Happy List: #296
Welcome to the Happy List and happy early Easter to those of you celebrating! This week on the blog I shared some fun gardening finds. I’m very excited to see plants blooming and the grass turning green again where we live. It’s such a welcome sight after the dreary winter. I also reshared a funny story from the archives about the time when my kids got to throw eggs filled with paint in a park in Ireland. I’d love to know if you can relate to the parents in that story. Were you like me and wary of the whole situation? Were you the parent who planned this activity a…
From The Archives: Egg Painting
Easter is almost here and I thought this was a good time to share a classic post from the archives about the time I learned what egg painting was all about. This learning experience ended up being eggcellent and it happened while we lived in Ireland and our children attended a Montessori-based elementary school. Enjoy! On the list of superficial worst nightmares, kids throwing paint ranks pretty high for me. Twenty kids age 4 to 11 filling eggshells with paint and throwing the eggs (hopefully) at a canvas? What could possibly go wrong?!?! Oh, I could think of one or a million things! Especially when I saw there was a bottle…
10 Fun Gardening Finds
Friends, I am delighted to dig into today’s topic and share 10 fun gardening finds with you. This is an aspirational post for me because I’m delusional convinced that I might grow to enjoy gardening if fun and pretty things are involved. I’m not a one trick peony, I mean, pony, so it could happen, right? By the way, I’m using the term gardening loosely here. If it has to do with plants and I thought it looked neat then it landed on the list. Here are 10 fun gardening finds that caught my eye. COPPER TRELLIS I was today years old when I learned a circular copper trellis was a…
Happy List: #295
Hi! Welcome to today’s Happy List on this last day of March! This week on the blog I shared how one-lane roads and bridges charm me and give me hope for humanity. I realize that’s a lot of pressure to put on an inanimate object but that’s where we’re at. Ha! I also shared pictures of our newly completed laundry room. I’m feeling very happy with how that space turned out. As always, I love hearing from you! It makes my day. It makes your day. It’s also part of the magic that keeps this blog running. You can always comment on this blog post or send an email here.…
A Modern Country Laundry Room For Our Colonial Farmhouse
If a modern country laundry room can be a thing, that’s what we created for our Colonial Farmhouse. The transformation of this modern country laundry room only took us 3 months, 13 days, and, oh fine…a while. It took us a good long while to finish. Either this project was more tedious than we originally anticipated or we actually found a life and hobbies outside of working on this house. Yeah…you’re not going to believe we have actual hobbies, so this project was probably just tedious…as all good projects are. Almost four years ago our laundry room looked like this. Sexy, wasn’t it? That photo was taken on the day…
The Charm of One-Lane Roads and Bridges
The charm of one-lane roads and bridges gets me every time. We currently live in an area with a seemingly high number of one-lane roads and bridges. One-lane roads and bridges permit two-way travel but are not typically wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. This means the vehicles have to slow their roll and take turns. What a novel concept in this dog-eat-dog world. To many people, one-lane roads and bridges are inefficient and dangerous. For sure, they can be and it goes without saying that you need to approach one with caution because you are not the only car on the road, buster! However, I’d hazard…
Happy List: #294
Hello, hello! Welcome to this week’s Happy List. I’m delighted you’re here. This week on the blog I discussed a very niche quirk of old houses. Some old homes, like ours, have field stones or bricks in between the wood studs. These aren’t stone walls in the traditional sense. There’s nothing structural about these stones. In this blog post, I discuss why this might have been done. To keep things interesting around here, I also shared a blog post about how to reuse a Basmati rice bag. These burlap bags are awesome and too good to throw away! As always, I love hearing from you! It makes my day. It…
14 Ways To Reuse a Basmati Rice Bag
Have you ever wondered about all the ways to reuse a basmati rice bag? Have you ever bought rice in one of these bags? Royal brand basmati rice is sold in the neatest burlap bag. It has handles. It has a zipper. It has neat typography. It has bold colors. It can hold at least 20 pounds. In short, it’s amazing and something that could definitely be reused. Here are 14 ways to reuse a basmati rice bag. 1. Turn it into wall art. 2. Use it as a grocery shopping bag. 3. Use it to store potatoes, onions, and any other vegetable that needs ventilation. 4. It’s the perfect…
3 Reasons Old Houses May Have Stones Between The Studs
If you own a really old house you might have discovered stones or bricks instead of insulation in between the studs in your walls. It begs the question why do old houses have stones between the studs? Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to install those stones or bricks there. They had to have had a decent reason to undertake that back-breaking work. There are 3 possible reasons that really old houses, particularly those built in the 1700s and 1800s, may have stones or bricks in between the studs in the walls. First, let me say that I am the owner of a home built in the eastern…
Happy List: #293
Hello! Welcome to today’s Happy List and Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I hope you have fun plans for your St. Patrick’s Day! We attended a parade last weekend and tonight we will be having all the green-colored foods for dinner. This week on the blog I shared a post all about basket walls. If you’ve been watching my Instagram stories you’ll know that I’ve had a go at making a mini basket wall. I also shared one of my favorite blog posts from the archives about the kindness of the Irish people. The people really are the best part of Ireland and I learned that firsthand while living there. But…
