Yarn Along

The Rhubarb Cardigan is now in the final stages of pattern development.  Well, maybe 90% of the way there.  I cast on a quick little project for myself.  Lately, my Little Pearl Vest has gotten a bunch of traction, as that's become one of my top selling patterns.

I've yet to figure out why there's such a recent surge of interest in it, but it got me thinking, that I wanted my own Little Pearl.  My girls have theirs, but I don't have one.  It seems like a perfect layer for chilly days around the house.  So I went stash diving, and am making myself one "Lady Pearl" as I'm calling it for a woman's sized pullover vest.  I think I'm going to make one with color work, and one without.  I'm thinking of splurging and getting myself some Swan's Island yarn for the plain vest.  I've been dreaming of that yarn for awhile.  I'm going to make myself finish the fair isle version from my stash yarn before I order yarn for the second vest.  I'm thinking of releasing an adult version of this pattern sometime this Fall.

At first I was thinking of making a whole new color chart for the adult version, with this Estonian stitch pattern that I came across a few months ago, and have been hoping to incorporate in a project.  But as I got half way through it, I'm not liking how it's working with this design.  So I'm ripping back and going with possibly the same color chart as the child's version, with a few small modifications.

Silje has been really into her cross stitch project lately.  She's spending a couple of hours a day on it, and she'll be done in no time.  I've tried to get her started on some basic counted cross stitch, but she found that to be very difficult.  I remembered when I was little my step-mom got my sister and I half-aprons with a stamped cross stitch design to work on.  I looked in a few stores for stamped cross stitch, and didn't find any simple ones.  I finally went on Etsy and found some vintage stamped fabric, with threads and odds and ends.  I got her a set of 4 flower motifs for her to work on for 4H at the fair.  She will likely not enter them all, but she may 1 or 2.  The daffodil motif is now complete, and she's working on the bluebell.

I cannot tell you how much fun it is to sit and stitch with her.  In the past she needed a lot of hand holding, and helping her place each and every stitch.  Now she can thread her own needle, read the chart and mark it herself, and basically just hang out next to me when I'm knitting.  I love it.

For reading, I'm still doing a lot of children's literature prep for our school year next year.  I had a bunch of credit at our local used book store, so I did some used book shopping, and am piecing together a plan for next year.

Silje has recently read "The Jungle Book" and fell in love with Kipling through the process.  She's been checking out a few more of his works, but when I came across this old used books with a lot of stories she hadn't read yet, I thought maybe we could come up with a larger Kipling project this next year.  She's also a big James Harriot fan, and has recently moved from reading his children's stories to his adult stories.  We didn't have them all, but I found the rest of his series for a dollar a piece.  I've learned that she reads the animal books multiple times, so it's good to have them on hand as much as possible.

I also found a copy of "Giants of the Earth" for myself.  I've wanted that book for ages, and may read it again this summer.  It was one of those books where I was certain I didn't catch everything the first time through, and exciting enough to want to relive it all over again.

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along.

So Ready

I have a serious spring itch.  I've been pacing the perimeter of my gardens, looking for any sign that it's ready to plant.  I'm so ready for fresh vegetables.  I'm so ready not to buy vegetables anymore.  I'm so ready to use that fancy new pressure canner I got last year but could never use because of the accident.

My seeds are bought.  I still need to visit a nursery for a few items.  I will probably get carried away, like I do every year.  I love nurseries.  Knut took a big leap this last week and bought some pasture seed.  Last fall, he rearranged the border of the land that we own just south of our house, and rent out to the family farm.  We're renting out a bit less, and keeping more, converting it to pasture for animals we hope to raise.

I'm slow enough not to realize that when converting conventionally farmed land to pasture isn't just "letting it go back to nature."  Knut researched what sort of "salad bar" beef like to eat, and got nearly 12 different varieties of grass seed to plant there.  Each variety serves a healthy purpose for the cattle, and I suppose we humans need a varied diet as well, so it makes sense.  I just hadn't stop to think about it.  There is a science to everything.

The problem is that beef just got really expensive in the last year or so, so I don't know if we'll even get any animals this year.  Well, we'll have the grass for them.  We'll work towards getting a fence.  We'll get there in baby steps.  There's also the element that we have no idea what we're doing, so the idea of getting any animal that large is a bit intimidating.

I think the first thing that will get done by me in the gardens this year will be the flowers.  We're planning on converting the old vegetable garden to a cutting flower garden.  Oh, that's going to be fun!

While I'm waiting for the ground to thaw and dry, I'm trying to get as much done inside as I can.  I'm doing a bunch of freezer cooking this week (in my lovely bright kitchen!), as my freezer meal stash got completely depleted during the kitchen project.  Cooking a new meal every night is hard!  I don't know how people do it.  By the end of this week, I should have 15 meals in the freezer, which is a start to a good stash.  When I get to that magic number, then I seem to be able to manage it.

Once I have about half a month like that, I make myself pay in meals in order to take some out.  For instance, every time I pull a meal out of the freezer, I have to put a batch of at least 3 meals back in the freezer sometime that week.  It allows me to cook on the days that I'm available to cook, and skip cooking when we're crazy busy.  When I have to pay in 3 meals in order to take out one in a week, I move up to 30 meals in the freezer very easily.  At that point, I can plan on only making one batch of a freezer recipe a week, which is very manageable.  It allows for lots of time for other things... like gardening.

There is something other-worldly about the anticipation in spring.  It's the definition of expectation, and the understanding of hope.  Everyone around here gets excited when the first robin is spotted.  It's like this yearly expectation that everything will be made new.  Things will grow.  Color will appear.  Perfume of pollen will blow in the air.  Trees will bud and bloom.  Apples will grow heavy on branches.

There will be mud pies, earthworm exploration, forts built in the woods, and dirty rings around the bathtub, and handheld bulldozers moving dirt at the foot of bleachers at softball games.  There will be cold watermelon, Sunday potlucks with the extended family at the lake, bocce ball tournaments, and sunlight that lasts hours after the kids' bedtime, and allows for quiet, reflective walks with the dogs around the yard at the end of crazy days.

I am so ready.

I'm Blessed

It's been a rainy, productive weekend.

I was so blessed to have Knut home for most of the weekend.  He was working on cutting wood for most of the time, but for the most part, he was home when I needed him to be and remained so flexible.

I got to go grocery shopping all by myself, people.  It was like Christmas.  

I was blessed to hang out with my eldest daughter and mother in law while watching some classic "Anne of Green Gables" Sunday afternoon.  That was fun.  I got to knit while watching, and Silje worked on a cross stitch.  I'll have to post pictures of how that's coming along.  She's really liking this craft!

On Saturday, I made some laundry detergent (happens every 5-6 months), stocked up on our next batch of vanilla (looks like the last time I had to make that was about 2+ years ago and we gifted a bunch of that batch), made a month's worth of homemade granola, and then finished up my lovely kitchen time with doing a big batch of meatloaf.  (Hopefully all those links will prevent any "what's your recipe?" questions!)  I got 5 meatloaves in the freezer, and baked one for supper, along with some steamed broccoli, and was brave enough to try some sweet potato fries again.  The last time I tried making sweet potato fries I failed miserably.  It was sort of pathetic.  This time they came out perfect.  I'm pretty sure it's because my kitchen is painted, and gorgeous now.

(For those wondering, these wedges aren't from a recipe.  I just fried them up in a bit of olive oil in the bottom of a skillet until they looked done, and then tossed them with a bit of salt and Italian seasoning in a bowl.  It didn't take long.)

Knut got to spend some time with the kids just playing board games.  They had a blast.  It's amazing what can get done when there's an extra adult in the house, and there's not random cupboard doors and paint cans laying all over the kitchen floor.  

I'm so thankful for my husband.  I'm thankful for the enthusiastic, little wave Ingrid gives me whenever I come into her sight, and for the bear hugs David gives me that are starting to knock the wind out of me, and for stitching time with my Silje.  

I'm thankful for a friend who dropped by chocolate chip cookies by my house, and I'm so grateful that the kids' Easter basket candy is finally gone.  Uff da.  

I'm so thankful for my church, and how the people there minister to me week after week, and love my kids with such open arms.  I'm blessed with music.  I cannot imagine life without it.  

How has God blessed you lately?

Training Missy and Silje the Photographer

The other evening was just so beautiful that the whole family was out in the yard working.  Knut got his roses uncovered from their winter bedding of leaves, and convinced Elias to practice biking without his training wheels.  I was working with Missy's electric fence collar, and working on expanding her territory, while keeping her away from the road.

Last fall, we finally caved and got her a GPS controlled electric collar, that so far has been working really well.  It's not just that she crosses the road, it's that she likes to nap on the road.  She just likes to chill there and bask in the sun, and feels it's a great place to watch for cars.  Not cool, Missy.  Not cool at all.

We need her so badly for our other animals, and the animals we intend to get.  I don't think we would have indulged for just a "pet."  She is absolutely the best guard dog I have ever met.  She is so kind, but so alert and so smart and intuitive...besides the whole napping on the road thing.

My favorite was last fall, when Elias and Solveig were playing with the facet outside and making a big wet mess.  I told them to turn off the water, and they did.  5 minutes later it was back on.  I told them again to turn off the water.  It was too cold, and too messy for that day.  They turned it off.  Then Missy walked over and sat herself right in front of the facet to block the kids.  She was like "Nanny" from Peter Pan, saying, "Now run along kids.  We're done here!  You heard your mother."  She doesn't snap at the kids, but I have seen her use her body to block an area, or even lean in towards them to make sure they stay put.

Actually, she did this with me during harvest last year, because she was nervous when I was going back to the grain bins to give Knut his supper.  It gets really loud over there when the grain dryer is running, and she thought it could be dangerous for me.  I had to tie her up to get back there.  It's not exactly fair that I do all the training with her, but Knut is her favorite.  She hangs on his every word.  If I'm working with her, and Knut enters the yard, I'm invisible to her.  It's all about Knut.  She loves him so.  (Knut thinks that because I have such a small stature, Missy thinks I'm one of the kids...which might be logical.)

Lena, on the other hand, doesn't have anything to keep her close to the house.  She's too scared to go 10 feet away from any of us.  Her running off has never been a problem!  The only thing Lena is good at is being a cozy reading pillow, and playing fetch.  Oh, she loves playing fetch so much!  Try playing fetch with Missy, and she'll give you a look that says, "Well that was stupid.  Now you're going to have to get it.  I'll stand guard while you do."

Missy is a working dog and likes to be treated as such.  We can now set her boundaries via GPS, and she gets a sound to let her know she's hit her boundary.  15 yards later, the collar starts vibrating, and 10 yards after that, it will shock her.  These large "zones" of stimulation is great for a dog that runs as fast as her.  Seriously, seeing her run is a sight to see!

So far, she stops at the vibration, but now that she knows the boundary, the sound that we humans can't hear is enough to turn her around.  There's white flags that we're supposed to put up to be a visual reminder of her boundaries, but I didn't see the point when the yard was covered in snow.  That's my next project.

Unfortunately, we also found out this collar doesn't work when the temp outside is below 10 degrees.  So now that the weather is nice, we're working hard to get her boundaries set in her brain.  We had a smaller territory set for her because I was having difficulty setting it with the large snow drifts and lack of access to some of the locations.  Now that it's all set, we can do some more serious training with her to keep her off roads, while allowing her several acres to roam, which her breed requires.  Hope this works before next winter!!

Ingrid was running around about as wildly as Missy in the grass.  They were both excited to stretch their legs.  I feel bad I missed a few pictures of them checking each other out.  Ingrid loves dogs so much, and Missy is a good head taller than her.  Whenever I saw them kissing each other, though, I didn't snap a picture but ran to catch Ingrid because Missy just has to walk past her to knock her down.

Anyway, as we were all busy, and Silje was looking a little lost, so I handed her my camera and told her to snap some pictures for me.  

"Really!?!"

My kids know not to touch my camera.  Silje has her own, but it's not nearly as nice.  She was shocked and excited.  So she carefully went around the yard and snapped pictures for several minutes.  I got to see the world through her eyes.  What a treat for me!

Of course, the vast majority were of animals.  :)

The picture seen above was mine, but here are some of her gems out of the 50 or so pictures of hers I found:

  (She was especially proud of her chick pictures)

I see a photography class in her future.  Imagine the things I'll learn when she starts researching everything to death, (like she always does) and then comes running and telling me all the exciting parts.   I might finally learn all the things my camera can do!

Yarn Along

Now that the kitchen is done, I've gotten a few more minutes to finish up the Rhubarb Cardigan.  The rhubarb is coming up in "Rhubarb Lane" (which is our rhubarb patch, named years before I ever knew what rhubarb was).  I have been putting off putting out this pattern for far too long.  I really, really want this one to work out just right.

(Rhubarb Lane right now, at the edge of a field.)

See!  Rhubarb starting to roll up.  It won't be long, and this stuff will be in my belly!

The sleeves to the cardigan are now nearly done, and I just have the front button band left.  It's a thin little band, so it should be done soon.  Now I just need to get a sitter for a few hours and get the writing finished up and finalized, and a good day for a photo shoot.

And just for fun, here's some other pictures of my walk out to Rhubarb Lane:

I love that at the end of this "lane" you can see way deep into the field, an one of my favorite trees is right smack in the middle of it.  It's so twisted and inviting.  If I were a child, I would dream of running away to this tree, and build myself a little fort among the strong, low branches, and eat my peanut butter and jelly.  I think one day I may.  I've actually never walked across the field to climb it.  It's further than it looks.  I could though.  That might just be added to my summer bucket list.

There's still a chill in the air in the early morning, so I'm still wearing my Cozy Morning Mitts on my walks.  I love these so much!  I wear them all the time.  I realize in the original pattern pics, I don't have pictures of the motif with the thumb in different positions.  I actually moved that motif around a bunch in my samples, and finally emailed the famous Mary Jane Mucklestone, since she seems to be the expert on such matters, and asked her where motifs were supposed to be.  Traditional Norwegian mittens have the thumb placed directly under the hand.

(traditional thumb placement)

However, many modern patterns, most especially fingerless mittens, have the thumb placed on the side of the hand, not under it.  I wasn't sure which one was "correct."  I loved her reply.  First I loved that she just emailed me right back and was so encouraging and sweet.  Oh my goodness, what a kindred spirit!  She said it should be wherever I wanted it to be.  That's the beauty of designing.  Just put it where I liked it best.  I ended up placing the motif with the thumb under the hand, as she called the traditional "peasant thumb" placement.  I guess I just like tradition.  Also, I like that when my thumb is held out to the side, the motif moves off to the side in a really pleasing way as well.

(common/modern thumb placement)

I'll say again: I love these.  Okay.  Shameless plug is over.  Onto the books discussion.

The kids and I have moved onto Prince Caspian this week.  They can't let go of Narnia for our read-alouds right now, and to be honest, I don't want to leave Narnia either.  I don't think we'll be venturing into any other realm until we read straight through to the Last Battle.

In the mean time, I'm scrounging up some books for Silje as she has finished her curriculum for the year, and I don't want the book reading to stop until next September.  So I'm sort of flying by the seat of my pants with her right now, and moving up the "researching curriculum for next year" up on the to-do list, and starting to pull out projects and curricula intended for next year.  Her library stack is larger these days, and she's spending more time with the animals outside.  She has always been my kid who prefers to be inside with her head in a book, so I'll admit I'm glad she's finding lots to do outside that she enjoys right now.  She knows all our animals so well, it astounds me sometimes.  She's also been working on her 4H projects for the fair.  She's like me and chomping at the bit to get in the garden, so I think she'll be a great help in that.

A lot of people ask when school is done for us for the year, and I find that every spring we end up in this type of situation.  You see, I'm sure moms with kids in all types of schools get frustrated with the with the "I'm bored" comments of summer.  I hate that.  So my kids do school in the summer when they're too bored to think of something to do.  It ends up being about twice a week in the summer and about 4 times a week in other seasons.  My system year round is we do school when we are home, and if we're out and about, or busy around the house we don't worry about it.  Oh, and I usually take the month of December off for Christmas prep.  We end up getting about 1.25 years of school done in one year that way, which is fine by me.  The kids grumble less too.

So my reading has been put on the back burner as I'm going through references and book lists for children's books, and figuring out the plan for the next year, at least in the language arts department, which seems to be the only big element I'm missing on my bookshelves.  She's at that age I think a lot of kids reach where she can read upper grade levels, but isn't ready for upper grade content. I think a trip to the used book store in town is in my future too!

We're studying ancient world history up until the Renaissance for history next year.  So books along that theme will get top priority.  I find a lot in my booklist from Sonlight, and The Read Aloud Handbook always has some good choices, as well as Well Trained Mind, and I've recently found The Story Warren which is a website dedicated to discussing and spreading great children's literature.  That has been inspiring.

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along.

Growth

David has counted 64 oak tree saplings now.  More keep popping up every day.  This project has given me hope that I might be able to start seeds again maybe someday.  Well, someone in our house might be able to start seeds.  I'll have to put one of the kids in charge.  Maybe next year.  I tried so many times when they were toddlers.  Either the little hands destroyed them, or I would forget with my cluttered mind, or they failed just because.  I'm getting to the stage of parenting where I have a pool of remotely responsible people who say, "Mommy, can I do this?"  It's wonderful.

The roses are still covered outside, but the tulips are really coming up now.  The lilies are starting to come up for air, and the strawberries leaves are unfolding.  Apparently some of my spinach went to seed last year because I have a patch coming up.  Oops/cool.

Well, now I know that I can at least plant the salad seeds in the garden.  I'll probably get the first batch of lettuce in the ground today, and apparently the next batch of spinach.  I can't believe this spinach is coming up even before the asparagus has started poking through!  Asparagus has always been my first vegetable to show up.  Spinach is not supposed to come back every year like this, and is certainly not good incentive for me to not let them "go to seed" again.  Sometimes getting way behind in gardening does pay off I guess!

The chicks are getting some feathers now.  It will still be awhile before they can join the girls in the coop.  We've already found a couple of ticks on the other animals though, (the grass isn't even green yet!!) and so I'm eager to get these lovely little tick eaters in the yard, because apparently the 9 grown hens aren't cutting finding them all.

I spent a few hours yesterday with the kids just bringing the winter "trash" out of the garden.  I pruned the raspberries for the first time, and I took away so much.  3 wheelbarrows full actually.  In the few short years we've had raspberry bushes, they've spread, and so this year before they started budding, I wanted to prune them back into  their space, and remove all questionable parts.  Not much was left besides a thin, orderly row of stalks, but I'm not worried.  I've seen what these plants are capable of!

I got all rosy cheeked and had to take off my winter hat, and it just felt so good.  I love gardening this time of year.  Ask me again in August and you'll hear a different story, but now?  It's just what we need.

I'm Blessed

I'm so grateful this morning for such a refreshing weekend.

The weather couldn't be better.  I forgot how much I love walks and fresh air.

Missy and I have had some good runs together.

The kitchen makes me smile whenever I am in it, near it, passing it.  Which is a lot.  There's still a few odd things to get done and touch up, but the overall project looks complete.  I have some more decorating and rearranging to do.  That may take me weeks.  It's a fun job.  So far I've brought my rolling pin, and my lefse rolling pin out on display to clear up some drawer space, and they're pretty.  Knut had a tough time of getting them hung.  I'm grateful he was determined enough to make that happen.  The wall I chose wasn't cooperating with him.

I'm so grateful for tears.

I'm grateful for middle of the night baby snuggles.

I'm grateful for cool evenings.

I'm grateful for my kids' numerous cousins.  They have the best built-in friends ever.

I'm so blessed with the scent of roses.  Every single person in my family stops in this room now and just spends a moment just absorbing their presence way down to the toes.  The scent overwhelms, and their sight is good for the soul.

I'm blessed with a hot cup of tea after the kids are in bed.

I'm blessed with fresh, bright eggs for breakfast nearly every morning now.  And cheese.  Cheese is glorious.

I'm blessed.

Last Day

Well, if all goes well, today is the last day of painting.  Right now the "wrong side" of the last few upper cabinet doors are drying, and the "right side" will get painted tonight, and dry overnight.  Tomorrow will be finishing installing, and maybe a bit of touch up as needed.  I'll likely post "after" pictures next week once a I have a few things put together.

I am so ready to have my kitchen back.

I'm so excited to do some baking.  I'm just sitting here at my laptop in the kitchen, smiling.  I love how it looks.  Oh, I'm so glad I did this.  I feel so refreshed.  I have a few decorations put back on top of the cupboards, but they're not all there yet.  The red window still needs a spot.  I'm moving my little buffet to a different part of the kitchen.  We're thinking of utilizing yet another one of the old, long, slate boards salvaged from a one-room school house when it closed that is stored in our summer kitchen.

I'm trying to think of a better storage place for my apron collection.  I think I'm going to finally finish the curtains.  They've been up in one window for about a year, and I haven't put them up in the other window yet because I needed to trim about 6 inches off of the bottoms.  It shouldn't take long, and it will get done easily.  I just need to do it.

The bottom part of the kitchen is completely back, and Knut just loved having things where they should be back in the drawers.  A bit of sanity has returned in that area.

We got a bit of snow yesterday, but it's nearly gone already.  I've grown used to the fact that spring is a constant disappointment.  You think winter is over, but it isn't.  I've learned to not look for the absence of snow in the spring, but the signs of "fight" in the land.  It's fighting to wake everything up, despite the random snowfalls and cold temps.

I love seeing the little tulips come up, shaking their fist at the clouds and saying, "See?  You don't scare us!!"  Maybe that's not what everyone thinks when they see tulips.  I see something that overcame winter.  They made it.

Now that the kitchen is near completion, I'm just aching to get out and clean up the strawberry patch, trim up the raspberry bushes, and asparagus patch, and take all the skeletons of last year's flowers all out to the compost (as it probably should have been done last fall).  Oh, and Missy and I need some serious quality time together.  We have lots of "training" in store.  Wow, she's a sweetheart.

Things will change around here in a hurry.

The tulips told me so.

Many Days Later...

Sorry about the lack of updates.  I've been over here trying to put my kitchen back together and keep my sanity.  :)

So much has happened.  The sprayer never worked out after that first day.  Knut spent a whole morning replacing seals and cleaning out filters.  We could never get the pressure back up to where it should have been.  While he spent time on that, I started painting the inside, since we weren't planning on spraying that.

After priming everything, I put on the first layer of "Delicate Mist" and thought, "Huh.  That's white."  Then I started thinking, "Wow.  This is really bright white."  Finally, I thought, "This is not going to work at all."  I had finished the upper cabinets of the peninsula when I had reached that conclusion.  I wanted a pale blue, but this was a white, tinted blue.  Next to the whites in the kitchen that had been antiqued and yellowed over decades, it looked awful.  It was like I had several natural light light bulbs in the kitchen, and then one fluorescent light blaring right in the middle.  Not the look I was going for.

So Knut and I brought out the color cards, and chose a blue with a stronger value, so that it would have more contrast against the old whites in the kitchen.  I went back to the store and picked up the new color.  We chose "Rain Washed."  I guess we didn't need a delicate mist, we needed a full downpour.  Haha.  Color names amuse me.

I have hesitated in writing anything after that point, mostly because I'm still sorting it out in my brain.  This new color is so different than how the kitchen was before.  It's actually a bit bluer than this picture shows.  It looks more grayish during the day, which I like, but it gets brighter at night.  I don't know why.

I keep wanting Knut to tell me how fabulous the kitchen looks.  The house portion is done and it looks so completely different.  I ask him how he likes it.  He says things like, "I don't hate it." or "I don't dislike it." or "As long as you like it."  I finally pulled from him yesterday: "I like it better than it was before."

The poor man can't lie to me.  It's his curse.

I actually wasn't sure for awhile how I liked it, but I really needed someone right now to ooh and ahh over it so I can go from the fence of liking it to really loving it.  I hate what that says about me, and I'm trying to overcome it.  The only people who have seen it and told me it's fabulous are my children.  I love hearing their ohhing and ahhing, but honestly, I think they would have done it more had I painted it hot pink.

I wonder if I should have gone grayer, I wonder if I should have gone darker.  I wonder if I should have just painted it the same green as the dining room to tie the two rooms together.  I am so extremely impulsive in my home improvement endeavors, and I do truly love this color.  I love it so much.  It's what I would have picked had I been building my home from scratch and just picked what my heart wanted.  I'm not entirely sure it matches the beautiful wallpaper my mother in law left behind, and I'm not entirely sure it's what Knut would have picked out.  It doesn't clash with the wallpaper, but I'm not sure if it's the best choice to match.

Now I just want to tear down the wallpaper.  Next year.  Maybe.  If I get all anxious to do it and all.

Home improvement projects are so psychological, aren't they?  Well, at least they are for me.  I wanted to finally just pick something I want, just for me and as soon as I get the paint on, I'm asking for affirmation from everyone I meet.  It makes no sense.  Honestly I do love it.  My confidence took a little while to grow.  That part surprised me.

Today some of the doors are getting put back on.  I've been painting them by hand in batches here on the kitchen floor, since the temps have dropped outside below a temperature that paint works best.  The timetable I had set for myself was based off of that weather.  So now my kitchen is even more of a mess, but in all reality, if I stay on my new schedule, I'm only losing 2 more days.  That's not so bad in the grand scheme of things.

I've been up late at night, with my mind whirling as to how I want to complete this kitchen.  I went out to the barn, and the summer kitchen, and am pulling out some old broken things to see if I can make some "new" decorations from them.  I found this old window with old red paint, and 1 broken pane.  I'm so in love with it.  I'm not sure what I'm doing with it yet, but I love it.

I also found some old barn wood in the barn with traces of red paint, and I'm thinking of making a big "EGGS" sign or something with that.    I'm really excited to pull this all together.

I changed my mind about the knobs.  I looked into replacing them, but realized I really like the simplicity of them, but I wasn't a fan of the antique brass finish on them.  Plus, a can of spray paint is much cheaper than 30 new pieces of hardware!!  I was planning on painting them white, but seeing the color of the cabinets go up, it all felt so light and bright that I thought maybe some darker knobs would bring them back down to earth a bit.  Plus everything in the house has that old bronze finish to it.  So for some spray paint in bronze, and a sprinkling of copper to age it a bit, I have some new bronze finish knobs to match the rest of the house.

I feel like this project has been my version of sky diving.  I feel like painting these a color is such a big risk, and so bold.  I'm thankful that my family has been so patient with me and so helpful as I just ripped the heart of our home apart and am re-imagining what it could look like.  As much work as it has been, I really needed this.  I really needed to do something big.  Right now I feel like I could conquer anything.  That's the exact feeling I needed as we approach gardening season.  Oh, we have some big plans there.