Change

Another grey, murky day in Maine.  The weather forecast is predicting a change and the sooner the better as far as I am concerned!  My gardens are suffering, slugs, mildew, and blight.  I am looking forward to fall!  The first signs are starting to appear.  Asters are in bloom and the wild apple trees are loaded.  This little tree's apples are pretty good.  Looks like I'll get some applesauce this year!

 

A bit of natural spookiness too!  Dreaming of halloween! 

My Etsy life in a bit of an uproar.  I am in the process of emptying my 2 rooms so we can continue the cork flooring project.  It is quite a project!  It is always amazing during a move all the discoveries one makes.  Definitely using the process as an opportunity to purge physically and metaphorically.  I plan to make some changes in the coming year.  I have been photographing tons of vintage items so I can keep listing during the construction time.  I will be setting up my sewing machine so I can sew but something tells me between harvest & floor laying I won't get too much done.  I have set up my office in the living room.  I hope to stay in touch and share some to the floor work.  Here are some photos of some new vintage finds as well as the moving in progress!

I am keeping the photo station up until the last minute!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/240655421/vintage-red-pitcher-tumbler-set

https://www.etsy.com/listing/243246502/vintage-bandana-scarf-backgammon-fabric

https://www.etsy.com/listing/244311599/great-dane-tractor-trailer-emblem

The sewing room is next!

Runa loves the new cork flooring!  Well maybe not, she is just a love!

Living Room Office

~~~~~~~~~~~My Lively Life~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I Spin Yarns, Weave Dreams, & Sew to Mend the Soul

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"Be Joyful because it is humanly possible"~~~Wendell Berry

Slow & Steady

Autumn, my busiest time of year, made more so this year with all the changes around these parts.  I am hoping I have finally found my footing again and will be back to the blogosphere on a more regular basis.  So here is a little...or not so little photo journal walk through of what has been going on and keeping me more than just occupied!

If you are a follower you know my biggest change is that my one and only son has gone off to college...nearly a month has passed.  There is very little communication from the boyo...I always say~"No News is Good News" and in this case it is, he is getting all A's, making friends and when a message comes it says, "I love college, it is awesome!" What more can a mother ask?  

But we, his Dad and I, needed some sort of closure, I guess?  So we rehabbed the teen tower or The Owl's Nest as we call it. It is the cool attic room that gave our son privacy in our open floor plan house.  We told ourselves that we would use his room to practice laying a cork floating floor that we plan to put in other parts of our house.

This is the truth but, the deeper truth is that we did feel some sort of transition had transpired when we completed the job.  It is all ready for his first visit home...nicer than ever!

That was Labor Day weekend!  Your supposed to labor, right?  Next was my husbands 2 week "vacation".  Now that the teen who needed long showers had departed we embarked on a long planned bathroom rehab.  (we have been collecting materials for months...my husbands job allows for a super discount on the supplies making it affordable for us...we always say...half the job is getting the materials here!)

Some vacation!  It was good.  We ARE project people.  But this shower job has been stretching us to the edge of our DIY skills.  Each morning was spent watching YouTube videos of that days tasks.  In the beginning there were a few Pandora's Boxes...and some swearing at the people who built this house...oh yeah...US!   When we finally figured out one of the studs was a 2 x 3 instead of a 2 x 4 things went more smoothly. (20 years ago we must have been short a stud...never thinking we would open this wall again...)  

We did have some fun during the 2 weeks.  We visited some friends that included a nice drive to the east.  We tried to stop working early and just relax here at our bit o' paradise. One night we had a fun campfire.  There were "fun" trips to the Home Improvement Centers.  We went to the Common Ground Fair...first time in 3 years...even though it is only 7 miles away!

Then the night before the installation of the waterproofing membrane for the shower, I got a scratchy throat.  I managed to do my part the next day but it was downhill from there.  I did all my holistic voodoo magic healing and I still ended up with a very bad cold or a weak flu.  Time to quiet down.  Gratefully, my DH did not get as sick as I did...He did all the voodoo before he had any symptoms!

Took my cues  from Vern and Runa~~~rest & relax. (contents of the coat closet were on the couch for a week in order to access plumbing---Vern did not seem to mind)

I am still coughing a bit & sleeping is my favorite activity.  Slow and Steady is my motto as I plod through the work that needs doing.  Autumn is beautiful and glorious but, all the work makes me crave winter and the leisure it brings to my life.

I stacked half the wood you see here (half of that today)  Usually, I stack it all but, I was sick.  Only the smaller cookstove wood to go then move on to finishing the harvest and  putting the gardens to bed.

There is Etsy work that is on going too.  I am not in any sort of panic or anxiety over the tasks ahead.  I have circled the years enough times that I know I will somehow manage to get it all done or just forget about what didn't get finished.

I wrote a new list today circling it with my turtle icons to remind me of my Autumn motto.