On a New and Improved Thing-a-ma-jig

When we moved to Virginia, we had to leave our old thing-a-ma-jig behind and there was much crying and gnashing of teeth involved in this decision.  The kids were kind of attached to the old thing.  In case you don't know, a thing-a-ma-jig is a contraption built completely from found objects and leftover bits and pieces of this and that.  You can't have any plan in mind when you start construction, it's always a work in progress and it's never really finished.  It's all very technical.  In Florida all the wood we used had been collected by us from the river on base.  Alas, here we don't have a river right across from our house so we haven't done any thing-a-ma-jig constructing since the big move.  However, over the past few weeks Chris finally took the initiative to haul bits of this and that home that washed up out of the Potomac River at some of our favorite parks.

It's not stealing, it's free beach clean up services.

Well, long story short, a new thing-a-ma-jig has been born--this time with the added bonus of wheels thanks to a defunct lawn mower that the boys stripped for parts.  I think Chris loves working on it just as much as the boys do.  It justifies his hoarding of any part or do-dad that could ever, maybe, possibly, come in handy.  The kids love to pull it back and forth across the yard and David is desperately trying to figure out how to install some sort of engine.  Probably because he's the only one strong enough to pull it while it holds passengers.  The cousins seemed to like it too.

Who doesn't love a thing-a-ma-jig?

My Sunday Best and a Summer Book Report

I've never done a Sunday link up before, mostly because I wear the same thing to mass each week switching only for the change in seasons which is not super interesting.  Also, I almost never remember to take pictures on the way out the door to early mass.  In an effort to document the latest addition to the family though, today I finally managed it.

"But you didn't even take a shower today" chimed in my darling husband.  No, no, I didn't, but these pictures do fairly accurately capture how tired I've been feeling the last few weeks.

Also, I really should have grabbed the lip gloss before we started.  Lip gloss makes everything look better, right?  I'll try to remember that for October when my outfit changes.

And since I've got you here, and these book reviews have been floundering in my drafts folder for way too long I'm just going to throw them in too.  You are welcome.

 I set aside my more challenging reading when summer officially hit and went on a couple of week bender with these.  It was pretty glorious.  I mean I had to read through them quickly.  They were library books.  Well except for the last one.  I've been unsuccessfully trying to finish that one since January.




The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer

This was my favorite of the bunch.  I was telling Chris all about it and he asked about the setting.  I replied that it took place in post WWII England to which he responded, "is there any other time period?"  I suppose it is my favorite time period--for both fiction reading and television specials.  The book is told through a series of letters from the main character (a journalist) to her family and friends and then to members of The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society through which she finds out about the Nazi occupation of the Guernsey Island and also finds her own place in the new post-war world.   This book was wonderful not only for the story, but also for the history of the island which I'm just going to go ahead and assume is accurate because I'm really good at source checking. So good.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson

This book was perfectly fine but as the whole plot revolved around a widower and a widow finding love later in life I just couldn't fully appreciate the story.  I mean, if something should happen to me obviously Chris should spend the rest of his life in mourning--reminiscing about how wonderful I was and resting secure in the fact that no one could ever replace me.  If the children were grown he could maybe join a religious order of some sort.  Or take up one of those hobbies he never got to commit to because of family obligations--like golf.  He definitely should not pursue a relationship with the local shopkeeper no matter how exotic she was or how awful our children might turn out to be.  I of course would do likewise.

The Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown

Three sisters who've lost their ways in various ways return to their childhood home and find themselves again.  Growing up the eldest of two sisters I found the relationships between the sisters very relatable--if not quite as dramatic.  I loved the tag line on the cover, "See, we love each other.  We just don't happen to like each other very much."   What sibling couldn't relate to that, at least at one time or another.  Also, Shakespeare references abound so that's fun.  

The Awakening of Miss Prim, by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

I started out not enjoying this one very much because the story felt a bit...forced, but I ended up enjoying it and it has stuck with me after I finished it.   The main character, Miss Prim, finds herself in a town that I know I'm not the only one who fantasizes about.  One where everyone knows everyone and a real community exists to help each other and interfere in each other's lives--but you know, in a good way.  It's kind of a manifesto on the joys of living more simply and finding the things that truly bring a full life--which obviously include lots of time outside, time to think, time to read and of course time to drink tea and eat cakes.  I actually came away inspired.  

The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton

This is an outline of Christian history with sections comparing different world religions that I really wish I had read when I was younger.  It's Chesterton so obviously it's amazing but I picked it up and put it down so many times in the past six months that by the time I finished it I completely lost the thread of the thing.  I'll have to try again later and really it's worth reading several times anyway.  Luckily this one is not a library book so I can do what I like, although apparently I do better with library deadlines hanging over my head to give me that nudge I need to focus on one book at a time and finish the ones I've already begun in a timely fashion before moving on to other things.  

...

And going back to what I wore to mass, this maxi is slightly too short.  I tried to explain it to the husband but he really didn't understand at all.  Also, he didn't manage to get any pictures of the entirety of the thing so I could show you.  Do I hem it and make it more of a tea length dress or should I just leave it as is, chalk it up to giantess problems, and just be thankful I never have the problem of my dresses dragging on the ground?

dress // Old Navy on super sale a couple of weeks ago.  I'm talking $10 ladies :)
            (same dress, different pattern here)
shoulder covering wrap // I'm thinking from an airport somewhere round about fifteen years ago



Also, my Amazon links are affiliate but all others are certainly not.  I'm not that fancy :)  

Summer Beginnings

Or alternately titled, Margaret Always Finds the Dirt.

I sped up the last few weeks of lessons here so that we could officially be done with school by Memorial Day--mostly because I was done.  Really done.  I'm doing David's standardized testing this week so I guess we aren't officially finished just yet but I've called the official start of summer anyway.

It's glorious.

We went to NC for the holiday weekend and had a lot of fun visiting, playing in the pool (the children) and sitting quietly nearby reading (me).  When so many of your family members live so near to each other it's hard to fit all the visiting in that we would like, but we were able to get in at least a little time with everyone--although not nearly as much as we would like.  Hopefully we'll be able to get back for longer than two and a half days soon.

Now that we're home we're settling into a summer routine which I think will be something vaguely along the lines of nature adventuring first thing in the mornings before it gets too ridiculously hot and then hitting the pool after naps where daddy can hopefully walk over and meet us after work.  With a week of Vacation Bible Sschool sprinkled in so the children can't complain that we never sent them to camp.  VBS counts as summer camp right?

I think it's pretty solid plan.

Now we get to spend the next three weeks frolicking as we watch the poor public school kids trudge up the road to school every day.  David desperately wants to set up a popsicle stand in the front yard to try to sell them treats as they pass by in the mornings but I think that might just be too mean.  He really wants to earn twenty-five dollars so that he can reach his goal of buying the Lego train monstrosity of his dreams.  I'm not sure if taunting the neighborhood children with goodies that I'm pretty sure their parents won't let them buy on the way to school anyway is the way to go.  I told him I could think of some extra chores he could do around the house to make up the difference but he didn't seem very interested in my boring mom solutions, opting instead to ask me if I would just "spot" him the money instead.  Um, nice try punkin' but no.  And also, when did my baby turn into a teenager?

Welcome summer.  We missed you.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} The Books and Curses Edition

{pretty}

We've had some glorious sunshiny days this week.  After weeks and weeks of cold, gloomy, rain we've just been basking in this wonderful weather.  The children had been losing.their.minds being cooped up inside for so long.  And when the children lose their minds, they usually take mom down with them.  It's good to be outside again.

{happy}

This past weekend I really needed a break so Chris took the kids while I went to my favorite used book store armed with my Ambleside Online master book list.  I did pretty well staying focused on hunting down next year's books though I might have got a little sidetracked here and there.  The beauty of using the AO curriculum is that a lot of the books I want to read are on the list for the later years anyway, so I'm not splurging, I'm planning ahead.

During this trip I realized that I am a total sucker for these older bird and animal books.  They all have such beautiful illustrations and these two also have photographs of the animals, as well as bits of literature and poetry references and interesting stories about the different creatures.  One even gives the pros and cons of keeping skunks and racoons as pets although I think we'll pass on that.  

I spent three hours wandering around and nobody yelled at me or asked me how much longer it was going to take,  Not once.  A happy day indeed.

{funny}

I think I'm on my way to mastering fried chicken, which is good because I'm pretty much craving it all the time.  Up until recently making fried chicken seemed like something that was just too complicated to even attempt, something only an expert should try to accomplish--you know like a KFC employee.  And like most things I've found in this homemaking gig, it was not nearly as complicated as I was imagining.  I've tried a couple of recipes and finally found a winner--I'm thinking of making it our staple Sunday dinner for the foreseeable future.  There's no such thing as too much fried chicken, am I right?  

{real}

I'm calling this process quilting, since I've been more concerned with the therapeutic effect of hand piecing this together and less with the final product, which I admit I haven't given much thought to.  I mostly just gathered up all the scraps from John's quilt plus some new coordinating scraps and started sewing.  I might regret this later, but for now it's really relaxing to just sew them together by hand in the evenings and still be able to converse with my husband without being stuck to my sewing machine and all the noise that entails.  Plus, I'm much better at lining up my seams by hand than with a machine--so that's satisfying.

John is very excited about this quilt for his baby brother and is always pointing out which fabrics he has in his quilt too.  It's pretty adorable.  He says the baby is going to be his friend, not Margaret's, because he'll be a boy.  I suppose we'll see.  About the friendship part that is.

He's definitely a boy.

I'm hesitant to even post this because the past two of these link ups I've participated in have resulted in the immediate destruction of at least one of the things I pictured.  Literally within hours of posting each time a favorite lamp and then the washing machine went down.  The washing machine will be saved but the lamp was beyond repair.  If something tragic happens to this quilt I might be officially convinced of the pretty, happy, funny, real curse and never link up again.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that.



As always, pop over to Like Mother, Like Daughter to find some more captured contentment and hopefully less curses.

{p,h,f,r} The Laundry Room Reno Edition

{pretty, happy, funny & real}

I don't know if there's anything more in the spirit of this linkup than a mediocre laundry room renovation.  Sometimes you need to have a little imagination to see the beauty around you, or maybe just a lower threshold for what you consider beautiful.  

The renovation started with this little beauty that I spotted on the side of the (very busy) road.  I've been wanting a new deep sink for our sad laundry room ever since we moved in, but since we are renting I obviously didn't want to go out and buy a new deep sink.  I've just been making do with the sad one--putting a bucket into the sink and then putting the things I needed to clean into the bucket since cleaning things in a gross dirty sink seemed counter productive.  Well no more!  When I spotted my precious, I pulled over, checked it for cracks, and claimed it for my own--stuffing it into the front passenger seat of my van.

Well in order to install the sink we had to pull out the washer and dryer and if we were already pulling all of that out anyway we might as well paint, right?  Right.

The Before

This might be the complete opposite of pretty.  Most of our basement was this yellow color when we moved in and we've since painted everything but this laundry alcove which is located in the basement in one of our two bathrooms.  There are usually doors that close it off to hide its unsightliness from guests.

As you can see it's very fancy cinder block with I'm not sure what splotched all over it--or is that stuff coming from underneath the yellow?  It's hard to say.  Well, about the same time I found the sink, the support for the shelf over the washer and dryer detached itself from the wall.  Clearly it was a sign to get to work.

Chris, dutiful husband that he is, pulled everything out, scrubbed it all down and primed.  I took over the next day painting and trimming everything while he was at work so that I could have my laundry room back.  I can't function more than a couple of days without doing laundry.  The laundry mountain can get scary.

You know what's not fun?  Dabbing paint into cinder blocks to make sure you covered all the crevices.  It was worth it though.

The After

I don't know if I would be so bold as to call this pretty but it's certainly an improvement and definitely clean.  Not too shabby for some elbow grease and paint.  I painted the shelf and the supports white and since the shelf is a little warped, we flipped it over so it could eventually bend back the other way.  Hopefully.

I'd still like to hang my drying line inside the little alcove so I don't have to drape my diaper covers  over random things in the bathroom to dry.  And it would be nice to find some kind of wall mounted container for found objects/mostly legos.  And I need to hang the doors back up, but since I painted the trim we now need to paint the doors as well or they'll look super dingy.  It's funny how one project tends to spur so many, many more.  Well, not funny to my husband :)

And, since I was already standing in the shower attempting to photograph this tiny space I thought I'd go ahead and show you the whole bathroom in all it's glory.

I know, it's pretty exciting.

What I'd really like to find is a circular braided rug for the floor.  It's an awkward space and the rectangular rug looks off no matter how to lay it.  Plus someone's always got cold toes since it can't cover the toilet, shower and sink all at once--hence the late spring space heater.

I know it might seem silly to put so much work into a rental home, but since we are military and haven't managed to stay anywhere longer than three years in the past decade we've come to the conclusion that there's no point in waiting for some undetermined future home to make things pretty.  This is our life now and this is our home, so we may as well make it as nice as we are able.  

David especially will spend his entire childhood bouncing from one duty station to the next.  I don't want all of his memories to be of us living in ugliness.  Really I think we're setting a good example for him,  attempting to create beauty (or at least, less ugliness) and always leaving things a little better than they were wherever we go.

After all,

"...for the Christian who is consciously in communication with the Creator, surely his home should reflect something of the artistry, the beauty and order of the One whom he is representing, and in whose image he has been made!"

~Edith Schaeffer, The Hidden Art of Homemaking

What are your thoughts?



And as always, make sure to pop over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for even more captured contentment.