Preppy Mountain Farmhouse

Preppy Mountain Farmer Interview & e-Blook Available to the Public

2017-09-20T19:41:00.001-04:00

My interview with BlookUp last spring was just published and can be found here: http://www.blookup.com/en/blog/interview-from-chic-to-farm-with-preppy/

For those interested in copies of the 2 volumes of Preppy Mountain Farmhouse Blooks, they have been made available to the public and can be purchased at this link at no profit to Preppy Mountain Farmer. The e-books are only $4.64.

https://www.blookup.com/en/blookshop/blook/preppy-mountain-farmhouse-22975/

I Bid You Adieu

2017-08-20T09:11:00.001-04:00

As our children return to school this week and another summer is about to end, a new season of life is on the horizon for my husband and me. And I believe this blog has run its course. I've shared the way our family and farm celebrate the four seasons with you twice, and sometimes thrice. While each year brings some new activities, recipes, decorations, and events, much of our life follows a rhythm of traditions and rituals that will seem repetitive to others. These traditions are what my family loves and counts on; they create the fond memories we all have of our life together on our little mountain farm. But they are bound to be boring to the rest of you. How many years in a row do you really want to see my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, fall leaves and gourds on my front porch, and Catholic school children in their Land's End uniforms?

But not everything remains the same. The feeling at our house this summer is different from Augusts past. It is evident that we are no longer in the same season of life that we were when we moved here. My children are growing up. Four of our youngest five are in middle school and high school. We're about to have three in braces. One just got his driver's permit. We're going on college campus tours, and my teens are taking PSAT's. Our adult children are starting their own families, returning to graduate school, and living abroad. My husband is finishing an advanced degree and my days are filled with volunteering and coordinating schedules and managing our increasingly busy life. Less time and energy is devoted to animal husbandry and the gardens. This summer our only farm products are brown eggs and a few tomatoes every other day. And when I do have some down time, I am choosing to spend it in other artistic/creative/reflective pursuits. I cherish our family time more than ever as I see how fleeting these years actually are. And I find myself wanting to guard our privacy as our adolescent children don't want to see themselves show up in Internet images when their friends and classmates do a google search. I want to keep their birthdays and our holidays within our home in framed pictures on the bookshelves or in our digital family photo albums. It's too hard for me to separate the celebrating/decorating/cooking aspects of my life from the personal family moments that intertwine with everything I do. So I am writing this final post of the Preppy Mountain Farmhouse blog.

I have immensely enjoyed the past 2.33 years of blogging and sharing our life with all of you. I appreciate all of your follows, likes, and comments. I want to thank those of you who have subscribed and read my blog regularly, and I am especially grateful to those of you who left comments or included me in your blog roll. This blog will remain live until the domain name expires next April, but this will be my last day to write. I'll continue loading some less personal pictures to my Instagram gallery since photography is one of those creative past times I mentioned above. You can find my public page on IG at preppy_mountain_farmhouse.

So I bid you all a final adieu. And God bless!

More to Do Around Erie

2017-08-13T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last summer I wrote several posts on things to do in Erie, PA. We visited some additional sites this summer that are worth mentioning.

The Erie Art Museum in downtown Erie is the place to be on Wednesdays in the summer. Admission is free on that day, and at noon there are concerts just outside the main entrance.

The Lake Erie Arboretum at Frontier Park is definitely a hidden gem. The paths meander through both wooded and cleared areas, beside a creek, and past gardens.

Even though we live in the middle of the woods on the side of a mountain, we got closer to a doe and her spotted fawn at the arboretum than we do at home. An added treat is Romolo Chocolates which is just across the street from Frontier Park. This family owned artisan chocolate store is well-known for its sponge candy, something words can't describe.

I know I mentioned the amazing sunsets over Lake Erie before, but they are worth mentioning again because they are truly spectacular.

You see what I mean?

My children always like hunting for beach glass at the Walnut Creek Marina, but this summer our youngest son also collected flat rocks to create a walkway and a border for his hand-dug "hot tub." These didn't come home with us.

Fishing at one of the piers at Presque Isle is always fun for our teen son.

There are a number of universities in and around Erie, and we try to walk around the campus of a college or two each summer. Mercyhurst is of interest to our high school sophomore, and it is a beautiful campus.

Just a twenty minute drive from Erie is Edinboro University, which has the attention of our high school junior.

Finally, if you do venture to Erie any time soon, be on the lookout for these cute painted rocks. They're hiding all over the place, and apparently, you're to take your picture with them and post to Facebook, then hide them somewhere else in the city. Our children found five during the week we were there. Our youngest daughter thought this was especially exciting, and she gave a lot of consideration to where she would place them.

For more information on Erie, PA, go to http://www.visiterie.com/.

Scenes from Lake Erie

2017-08-06T11:34:00.001-04:00

Photos of Lake Erie at the Walnut Creek Marina two weeks ago. It was windy, 66 degrees, and COLD!

But flocks of seagulls were everywhere bracing themselves against the strong winds.

That is, until our loud family showed up and the kids started running into the midst of them.

They temporarily took flight, but returned moments later.

Our main purpose for braving the misty winds was to look for beach glass, but there was barely any beach left as the waves came crashing in.

We had to settle for watching the seagulls and the lake instead.

In my opinion, the waves and cloudy skies provided enough interest and photo ops anyway.

A Farm-to-Table Community Dinner

2017-08-01T20:13:00.001-04:00

As a belated anniversary gift to each other, my husband and I purchased tickets to a fun farm-to-table dinner in Bedford, PA. One of the main streets in town was closed so this event could occur, and it couldn't have happened on a more perfect evening.

This was a bring your own bottle of wine affair, but there was plenty of mango iced tea provided by a local shop owner and tables of delicious local goat cheeses, chutneys, herb butter, crackers, and homemade bread. We helped ourselves to these as we waited for dinner to officially begin, and a kind lady seated across from us generously let us borrow her corkscrew since I didn't think to bring ours.

The four-course meal was catered by Horn O' Plenty Farm to Table Restaurant, and local celebrities and non-celebrities alike volunteered to serve around a hundred people seated down the center of South Juliana Street.

Organic ingredients from local farms are used by Chef Mandy at this restaurant, and all of the food was amazing! These wooden chargers were handsawn from cherry trees locally.

The tables were rustic, yet elegant, with white linens, the wooden service plates, burlap table runners, and Mason jars filled with fresh flowers that a number of local guests got to take home at the end of the night.

A couple of talented local musicians performed throughout dinner and created the perfect background sounds. No traffic from surrounding streets could be heard, yet the music wasn't so loud that we all couldn't comfortably chat with one another throughout the evening.

It was a full "house" and every seat was taken. Not only did this event promote local businesses, but the proceeds benefited Downtown Bedford Inc., which is revitalizing this charming small town.

Not only was it a large crowd, but each course of dinner was large too, and I was stuffed by the end of the night. And I definitely threw the low-carb diet out for the evening as well. Everything was just too fresh and too good to pass up or feel guilty about consuming. It was a lovely evening with interesting people and so inspiring for me to see people come together to support a community, good food, and each other. It gives me hope for other struggling small towns that have been abandoned and overlooked. Bedford has made an incredible comeback in a way I never would have dreamed twenty or thirty years ago. For me, this dinner was a symbol of what is possible if people are willing to think outside the box, try something new and different, and commit to a vision for the future.

Needless to say, we look forward to attending this inaugural event next year, and I hope to see more of its kind nearer to where we live.

A Day at the Falls: Taking a Family Day Trip to Niagara

2017-07-30T21:15:00.001-04:00

Our family just returned from our summer vacation farther north. We spent one day at Niagara Falls, NY, after many months of planning what we'd most like to do on this side of the border.

I had been to the falls twice decades ago, but always on the Canadian side in Ontario. There isn't quite as much to do on the American side, and my kiddos gazed longingly across the Niagara River at the large hotels, ferris wheel, and tower that they could clearly see from the US.

But we spent plenty of time hiking the many trails along the Niagara River to take in every possible view of the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls. We were on our feet most of the day.

We started out walking from the Niagara Falls Visitor's Center and approached the falls from up high near the rapids. Then we crossed the bridge to Goat Island and hiked down closer to the tip of the American Falls.

If you stood close to the railing, you almost felt as if you were going over the edge.

And you got wet.

Some of us stood back and simply took pictures.

Even though I have heard great things about the Maid of the Mist ferry ride that takes you up close the base of the falls, I wouldn't agree to doing that because even with the poncho they gave you, those people looked drenched.

So we simply kept on hiking until we got to the Horseshoe Falls, which were definitely more impressive to our boys, but because of the mist, they were harder to photograph and see well.

After walking through the crowds of people from all over the world for an hour and a half, our kids were drooping, so we popped into the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch.

Our children had never been to this franchise before and raved about the size of the hamburgers for days. It was mostly 80s music playing with music videos on the screens from my teen years, which was kind of nostalgic for me, I guess. But I have to say that seeing Billy Idol and a bunch of big-haired, leather-wearing young women dancing rather provocatively doesn't seem cool anymore now that I'm seeing it through the eyes of my children.

After sustenance and resting our legs, we made the 1.5 mile walk to the Aquarium of Niagara. We like to support small museums with a family membership each summer wherever we travel, so we did the same here.

Even though my younger children enjoyed watching the sea lions show off and swim around, I have to say I was rather disappointed. After having been to the aquariums in the Baltimore Harbor, Charleston, and the penguin house at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, this one paled in comparison.

We spent about an hour and a half there, but only because our daughter kept wanting to look in the gift shop. It was small, rather rundown, and very crowded. Plus the layout of it was kind of weird. I definitely wouldn't go again.

After hiking back down to the parking lot and getting more pictures of the falls from yet another angle, we were ready to call it a day. We were being approached by a number of strangers asking for money---something my children have never experienced before---and it was getting hot and very crowded. We spent about five hours there, which felt long enough, and I was glad we hadn't made this a week-long destination like I had considered doing. It was awesome seeing these famous waterfalls as a family, but we were pressed to find enough interesting things to fill our day that weren't...tacky. I think if we went again, we would probably visit some places in nearby Buffalo, but my kids just really wanted to veg out and not walk anymore. So we drove the two hours back to their grandparents' house, stopping at a college (more about that another day) and a restaurant for a light dinner, and everyone slept late the next morning because we were beat.

And being the list-maker that I am, I can now check that off the bucket list of places I'd like my kids to see.

A First Birthday Party in the Hundred Acre Wood

2017-07-23T13:10:00.000-04:00

It's hard to believe, but our grandson turned one yesterday, and his mama and daddy threw him a party in his own little Hundred Acre Wood. The party was in the screened-in porch of their lovely colonial stone farmhouse, and they converted it into a scene from the Winnie the Pooh story books.

Branches of trees on their property were cut by his daddy to create his own personal forest on the patio. His mama painted the signs herself in the morning before guests arrived.

Balloons, streamers, and other brightly colored decorations filled the party room, but the birthday boy most definitely loved the balloons most of all.

You can't see them, but the gift table held stuffed Pooh characters, and there were other plush Pooh friends peeking out in other places as well.

One of his aunties made these adorable vanilla cupcakes with honey bees on top.

While another auntie made him his own little cake to crumble, mash, and destroy.

He really wasn't sure what to make of it all at first and was surprisingly neat about eating it.

But I would say that other than getting a bit tired once the gift unwrapping was underway, the guest of honor was quite happy with his first birthday.

And even though yet another storm was raging outside, we all had a lovely time celebrating such a special day for a special little boy.

A special thanks to T. Brown for most of the photos in this post.

Learning Bunco!

2017-07-18T11:45:00.001-04:00

In my quest to bring people together to enjoy one another's company face-to-face, some friends and I decided to start up a Bunco group. When our family lived in a charming Southern suburb decades ago, Bunco was the big thing with the SAHM crowd. I was never a part of one, but I did create Bunco-themed soaps to sell as prizes at these Bunco parties. They sounded like a lot of fun, so when a friend approached me with an interest a few months ago, I jumped on board.

There is a plethora of information on the Web regarding this game. We thought that would make it simple to learn the rules, but what we discovered is that nearly every website has variations of the rules, which made things rather confusing for all of us newbies. However, the themes and food and decorating ideas I found on blogs and Pinterest were fantastic. There are so many fun things I'd like to try the next time I host one of these gatherings, and maybe I'll actually have the time when I'm not overseeing so many outdoor projects that are happening simultaneously.

I didn't actually have a Bunco game myself, so I was fortunate enough to find free downloadable printables of score sheets, table markers, and extra lists of rules. These can be found at http://www.ishouldbemoppingthefloor.com/search?q=bunco.

Although I found adorable homemade cupcakes with sugar cubes made to look like dice, I took a shortcut and bought miniature cupcakes from Weis and placed real dice on them that we can use to play with later. The awesome edible ones found on Pinterest can be made by following the instructions at http://everydaydonna.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-01T18:59:00-07:00&max-results=7.

All kinds of prizes can be used to award the various winners (and losers, and random participants). Some groups simply pitch in $5 each month and the prizes are monetary. Since this was our first time to gather and play, and it was at our farmhouse with our bottom refrigerator shelf full of farm fresh eggs, every prize was a carton of brown eggs. I look forward to playing this again next month, especially now that we all have a better idea of how to play and keep score, and I especially look forward to hosting again and trying out some Pinterest Bunco inspiration.

For those of you interested in hosting your own group or who just need some fresh ideas, these are some of the pins I collected:

Cute table decoration

Party themes

Mini cheesecake dice

Party checklist

Dice cheese spread

Bunco snack mix

And just to show you what was going on in my backyard in the hours leading up to our first Bunco Night (along with another wicked thunderstorm and broken water pipes on the other side of our property):

This is where our pool had been, now covered in grass seed and straw with last year's garden down below covered in plastic to kill weeds until we can get some raised beds built for a flower garden. This job was literally finished just a few hours before my game-playing friends arrived, and although it's an eyesore, it's still a vast improvement from what it looked like last week. Five days ago you'd have thought we had a mini-landfill in our back yard.

I'm now in the fun dreaming and planning stages of a backyard oasis. Back to Pinterest I go.

About Those Low-Carb Diets...

2017-07-09T17:32:00.001-04:00

Atkins, Paleo, Mediterranean, Keto diets. I'd heard about them for years. We had friends who would come for dinner and eat very little of what I cooked. They ordered hamburgers without buns, had salads instead of potatoes, and ate eggs and bacon for breakfast instead of bagels or waffles. I thought to myself, "Good for them, but there is no way I could ever do that."

But this year, I went and did do just that.

I have been blessed with fairly good genetics, at least where weight is concerned. Throughout my twenties, as long as I taught aerobics classes and did some strength training weekly, I could eat whatever I wanted and remain a size 2-4. In my thirties while carrying, birthing, and nursing five babies, I still ate whatever I wanted and stayed under a size 6-8. But around the time I reached my mid-forties and was no longer breastfeeding or chasing toddlers around, I noticed the weight creeping up little by little. I had to go up another size, and then another. Everything seemed to be settling around my middle, and I felt bloated and uncomfortable all the time. Additionally, I craved sugar and simple carbohydrates more and more. The more I craved them, the more I ate them. I felt my self-discipline waning, and I felt more sluggish and less motivated to go for a hike or do some yoga or hit some tennis balls with my children. When my father was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I knew that I needed to get my sugar addiction under control. I tried to use will-power. I told myself I would only have dessert on the weekends and I'd cut out breads from my lunch. I did this intermittently, but those pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks in the fall, Christmas cookies and hot chocolate in the winter, Easter candy in the spring, and ice cream in the summer got the better of me. I might lose five pounds or so after the winter holidays before summer came, but in the fall I'd gain it back again. I would begin each year a few pounds heavier and an inch wider around my middle than the previous year.

However, that changed in late-February when I decided I had nothing to lose but pounds and inches by trying to majorly reduce carbohydrates from my daily food intake. What once comprised a good 70% or more of my diet got reduced to less than 25%. I went from eating probably several hundreds of grams of carbs some days to eating under fifty a day. I didn't follow any one specific program; I just did a lot of research and daily chose foods that were low in carbohydrates and high in healthy fats and proteins. That has meant whole, unprocessed foods for the most part. Meat, eggs (which we have no shortage of here), nuts and seeds, greens, most vegetables that grow above ground, heavy cream, full-fat hard cheese and cottage cheese, and a bit of yogurt. This has been a huge change for me, and it's one I never thought I would want to make or that I would be successful at keeping.

In all honesty, I do cheat a little. I sometimes have a dessert. I eat some berries with my eggs some mornings at breakfast. I have discovered that if I don't eat many carbs the rest of the day, I can have a 1/2 cup of full-fat ice cream and only consume 16 grams of carbohydrates. I know that has sugar in it, and it's not ideal, but it's still far less sugar than I used to consume. And once in awhile I break down and get that 500 calorie frappuccino at Starbucks and go over my entire day's allotment of carbohydrates with that one stinking drink. But instead of giving into the temptation several days a week, it happens about once every few months. My point is, I don't follow this plan as strictly as many others would advocate that you should, but I am looking at this as a lifetime change, not a quick fix. And there are a lot of celebrations and holidays in a lifetime that I'm not willing to completely forego indulging in a slice of homemade pie or cake once in awhile.

Even with those occasional indulgences, I have seen success in a way that I wasn't sure was possible for me at this age. I did lose 4-5 pounds in the very first week of cutting my carbs to 20-50 grams/day. This was primarily water weight, but my stomach was flatter, my pants felt looser, and it gave me the motivation to stick with it. Over the past 4 1/2 months, I've lost around 14 pounds, over 2 inches from my waist, and I've dropped 1-2 sizes in pants and shorts. I haven't been able to successfully get down to this weight in over 4 years trying anything else. Not by cutting fat, exercising more, occasional fasting, or simply reducing calories. I'm not saying that eating a low-carb diet is right for everyone, but it has been a positive experience for me.

Now, I'm not going to kid you...it certainly comes with its sacrifices. I haven't consumed a single craft beer (or any beer) since mid-February. I haven't eaten pasta, rice, or bread of any kind. Instead of snacking on crackers, pretzels, popcorn, or cookies, I have 1/4 cup of nuts or sunflower seeds instead. I do sometimes eat dark chocolate-covered almonds or honey-roasted peanuts, which have some carbohydrates, but far fewer than the other processed snack foods. I rarely do any baking anymore because I cannot resist licking the beaters or the wooden spoon. And to pull some steaming homemade chocolate chip cookies out of my oven and not eat a single one is just torture. So I don't do it. Initially, I really missed drinking juice with a bagel or a muffin for breakfast, but now it's not such a big deal. I think that eating out in restaurants is the hardest because it often means that I'm limited to a salad of one type or another. If I can order meat free of sauces or breading, I have that with one or two low-carb veggies. Mostly, I try to focus on the things that I love that I can still have: dry wine, a bit of dark chocolate, and heavy cream in my coffee. I know that I never would have made it this far if I'd have given up those.

So I am going forth with the resolve to continue this way of eating and living. My husband has gotten on board as well, which does make it easier. Learning that I am not powerless to defeat the middle-aged spread is empowering, and fitting into clothes that have hung unworn in my wardrobe for years is a great motivator to stick with it---even with a daughter in the house who creates the best cupcakes in the world.

Summer of '17 Photo Gallery #2

2017-07-02T18:20:00.000-04:00

More summer photos as we enter the middle of summer already. There's been a lot of baking going on in our farmhouse kitchen---this summer by our 15 year-old daughter. It's all so good, but I'm trying very hard to limit myself to very small portions or just a taste. Surely there are no carbs or calories in just a taste, right?

Our grandson tags along with us to all our usual summer spots once a week. His aunties and uncles absolutely adore him.

This past week he began walking while he was with us at the house of some friends. It was just as exciting to see him take his first steps as it was with all of my own children.

We've been trying out some new restaurants the past couple of weeks.

We're venturing out and sampling places we wouldn't normally try. And we've been pleasantly surprised every time. This summer for me is about taking some chances, stepping out of my comfort zone, and being open to adventure.

Don't get me wrong; I love our country life.

Our little farm on the mountain brings its unique beauty and peace...

...and its own type of quirky excitement.

But as we celebrated my grandmother's 99th birthday with her this weekend, I knew that I want to live the rest of my life to the fullest. That means taking some chances, doing something different, and seizing opportunities as they come.

And loving and enjoying everything in my life that I already have.

Summer of '17 Photo Gallery #1

2017-06-26T14:16:00.000-04:00

No words, just early summer pics of our not-so-preppy mountain farm life.

It's hard to believe we're already in the last week in June. I need summer to slow down. Have a great week, everyone!

A Strawberry Jam Making Party!

2017-06-20T17:53:00.001-04:00

I browse through the home and decorating magazines at Barnes and Noble and admire the elegant dinner parties featured. I save boards full of lovely entertaining pins on Pinterest. I love looking at the elegant table settings on Instagram and various blogs. I sigh and think about how much fun it would be to host some of those parties for a dozen friends or more. But then I look around at our lived-in farmhouse and know that at least for now, that just isn't going to happen. So I have decided to start gathering people together here in a way that does match this century-old farmhouse and our little hobby farm and do some of the things most of our ancestors did here in the Appalachian Mountains 100 or more years ago...with a twist.

I decided to invite some school mom friends over for a dessert wine/liqueur-tasting and freezer jam making party. While wild thunder storms raged outside our walls, we ladies were safe and dry inside sipping Moscato, mashing strawberries, and swapping school stories.

Freezer jam is super easy to make, and you can use any berries in season---or peaches if you add some lemon juice.

For a double batch, you just need to remove the stems of one and a half pint-sized containers of berries. Then mash them with a potato masher. They should be chunky. This equals approximately 3 1/3 cups of mashed berries.

After that, all you need is 1 1/4 cups of sugar and 4 Tablespoons of instant pectin added in. Stir for three minutes, and pour into your freezer containers. Within thirty minutes, the jam is set.

A double batch fills five half-pint containers. You can store it in your refrigerator for three weeks or in your freezer for a year. This just doesn't get any easier, and the jam is full of color and flavor and nothing like what you get in the grocery store.

Bringing friends together over some snacks, desserts, and wine or Stoli vanilla vodka makes this homemaking task fun, and before you know it, hours have passed by. You get to share this amazing jam with your family, and they'll never know that it was so effortless and so much fun to make.

I do believe this will be an annual event at the Preppy Mountain Farmhouse.

Comfortable Summer Dresses for the Middle-Aged Mom

2017-06-15T18:09:00.000-04:00

There's something about summer that makes me want to wear more dresses. This year I'm all about comfort and ease, yet I still want fashionable and feminine, and I love fabrics that flow. If you're a busy mom looking for a summer wardrobe that requires little fuss, but still provides style that flatters, take a look at what I found for very affordable prices.

Starting off with this long pullover dress that Hubby got me for my birthday this year, this dress is made by Chaps and was purchased at the Bonton, but I've seen it at Kohl's as well. This is easy to wash, pulls over my head, and is incredibly comfortable.

I wore it on my birthday to pick up children from school and run errands, and I wore it on a shopping excursion with our teen daughter to celebrate her 15th birthday a week later. I love her t-shirt dress too, found at Target.

This bright pink Rose & Olive dress just made me think of spring/summer when I saw it at TJ Maxx. It also just pulls over my head and drapes my body without clinging. And no dry cleaning or ironing necessary. That's a must in my house.

It's the dress I wore to church on Easter Sunday, but I'm sure I'll pull it out often. Can you tell this was the first time we used the self-timer on my new camera?

A friend of mine introduced me to an Internet boutique called Ali & Edi which is where I got this paisley tunic dress. Their dresses are American made, of high quality, and are stylish yet easy to maintain. Right now they're having a clearance sale with amazing prices, so go check them out.

I loved this dress so much that I wore it for our daughter's First Holy Communion, and two weeks later I wore it again for Mother's Day. The carnation I'm holding was a gift our sweet ten year-old son bought for me on the way out of Mass from the local Boy Scout troop.

I was looking for a casual sundress, and I found this navy blue Croft & Barrow knee-length dress at Kohl's. It's light-weight, machine washable, and loose without looking frumpy.

I wore it to my younger sons' end-of-the-year pool party on a 93 degree afternoon this week. I won't say it kept me cool, but aside from being in a swimsuit myself, it was probably the coolest thing I had to wear in public. And hey, how farmy of a pic is this with our greenhouse and wheelbarrow in the background? Keeping it real here at the Preppy Mountain Farmhouse.

I tried on eight dresses at Macy's this week, and I loved this one best of all. This is so different from anything I have hanging in my pine wardrobe, but it just screamed "Summer" at me. The colors remind me of popsicles, jello, and Skittles. It's by Calvin Klein and was greatly reduced the day I bought it. Gosh, I look annoyed with the child taking my picture. I was really just squinting, but this confirms that I could have never hacked it as a model.

This dress is loose, airy, and light. I haven't had a chance to wear it yet, but I think it could work for a number of outings depending on how it was accessorized. The light lining underneath keeps it from being see-through and from clinging.

This final dress is one I'll wear on the cooler summer days we sometimes get here in the northeastern U.S. and probably into the fall. It's Dana Buchanan, and it's similar to another light pull-over dress I wear frequently. Comfy, easy to wash, and no ironing necessary. My kind of dress.

I found this at Kohl's on sale, and it was super cheap. It's been too hot here this week to wear it yet, but I'm sure it will get plenty of use. It's the only item in my wardrobe with cutout sleeves like this. I'm venturing out of my comfort zone a little in my middle age.

Each of these dresses was purchased for less than $100. Most were under $50. Style, comfort, and easy care for a middle-aged figure at affordable prices.

And that concludes my annual summer fashion show from the boondocks in the Alleghenies. I hope you all are enjoying your early summer as much as I am.

Our Farmhouse Porch in the Summer

2017-06-11T12:00:00.001-04:00

During the seventies, the weekly TV show "The Waltons" was a hit at our house. I loved their big family, their white farmhouse in the mountains, and especially their huge front porch. I remember Grandma shelling peas while sitting on the porch rocker, Mary Ellen complaining about her life while lounging on the porch swing, and Mama greeting everyone with a smile on her front porch as she welcomed them in. I dreamed of having their life...but maybe with a bit more money and some nicer clothes.

I had a vision for our own front porch many years ago when I got our large porch swing as a Mother's Day gift, which was much more enjoyable than the clothesline I received for that same holiday a couple of years earlier.

The vision continued as I received my first porch rocker for another Mother's Day gift and had the porch floor replaced in 2014. Then in 2015 we finally repainted it, and this year I woke up on Mother's Day to a second porch rocker so that I now have the symmetry my OCD self yearned for.

After acquiring the porch rockers from Cracker Barrel, the final part of my dream involved sheer white curtains. This proved to be a more challenging task than I ever imagined because there are iron poles connected to either ends of our porch. Those poles can't be removed, and their height and width aren't your typical window size.

I figured I could either buy shower curtains or long drapes with grommets. That way I could attach them with shower hooks. It turned out that none of the shower curtains were long enough, and I would have to purchase at least three window panels for each side. I didn't want to spend a lot of money since these would be outside in the elements all summer. I thought it would be easy to find what I was looking for. I was wrong. I went to TJ Maxx, Home Goods, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, but I couldn't find what I wanted. Everything was either too thick or too expensive or not the right size or there weren't enough in stock or not grommet style. So I finally patronized the one story that everyone else I know frequents but that I avoid at all costs: Walmart. And it was there that I found the exact sheer panels I was looking for with the grommet openings for only $7/panel. And as luck would have it, they had exactly six of them. Then my daughter and I found these cute shower hooks that we thought would look perfect to hang them, so we bought three packages of them too for $8/package.

I was so excited to get home and hang these curtains on these shower hooks that were rust-proof and guaranteed to not slip out of the shower curtains. What was I thinking?! These work perfectly with shower curtains that have slits for openings, but they are obviously not made to hold grommet-style curtains. This was definitely one of my most daft moments. I ran upstairs to our bathroom and tore down our shower curtain so I could use the cheap, round, clear plastic hooks. Then I searched the bathroom closet because I knew I had extra hooks in there. Unfortunately, they were the same style as the ones I just bought, only very corroded. So I hurried up to the cabin and took down that shower curtain as well. I still needed another twelve round curtain hooks. I turned around and there on the shelf was another package of mismatched shower curtain hooks...but only nine of them. I brought them all down to the house and hung the curtains with what I had, dreading to go back to Walmart to buy yet another package of these stupid hooks. You can't just get them individually; it's a package of twelve or none at all.

So with the aid of my youngest daughter (who had Cowboy Day at school that morning), we hung the curtains and did a quick photo shoot with three grommets not attached to the iron pole. And the hooks were of all different styles and colors.

That evening I had to take our son and his friend to a middle school dance, so after dropping them off, I headed back to Walmart. I had a great time because I had my best friend along, and we chatted and chatted, not really paying attention to anything around us. We just enjoyed some girl time out away from most of our children (my teen daughter tagged along in hopes of a trip to the mall.) I went through the self-checkout line and bought the $1.26 package of clear, round, plastic curtain hooks, and shoved the receipt in my purse as I eyed the tiki torches near the exit and continued talking with my friend. It was a fun night for all of us, but when I got home and looked for the shower hooks to finish hanging my curtains, I couldn't find them anywhere. And I realized that I left them at the checkout in Walmart while I was busy conversing with my friend.

So the next day I went to Ollie's and bought the same hooks for

$.95 and kicked myself for not shopping there for them to begin with.

The curtains were hung, and my vision was complete. However, I hadn't given much thought to how I would keep them in place. The winds just whip them around everywhere. My friend told me her aunt sewed rocks into the bottoms of her porch curtains. I placed some of our larger river stones in the bottom pockets of these sheer drapes, but all that did was create noise as they scraped and rolled across the porch floor. Then when it got super windy, they flew up and around, and those river stones went flying. My white sheer curtains became weapons directed at anyone out there on the porch. So I've given up and just allow them to float and wave and fly wherever the wind takes them. Porch sitters just have to get used to the curtains brushing over their shoulders or their heads as they sit and read and drink their coffee or G & T's.

A few finishing touches were added. Two hanging baskets arrived from my children as additional Mother's Day gifts this year.

And when I couldn't decide what to place in the empty space next to the front door, I decided to use the picnic basket we got as a wedding gift and my husband's work boots that are a bit scruffy but not currently coated in manure. The food was just for the photo shoot, of course; most of the time it's filled with one of our annoying cats who end up using my porch displays every season for their beds.

Now my vision is complete for the summer where our front porch is concerned. This is where I chose to celebrate my 48th birthday this past week as I relaxed in a sundress with a glass of Chardonnay in the early evening. I suppose this is my version of being on the Waltons' porch in the Appalachians, only with wine instead of the Baldwin sisters' "recipe."

Country Weekends in the Summer

2017-06-05T21:50:00.002-04:00

This is what our weekends have been looking like so far this summer.

Our twelve year old son dug us a much bigger fire pit, so we've been having campfires galore.

With so many flowers and shrubs blooming, the bumblebees are swarming around our farmhouse.

And with so many summer birthdays around here, our resident cupcake baker has been quite busy.

This weekend she made chocolate cupcakes stuffed with her special peanut butter frosting, topped with chocolate shavings. They were to die for and worth every gram of carbohydrates.

Our grandson has been cruising and crawling around, and fortunately, we have many energetic bodies to keep up with him because he is busy!

All kinds of things are hatching out and metamorphosing.

There have been some tricky puzzles that only a few family members could solve. She, by the way, figured out to open this almost immediately. It was putting it back together that made everyone a bit crazy.

We've had some adorable baby interactions going on between the species.

It wouldn't be a summer weekend without plenty of front porch sitting. But I'll have more on that in my next post.

How did you spend your weekend?

Ugly: This is my Summer Book Recommendation

2017-05-29T19:47:00.001-04:00

I don't read too many autobiographies/memoirs, and when you're trying to find a good one for your fifth grader to meet the requirements for his class's 30 Book Challenge before the last week of school, they are hard to come by. Fortunately, our son's friend told him about this book, and it was in the school library. Our ten year-old boy doesn't really like to read very much; he'd rather be running and climbing trees and building with Legos and playing Minecraft. He was not at all thrilled that he was required to read 30 books this school year, and they had to be of different genres yet to boot. We have shelves and shelves of books for all ages in our old farmhouse, but we really didn't have many memoirs that a preteen would be interested in reading. I was relieved when he checked out Ugly by Robert Hoge.

This story caught his attention from the start. We had watched some episodes of Call the Midwife, so he was familiar with babies born in the 1960s and 1970s being born with major malformations due to medicines pregnant mothers were often given before the medical experts knew there was a link. We all cried together when we saw one particular scene where a baby girl was born with no arms, no legs, and only part of a trunk and head. The attending doctor and nurse left her abandoned on a counter in front of an open window to speed up the process of a "natural death." One of the sisters/midwives discovered her there and wrapped her up in a blanket and held her, soothed her, and baptized her until she took her last breath. She was able to console her mother who hadn't even had a chance to see her baby by telling her that the baby felt loved in her dying moments. I went through half a box of tissues that night.

Robert Hoge was one of those babies born in Australia in 1972 with only partially formed legs and a large tumor growing out of the center of his face which left him with no nose and eyes on the sides of his head. He was the youngest of five children in a working class family, and his parents didn't take him home from the hospital immediately. In fact, they weren't sure they were going to take him home ever, but they finally asked his siblings what they would like to do, and they unanimously voted to keep him. Once they made the decision, his entire family was committed to giving him the most normal life they could.

His story is not one of sorrow, but instead, it's a very straightforward account of his childhood and the various incidents that made him who he is. It's geared toward adolescents and juveniles, so it's an easy and quick read, but it holds your attention as you find yourself routing for him on field day, on a bicycle, in the swimming pool, and on the playground. There are plenty of humorous tales interwoven through his examples of overcoming adversity. I won't spoil the ending for you, but he ends his memoir at the age of 14 when he is given the choice of whether or not he will have one final surgery in an attempt to make him look more "normal."

Our son talked about this book in the car and at the dinner table, and he urged me to read it. There are very few books that he recommends to anyone, so I was intrigued. I put it off because I'm already in the middle of several other books, as I always am, and I wasn't looking forward to reading another children's book. However, I promised that I would read it over this Memorial Day weekend, and I finished it in two days. Afterwards, I did a Google search to see what this guy actually looks like and what his life is like now. Again, no spoiler alert from me. You've got to read his book first and resist the temptation to find him on the Internet before you do.

I promise that you won't be disappointed.

Pool Tales: The Final Chapter

2017-05-23T17:50:00.001-04:00

When we bought this house nearly eleven years ago, this was the view from our patio off the back of our old farmhouse. We never cared much about having our own swimming pool, but since it was already here, that was pretty awesome. Except for the fact that I had two preschoolers, a toddler, and an infant, and as you can see, there was no fence around the pool. But it was an incredible view, and at night, the moonlight reflected off the water, and the stars were so bright overhead, and I thought my husband and I would spend every summer night on rafts in this pool. We'd float around in the quiet watching fireflies and sipping some wine or a Gin & Tonic after the little ones had gone to bed with the baby monitor plugged in next to us. I'm not sure what I imagined our teenage son doing at the time...listening to music, watching a movie, reading a book? It doesn't really matter because we only ever ventured into that pool by ourselves one time at night anyway.

Because here's what no one ever told me about having a swimming pool in the country on the side of the mountain: all kinds of creatures come to the pool...especially at night. We had already seen the multitudes of long, thick black snakes slither up from under the concrete each May when the weather got warm and we were just opening up the pool. Sometimes early in the season, we'd be floating in the water on a sunny afternoon and two or three snakes would come slithering along the concrete and off into the grass. We discovered early on that mice, birds, moles, and even an occasional rabbit came to the pool at night and then drowned in the water early in the morning. We've had Amish neighbors' geese and ducks show up there, and one time, even a cow! Of course, lots and lots of insects, centipedes, and spiders are also drawn to the water, and that means when it gets dark, the bats come too.

The first night that my husband and I actually got the kids to bed without us falling asleep in the process, we poured ourselves some vino and sneaked out to the pool. Never mind that the boys' room looked out over the pool; we'd just quietly step in for a quick dip, and they'd never know we were out there. We were in the water sipping wine looking at those magnificent stars and feeling like the luckiest couple on earth. This was paradise; who needs a vacation? That was until I felt something swoosh down and brush against my hair. Then it happened again and again. My husband felt it too. We looked up and there were bats swooping down to catch the bugs flying around and landing on the water. And they didn't stop. And I was done. No matter how quiet, peaceful, or romantic of a night this was, there was no room for bats in my vision. And we never did that again. I figured that one day in the future, when our kids would be older and in school or out of the house, we'd go out there alone again while it was still daylight when the bats were wherever they go at night around here. I don't want to think too hard about that.

But alas, that is not meant to be because this past winter our pool liner ripped. We noticed the water level going down after the pool was covered. We knew that come spring, we would have to finally fork out the money to have it replaced. We weren't thrilled about it, but we were prepared. But things just got worse. With each violent storm we got this winter and early spring, the situation got worse and worse. Pieces of the liner tore and blew all over the yard and lane. Where the pool cover had pulled away, it looked to me like concrete was starting to crumble, and was that actual dirt falling into the pool? When I made the call to the swimming pool business and told them we might need a little bit more than just a new liner, he asked me to send him pictures. I knew it must be bad.

After receiving several quotes of upwards of $15,000, I told my husband we just weren't going to do it. After the first month that we have it open, our kids lose interest in swimming in it. Last year after lunch each day, I had to force them to spend an hour in the pool because their dad and I had just spent hundreds of dollars on more pool chemicals and hours of our time cleaning it. I literally had to set a timer to ensure they'd be out there a full hour. I realize how ridiculous this sounds now and I wonder why we went on as long as we did. So this Memorial Day weekend, instead of pulling off the pool cover, vacuuming up hundreds of tadpoles, and pouring in pounds and pounds of chlorine and stabilizer to get our pool ready for the summer, we'll be waiting for equipment to show up to begin breaking up the concrete and filling in our pool. It feels rather sad because it's yet another reminder that an era of our life here is coming to an end. Our youngest five children have grown up here, and their memories of summer are spattered with learning to swim, diving for toys, swimming until their teeth chatter from the 66 degree water temperature in early June, and eating popsicles around the pool. Our summers will be different.

But there is a silver lining to this final chapter of my tale: I have big plans for that nice flat area on this side of the mountain. Once it's all filled in, and it's covered in thick, green grass, I have my eye on some canopies, outdoor tables and Adirondack chairs, some wonderful fire pits that can also be used for tables, a tiki bar, and fairy lights. I can see some fantastic farm-to-table dinners out there with lots of friends and family gathered together. The moonlight won't be reflecting off the pool anymore, but the stars will be just as bright, and it will be just as peaceful as it has always been.

And I'm trusting that the bats won't find our back yard as enticing as it was before.

A Mother's Day Poem

2017-05-14T10:11:00.002-04:00

Our teen daughter presented to me this poem she composed as her Mother's Day gift this year. I am sharing it with you as my gift to all of you mothers who make sacrifices every day for the little people in your life. You mean the world to them.

When You Thought I Wasn't Looking