Laowai

I'm celebrating another window being done. 

This window is upstairs in our hallway. I love how the light comes into the rounded dormer shapes up there. This is the first non-white window I've done. It's gray on the inside to match the trim color that I'm using throughout the house. 

It's hard to tell in the photo below but the happy window is on the left and the sad window that still needs to be restored is on the right. Trust that it is not hard to distinguish the two in person. 

So I'm celebrating this window win while realizing there is a lot of work left to do. The storm window for this window is still the old trim color – blue. And I still have (insert discouraging number) windows and storms and screens left to make over.

Over the weekend we visited Middlefork Savannah – it's a beautiful place not too far from home. It was a hot morning but the flowers and the oak trees were wonderful. The midwest landscape at its best!

Connected to Middlefork Savannah is Elewa Farm. I was left thinking why haven't I been to this fascinating place before? It's a miniature farmstead (sometimes called a gentleman's farm)  built by a wealthy Chicago family in 1917. The buildings are small in scale but so charming and so fine. Today they keep the farm preserved, host events and have a market on the weekends. Part of the buildings house a wildlife Discovery Center so you can see fish and lizards and snakes and even an otter. 

We're about to do a bit of travel in August but July has been a fun month spent close to home. Here are a bunch of photos that show what we've been up to.

We visited the Chicago Botanic Garden and their anniversary exhibits

We've been enjoying eating outside almost every night and we've been grilling lots too.

We visited the Evanston Light House – I'd still like to tour the inside one day.

The lake has been a good swimming temperature.

It wouldn't be summer without some boredom and also some goofiness born out of boredom.

I found some sour Michigan cherries and made a clafoutis.

I bound off the bottom of my sweater and now I'm working on the sleeves.

Bea was super excited when she found a Wibit near us.

We have a new backyard pet – a slime mold.

We had weekend pancakes.

We came upon some sort of fight scene. If I was more clever I'd have a funny caption for this photo.

Bye July – Hello August

I'm enjoying my garden so much lately. 

When it's not too hot I sit in the hammock in the afternoon. In the morning, I usually I have my coffee by all my potted plants by the back door.

This morning the dew drops were arranged like jewels on my radish leaves.

All the color in my mini-meadow bed along the driveway is almost obnoxious. I love it.

And my globe thistles are getting blue.

Tomatoes are coming.

I had quite a bit of leftover fabric after I sewed my latest shirt. And ruffle are in again, right?

Brian came back from his trip to Singapore (see above) and India on Friday. We had a nice weekend with him – starting with an evening at Ravinia.

And then we celebrated his birthday.

I made a chocolate icebox cake and Bea decorated it.

Today I made a shirt and I harvested my first beans of the season. Feeling very pleased with myself. Or as they say in the UK – feeling chuffed.

It's the Liesl and Company Camp Shirt pattern that I've made a few times before. For fabric I used Robert Kaufman Essex Yarn Dyed Linen Blend Homespun in Charcoal. 

… and the cicadas are back. Sumer is exhausting.

Brian is in Singapore and India for a couple weeks.

I finished primer and putty on my latest window. Now I'm taking a little brake while the putty cures.

Claire and Bea are super into Stranger Things so we had to go to this experience slash store. I'm not into the show but I did enjoy the 80s nostalgia stuff. They had great 80s music playing – I told Brian "it feels like a 7th grade school dance in here".

Here is an expensive piece of wood. Had to have a bit of rotten woodwork replaced on the house. It took forever to get custom millwork done but now that it's here the project is moving again. And the house is feeling happy.

Bea drove herself through a drive-through for the first time. 

The girls and I went Kayaking at the nearby Skokie Lagoons. 

We saw geese, turtles, a muscrat, dragonflies, damselflies, herons, ducks, more birds I don't know and a deer that was going for a swim!

Then we went home and saw microscopic creatures from the pond water under Bea's microscope.

I love these summer colors against the green yard.

My knitting projects are going slowly. I think I'm not a summer knitter – can't seem to sit down and concentrate for long enough. But I am going to do some sewing with these pretty fabrics. Perfect for the rainy days we're having at the moment.

It was a powdered sugar doughnut. Can you tell?

I finally got around to taking a walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden this week. Everything looked so beautiful. I didn't realize until I got home and looked through my photos that there were so many pink flowers blooming. I had to zoom in and capture them all.