day by day.

Because time spent here with the blog will be infrequent in the upcoming weeks (and months, and...), it didn't feel right to just stop without warning, at least for my own demarcation-needing self.

Photos have dwindled in the past months, recording life has gone by the wayside, and I'm finding myself in a situation where we are simply figuring out how to get through each day at a time, working out what it means to be homeschooling a, um, strong-willed young teenager trying to find her place in the world, and a patient and curious but still young and needy gradeschooler with her own problems to fight. 
(And I can't even talk about the weather without simple numbing fatigue.  I am not prepared, in body, mind, or spirit, for four months solid of "mid-January," which is where we've been for going-on-two weeks straight - temps high in the teens when it should be upper 30's.)

~
Just shooting photos around the house makes me miss doing it, and having only a handful of pictures saved in the monthly file is sad, so hopefully I will be able to keep up more than I think I can, but I also very much can't feel like I need to do anything extra.  It's time to keep taking care of our little family.

~~
Notes:  K is a smart, mostly-happy, almost teen who loves talking with her friends on e-mail and playing "minetest."  She still loves drawing and the 11th Doctor, has an incredible imagination, likes playing basketball, loves watching movies, and continues to read dozens of books a week.  She puts up with our homeschooling even though she's smarter than she should be.  (She puts up with math lessons because she's really a geek at heart.)  Gret loves knitting and sewing and doing things with her hands, drawing, math, science, and This Old House magazine and watching Love-it-or-List-it on Netflix with me when K is at basketball practice with Dad.  Oh, and "minetest," too!  (She puts up with reading because she lives in a house with more than eleven large full bookcases and doesn't have much choice.)  There!  Do I have to write a Christmas letter now?

~~~
So, finally, don't call this goodbye;  just, you know:  see-you-sooner-or-later.

Upstairs porch reveal: sleeping porch to guest room, fall 2013 to fall 2014

Back in the day, we had this porch:

It's always been a funny room at the back of the house on the upper storey, way at the end of a long hall we never went down.

Plaster walls crumbling, uninsulated and unheated, lead paint flaking from (single pane) windows and walls - it was a combination storage and get-away room, but very rarely used over the 15 years we've been in the house.

We'd finally reached the end of a lot of other projects, and decided it was time to (literally?) tackle this one...  fall of 2013:

Jeff got the walls down and new ceiling rafters put in before our long hard winter started.

Then there was a long winter wait:

Finally, spring.  We decided to take out the window in the wall, that went to a small storage room off the hallway.  We didn't want to take it out, but neither of us could figure out a reason why we shouldn't.  There were lots of reasons why we should, starting with not having to refinish a whole window.

After Jeff rebuilds the walls and adds insulation, the window guys come:

and the drywall guy comes (if you need a drywall guy in the Mpls area, we can tell you who not to call - but he did get the job done):

Painting is always exciting:

And the last bits always seem to take the longest (especially when we can't find the trim we want off the rack, so Jeff makes his own and I prime and paint it).  Summer is moving along, I'm buying things here and there that we'll need to finish the space.

We get bogged down in the details...  I have an idea what I'd like for new sheets, but have trouble matching the ones I choose (lovely nice ones on clearance, so no returns) to anything else, like duvet covers or curtains or flannel sheets.  The things you work out in your head are sometimes so hard to convert to a real space!

Being an area people need to comfortably sleep, and facing directly east, the porch needed good curtains.  This turned out to be a huge hassle of time and energy and money, but we did eventually figure out a cozy and dark plan that should keep out the 5 am summer sun, and maybe even help keep out the 4:30 pm winter sun-set cold, all the while making the space feel private and secure.

~~
Finally, end of the summer, "finished":

The girls give their own high praise:  "it's like a hotel!" they exclaim.  To me, that means finishing touches are still needed, like pictures and little things that make it a home.  These will come along the way, I'm in no hurry to fill the space with things just to fill it.  There will be adjustments that need to be made, too;  so far the new windows and insulation has kept the fall cold out, but we'll see how the heater can compete with the -20's winter. 

Now we walk down the hall just to stand in the room and enjoy the space.  We hope our houseguests will enjoy it, too!

galette, summer.

Summer wouldn't be summer with out all the activity;  thankfully workmen are finished tramping through our house, the experiment (for our family) of summer day camps is over, and we can get to mid-summer lazy-busy.  (After we cleaned up from all the workmen, we put the porch work on hiatus whilst we work on our next adventure.  I'm happy to take this break from it, and we will hopefully come back to it excited to keep working.)

The fresh pea soup (made from every pea harvested in the garden) was wonderful, Greta enjoyed the process from plant to supper all in one afternoon.  We used this recipe, but used onion instead of shallots.  We should have strained it, like the recipe said, but didn't and didn't too much mind the pea "shells."  We barely had the three cups of peas, so I guess I didn't want to lose any to straining!

I've had galettes on the mind recently, with their promise of summer easy.  After picking from this recipe and that, we've had raspberry galette twice now, with my cups of slightly over-ripe berries every couple days from the bushes.  It seems, even with picking often, the berries are always overripe!  Perfect for galette.  So easy!  Try for yourself.

~~~
Raspberry Galette
~ 4 very generous servings

Make dough first, must rest an hour:
Put ice in a cup of water, put in fridge.
Cut 6 Tbs cold butter into small cubes, set in fridge.

1 C (5 oz) all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt

Mix these briefly in food processor.  Add cold butter, pulse just until grainy (don't overmix).

With processor running, drizzle in ice water 1 Tbs at a time, until dough forms a ball, and no more.  (Will use maybe 2-4 Tbs.)  Place ball in a plastic bag, gently form a 1" thick disk, set in refrigerator at least one hour.

Meanwhile (about 1/2 hour later):

Preheat oven to 400 F.

2 C fresh raspberries
2 T sugar (can use more, quite tart)
2 tsp cornstarch

Sprinkle sugar and cornstarch over berries, mix gently.

On parchment paper, lay dough, then cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Roll out until approx 1/8" thick in a rough round or oval shape.  Pile berries in center and gently spread, leaving 1" edge of crust.  Fold this edge over the berries, around the sides.  Brush crust with milk, sprinkle turbinado sugar over everything.  Transfer parchment with galette onto cookie sheet, bake 35-40 minutes.

Excellent with ice cream (especially chocolate)!

~~~
(Now it's packing time again...  hooray!!)

(everyone's walls don't look like this?)

June:

~ the first year we've enjoyed a whole (very late) strawberry crop
~ I instigate a chalk solar system on the driveway, Kaatje decorates
~ friends over for a stormy Saturday afternoon
~ Jeff in the stifling attic, me with my arm in the walls, but we got seven wires run from the attic to the basement that same Saturday, thanks to those friends
~ last-minute new haircut
~ (red geraniums remind me of Germany; love, love.)

one garden evening late in May

hens and chicks from the neighbor

the oaks are leafing out very slowly

but not the maples

weedy patch of earth taken over by the fairies

strawberries by the raised beds

this oak has leafed

four year old seed from the fridge does sometimes work (lettuce and peas)

self-seeded columbine

prairie smoke

pussy toes

the tree people said the hackberry is "the new elm" ... we like it, but it grows helter-skelter

unearthed a green beetle whilst I looked for big bluestem I thought I'd planted

ginko leaves burst

the girls have to catch the beetle, in their p.j.'s.  (he got away.)

Feeling more like myself, though Jeff and I are still foggy and tired.  (What a strange spring sickness.)  Girls are still bright and healthy, thank goodness.  We're prepping for the start of a busy summer, already booked here and there through mid-July.  Hurrah?  Yes... hurrah;  it will be good.

This past week has been a parade of window and drywall guys coming through for quotes then measurements.  The upstairs porch will be progressing!  (But poor Jeff has a lot of work to do before windows and drywall.)  This is such a funny old house, but we fit well here among the creaking floors and wavy windows. 

(Off soon to new adventures!)