Sunday, December 12, 2010

It's Up to Your Knees Out There!

OH! Listen to my MinnesOta accent when I tell you this winter storm was a dOOOzy! Yuh.
Once again we hunkered. And we ate. The day started out with frosted cinnamon rolls. Then some nachos and a beer for lunch. And all day we had a pork roast cooking in the pot. Roasted some veggies. Oooh mama. I'll keep going. Toasted pound cake with peaches and vanilla bean ice cream. A big snowstorm is always a good excuse to over-eat lots of white, heavy, comfort food.
It's also a good excuse to knit...















I made a mitten for a teacher gift. But she does have two hands so I have to make another one. Hmm.
And I started on a new Sweet Baby Dolly design for late winter. Sneak peak:

 














After thousands of calories, dozens of logs, 3 Christmas movies, 10 hours of sleep, and about 17 inches of snow we were able to dig ourselves out and return to life. We felt so thankful to be warm and comfy in this old brick house. YoU BETCHA!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Fab Foto FridaY
























This photo baffled my 5 year old. She thought it lacked Christmas Spirit to have a white tree. She is entitled to her opinion.
I was thrilled by this photo! Just the thought of being the one in charge of the flocking instrument... what was it? A machine? A spray can? I don't know and I don't care. What I DO know is that we are all lucky I don't own such a contraption or I'd be flocking everything in sight. I'd also be using the words flock, flocker, and flocking in as many sentences as possible and cracking myself up. Oh what FUN!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Honeysuckle

Pantone's color of the year for 2011 has been named...
And it's pink but now we get to call it Honeysuckle. Which makes me love it. Because I'm a huge sucker like that.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Monday Treasury

Click to view some Etsy sweetness:
Eye (want) Candy

Friday, December 3, 2010

Fab Foto Friday













 It's me Mum as a wee one. I wish I had a talent for being clever with photo captions because I would SO create a greeting card line. Besides, it has been done to death, hasn't it?
Lovin' the polka dots.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Oh yes, they WILL be MINE (insert evil laugh)


















Do you hear that noise? Shhhh. It's these boots, calling my name.
We were meant to be together. Which means we are sole mates. (insert shameless giggle)

Sunday, November 28, 2010

I CAN and I will.

Lesson #5: I will resort to the can opener a little more often.

Meal planning is without a doubt my least favorite Domestic Duty. I'm always searching for variety while trying to please the fam. I prefer to make from scratch, with fresh ingredients, but I also want it to be fast and easy. I hate to grocery shop. Wha wha, wha.
So after a weekend of Thanksgiving left-overs, no cooking, and no groceries, I asked my husband: "What would YOU like me to make for dinner?" I never ask, and he never complains.
He was quiet for a minute and then he requested
CHOW MEIN OUT OF THE CAN.
OK. I can do that.
So I hauled it to the store, shelled out- what- nine bucks, and purchased a lovely blue can of chow mein, a red box of quick rice, and two different kinds of crunchy noodles. Whole thing, top to bottom, was ready in 10 minutes.  We were both nodding while we ate. Nodding in approval of the meal's effortless/economical/nostalgic values. We ate it often when we were first shackin' up and we both grew up eating it, so it gave us both a little bit of the warm and fuzzies.
I felt like the world needed to know about this. How easy it can be.
But you already know this. And you practice this.  And I will too, a little more often.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Little Full, Lotta Sap

Lesson #4: Cutting your own Christmas Tree is fun!

Every year we talk about cutting our own tree. Then we see a cozy little tree lot and pull right in, pay the boy scout, load up and drive home. Once again this year, we talked about doing it- like for real- and images of Griswold's Christmas Past began to swirl through my head.

But this year we drove right past the boy scouts and headed out to the  old Brewery Hill Tree Farm.
After a brief chat with The One and Only Santa Claus, we grabbed a saw and headed out.

And there was nothing Griswold about it. 

Very similar to the "pick your own apples" experience. Fresh air, pretty scenery, and lots of  families taking pictures. After a while the trees all started to look the same, and then we found it.
And then we posed with it like it's an item up for bid on the Price is Right. 

 Our family Lumberjack cut it down for us.


Our family Cutie Pie supervised the situation. 

And we were off. The kind tree folks gave it a shake (to eliminate excess pine needles as well as critters-eeek!) We handed Santa our cash, and loaded that bad boy up (the tree, not the Santa).

 A fun family memory, and maybe a new Klehr family tradition.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Taming My Stinker














Lesson #3: You and your 5 year old will not make beautiful cookies but that is okay.

I have this nasty little stinker that lives inside of me that always wants the outcome of a project to be perfectly lovely and quaint. I just discovered that a wonderful way to tame that little bugger is to make sugar cookies with my little Sophie.
We always end up with weird, flat, misshapen wafers iced with unappetizing colors, and way too many sprinkles on the cookies...  and the floor. 
But it's fun. Nobody gets hurt. Sophie gets to call some shots. It requires some serious effort on my part not to let that nasty stinker out of its cage.
Instead of perfectly lovely and quaint cookies, we had a perfectly lovely and quaint afternoon.
 And hopefully she won't end up with her own nasty stinker someday.




Sunday, November 21, 2010

Cozy Sunday

Cold, rainy, and icy on the Sunday afternoon.
Husband napping, princess taking a movie break
 
Fire blazing, boots drying.
 
Soup bubbling, stomach gurgling.
Spirits bright.

So happy to be chillin' at home.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Fab Foto Friday



















My grandma and her sister. My grandma's the one with the "this is a buncha BS" look on her face. Now that I think about it, she pretty much always had that look on her face.
Love the shiny car, the amount of time those curls probably took, the matching outfits, and how the photographer instructed each of them to put one hand on a headlight. Cuteness.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Noticing a Pattern




















As I'm sittin' and knittin' this Black and White Stripey Blossom baby hat baby hat for an order, I realized something. I think I might have a problem. With Stripes.


Black and white stripes like the ones on the shirt I'm wearing today.



And like the stripes on my sofa pillow.














And our upstairs bathroom rugs.


 





 
And Sophie's sweater. 
There's even more, and not just black and white. This house is filled with stripes! 
I'm thinking I love them because my head is filled with all kindsa' crazy colors, shapes, patterns, sandwiches...(like your's isn't?). The stripes, especially the B&W's, offer some sort of peace. A little down time for the brain box. You know what to expect. What comes after that black stripe? A white one of course.  It's simple, but still exciting and bold. I wonder if they planned it that way...

Next time we'll examine my obsessions with vintage rose patterns, houndstooth, and herringbone.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Saturday, November 13, 2010

First Snowfall

Brown dog may be goofy, but brown dog wise...





























This was an awesome First Snowfall!
The power went out a while ago.
And when we don't have power, we don't have water. Or heat.
But we can still have fun!

Friday, November 12, 2010

It's Coming

I just noticed goofy brown dog sitting in our front yard. He looks like he's standing guard. Waiting for the arrival of something. What's he waiting for?
























Then I noticed the how the grass has turned yellow. The field across the gravel road has been plowed. The sky is a heavy, thick, gray.

The forecast has flurries. There's a pile of wood outside. I'm knitting a cloche for my niece to wear with her vintage wool coat. Tonight we're venturing out to buy snow gear for sweet Sophie. This weekend I'm listing holiday items on Etsy.

I know what he's waiting for. This ain't his first rodeo.
It's winter. It's coming.

Fab Foto Friday

Vintage Photos.
They are so good,  and I have A TON.

When I look at old photos my imagination takes off.  I want to know the story. It wasn't the age of point, shoot, blink, and delete. If you were taking that picture, using that film, developing that picture, and putting it into an album, it must have been a moment of significance. You wanted somebody to see this someday. There was something about this moment that you felt the need to document.

Every Friday I'll share a Fab Foto or two with you, and do my part to breathe a little life into those significant moments. These images span from about the 1920's to the 1970's.  Some photos have family, places, or stories that I know about. Others leave me totally clueless. But I love them all the same. I love to decide for myself what was going on in that picture or what the day was about.

I'll start with the picture that made me realize my obsession  with old photos,  old houses, and the idea of home. Who lived here, what kinds of things happened inside?  What did it look like inside? Was this a pride of ownership moment? Or was the person taking it leaving it and wanted to remember their own idea of home?
















Is this place still standing? What's going on in that spot right now?
And WHO sat in those chairs?

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Who's hungry?

I'm always throwing wet spaghetti noodles of wisdom at my life. Some stick, and some don't.  This one stuck...
Feed what you want to grow.
I've heard this so many times, but in other forms : what you focus on expands, OR you get out what you put in, etc. But speak to me in terms of eating/food/feeding, and I'm able to process, apply, and retain.
This one's for real. Works like magic.
I just look for a part of my life that needs to grow. And then I feed it (duh?).
Or if I have something growing all wild and out of control,  I stop feeding it (double duh?). Or I feed it what it needs instead of what it wants, or what's easiest.

Yesterday I thought I'd spare these two geraniums and bring them in for the winter. If I feed them what they need, they'll grow, right? Right?? 

Anyway, looks like it's time for lunch.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Fall Back

Lesson #2 Children do not observe daylight savings time.

Ahh. Gone are days of  fall back meaning one extra hour of sleep.
The good ol' "Ma-om, come and get me u-up!" alarm clock doesn't care that it's technically 5:55 in the morning. I tried pushing the snooze button but this model doesn't have that feature.

So. Instead of more pillow time we get an extra hour of this sweet Sunday. French toast and turkey bacon. More time for coffee. An extra load of laundry. The dog gets fed earlier. We see the sun come up.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

you learn something new everyday

So, in the words of my fancy five year old:
LET'S DO THIS THING FOR REAL.

I decided to blog, and I'm still half wondering why. But I did, and I am, so let's make a like one of those real life shmancy ones with regular entries and some sort of routine or theme. Something the reader (come out come out where ever you are?) can expect and be drawn back to. We've already established that I have no shortage of fluff, which will be fab, you can count on that.  But what can I share that we can both learn from? Learn...share... BING*

Each day, or let's be real- every few days I will share with you my most recent lesson. Because there is a lot of learning going on in this 29 year old life.

So, what did I learn today?


LESSON #1
If you want to go somewhere you have to leave the house.

If you want to sell your stuff on Etsy, you have to list it. And if you want people to see your stuff you have to share it. And if you want people to hear what you have to say you have to tell them.

As soon as you leave the house, deciding where you want to go gets easier. Discovering how to get there becomes clear. Follow the rules of the road, watch for signs, enjoy the ride, and you'll get to where you need to be.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Dirty Feet and Kettle Korn


Hot dang, it's flea market season! There's nothing like the feeling of coming home with grayish brown feet and a kettle korn kernel stuck in your teeth! This spring we kicked 'er off right at the Pioneer Power Swap Meet in Le Sueur. This was my first experience with the swap meet and it was quite glorious. It was a massive spread of tables, tents, and trailers full of rusty dusty crap. The first day was hot and dirty, the last day was cold and rainy. All you can eat pancakes and coffee made by old farm wives. Piles of unpriced goods and when you ask the peddler "how much for that?" he shrugs the shoulders under his seed company coat, sticks out his bottom lip, wrinkles his nose and replies "buck." Ya just can't beat it. 

I had gardening on the brain this round so I came home with some cutesies for the patio and an eight-dolla hoe that we finagled down to five. Sorry, hoe not pictured...



Another seasonal fave is Traders Market in Elko. A bit more of a sophisticated crew of serious dealers and collectors both buying and selling, however there's no shortage of grubby and shabby. And you know grubby and shabby happen to be two of my favorite flavors.

Came home from Traders with a pair of  delicious vintage poppy curtains, excellent condition, which I plan to turn into a couple'a pillows. Scored a few little vintage buttons and buckles. And I'm completely in love with the turquoise and red enamel spitoon, although I prefer the term urn. The dealer suggested I use it as a giant margarita glass. Pass the salt!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Introducing Miss Sophie

This sweet girl. When she wakes up in the morning she calls for me to come in get her, and then she pretends she's still asleep. When we get in the car she asks me to turn on country music. When given the opportunity to blow on a dandelion she wishes for her favorite princesses to "be in real life."
When we bake treats it's her job to crack the eggs. When deciding what to wear it must be something fab. When you first meet her she will appear to have nothing to say. When she decides you're smart enough to hear what she has to say you're in for an earful.

















When I tuck her in at night she asks for extra kisses and sticky hugs that will stick to her all night. When I turn off the light and walk down the stairs she calls out "You're the best Mom ever!" So Sweet. So Smart. So Sophie.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Sunday, April 18, 2010

First Post. First Spring.

Whoooppee Doooo! First post! Just hoping to pass on some of the little bits of goodness that we run into daily here at the Big Brick House. It was an ordinary set of unfortunate (or perhaps quite fortunate?) circumstances that led us to this very spot. Home at last, and we could not be happier.
Just ask the singing dog.




So, first Spring here too and all sorts of surprises are popping up. We have insane rhubarb, tons of tulips, and last week I found a little patch of mint.





I don't know about you, but apple blossoms make me lose my cool.
OH! So much fluff so little time. Stay tuned kids.