Ragout of a post

I'm working on the canned ham rejuvenation. Bit by bit it's coming together. My wonderful husband and amazing father-in-law "upcycled" a neighbor's deck that was otherwise headed for the burn pile and now it's the perfect landing pad for my awning poles this summer. Also? The girls moved right in with their Breyer barns and model horses. They didn't want to wait for the pressure washing. They may have come by that impatience honestly. See that red and yellow galvanized tub in the right foreground? I planted that dumpster treasure (yes, I mortified my husband and children on a recent dump run by asking another dump patron for his 'trash') full of sugar snap peas and buttercrunch lettuce. I didn't want to wait for the pressure washing either! My plans for Valentino are that it be not only a writing spot for me but a tiny guest cottage, if you will. The family plans are that it could also be a changing room for the wading pool! And the deck? Can pull double duty as a stage for summer backyard concerts. Who knew how much joy this little work in progress could bring? I am excited to show you my reupholstery and paint projects as they continue. And put your reservations in now because I'd love to host you in the canned ham cottage! My house is just steps away and the country quiet is intoxicating (unless of course the children are laughing and playing outside of course!). Meanwhile, elsewhere in the yard, a few violets decided we were never going to get to all the leaves and braved the springtime anyway.

Our indoor seedlings were this size when I took the pictures... and six inches tall when I uploaded those pictures!

We're still studying geography and culture of many lands. In the past few weeks we have batiked fabric for saris, handwoven colorful Mexican sashes, and embellished Austrian vests and hats. Grace can finally name and identify her continents... I wish we knew a continent memory song that flirts around at the back of my mind but never settles in well enough to teach it! Does anyone have an idea of this song or did I make it up in my famously imaginative memory?

The giant yellow daffodils are slowly giving way to a flurry of fragrant paperwhites. They are so beautiful! I wish that particular scent of paperwhites and mown grass could be bottled.

And of course bread still needs to be baked. Those sad little lumps of dough become an everyday miracle of their own. I am recognizing more of those serendipitous moments and household beauties, the more I look.

You too?

Sprucing Valentino

Why, yes, that's my little nest of happy colors and summertime napping bliss. Theoretically I write out there too.

In that. My own personal "trailer park" in the back yard. Otherwise known as "Mommy's Bahamas," or, more recently, "Valentino."

It's cute but a little beyond shabby in its chicness.

When we were a cute little family of three and four we camped in vintage 1954 Valentino, trucking down the road and garnering stares and waves from Harleys and Hummers alike.

But Valentino is outgrown by our cute bigger family of seven. We have a new(er) glamper (glamorous camper? anyone?) that sleeps everyone and boasts a bathroom to boot.

Valentino comes complete with vinyl upholstered 8-track shelf.

...that I have finally found the gumption to strip. I'm gonna put some geraniums and a stereo there.

Can you say ugh? Ick? Vinyl upholstery and nastiness combine on the dinette side of my little Valentino. That's where I will set up my laptop docking station and finish the probably not-so-great novel. (I hate to put pressure on myself.)

So I've started slapping on the primer. With my husband's blessing it's ALL getting the white paint and beadboard treatment. Yessirree, even the adorable honey-colored cabinetry. I am going to strip it down and build it back up on the cheap. With paint and fabric I have in the bottomless pit of a shop.

Willy nilly you might say. It's brighter already. It's happier. It's my own little trailer park of one. With a tiny deck and a striped awning, a new red and white exterior paint job and maybe even some chenille upholstery on the dinette seats... I'd love to welcome guests by this summer.

And a note: It's hard for me to share the before and during shots without some "after" inspiration. But I'm doing it anyway.

Do you have a getaway?

Oh, the humanity

We went "roughing it" over the weekend. It started out 76 degrees and sunny and ended up in the 40s with heavy rain and wind. Luckily the pregnant me's version of roughing it includes a rustic yurt. I might have tripped over tree roots on the way to the restroom, but we did enjoy hot running water.

In other good news: We didn't lose any children in the great avalanche of backpacks and sleeping bags.

In between storms we hiked. Mr. Suite had a plan that included overly ambitious miles of hiking. I valiantly kept up. Sort of. Leftover broken hip gimpiness and the general state of the third trimester were my excuses when I sat out some of the steeper inclines. (Also I had my new copy of Alabama Stitch with me. Go figure.)

I'm pretty sure one doesn't need to be gimpy nor pregnant to experience localized chest pain and generalized anxiety disorder over the sight of one's entire family on the precipice.

... of that inlet, also known as Devil's Churn.

We experienced some unbelievably warm, windless weather for tidepooling and the reading of Patrick McManus stories around the campfire. The girls are all now too familiar with the psuedoscience experiments that can be conducted by preteen children given cases of canning jars, bear grease and a heavy dose of teacher mockery. (Did I mention we homeschool?)

And then there was some more seasonable Oregon weather that alternately drenched and threatened to blow away the lighter leaves of the family tree.

Some of us with aforementioned gimpiness and/or height-related issues didn't measure up for climbing the lighthouse stairs.


Laura stood on tiptoes to no avail. Then she threw a fairly impressive screaming mimi in the lighthouse keeper's oil room while everyone else climbed the stairs. Strangers who were waiting in line were impressed with her tenacity. Also my creativity in distraction. (Okay, I made that part up. But they were impressed.)

Some of us did measure up for the stairs. And weren't afraid to gloat about it.

Some of us found a lot of seashells and agates.



One of us slept on the top bunk for the first and much-anticipated time.

Others of us were carried when we couldn't walk anymore.

I highly recommend yurt "camping" if your family for whatever reason can't take the dirt and bugs route. (Sometimes we take our little canned ham 1950s travel trailer but alas we are outgrowing it.) My husband grew up with truly rustic camping but this way the 2-year-old's toilet training was hardly derailed, the beach was steps away but so was the foot wash station. The only thing I'd change is next time we'll probably use our hitch rack thingamajig so the dog can ride in the "way" back instead of in the middle row with Madeleine and Sarah and so the bedding and backpacks don't teeter overhead that way.

I took a little more than 400 pictures and hope to impose on y'all with a few more of them as days go by.

In the meantime, I have a little unpacking to do.

Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

I love how the girls labeled every single one of the cosmos starts. It is 80 degrees and the sun is shining. Just two weeks ago we had snow and frozen ground, but the starts are finally going in the ground today!

Other plantings of note today: Romaine and Butter Crunch lettuce starts in the "salad bucket" planter off the back porch; sugar snap peas and brocolli; the lemon tree; ivy geraniums and hollyhock starts.

Ryan had big plans for putting in our new raised beds today. However, he spent the day digging up dirt and pouring in a new concrete foundation and box thingamajig for the fire department's water shut-off valve. The volunteer fire department is next door, and their water valve is on our property. Last summer they were having water problems and had to replace the valve. At the time, Ryan was less than impressed with their contractor, who failed to compact the earth after installing the new valve. A-hem.

So here's where I have to admit that it's all my fault. I have been asking Ryan for months (ok, a year) if we could pretty please store the canned ham (our super shabby cute 1959 travel trailer) and the horse trailer behind some gigantic native rhododendrons on that side of the property. All I wanted was some space in front of the shop for a hitching post. A couple of times he said he didn't feel comfortable driving over the aforementioned valve box since it had an obvious saggy baggy soil problem. But yesterday I convinced him that it would be fine if he put some boards on top. The canned ham made it over okay, but the Suburban, he had to stop short of attempting that passage.

Hence his afternoon of digging, pouring concrete, constructing a degage valve cover box out of concrete blocks that were behind the shop. Of course during his hard labor two of the fire department board members and the founding father of the fire department were all across the road at the Rebecca Lodge for a 50th anniversary party. They were all dutifully impressed with his engineering expertise and gratifyingly thankful that he was correcting a problem which it turns out they had recognized all along.

Meanwhile the canned ham is stuck in a funky spot at the edge of the property, even more of a sore thumb in our picturesque view than before. As soon as the concrete sets up (R says 14 days or so), he will fill the hole appropriately with gravel, replace the soil, move the trailers, plant some grass seed and never listen to my naggingly "good ideas" again.

M, S & G were at Grampa's farm playing all day, so Laura was my only helper. She is too small for the stroller! We took walks to see the horses and the neighbors. At 7:40 we booked down to the General Store for dinner. Marti and Lorena were still serving a bunch of day trip bikers and cyclists and we managed to keep them open until half hour past closing. Yummy mushroom burgers and fries and town gossip about who might be the new pastor.

Back from vacation

Back from vacation. The real estate market is apparently in crisis. Sellers, excited by prices of the past two years and ever-hopeful here for that "california buyer," are allowing their overpriced, market-worn homes to wither on the vine. Buyers, ignoring the past six months of phenomenal interest rates and hesitant to jump in now lest they pay too much, are now for the most part out of luck with the implosion of the subprime mortgage market. In fact, many contracts have suffered terminations at the hands of bankrupt banks. So hey this means I don't have to make any hard decisions about what to do with my spendy and time-consuming career du jour.

Ryan and I took the girls camping in our 1953 canned ham this month. It poured and blew gale force winds. We were grateful for the shelter of the trailer and bravely tried to roast mallows in the spitting precip. A family of Barbie and Ken models from Germany camped next to us in their rented Winebago, eating organic yogurt at their dinette set and unabashedly staring while I cooked spaghetti and the girls went swimming in the KOA pool in the rain. All-American fun, I tell you. I casually mentioned on the way home that we might trade the canned ham in for a larger, bathroom-equipped RV. Sarah was incensed. "Then no one would point and smile at us anymore, Mom."

While we were gone, the neighbors watered (not like I do, of course, and the hanging petunias will never be the same) and fed the horses, chickens, rabbits and cats. The dog went with us. My mother snuck in and cleaned our house. It was 85 degrees and sunny the entire week at home. Our vegetable garden was invaded by deer. Ryan and I each bought books at a roadside used book store. Our optimism was laudable. Mostly we played dominoes and went on scavenger hunts and constructed rain gutters out of duct tape and washed sandy clothes in the KOA "clubhouse." We paid too much for ice cream and pancakes. We made memories and came home and were glad to do so.

One week later, we dropped the girls at Grandpa and Grandma's and returned to the coast. No kids and no dog and no travel trailer.

This was an entirely different sort of trip of course. Sylvia Beach and the phoneless, televisionless oceanview library. The Tables of Content restaurant and plently of time to read, sleep in, eat seafood. 70 degrees and sunny and incredibly wind-free walks on the beach. We have been married 15 years. We have three little girls and a baby on the way. We have three and a half horses and our children can discuss literature (well, Dr. Suess and E.B. White) and help in the garden. It's good to be back.