Cows, and Chickens, and Goats—Oh My!

In this recent post, I promised some photos of my oldest son and his wife Regina's sweet Iowa homestead. Their livestock includes three cows, three goats, three cats, 16 ducks, 17 chickens, and two rabbits. And they're gardening and growing their own vegetables.  While we were visiting them last week, we ate roasted potatoes that had come from their garden and a chicken dish made with one of the chickens they'd slaughtered and frozen.  I feel a bit as if I've gone back in time or something—back to a simpler era when most families lived this way; and although I'm not sure I was made for this rural life myself (I’m not a big city girl, but I’m definitely a small town girl), I admire what our kids are doing.

Here are some snapshots I took around their "farm."

And since it’s almost Christmas, here’s the new hay manger our son just got for feeding his cows this winter.  A bit big to be a bed for the Baby Jesus...but a manger nonetheless!

Wishing you all a blessed Advent, dear readers.  

Birds in the Bathroom

When we moved into our new house here in VA, we noticed that most of the rooms appeared to have been freshly painted--which I definitely appreciated.  Luckily, I liked all of the colors the former owners had chosen--or at least if I didn't think they were quite my cup of tea initially, they gradually grew on me.  The only room that I have repainted since we moved in is the master bedroom, the white walls of which were showing more wear and tear than any of the others in the house.  (We chose a neutral, grayish-beige shade called "Revere Pewter," after we saw how good it looked in our middle son's home.)

The half-bath in the hallway off the kitchen was a cheery sky blue, and at first I thought I might prefer a more subtle (and currently on trend) shade of gray.  I had painted both of the upstairs bathrooms in our old house pale gray, once we decided that we were going to sell, and I really liked the way it looked.

However, the more I studied that blue bathroom, the more the color grew on me.   I had already planned that I was going to hang some framed photos of birds in this bathroom--and not just any birds, but the birds that used to grace the walls of our old upstairs bathrooms (before we went all HGTV and painted over them to get the house ready to show).  Sky blue walls would be the perfect backdrop.

In this photo of the bathroom in our old house (the one our boys used to share), which was taken before we began renovating it last fall, you can see a seagull perched on top of the shower.

In our old master bathroom, there was a robin standing on top of the shower. 

Anyway, I decided that the only thing missing to make my bird pictures look at home in the new bathroom was a scattering of fluffy white clouds.  These took about 15 minutes to add, using some acrylic paint and a round sponge.

There was a little corner shelf hanging in there, left behind by the previous owners.  And I had the perfect knickknack to fill it: a wooden shore bird that was hand-carved and painted by a highly esteemed artist named Delbert "Cigar" Daisey, a Chincoteague, VA native who is well-known for his intricately detailed bird decoys.   (I actually met him once and blogged about the experience, if you're interested.)

Cigar was my late aunt's boyfriend; after her death, my mother inherited the wooden bird carvings he'd given to her as gifts, and then she passed some of them on to her own daughters.  The one Mom gave to me now sits on that shelf in my first-floor powder room.  (He shares the shelf with a little fired clay souvenir I bought in Cancun when my husband and I took our delayed honeymoon in 1982, about a year and a half after our wedding, after he'd earned his Naval Aviator's wings.)

When my second-oldest son was at our house on Easter and saw the clouds in the bathroom, he teased, "You just couldn't help yourself, could you?"  No, I couldn't.  I've always had to have bits of whimsy in my home.  Such as various animals--pigs, birds, squirrels, you name it--painted on the walls.  And most blue walls just cry out for clouds, as far as I'm concerned.  It was almost as if once I got those clouds added to that bathroom, the house felt more like "ours."

After having to paint over all the animals that had decorated the walls of our NH house, I just don't think I have the heart to paint new ones on the walls of this house.  But I'm finding that it's comforting to have photographs that I took of them hanging here--it's as if they made the move with us, and they seem to be very much at home in their new digs.

In fact, as an afterthought, I added a framed photo of the mouse who used to live just outside the door of the first floor half-bath in our old house.

He was painted on the wall just above the floor molding; so I decided that was just where I should hang this little frame.

Hanging a picture frame this close to the floor might be a big no-no in the interior designer's handbook, but I don't care.  I believe you need to have fun with your house and make it look the way you want it to, no matter how much the next owner might question your taste.  If you want birds in the bathroom--and clouds, and mice--then you should have them, IMHO.

But then again, no one would ever pay me to decorate their house!

Things are Getting a Little Nutty around Here!

Today as I was boxing up some books in my living room (high school and college yearbooks, college text books, and other weighty tomes that my husband and I have probably not cracked open more than once or twice in the quarter of a century-plus that we've lived in this house), I found the oddest thing.

Behind a very old, leather-bound family Bible that was lying horizontally in the bottom corner of one of the built-in bookshelves, there was a pile of almonds.

Wait a minute--what?!

I mean, it's not that my husband and I are opposed to snacking in rooms other than the kitchen.  We do that all the time, often bringing a tray of crackers and cheese into the living room to have while enjoying drinks by the fire, munching on chips and salsa while watching football games, or using our family room as the site for our in-house dinner-and-a-movie dates.  But I was really perplexed trying to figure out how in the world a pile of nuts could make its way to the back corner of the bottom bookshelf!

Then it hit me: there was a squirrel invasion in this house, back in 2011, when I was a fledgling blogger.  I first heard the sneaky critter skittering around in the living room (although I didn't know until later that he was a squirrel and not an axe murderer), and the next day I found a framed picture overturned in there on a table.  Discovering that hidden stash of nuts today made me wonder if before he eventually made his way upstairs, the little scamp had also found an open bowl or container of almonds somewhere and had started squirreling them away behind that Bible!

I have since immortalized my little nighttime intruder in a painting on the wall of the bedroom where I finally got him trapped until the Animal Control guys could come and get him the heck out of my house the next morning.

I chronicled this nutty story years ago, here and here.  The posts are long-ish, but they are entertaining, if you've got the time.  (I used to have more words and less pictures in my blog posts; I think perhaps I've gotten a bit lazy as the years have passed!)

And now, back to my boxes...

The Lake...a Horse...and the Meaning of Life

If you've been stopping by this blog much lately, you know that my husband and I have been spending the past week or so at our house on Lake Champlain (the soon-to-be VRBO rental house we purchased last fall and hope to one day, God willing, use as a retirement home/vacation spot for our family).  We've been able to get a lot of projects checked off the list, but there is still much to do to get this place ready for its public unveiling. 

Yesterday, we had a crew here all day long, removing all the old insulation from the attic and replacing it with newer, better, bug-resistant stuff.  We won't be satisfied until Oyster Haven is in tip-top shape--from the basement, right through its two stories, and on up into the attic.  We're getting there.  Bit by bit, we're getting there.

Today, I have lots of touch-up painting to do. Moldings and trims and doors and such.  But here's the problem, as far as me and getting a move-on goes: this is what I'm seeing as I sit at my computer this morning, in my make-shift office at the kitchen table.

As one of the insulation installers who was here yesterday commented, "It would be hard to get much work done with that view out the window."  So very true.

So yes, my husband and I are very blessed--very, very blessed indeed--to have been able to figure out a way to make this beautiful lake house, and the fabulous piece of property on which it sits, our own (thanks to the future VRBO renters whom we are counting on to help us pay for it, before we end up in the poor house!).

But with every life, no matter how blessed and happy, there are challenges and difficulties.  Crosses are a given.  (Jesus told us how we would be sanctified by these crosses when He said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily.")  So sometimes my husband and I have wondered if we've suffered enough.  We have been exceedingly fortunate, almost ridiculously so; for in our 35 years of marriage, we have carried fewer crosses than most, and those crosses have seemed to be lighter than the ones others are often asked to carry.  We have remarked on this over and over in the course of our life together; if it's true that God sends the toughest trials to those He loves most (remember that St. Teresa of Avila once jokingly complained, "Dear Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few!"), then should we surmise that we are not among His favorites, His chosen friends?  Does He know how weak we are, and how incapable of handing anything too difficult?  Do we have the "right stuff" to become saints?

Here's the thing I'm beginning to understand about crosses, though: just as each and every human soul is unique and different, so will be his or her crosses.  And just because right at this very moment, your life seems charmed and easy, you can never know what might be waiting for you down the road.  So to try to manufacture ways to suffer "enough" is pointless, and even wrong.  We are made for joy, and should rejoice about each and every blessing we receive, each gift from God that makes our lives so profoundly happy (our spouses, our children, and our grandchildren, to name the most important of these).  But we should also be ever-ready to handle whatever curve ball God throws into our lives, trusting that His game plan is so much better than any we could come up with on our own--even when it seems like the worst thing that could possibly happen is happening to us.

God knows each and every one of us, better than any other human being can (even a beloved spouse who's been my best friend and confidant, the other half that makes me whole, for 43 years so far): "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1:5).  So if anyone knows what we can and cannot handle, and what unique crosses we must carry in our lives here on earth in order to spend eternity with Him in Heaven, it's God, our Father and Creator.

So...is it possible that He has given me heavy enough burdens to carry, at least for now--because maybe carrying them will make me stronger?  And then when I'm further down the road of my life, and I'm faced with a cross that seems much, much too heavy for me, perhaps--because of the muscles I've developed from carrying just as much weight as God thought I could handle at the time--I'll be able to lift it onto my shoulders after all?

Last night, my husband and I got together with my parents, one of my brothers, and one of my sisters for dinner.  This brother and sister both became grandparents for the first time this past year, and they both live close enough to their grandchildren to see them on a daily or almost daily basis.  My sister commented that she hadn't gone more than two weeks without seeing her granddaughter since she'd been born, and that she couldn't bear it if she wasn't close by.

And it hit me: people like my sister might look at me, a grandmother whose darling grandchildren all live a plane trip (or an all-day car ride) away and think, "Well, obviously she can bear it; but I couldn't."  But here's the thing, though: I can't bear it.  It is a situation that is unbearable to me.  Having to go even months sometimes without seeing my sons--those five wonderful boys-turned-men who are absolultely my heart's delight--or their children--whom I adore fiercely and completely--is torture to me. But somehow I bear it.  That is the cross, the uniquely painful, tailor-made burden, that God has asked me to carry--for now, anyway.

It might not seem like much, this burden, when you consider all the alternatives.  There is so much suffering in the world that would have to be considered far more devastating than missing your kids and grandkids.  But knowing how hard this particular cross is for this particular mom/Grammy to carry must be the reason God has chosen it for me.  If I can carry this cross with courage and strength, with acceptance and grace--and allow it to develop my spiritual muscles for whatever might lie ahead--then it could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

But of course it's the best thing!  God only wants what's best for His children, and we just have to trust that He knows what that is better than we do.

Wow...I did not expect to get so philosophical today.  I blame it on the extremely distracting, truly heavenly lake view from the kitchen window, because it got me thinking about Paradise and what that must be like.  And I also blame it on an early morning visit with Buddy, our across-the-street "horse neighbor" (as my horse-crazy three oldest granddaughters call him), because it got me thinking of and missing my grandkids.

And now that I've figured out the meaning of life, I guess it's time to get to that painting chore I've been putting off.  So until next time, dear readers...

A Room with a View?

So in my last post, I showed you some pictures of our dining room at Oyster Haven, and hinted that I had a project in mind for that old window hanging on the wall (a hand-me-down from my daughter-in-law Ginger, wife of son #2, that I didn't have a place for until we went and bought ourselves a second house that came complete with lots and lots of empty walls to fill!).

And a while back, I also showed you a picture of our across-the-street neighbor, a sweet, stocky work horse named Buddy.  Buddy is no thoroughbred, that's for sure; my husband says he's an ugly horse-- but I say if so, then he's so ugly he's adorable.

Well, since this "horse neighbor," as my granddaughters call him, definitely adds charm to a home that already has so much going for it (hello back yard neighbor, Lake Champlain!),  I decided to incorporate Buddy into the interior design scheme...

I had these grand plans to paint a scene that looked so realistic, one would feel as if he was looking out a real window at a real horse and barn.  But it just didn't develop the way I saw it in my mind's eye.  And my little wall fresco winded up looking very much like a children's book illustration, like something I could have used in my ABC Book project.  Unfortunately, the B's are finished, or I could have used it for barn; or if the F's weren't complete, I could have used it for farm; and of course horse would have made a spectacular H word, if I hadn't finished those pages already.  It figures that I've still got 16 letters left to go, and there isn't one item in this painting that could do double-duty and work in that book!  Ah, well...

So now I've got a dining room wall that looks decidedly NOT elegant, but more on the whimsical side.  (Of course, this sort of thing fits in very well with the cat door I showed you in my last post, doesn't it?)

The window frame cuts off some of Buddy's face.  (My husband would tell you that's really for the best, considering the ugly mug on our equine friend.)  But let me show you Buddy in full.

I made him look like a cartoon, which as I said was not really my intention when I set out.

I'm not quite finished with the painting yet, but we must go back home to NH today and regroup/re-pack.  We're flying down to VA tomorrow to spend the weekend babysitting for G-Man while his mom and dad enjoy a much-anticipated getaway for their second anniversary.  So I'll be tweaking this homage to Buddy at a later date.  But for now, it will have to do as is.

The best thing about this painting is that if I decide that it's just too ridiculous, I can always paint right over it.

What do you think of this faux window scene?  Yea or neigh nay?

Turning Lemons (or a Cat Door) into Lemonade!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week, from the Sunday before until the Saturday after, with our oldest son, his sweet wife Regina, and their four darling little girls. (Here at the blog, I call them Bonny Babe, Cutie Pie, Little Gal, and City Girl.  And I know a lot of people wish bloggers would go ahead and use everyone's real names already...but I'm trying to give my family a modicum of privacy, if possible.)  We spent the holiday here at Oyster Haven, our soon-to-be VRBO rental house on Lake Champlain.  It was good to give the place a second "test run."   (The first was with our baby back in late October, before he headed off to a three-year stint in Germany.)

I've been feeling a bit empty since the gang left.  There's still so much to do here at the house to get it ready for rentals, so I should be too busy to feel blue; but I miss all the noise and activity that you have with little ones underfoot.  My husband had to fly out to the West Coast last yesterday, so that just made me feel more lonely.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, though, I decided to make lemonade out of lemons, if you will.

One of the kinks we discovered while our boy and his family were here last week was that a little shelf I'd hung on the wall was an accident waiting to happen and should be taken down before we have any paying customers.  This sweet antique beauty was left by the previous owners, and from the looks of it, might even be original to this circa 1830's farmhouse.  I thought it looked lovely hanging on a wall in the dining room.

We now have a claw-foot oval oak table (an antique reproduction that I plan to eventually transform with a shabby-chic paint finish), handed down to us by my husband's sister (at my favorite price: free!), and also some borrowed chairs that we used for our Thanksgiving feast.  So the room was a little more crowded, and as our son was walking past the shelf he bumped into it with his shoulder.  It wasn't even a hard bump, and yet the fragile thing broke into pieces.  So--the shelf is gone, and I've moved the silver wreath over to the spot where it used to hang. ( And now I'm working on a project involving that old window...but more about that later.)

Okay, so another thing about this house is that it used to have several cats living in it.  Although we had them as pets when I was growing up, I am not a fan of felines.  At all.  And neither is my husband.  (I've written about this aversion to cats in the past, if you want to read this very old post, or maybe this one.)

Just around the corner from the dining room, in a little hallway on the right, there is a door that goes down to the basement.  Like all the doors in this house, it's a sturdy old solid wood door--but look what those cat-loving owners did to it!

Aaarrrggghhh!!!  Why would anyone ruin a perfectly good door like that?  Oh, I guess so that they wouldn't have to have the kitty litter box upstairs on the main floor.  But still.  Lemons, that's all I saw whenever I looked at that cat door down there.

So I decided to make lemonade.

Back in NH, I have a scroll saw that made it possible for me to sketch the outline of a cat onto a piece of thin plywood and then cut it out along the pencil lines.  On a recent trip home, I did just that, and then painted my homemade cat silhouette black.  When we arrived here for Thanksgiving week, I attached it to the door, right near the cut-out area.

I liked the fake cat (emphasis on fake), but this tableau was still missing something.  A cover for that cat door, for one thing.  Since buying this place, we've already caught four mice who were living down in the basement--and we didn't want their buddies to start using that nifty little entrance to migrate upstairs.  So I covered the hole from behind, using a scrap of faux wainscoting that we had in our NH basement.

And as you can see, I also added a mouse.  I just couldn't help myself; I always like to add a touch of whimsy to our home[s].

It's a little silly, maybe.  But I hope not tacky.  What do you think?  Will our VRBO guests think it's fun...or will they think I'm crazier than a crazy cat lady?

I realize some of you who are reading this might be cat people, and therefore you think that cats are so wonderful that they're already lemonade.  If so, I'm sorry if this post offended you in any way.  But I can't emphasize enough that the only good cat--in this woman's humble opinion, anyway--is a wooden one.

Have a great week!

#Thankful

It's been a busy, happy week here at Oyster Haven, where we've been enjoying time with our oldest son, his wife, and their four daughters (four and under).

If you come to String of Pearls often, you know that Oyster Haven is the name we've given to the house on Lake Champlain that we bought a few months ago and are setting up as a VRBO rental property (until my husband retires, and we sell our NH house and move there for good; or until we can afford to own two homes outright--whichever comes first!).

I've been working on the interiors for a while now, and having fun deciding what kind of special amenities we'll provide to make our guests feel comfortable during their stay.

Renters are not going to get the same treatment as our granddaughters, however; for our girlies, we left out some special blankies at the ends of their beds,

and some special horse toys on their nightstand,

and let's not forget Grammy's very own trio of baby dolls--the ones she always shares with her granddaughters when they come to visit.

When not mothering those baby dolls or reading books that we've had since their daddy and his brothers were little boys, the girls have been enjoying visiting with our "horse neighbor," as they call him.  Because aside from a lake in Oyster Haven's back yard, there is also an old barn across the street...and living inside of it is a real-live horse named "Buddy."  Buddy's owner has given us the green light to pay him visits whenever we want, so...

When we're not visiting Buddy, we're exploring the beach (for short spells--it's a tad cold to enjoy it to its fullest right now).

Looking at these pictures, is it any wonder that I'm feeling so #thankful this week?  (Don't ask me why I put the hashtag on there.  Just trying to be current, I guess.  You know, to keep up with the cool kids.)

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with family and friends--and football, of course.  We'll just be holding down the fort here.  It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it!