Kitchen Notes

I'd like to get back into the swing of posting my kitchen notes each week. Not much exciting is happening here with the packing up and moving, though. Frozen pizza for days.

I did manage honey butter and some blondies to keep us strong during the packing. While we didn't struggle to gobble them up, I was pretty perturbed that my recipes are packed already! One of the joys curses of the internet, though - a recipe is never too far away.

In other news, we've pulled up the rugs to show off our fancy floors that we've worked so hard to keep fancy for such a time as this. Now, let's all hope I make it to Sunday's Open House without bouncing the marble lazy susan off the hardwoods!

Whew.

House

We're packing everything now. We took down our bird feeders and bird houses. This one wasn't made with a trap door so was used last summer {by a house wren I think} and not cleaned until now. We are both looking onward and upward. Little house, big house. Clean it out. Pack it up.

Brisk brunch

lady slippers :: sunbeams through the canopy :: thrush nest in the hemlock 

:: wood violets :: ferns :: the overlook

Turns out my honey hat wasn't too little too late, but rather just enough just in time. Friday morning we rolled out of bed and carried a picnic brunch to the top of Ravens Rock in Cooper's Rock State Park. When we left the house at about 7am, the temperature outside was hovering around 45F.

The trail is about 1.5 miles and ends at the magnificent Ravens Rock overlook. Along the way, we stopped in to visit the wood thrush we first met last year and on the way back, we spotted a hooded warbler, a first for us both.

If you haven't already, go on a nature walk this weekend! The weather is perfect for it!

Too little, too late

Well the honey hat is finished - too little, too late. It's been blazing hot here, no need for a cozy cap, but fall will be here soon enough I am sure. It always comes, doesn't it?

The hat is just what I hoped it would be, cute, casual and big enough to hold all my hair. As I finished it up, I keep cooking up ideas for my next one. I used the Fresco pattern and I think it would be excellent for some stranded color work. I also learned that I really enjoy sport weight yarn. I like using small needles for lace and fingering but the sport weight yarn is more gratifying and works up nice and quick, comparatively, of course.

On the reading side of things, I have returned back to my half-read The Ladies' Room by Carolyn Brown. It is a good light read. (That reminds me, I read a quote somewhere bashing the "light read" but I cannot recall...) I am also about 3/4 way through The Marseille Caper by Peter Mayle. This is my least favorite book by him, of the few I've read, mainly because it actually has a plot! Ha! If I want to read about roaming the French countryside, don't bother me with suspense!

New to the queue is Sylvia's Farm: The Journal of an Improbable Shepherd by Sylvia Jorrin. It is an eBook from my library but I need to make a stop in to renew my card of one more year before I can download it to my Kindle.

What are you crafting and/or reading? Show and tell with Ginny at YARN ALONG.

PS - are you sensing a color theme in this post? A great many things around here are 'bosc pear' and 'mannerly gold.' I am on a paint picking kick for the new house and I just have to figure out how to work this great shade of yellow into my plan. Do you use this color in your decor?

Pittsburgh, again

the sunken garden :: the desert room :: the baby victoria amazonica :: the 'down under' installation :: the long fellows in the orchid room :: the palm house :: julian, butterfly tamer

We took Julian's parents to Pittsburgh today so they could see all the places we'd enjoyed for the past five years. Usually, we make a day trip near the holidays, but there have been more than one mad dash to the Apple store during our time here in Morgantown. (And if you're going to drive and hour and a half for a new laptop battery, you might as well see the sights.)

We stopped in to IKEA where I picked up a wall storage set for the new house, went to Joann's and got new upholstery fabric for our dining room set, shopped through the best stores of The Strip District, and marveled at the greatness of Phipps Conservatory (one of our very favorite Pittsburgh spots).

It was a special day to go through these places knowing we might not ever make it back. We are both very ready to move on, but it is nice to remember the lovely times shared here.

Par-tay

We made it. Our 100-day countdown came to an end, both more quickly than we planned and more slowly. This Friday was Julian's graduation party and Saturday was his graduation topped off by his high school lacrosse team winning their third consecutive state championship right after graduation. The whole whole weekend was a delight.

I think the whole situation is so surreal for all of us. Transitions are always a bit nebulous but it is just hard to imagine that we moved our whole lives four and a half hours away from our home to complete a single {albeit very difficult task} and now just like that, here we are on the other side of it.

So what comes next? Julian will join the faculty at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia this August and the coming weeks will be spent packing. We've got our house there already but haven't got our current house all buttoned up and settled yet. I'm looking forward to posting more here about what's coming down the pike, but of course I can only post what I know, and some days that ain't much!

Family time

**This is a long overdue post about a wonderful weekend we got 

to spend celebrating my cousin's and my Grandmother's birthday 

(which is also our nephew's and Julian's Grandmother's birthday) 

in Pipestem State Park, West Virginia. **

 

This was the first time I'd made it to cousin Myra's new house, met her son, David Robert, and met Neil and Blair's son, Will. It's crazy how we all stay in touch so often on FB but we never seem to be in the same place at the same time... until this time! I suppose turning 85 is as good a reason as anyone to get the whole crowd out. I hadn't had any doubts that they were darling little boys, but now I know for sure. 

This occasion did not disappoint. It had all the usual features of our family gatherings: extensive porch sitting, a nature hike that lasted too long, super-photogenic Blair,  a monster cake laden with artificial food dyes, awkward photographs, and pine tar. What's not to love?! (except the pine tar)