Country Living Fair or Bust!

First thing tomorrow morning, I'm headed out and will make the 6-hour drive down Interstate 85 to Atlanta to attend the Country Living Fair.

ROAD TRIP!

Though this will be a road trip for one--which is all good because my car's CD player has a date with several albums, namely Babel by Mumford and Sons--Stacey of A Sort of Fairytale is flying in and we're going to rendezvous tomorrow evening!

Stacey with her adorable Maggie

There will be more than 150 vendors at the fair, the weather forecast is outstanding, and besides looking forward to shopping (I'm totally ready to check out the booth of McMaster & Storm), I'm hoping to see the Fabulous Beekman Boys (a.k.a., Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge), who will be making an appearance on Saturday at a book signing for their Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook.

Photo via Amazon

The cookbook is gorgeous...Santa brought a copy to our house last year...and I also loved reading Josh's The Bucolic Plague, which chronicles, quite hilariously and honestly, how Josh and Brent came to purchase Beekman Farm, return it to its former glory, and ultimately "become" the Fabulous Beekman Boys.

A wonderful weekend is ahead!  Anybody else going to Atlanta?




P.S.--I'd planned on doing a post this week of the fall decorations around the house. You know, since they've been up since September and I photographed them more than a week ago.  My timing is sterling, isn't it?

But...I managed to lose the camera's SD card for a couple of days in a total palm-to-forehead situation that involved misplacing the card between taking it out of the camera and putting it into the laptop.  In my defense, a certain five-year old distracted me at a key moment.  I know many of you can relate!

Fortunately, the card resurfaced a few hours ago. <big sigh of relief>  I'll have some downtime between the end of the first day of the fair and Stacey's arrival, so I'll edit the photos and put together a post then.  Yeah, just in time for November!  Again, Erin's timing = awesome.

Anatomy of a Lovely Day

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*Wake up at 6:30 a.m. perfectly rested and well after feeling on-the-verge-of-coming-down-with-something yesterday.  (Thank you, Benadryl.)

*Welcome the fact that it's a drizzly, chilly day and that the leaves are really starting to change color:  fall is truly here!

*Realize that my husband is off work, so there is no need for me to take Jacob to school.  #daddyduty

*With a cup of French vanilla coffee in hand, bid them farewell, then settle down on the couch and peruse Pinterest for awhile.

*Inspired by this lettered artwork by Mary Kate McDevitt, decide to try my hand at a fancy pants chalkboard design for the kitchen.  In honor of the first day of October... 

Perfect? No.  Love it all the same, though.

*Hang out at home with my husband and do a little crafting. Him: whittle a toy knife.  Me: make some fall buntings of burlap, paper, and chicken wire.

*Tidy the house and vacuum so the floor is clean underfoot.  (Clean house = happy momma!)

*Rock this tabata workout, along with the Monday series of these strength/cardio exercises, and feel both strong and pleasantly tired afterwards.

*Bake two loaves of pumpkin-chocolate chip bread.  Mmmmm...

*Make a paper bag haunted house with Jacob after homework is finished.

*Catch up on the season premieres of Once Upon A Time and Call the Midwife.

*Feel thankful for having an unexpectedly wonderful and ordinary day at home.

Time Keeps on Slipping...

People, I'm freaking out that it's already September!   Anybody else feeling the same way?

Don't get me wrong, I'm so very glad September's here and that fall is soon to come.  I'm practically lusting for an autumn breeze and a change of color in the leaves.  I even had to stop and photo this leaf last week when I was mowing the yard, the colors of it thrilled me so much.

In fact, in celebration of autumn's approach, I've been making batches of Mulled Cider and Pumpkin Pie candles for wholesale orders and the Harmony Farm Candles Etsy shop. Sniff either of these and I guarantee you'll be yearning to dig out a cozy sweater, feel a nip in the air, and hold a warm mug in yours hand. :)

Mulled Cider Soy Wax Candle

Pumpkin Pie Soy Wax Candle

But I swear, I blinked and the month of August came and went.

Really, I shouldn't be surprised the month went by so quickly. We spent a week at the beach with my husband's family, then celebrated both of my parents' birthdays upon returning home.

School also started last week and my one and only baby is now a kindergartener!

Though neither he nor I boo-hoo'd, or did anything even remotely close to that, on the first day, it surprises me how seeing him off the subsequent mornings in the car rider line snags a part of my heart. Watching him walk into the building after a perfunctory adieu (Me: "Buddy, I love you! Have a good day!" Him: "Gotta go, Mom!"), just one little person in a sea of many, makes me want to snatch him back and keep him for myself just a little while longer.   But he's happy in elementary school, doesn't seem to have missed a beat in the transition, and so goes the growing up of a child.

With the new-found free time that comes with not having a kid at home for seven hours a day, I've been slaving in the perpetual and disgusting heat and humidity to finish prepping the beds around the house for landscaping in the coming weeks.  We had beds installed in early June, and it only took me two months to put down the landscape fabric (after weeding the beds close to half a dozen times--you'd think I'd learn!)

P.S.--Did you know they make these magical things called landscape staples?

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You insert them through the landscape fabric and into the ground, thus securing said landscape fabric in place. Well, I didn't the first time I laid out and cut the landscape fabric.  Only after laying tree limbs, random garden instruments, chicken-feeders-cum-flower-planters, and old fence posts (while thinking "there must be a better way!"), did I realize these babies existed.  But of course, this realization also only occurred after a windstorm blew away and/or twisted the fabric so I essentially had to repeat all my original work before I could use the staples. 

Moving on...

So, the plan is to get most of the shrubbery by next weekend from a local wholesale nursery, and in the meantime, order a few roses by mail from the Antique Rose Emporium.  Once the plants are here, we (hopefully my husband) will lay a drip irrigation system, I'll get the plants in the ground, mulch, and come spring there will be much loveliness happening.


I must be a glutton for manual labor because I also spent a good bit of time in the last part of August cleaning out the remains of the summer garden and readying the beds for a fall/winter garden.

The beds that currently house seedlings are spiffed up with this kitschy wire edging that makes me want to do jumpy claps every time I see it. I'm totally thinking I should paint the raised beds...too much?

Though this embellishment is definitely for looks, it also serves a purpose as I try to keep the bloody-free-ranging-fowl-that-think-they-can-eat-whatever-they-please-and-poop-wherever-they-want chickens out of the garden beds.

They totally munched the Romaine lettuce, spinach, and broccoli seedlings to nubbins a few days back.  Needless to say, the hens are locked in their pen until further notice and I'm ignoring the shade they keep throwing my way.

Someone please tell me the poor little seedlings will survive such ravaging? This one was originally three times this size!

So, that's where I am in the first week of September.  After all the recent gardening, I'm looking forward this week to thinking about (nay, even doing, perhaps?) some fall crafts and decorating.  And if this heat ever breaks, there are several pieces of furniture calling my name, just begging to be refreshed.

What are your plans in the coming weeks?

Happy Labor Day!

Home again, home again...

...jiggity jig.

(Yes, I'm a dork who quotes nursery rhymes.)

After two trips in the past three weeks, I'm totally out of sorts in regards to blogging.

There's so much I want to share and my mind lurches into warp speed when I consider what to write about first. But in the end, all I do is work myself into a mental tizzy and walk away from the computer. Ha!

Fear not, coherent posts will be forthcoming. I've been sewing and tinkering with much gratification in the craft room between trips.

And we also brought home a litter of piglets--which are all kinds of tiny adorableness--and a momma sow the other day.  (I never blogged about raising pigs last year, so be prepared for a couple of retroactive pig posts.)

Plus, I've finished several projects around the house I keep meaning to write about, but need to photo first.

So, in an attempt to get back into the swing of things, here are a few pictures from the first of the two recent trips. 

Jacob and I traveled to Bryson City, North Carolina--located in the gorgeous Great Smokey Mountains--and we met up with one of my dearest friends and her little daughter for an extended weekend.

We stayed in a rustic, green-tin-roofed cabin situated on a sunny dirt road deep in Bear Country in the prettiest mountain hollow.

The view from the front porch, overlooking another homestead in the hollow, made my heart swell a little bit.

As did the property's barn, vegetable garden, whimsical landscaping, and wildflowers flowers growing at will. (Is it weird that I enjoy vacationing in the country when I already live in the country?)

I was totally envious of the healthy corn and red tomatoes

Succulents in old boots

Hibiscus on a hillside

Swan planter shot for Ali

Marigolds in and around an old wheelbarrow

Trickling creek that fed a spring on the property

We hiked in part of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and visited a waterfall. Then we tubed down the Deep Creek.

My birthday was a week before the trip, and my talented, creative and generous friend also presented me with this beautiful embroidery that she made!  It now resides proudly in the craft room.  Isn't the detail wonderful?

It was inspired by this art quote I'd pinned several months ago and I couldn't adore this handmade present more!

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But mostly we let the kids play while we gabbed in our jammies, drank coffee, and ate cobbler.  :) Which means this was a most excellent trip.

Where has this summer taken you?

Coming Up for a Breath of Air

After much relaxing last weekend, this week has been a busy one.  How is it already Friday evening?!?

I'm way behind on blog-visiting and comment-leaving.   Needless to say, I've totally neglected this blog, too!

Part of the reason for that is we weren't home for the first half of June.  We took an all-out family vacation to Florida with stops at Disney World, SeaWorld, and LEGO Land.

LEGO Land may have been my favorite theme park

Cinderella's Castle at Disney World

Cypress Gardens in LEGO Land

I think you can tell this is from SeaWorld :)

And while at Disney, I met Cindy from Cottage Instincts!  She's an absolute delight--which you can already tell from her blog--but meeting her in person just confirmed that.

All the theme-parking was followed by a relaxing stay on the white-sand beaches and translucent jadeite waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

And a visit to Ybor City in Tampa where I took far too many photos of the charming casitas found there.  Because I want to downsize and live in a casita.

So, upon coming home, I had reality to return to, several candle orders to fill, library meetings to attend, and those sorts of thing this week.  Good stuff, but busy stuff nonetheless.

I've also been prepping the house for an appearance in A Sort of Fairytale's Bloggers' Home Tour, held by the lovely Stacey, on the first of July.  Which means I've decided to try to hammer out several projects leading up to that and cram too much into too little time! :)

Seriously, I'm beyond tickled to be participating.  If you haven't seen the series, check it out here.  Such a lovely variety of beautiful homes to behold!   And while you're visiting A Sort of Fairytale, pop in and visit Stacey's new design services business, Cottage Industry.  She's holding a giveaway through Monday to celebrate the grand opening!

Back to the home tour though...since I can't leave well enough alone, I'm madly repainting beadboard, trying to finish a few small furniture projects, and putting the finishing touches on the craft room.  (Which, with God as my witness, will be done in time to go on the home tour!)

So here I am, coming up for a breath of air, to say hi, and hoping that your week has gone well. I'm looking forward to catching up on your blogs and seeing what you've been up to!

Take care,
Erin

Hello from Busytown!

I feel like this picture from Richard Scarry's Busytown captures the essence of this past week rather well. I can really only think of one day that was spent at home; otherwise, I was on the go...a lot...like all the critters of Busytown!

Busytown fabric found on Etsy

I spent a decent chunk of time in the kitchen making candles, followed by several trips to the post office after Michael of Inspired By Charm raved on Pinterest about my Lemon Cookie candles, and orders poured in for those.  Thank you, Michael!

And then I had to deal with trying to get my car fixed after a fender-bender weekend before last.  A lady ran a red light as I was entering the intersection. Fortunately no one was hurt in the low-speed accident, and my car is still driveable, but I had to pick up the long-awaited police report, take the car to a body shop for an estimate, wait for an adjuster come out, and then play phone tag for days with the claims specialist.  The repairs will be made next week--yay for small victories!

Somewhere in there, I did manage one little around-the-house project this week in the form of planting annuals in two vintage chicken feeders to spiff up my porch.   Here's a quick look at one of them on the side porch.  That's salvia on the ends, pink and white petunias are split by a pair of Dusty Miller, and a Sweet William sits in the center. 

A close-up with a little touch of the HDR-ish effect from Picasa...love how it highlights the rust.

Among all the goings-on, the real big to-do around here was that my son finished preschool!  After two years of going to "Ms. Nancy's" three mornings a week, he graduated on Friday.

Jacob receiving his diploma from Ms. Nancy

Of course, he and his buddy Eric couldn't just stand there with their diplomas, could they?  Nope, not when diplomas can be telescopes!

My mom and sisters attended the graduation and we all posed for a picture in Nancy's lovely front yard during the reception.  The reason for the group photo was that in addition to being Jacob's preschool teacher, Nancy was my and my sisters' first grade teacher back in the day!

left to right: my mom, my youngest sister Caty, me & Jacob, Ms. Nancy, and my younger sister Sara

The busy-ness continues this weekend as we'll be spending Sunday at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  My husband received free tickets for the race, and though I'm not a fan of NASCAR, there is an IKEA only 15 minutes from the track, so we shall be making a "pit stop" there before the race. :)

Hope you all have a safe Memorial Day weekend!

Take care,
Erin