The Twice Remembered Cottage

"When the Crape Myrtle Blooms"

When the beautiful crape myrtle blooms
and the bumble bees still,
I slip outside
(and if the tree abides)
my summer dreams fulfill.

~Me

I always look forward to bringing in a bouquet or two of crape (or crepe) myrtle blooms each summer. They are so beautiful and delicate and oh so aromatic! I tucked into my bouquet a few sprigs of my fresh rosemary and it really adds a layer of aroma and beauty, in my opinion.

I am so embarrassed to say that I didn't have my yard sale this weekend (again!). I will speak of it no more until after it's done and over. Quite frankly, I was exhausted this week from our trip. When I ran out of sticky labels for the items I was labeling earlier this week, I decided then and there that I just needed a break for a few weeks and sufficient time to rest and putz about the house, catching up on neglected chores, frivolities, and such. It was just as well that I didn't have a yard sale this weekend because as I was working out in the gardening beds near the end of this past week and toward the weekend, I came down with the most dreadful case of sun poisoning. Each and every time I attempted to be outside, no matter how little time I spent out there, I broke out in a horrible, itchy, and painful rash. Imagine my horror when yesterday, shortly after arriving at our place of worship, I again broke out despite wearing long sleeves (part of my neck was still exposed - and that's where I broke out). I'm sure all my friends (especially mothers with young children) were not a little concerned - I'm telling you, I looked hideous!

So no more outside activity during the day until my skin is well. I'm coming to terms with the fact that never in my life will I have a beautiful golden tan. I never tanned as a child (had sun poisoning a time or two then, too) and have never tanned as an adult. It's burn and peel, burn and peel... I will work hard from now on at protecting my skin while trying to appreciate it's ~~pasty-like~~ porcelain-like appearance.

In the evenings, though, hubs and I have been able to work on our front full sun landscaping bed and I'm so excited about it! Hubs was a sweetheart and planted most of the new plants this weekend. I laid out the gardening plan and dug many of the holes. My favorites are the new delphiniums (photo to the left not mine) - they will grow to be be over 4 feet high! And I love the color...everything about a delphinium just seems so....cottage, don't you think?! As the garden fills in more, I may share photos if I can keep everything alive. Many of my perennials from last year, like my Prairie Dusk, came back, so that's a good sign! This year, I planted coreopsis, black-eyed susans, daisies, oregeno, ,sweet basil, and I don't even remember the names of the others... Next year, I would like to attempt a very small food garden out back, but I've said that every year, hehe. A few people have told me that food is so much easier to grow that flowers, and if that's the case, I'm looking forward to raising a small kitchen garden!

This weekend, Hubs also replaced our pitiful, poor old mailbox. It came with the house and is probably just as old as the house. I don't know why we're only just now replacing it but let me tell you, the kids were thrilled about it. Why? I don't know. I'm really excited, too. My father-in-law has a machine that cuts vinyl (for decals for signs, automobiles, etc.) and I may try and commission him to cut the words "The Twice Remembered Cottage" for me in a really pretty font, and maybe the lady and bird graphic (that's near the top of my blog) to go on the mailbox.

Right now it's just a blank canvas. It also needs some flowers along the base, don't you think?

One of my kidlets asked me to make apple cinnamon muffins this weekend so I obliged. These are so yummy...the Easy Apple Cinnomon Muffin Recipe is from Allrecipes.com but I changed the topping because the original topping as stated in the recipe didn't seem to go over well with reviewers. If you try this recipe, try the following for a sweet, crunchy, crumbly topping.... (also, double the muffin recipe and topping recipe for 12 or more muffins - the original is just for six)

Crumbly Cinnamon Topping for Apple Cinnamon Muffins:

Crumbly Topping:
1/4 c light brown sugar,
1/4 c all purpose flour,
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon,
pinch of salt,
3 tablespoons of oats,
2 tablespoons of butter

Crumble in 2 tablespoons of butter into dry ingredients and sprinkle on muffins before baking.

Here is how mine turned out....a family favorite for sure!

For the Love of Red

I'm back from our trip and what a wonderful time we had! We hated to leave, but it was also nice getting back home to rest a bit. And by "a bit", I do mean "a bit", hehe. My yard sale is on Friday and there is still lots to do in preparation. Yesterday, I pretty much rested up and read all day in bed and then this morning, I tackled our poor neglected front landscaping bed. While the flowers that I planted last year are thriving without much help on my part, I needed to do some weeding and I also needed to mow. I still have to mow the backyard, but I'm taking a break to cool off and day dream a bit! Hubs and I will work on the yard again later this evening...it's something that I look forward to doing together each week:)

Our house (which is *not* the one pictured to the right) needs just as much work outside as it does inside. Nearly all the siding needs to be replaced, not to mention the gutters and eaves. For years, I've wanted to paint our house a cheerful yellow as all the homes nearby are shades of grey, brown, and blue. "Oh, we live in the only yellow house on our road...", I imagined I would say to those who needed to know where I lived. But, lately, I've fallen in love with the notion of painting our house - you guessed it - red. When I see red homes like the one pictured, I suddenly want to live in "the only red house on our road"!

And the siding and trim color I'd like to use is just like what is in the photo above...only I would like to have a metal roof as shown in this photo. Imagine hearing the rain as if falls...mmmmm....delicious!

One Swedish (I think?) blog that I like to peruse is I Min Vacra Varld ...the author lives in the sweetest Swedish little red house. Oh so inspirational!

On the home front, today while mowing, I rode past a robin that was just sitting on the ground. I was a foot away and it didn't budge despite the very large and loud mower...it just looked at me and closed it's eyes as if trying to sleep. I knew something was wrong and that it must be very sick because it looked like it hadn't moved in quite a while...there were flies landing on it which made me very sad. It doesn't seem to have any broken wings or legs. I know that there is probably nothing that can be done for it but regardless, I gathered up an extra cage that we have, found an old robins nest that has been the home to a female robin during the spring nesting season for years (don't worry, she always rebuilds in the same place even if the old nest doesn't make it through the year) and placed the robin in the cage, put in some water and seed, placed the robin inside, and put the cage in the garage (being careful to wash my hands well as to not expose any illness to my own birds, the cage will be bleached after no longer being used to shelter the robin ). I know robins like worms and so I tried to feed it one, but it's very lethargic and uninterested. I'm going to wait for hubs to home and see what he says we should do. Oh, I hate to see it suffer and couldn't stand the thought of it being out in the heat without the energy to look for food or water. Even out of the elements, I feel for the little thing... I fear that it's slowly fading away. I won't tell the children about it - they are very sympathetic towards winged creatures as I am and I want to spare them the heartache when this little one passes. Such is life, I suppose.

It's good to be back and thank you again for all the sweet comments about my first cake. I'm looking forward to making more! After this yard sale, I can take a break and have some creative fun again - and I'm looking forward to that!

First Faux Cake

Back in May, I finally got up the nerve to try my hand at making my first "faux" cake. I will at some point (when things settle down around here a bit) take cake decorating classes and honestly, I didn't plan on trying a cake until after I had several classes under my belt. But I got the itch and decided to give it a go.

So here are the results. Though it's far from perfect, I'm really, really pleased with how my first attempt turned out. I'm sorry that I can't give out the secret fake cake recipe, but I hope you enjoy looking at the photos:) I keep this cake on a plate stand in my kitchen.

I couldn't resist also making some coordinating yummies like baby cupcakes and some fancy cookies...

I'm going to love coming up with new designs and creations...it's so much fun making these inedible treats!

Fun with ( Faux ) Cake + More Blue Inspiration

Here are a few more "bleu" inspiration photos that I've had on file for a while. Don't you just love this color?!

I love the idea of covering books with colorful paper and writing or painting words on the spine...

Doesn't red look pretty with this shade of blue?

Do you see the old blue bench in the background? Fabulous!

And more beautiful blue...

"Wait a Minute Mister Postman...."

So you want to know what it looks likes after having an online yard sale? Something like this! I wanted to drop a note to everyone to let you know that your packages were mailed on Tuesday as planned so you can start looking for your goodies as quickly as parcel post can get them to you (which could be shorter than the estimated 2 - 9 days or longer depending on your location and the mercy of the USPS!) I want to send a huge thank you out to all those that stood in line behind me at the post office - they were so patient and had a great sense of humor:)

I was really antsy about getting everything mailed out (plus, we really, really needed the space!) so I ended up working throughout last week and weekend packaging and labeling boxes. I decided to put off my actual "on location" yard sale until after I had all of that taken care of and until after our upcoming trip to Alabama this week. I still needed to get a lot of shopping done for our trip (that's what I'm doing today!) and I also wanted to be able to get our house as clean as a house in the middle of remodel could be. I love coming home to a fresh house! So that's what I'm up to this week, shopping and cleaning - and hopefully I'll have time to make some baked goods for the trip as well.

I haven't shopped for clothing for myself in so long. I'm really a closet fashion freak, but when much of your time is spent painting, demolishing, remodeling, and removing drywall dust bunnies from your nose, you tend to get rather use to wearing stained and ripped sweats and t-shirts. But how I do love a pretty outfit every once in a while! Today I'll be hitting many of the local thrift stores (trying to avoid the housewares department) and shopping for clothing. I got my haircut last week (think long layers of Bohemian styled hair) and would you believe, I actually bought some new makeup? Green eyeshadow, no less? (It looks better than it sounds, really!)

Anyway, I'm going to go girly for the day and will be working on preparing the family for our trip so I'll be scarce for the next week.

I'm leaving you with a bit of French inspiration to think and dream about. Don't you just love this beautiful cornflower blue? I love how it just completely perks up the grey stone exterior of this French cottage. So lovely!

Finding Buddy Bird

Late last night, I received an email from someone that was kind enough to send me a Craigslist ad about another found cockatiel. What was different about this ad is that the bird was found in my own town, just a few miles down the road. I called the number listed this morning and was thrilled that the cockatiel in question matched our Buddy's description. An hour later, I was meeting the bird in person.

With Sunny, I knew right away that it wasn't Buddy. But with this bird, it was so hard to tell. I felt 95% sure that it was him. (Identifying a bird can be like trying to identify a goldfish.) He looked smaller, was very weak, pretty beaten up, and light as a feather. The folks who found him said that he looked a *lot* better than he did when they found him a couple of days ago. He is yet to whistle or make any of the usual sounds we're accustomed to, but let me tell you....

Like Buddy, this one loves to be cuddled, nuzzled, kissed, loved, and nurtured. If he's sitting on my chest near my face, and I move my head and inch or two away from him, he walks that much closer to me again. He was pretty quick to show affection to me when I first saw him today, too, and was a little fussy when I needed to hand him back to the person that found him for a few minutes. I just could not *not* bring this little fellow home. It's so hard not knowing for sure if it's Buddy or not, not knowing how much almost two months of being out in the elements could possibly change a bird, at least for a little while. We'll know for sure as time passes if this is our Buddy, but for now I'm just going to assume that it is.

I've been pretty frazzled lately with so much going on here but today for the first time in a very long time, after bringing Buddy (?) home, mowing the lawn, and showering, I got into my pjs, collapsed into a cozy bed, and napped for hours with this sweet little bird by my side. Buddy or not, it just seems to be thriving right now on love and attention, and I hope that all the extra love and attention will help it to get back to it's healthy, chirpy self soon:)

On another note, everyone's yard sale purchases have been carefully wrapped, boxed up, and labeled and are ready to be mailed out tomorrow as planned! Thanks for your speedy payments and making my first yard sale a big success!

Fellow Cottage Transformations Blogs

If you're looking for other cottage transformation journeys (in the beginning stages!), I've discovered a couple of blogs recently that you will enjoy keeping up with. I look forward to reading the ideas and plans they have for their own cottages in the making and I'm sure you will, too!

The Lettered Cottage
"We live in a 1910 square foot cottage in Prattville, Alabama...Since then we've been tearing down walls, installing flooring and re-painting EVERY surface in the entire place. I will include some interior photos in a future post. But I must include this warning:
What you are about to see is ill-favored, hard-featured, uncomely, unsightly, unlovely, homely, heinous, vile, monstrous, and ominous.

Welcome to our home. :-)"

Cornflower Cottage
"My husband, Al, and I are beginning the process of renovating our home. We live in a 1,600 sq. ft. manufactured home with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, which we bought new in November '02. We like the floor plan of our home but everything else must go, e.g., vinyl-covered wall panels with the vertical strips, laminate cabinets, nondescript light fixtures, cheap hardware and faucets, cottage cheese ceilings, etc. I love all things cottage and hope to transform my home into the cottage of my dreams."

And for all of you who are considering cottage style for your own home, remember, you don't have to have an "architecturally correct" period style cottage to make your home your cottage. I live in a 30 year old little ranch style home. We haven't even touched the outside of our house yet (and it will be quite a while before we get to it), but it is our cottage none-the-less. There are many folks who live in apartments (Cindy's My Romantic Home is a prime example of a cottage style apartment!), mansion sized homes, campers, mobile homes, basement and over the garage rentals, cabins in the backwoods, and skyscrapers in the big city - that have embraced their cottage style and have created their own cottage nests. Cottage is a state of being and a style and feeling you create that is all your own without regard to the actual type of dwelling in which you live, don't you think?!

Vintage Style Embroidered Tea Towels and Polka Dotted Ironing Board Covers - Fun!

I found an Ebay shop, Chenille Pet Vintage Stitch Designs, that sells embroidered vintage style tea towels and other items and I thought this one particular tea towel set was especially sweet. It's a "Days of the Week" set with each towel depicting the activities that usually take place on that particular day. Aren't these lovely?

And speaking of lovely, check out this handmade ironing board cover I bought from Hestia Houseworks Cottage Ecclectic
the other week! Oh, you must check out her shop - you'll love it! She has other colors available other than red, and other patterns, too!

My poor old ironing board is i-don't-know-how-many years old and is such an eyesore. I can't wait to give it a facelift using this red polka-dotted cover. I may even paint the metal base another color besides white if I'm feeling especially ambitious. Who knows...maybe I will fall in love with ironing by the time I'm finished.

Nah. But at least I'll have something cheerful to look at:)