Dresser Remake

The finish on the boys’ dressers was very thin and easily sanded off. I made them take extra time to clear out all traces of the aforementioned carving.

We loved the green color and almost decided just to leave it with that, but then we couldn’t have messed with the white paint and plaster of Paris.

I wanted you to see how ~~I look with a cheesy grin and my eyes shut~~ nondescript this dresser really was.

The plaster of paris in the paint made an incredibly hard surface. I had sanded it once, then applied a second coat with just plain paint. It took a lot of pressure to get the white sanded down to show bits of green. This is the step you do not ever want to attempt without a power sander.

We stained the tops in ebony and then we strayed from the tutorial and used polyurethane instead of the wax they recommended (because we had it on hand and it worked fine).

I am ridiculously pleased with our end result, probably largely because of our panicky moments yesterday. Last night I went to bed consoling myself that often painting projects look much better when they are dry. Sure enough, this morning things had taken a turn for the better. I have a really hard time being random when I do something artsy and I think the greenish spots reflect me being studiously random. I should have let Gabe do that, because he is much more skilled with this sort of thing. It bugs me a little, but not enough to do them over.

Who is gonna write on these dressers?

“Not us!”

Who Ate All the Cookies?

Once, a long time ago, some little boys unwisely carved their names on their dressers. Admittedly, the dressers were of unpretentious build and an indifferent color described “maple” in the stamp on the back. This did not excuse the small boys from needing to rectify their wrongdoing. Someday, their mother said, they would have to sand them and refinish them.

A few years rolled by until the mother deemed them big enough to start the process of refurbishing their furnishings. She instructed them to empty their drawers, haul all the pieces outside into the brightness of a gorgeous day. The boys were delighted to wield screwdrivers and a power sander, removing hardware and orange-brown finish with great zeal.

There was this really neat tutorial online for a dresser project that looked very similar to what they wanted their end result to be. Step by step they followed, painting their drawers and dresser bases a beautiful oceany green. That was the point where they ran out of supplies and besides it was lunchtime and everybody was hungry.

The smallest boy got dispatched to the kitchen to make pancakes and fried eggs for the crew while his mother finished up the trim work and wrapped up the brushes.

They decided to do a quick run to town for the missing supplies, dropping off the little sisters at Grandma’s house for a few hours. There was the aisle of Back-to-School stuff, all stocked and not crowded, so they meandered along and picked up their supplies for that as well. Small boys are concerned about their mechanical pencils, especially when confronted with a dozen varieties, but the decisions were carefully made and they returned home to continue the dresser project.

Enroute they had passed a stand with sweet corn for sale, just great for supper. The smallest boy once more got sent off to husk corn and prepare the kitchen for supper. His style of painting was a bit too flourishing for the top coats, his mother decided privately. He might as well do something that he can do well. Besides, stain is a different animal entirely from washable latex paint, as she explained repeatedly to the interested noses poking around while the staining process was going on. “You cannot be needy right now,” she said to the little girl who was whining about not having had her story yet. “And go get me that piece of cardboard in the school room, please.” The little girl countered with, “Why aren’t we allowed to be needy but you are?… Okay, I am going!”

It was getting late, time to cook the corn. The father of the family called to say that he would be working four hours longer than scheduled, so they decided right then that supper would be corn and applesauce only. Who needs protein anyway? The little boy made the supper just like he had made the lunch, surprisingly competent. Then he cleaned it up while his mother and older sibling returned to their project.

The dresser remake only lacked one more step before it could be left to dry overnight. Very cautiously they mixed the paint with plaster of paris, just like the tutorial said. It seemed odd, but they really wanted their end product to look like the photos of the one online. There was a moment of panic when the mother stirred the plaster of paris into a half gallon of paint. Her older son looked at her in sheer disbelief. He knew how fast it sets up and set to stirring vigorously, but it wasn’t being incorporated into the paint quickly enough. The immersion blender, that would do it! It was an inspired idea, but sadly the blender was already on its last spin before it was plunged into a bucket of slurry the consistency of lumpy pudding. It quietly expired before it really did much good, so they were back to stirring. What in the world were they thinking in that tutorial? They wondered this aloud as the two hastily painted on the gloop and spread it with a brush. The plaster was getting stiffer by the minute. This was going to be one hard surface!

By the time the drawer faces were done, they had to spread the paint with a brush dipped in water. It really did seem odd, but they were game to see how it would all turn out. That was when they noticed that they had missed the step of mixing water into the paint mixture. Oh well, tomorrow is another day and they have plenty of sandpaper.

And who did eat all those cookies? I suppose a mother who sends people off to husk corn and clean the living room and go away to play somewhere while she messes around with paints shouldn’t be surprised that there are only crumbs in the jar at the end of the day.

Besides, she knows where she hid the cheesecake.

Failings and Flapdoodles on a Monday

For starters, those of you who wonder how I ever find time to read should have seen me this morning when I was trying to quickly finish my book before facing the laundry and the 250 feet of peas in the garden. That is how it happens, my dear Rhonda, that an 800 page book eventually gets read.

Anyhow, I was feeling guilty as I scurried into the laundry room to sort out the hampers that Alex had carried down for me. As I turned the corner, I stubbed my toe horribly and yelped with irritation. A close inspection revealed a neatly constructed trip wire running from the edge of the dryer into the boys’ bedroom. Booby traps of all varieties are my little boy’s faulty idea of fun practical jokes lately. Maybe it was the sight of my bleeding, torn toenail, or just maybe it had something to do with the look on my face, but Gregory was instantly penitent. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mama.” Of course not, but if you ever do that again, son, you will face some very loud music. I stewed and simmered a bit while I was sorting laundry. Maybe I should start a new chapter of M.A.D.D. I thought. You know, Mothers Against Dumb Deeds or something like that.

We have been spending quite a bit of time weeding the various plots around here. There was more than a little grumbling going on, so we pretended that we would starve this coming winter if we didn’t raise a successful garden. It was a fun game for the children and perked them up as they discussed survival strategies. I thought how it is that we cannot really imagine such a plight. Mainly we garden because we enjoy fresh food. By the time we buy all our supplies and the endless array of mulches and sprays and stakes and fences to keep out the deer, I am doubtful that our food is cheaper. If our corn fails because of the wetness of the soil, we are confident that we can buy some. We are daily loaded with benefits and how quickly we forget!

All that to say that we put in our daily weeding hour this forenoon before I picked the peas. I dislike picking them when they are wet and clammy, but then it was hot and I got a horrendous crick in my back. I resolve every year that I will not do this again. There is no more labor intensive vegetable and the yields are discouraging for all that work. And then the next year I go and plant them again because I absolutely love homegrown peas. You don’t need to pity me. I know what I am asking for when I order the seeds. It is a yearly lapse into irrationality. 🙄

About half way through the picking, I noticed that my littlest girl was missing and decided I should check on her. It is always better if she stays very close to Mama, and normally she does this on her own, chattering and breathing my air in her desire to be right where I am. I stepped into the living room and yelped for the second time in the day. There was a quart of bright red cherries scattered across the carpet with very deliberate footprints stomping through them and out the door. …Deep breath. Stay calm and deal with this M.A.D.D.ness in a constructive way… We had a little session where she admitted freely that she knew she was being naughty. Then we picked up the cherries and cleaned the carpet and that was that. All in a day’s work.

I do wonder though, what I ever did that my children think up these crazy ways to “be creative and explore their world” as the child development books say. What weird impulse made my child paint an enormous black smiley on the outside basement wall? I mean, it wasn’t like he thought he could hide it. I have a cousin who sweetly says that her children never seemed to do these sorts of things and I wonder what is wrong with mine in those times. I think it must be the mixture of trace amounts of Indian blood with quite a lot of old Adam. If you never have M.A.D.D. moments with your children, just please don’t tell me so that I will still like you.

I do need to say that the day ended well with us sitting on the deck shelling peas and brainstorming scenarios in which Gregory invented labor saving pea shellers and weed pickers, etc. etc. I laughed so hard I had tears rolling down my cheeks and all was just fine. I like living in my own personal comic strip.

Of Dirty Socks, Rock Collections, and Jawbones

I wink at my boys’ room cleaning efforts, ordinarily. Every Thursday they hit the basement with the vacuum cleaner and the broom. If the surface is fairly serene upon inspection, I tell them it passes. But once every couple months I dig in there with them. It is at those times that I wonder whether small boys are not a different species altogether. We clean out from under the bed, the dressers and the bookshelves. We wash surfaces instead of dusting them. 😉

We find stuff: nuts and bolts, tools, notebooks with secret codes, old shell casings, worn-out steak knives for throwing, cards from friends who sign their names Your Buddy. We find Legos, scores of them gone AWOL, but there they are under the pile of shoes in the closet or behind the nightstand. Today I found a stash of clean hankies (so that is where they went) and wash cloths in the boys’ sock bin. And my missing tan sock. And some little girl garments as well. There were the four purple buttons that I had put carefully in my sewing cabinet just last week. Swiping under the bed with my arm, I hit against a sticky blob, Greg’s ant trap gone bad. Ewww. Terro on a corn chip, with no ants in sight. There were stacks of books, all of which they are currently reading, of course. I totally understand that, but really, we have shelves. I was quite ruthless with the trash can and they only protested mildly. That stack of counterfeit money they have been working on? Trash can. The cat jaw bone with teeth intact? YUCK. Trash. The socks with holes in the toes, being saved for some obscure future project? Trash. Sorry, boys, but we are beating back chaos here.

I love my boys and their boy-ness. I have no objection to their treasures and collections. They replaced the cute curtain I had made for their room with a dark piece of plaid fabric and I let them. Their walls are decorated entirely with original artwork tacked in no particular pattern and I do not mind. But I do remember my 10 year old self thinking boys are kind of gross, and now I know why. At that age they are. We are at the stage where they would happily live in the same clothes, day and night, all week with nary a bath or hair wash in the entire time. I have been assured that this will rapidly switch to a constant buying of Old Spice, a continual battle with too many towels in the hamper, and many lectures on conserving water. Isn’t life so interesting? 🙂

If cleanliness is next to godliness, my mother-in-law is a saint. I get to live with a man who was taught neatness and impeccable grooming, and I do appreciate it. I have asked her how she did it… teach her six boys to be thoughtful of the housewife, to think about their shoes, to fix beds without wrinkles, to run vacuum cleaners and fold laundry when necessary. She sighs and says I married the careful one and she is still working on the ones at home, but I have observed them all and none of them are slobs. 🙂 Mainly she says she just tried to teach them faithfully. What else is there for any of us to do? I have a theory that they became careful because they were required to help with the housework.

For the sake of my sons’ future wives, I will maintain my post faithfully too. “I really like when my room is organized,” Alex said today, “only it is so hard to keep it that way.” That seems to be the trick, doesn’t it? Not so long ago they insisted that they like it better messy. At least we have gotten past that point.

What do you think? Is this a matter of personality or training?

Teacher’s Left the Monkeys Out…

I have been scrambling to find creative channels for all the energy running around here now that the books are done for the term. The new books came before we were quite finished, but we hustled them off to storage. This year instead of allowing myself to sink lethargically for a week after those last lessons were done, I decided to be super productive and repaint our bedroom. It was a good time to do it, since Gabe had a five day stretch off work. It is feast or famine in this line of work. :O

I spent my birthday painting trim in our room. It was fun, although careful painting always leaves me muttering after a few too many hours of strained concentration. But that day I didn’t cook because my friend Ellen paid for our pizza supper. Wasn’t that the kindest thing anyone could have done? We ate on the dock down by the pond… Meat lover’s with stuffed crust for the small people and roasted veggie with parmesan for Gabe and me. The boys had gone out earlier and picked huge bunches of wildflowers and forsythias to put in jars down there so that it would be festive. They even stripped a bunch of blossoms to float on the water. 🙂

Gabe and I took off the entire next day, with my blessed parents doing babysitter duty. It was a spectacular May day. We loaded our bikes on the back of the Suburban, but the first business was picking out a carpet piece for our room. Then we went to a tea room and had teeny cookies and tall glasses of iced tea. The vehicle needed a top-up at the lube place and then we thought we should have some protein before biking, so it was convenient to grab some roast beef sandwiches.

We rode 16 miles of Rails to Trails. It is hard to describe the joy for this Quality Time/Outdoors Lover. There were violets blooming so thickly along the trail that you could actually smell them as you breezed past. The redbuds were in their heyday and all the birds were happy. Let’s just say Gabe hit on the perfect birthday gift, the two of us tooling along, stopping occasionally to look at the river, to eat Toblerone, to pick flowers, and maybe to rest our legs. 😉 Even with the stops, we got to the end in two hours. The end of the trail was quite close to Gabe’s sister’s house, so they picked us up, sparing us a 16 mile return trip. Chipper as we may think we are, those bike seats can come to feel a bit “gnarly” as Gabe so aptly described it.

We had supper with my sister-in-law Ruby and her husband, lingering long over dessert before we headed home. It was just a delightful day all round, and my mom and dad were exhausted instead of us. 🙂

The next day we finished painting the bedroom and replaced the carpet. Thirteen years ago we painted our bedroom a pale grey. It needed freshened, but I wanted to keep it grey since that lends itself to any other accent color. When I went to pick out paint, I bought Reflection for three walls and- wait for it- Earl Grey for the accent wall. 🙂 🙂 I suppose it could just as well be called Iron Filings, in which case I would not have bought it. (Please don’t tell me I am the only one who is swayed by the names on the paint sample chips.) I love the end result! We have teal and orange throw pillows and a glittery new curtain, but all the rest is same old, rearranged. (Oh, and I am in the process of gluing hundreds of muslin “flowers” on the lamp shade, but I ran out of glue.) That night as I cleaned up the brushes and paints, my friend Michelle stopped in with two gorgeous boxes of cupcakes. Or that could be two boxes of gorgeous cupcakes. Either way, it was so sweet. You can see why I cannot ever be really cynical. I know too many nice people.

As for the children’s activities those painting days… I think they pretty much ran loose in the outdoors and hung around wherever Gabe was working. One project we started them on is blazing a switch back trail up to the top of the ridge. Every time we want to go on a walk in the woods, I end up hauling a chunky child or two straight up the side of the ridge and carrying them back down when we come home because the grade is so precipitous that they just slide. We don’t go on as many expeditions as we would like because of this fact. So now they have a trail up half way and the little tots can climb up easily on their own. Until the trail stops, of course. One of these days they will manage to get it all the way to the top. I think they are starting to catch on that this is busywork. Gregory said today, “This could become sort of a chore.” And Alex thought that the trail could require a lot of maintenance. Tee-hee.

Oh, and it is So Hot already. Please, please, please, may we go swimming? The first time I finally caved and let them go into the water it was still April. They lasted about 20 seconds. I thought, good, now they won’t beg for a long time. But it really has been warm lately, so they have been puddling around in life jackets around the dock. I just sit and watch. It is a little muddy yet for my taste.

Alex has graduated to driving our little tractor slowly along in our garden/orchard plot, stopping every now and then to pick up the piles of rocks the children gather. Some days they do that in the space left vacant by math. 🙂 We are building a fence around it before we do planting, hopefully rabbit-groundhog-deer-proof fence.

This morning we zoned little garden plots for the three middles. Alex has plans for popcorn and gourds later in the season and Addy is sharing my garden. 🙂 It was so funny how different they felt about what they wanted to grow. Rita was all enthused about veggies: broccoli, peas, beans, lettuce. Olivia wanted lots of flowers. Gregory has a mixture of flowers, ornamental corn and one melon plant that we hope doesn’t get frost bitten. In the end he deigned to plant some lettuce for my sake.

The boys started a little cottage industry of making cross bows out of craft sticks, hot glue and rubber bands. They ended up with about 10 orders from friends and just like that a thousand craft sticks and the new pack of glue sticks was gone. Also most of my bamboo skewers became arrows. They are learning things, like paying for supplies and being kind to nonpaying customers. And I found out exactly how far one can get on a lampshade project with one glue stick.

We are about to enter a period of feast-time, with Gabe finishing up a seven day stretch of work tonight with an entire long weekend off. Oh, glory! And a church picnic to boot!

Tell me, how are you occupying the busy little people who are done with school?

Individuality

There are five of them, just all alike except for faint subtleties of darker and lighter stripes. Two are a little blacker, one is smaller. All are fat and fluffy and happy. To me, they are just the kitties. I wish the mother had produced some variety.

To my girls, they are The Kitties. They haul them up from under the deck where the boys loosened a board so that they can easily be accessed. Bending down like little ducks, they fish them out and tenderly croon over them, one by one.

Thundercloud, Black Lightning, Fluffy, Claude, Stripey. They know them, which is which, and they never get mixed up. They know which one likes to hang onto and snag their clothes. They know which one likes to sleep in a swaddle of blankets and which one tends to scamper away, which bites their fingers with tiny nips and which one comes running to them when they play.

I ask myself, how do they keep them apart, that nest of same ordinariness?

It must be love that notices, and therein lies a parable.

Change Is In the Air

We are still alive here. I experienced the very first sickness of the winter last week when I contracted a miserable head cold that drained me for 3 days. (Get it? Sorry, I know that is obnoxious.) I found myself dragging along in a haze of Vicks, carrying a tissue box, so far behind with normal life that writing seemed downright frivolous. In fact, I entertained discouraged thoughts of shutting down the blog entirely. Then I started to feel better and got over it.

I have noticed some milestones recently in my children’s lives. My absent minded son was on kitchen duty the week I was dragging. “Mama, what in the world are all these pills doing on the counter? You would think they have no home!” Not only did he quote my words back to me, but before that he had actually noticed some stuff that needed to be put away. I am sure I cannot really describe to you what a marvel that is to me. Until very recently, this child saw no reason why anything should have a spot. His practical idea of locating missing stuff was always traveling with a mother. I must have explained to him twenty-eleven times why he should always put his treasures away in his drawer, his boots on the rug, and his bike in the shed. So even though I felt like snot, I got a little burst of encouragement from that conversation. I think there may come a day when he might actually become neat and organized. I see some small signs and how they do cheer me!

I saw some buzz on the web for using a system of mom-bucks to reward a child’s responsible behavior and decided to give it a trial shot. Obviously, penalties involve paying back some bucks to mom. Thus fixing the bed earns a buck, but leaving the pjs on the floor costs a buck. It is impossible to redeem privileges from the mom-store if all your bucks were frittered away in penalties because you neglected to put your folded piles of laundry into the proper drawers or you quarreled with a sibling. I picked some specific behaviors to reward and zeroed in on some especially entrenched habits. There is no way I can keep up with anything complicated, but I think I can cautiously say it is helping my boys to be more heedful.

Gregory seems to have hit his stride with baking. Just a year ago I groaned (privately) when he asked to cook something. He does so dearly love to mess in the kitchen, going into a really happy place, humming, measuring with flourish, the dry ingredients puffing this way and that, the eggs unpredictably doing their oblong rolls off the counter, the whisks and scrapers all saved for licking with gusto when his project is safely baking. At first I had to watch every step of the way or he would use a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon, or forget to grease his pans or use a little more sugar than the recipe called for “to make it better”. I will be honest, it was a trial. The cleanup was dreadful. We blundered along like that for a very long time until he graduated to me just carefully explaining a recipe to him, then forcing myself to let him alone, only coaching him as he came up with questions. Last month for the first time ever he made cookies all on his own steam. Even scooping out the dough. Even putting the baking sheets into the oven. Even cleanup. Whew! Then he did it again and again. We had snickerdoodles one week, chocolate chip cookies the next, and brownies the next. I can see that this could pose a problem, so we will need to work on spaghetti or omelets or chicken soup for a while. 🙂

Olivia is losing teeth with alarming rapidity this spring and now she talkth with a charming little lithp. And she can read. Just like that, she finally got over the hump of great effort in sounding out to reading for fun. I just sat and got all sentimental while she read Ten Rubber Ducks to her little sisters. Forgive me for the little rave, but it thrills me every time it happens for the first time. And every homeschool mom said Amen.

I won’t go down the whole row of children and their changes, but I should tell you that I started about 120 little plants in peat pots: tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, etc. There they are, all plucky and greenish, straining to the sunshine. I keep them on the warm floor of the kitchen, where they may not always be safe from stomping feet, but on the sunshiny days I set them out on the deck. Today I thinned out the extras and I ate them. It was such a lovely, wheatgrassy thing to do.

I also freed the bulbs and perennials from the winter’s accumulation of blown leaves and junk, so that now they can reach for the sky. It always reminds me of Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, setting the little plants at liberty to flourish. Strange as it may seem, I like weeding, especially my flower beds. I find it about ten times more fun than wiping the dirty handprints off the walls in the hallway. Mmmhmmm, that explains a few things.

Change. It is good. It is delightful to feel the cocoon of winter slipping into a memory. I sneeze an average of 17 times a day, so pollen is also in the air. Oh, how I do love this time of the year!

Observations

You know what that title means, don’t you? Here she comes with a bunch of trivia. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

We are experiencing a little difficulty with our hot water heater, hence the need to wait a bit between showers so that it can gather itself together and feebly offer a few more minutes’ worth of hot water. (The man of the house is on it, replacing this and that, hoping that we will not need to replace the whole thing. The solution remains elusive.) Therefore I will sit and sort out a few spaghetti-strands of thought while I wait for my hot water.

This morning I was hanging out towels in the sunshine when I heard the cardinal trilling his spring song. There he sat, a red blaze in the tip-top of the walnut tree, whistling with abandon in the sunshine. I thought that I must be a little like him. I have my song in the winter, but it just bubbles out so much more spontaneously in the warmth of springtime.

Laundry brings up the matter of clothespins. I detest wimpy clothespins, and the last ones I bought at my least favorite but unfortunately prolific store are the worst. One playful puff of a March breeze and the pants are on the ground instead of in the air. It would have been better to wait until the order from the Amish catalog finally comes. I am assuming that the Amish would have no truck with pathetic pins, but just in case, does anyone have a fail proof source?

And then there is March. She is one fickle dame! One day she is all delighted smiles and the next she is coldly remote, spitting snow and sleet as though she never heard of sunshine. But we forgive her all, because she is bringing forth spring and we will make it after all.

The few days of brilliance we experienced last week had us scrambling to bring out the lightweight jackets and sandals. I had a startling moment of clarity yesterday when I ran outside in my son’s flip-flops. I can wear my child’s footwear. What? He and I both would live in flip-flops year round if it were practical.

I wish to launder all the heavy nasty-weather gear and attic it. (I just made a verb out of “attic”. I hope that is okay.) But I know better, so I restrain myself. The result is hooks that were already strained with their loads, now doubling up with all the jackets as well. Anytime someone needs a coat, it is on the bottom of a bunch of jackets, which need to be stripped to the floor so the coat can come off the hook. The carpet runner in the basement has a row of (muddy) snowboots on it and another of rubber puddle boots. Sometimes I think clothes will be the death of me, but of course, they won’t. And, Oh! the glories of spring! I assure you, I forgive you all the inconvenience. Just please don’t snow tomorrow.

I have concluded that people who are kind to cats, who feed cats outdoors, will never lack for cats. Last summer’s overload of 25 kittens taught us a lesson. We got our lady cats spayed. About a month ago a sleek grey tabby showed up, purring and rubbing and happily eating Kit and Kaboodle with our calico girls. She looks and acts exactly like the good-natured tabby we gave to our farmer friend. It is six miles over the Brumbaugh Mountain to that farm… could it be? She is very, very pregnant. I don’t think I have ever seen a chubbier cat, and I have seen quite a few of them. Our little girlies are ecstatic. Me, not so much, but we will deal with it as it comes. My guess is a litter of nine coming up. Maybe I should take her back to the farm before she pops. The last time I did that she got very nervous in the van, jumping out of the little girl’s lap with unpleasant consequences that included needing to borrow a roll of paper towels from the farmer’s wife. And my little girls are so tickled… well, I guess we will keep her for them. We are suckers, I know. But National Spay Day is coming up next February. (Not kidding.)

I have a very neat giveaway coming up next week. Get ready!

I am sure the water is plenty hot now. May your Sunday be restful…

The Goings On

It is a good day to spread joy! The sun has actual heat in its goodnatured rays. There is only a little snow and ice in the backyard, which is easily navigated in puddle boots. This is a good thing, since one of the children lost the felt liner for one of my trusty Sorels. I hung out laundry without snow boots on my feet for the first time in months. We are going to have a picnic at lunchtime, the birds are singing, and we are happy!

Since I packed February so full of activity, I have been doing catch-up in March. I have a teeny weeny little goal of clearing out all closets this month. One is done. About seven to go. I know…It’s probably not going to happen. The problem is an 832 page book that I am hopelessly stuck in as soon as the daily needs are met, and sometimes before. Admittedly, I need help with that.

Last week I got to spend 2 days with my sister in Ohio. I took only the biggest boy along to help with painting her little cubby hole storage closets in their new house. The thing about spending time with your sister is you don’t really have to do anything to have a good time. We did, however, paint the stripes in her crafting room. It took me an hour of figuring with graph paper to mark and mask the first half of the stripes wrong. The problem was a window that broke up the continuity of the wall and complicated the process. In the end, she figured it out with a cell phone calculator and I erased my marks and remasked. All was well, with beautiful fresh stripes of aqua and grey that will inspire creativity for years, I hope.

In the evening we hastily washed off the paint from our arms and left the children with my brother-in-law so that we could attend a Pride and Prejudice play at a nearby high school. It was really well done, and doubly amusing because I kept imagining all the dramas within the drama. I mean, this is a modern group of teenagers with attempted British accents, dressed in Victorian Era costumes. It was rich. The folks sitting directly in front of us seemed to be related to young Mr. Darcy. In the very end, during the quietness of a tender proposal scene, there was a literal snort of hilarity from the gentleman in front of us. I could only imagine how much joshing young Mr.Darcy had to endure later because of his excellent performance.

We lost our painting urge on the second day, and went shopping a bit instead. Of course. I like going to the Amish stores out there with all those rows of solid colored fabrics and practical household items. I like to watch the Amish, too, and eavesdrop on their conversations. I can’t quite fathom how they manage to live so well in such a limited way. It fascinates me, just like a tourist.

My sister took me to a basket shop in a Swartzentruber Amish home. It was scrupulously clean and neat, lighted only by the sunlit windows when she pulled back the navy blue curtains. The lady of the house was frying some lunch on the cookstove in the kitchen, so I frankly stared. This was a flavor of Amish I had never seen. Any surface that required paint was blue, colonial blue. Apparently that is the only color sanctioned by the church for inside use, although their barns are sometimes red. All chairs were wooden, no soft couches, but there was a sort of cot in the living room with a navy blue spread on it. The house had a Shaker feel in its stark simplicity. The only evidence of vanity I could see was a shelf in the kitchen with three colored-glass candy dishes arranged on it.

The baskets they make are Longaberger quality, for about half the price. They are durable and useful, yes, but they are also beautiful, with colorful reeds woven in patterns along with the tans and browns. I wished to visit with this lady, to hear what goes on in her mind, to get to know how she thinks. But I just politely made small talk and paid for my basket.

We had about four hours left in the day before I needed to start home. It was just enough time for me to sew a dress for my sister for her seventh anniversary. I did it in three hours, and it was fun, and the whole trip was fun.

Then I drove home in freezing rain and that was not fun, but it sure was nice to have a place to go and people who were happy to see me again.

I have been writing this post in spurts all day. Now it is nearly bedtime and the children are muddy and exhausted from all the unaccustomed tree climbing and bike riding they did today. Already we found a tick on Olivia, which is disgusting when you consider all the frigidity we have endured this winter. I thought those guys should all be dead.

Anyway, there you have it. It’s what’s been going on, minus a few details. 🙂

Category: Home Life