Snowy Days!

Emma with some of the friends from her party

Last time I blogged I mentioned that I was a little more busy than I had been, now that I'm back to work. And so it is that well over a month has flown by without my posting.  I'll try to catch you up to date on some of what we've been up to in those hours outside of work...


These are pictures from Emma's 13th birthday party, on November 3rd. She had a skating / pizza party with a group of friends.

Another teenager-!

They're a blur of motion, but this is Leila (in green) and Jon skating

It's starting to snow here. This picture shows pretty light snow, but right now we actually have about 5 inches of heavy, wet, packy snow. It's melting off the eaves right now, but as evening sets in it will freeze, and then I think we're expected to get another 6 inches or so over the course of the next few days.

My little snow bunny

Emma went deer hunting with her dad a couple of times this year. Emma didn't see anything, but Jon managed to get a doe.

Jon and Emma getting their hunting gear on

 

 

We painted the girls' bedrooms in the basement. Emma wanted a bright blue, green, and white color scheme. I was pretty iffy about it, but it actually looks kind of young and fresh on the walls. It definitely helps brighten up our dark, drab basement...

 

Emma's new paint colors

Leila's room with blue walls

Leila in her room

Mom and Dad stop by and visit, when they get the chance. Here's Dad looking through Susan's wedding album while Leila looks on over his shoulder.

Grandpa and Leila

My mom

Despite our work schedule, we still get to see Jack on most weekends. We love having him over to play and be one of the gang. His language skills have really picked up over the last couple of months. He can talk to you in sentences and understands most of what is said to him. He has a strong-willed personality but also a really sweet way about him that melts the heart.

Jackson loves the tree

We are housing our remaining two chickens at Johnne's farm this winter. They'll be warmer over there in her greenhouse with all the other chickens. So for now our coop is empty.

They flew the coop

I've been decorating for Christmas! One thing I always like to do is decorate the refrigerator with "classic" family photos from Christmases and winters past.

Some of my favorite X-Mas pics

The winter village on our piano

Kind of a crazy tree this year

The mantle ala Christmas

A fun Christmas tree collection in the kitchen

We're looking forward to our time with Susan, Jay, and David this holiday season. They should be coming up around the 22nd and staying for about a week. Both Jon and I have a nice chunk of vacation toward the end of December (though I will still have to work a little), so we'll have plenty of family time to spend. Life is good :).

I'm Back to Work (and Loving It)

Me with partners, Yvette and Elisha

It's been awhile since I last posted, but this has been a busy and eventful fall for me. Leila started kindergarten and I rejoined the workforce. Everyone who knows me has probably heard by now, but I have two new jobs: I'm a co-owner (with two friends) of a business in Bloomer called Shabby Shed Boutique. And I'm also working three days a week at the library in Colfax.



At the Shabby Shed

Shabby Shed is a consignment store with all kinds of fun stuff, from arts and crafts to antiques and painted furniture. We carry honey, coffee, tea, jewelry, make-up, and hand-made soap. The idea of the store is to acquire our stock from local producers. Most of our consignors are local individuals with a talent (knitting, quilting, etc.) but we also work with other local businesses (like Legacy Chocolates in Menomonie).


Our resident quilter, of course, is Mom. We have a small selection of her quilts, potholders, and crazy quilt pillows at the store.

One of Mom's batik quilts at Shabby Shed



Repurposing old chairs into garden art

Seasonal items at Shabby Shed

Antiques and the miscellaneous

Some of my crafts

The store is the perfect vehicle for my artistic interests. I love coming up with craft ideas and "up-cycling" or repurposing old odds and ends into new treasures. I have a display for my portrait business at the store. And I get to write a blog for the store http://shabbyshedboutique.blogspot.com/.



All things I love-! When pieces sell I help rearrange items (decorating! which I also love). And, of course, there's also all the vibrant and interesting people I get to talk to at the store... consignors, customers, and my partners. The whole thing is such a positive for me, on so many levels.


Because there's three of us, our schedules at the store are flexible. If one of us has a sick child or an appointment or some kind of problems, the others help cover.


My librarian job is quieter, but rewarding in its own right. I like my co-workers and I LOVE being around all those books. When things are slow I straighten out the shelves, and if a little browsing happens in the meanwhile, so be it. But there are lots of busy days at the library... people come in and use the internet, kids come in afterschool, people use our copy machine or Kindles... and of course, people come in to pick up stacks of books. We're a small library, but we're connected to the MORE system that gives small communities like ours access to all the many, many books of larger libraries in the system (like Menomonie and Eau Claire). Find out more at http://readingincolfax.blogspot.com/.


Anyway! There's other things to life besides work... like camping!


A few weeks ago we headed to Sylvania National Forest in Michigan. My brothers John and Bob camped right by us. Sylvania's only about an hour from my parents' house in Rhinelander, so Mom and Dad visited us at the campsite. The fall color was spectacular, but unfortunately about half our time camping was spent getting rained on. Still, we had a good time.

Cooking with pudgy pies

Me with brothers Bob and John

Jim and Leila in rain parkas

Mom and Dad visiting in the rain

Grandma keeping Leila warm

We visited Mom and Dad in Rhinelander, briefly, during the same visit. I love to get up north during the autumn, where the colors are more intense than around here.

 

 

Dad recently fortified his woodshed

Leila in the fort that Bragg Family South made

Back of Mom and Dad's house

Jack and Leila playing (in Colfax) with Tonka trucks that Dad fixed up for them

Jon has been working on our new front porch, as time allows. The roof is finished, the front wall is up, and some windows are installed.

Our new front porch is coming along

 



Last night we headed to Eau Claire for dinner at Jonathan's new restaurant, The Eau Claire Ale House. It was his first night open. We saw some familiar faces there... Steve, Nathan, and Jill were there, as were some friends and a few loyal patrons Jonathan got to know at Mona Lisa's. But there were also lots of people there who saw the sign and the lights, and stopped in as drive by's. The place was pretty packed. It was so cool to see Jonathan presiding over it all... all the skills he's learned at restaurants and bars over the years put to use. Our food was very good. I tried the chicken alfredo with mushrooms, Emma and Jill had a bleu cheese salad, Michael had a burger, and Leila had an enormous order of Italian fries. Delicious.

Jonathan Hurlburt, business owner

Steve and Nathan

Some of the self-serve beers on tap

Jon making himself at home in his son's bar (proud moment)

Kids playing a game with their Aunt Jill

Sleepy Leila's seeks me out and wordlessly lets me know "Time to go home"

We love Jill

So anyway, that's some of what's been going on in our lives lately. I won't bother mentioning some of the other things... like how the house is messier and the cookie jar is usually empty and my inner Martha Stewart is screaming and shrieking her way into the floor boards (think melting witch on the Wizard of Oz). Think kids washing dishes and husbands frying potatoes for supper. I leave you with those happy images *peace* :).



September Already???

 

Leila with neighbor Janetta after helping me pick in garden

Time flies by... hard to believe that summer's gone and we're already well into September. The kids are back in school, the days are getting shorter, and we've had several nights that have hovered close to the freezing mark.

 

 

We've had a good harvest from our garden, though we talked to many people who had trouble growing things this year. The weather around here was just kind of goofy... the spring and early summer were very wet and cold; we weren't even able to plant our corn at our neighbor Johnne's until after the 4th of July, because her garden area was so saturated with water. But once summer kicked in, it was unusually dry. We really didn't have much if any rain in August and early September, up until a couple nights ago when we finally had a good soaking rain. So lots of people had things dry up or had the bugs take over. I think we were fortunate because we have a raised bed and then used plenty of hay as mulch around the plantings, to retain moisture. For whatever reason, we were lucky and I've been busy doing all kinds of food preservation.

Emma, Dad, Mom and Bill snap beans

It was really nice to have Mom, Dad, Bill and Scott stop by on my birthday this year... not only to see them, but because they helped me snap my huge bucket of green, wax, and purple beans. They volunteered... I never even thought of asking them! And it was amazing how fast it went when everyone worked together, talking and laughing. We agreed that must have been how they did it in the old days, when there was all kinds of monotonous seasonal work like that to get done.

Teenage Michael

 

 

Before school started we bought a pop-up camper and took the kids on a quick camping trip to Brunet Island State Park in Cornell. We used to camp a lot when Susan, David, and Jonathan were little, and even a fair amount with Michael and Emma, but Leila had never camped before. I think we'll be making up for lost time, because she LOVED it.

Jon getting his fishing line straightened out

Jon loved it too. He finally got to go through his tackle boxes and do a little fishing. He spent time showing each of the kids how to cast and fish from shore a little bit. Our campsite was in a nice high, flat, shady wooded area, but there was a path from our site down to the water, so the fishing was very convenient.

The water by our campsite

Weather was beautiful, too. We were just coming off a bit of a heat wave, with humid days in the high 90's, so were afraid we might roast, but it cooled down nicely at the campsite and we were very comfortable. It was even kind of cool in the morning.

Our new camper

Leila liked spending most of her day in her swimsuit, fishing or roller blading.

Misty morning, by the water

Why don't we camp every weekend? So relaxing

Jon making breakfast for everyone

We decided that now that we're back into camping we need to become a little more sophisticated as far as our meals, and move beyond hot dogs and smores. When we camp at Sylvania the end of September, with those siblings who can make it, I want to come up with some good Dutch oven and pudgie pie recipes for us. I also want to make sure I have a good way to make coffee at camp.

A new school year!

So anyway, back to school! Michael started his freshman year of highschool (-!), Emma's starting middle school as a 7th grader, and Leila is a kindergartner. Since Colfax only has one school (with three "wings", for the different ages), all three kids ride the bus together. So far it's been going well. Emma's in volleyball and Leila's been begging me to let her be in Girl Scouts, so I guess I better look into that.

Emma with friends Katie and Jacqueline

The other night Emma had a couple of friends over for a sleep-over. We set our camper up in the back yard, and they slept out there. They seemed to have fun and certainly there was a lot of giggling going on.

Jonathan, Jack, and Alicia

Yesterday Jonathan, Jack, and Alicia came over to watch the Packer game and have chili lunch with us. Jonathan has a lot of exciting things going on in his life right now. Probably the most surprising is that he and a couple of partners have pooled their money and purchased a bar / restaurant in Eau Claire.

Jonathan's new business!

 

 

It's called Empire Bar and Grill right now, but I remember it best as Cicone's (and it's name will probably change again when Jonathan and the guys open on October 1st). It's located on Clairemont, just off the intersection between Clairemont and Menomonie Street. Jonathan has left his job as bar manager at Mona Lisa's, and will now be running the bar at his own place. He said it will be a full service bar and American grill with pizza, appetizers, sandwiches, and a few pasta dishes. There will be a late night happy hour, but more details on that will be coming. 

Mr. Fix-It, my brother Bob

I should have rotated this picture so you can understand what you're seeing, but this is my brother Bob taking a look at my dishwasher when he was here yesterday, visiting (the dishwasher's been giving me grief). Bob and a friend had just been at a motorcycle show in Minneapolis, and wanted to drop a gift off for me before returning to Madison. The gift? Two boxes of canned apple pie filling and applesauce. Bob's taken up canning recently, and he's "into it" with all the enthusiasm he gets when he discovers something new he enjoys. I was very happy to accept the apple pie filling... can't wait to try it out.

The new front porch under construction

 

 

Bob also helped Jon a little with the roof of our new front porch. Jon said he expects it will be (mostly) done this fall, though not completely finished. We will leave the floor cement this year, but eventually it will probably be tiled. 

Tired boy

Jack stayed overnight last night (he's still here in the house, taking his nap while I do this blog). This is how he fell asleep yesterday, after insisting he did not want a nap. He was laying with his face right on top of cars, sound asleep, so we moved him to the bed. What a little sweetheart he is. His little blonde tow-head, his blue eyes, everything about him just takes me back in time to a little David, though of course I see how much he looks like both Jonathan and Lindsay. It is just such a blessing to experience how grandchildren can you take you back in time and let you hold and remember your own children when they were still little. Plus they are their own little people, with their own distinct personalities, and such a joy to gradually get to know one another.

Can't wait for our new screen in porch!

I'll close with a few scenes from around our house, which is (of course) fully decorated for fall as of a week ago.

The living room in fall colors

My jack-o-lantern collection

Our mantel

My garlic braid by an old picture of a woman and her chickens that I bought for $5 at a flea market in Kentucky last time we were there. Love it-!

A couple of weird little Halloween-ish characters I've collected, now standing watch on our piano

Have a great September! Stay warm :).