The den...

We've been settling in - busy with unpacking, then Christmas with our boys home and sister-in-law visiting (celebrated on Christmas Eve), and then a lovely meal at just about the only restaurant in Indianapolis open on Christmas Day (with brother-in-law and sister-in-law).  And then with the holiday behind us, more unpacking.  

It's all been complicated (and slowed down a bit) by a sore knee (that started the weekend after we were totally moved in) and a sore thumb joint that's plagued me off and on for a few years, but it got much worse with all the packing and unpacking.  They both get to feeling better with ibuprofen and ice and braces, so I keep hoping they'll heal up on their own, and then I do something to strain them again and I feel like I'm back to square one.  If they don't start to get to noticeably better soon, I suppose I should have them looked at.  Sigh.  I really didn't want to start a new year with new reasons to see doctors. 

Anyway...  now that some of the rooms here are looking presentable, I feel better about sharing some pictures of our new place.  At least spaces here that inspire me, delight me, or maybe even need some help.    

To bring anyone who might be in dark up to speed, here's the background...  Hubs and I had been talking for several years about looking for a one-story home that would be easier to grow old in than our tri-level of 23 years would be.  A fire was lit this summer when I was visiting a friend and she told me there were two houses behind her that were for sale.  They were lovely homes, in a quiet neighborhood, and we did go to see them, but as much fun as it might have been to have a built-in friend as a backdoor neighbor, we just weren't ready to jump at that point.  

But the fire was lit.  We got our heads into the game, figured out the financial part, started talking about what we wanted in our next home, and the search began.  Last summer I didn't write much at all about the search, but we often joked that meeting our realtors (they were a couple team) at new houses every weekend, was some of the best socialization we had during those four months.  

We really liked our realtors - both professionally, and as people.  Never pushy, they knew we wouldn't jump to make an offer unless we were both confident in buying a house, and that house needed to check some important boxes we both had.  They seemed perfectly content with that arrangement.

Near the end of October, we bought (closed on) a 30 year-old house in a small country neighborhood just a couple miles outside the town we've lived in for the past 23 years.  Thirty year-old houses come with issues (some we knew from the outset), but overall, it's a very pleasant house and property.  

My decorating style is pretty simple, and it could be many months before we start hanging anything on walls, but today let me invite you into our favorite room at the moment - our den:  

Pictures were taken on different mornings - just to see if I could get better pictures in different light:

It's challenging to get both the window and it's view, and the inside of the room to show well together, so your first glimpse of this room, unfortunately, makes it look very dark in here.   But it's actually the lightest/brightest room of the house when the shades are open on those three large east-facing windows.  

The reason this is our favorite room is, any time of the day, but especially in the morning, we enjoy sitting in the recliner (we take turns) sipping a cup of coffee (hubs) or tea (me) and watching the birds flitter around eating up birdseed like it's their last meal.  

Even on a drizzly cold day, the birds need to eat!

The previous owners left behind this large bird feeder hanger thing, and some of the bird feeders.  It is proving to be great entertainment - as long as we can afford to buy bird seed.  You can't tell from these pictures, but normally each feeder has multiple birds on it, and the birds go through the buffet of seeds like crazy.

While there are at least two downy woodpeckers who like to regularly visit the suet feeder, I think we may have either a red-bellied woodpecker or a yellow-bellied sap sucker, too.  It's more elusive, and I haven't had long to look at it when it's shown up, but it has a distinctly different red cap than the downy woodpeckers.  Honestly, when looking in a bird book, I thought it looked like a ladder-back woodpecker, but Indiana doesn't appear to be in their range.  So I have to just wait patiently and get a few more good looks at him to be more certain.   I only know it's a couple inches larger than the downy, has a beautiful red cap, and black and white wings.  And has shown up exactly twice for me.  

I look forward to removing the window screens this upcoming weekend when it warms up a tad, so hopefully, there will be some clearer bird pictures in the future.  We also have some beautiful blue jays, cardinals, nuthatches and finches of various colors - along with a mob of sparrows.  Who knows what spring and summer will bring.

The past owners called this room a sunroom - which the room probably was originally, but once upon a time someone enclosed the back patio/porch, and with two walls of windows we're calling that the sunroom.  Perhaps a nice picture of that room will come closer to spring time.  At the moment, what we're calling the sunroom is serving as overflow space as we still try to figure out where everything goes.  

Oh, okay..  since I imagine you'll appreciate me keepin' it real, here's a peek into the sunroom: 

That view, at the moment, isn't very pretty, so usually the blinds are closed.  One of these days we'll either figure out where the stuff in those boxes go, or maybe decide we don't actually need that stuff.  Sad to think we had to move it here to realize that, but such is life.

Back to the den before we leave:

That couch above, we brought home (in 2020) after hub's mother passed.  It was his parents' formal living room sofa for years - hardly ever sat upon, though we have pictures of us (pre-children) sitting on it nearly 40 years ago - it's that old.  After bringing it home, I said, "that would look great in a sunroom", but it sat in our living room for over a year, looking very old-fashioned and too small, hoping against hope we'd someday live in a house with a sunroom so it could prove me right.  It may make its way out to the sunroom come spring, but for the winter it makes a nice cozy spot to take a nap on.   And that blue crocheted blanket looks like it was made for it!

Ceramic wolf's head painted by middle son when he was a teen.  Gorgeous dry-brushing.

And that, dear reader is our den.  I can't believe I made a whole post about one room.   Little by little, I'll show you around more.  Some rooms still are in process.  I do hope to soon be crafting again.  In fact, I'm thinking about inviting you into my craft room for some organizing and maybe downsizing of supplies.  But as for actual crafting, I need to give my hand a bit of a rest - not sure when crocheting or knitting or stitching will resume.  Crafting is beginning to feel like something I used to do - a long time ago.  'Till I get back in that saddle, I'm enjoying crafts vicariously through other's blogs.

Thank you for visiting! And please come back again for another visit.  Now that life has resumed some normalcy, I'm going to try to find ways to not be so scarce.  😊

Happy New Year to you, and I hope you have a healthy and happy 2022.

Making Space - week 6

Inspired this week by a post Cheryl wrote at Thinking About Home, I decided to make some changes in my china cabinet.  For a while now I've had a pretty rose-patterned china set displayed there - china that was inherited from my husband's paternal grandmother when she passed years ago.   

In the past, I've switched out the china for our wedding dishes (which is Noritake - Pleasure pattern) on a somewhat seasonal basis, but I hadn't done this in a couple of years, I'm thinking.  Anyway, Cheryl's post this week got me to thinking about a set of Currier & Ives stoneware (Old Grist Mill pattern) I brought home from my mother-in-law's this summer and I thought now would be a great time to swap out the china for these dishes.

Since my Noritake stoneware also has blue in it, I tried mixing the dishes and I found I really liked the effect.  I also have some brown (and earthy-colored) Frankoma items so I added them, as well as some other old items - some I have pictured below and I will explain what they are.

It was a lot of work unpacking the Currier & Ives dishes and packing up the china, but it feels really good to have a change of scenery for the winter, and to have the Currier & Ives handy to use.  I'm going to enjoy that as these are a design of dishes I grew up with, and even though these aren't my childhood dishes, a little reminiscing sounds good about now.

Changing out the china cabinet was also good for providing me a reason to sort through more items and decide to remove some of them from our home.  A photo of those things will come at the end of this post, but let me first share a few unique items in my china cabinet.

My mother-in-law was a collector of invalid feeders.  In fact, she belonged to a national society of invalid feeder collectors and went to invalid feeder conventions.  These items ranged from plain utilitarian objects, to hand-painted works of art.  The blue and white one below is perhaps one of the prettiest in her collection and I think it looks really nice amongst the blue dishes.   The glass candle holder on the left is one of two that I have and those are from my childhood home where they were often used for holiday dinners.

~~~

The creamer pitchers below, I believe belonged to my maternal grandmother and I remember them always being in the china cabinet in my childhood home:

Aren't they cute?!?

~~~

Moving on...  The little cast iron couple below used to belong to my Aunt Louise.  I was given her name as my middle name and everyone in the family evidently understood that I was her favorite (I came to discover when I was older).  She had no children of her own, and truth be told, she was my favorite aunt.  Though all of my aunts and uncles were just the best people ever.  Anyway...   

Aunt Louise bequeathed to me her piano, and when her things were sold at auction, I bought this little couple as I remembered admiring them when I was a little girl.  It's quite possible I'm the one who wore the paint off their faces - playing with them.    Aunt Louise would love knowing I have these and that they transport me back to wonderful times spent with her in her apartment when she was a single, working woman.  She worked in our family's doctor's office until she opened up a Christian book and gift store - which was a fascinating place to spend an afternoon I remember.  This was in the 1960's and early '70's.

It occurs to me that now would be a good time to mention that about 25 years ago I also bought this china cabinet which belonged to Aunt Louise.  An uncle (Aunt Louise's brother) didn't realize I was bidding on it, and in an effort to get the price up, he started bidding.  I looked over to see if he really wanted it, in which case I intended to stop bidding, but I saw my aunt (his wife) nudge him with her elbow and nod at me to let him know he was bidding against me and I realized it was just a mistake.  lol  I'm not sure how much more I paid than I might have otherwise, but seeing as my aunt had given me her piano, it sure didn't bother me any.  

~~~

Next up...  While it isn't old (like most everything else in the china cabinet), I've enjoyed using this sweet cake stand I probably found a decade or so ago at TJ Max:

And I like to serve large salads in the cut glass bowls that sit atop the stand.  These bowls came from my childhood home, and I'm pretty sure they originally belonged to my maternal grandmother.  She died when I was a little thing - not quite 5 years old.

~~~

And finally, below is a plate that has an image of the church my husband and I were married in 40 years ago, and the little bride and groom figurine sat atop my MIL's and FIL's wedding cake in 1952.

We were going to use this figure as our cake topper in 1980, but because of miscommunications, the little couple didn't make to the church (on time, or otherwise).  Fortunately, the florist had delivered extra flowers, so we made quick work of putting some fresh flowers where the figurine was supposed to go.  It was a happy solution for our wedding day, but I was thrilled to have found these little people amongst my MIL's things and be able to bring them home.  They've been in a box for the past 40 years (and many years before that).  I am so happy to display them, and don't they just look perfect with this plate?

Even though the groom has a slightly misshapen head and neither look too happy, I think they are wonderful.

~~~

And that, friends, is a quick tour of the interesting things in my china cabinet as it looks today.  

Less interesting is a collection of items (pictured below) that I am sending out into the world.  The painted yellow pitcher has sat atop my refrigerator for years.  I think I bought it at a Goodwill store, so it will go back and maybe someone else will enjoy finding it again.  Or maybe it's not even something anyone would want anymore.  I don't know.  I'm just happy to let it go along with a few serving dishes, a lonely candle holder, a solitary punch cup, a glass dome that has no base to sit on, a creamer and sugar bowl that has lost its lid, and a stack of dessert plates we do not need.

Counting the stack of plates as one item, that's 10 more things leaving.

Week 6:  128 things gone

First snow...

I've been down sick most of this week with a bad cold - which meant plenty of crocheting time (in between drug-induced naps).

I think it was Wednesday when we saw our first snow of the winter season.  (Or it could have been Tuesday, really...  I can't remember...  the past week is all melded together in the fog of my murky memory).    But whatever day it was, even with a foggy, sick head I was able to appreciate how pretty was this first snow, and I decided to poke my nose outside and snap some pictures:

Poking my nose out the back door:

And then out the front:

to the left

 

and to the right

And then pulling my nose back into the warm house and closing the door, as I turned around it occurred to me to snap a picture of what it looks like when someone is coming into my house:

At the time it seemed like a funny thing to do, but seeing the picture, now I think it's kind of neat. And I'm curious if any of you might like to do the same.  Wouldn't it be fun to step inside each other's front (or back) doors and just take a peek inside?  :)

Speaking of peeks, here are two little snapshots of  the Linen-Stitch Scarves I nearly finished this week (they're finished except for weaving in some yarn ends):

A gray and black striped scarf 

and a blue, gray and black striped scarf

One more to go!  Hopefully, next week (say, that's Christmas Day!) I'll have some modeled shots of these scarves.  That is if I have them all finished.  Note to self:  Take pictures before wrapping them - just in case I forget to round up the models, or in case the recipients decide to be bashful.

To see what other Yoppers are up this week, visit our group on Ravelry!

Book Lovers Love Books

How's that for stating the obvious?  Whether the books belong to her or someone else, a book lover just can't seem to get her fill when browsing another's bookshelves.  And homeschoolers are, by and large, book lovers and book collectors; and almost without fail what a homeschooler's eyes are drawn to when visiting a new friend are their books!  Maybe we want to get new ideas.  Maybe we want to see if we have common tastes.  Or maybe (and I almost hate to suggest this, but....) maybe we're just afflicted. 

I don't know why it's such a compulsion to peruse another book lover's bookshelves, but I know that it is.  So I invite you to browse a sampling of the many books we've collected over the years.  Clicking on a picture will enlarge it (because I know you want to read the titles).

A sampling of the books in the family room

Nature and Science books

Art books

Religion, Philosophy, History and Geography

These are the ones not in boxes.  I store history books by period in a storage room and rotate them out as we're studying a particular time period because we don't have enough shelves to hold them all at once.

Teacher Resources

Way too many cookbooks 

A glass front bookcase houses a few of Greg's WWII books:

The little bookcase below has always been my "woman's shelf".  Early on it was a new mom's bookshelf.  Then it became loaded with homeschooling books, and a sprinkling of spiritual helps.  At the moment, it's undergoing a metamorphosis as I begin contemplating the transition from homeschooling to.....who knows?!?   It may simply remain an eclectic collection of what interests me at the moment.

And then there is music, poetry, nursery rhymes 

and all sorts of miscellany in the living room & dining room:

And as hard as it is to believe, I didn't even get pictures of the books in the boys' rooms, several other shelves of teacher helps, Bible study resources, Greg's Landmark book collection, books of music scores, and some wonderful children's literature I hope to someday share with grandchildren.  And, well...I'll admit I intentionally didn't snap any pictures of the collections that are growing on my dresser (my Mitford, Miss Julia, and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books - books I've only recently discovered are wonderful, fun reads).

Yes, I suppose it is an affliction. 

But a lovely affliction it is.