I am done for a while...

Since this house is way too big for us (what was *I* thinking when we bought it????) I decided on dedicating the empty rooms to visitors. So, I went to an antique shop and I found room numbers from an old hotel (although the guy couldn't give me any good stories behind the numbers). We put them up last night:



Behind room 1848 is Guest room 2 (Guest room 1 is bigger and has its own bath. We charge more). I just painted this room a really pretty color that doesn't really show up in these pictures so you will all have to just come and visit. I give my blog readers a BIG discount.



Here you can see the color a little better





Room 1849 is the command station from which I am working out of to get all the other rooms done. It will be my art room when I drag my yarn up here from the basement.






Room 1850 is our room. We haven't done much with it but I like it anyhow.



We still have to get a flat screen TV and get rid of the clunker. If you are observant you can see that I have a trial swatch of color over by the balcony (that looks down into the den). Still trying to figure out the color for the den.



Room 1851 is the Guest room 1. My personal favorite.



Here is Guest Room 1's bathroom. I just painted it a mind numbing blue. I may have gone overboard.



And there you have the second floor of this house. I will do the kitchen pictures in a few days. It is all done and really came out perfect (at least perfect for me).

I am pooped.

My god son Larry

This is Larry my god son. I made myself his god mother because I love him so much. He belongs to my pal Karo. She doesn't mind if I say he is my god son because she knows that beside her I love him the most in the whole world. Mr Yarn wouldn't let me have my own Lemur so I have to get all my fun by looking at pictures that Karo sends me.

Larry was hot so he had a popsicle. He has good taste because he chose an orange popsicle and not something stupid like cherry.



Larry rocks!

The indignity

Esther went to the groomer for the first time today. When she came out she had two purple bows in her hair. I don't know if they noticed but she is a SAINT BERNARD not a poodle. I was expecting a bandanna or something. Poor girl. She muttered all the way home about how she didn't want to get out of the car because the neighbors might see her.

I think MY day is worse than hers though. It is about 90 degrees today and it is so humid it feels like you have to swim through the air just to move. I popped in my ipod and got to work on painting doors. I was so happy. Just as I got to the middle of the guest bathroom door I turned around and made a critical error. I bumped into the ladder that had the paint sitting on it. One gallon of white paint went flying around a bathroom that is no bigger than a closet. It got on everything including me. I cleaned up most of it but still have a nasty reminder.



So, this weekend we are pulling out the vanity and putting in a new one (we were going to do that anyhow). My sister and her husband are staying here next weekend and I want it done before they get here. Being me sucks right now.

Paint me stupid...

I am on a huge painting spree. Everything in this house needs to be painted because the people that lived here before didn't really like to see anything around them. They painted everything so dark that I swear they must have been moles. So I am on a kick to lighten it up with some color and with some warmth. This is a terrible picture of the true color but if you saw it in person I swear you would love it (or maybe not but *I* do).



So since I am on a roll I decided to paint all the closet doors which were in dire need of some paint. As I moved on I thought "Well, if I am doing the closet doors I may as well do the doors too" This is not to mention that there are about 30 doors upstairs. So I paint my first door in the guest bedroom and I am feeling all smug. "Why should I hire a painter, I am doing a great job myself". I get off the ladder to admire my handywork and it hits me in the face.



The damn door jams aren't white. They are a nondescript dirty something or other. Now I have to paint all the door jams and windowsills too.

Just how *I* wanted to spend my first sweltering summer in Massachusetts.

Took a break

We took a break Sunday and stopped working on the house. Had to get out of here for a while. So, we decided to go see if we could go find ourselves some fried clams. After all we are near the fried clam mecca. We headed to Ipswich to see for ourselves. It was between the Clam Shack and Woodman's. We got to the Clam Shack first so that is where we ended up eating. The line was out the door as we expected but it was well worth the wait. I have to say that I am now a fan of whole belly clams. We will hit up Woodman's next time. As a matter of fact I am sure sooner or later we will hit up all the clams shacks we can. Then again, if I could find some steamed clams I would be happy too. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of all that is fried.

Summer

Had nothing to do yesterday so I decided to go pick blueberries at a local farm. Tougas Farm was really cool and it was the first day of blueberry picking. So I grabbed my neighbor Cathy and off we went. Between the two of us we picked 15lbs. Plenty to make jam and maybe more. So I got up early and started on the task of making a Blueberry Buckle (never heard of a buckle till I moved here. Then again, I never was in the habit of going to a farm for the heck of it in the middle of the week because there was nothing better to do).

After an all day project of making buckle



Sorta scary when I noticed that the buckle blends into our new counters. Oh well, less to clean...

Then came the jam. Argh. I tripled the recipe which made it an hour of stirring. I was glad to be done.



Voila



For those of you that notice (waving to mom) the walls are getting tiled on Monday. I can't wait for this damn kitchen to be done.

I am starting to feel like "Little Home on the Prairie or is that Green Acres? Scooped a big ole frog out of the pool last night (realllly big frog) and saw my first dragonfly this morning. So there is diversity here.... wish I could get basil on a consistent basis.

Knitting sighting!

I finished the Drops Alpaca baby sweater for a Laurel's niece Hannah. This sweater was pretty fun to knit until I had to join the tiny sleeve into the body. I would make this sweater again.

Firefly

It was the most amazing thing I have seen in a long time. Just when I was getting so homesick I could hardly stand it, Rich called me outside to see something. There in the backyard were blinking lights that looked like magical little fairies. My first firefly sighting. I felt like I was 5 years old again. It was beautiful. I had to stop myself from running into the house to get a jar to catch them.

It is June 24th

Check out the little white things all over the place and no they aren't rocks.
That's all I'm sayin...

How I spent my summer vacation

Yup it is raining again. I have never seen it rain this hard. The thundering and lightening are weird enough and loud enough that I can't hear myself think. To make it even more fun it is raining little rocks. Yup, hail. This all would be sorta cool if it weren't for the fact that I am sweating. It is humid. It is wet. It is summer for gods sake!

Ok, enough of my whining.

A picture of a picture of a picture

Last time Evan was at our house in Alameda, a hummingbird got inside the house and couldn't get out. It flew over to our leaded glass window and Evan got a shot of it. I had the picture blown up and printed on canvas. I will now have it hanging in my den and it will remind me of Evan and our old house. You can see the Oakland hills in the picture which I love.

Stuff

Dakota (aka Esther [because my friend Julie refuses to call her anything else so I put that for her]) turned 7 months old a couple of days ago. First time I have ever known the actual birthday of a pet. Her birthday is November 9th. I can't believe how fast she is growing and her dog classes are going great. She is really smart (for a Saint Bernard that is). She has really mellowed out and she obeys commands most of the time (if you happen to have a piece of hotdog in your hand).

On the home front...





All the cabinets are done and we are waiting to get our stove and hood and to get the counter tops put in. Oh yeah, we also have to paint and tile the backsplash. I can't wait for all of this to be done because washing dishes in a bathroom sort of disgusts me. Call me crazy.

Fern

Yes indeedy, I have been knitting. This is Alice Starmore's "Fern". I love the yarn and I love the sweater so far. I don't love knitting on it in 100 degree weather but it will be worth it when it is 20 below.

I never knew why people in other parts of the country talked about the weather all the time. That is I didn't understand it until I moved away from California. It has become an obsession. Everything revolves around it. I suppose that I will get used to it but in the meantime it freaks me out. For instance, last night lightening (and yes it was still in the 80's) hit a tree on our street and we were without electricity all night. This meant that there was NO air. I started to panic when I tried to go downstairs and realized that it was pitch black and I couldn't see. Me being stubborn me felt my way around the room until I was trapped and really didn't know where I was. Mr Yarn thought it was pretty funny that I was in the office and was groping around banging on the printer. I got downstairs and slept on the couch.

I really don't want to turn into one of those "what about this weather we are having" type of people. I have to refrain from getting stuck with that nasty habit.

Um, how is the weather where you are?

Kitchen remodel Part I

I thought I was sorta unpacked and done moving the kitchen stuff in. We try not to think about the millions of boxes in the basement and garage and the pool room. So, having to start all over isn't much fun. Here is what it is looking like:







Not good.

Here is the beginning of the new kitchen



another shot



If I don't die from the stress and the heat I will keep you posted as this progresses. Oh yeah, I also will take pictures of the new sweaters I am working on because despite the sweltering heat, I am knitting.

I beat the heat wave

Got up first thing this morning and finished painting the room. I guess rolling on paint is the easy part because it only took me a couple of hours.

Someone that bet that I wouldn't get my ass off the couch to paint the room while Mr Yarn was in India owes me some money.

Fun and games in Massachusetts

This is what I see out my window today. Yesterday it was 90 and today is 60. I swear I don't know how I could have given up my "70 degrees no matter WHAT" weather. Mr Yarn owes me BIG TIME. Mr Yarn is in India so I am amusing myself with color. I am painting another room. Who knew that not all walls are alike. Mine were built by Mr Magoo. The ceiling doesn't meet up with either the moulding or the walls. How do I know this? I cut in by hand with the paint. I faked it so don't mention that I may not have gotten it perfect



Oh by the way... I am not done yet. Tomorrow I will roll on the rest.

Memorial Day (or Toto we aren't in Kansas anymore)

So we were doing a few errands on Memorial Day and hit a roadblock. Evidently it was a 5 minute parade down Highway 20 in Westborough. It consisted of Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, a high school band and um....army tanks.

We also threw a BBQ for 20. I was accused of renting people to attend but I swear I didn't. It was a nice day.
Here are a few shots of the new patio and pool.





Here is a view of our neighbors yard from our patio



and the pool from hell



and last but not least my girl Dakota

A little OCD

Ok, I swear this is the last of the color debate. I went with the colors in the stone fireplace at the advice of a color consultant that I broke down and had come over. It was also the advice of smarty pants "Yarn!" readers.

I will never bore you again with this

Cleaning 101

This is a picture of the fireplace when I moved in. It was bugging me that it was so dirty. So I watch too much HGTV but it paid off because I learned how to clean a stone fireplace.

This is the after...

I need advice...

In a nutshell...
These are three of the many colors I have slapped on my wall to try to decide what color to paint a very large room.



We are talking 30 feet ceilings (with skylights) and just a big room in general. I am looking for that perfect terra cotta color but can't find it. If I can't find something soon or at least decide Mr Yarn is going to strangle me.

Another view of big room:



Please give me your opinion. No white, off white or ecru allowed.