Summer Plans of the NON lazy kind....

Home Projects seem to be what my summers are all about...

My first married summer I spent the whole two months putting together Ikea furniture for our little love nest, and dealing with the plumbing in our bathroom...(that's actually a really good story, remind me to tell it sometime when you're not in the middle of eating something)
The second, I was setting up a nursery and painting over the neon yellow and purple stenciled fluer D' lies on the bathroom walls of our first bought home.

The third I was chasing a crawling baby around that same home while daddy pulled up all the laminate hardwood to fix it, paint all the doors, replace the baseboards and light fixtures and draw up house plans, truss orders and hire contractors for breaking ground on our new house.

The next three summers were spent completely immersed in working on that same house. Everything from Exterior rock facing, to drywall to weeping tile to drop ceilings to bobcats and electrical....that's what summer was for. For my extremely capable and talented jack-of-all-trades husband(who has the summers off because he's a teacher) to get up at the crack of dawn every morning put on clothes crusted in drywall mud, and work boots and get down to business. He'd break for lunch....and continue. Almost every single day, he kept that pace for 3 summers, tackling everything from tile to concrete pouring.
I was mighty proud of him...and of the house he worked on...but I liked to fantasize of a summer with nothing to do...no housework other than maintenance and watching all our landscaping and planting grow. We might stain a few fence boards or put up another shelf in the garage...but I longed for the day when holidays would mean relaxation and rest. Trips to the zoo instead of the hardware store.

Well, as it turns out we worked like dogs in the middle of the winter and spring to finish what would have been done this summer, had we stayed in that house. Instead we moved to another new house all over again...only this one was finished.

Sure, there's an unfinished basement but there's no plans to start work on it any time soon and we haven't let the cement floor deter us from hanging out down there at all. We threw some rugs from my mother in law down there, moved all the rubbermaids to one wall and even put our friends down there to sleep when they came to visit.
Do you think I should tell them part of their bed was held up with one of the rubber maids full of Christmas decorations? They're very cool friends... I think they were okay.

So here we were with a laconic summer stretched out before us....and what do we decide to do?

Rent a floor sander, crack open a couple gallons of paint, put up some wall paper and pull out the air nailer ...

I guess it just ain't summer around here till you hear the table saw going...

But by golly, my kitchen looks amazing!

You may remember from previous posts how I have felt about the wood tone combinations of the cabinetry or flooring in my house and some of you were quite passionate in helping me to decide what to do about all of it.
I'm so happy to update all of you and tell you that we've hit on our inspiration and the direction we've taken everything just feels so right. I've got all the country charm I could ask for paired with all the classic and even modern quirky twist I always wanted. It's really my dream kitchen pretty much, which is saying a lot when I had the chance to build my dream kitchen a few years ago...and didn't.

I can't wait to show it all to you when it's finished. In the meantime I've got a few work-in- progress pictures to post here before I head back to my paint roller.

I had a little distracting company while I was cutting in around the cupboards...

My lovely friend B's lovely little "Kilmo" chatted me up while I did my work

Isn't he awesome? Old-man loafers and all?

After all it is summer... and one must make use of the light. 

Got any DIY summer plans on the agenda?

This Moment " A Break for Books at Cafe 1912"

{lovin my niece and nephew}

I have been having a fabulous visit with some fabulous friends, so I've been a little absent here, but after more visiting this weekend with other loved ones and a brand new baby girl (eek!) I'll have lots more to share in the coming week, so I'll be back soon!
Have a great weekend and happy birthday CANADA!!!!

The Sewing Space Revealed

Sometimes you just need to know when to cut your losses.

I felt for some time that such was the case with my basement set-up for my sewing machine. I hadn't been sewing for very long but already I felt that with the lack of light and inspiration around me I was a bit like Rumpelstiltskin...(maybe not with the spinning gold part but definitely with the hunched over in the cold dank surroundings part).

Okay, okay, my basement wasn't THAT bad, but I was beginning to avoid all the mending and projects that I had to do because I just didn't want to be down there. For starters, it was cold had poor lighting and the fact that I had a fantastic set up of tables and cupboards, my kids didn't want to be down there while I was down there... and I didn't really want them down there either. There's unpacked boxes and bits of furniture, extension cords and all kinds of other mischief to get into. Actually most of the time they just pull stuff apart down there and dig through their old baby clothes and toys. One day they actually sat and chewed on their old teething toys....even though they've been washed it was just odd....

So I made the decision that if the kids didn't want to be where I was... I wanted to be where they are.
Some of you, I know, find great success in crafting while your little ones are asleep or otherwise away, but that doesn't happen often enough for me to ever get anything done, so it works for me to sew away happily while they sometimes literally sit on my lap and play with my hair... distracting? Yes, but even though my seams aren't perfect... happiness reigns for all of us.

So first some furniture had to be kicked out of the playroom, some arrangements had to be adjusted and some stuff just needed to be plain thrown out... but it felt good like a purge always does and I was forced to weed through all the fabrics and half finished projects that I've collected in the last few months.

Then mama moved in....

and we set about to all the organizing... along with my little helpers of course. 

First with all the buttons.....

Then with all the yarn...

Finally it all started to come together and what felt like a basement repository of endless projects I would probably never actually do... suddenly I had this concise inventory of things that inspired me, were accessible and begging to be done for the sheer joy of it.

I spent a few days tweaking things and finding new homes for all the little bits that come with this new hobby and it started to feel like a personal space I just wanted to be in. I weeded through everything that didn't fit in the new studio and found clever ways to make my new addition to the playroom still feel light and playful in the room.

I fashioned this pin cushion for myself out of a sugar jar my grandma gave me. It's stuffed with fabric scraps and a little wool and just covered in a fabric scrap all stuffed in the jar. It makes me so happy every time I look at it.

All the buttons and elastics; more organized than they ever have been before...and I think only two got eaten in the process...and those were eaten by the cat.

All my vintage fabrics waiting for me to play with them!

This table from my mother in law really completed the space. The former table worked in the basement fine, but it rattled quite a bit when the machine really got going and with the outlet situation upstairs I had a hard time plugging in my machine and still managing to reach the peddle. So thank you Jan!!! And the little skirt I put on hides all those cords and rulers and cutting mats and random papers. I love it.... and I made it from a thrifted bed sheet :)

I have big plans for that little elf that belonged to my mum when she was a little girl but for now I just like that he keeps watch over my little drawers of notions for me. (Don't worry everythng sensitive and dangerous is kept out of reach up on those bookshelf shelves and even this jar of scissors and pin cushion reside up there when I'm not in the room) But these little drawers contain my marking pens, bobbins and measuring tape etc.

The gift card organize contains all my patterns in envelopes and the little drawer on the bottom of that is full of safety pins paper clips and what not... love.


This little cupboard contains all my stamps, cardstock and scrapbooking supplies for making cards and gift tags ( I know... I pack light when it comes to scrapbooking but I only buy what I need for projects, one project at a time so that really cuts down on the stash)

Lastly the thing that makes this studio so great is that I have found a way to share it with my kids. Making time to be creative in our house means including them... even on the solo projects.
The light and airiness of the playroom makes it a great studio, but even better is the ability to be doing something for me, for them... with them.

Yes, cutting your losses sometimes gives you the biggest gains, doesn't it?

have a great day!

A Weekend in the Country

On the Friday I was stolen away by my sister for a two-night getaway in honor of my upcoming birthday.

There's really nothing like a weekend in the country....

The quiet grounds of a quaint and friendly bed and breakfast...

...The oldest General Store in Alberta in the picturesque hamlet of Carvel....

...And all the gorgeous and curious things we found there....

A baby girl along for the ride who didn't mind a bit all the stopping and snooping and shopping her mama and I wanted to do...

....Especially since we stopped for a picnic at a little lake and let her stretch out for a rest beneath the trees.

The Historic Sites of the first generations that settled our neck of the woods... Doctors, farmers and honest hardworking people, and all the lovely reminders of the way they lived...

I of course kept falling in love with everything in the shops that was not for sale; wooden crates, grain sacks and milk tins... sigh. ( but I did bring a few gems home with me to share  later. ;)

 Some things were just plain crafty and you better believe I plan on sewing up some of these adorable stuffed veggies in the near future!

Yes, there's nothing like a weekend in the country, and nothing like the sweetest birthday present ever.

Most of all there's nothing like a sister....

....absolutely nothing  could be so wonderful as that.

Love you Bre!

An Update on the Floor.

So, some of you may recall I posted a week or so ago about the dastardly plans I dreamed about sanding and painting my wooden floor. Some of you will never forget because you had a heart attack....sorry Karen, Leah and Oma....

So, with a bit more research, some advice from some of you, and a healthy dose of reality... I've decided that isn't the best course of action.

And then I found the scratches on the floor over by the fridge....

 the scratches I started chipping away at. But my camera doesn't zoom enough to show you the wood grain beneath them

Hurray!

I began to chip little bits of the old finish away and found to my relief and joy that there is WOOD GRAIN in the wood underneath the finish.

So this means that sanding and staining  is possible and it's a whole new ball game of doable and feasible.

When this will happen, I have no idea... but when it does I'm hoping it will look something like this bootlegged photo from Country Living magazine. (the February All-white issue that pretty much fuels my madness on a daily basis... actually that whole publication makes me crazy )

note the darker smokier tones to the wood.... and yes, I think Rosy is right her dining table is lovely painted white.

Anyway, as I said last week, the flooring community is a passionate one and I was surprised at the voracity of it's voice and opinions on the humble hardwood of my domicile. Thanks so much for all your encouragement and sage wisdom. I will keep you posted on the progress of these planks and the pains we take to make them lovely.

I hope your day is lovely and without any pains.

cheers.

Banana Split Cake

This is a tweaked version of a recipe I found for Banana Cake and I made mine all fancy with the trimmings for Kevin's 27th Birthday "Ice Cream Party"

Here's how it all comes together:

2 and half cups of flour. 

1 tablespoon of baking soda

A pinch of salt

1/2 cup margarine or butter (softened)

1/2 cup of white sugar (next time I plan on trying this with honey as a substitute)

1/2 cup of brown sugar 

2 eggs.

4 ripe bananas 

1/2 cup plain yogurt, sour cream or buttermilk. ( I'll let you guess which homemade ingredient I used for mine :)

You can throw some nuts or raisins or whatever you want too if you want it. ( I imagine this cake would be lovely with all kinds of dried fruit, nuts, seeds, etc if you were making it as a snack cake)

Prepare 2 round 8 inch cake pans by greasing them and flouring them.

Set your oven to 350 degrees 

Mix flour, baking soda and a pinch of salt together and set aside.

Cream the sugars, butter and eggs.

mash the ripe bananas and add it to the wet ingredients. 

Add the flour mix alternately with the yogurt and mix it all together. 

Pour it into the 2 pans and pop it in the oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

When the cake is done pull the pans out and set them to cool and when they are fully cooled you can remove them from the pans and get ready to assemble the final product. 

I used leftover vanilla custard I had in the fridge for the filling in the center of the two cakes,  but you could also use the icing recipe I'm about to give you :)

6 cups of icing sugar

3/4 cup of butter (soft, soft soft )

a pinch of buttermilk and 

1/3 - 1/2 cup of plain yogurt (again :)

1 tblspn of coco powder.

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix, the Yogurt and butter until they are totally creamed (I used my baby food blender)

Then add vanilla and coco powder and then mix in all the icing sugar. If you need to add the tiniest smidge of milk or buttermilk to thin the icing just a touch, but be really careful not to make it too runny.

Smooth that onto the cake and then top the cake with an assortment of banana slices, graham wafers ( I used the pieces of a broken waffle cone), whipped cream and of course make sure to put a a cherry on top.

Serve it with ice cream on the side and there you have it, a banana split fit for a fork....

Bon Appetite!

Something Wicked....

I'm dreaming about doing something wicked to my floor. 

something maybe-terrible and perhaps sacrilegious...

I really want to paint my hardwood.

I have this crazy desire to make my perfectly good brand new house look like a really old house... I always have.

My husband and I built a really beautiful house previous to our current home and it was really lovely, but I fought with the design of that house hard... I wanted to make it an old rambling farm house... and it really wanted to be a modern, vaulted ceiling showpiece.... it won

But now, I've got this new home that has much more potential for looking like a rustic homestead... it's got more classic features like built in bookcases around the fireplace, definite potential for wainscoting and the cabinetry already looks great painted antique white with galvanized black hardware (the first thing I did when I moved in, which you can read about here) now, I just need to put bead board all the way around the peninsula countertop.

see, pretty cabinets...floor...not so much...

Of course I've got plans to someday swap in a big old apron sink and although it'll never happen I daydream about exposed beams...

But the floors that I originally thought were very orange (in contrast to the formerly burgundy cabinetry) still look very orange to me and everything in the house competes with what's underneath it.
There is an intangible quality of unrest with this floor... I don't know how else to describe it.

Also, it shows EVERYTHING and demands that it be swept up several times a day (which I never do, so I get to hear it whine all the time from my neglect) and commands that I mop it almost as often ( I very rarely do... just to spite it.)

On top of all of this...it isn't real hardwood anyway. It's not laminate, it's just a very thin sheet of brightly stained wood placed upon particle board planks so that it is technically hardwood... but let's face it... if I had a dog; it would die.

(the floor- not the dog)

so all of this makes me roll my eyes just a little when I find websites online that claim that the only way a person could ever want to paint their wooden floor would be if they were (and I quote) "Stark raving mad"


Now, I may be just the left side of nutty... but I take exception to the stark raving bit.

I just can't stop imagining a warm gray soothing and smoothing it's way through our living space. Aging the boards with a sense of lived-in history that we will fake till we make.

The process is a little daunting to get us there, and I have the very tentative support of my husband... and probably no one else.

But he's not crazy about this floor either.

He was very much in love with the honey-oak flooring of our last home and mourned painfully every time it suffered a ding or scratch. He still mentions every once in a while how much he loved that floor. That floor that we bought at an auction and hauled home from almost an hour a way in several trips in our old van. Then we loaded every single one of the giant boxes of planks into our little front room in our trailer; setting the whole mobile home at a slightly shifted angle I'm sure. The room was filled corner to corner up to our waists; you'd open the door and then have to climb up onto the platform of wood we had put in there to enter.
Then painstakingly and with much ordeal, the wood was put down in the house we built, giving every contractor a major headache because of it's small pieces.... but golly it was gorgeous.

See, we're willing to go the distance to get a floor we love... and we both have a deep appreciation for real hardwood floors... I'm just not convinced that's what we're working with here... and me and the floor are having a hard time working together.

Now, I am possibly straddling a very divided fence here (I've looked online and I was shocked at how passionate and adamant the flooring community can be), but for now I'll just close my eyes to the fake orangeness... and dream about pale, calming, grey...

Be gentle...but tell me what you think....

Crackers and Cheese

I did it.

I've been trying to find time all last week to try out two recipes I found online for crackers and cheese.

Homemade cheese.

Homemade crackers.

Both were easy...and delicious.... and cost at least 1/2 of what they cost from the store....came with zero packaging and I can pronounce every single one of the ingredients.

Oh.
I.
Am.
Happy.


Who knew that cheese could be this easy?

If you'd like to try your hand at it, then I check out the recipe here, but basically there are only a few short, simple steps to making your own Farmer's Cheese.

Boil  4 cups of milk to 190 degrees.

Take milk off the heat and add 1/4 cup lemon juice (or vinegar in a pinch)

Let it sit for at least ten minutes. Until it get's all curdled like this:

Then strain it through a cheese cloth to let all the whey out (which makes really great pancakes the next day "by the whey"... get it?)

Then cover it and refrigerate it.

Cheese... just like that.

And because I can control how much whey is coming out of it (which is the liquid and lactose in cheese) I can make this cheese almost lactose free and safe for my little boy to eat.
As the cheese cools and sits in the fridge it also gains a better consistency more like cream cheese and the flavor comes out over time, although it is very subtle. The more you strain the curd, the dyer it is, more like ricotta,  so I imagine this would be lovely cheese to make more for lasagna than for crackers, because it needs just a little something to amp up the flavor for crackers. I'd suggest a little salt or hot sauce or even some herbs such as garlic or dill... that'd be delicious with this.

Then there's the cracker recipe my friend Breanne shared with me.  You can find it and follow it here

Also, super simple.

I  made the dough with a few simple ingredients and rolled it out very thin like so:

I cut the dough into little squares, poked cute little holes in each square and baked them on parchment paper at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

They are lightly sweet and lightly salty and taste like actual crackers.

 I think over time I will  also tweak this recipe until I come up with the perfect cracker, but in the meantime I just feel like saying "hurray for me"

Hurray for crackers and cheese!

What it is and Isn't

Note: there have been some technical issues going on today with Blogger; thus the delay in this posting and the disappearance of yesterday's post... apparently they are working on it, so hopefully everything will be running smoothly again soon. 

Anyway, on with today,

Look what showed up in my mailbox!

 Has a free publication ever had such serendipitous timing before, I ask you?
No, I think not.


I've been hinting around here and there about how myself and our little family have been inching closer and closer towards the edge of becoming local and more sustainable eaters, and this little booklet in the mail has made all of that much easier for me.

I spent my morning happily combing through the directory of all the organic and sustainably produced produce, meat, and dairy products within striking distance of our home, and now I feel much more buoyed on what could turn out to be a haphazard experiment in largely swearing off what the conventional supermarket has to offer.

Where did this all come from you may wonder?

Well, I'll tell you.
It all started about a year ago when I started paging through two fabulous cookbooks.
The first was the Mennonite Tome my grandmother gifted to me that had been gifted to her when she married my grandfather who comes from a large Huldeman Mennonite family. Inside it's yellowed pages were countless recipes not just for the regular fare, but for the domestic processes of the past generation that made use of what they could produce and spread and stretch it out for an entire year.
This struck as me as perhaps the most "green living" book I had read and these ladies (some of them related to me distantly I'm sure) had been doing it long before it was trend, they'd been doing it because that was simply the only way to eat and eat well, and they weren't doing it in the cornucopia of California either, they were doing it in the central Alberta prairies and Manitoba, complete with it's long dreadful winters. We're talking Hardy Zone 3 here my friends, for real.

The idea began germinating in my mind that if they could do it, perhaps I could to?

Could eating more sustainably really be as simple as trying to eat more like my Mennonite Aunties?

Then again, I wasn't too wild about living off borscht (even if the book did boast at least 20 different recipes for it) for the entire winter, and I had grown up shuddering inwardly at the stories my father would tell of the meals these same Aunties fed him as a child of fried parsnips and gravy made from the water left behind from boiled weiners....


Fortunately, this all became more balanced with a simple and fascinating book by that Queen of good food, Alice Waters.
I happened upon her book, "In the Green Kitchen" which wasn't so much a recipe book, but a book of skills combined with simple recipes to change the way cooks feel empowered to make food from scratch in real kitchens... with real food.

Suddenly roasting a chicken, making quick breads and salad dressings didn't seem like such a difficult thing to do, and when I came across a recipe for mayonnaise, I became like one suspended:

Mayonnaise?
With only 3 ingredients?
And two pieces of equipment,
A bowl and a whisk?

This I suddenly believed I could do, and that small spark of inspiration has carried me through this last winter and into this new season of wanting to plant and harvest as much as I can for myself wanting to put my skills to work in the kitchen to make as much as possible... the good old fashioned way.

Add then to that the increasing interest in finding all the ingredients for this type of whole cooking  from the best sources possible and you have my latest stack of books checked out from the library.

I've been learning a lot about the issues and politics surrounding our food, where it comes from and how it's made, but really the desire to do all of this comes even more from the philosophical side of things. To be in touch with what one eats just seems like a good thing to do. Something inexplicable drives me in that direction and part of my rational is made up of the question, "If I CAN do it, then why not TRY?"

Really, in this part of the province, with all that's available to change the way we eat, why not give it a shot?

Will it cost less?
Probably not, but maybe in the long run

Will I be healthier?
Probably, but I am no scientist and have no quantifiable way of measuring those kinds of results.

Will it be a lot more work?
Certainly and I suppose the real test of sustainability is whether it is actually sustainable for the real people who are trying to make a go of it.

The other day I followed a simple recipe online and made yogurt for my family that was in all honesty, quite a bit better than anything I'd ever purchased from the supermarket. It took me more than 24 hours to make and achieve the consistency I wanted, and it cost 3/4 of what I would've normally paid.
But I did it and it wasn't really that hard.

Most importantly, my whole family of mostly lactose intolerant individuals was able to consume the yogurt though one family member claimed it was not as good because it didn't come in the little green serving containers covered in flowers that she is accustomed to.

It was a huge boost of confidence for me, that with enough elbow grease and determination, we too can head a little more back to our land.

It will take several years I know before my own square feet of yard space are able to produce anything substantial and perhaps more years than that before I really even know what I'm doing.  Along the way I'll have to answer a million questions, laugh along with a million jokes ( from my brother in law Pubs most likely) and unfortunately endure the scorn of those who mistakenly believe my choices automatically put them in judgment.

This journey isn't about making a die-hard pledge or drawing some immovable line in the sand. It's simply an expirement  to see what is possible at the work of my wits and willing hands.


I know there are certain things I will not be able to source locally, and probably some things I will even choose not to. I truly believe in not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and small steps are much more effective in reaching goal. For now these small steps are to build the first of our square-foot garden, plan and cook and shop around our Farmer's Market, roll up my sleeves and tie on my apron.

Yes, something good is cooking in this kitchen and it smells like  fresh idea.

 

A Little This and a Little That...

There's been some lovely little goings on going on around here this week....

Delicious homemade yogurt has successfully been made in the crockpot following this recipe and shyly sweet peanut butter cookies have been made by tweaking a recipe to the bare minimum of processed sugar. ( of this, I am proud)...

...The Chestnut Mare had a great fall and broke it's leg, so it's patiently waiting for surgery on the kitchen floor where it is tended to by a sweet nursemaid who brings it dead grass from the yard as "hay" to eat, and is administered medicine from a tylenol syringe...

Soccer season is about to begin in full force and the excited flurry of emails and phone calls to get the team in order is matched only by the arrival of boxes of green jerseys, new equipment, nets, balls and the breaking in of the new cleats...

White legs (mine) have been bared, even on these windy days...

...And sweet blonde baby hair is swept up in the breeze

...And we've been making the most of it and flying kites on the hill.

Yes, it's all the little this and that's that make this home and make life so good isn't it?