Laowai

Every year I make a Christmas wreath for my mom-in-law. This year I made one from egg cartons. I like how it turned out.

He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over each pane, like a fairy, crept;
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stepped,
By the light of the morn were seen
Most beautiful things; there were flowers and trees;
There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees;
There were cities with temples and towers; and these
All pictured in silvery sheen!

by Hannah F. Gould

Oh these windows, oh this old house. It needs so much love. In the meantime we’ll try to enjoy the pretty patterns of frost. 

Bea wrote a poem:

Snow, snow, snow
It’s snowing and I’m knowing
that winter is on its way

When Brian and I went to New York I bought some pretty ribbon to make a skirt for Claire. Claire prefers wearing skirts and dresses right now. She’s been wearing a couple little skirts that I made for Bea a reallly long time ago and they are finally getting a little snug and too short for her. I used the Lazy Days Skirt pattern which is free on the Oliver and S. web site. The special thing about this simple skirt pattern is the ribbon hem – the raw edge gets cleverly encased in the ribbon. The fabric is the same as one of Claire’s favorite dresses so hopefully she will like and wear this skirt.

Also, I got my couch and chair back from the upholsterer. Yipee! Everytime I walk by them I’m a little surprised and very pleased. I was really happy with how my first upholstering projects turned out – thanks to the really talented and helpful people at Covers Unlimited! Sorry to sound like a comercial.

Both the chair and the couch were pieces that we inherited or were given. The chair came from one of Jennifer’s high school friends – somehow their family gave it to Jennifer and later I ended up taking it to college. I remember curling up and reading in that chair for hours – it was always so comfy for me. The couch came from the Dow Foundation building. It’s a very good quality couch. I think it had been sitting unused in the basement for a long time and Doug gave it to Brian when he bought our first house in Midland.

I don’t think I showed you our new basement couch that we got from IKEA, but we went from one couch to three in less than a year. We have lots of soft seating now. I think I had better be done buying furniture for a while!

Our house is feeling cozy this week. The temperatures dropped and it just feels good to walk in and feel the warmth.

When we returned from New York the girls had decorated for my birthday. Of course they had lots of help from my mom. She brought doilies and they made a darling garland. Say that five times fast. Darling garland, darling garland, darling…

This is the note that Bea made for me before we went for my big birthday trip. Brian showed her pictures of all the big landmarks in New York and then she drew them.

My gift from Brian and the girls (besides my fantastic trip to New York) was a penguin scarf. 

And look what else was waiting for me – my Christmas cactus in bloom. I love Christmas Cactuses… Cacti. Here’s how I take care of them: I treat them horribly all year long and then they bloom reliably year after year. Plus they remind me of my great grandma Fosher – I can picture the huge one she had on her back porch.

So when the temperature dropped to the single digits and it snowed and the girls were excited to put on their snow pants I felt justified in breaking out the Christmas crafts. I’ve been obsessed with little cardboard houses – putz houses. Today we painted and tomorrow we’ll break out the glitter.

I hope your house is feeling cozy too.

I’m just going to skip over any Halloween post because I’m feeling behind and because the weather was so dreadful, I didn’t get any good photos.

We’ll go right to a report on my 40th Birthday! One of the benefits of having a thoughtful husband who travels all the time and has tons of airline miles: he surprises you with a weekend trip to New York. Without the kiddos! I also benefit from having a patient mom who is willing to spend the weekend with those kiddos.

Here’s the silly inspirational soap wrapper from the hotel. It was our mantra for the weekend. Ha.

We walked and walked on Friday and then saw Aida at the Metropolitan Opera that evening.

 

This is the kind of store I dragged Brian into – he was very patient. 

The weather was great for walking – we did more of it on Saturday. We headed to the High Line partly because Bea and Claire have a sweet book about it and we thought it would be fun to tell them we went there. It’s an old elevated rail line that has recently been turned into a landscaped park.

Saturday night we went out for a delicous dinner complete with amuse bouche from the chef and many little courses each paired with a complimentary wine. On Sunday morning we had enough time for a stroll through central park – there was still a lot of Fall color – so pretty.

It was all wonderful – the best part is having uninterupted time to talk and talk and focus on each other. THANK YOU BRIAN.

We’ve been soaking up that last warm sunny days of the year and doing all the things that you can only do in Fall.

I’ve also been appreciating indoor plumbing this week. We couldn’t flush or run any water down our drains from Thursday to Monday last week. Our sewer line was plugged with roots and the plumbers had a hard time getting at the section of pipe. We tried to spend a lot of time away from home and we spent one night at a hotel. Now I’m catching up with laundry and looking forward to a fun Halloween for the girls. 

Mom came last weekend and I finally got around to looking through the photos today. We had fun with grandma and I was so glad she was here… but it wasn’t our best weekend ever. Bea was getting over a flu bug and then I got it. So I spent most of Sunday in bed while grandma tried to entertain the girls. It was a huge blessing that she was here because Brian was traveling most of the weekend. And it was one of those occasional times when I really had to go get in my bed so my head didn’t explode. If she hadn’t been here the girls would have been finding their own meals which would probably have been granola bars, goldfish crackers and water. 

We did get to go to the botanic garden on Saturday. We took all our umbrellas and watched the Halloween dog parade – I decided it was really a parade of kooky people who dress thier dogs up. Some people really go all out and it was very funny. They also had a club of fruit growers who were showing off and selling their apples. We got to taste test some unusual varieties – we even tasted a paw paw. The older men were really eager to tell us all about their apples – it was nice. I thought of Doug and how he would have liked talking to the men. We bought a bunch of northern spy apples and had a yummy crisp after dinner.

Mom brought some of my old dollhouse furniture and the girls dove right into setting it all up in my dollhouse. As a kid mom bought a dollhouse kit for me and we put it together. Then I spent many, many hours making all the furnishings. Oh I really did spend a ton of time on that little house and I loved it! I was lucky that I could use dad’s jigsaw and his unlimited scraps of wood in the basement. And mom always had bits of crafty and sewing things around. I love that I could create so freely and independently and I want to have that same environment for my girls. There was a big miniatures (ha ha) store in Frankenmuth – it was heaven and I’d carefully choose some little item – dishes or a pair of ice skates or my (plastic) tile floor for the kitchen.

I looked down on Bea and Claire as they touched each piece of mini furniture that I made. It was surreal to watch my daughters play with my important childhood plaything.

See the little push button phone? I specifically remember being in a dressing room and seeing a little broken piece of a zipper. I had an ah ha moment and grabbed it to use as the reciever of my phone. It’s teeeeensy.

 

I made the two chairs, the little pink teapot on the shelf and the flowers on the table. Also the cabinets and sink that you can barely see on the right. I think (if I remember correctly) the countertop is some leftover formica from Grandma Dice’s kitchen makeover. I was always thinking of my house and I loved to scour magazines for little pictures to cut out frame.

The rug below is a piece of paper with thread glued in a criscross pattern. 

 

These are also terribly tiny.

Our modern playmobil folks fit right in.

Grandma Dice made that little crocheted rug in the forground below. Thinking of that makes my heart ache from sweetness. The lamp is made from beads and a toothpick.

Funny how I’m still fussing over a house – it’s just a little bigger and unfortunately my current house has sewer lines that need cleaning out.