Sweltering Summer

As you all know by now your Mistress adores winter.  I delight in the cool nights and breezy days of fall.  I immerse myself in the promise of summer joy while digging in my beds all spring long.

However, summer has been a huge let-down for the second year in a row.  So. Hot. So. Miserable.

I have in fact spent most of the season in a pool or at the lake.  My flower beds are a disaster.

On a good note...Sir E is a master at the front crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke.  I have never seen anyone immediately swim a perfect butterfly until I watched this child's first attempt.  He is doing standing dives off the board and kneeling dives off the high-dive.  The child has found his calling.

Sir M is also a sea monkey and with another year of lessons, I can only assume he will be an expert as well.

I know you are wondering about Madam Lu.  Well, she can scoop and kick, blow bubbles, and dunk her face in the water...but only if and when she feels like it.  Her class is 30 minutes long and she has done her "tricks" within the first 5 minutes.  After that she pretty much wants to be left to her own industry.

So, in honor of the heat, I have a new recipe that I made up tonight.  Summer Chicken Wraps...they are GOOD!

So, chop up tomatoes and add finely chopped onion.  I don't care which kind of onion you use...I just use what I have.

The marinade is simply whatever fruity vinaigrette (I have Strawberry Chardonnay this week) you have on hand and a couple jots of tabasco.  Flavor it to taste.  I made this for the heirs and therefore did not make it super hot.  The tabasco mostly cuts some of the sweet from the vinaigrette.

Add fresh or frozen corn.  You could also add cucumber if you have any laying around.  Pour some of your mixed vinaigrette over this mix and let sit.  I vacuumed one wing of the cottage, took the dogs out, let the dogs in, checked email, took dogs out and brought back in again.  The veggies were perfect.

Blue Cheese crumbles.

So, on your tortilla layer...leaf or romain lettuce (because they actually have some nutritional value as opposed to head lettuce which is just water...) shredded (cold) chicken breast, tomato mixture, and top with blue cheese.

It was delightful and the children gobbled them down!  Very light and crispy-cool on a miserable hot day!

Now, on to some flowers.  Please do not ask the names of any of these lilies.  I have no idea.  These are so bright and I had no idea I had them.  They sort of just appeared this year?

These are nearly white with butter-cream middles.

Some seriously bright yellow.

These are a mix of yellow and pale peachy-orange.  They almost look pink-ish

My glorious hydrangeas are laying down and giving up in the heat.

Of course the knock-out roses love the heat and are splendid.

A clump of Cannas starting to bloom.

Sir M finally lost his first tooth!!!

A trip to South Haven Michigan.  Let me say, we have had absolutely ZERO rain all summer.  Don't you think the skies look a bit grey?  Madam Lu's suit just happened to match the lighthouse!!!

What is THAT????  Yes, oh yes.  A thundering, lightening, downpour of a storm.  We went with a dear friend and her adorable, mannerly, entirely pleasant girls (not pictured because I don't have a consent form).  You can not imagine how trashed her van was...sand, sand, wet sand.

So, after a lovely lunch en-van this is what the sky looked like.  Can you imagine?  Over all a perfect day!

 Well, this really concludes the gist of our summer.  I have been completely negligent in my blogging but with only 3 weeks until the sirs go back to school, you should be seeing more of me soon!

Do You Hollyhock?

Hello All!

A quick little post today...it is supposed to be hotter than the devil's bathtub today so I am going to work on some more drywall sanding in the little Sirs' room.  Hopefully I can get some painting done today too?


So, to show you some updates in the flower beds and some of the disasters I have created as well...

To begin...These boxwoods may have been planted when the home was built?  The roots were twice as big as the plants.

You can see that they are growing OVER the sidewalks.  I tried trimming, but they would have looked like dead sticks...so,

Off to Lowe's to get some $1 treasures...If you are thinking..."By George!  That looks awful!" I quite agree.  However, gardening takes patience (which makes it really good brain exercise for me) and we must look at this through the lens of the future.   I put in 2 double pink knock out roses...one died.  This is why, dear ones, it is always a good idea to buy things on mega clearance.  I filled in the rest of the bed with some perennials that will flower and add color this year and possibly next...until the roses are big enough to dazzle on their own...then I will just move the perennials!

Here is the rose that survived.  See how bright and colorful the leaves are?  This is all new growth!  So, by the end of this summer I will see how big it is and pay a bit more for a partner of similar size.  Patience.

I love this shady patch of vegetation.  Against the brick you can see the hydrangea that I planted this spring has already doubled in size!

And now it is blooming!  It is covered...and looks pretty good for a first year plant.

However, I do not like these tiny petals, not one bit.  The color is terrible.  From a distance, this looks like a spirea (which you all know I despise).  It is supposed to be a traditional, pink only, hydrangea.  If the petals do not get significantly bigger this summer, I may have to put this in the "ugly plant" spots.

Also, going back to the first picture...the lilly bed that I planted last summer is overflowing with blooms.  Stunning!

The pink roses on the front of this will be perfect!

My hollyhock is growing and because I love this one so much, I have added 5 more throughout my beds.  Also, this perennial bed has really filled in since this pic.

The hollyhock is bigger here.

And now she is ready to burst!  She is covered in blossoms.  I can't wait!  See, this bed has filled in.  The very back of the bed has cannas that are growing taller every day.  They should be nearly as tall as the hollyhock in another month.  Did I mention I planted this hollyhock as a bare root just last year???

The bee balm is starting to bloom.

And these daisys are HUGE.  I love them.  when they are just opening they are a butter yellow and then they burst bright white.  They are also pretty thick and sort-of ruffled.  Who knew a daisy could be so multi-faceted?

A mossy, jungle pic.  Madam Lu's play-chateau will be here next year!

My chairs are nearly weathered enough.  I will need to make some cushions soon! 

And say hello to my 3 birches on death row.  Really?  Do you see those huge, mossy covered rocks?  Do you see that this is my delight???  Really power guy?

Really.  They all bear the mark of the evil red "X".  Did I mention that birches are my VERY FAVORITE trees ever?  If you have seen "Fern Gully" then you know how I feel about red "x"s.

We will leave that unpleasantness with a picture of my famous hydrangeas!  Holy Smokes!  Each bush is about 5 feet tall.

My beautiful darlings, you are amazing! 

That is all I have time for today.  Hopefully I will have some amazing room transformation pictures before the summer is through!

Because They are Mine

Hi friends!
We have been breaking records here at the Cottage.  We have a record high 95degrees today and May was the second wettest month in our history.  It has been pretty hard getting all of my glorious outdoor plans to come to fruition.

Don't worry, I am keeping myself amused!

Madam Lu and I wandered the fabric store this morning imagining all sorts of craftiness...in case this heat NEVER goes away.

I woke this morning and saw....MY PEONIES ARE BLOOMING!!!

Why is this special?  It is not.  There are peonies blooming all over the city (well, in homes of a certain age...the new tans do not seem to have peonies?).  And my peonies are not special.  They are the same white peonies everyone has.  So, why am I beside myself with joy???

Because they are MY peonies.  And peonies are my FAVORITE flower in the universe.  These white ones are not my favorite color, but they are infinitely special to me because they came with our first house.  I took a little start with me to Agrestic and though I am pretty sure they never made more than 2 tiny flowers there, when it was time to move to the cottage I again uprooted their dear hearts and there you have it.  They have been a source of joy for 10 years.  Those ugly, boring, common flowers.

They do smell amazing.

Right exactly next to my pillow.  Ahhhh!

Also one of my roses bloomed today.  Was God giving me a hug today or what?  She is a bit singed, though aren't we all.

She smells delightful.  The remarkable thing is, I only buy roses on mega clearance...like they look dead.  I guess I like the challenge?  So she is special because she lived last summer and came back again this year.  I don't remember her name but she is an English Tea Rose (because those are the smelly ones).

There was a renegade type of ground cover taking over here, so I spent a day ripping it all out and was left with a little naked spot.  After a quick trip to the Lowe's Nearly Dead Clearance Isle, I planted some plain impatients.  They will fill in until the good ground cover, um, covers that area.

The hanging baskets were another Lowe's Dead Isle Purchase.  I added some freesia which I am hoping will get even more vine-ish and will cover and hang more wild-like.  Give it some time.

So, I took the baker's rack down (not enough sun for those annuals) and took the advice of the Bon Savant bonsavant.blogspot.com and put a climbing hydrangea there.  It loves shade.  It loves brick or stone.  It flowers all summer.  It will get as big as I let it.  Perfect!

Just a picture of one of my lush little corners.  There are some wee little starts of lily-of-the-valley my dear, crazy neighbor gave me.  They are my Crazy Mary Lily O'valley (again, common but special to me).

My tiny little rhubarb.  I have always wanted to grow rhubarb and I just planted these tiny little tubers about a month ago.  Very exciting.

One of my perennial beds.  I know its not much to look at yet.  But this is the creep year.  You know "first they sleep, then they creep, and finally the leap".  Well most of this stuff was planted last year as tiny little tubers or seeds.  So, in another year this should be glorious!  You can't see them yet, but there is a row of crimson cannas growing behind this garden.

And, I can't ever remember what this is called, but it is one of those old fashioned plants my grandparents have and people who live in proper cottages must have.  Hollihocks?  This is one that started as nothing last year and this year it is COVERED in buds.  I planted 2 new ones in this bed this year, so hopefully they will look this good next year! 

That is pretty much all I have time to share for now.  We are still immersed in about 50 projects and, well, you know...raising 3 children!

Progress in Suite de la Sirs' and Hearth Room

So much to tell you about and to show you today!  None of it is done, but oh, joy!, at least we ARE accomplishing things!!!

This is just to remind you of what it looked like in the beginning.  You are, however, missing out on the "hamster cage" smell that accompanies a bathroom -shared by two boys- with a carpeted floor!  YUM!

After.  These stripes took FOREVER.  I do not recommend this project to anyone.  Just find striped wall-paper.

This is another before.  Everything in this house has two layers (as you will notice).  This is the amazing vinyl layer that was lurking under the carpet.  How delightful!

And this is the new slate floor.  So fresh and clean.  So "unscented".

Again, a "before" of the suite.

And an after.  I had so much mudding and sanding to do to fix the drywall after the removal of the dastardly paper (s) two layers....this actually took a very long time.  As you can see, I only did the area around their bed.  This way I could put the beds back and have freed up the rest of the room to do section by section, wall repairing, sanding, painting, striping, and restoring.  Believe it or not, I thought I would have this project done this winter...ha!

I painted the entire ceiling...they are such a drag to paint.  Because the room is to be darkish in color and is pretty sparse in ceiling light, I painted the ceiling in a basic bright white semi-gloss.  The semi gloss reflects any available light and helps to brighten the space.  The wall color in this part of the room is Kensington Blue (Benjamin Moore).  It is a nice warn-vintage-ish kind of blue...manly with a hint of military-esq

Sir M's bed.  He is very particular about how it is made (if only he were as particular about putting things away).  The stripes:  "Why," you might ask, "did you waste time striping the walls where you were putting their beds?"  The answer is; I thought the Sir's would enjoy them.  It gives them some visual interest on what would otherwise be a plain one-tone wall.

One of my favorite things about a cape cod are these amazing angled walls.  I think the stripes really show them off!  Yes, the vent still needs to be sand-blasted and re-painted.

For a break we went to The Muster on the Saint Mary's at our Historic Fort Wayne this weekend.  The sirs were knighted by Mary Queen of Scots for their braverism at The Battle of Ticonderoga.  They were French Fur Traders for this event.

She was beautiful!

She "doesn't take too kindly to strangers".  Who needs an attack dog with this gun-slinger around?

And finally the room I will begin to call the "hearth room" formerly known as the kitchen and family room.  The separation of flooring (awkward) made the rooms defined and yet lacking cohesiveness.

The Dining Room Table has finally, after 5 yrs of ownership, made its way to a real Dining Room.  I can't wait to show you our new eating area!  This room is thankfully dark as I have not even BEGUN to FATHOM a remodel for this whole wing of the house.  Other than removing the carpet months ago, it has not been touched.

Oh yes, and we got a new patio door.  The old one was completely rotting and barely opened/closed.  The dogs had run through the screen so many times it looked like a door on an old camper rotting in some forgotten woods.  The old muttons were outside the glass, so to clean the door I had to pull them off.  The new door is fiberglass and the muttons are on the inside.  The screen works (and has a lifetime free replacement warranty-even against idiot dogs that your husband loves) and the door opens and closes (also with a lifetime warranty) so that is NICE.

This is monumental, dear ones.  The room is completely carpet free at this point.  Sir is so proud of his hard work!

It is amazing how big the room seems when emptied.  With this area plus the mudroom and dining room you have the size of our entire first house!

Always leave your mark on a home.  Always.  I have left our info at each of our homes in a few spots.  It is a way to bind you and your mark on a home forever.  The home I grew up in had some info from the original owners in a few spots and I adored it.  We were only the second owners of that house and my mom left little tidbits about us in it.  In that way, my childhood lives forever.

Yep, I just wrote it in the middle of the floor.  But years from now, if someone ever rips out the old hardwood (dolts they will be) they will read all about this family from long ago.

OOOOOOH What is this?  Sweet Chocolate For Breakfast!!!!!  It is gorgeous, fabulous, clean, delightful WOOD!!!!!

Sir M woke up early this morning and started to lay some flooring.  I guess he likes the angled look?  Perhaps a budding artist?

Esther and Daisy are really exhausted by all of this.

NO, she did not nearly cut her tail off.  She laid it neatly across the bottom of the freshly painted hearth.  Dear, dear Daisy.

With that, I am off my friends.  I hear the UPS guy.  Delivering my new Hearth Room table????  Much to do today.  I will keep you updated on our progress!