When I was young, my dad took me to House on the Rock . I never understood why he took me there, and not to Taliesin at the same time...until this trip. The first garden at HOTR Taliesin There's a story (since proved wrong, for any number of reasons), that Alex Jordan built HOTR because he wanted Frank Lloyd Wright to collaborate on a house and Wright refused. But that contrast stayed in my mind this trip. Though House on the Rock has some cozy spaces in the house itself... ...it's really about the show, the razzle-dazzle. In fact, one thing that we learned about the house is that Jordan only ever spent 4 nights in the house ever. he built it as a showcase, as a tourist attraction. And it succeeds, even though it's kind of exhausting. It's also a place for him to showcase all of his collections, from carousels to dollhouses to firearms to cars to jewelers models to musical rooms to full-built towns. I think my dad aspired to that, though all he really seemed to collect...
Internet challenges can be my downfall. I always sign up thinking I am going to revamp my Linked In page/revitalize my wardrobe/learn Portuguese fluently while losing 30 pounds, all in a month. I get a good start but never really make it. Last year I was fairly successful in an Instagram #52weeksofhome photo challenge, but I have fallen off this year. But the Apartment Therapy "Cure" is always my downfall, where I start off well and fall down fast. The Apartment Therapy emails always remind me of this. BUT in a recent email from them I did get a great tip: We have A LOT of books, and they are double-shelved because we don't have enough room. That means that we can never see the ones in the back. And Patrick eats a LOT of eggs, which has been key to him losing weight and keeping his diabetes under control. So when the email came with the tip to use the empty egg carton to slightly raise your back row of books so you can see them, we were intrigued. As you can see, it's...
(photo credit Mel Bowman) Sometimes, these blog posts are mainly to remember what it was like. And right now it's hard, for so many reasons — but the main one is that Beatrix suffered a concussion last weekend at circus and it's a lot right now. It wasn't from an aerial drop or any big trick — she simply bumped her head twice in quick succession in the dark of the loft, and then went on to do the 2-in-a-row acts she had anyway, and by the end it was obvious she was concussed. She was not allowed to perform on Sunday (missing double trapeze, among other things) — which was really hard emotionally but clearly the best move for her brain, which is the important thing. She's been doing the right things (ibuprofen, sunglasses, quiet dark room, no screens), but she's missed a lot of school and play rehearsals and it's been hard. She's trying to get show-ready to perform at circus this weekend, while we are trying to balance that with brain healing. She has alrea...
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