forest Preserve which is about a 40 minute drive from home. I'm sure I took too many photos.  These wooly worm photos – I have some similar ones from many years ago. Photos of Bea handing off a tickling wooly worm to her…

Time is just chugging along here. Nothing too exciting happening. Lots of staying home. Brian and I bought a couple pumpkins last weekend and this guy greeted us at the nursery. I planted a baby Oak tree. It's a Red Oak. Unfortunately we've had to take down some big old unhealthy trees (mainly elms) in…

The girls and I took a quick trip to Midland over the weekend. We had a really nice visit. I've never gone so long without seeing my mom and sister! I was too busy chatting and catching up to take many photos – oops. No, Bea is not standing on anything in the photo above.…

I'm making steady progress on my basement redo.  I stripped the paint off the old metal outlet covers. I might just leave them in this sort of rustic state. The metal looks masculine and it goes so well with the blue wall color.  I bought an old cedar chest. It's called a Dillingham Bluebird Chest…

When we moved in to our house I remember seeing all the blue trim and talking about how I just don't like blue. And now look at me – I'm painting our whole basement blue! Here's where I left off in my last update – so much sanding! And now I'm deep into the painting…

Now that we've solved the leak and had the asbestos flooring removed I'm deep into the redecorating of our basement. It's all I can think about. Here's where we started: Here are a few of my inspirations. And here's what it looked like after the asbestos removal people were done: It felt pretty bleak –…