Rainy Day Behaviors

If our local fabulous thrift store hadn't swapped over all their inventory to SPRING!!!, Adam and I would not have left the house on this dreary, rainy, cold day.

 So now I'm back, in my "inspiration room," as Adam calls it, gazing out the window. I found this pretty candle topper at the thrift store this morning ... 50 cents! 

 Doing a little painting.

 I made more vegetable soup yesterday. With crunchy toast, it's a good lunch on a damp day.

 I'm still eating up the applesauce from last summer.

 Hot Darjeeling tea with the last two cookies .(boohoo!)

 I'm always interested in youtube channels that are pleasant to listen to/watch. This is an Irish lady (with a few wacky ideas, but hey, I love her cottage!). Look at her kitchen!

 What a lovely, old, cottagey kitchen. Perfect! Flower Lady from Florida first alerted me to this youtube station. Thank you, FL!

 Look at her beautiful larder. She uses every inch of space. And the glass jars :)

 Here's the video I enjoyed today. Skip over if you get tired of the bedroom.

Bealtaine Cottage is in Ireland. And if you're more of a garden person than a kitchen person, her garden tours are gorgeous as well. Her voice is a soft, lilting Irish voice that nearly mesmerizes you, which is easy to do on a drowsy, rainy day like today.
Adam was getting creative before the rain came. He's making a portable desk -- some might call it a lap desk, except he won't use it on his lap. He'll take it to the park and elsewhere. It will hold his books and paper and ink and pens. Very handy. He's cutting all the dovetails by hand.

 He also started on this large concrete pot. He'll make two of them.

Now I must go change from my comfy clothes and drive away to teach my Monday ladies' Bible study at a friend's house. Eight of us come, when we can. We've been meeting for nearly four years, I think. I'm sure we'll all be talking about the weather, of course! Snow in March, in our neck of the woods, is conversation-worthy.
Tonight, maybe I'll bake some more oatmeal cookies, find a good British TV show, and snuggle down on the couch with the doggies while the snow falls. You?

The International Day of My Women

Today is International Women's Day. I thought I'd share with you some of the women who went before me. None of them had a chance at feminism or women's rights. None of them had any spare time to fight for anything for themselves.
Here's my great-grandmother, "Mungie" (Margaret Myrtle). She survived three husbands, bore (I think?) eleven children, only four of whom lived to adulthood. She was poor and sometimes homeless before there were any social safety nets.

 Above, as a teenager, I think the oldest child in her family.
Below, with her daughter, my grandmother Dama.

Everyone whose spoken of Mungie describes her as unfailingly kind and cheerful.
Dama was a problematic woman, not cheerful like her mother, but very strong, very determined. She raised my mother, her sister's child, after that sister died. 
This is Nina, that sister, who died of Tuberculosis at 19 years. So much tragedy, so much loss, so much of life missed.

This is my daddy's mother, Julia.

 Julia had a difficult life. After having four children, her husband became an alcoholic. They lost their home, and life fell apart. When most women might prefer to relax at home, viewing retirement, Julia was working full-time in a department store, maintaining the home, suffering greatly with her husband, and trying to hold life together.

Julia's daughter is Ann, my aunt.

She's one of the strongest women I know. She is firm, intelligent. She endured a difficult marriage herself, raised three fabulous children, got her nursing degree, and worked full-time in nursing until she was 80 (I think). She's an amazing, sharp, generous woman.

I wish I had a better photo of my aunt Lois. 

This is from Daddy's funeral in January. Lois had seven children and was married to a pastor. That meant frequent moves and doing without. I remember Lois as the lively, animated, cheerful  center of her family. She's a tiny women but full of energy.

My mother, JoAnn:

I'll keep the trend of black-and-white photos.
My mother is probably most like Mungie. She's a nurturer, a listener, kind and helpful. She's raised five children, and I must confess that some of us have been sources of great grief to her over the years. She, however, is steady and reliable, loving and faithful. For about 15 years of that child-raising, my daddy was out traveling, sometimes for two or three weeks at a time. Mother soldiered on at home alone -- without a car at times -- without batting an eye. She had five children in six-and-a-half years.

These are all women of the pre-feminist movement, women who (except my Aunt Ann) did not have higher education, did not have careers. They spent their lives in the service of husbands and children, and often sacrificed everything for family. They were strong though, assured, hard-working, opinionated and articulate. Women of 75 and 100 years ago suffered great hardship and heart-ache, and kept going. These women went before me, and my knowledge of what they were like has impacted my view of myself. My mother especially has shown me how to juggle the many responsibilities of self, husband, children, extended family, church, and friends -- all with grace and elegance and kindness. If only I had all the strength and gentleness together, that these women expressed. Thank you, dear ladies! I am privileged to come from you!

More Kitchen Finishes

#1. The Cast Iron

I've been hauling this cast iron pot rack around for nearly 30 years, knowing someday I'd use it. Finally! Adam located the stud in the wall and used a hefty lag bolt to support the rack. It's located near the stove. No more digging around in bottom cabinets, dropping cast iron on my toe, holding my nose because the cabinet was damp and saggy and moldy and had mouse poop. No more!
#2. The Revere Ware

Our pots and pans were also in a lower cabinet before, and many naughty words were considered (and rejected, of course) while throwing said pots around, hunting for the right lid, the steamer, the double boiler. Grr. No more! Now they hang ready above the stove.

The S-hooks that hang all these pots on both racks cost $5 each. Yikes! We weren't parting with $45 for hooks, so Adam bought a steel rod for $4, cut it, and bent it into hooks. He made a jig for that purpose:

Sorry So Fuzzy. Smudge on camera lens.

 He bought and assembled this sturdy rod (below). An online video showed how to add a shelf above it, perfect for displaying a few pieces of china. I love the variety of natural finishes in the room, including this metal rod.

#3. About Those Shelves

 First, they're pretty. I'm proud of Adam for his carpentry.
Second, we absolutely love having open shelving. No more opening and closing doors for every single item in the kitchen. You need a glass? There it is, in front of you. Pick it up. You just washed a plate? Put it on the shelf. Company helping in the kitchen? They never have to ask, "Where does this go?" Seriously, I've known people who put labels on their cabinets because they grew weary of telling people where everything was located ... behind All Those Doors.

 People have said, "Oh, but all your mess will show." Actually, this is how our dishes looked in the cabinets too. Glasses together. Plates stacked. Cups together. I'm not a clean freak (obviously, haha). But keeping the shelves reasonably tidy should not be hard with just the two of us.

 Everything is so handy. And yes, I can reach all those pots easily:

 And the Revere Ware, without using tippy toes.

Adam did raise the stove hood a bit, and it looks much better.
#4. The Baking Table

 Adam had some rather bad news, dental-wise, this morning (as in ... expensive), but he didn't let that slow him down. He worked on the shelf for his Baking Table/Station. It's not so much a shelf as a rolling platform upon which the table will sit.
Here's the platform, made of scrap lumber left over. We have kept costs as low as possible on this whole project.

 He mounted the table onto that platform, putting locking casters underneath.

 The whole table fits nicely into its spot and serves as a perfect counter.

 When he's in a baking mood, it can wheel out into the kitchen and be locked in position. As in ... Wedding Cake Baking!

He'll add some separators underneath for the
baking paraphernalia, and get rid of the boxes.

 He will also beautify the outside edge of that platform later with a board stained to match the table.
While he worked on the table I made Vegetable Pot Pie.

I wanted Chicken Pot Pie, but we had no chicken in the house. We have no beef in the house either. We don't eat a lot of meat. I was disappointed, before I realized I could just leave the chicken out and use our many vegetables in the freezer to make a pot pie anyway. Frozen fresh from the garden last year, I included:
potatoes
corn
peas
green beans
tomatoes 

I also added:
onion
garlic
celery
carrot
plus, vegetable and chicken bouillon stirred into a roux. 

I had a pie crust in the freezer from making fruit pies a few weeks ago. And it turned out perfectly -- not runny, a delicious flavor, crispy/flaky crust. A good warm meal on a cold day.

In the kitchen we still have 3 shelves to put up, a backdoor to sand and stain, and a light fixture to find at the thrift store for above the sink. I think that's about it. 

I'll sign off with some pretty photos of a horse farm nearby. 

The trees and flowers say "Spring!" but the temperatures disagree. 32 degrees this morning. Brr! Stay warm out there! We are tickled pink with our kitchen. Adam says it looks Hobbitish. I think it looks a little magical.

My Kitchen Hero

Adam worked very, very hard for two days and got the kitchen to "paint stage" -- when I got to help again.
Remember how I said the dry wall under those bump-outs was rather pathetic?

 It's hardly attached. And look at those whopping gaps! It saddened Adam to think of all the dry wall patching he would have to do.
Then he thought of putting boards in those long empty strips! I stained them first, and now it kind of looks like we have beams in our kitchen.

Don't worry. I'll get rid of that nasty wallpaper.

 Thursday morning, his first task was to frame in a box around the stove vent.

 He then attached a sturdy piece of plywood to the front, and wrapped it in dry wall. We will be hanging our cast iron there, so he wanted a strong support under the dry wall. No we won't! Change of plans! Stay tuned for pot-hanging strategy.

 The stove hood and vent will hang under that box.

Friday morning, I painted. It's quite yellow.

 I perched on the refrigerator.
This is just the first coat. The wallpaper over the doors will be challenging to cover. It would not rip off.

More progress on Friday:

I can put a large Cheerios box on a shelf!

The bright yellow in the top photos is more accurate than the insipid beige of the bottom ones. Adam worked so hard on those four shelves in such a narrow space. Tomorrow he'll do more, longer shelves.

Saturday: Today we feel we have moved back into our kitchen!

 

Adam put up more and longer shelves today. Each bracket is held by four bolts with a spring attachment that spreads out on the other side of the dry wall. Each bracket holds 60 lbs.
Here are the shelves thus far on either side of the window:

I wanted cup hooks so badly.

 Here's the stove side of the kitchen. Smaller shelves, so cooking/baking essentials will be kept here. Other seldom-used or bulk items will be on longer shelves over the frig ... coming at a later date.

Yes, the hood is that yellow.
That's the spray paint I had.

 I wanted to get things off the counters, and I wanted almost no storage underneath. Adam and I are older and do not want to bend down. And we certainly do not want to squat. And if we actually get on the floor, we may not get up again!
Another high shelf will go up here (photo below), the length of the kitchen. It will hold all those never-used items that you simply can't throw away. 

(Someday I'll get around to painting those last strips of ceiling ....)

 When they come to gather dust on the top shelf in the kitchen, that will free up space elsewhere in the house (I have kitchen stuff all over), and I can move some of my books out of my studio, which will free up space for my yarn ....
On the other side of the room, a shelf will go above the frig, which we can reach easily with a small stool. Then one more nose-bleed section shelf over that.

 Like I said -- 10 foot ceilings
This narrow space between the frig and the back door used to house a pantry. It was a horrible space where food stuffs went to die.
Now it will hold the trash cans, broom, etc. And I may beg Adam to put one more little shelf there for hiding the ugly Tupperware/plastic.

So there you have it! I'm too tired to say more, and if I'm tired you can only imagine how Adam feels. Poor thing -- his bad leg doesn't do ladders well, and he's been up and down that tall ladder more times than we can count. He is stiff. I am so grateful for him. None of this -- none of it! -- is in some natural skill set for him, and it's not work that he particularly loves (as some men adore woodworking). But he did a brilliant job! And he was willing to do it, for me. (Humbling and wonderful) 
And now that we can really see our kitchen dream as a reality, we love it as we thought we would.

It's a rustic cabin-style kitchen!