Is it just me or is time this summer going incredibly fast? We went from having plenty of summer days left to suddenly arriving in the last month of summer. There are some places farther south than where we are that summer lasts through September, and even into October, but Maine is surely not one of those places. As usual,… Read More »Squeezing in Summer
Sometimes it’s the simplest things that take me the longest time to get done. These are actually old drapes that I made for the living room a while back – maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I liked the fabric, but the drapery look was too formal for our simple home, so I made a simple cafe curtain just to… Read More »New Curtains for the Living Room
Our family recently adopted this sweet girl who we named Nimue. She’s about 6 months old and while her mother is a full chocolate lab, no one knows who the father is or what type of dog he may be. The shelter staff thinks she is also part boxer. No matter what she is, she’s the sweetest thing. She was… Read More »Meet Nimue
Every now and then, a stray cat will show up at our door. Sometimes, when we don’t already have five cats, we’ll open the door and welcome it into our home. (And sometimes when we do, we end up with kittens a month later.) Husband insists there must be a sign in our woods, telling of this House for Wayward… Read More »The House for Wayward Cats
I have dreamed as long as I can remember of having a very old farmhouse with an attached barn. Here in Maine they’re rather common, usually with an ell that connects the house to the barn. They may not have been a necessity, but I’ll bet it surely was nice for the farmer to be able to care for his… Read More »The House with the Attached Barn
We’re in a bit of a rainy spell these last few days, but I took advantage of being stuck inside to do a room shuffle. Again. It does seem like we do that a lot here. But then again, living in a smallish home with a largish family means you need to be flexible with who sleeps where. You see,… Read More »During the rain
We’ve had a few rather rainy days lately, which is great for the gardens, but not so great for the children who are spending a lot of time inside. Sometimes we’re able to find creative ways to spend the day, and other times the Littles ask too many times to watch a movie. While I don’t mind a little bit… Read More »Making Books
I just finished knitting Silas’ new sweater, the Elwood sweater, and before I barely had it done he was wearing it. No surprise as he had been prompting me to finish it so often. Every time he saw my hands sitting idle, he’d bring me my knitting, “Here’s my sweater, Mama”. (The fact that it took me nearly 3 months… Read More »Silas’ Elwood Sweater
She’s been counting down since January – “How many more days until my birthday?” This weekend it came. Finally for her, too soon for me. Most of our birthday celebrations are pretty low keyed. We go for simple and easy over lots of bling and expensive, and that’s really just Emma’s style anyway. She’s a very easy child, never asking… Read More »Nine
We’ll start with the good, yes? We’ve entered full on Spring here (finally!). I’ve been enlisting the help of the whole family to try to get some of our gardens in order. Spring chores are always much easier when we spend time cleaning things up in the Autumn, but this past year we were so busy that I didn’t have… Read More »The Good, the Sad, and the Ugly