A “New” Chair for Oyster Haven

Greetings from upstate NY!

After a short stint back home in VA, my husband and I had to make another trip up north to check on our Oyster Haven rental property.  This spring we lost a chunk of our back yard, due to erosion from heavy rains.  We had to have work done to fill it in and shore it up, so that if it happens again we won’t lose our stairs that lead down to the beach.  (They’ve been removed temporarily but will be reinstalled when all is secure.) We waited to get this work started until our busy summer rental season was over.

My husband wanted to see with his own eyes how the construction project on the bank was going; but he had to make a trip back up anyway, because he still had to bring in all the kayaks and the canoe from the lake and get them into winter storage, as well as bring in the buoy and the dock.  Not to mention our pontoon boat, which has to get cleaned up and brought to the marina where it will be housed until next summer.  I was originally going to stay behind, because I’m an incurable homebody and I’ve missed being in my own VA house.  I’ve also missed our kids and grandkids who live nearby.  But the bottom line is that I belong with HIM.  I’m his helpmate first and foremost, and everyone else comes second.  Our boys all have wives now, so they don’t really need their mommy!😊

So another week by the lake it is!  And it’s been absolutely lovely here, weather-wise; it’s so warm and sunny—what we used to call an “Indian Summer.”  Just glorious.  As you can see.

In other Oyster Haven news…

Remember this somewhat recent post about how I re-upholstered my grandmother’s chair?  Well, I have another tale to tell about bringing an old chair back to life, with little more than a scrap of fabric (from where else but my mother-in-law’s attic, which is practically a small JoAnn’s affiliate, no kidding!).  And lots of TLC, of course.

Toward the end of the summer, I was thinking about hitting the secondhand shops or garage sales to look for a chair to put in the upstairs hall at Oyster Haven.  When we bought it in the fall of 2015 and started getting it ready to start renting on VRBO the following summer, we didn't spend a lot of money on furniture, aside from the beds.  We got bedside tables at secondhand stores and accepted a hand-me-down dining room table from my sister-in-law.  We had an awesome tile-topped trestle table that my husband had made for our NH house that didn't really fit in our downsized VA house, and he made a pair of glorious wooden benches to go with it for the kitchen of the rental house.  Some of the dining room chairs, a coffee table and a pair of end tables for the living room, along with a few other random pieces that we didn't have a place for in our VA house anyway, also found a home at Oyster Haven.

We were on a budget in 2015, so I ended up buying an inexpensive, nondescript little padded stool from Home Goods to fill this space in the upstairs hall, and it has been there ever since.

I must have been meant to get a new chair to replace that stool; because one August day my husband and I were driving back to his childhood home, where we stay during the summer, and out by the curb at the entrance to the neighborhood there were two dining room chairs near a pile of trash, obviously being thrown out.  And when we went to look at them more closely, one of them was in great shape, except for the fabric on the seat cushion.  (The other, a matching arm chair, had a hunk of wood broken off of it.)

After it was recovered, and cleaned up a bit, it looked quite lovely.

And I loved how it has transformed that upstairs hall!

(It would have been pretty, no matter the cost; but I especially love it when things are free!)

One quick addendum:I decided to recover the stool and bring it back to use in our VA living room.  It’s a small room, and we have a big family; so any extra seating that we can get—especially seating that takes up very little space—is appreciated.

Have I got enough competing floral patterns in my living room?  (Don't answer that!)

Have a great week!  And happy homemaking!

The Gift of Hospitality

I get such joy from opening up my house up to others.  I think that's actually one of my favorite things in the world to do--to play hostess.

Showing hospitality to others is kind of what I live for...well, that's mostly true, but not totally.  [Gulp.] Time for a reality check.

Opening up my home when I'm just being "Mom" and "Grammy"-- that's what I live for, and that's easy. Playing the more demanding role of plain old "Hostess" is a tad harder for me.

When it comes to hosting family events, I am all in, all the time.  Even when it's our whole gang--five married sons and the 22 kids they have between them--I am never daunted by the idea of having them all descend upon us, though it is undoubtedly chaotic.  I love to cook for them.  I love making pre-party menu lists, setting up the buffet and/or dining table, putting up party decorations if the occasion calls for it, and the whole nine yards.  My husband and I seriously can't ever get enough of watching our grown-up boys interacting with each other, hearing their laughter in the house again (our favorite sound); it's wonderful seeing our girls, who get along so beautifully, swapping mom stories; it's a hoot seeing the little cousins chasing each other around the house or the yard, or playing together in our basement playroom.  It's loud and crazy and so much fun for us.  Being down here in VA, where we live near three of our sons and 14 of our grandkids (and we're actually centrally located, almost exactly midway between the two boys who live south of us and the one who lives north), our house is often the meeting place for Pearl holidays and family get-togethers.

But since moving here in 2017, we haven't played host and hostess to too many non-family members.  We had the pastor of our sweet little parish over once for lunch--and a house blessing--a few years ago.  We had our good friends (whom we met at church--natch!), T and R, over for a nice steak dinner a few months ago.  But as I said, when we're playing host and hostess, the guests are usually named Pearl.

Last week, on a whim one day we decided to invite a nice woman whom we see at daily Mass to come to our house for coffee afterward on Friday.  We chat with her often on our way out of church, but we never see her anywhere else.  This darling lady, who is about 20 years older than we are, has been widowed for many years and lives alone.  We just thought it would be nice to have the opportunity to really get to know her and to make her feel special.  On Thursday night, I was already getting excited about having company the next morning, so of course I got the table all set up in anticipation.  This was going to be a very casual affair, but I still wanted it to be nice.

My initial menu plan was simple: coffee, a bowl of mixed fruit, and some pastries (store-bought mini-muffins, some delectable little caramel-iced cakes from our town's popular local bakery, and some leftover banana bread I'd made for my hubby).

My husband and I drove to church in separate cars, because although we usually stay after Mass to do the Divine Office prayers with some of the other parishioners, I knew I was going to want to go right back home and get things prepared.  Plus, he was the sacristan that day and was going to have to stay to clean up, and our guest had to do some work involving the altar flowers as well. So I went home ahead of them--to fill the cream and sugar dishes, to brew a fresh pot of coffee, to pour a lemon-sugar glaze over the fruit, and to slice the cakes and put out the goodies.   

It was a treat to use my three-tiered dessert tray, a gift from son #2 and his wife, Ginger.  She found the blue-and-white plates (my weakness!) at the thrift, and he drilled the holes in them and added the hardware.  I would love this piece if it was store-bought, but it means so much more to me that it was designed and homemade by two of my favorite people.  Such a thoughtful gift!

I decided at the last minute to make some mini-quiches, stopping on the way home to get some scallions at the grocery store because we were out.  To make these quiches, I flattened slices of white bread with a rolling pin, cut out little circles with a biscuit cutter, buttered the bottoms, and put them in a muffin pan to make the "crusts." Then I added diced scallions and grated Swiss cheese, and finally poured an egg and cream mixture into the muffin cups until they were almost full, and baked at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Luckily I had plenty of time to get them made before my husband and our sweet guest got to the house.

I was able to use another gift from son #2 and his wife for our little after-Mass get-together: a handy thermos coffee pot.  Now that I have a Chemex pour-over coffee maker, I use it pretty much every day.  I used to rely on a Keurig and brew my cups one at a time; now I make a six-cup pot first thing in the morning and transfer the coffee from the glass Chemex carafe to the thermos, where it stays hot for hours. (I don't know about you, but for me, just about any time of day is a good time for a cup of coffee!  #addictedtocoffee)

Our church friend stayed for about two hours, and we just sat at the dining room table talking that whole time. There was not one lull in the conversation!  It was so enjoyable, and I'm now inspired to invite some of the other nice folks we see every day at Mass over for coffee.

I'm a rather shy person--an introvert, a homebody, a reader, a lover of peace and quiet and solitude--and I'm not naturally gifted at making friends.  Being open to sharing my home with others outside my comfortable circle of Pearls (or should I say string of Pearls?!) is not really one of my charisms--that is to say, gifts given to us from God that enable us to live out the Gospel.  If all I had for friends were the members of my beloved family, I would be perfectly content.  But I'm determined to work at developing this charism of hospitality.  

The wonderful book Theology of Home* has a whole chapter devoted to hospitality.  This quote in that chapter spoke to me: "In opening our homes to others, we allow ourselves to detach from our relatively comfortable, safe, orderly ways so that love, which by its nature is not confining or insular, can spread out beyond these walls and these inhabitants."  Also this: "Hospitality is rooted in kindness--not a kindness that is mere politeness (though that is important) but a kindness that actively seeks to fulfill a need of another unprompted."  What lovely sentiments, so eloquently expressed!  And I'm taking them to heart. I'll let you know how it goes!

Have a wonderful weekend, dear readers.  One filled with faith and family--and friends, too.

*I actually have a copy of this book signed by one of the authors, Carrie Gress.  She gave a talk to a group of women at a church hall here in VA a few years back, and I attended the event with my daughter-in-law, Ginger.  (Gress is a phenomenal speaker!)

Grandma's Chair (Before and After)

I've blogged before about my paternal grandmother's Victorian mansion in a small Upstate NY town, where my family lived for about a year-and-a-half when I was a young girl.  The seven of us made a temporary home in one of the upstairs apartments that she rented out.  (We used to joke that our place had once been the servants' quarters; I'm not really even sure if that's true, but it made a good story!)

When Grandma and her second husband (my father's dad died when he was very young) took possession of the mansion, they found and rescued many pieces of antique furniture original to the house and had them refurbished.  There was a giant dining table and matching chairs that took center stage in the extraordinarily beautiful, wood-paneled dining room in the mansion.  When she eventually sold the place, my grandmother kept a few of her favorite items, among which were some marble-topped end tables and coffee tables and several of the ornately carved dining room chairs.  My youngest sister had been given two of the chairs after Grandma died and recently asked all of her siblings if any of us would like to take them, as she no longer had a place for them.  One of my sisters-in-law and I were immediately interested, so we each got one.  I just brought mine home from NY about a few weeks ago after a trip up there to get our VRBO rental house ready for the summer season.

While I was in NY, I "shopped" in my mother-in-law's attic for fabric to recover the chair.  (I've blogged about this before as well--about the treasure trove of fabrics and laces and sewing notions my seamstress M-I-L amassed in her lifetime, which I have been given the green light by her generous daughters to plunder at will!) I not only found some lovely upholstery material for my DIY project, but also some coordinating gimp trim.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me show you what the chair looked like after years of use, including when my sister used to strap a portable high chair seat onto it and her sweet granddaughter would kick away at the front of the cushion with her little feet.

The fabric on the top of the chair, front and back, had held up fairly well.  But the seat was in bad shape.

I could hardly wait to restore this chair to its former glory! To get started, I removed the gimp binding, which is used to cover up the raw edges of the fabric and the nails (and it's attached with glue, so it's easy to pull off).

Then I removed the fabric pieces, which I used as patterns for the new pieces.  (I was able to remove the upholstery nails, which are short and curved at the tips, and then reuse them).

I almost ordered some new blue gimp to match the lovely fabric I’d chosen, because I wasn't sure if I'd like the shiny gold stuff I'd found in Mom's attic stash...

Out with the old, in with the new!

...but I did like it.  A lot!

Oh wow, heart-eye emojis all over the place!!  I LOVE this look!

I didn't refinish the wood, but I cleaned it, and I also touched up the nicks and scratches with some wood stain I had on hand.  There were small traces of orange-red paint here and there, signs that perhaps some misguided soul had at one time painted over that glorious wood--AAAGGGHHH!  But I didn't remove them.  (I've decided that the flaws in the finish add to the character of the chair.  Yeah, character: that's it!  Ha ha!)

The most challenging part to fix was, of course, the seat.  My biggest roadblock to getting that done was finding the appropriate size and type of foam cushion to replace the old one, which was damaged and disintegrating.  I ordered one from Amazon, but it was 5” high—which was a bit much for this chair.  I ended up finding the perfect thing at our local JoAnn’s.  (There was probably some foam in my M-I-L’s attic, now that I think of it!  But I was too focused on finding fabric to notice!)

I put a new 2" foam cushion on top of the seat's interwoven support bands (or whatever they're called!).  I didn't take a picture, but you probably don't want to see that step anyway.  Just imagine a piece of green foam sitting on top of those strips of burlap.

Once the foam was in place, I set out to cover it with the fabric I'd cut out, using the worn-out old seat cover as a pattern.  I started by anchoring the fabric in place with a nail in the center of the back, the center of the front, and the center of each side, and then I proceeded to stretch the fabric as tightly over the foam as I could as I continued to nail it down all the way around.

The last step was gluing down the gimp trim all around the raw edges of the upholstered seat.

Within about four days of getting the chair home to VA, Grandma's chair was ready to be sat upon. I am thrilled with how it came out.  And I love having this piece that is such an endearing reminder of my grandmother and the wonderful old house she lived in for many years.

I have a lot of colors and patterns going on in my living room: a black and tan Oriental rug; a pink and green floral couch and matching loveseat; and now this chair covered in a blue and white floral print.  (Not mention another antique chair that I rescued and reupholstered many moons ago, using gorgeous brocade fabric in a red and green—strawberries and leaves—pattern.  So there's that, too!)  A professional home decorator would probably shudder to see what I’ve got going on here. Nonetheless, this room makes me very happy.

And in the end, that's all that matters, right?  A house should be a home that makes its owners happy; it need not be a designer’s showcase.

But boy-oh-boy, my grandmother's beautiful chair is a bit of a show-stopper, IMHO...

(So many photos!  Can you tell how excited I am about this chair?!  Moving forward here at the blog, I'll try to keep the photo-sharing under control.)

Happy Homemaking (and a Little Project)

There are few things I enjoy more than puttering around my house, tidying it up here, hanging something new on the wall there.  Aside from wife and mother (and grandmother!), I think homemaker is the vocation that speaks to my heart the loudest.  I love working on any kind of project that will make my home more beautiful, orderly, functional, warm, cozy, and inviting.

I was talking to my daughter-in-law Regina (wife of son #1) a few years ago ago about minimalism, which is a home decor style that has become rather popular, and how we both agree that there are definitely things about living more simply that appeal to us...but that we really don't think the minimalist mindset works for the way we like to live and the homes we like to make for our families.  (Full disclosure: I only remember this long-ago conversation because I just found a rough draft in my archives, which I never published; and what I had started to write about back then fits in with what I want to say now...so I copied and pasted, then edited, some of that old never-seen post right here.  #cheating)

Anyway, Regina mentioned a blog post she'd read that addressed this topic: that is, how having lots of things about you that have special meaning, that remind you of loved ones who gave them to you or of memorable trips or events, or having furnishings that are family heirlooms that have been handed down to you, can bring so much joy to your everyday life and create a warm and inviting oasis for you and your family.  Not that a minimalist approach can't work, too; but as this blog post explained, it isn't for everybody.  (And if you like knickknacks, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person! LOL )

Wow, I thought: there I go again, getting lazy about my blogging--because I'd had this very topic in mind for a few months as well, but now I worried that if I finally wrote my post, I might seem like a copy-cat. (But then again, it's not very likely that anyone other than my daughter-in-law would read both posts, so I doubt I'd have been accused of plagiarism!)

I never wrote/published the post.  But I guess I’m writing it now!

As I get older and closer to that time when I won't be able to take anything with me where I'm going, I sometimes have an urge to purge myself of all the excess: all the pretty dishes and serving pieces that don't get used on a daily basis; all the figurines and porcelain dolls and knickknacks that aren't really useful--but even if they are, aren't really necessary, because like most 21st century Americans, I simply have too much.  Way more than I need to live a comfortable life.

But every time I look around my house at all the lovely things that fill it, I am reminded of the people who gave them to us or where we were when we bought them. Everywhere I look--really, everywhere--the story of our blessed life, our history as a family, unfolds around me, and it's as if the house envelops me in a giant hug.

I am not really a huge "decorative throw pillows on the bed" person  (too
much to take off and put back every time you make the bed!).  But I just 
found this lovely lacy crocheted sham in my late M-I-L's things, and I decided to use it on one of our guest beds.

I could never become a minimalist, I'm afraid.  I do worry that I'm too attached to material things, but I can't imagine clearing away all of the stuff that adorns my walls and tabletops.  There are too many memories and emotions associated with just about each and every item that surrounds me, and that's why I'm never quite as happy anywhere as I am when I'm in my own home.

I go overboard on some home goods, I admit it.  I have a weakness for blue-and-white transferware dishes, for instance.  Exhibit A--my dining room table at Thanksgiving:

I love to decorate the walls of my house with plates.  I drool over pictures like these in magazine spreads Internet searches: 

I think blue-and-white plates on the wall look fabulous. But something stops me from going completely overboard.

Maybe I am a minimalist?!  It looks like I’m not even trying, 
compared to those Internet images!

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned projects. Recently, I worked on one that was so much fun and so satisfying.

Very early in our marriage, more than 40 years ago, my younger brother gave me a small wooden wall shelf he'd made in his high school shop class.  It was for holding tea cups and saucers; there were hooks for the cups and grooves for the plates.  At some point--between all of our various moves, I can't remember exactly when--the top piece broke off and got lost.  So when we were living in NH, I decided to hang it upside down, remove the hooks, and use it to display small knickknacks.  Since our move to VA in 2017, it's been out of commission, hiding in a storage area under the stairs in our basement.

For some reason, I thought of that little handcrafted shelf a few weeks ago, and I decided to get it out and refurbish it, and then put it to use in our "new" house in VA.

Using the bottom as a guide, I was able to trace a new decorative top piece on a scrap of wood I found in the garage (left over from some other house project); then my handy husband attached it for me.  I added a wooden floral embellishment to it and gave the whole thing a dark stain (as it would have been next to impossible to make the new pieces of wood I'd added match the original stain on the rest of the shelf).  Finally, I screwed the cup hooks back in place.

When it was finished, I thought it was so beautiful--that it looked almost like some Colonial antique!  I couldn't wait to get it up on the wall.

This one-of-a-kind gifted shelf that reminds me of my brother adds such a nice touch to a dining room that already makes me ridiculously happy.  (And it's possible that I am ridiculous!  But I have such a fondness for dining rooms.  I know for the most part, the "open concept/living and dining areas combined" thing is more popular among modern homemakers; but I am a sucker for a formal dining room.)

I do realize that at my age, I should be working on detachment from all things material.  I have watched my mother lose her home, after my dad died and we knew that she wouldn't be able to live alone anymore.  Almost everything she owned was either taken by one of her children, given away to charity, or sold in a garage sale.  I know it won't be all that long, relatively speaking, before that will be the fate of all my treasured household goods.

In the meantime, however, I'm just going to enjoy having my things about me, as Mary Kate Danaher would say (in the best movie ever, The Quiet Man). 

If you've seen the movie, you know that Mary Kate's precious heirloom china is blue-and-white.  Naturally!

And I suppose that's as good a way as any to end this post!

I Feel Like a Farm Wife (LOL!)

That up there is definitely an LOL kind of statement. 

Because the truth is that we live in a cookie cutter neighborhood (with an HOA) in a small town, on plot of land approximately the size of a postage stamp, and the only garden item we have (other than the glorious perennials that blossom every spring along the side of the house--inherited from the former green-thumbed owners, God bless ‘em!) is a small potted basil plant in the kitchen, which was gifted to me recently by my daughter-in -law Ginger.  We don’t have chickens or goats, or even a dog or a cat or a goldfish. The only “critter” we have on our property is the Bigfoot statue in our perennial garden, a nod to my late dad (because that’s what his grandkids called him, per his request!).

So it’s safe to say that a farmer’s wife I am NOT!

You can definitely see Bigfoot better in the winter!

But my husband and I have recently decided to mill our own flour and bake homemade bread (and other yummy pastry items, too) with it.  So far, I’ve made four loaves of bread and one pan of brownies with our freshly milled flour.  As my two loaves were rising today, I told my husband that this homemaking task makes me feel like a farm wife.  :)  It’s so satisfying!  It means that even if I accomplish nothing else all day, I've made bread!  All by myself!

(BTW, I mentioned our plan to start milling our own flour from wheat berries, at the end of a post here not too long ago, if you missed it and are interested.)

In other news--we also joined a co-op, and yesterday we picked up our first two gallons of raw milk.

What?!

At 65, my hubby and I have decided to eat healthier.  (Or crunchier...potato, po-tah-to.)  Our goal is to try to maintain our health without going on any daily prescription meds.  So far, so good; but at our age, we figured it might be a good idea to really ramp up our efforts so that it can hopefully stay that way.

I mean, I'm not gonna lie: my husband and I both love store-bought white breads and rolls. I sheepishly admit that we both enjoy so many fun, overly processed snack items that can be found at the grocery store. (I know you’re supposed to only shop the outer perimeter of the store and avoid the middle aisles…but the middle ones sure have a lot of hard-to-resist offerings!)  And I definitely like the look of store-bought milk better  than the raw stuff straight from Bessie, which is a little yellower in color.  (I can be squeamish about food that has a different appearance than what I'm used to.) 

HOWEVER, we’re determined to make a change in our diet!  So flour-milling and bread-baking and raw milk-drinking it is! 

Hard white wheat berries, before milling.

And the flour that is produced from those berries in no time flat, 
using this electric mill.

Bread-baking ingredients.  And Mary looking on.  (I just love my
Kitchen Madonna!)

Last Friday, I made my first two loaves, using hot water, oil, honey, lecithin, flour, yeast, and salt.  It was pretty good…maybe a tad dry and crumbly.  But okay.

I baked my favorite brownies as a Sunday treat, using soft white wheat berries to make the flour.  They were dee-licious.

Today, I baked two more loaves of bread, but this time I used butter instead of oil and I added the optional egg to the dough.  Then before I baked the loaves, I brushed the tops of them with an egg wash, which gave them a nice shiny brown crust.

And oh my, these loaves were so much better than my first ones!  I don't know if it had to do with the added egg, or with substituting butter for oil, or if possibly the hot water I used on my first batch wasn't quite hot enough.  But I think we have a winner here!  I like knowing that I can bake an eggless bread, because I have a few grandchildren who are allergic to eggs (and I'm going to experiment more with the eggless recipe to see if I can get it to turn out a little moister and fluffier).  But the loaves I made today--YUM!

To give you an idea of the difference between the first loaves I baked and the ones I made today, in the picture below that's the first try on the right and today's bread on the left.  Quite a difference in appearance, am I right?  I'm almost wondering now if the problem was that I didn't let my first batch rise long enough.  (Hopefully after a bit of experience at this, practice will make perfect and I'll feel confident that I can tell when my rising dough has doubled in size!)  

Did you want to hear about homemade bread today?  Was this post absolutely riveting?  LOL!

I'm just so tickled about all of this, and it makes me kinda wish that we did have enough land to have a chicken coop out back, so we'd have fresh eggs as well, and room to plant a vegetable garden. I think if we had gotten this bee in our bonnet many years ago, my husband and I would have jumped on the homesteading train that seems to be popular with lots of younger folks these days. I'm afraid that ship has sailed, though (or that train has left the station!).  But I do think we're going to enjoy making breads and baked goods with our vitamin- and nutrient-rich home-milled flour.  

I'll try not to write too many bread-themed posts.  But I can't promise that this is the last you'll hear about it!

One last note before I sign off: lest you think I regret that we chose our pleasant little house with no land to speak of, located in a sweet but crowded small town neighborhood, instead of a farmhouse on a couple of acres, where we could grow our own food (and maybe even milk our own cow!), nothing could be further from the truth.  We have already created so many wonderful family memories in this VA house, which is located close to so many of those whom we hold dear to our hearts and is a perfect central meeting place for our VA boys and their families.  When I look out my door, I don't see rows of vegetables reaching toward the sun, or chickens wandering about pecking in the dirt...but I often see sights like this. Grandchildren running up our front walk, excited to come to Papa and Grammy's house.

I might not be a farm wife.  But I'm a very happy Grammy.