Vermont Route 100 Scenic Tour

Route 100 is a two lane highway that runs north-south almost the entire length of the state of Vermont - 217 miles. While it is a necessary road for many to get from here to there, it's also quite popular with tourists because it winds through beautiful farm land, quaint little New England towns, and our beautiful Green Mountains. 

Loving a good car trip, my wife and I spent one full day of our staycation driving the 80 miles of Route 100 from Waterbury, VT to Ludlow, VT. Though we've both traveled the portions of the road closest to the Burlington area, neither of us had been this far south in that part of the state. We made our way slowly down, spending not more than 15 or 20 minutes in the car on any given stretch. There were so many things to see and do (and photograph). We were constantly pulling over to check out a general store (we stopped at every one), walk around the town green of an adorable community (I fell in love with Rochester, VT), take in a waterfall, or visit an interesting shop. And of course I'm a huge lover of barns, so I pulled us over on the side of the road many a time to hop out and snap a few shots of one of the many beautiful structures. 

We stayed over night at a historic inn on Echo Lake right outside Ludlow, VT, an area that used to be a popular vacation destination for fancy folks (perhaps still is). I made a vow to come back to Echo Lake for a relaxing week one day - there were tons of people out on the Camp Plymouth State Park beach and kayaking around, and it looked like the most fun. The next day we visited President Calvin Coolidge's birthplace and family homestead. Neither of us knew much about him, and it was an enjoyable introduction to his life as well as an opportunity to walk through an area preserved (and sometimes replicated) as a super tiny 1920s village. I love that kind of thing. I was especially pumped to see the quilt that Coolidge made for his own bed as a boy and the short-term exhibit of Grace Coolidge's clothes (spoiler alert: they're gorgeous). And of course Navah spent some of the time on our trip home (not on Route 100) on Wikipedia sharing other interesting facts about him and his presidency with me. 

If you decide to travel this stretch of Route 100 (which I recommend), here are some things I would suggest: stopping to snap some pictures of Moss Glen Falls, grabbing a sandwich at the Warren Store or the Pittsfield General Store, veering off the road just a bit to take the very short hike to Thundering Falls, pulling over to admire beautiful old barns and homes, getting out of the car in Rochester to take a walk around and get some coffee and a baked treat from Sandy's Books & Bakery, spending an hour or two at the Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site, and (if you can) strapping a kayak or a canoe to the top of your car and checking out Echo Lake. 

We'll have to save that last bit for next time (when we'll own a kayak?). 

Now that we've done that gorgeous trip, I'm super motivated to drive the rest of Route 100 - north of us and also the last southern bits that we didn't get to. In fact, I'm ready for another staycation, but it will probably have to wait until next year!

p.s. I'll be back with my regular Thursday garden posts next week. This post was delayed a bit because of technical difficulties yesterday!

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Vermont Fashion: Go Bulky or Go Home

I love fashion blogs - they're art with clothes. But I crack up (or cry) every winter when I see photos of my favorite fashion bloggers either out with bare legs (damn those Texas winters) or, even in the slightly colder places, sporting a dress coat and no hat.

Winter fashion in Vermont?

I haven't seen my legs - not even indoors - in months! Those babies are covered with fleece-lined leggings from morning until night. And then again until morning.

I never go outside with fewer than four layers on, and the very notion that I would bop out there without a hat is sheer lunacy.

In February, Vermont fashion is all about bulk. The more bulk, the better.

Here's your clothing recipe for a successful outdoor outing in this frigid winter wonderland.

1: The North Face / Similar

2: City Sports 

3: Eddie Bauer / Similar

4: Hi-Tec / Similar

5: Petco / Similar

6: Self-made / Pattern

7: Self-made / Pattern / Yarn

Yes, it was 5 degrees out and snowing.

And yes, I was wearing fleece-lined leggings under my flannel-lined jeans. Perhaps it's a little more challenging for me since I'm a Georgia girl, but folks, I make no apologies for the fact that I have a working internal thermostat.

It's flipping cold here.

Bulk up.


Also, here's my favorite outtake from our "photo shoot."

p.s.  This was right after I'd moved up here, just a couple weeks before I broke down and bought the puffy coat, three years ago. 

Weekending

We've been packing it in these last few fall weekends.  This one was all about raking, picking apples, and preparing the garden for winter - with a little football and knitting thrown in for good measure. Life feels so very Autumn right now.  A never-ending raking job'll do that.  As will piles of vegetables and herbs that must get stored or preserved asap and garlic that needs to get in the ground before the frost.  (I hope Laura Ingalls is listening.)

I'm soaking it all in before "stick season," the affectionate term given to the winters here.  Then we'll hibernate as best we can, but for now it's all about being outside and enjoying these gorgeous days.

Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival

A few weekends ago, we fit in a quick trip down to Tunbridge for the Vermont Sheep & Wool Festival.  I love these types of festivals, both as a knitter and as an admirer of adorable fuzzy animals. Navah and I walked around, watched a sheep shearing demonstration and a sheep herding demonstration, and ate some delicious food.  I limited myself to buying one giant skein of yarn - restraint that was worthy of a pat on the back.  I didn't leave with a single sheep!  Or goat!  And as you can see, there were plenty of precious contenders.  I was particularly smitten with a little black Angora goat that watched coyly while I took pictures.  

Somewhere down the road, perhaps we will orient our lives in such a way that sheep or goats or alpacas are a part of our days.  For now, we enjoy visiting them when we can.  

Getting to give a little head rub is just icing on the cake.

The Mad River Valley

It's hard to imagine that we ever had a beautiful blue-sky day like this, but when my mom was visiting we made it out for a drive before the deluge of rain that has been our lives the last six days - with more to come.

We did a huge loop from Richmond down to the beautiful farms in Waitsfield - with their spotted cows and bright red barns - and then on to Warren, Vermont.  We had lunch at the Warren Store - an absolutely delicious chicken salad sandwich on fresh baked bread for me - and ate it at a picnic table overlooking a stream.  We puttered around leisurely in the clothing and gifts section and both walked out with little bags of goodies.  I came home with a paper lamp that I love about as much as anything I've ever bought.  I'm sure it'll show up in some future posts.

We stopped at Warren Falls, where brave folks were splashing around in the water that, I know from experience, is COLD.  My boss had recommended also going to Blueberry Lake, and we were delighted that we took the suggestion.  Besides it being gorgeous, we had a great time watching all the little kids running around (and frog hunting).

We capped off the afternoon with a stop at Red Hen Bakery in Middlesex for coffee and treats.

A beautiful Vermont day to remember while the rain comes down.

This Week in My Garden :: June 21

 I've never had a garden before - not even really a container garden.  While I've always wanted to and thought it would be fun to grown my own food, I didn't expect the feeling of contentment I'd get from walking among the plants, rubbing their leaves between my fingers - the simple joy of grabbing a bit of soil to see whether tonight I'll water them or whether the rain from a couple days before was enough.  Walking among the beds, I feel grounded.

It's a good thing because there's still a lot of work to be done.  Most of the plants are coming along fine.  We lost one okra plant - it just didn't root.  The big issue now is the basil.  We think it's slugs, and I put out a jar with cornmeal in it to attract them and (as much as I love slugs) kill them before they completely destroy our hopes of a freezer filled with pesto.

And of course, as those who've gardened before know well, I can hardly keep ahead of the weeding.  Even with the few beds we have going, I'm shocked at how fast they spring up.  It doesn't help, I'm sure, that the area between the beds is overrun with weeds.  I'd like to take care of all of those, but the task feels pretty daunting at the moment. So I'm sticking with what's in the beds for now.

Speaking of which, there are still three beds that haven't been prepared - that have been completely overtaken by weeds.

And this weekend, I've got to take a shovel to those.  We still have cucumber seeds and wildflower seeds to plant, and I've gotta get the new basil seedlings in the ground.  I'm hoping I'm not too late with those seeds, but we'll just have to see.  Who doesn't love cucumbers at the end of August?

The chives are blooming gorgeously, and I look for every reason to throw them into whatever I'm cooking.  Eventually I suppose I'll have to figure out how to preserve them because there are certainly more than we'll ever eat.  For now, they're a huge hit with the butterflies and bees.

The blueberry bushes across the lawn from the garden are making precious little berries.  I cannot wait to walk out into the front yard and pick blueberries - cannot wait.  I have to get some flash tape to tie on the bushes so that the birds don't get them before we do.

And the garlic scapes are very near being ready to eat, which I'm super excited for.

I'm so grateful that the previous homeowners planted the garlic, the blueberry bushes, and the chives so that we'd have something ready for harvesting while I wait with baited breath for the rest of our bounty to mature.

What's in your garden?

Enter the Summer CSA

Yesterday I picked up our first summer CSA share.  For those of you who are wondering what I'm talking about, CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture.  It's a locally-based model for farming where families or individuals "buy in" to the farm season by paying in advance for a share of the farm's crops (or meat or eggs or cheese).  Each week, a CSA member picks up their share, which includes whatever fruit or vegetables (or meat, eggs, etc) were harvested that week.  Most farms with CSAs also go to farmers markets and distribute to grocery stores and restaurants, but CSAs provide an advance, reliable source of income for farms while allowing people to enjoy food grown in their own community.

We joined a CSA at Jericho Settlers Farm, which is less than five miles from our house.  Talk about local food!

I was expecting something pretty mediocre for this first pick-up because the beginning of the season is often a little sparse.  But our bag was packed with delicious vegetables.  Kale, two heads of red leaf lettuce, pak choi, green onions, broccoli rabe, a bag of mesclun mix, a few new potatoes, and 6 little basil seedlings.

One of the nice things about Jericho Settlers Farm is that they send you an email in advance letting you know what's going to be in your share that week and giving some recipe recommendations.  I pinned their broccoli rabe recommendation, and because I knew I was going to be getting some, I was on the look-out during the week.  Low and behold, Ashley from (never)homemaker posted a delicious-looking photo of broccoli rabe sauteed with white beans that is now competing to be the recipe of choice for the little bunch of broccoli rabe.

As for the rest, there are definitely some salads in my future - looking forward to making some hearty ones with my salad-making guide.  And once I get another bed prepared, I'll plant those in the garden.

So here begins the weekly journey of creative cooking where I try to keep ahead of the vegetables!

The Great Outdoors

One of the key selling points for our new house - aside from the perfect location between mine and Navah's jobs, the house itself, and the cute town - was the one acre of land that came with it.  When we put in our bid on the house, the ground was covered in snow.  It was a beautiful, woodsy location, but that was all we knew.  A nice portion of it was clearly lawn, but there's a fair amount that is woods with a tiny little stream.

So we've been excited to walk around on the property, get out with the lawn mower, and start buying some plant starts for the raised beds the previous owners put in.  Nothing's in the ground yet - well, aside from the garlic they planted last fall and a whole mess of chives.  I spent a couple hours this weekend preparing a few of the beds while Navah mowed the lawn, but we opted to hold off on putting the plants in since there were bad thunderstorms (including hail) in the forecast and lows in the freezing temperatures this week.  So the beds are ready, but the plants are waiting until a little later this week to go into the ground.  You can see them doing some sunning on the back deck up there - 3 tomato plants, 1 cherry tomato, 4 peppers, 1 okra, 2 kale, 3 basil, 1 dill, 1 lemongrass, 1 lemon verbena (oh, the glorious smell!), 2 marigolds (for pest prevention), 1 rosemary, 1 thyme, and 1 mint.  We're going back for a few more things, but we got totally overwhelmed in the garden store and had to just stop where we were!

Jammer's beside himself with excitement over the new space.  In the three years we've had him, we've never had a yard for him to play in.  We don't have a fence yet (the one in photos is just around the garden and we'll likely be changing out for a more basic chicken-wire fence), but he gets to go outside when we're outside.  When he's done sniffing (very big job!), he likes to find a soft place to relax - even if that's in a garden bed.

Of course, it hasn't been all fun and games.  As with any new house purchase, there are some surprises.  When we got several days of torrential downpours last week, our lawn quickly developed an impromptu "pond" - not to be confused with an actual boggy little pond at the end of a stream where our property borders our neighbor's.

At the closing, the previous owners had mentioned that the area on one side of the driveway sometimes flooded and that they'd put in a drain to help with that.  We looked around the day we moved, but the grass was high and we were tired, and we figured we'd find it another day.  Bad new homeowners.  The rain started before we got back out there, and it was clear nothing was draining.  Once the rain stopped, we tromped around in rain boots to try to find the drain with no luck.

Finally, the "pond" began to shrink, and I found the drain - completely clogged with pine needles.  We've cleared it off and hopefully it'll help in the next big rain storm.

Even with the pond issue, I'm so loving it here.  I loved digging in the ground (even while being traumatized by all the spiders crawling out from under the dead leaves) and walking around our yard talking about what we might plant where, watching the birds, and imagining friends and family visiting.      

Mostly, I'm feeling incredibly blessed that we found such a wonderful place to make our home.

Movin' on up

Sorry I was MIA last week, folks.  We were super busy, and I was completely mentally preoccupied with an exciting new step in our lives.

We're buying a house!

It's a little ranch in a town halfway between Burlington and Montpelier (so halfway between mine and Navah's jobs), and while a little utilitarian on the outside, it's adorable on the inside.  We're smitten.

Our loan application is in, the home inspection is done, and in a couple weeks we'll start packing.  We won't be moving in until mid May, and I am so excited that it's basically all I can think about.  I might burst from the waiting!

I bought the books above at a used bookstore in town as a little pre-housewarming gift to ourselves.  We'll be on an acre, which means room for gardening and chickens!  In fact, the previous owners already built seven raised beds, and we'll definitely be making use of those this season.  Chickens will have to wait another year, but we're both super pumped that they're on the horizon.

I'll be sharing more about the house as we get closer to the move!
 

Peeping

The new hour and a half of commuting each day to and from work (since my office moved locations) is certainly not ideal.  But with an episode or two of This American Life saved up in my itunes and these views out the windows, I'm making the adjustment.  

Though my likes-to-get-lots-of-sleep-and-have-lots-of-time-for-projects self is a bit annoyed at the loss of time, my photographer self is in heaven.

What's your commute like?
Have you done any leaf peeping this season?


Katie 

The dog days are over

My first summer in Vermont is winding down.

The days are still warm, but the mornings are crisp now.  At a barbeque this week, we all put on our sweaters and hoodies as the evening wore on.

I'm enjoying the subtle shift, the touch of a chill when I head outside to walk Jammer. 

These months have flown by, and with our constant travel and wedding planning, I've hardly had time to appreciate the gorgeous days here.  Even so, I'm looking forward to Fall.  To sweaters and the crunch of leaves on the ground under my feet, to apples and pumpkin chili. To not planning my wedding. Did I say that?

But for now, I'll soak up these last few days of t-shirts and flip-flops.

Katie

What are you doing these last days of summer?

Night at the Minors

Last night I headed out to my first Lake Monsters baseball game. The Lake Monsters are the Class A short season team for the Oakland Athletics and play at Centennial Field in Burlington. It was a perfect night for a game, and we had a blast watching the team rally to pull out a 4-3 win.

Dancin' in the Streets

A crazy thunderstorm tore through Burlington last night.  It only lasted about 10-15 minutes, but it dropped so much water in that time that many of Burlington's streets were flooded.

I was sitting in my car in a parking lot for the majority of the storm, waiting it out.  I had been driving, but within about 30 seconds, that became an activity for only the bravest of souls. Once the raining had stopped, I pulled out of my spot and headed downtown to pick up Navah from the office. I had to detour twice because of flooding, and the second time, I witnessed this:

Later, we saw it happening on other streets and sat in a line of cars as we took turns leaning our heads and our iphones out the window to get a shot, like tourists in Yellowstone Park who just caught sight of a moose.

Navah was horrified that these kids were wading in bare feet, with all the muck from the streets - she listed off what was probably floating in the water - swirling around them. I admit that it did sound gross, but I just couldn't bring myself to fault them for it.

In fact, I admired them.

It was so quientessentially college - the snowball effect of one person's crazy idea traveling through people like a game of telephone and then suddenly everyone's out in the street in their bathing suits, floating on air mattresses and laughing like it's the biggest party of the summer.

And that's the best part of those younger years.  Maybe we did stupid things, but we had a lot of fun.  We were open to so much - to letting the world tell us what it had in store, to listening to the crazy ideas of our neighbors, to doing things just because they seemed awesome in that moment.

We can't live that way all the time, but perhaps we can carry a little of it with us always? I've gotten to be a pretty intense planner - rains and floods and changing circumstances are only things that get in my way. They stop me from doing what I had lined up for that day. On occasion, I've been known to turn down fun last minute plans because "It's too late for me to change my idea of what I'm doing tonight." 

I'd like to learn a little from the college kids, from their adaptability and spiritedness. I'd like to get my feet wet sometimes. And maybe even a little dirty.

Katie

Rwanda: Kitenge Fabric Dress

I am not a fashion blogger.

This is because (a) I am not fashionable, and (b) I have a very hard time looking normal in posed photos. 

But this dress warrants a little fashion blogger-esque post.

Remember when I told you about my East African kitenge fabric? Back when I had just returned from Rwanda? 

And I told you that I had left some fabric behind so that my sister's seamstress could make me a dress? 

Well, the dress has arrived! All the way from Rwanda, and I absolutely love it.

I wore it out to the Burlington Farmers Market on Saturday and threw my arms up in a victory cheer when a girl walking by me turned and yelled over her shoulder, "love your dress!"  Score.

And it has pockets.

Double score. 

And since these pictures were taken at our farmers market surrounded by scrumptious locally grown fruits and veggies (I had a delicious fresh squeezed pear ginger kale juice from the solar-powered juice stand), I'll make an only slightly clumsy segue into telling you all about an awesome organization down in Tennessee that needs your help to win a fruit orchard. 

Plant the Seed is a not-for-profit program that uses community and school gardens as outdoor classrooms to educate and empower under-resourced young people.

It's run by a fabulous (and funny) woman named Susannah, and it's in the running for a whole orchard of fruit trees from the Edy's Communities Take Root contest.  You can read about Plant the Seed here and then head over to the Communities Take Root website and vote for Plant the Seed every day.  There's not much time left, so get over there now!

Don't you love how this post transitioned from a fashion post into one about donating money to a gardening and food security nonprofit? I told you - a fashion blogger, I am not. 

Katie 

Red Rocks Photo Walk

Our friend Sai was in town this weekend (yay!), and we were lucky to have gorgeous weather for all our outdoor activities - including lounging (and shopping) at the Burlington Farmers Market, hanging out with friends at a potluck, and visiting Red Rocks Park in South Burlington for a short hike and some Lake Champlain beach time. 


I haven't been snapping many nature shots these days because we've had such a busy social calendar, so I was delighted to step onto the trail with camera in hand. 

What did you do this weekend?

Katie

 

Community

For today, a little snippet of what life is looking like these days in Burlington.


Last Thursday night, we went to a potluck seder. Sneaking in just at the end of Passover, it was our third after having two the week before while we were home with Navah's family. This one was at the home of some friends just a couple of blocks away from us. We sat on cushions arranged around several tablecloths on the floor, spreading through two rooms to accommodate the big crowd, and took turns reading from a haggadah that our host had compiled from various sources several years ago and printed out for us. 


A rabbi was there - a vivacious woman with a gorgeous voice who led us through songs and explained some historical background as we went through the Passover story. When I asked where she was a rabbi, we learned that she is the cantor at the synagogue at the end of our block. And as the conversation progressed after the official seder had ended and we were all sitting around sharing in the meal, we discovered, quite by accident, that she and her family live in the house across the street from us. We talked about getting together for coffee. 


The next morning, buoyed by the lively conversation and the positive energy from the night before, I got my tush out of bed and went to a donation yoga class I had found online. When I walked in the door, the teacher who looked up to sign me in was my host from the potluck the night before. And she proceeded to lead one of the most peaceful yoga classes I've ever been to. Afterwards, we promised to get together for dinner or coffee. 


Saturday morning Navah took Jammer for a walk, and she met our neighbor to the right, who was outside gardening. When Navah mentioned what a beautiful day it was to be out gardening, the neighbor told Navah - very kindly - that our yard was considered a bit of an eyesore in the neighborhood since it was the only rental house around and wasn't really kept up. She offered to let us borrow any gardening tools that we might need. Well, you didn't have to tell us twice. Though the yard isn't technically our responsibility as the upstairs tenants in the house, we love to be outside and were happy to make our space more lovely. So after finishing our breakfast, we headed outside to get raking and weeding. 


Our neighbor to the right had left, so we couldn't borrow her tools. But no worry - the rabbi across the street was out gardening, and we asked if we could borrow a rake, some clippers, and even some lawn and leaf bags. She happily loaned us everything we needed, and we chattered across the street to each other as we each went about tending our lawns. Jammer sunbathed. It was an incredibly pleasant way to spend a few hours. 


And just as we were finishing up, our neighbor to the right came home and exclaimed about how beautiful it looked. We got to chatting, and she started telling me about people in the neighborhood, which led to my learning that the executive director of the nonprofit that I've been wanting to work for since before we moved here is our neighbor to the left and that our neighbor to the right sits on the board. And she's an attorney at another firm in Burlington and asked me to send her my resume. We talked about getting together for lunch or coffee. 


This. 


This, more than anything else, is what made me fall in love with Vermont and why I wanted to move to here. And it's why I'm so glad we did.


Katie

When in Vermont

This weekend Navah participated in a charity curling tournament with some folks from her office to benefit the Howard Center in Burlington. 


What a riot!

Though this was the fourth year of the tournament, many of the competitors had never curled before - including Navah. It seems like the basics are pretty easy to figure out - slide the stone along the ice and try to get it into the bullseye (or "house"). Your teammates use their little brooms to "sweep" the ice, melting it, so that the stone will go faster. Or they stop sweeping so that the stone will (hopefully) go slower if you're in danger of sending it straight past the bullseye. And you have to be wary of the other team knocking your stones out of the house when it's their turn because everybody's going for the same bullseye. Basically, the team with the most stones in the house wins, though there are some more intricacies to the scoring that I didn't quite gather.

Do you ever wonder how people came up with a particular sport? If you haven't, this one might inspire a little thought. Wikipedia tells me that curling began in Scotland with flat-bottomed river rocks being slid along the frozen water. That part isn't too hard to imagine, but where did the little brooms come in? Perhaps some brilliant physicist who liked to get his jollies on a frozen pond and figured out that melting the ice would make the stone go faster? 

At any rate, I recognize that it's an olympic sport and all, but when Navah's team of newbies tied with a team that sauntered in with their own curling shoes and brooms, I had to wonder how much skill is actually required. Of course, easy for me to say from behind my camera. 

Either way, it was quite a fun way to spend a morning (and evening, since Navah's team made it to the semi-finals). And, as they say, when in Vermont..

Katie


If you would like to donate to the Howard Center, a private, non-profit agency that provides comprehensive mental health, developmental disabilities, substance abuse, and child and family treatment services, then please visit Navah's donation page here.

Why Burlington's worth it, even though I have to take the bar again

People keep asking me how I'm liking it here in Burlington. Tomorrow will mark one month since I parked the uhaul in the driveway. And though I'm pretty miserable and whiny about the bar studying that's taken up most of my time since then, I'm loving being here. Here are the top five reasons why.


1. I'm basically ecstatic to be living with Navah again. The time apart was not so great, and saying goodnight while we're lying next to each other in bed is 100% better than saying goodnight over the phone.

2. I adore our apartment. Roomy and bright, I feel like I'm living in a home instead of a rental. Even though we can't use the porches right now, just knowing that they're waiting there for us fills me with joy.


3. Everything is so quaintly residential. When I go for a walk, I'm walking by tons of beautiful old homes, many that are over one hundred years old (like the one we're living in). And then when I make it into the downtown area, it's also cute as can be. Basically anywhere there's a lovely little pedestrian mall (that used to be a real street with a streetcar route), that's where I want to be.


4. A quick walk or drive in basically any direction brings me to open fields or gorgeous views of Lake Champlain or the Green Mountains or farmland. There's space - lots of open space.  It's a salve for my too-full psyche.


5. I'm staying here. Of course not in this house forever, but here. In Vermont. I didn't realize until I was here how much the in-flux-ness of my life was affecting me. I knew DC wasn't going to be my "forever home," (to borrow a term from the dog rescues) and that kept me from completely investing myself in that community. Some people want to jump from place to place, travel the world, make millions of friends in every stop along the way. That's not me. I want roots.


So I'm loving it here. But that's not to say that I don't miss anything from DC. In fact, I miss my friends a lot. Emailing and talking on the phone are nice, but it's not the same. I'll be overjoyed when we have our first visitors, but it's hard to accept that I'll never get back the easy "hey let's do brunch" that I had with those folks.

And I miss our fireplace. Who moves to Vermont and doesn't have a fireplace? Just sayin'.


Thank you all for reading this week. Have a wonderful weekend, and I'll see you on Monday!

Katie

House Tour Part 2

I promised you yesterday that I'd show you the rest of the house.  I also thought I might clarify what type of space we're living in.  This is the top floor of a two-story house that we're renting.  So no, we didn't buy a house, and we don't have the whole thing to ourselves.  But, I think you'll agree that what we do have is pretty awesome.


So, on to the rest of the house tour.


Remember that door in the dining room - well, it leads into a tiny little hallway with three doors off of it - the main bedroom, the bathroom, and the guest bedroom.


There's not much to see in the bathroom.


But note the pretty light blue wall color that is almost exactly the same as our previous bathroom color, which means - you guessed it - our shower curtain and the little basket I made still work beautifully.  Hurray for that!


Our bedroom's pretty plain jane right now.  Those little curtains were left by the previous tenants.  I don't love having the bed up against a window, but there's no space where it will fit that's not up against a window, so that's that.





Otherwise it's a great space.


And lest you begin to think that I'm some sort of unpacking superhero (ahem, Sai), take a look over here at the guest bedroom.


Egads.
So that's where everything is.
Slowly but surely. Slowly but surely.


And finally, I forgot to show you the back porch yesterday.  It's off the kitchen.  And we'll definitely be using this one too.


It even has clothes lines up for when the weather's warmer.


So there she is, folks.  I'll be back later to talk about some of the things we want to buy/create/improvise, and I can't wait to share it all with you as we make this precious house our home.


Katie

About town

Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore.  To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.

Barbara Kingsolver (High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never)

Next week I hope to share some photos of the apartment, but it's too chaotic at the moment.  Rooms full of boxes don't inspire my inner photographer.  For now, I'll share some sights I've captured while out and about over the last few days.  I hope you enjoy.

Thank you, as always, for stopping by.  I missed the blog while I was interwebs-less, and I'm appreciating the sense of grounding it has brought me the last couple days to sit down again at the computer to share my words and my pictures.

Katie