all that's past is prologue...

We have a small watershed grant that we've gotten to redo the yard at Winter Street (where Patrick's dad lives) — and truth be told, it could hardly be *less* pleasant... We paid our amazing yard guy to clean it out, and he did an amazing job, so now we have a blank slate: With the amount of the grant, we could not afford a full garden plan. So I've spent much of the last couple of days doing some garden planning, looking for native plants that can grow in shade, looking at heights, and what blooms at different times, etc. My friend Gibson was nice enough to take me through her neighbor's amazing yard, and commiserate with me on our mutual hatred of orange daylilies. Then I called Mother Earth Gardens and booked an hour ($80) with one of their experts to come look at it, answer questions, etc., to kind of fill in my ideas. Mary was AMAZING! She was pleasantly surprised at my prep work, so then we could spend our time coming up with some other ideas, sketching out what s...

So the thing about social media is that it's a curated take on what people want you to see. You all see my lovely pictures of cocktails, and Beatrix looking charming and like she wants to spend time with her family time, or my handsome husband, or cute animals, or fun things we do. We look like we have it all together. Ha ha. See, like this: You don't see when I spend $20 on a highly recommended grout cleaner and an hour treating grout only to have it look like this (left is before, right is after): You can feel free to tell me if you see a difference, because I don't. You don't see when we come to an impasse on Beatrix's "playroom" and her cleaning it out, so I just do it (this is after I had started cleaning): This is after several hours of work (and as you can see there's plenty to go): You don't see when I stay up late night after night trying to catch up and not making it. Or when I fail to be there for a friend, or let down my family. Or when...

I've talked about "my" cabin on here before. It's a family place, built by my great-grandfather in 1902 on a point in Lake Osakis where several other family members had summer homes. We no longer actually own it — my aunt and uncle do — but they are nice enough to let us go up when we want. Normally that's a few times over the summer, but covid plus shows have given us very limited availability this summer, so this was our first time up and we had to fit all our favorite things into a very compacted timeframe! Which meant only 2 trips to Vintage Village to see Jerry (and this time we got to see the restored upstairs of his house and try his homemade cinnamon and caramel rolls). It's great because there're the antiques but also the animals: We also made it to Theatre L'Homme Dieu for the first time in years for me (and Patrick and Beatrix's first time ever), to see my friend Max and a great cast totally slay it in CLUE. We got to Carlos Creek Vineya...

For today's challenge I went with "smarter not harder" and am doing a creative project, a house project, and writing all in one! On my long-ignored inspiration board on Pinterest was a decorated washer that had once piqued my interest: So I went down the rabbit hole of decals online and chose some that reminded me of the heirloom peonies in the back yard at Summit. The laundry area needed some help. Even just putting things away was a good step (I still want to replace the rugs). Then applied the decals. I *thought* that there would be enough in the package to do both Summit and Ashland, but apparently I had forgotten what I have learned about counting. I think in the end it looked nice though!

I had given myself 7 challenges each day this week: 1. reach out to a friend 2. do something creative 3. swim 4. read 5. write 6. eat/drink something delicious 7. a house/garden/organizational project And of course by yesterday (day 2) I was already complaining that I "didn't have time" and was going to skip the creative project.  But I didn't want to give up so easily, so forced myself to sit down and look at an easy thing I could knock out. I chose creating some new bulletin board pins by hot gluing buttons onto thumbtacks. And dammit if, the minute I started sifting through buttons to pick ones, if I did not open up a whole new way of thinking. I was considering color, pattern, how things went together. It was like opening a different kind of consciousness. And just that few minutes of creation made me approach things differently — and more effectively — for the rest of the day. I'm looking at that list for today and I have not achieved much of it (yet). But I ...

So one thing I do when there's something that I want to do but don't have to do is trick myself into doing it. Last week I challenged myself to work outside the house at 5 different coffeeshops. I made to to 4, but only because the 5th — Abogados Cafe — looks awesome but does not currently allow dine-in service. The first was Hepcat Coffee in the Osborne Building in downtown Saint Paul for a meeting. The counter itself is like a small stand, but there's seating all throughout the lobby; we sat outside. There's a small menu, good dark roast, and a very friendly staff. I would certainly meet someone there again (and hey, I'm told they are opening a cocktail bar soon!) Tuesday was meeting IRL with some online friends at Quixotic . Their vibe is always a little too-hip-for-thou than I would like, but I appreciate how they thread the needle on that one for anyone in the neighborhood to stop by (and I like their meeting room for community groups!) Quixotic is reliably g...

For someone who has a 10pm Fringe show tonight (and someone who has to get her there), Beatrix and I have been very busy today. Creation: We took a ceramics class at Creator's Space which was really fun. Beatrix is very good at clay and it was fun to see how naturally she took to it. I have always struggled with it, but really enjoyed the class. Destruction: We also went out on the porch roof and ripped the vines off the front of the house. Some had come off with the roof work already, and they were a squirrel highway and bug zone. They are also bad for the stucco and the windows.. Before: During: HOWEVER, I am not sure this was the right choice and think it looks terrible, and that the house looked a lot better with the vines.  (It also revealed some stucco work that needs to be done, anyone got any recommendations?) After: I feel like I desperately need some garden inspiration with the Summit house and don't know what that is. Ugh.

One of the side effects of my broken wrist was that my left hand is still swollen (and swells even more when I use it a lot). My wedding ring no longer fits on my finger; the doctor said to wait a few more months before I got it resized or anything because it could still go back down to normal. But in the meantime, I'm almost a full ring size bigger. (A side note - it's not like I did a ton of circus before, mostly leaving the acts up to Beatrix and the rigging to Patrick. But it's sad to know that now there's no real way I can do it at all. Stupid wrist). I was really tired of being ringless (though it's not like anyone was exactly hitting on me thinking I was single or anything). So I ordered a new ring from an online site. I wanted something that looked really different than my real ring, that came fairly quickly, and that did not cost a lot of money (under $50 with delivery). It came in a cute box: Was nicely packaged inside the box: And I think looks sufficient...

Tiger Lily joined us, due to the efforts of my friend Jane, in February of 2017 (I just checked the date). Jane expertly negotiated so that our cat Belle, who did not like living with the other cats, moved in with another woman who wanted a single cat, and then TL moved in when her owner had to give her up. She was supposed to pay rent and never did (how does a cat pay rent anyway?) I just found my first text from the person who had been fostering her: TL also liked a challenge, so she decided Patrick was "her" person. She would come sit next to me as I worked or snuggle in bed, but the minute Patrick climbed under the covers she left me behind and went to his side, drooling with happiness as she went. She had very little patience with Mimi, who she called "the fat one," but Dandelion was her best cat friend. When we took the dogs over to Summit in the summer, she loved having full run of the house. But she made sure that we knew the 2F and 3F were her domain. She h...