Finishing School

This is our last week of school - we are almost to our 180 days of school required and we are ready for the summer pause! This week we have been working through a couple of the last big things including Rachel participating in an online Mock Trial with her CC class and standardized testing for all three!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous and we've enjoyed eating outside, going for walks, etc. I am thankful for the blessing of such lovely weather to enjoy!

I am also looking forward to May Day coming up this Friday and delivering some beauty!

Bread and Garden Update!

Here's a little peek into our garden again! I have gotten so much enjoyment out of this process and tossing bread-making into the equation has had me really loving all the homey things!

My sourdough starter was not feeling too happy - it hadn't started bubbling and I was discouraged but hanging in there to try and wait for it to get happy! Meanwhile, a sweet local friend offered me some of her sourdough starter and I was thrilled to accept and man, that starter is so bubbly and happy!

The struggle is that there are so many variables that affect sourdough and I like black and white things! Ha!

My first two loaves of bread were flat and not very impressive at all. The next two have been lovely and I tried a new recipe, so I'm going to stick with that new recipe for now and see how it goes. But I'm thrilled to have made a couple of beautiful loaves and hoping to keep that pattern going.

My family loves sourdough bread and I haven't been able to find any lately plus it is honestly so expensive to buy and so inexpensive to make. All that to say, I'm enjoying the experiment of making it and feel like a scientist twice a day when I'm weighing my flour and water and mixing!

Do you have any favorite recipes for using your sourdough discards? I'm saving them in a jar in the fridge to make pancakes or something out of but would love to hear your suggestions!

Here is another new recipe I tried recently that we really enjoyed.

Miscy

This is a word my sister uses and it seems appropriate just to list some random things from around here lately -

Seeing everyone posting about sourdough and having Emily ask me for ages to restart ours, I did finally get my starter going again this past week. We're dreaming of fresh bread already. This is a great day by day guide to getting a starter going.

We started watching Tidying Up with Marie Kondo - she is adorable and we are inspired! The girls and I love it.

These crinkle top brownies have that yummy top like a box mix but are even better with that homemade taste - yum!

Due to the library being closed, I've finally succumbed to reading ebooks - I'll still stick with my preference of paper books, but I admit it is better than not having new books to read and it is extremely handy to check books out without leaving the house! Currently reading: The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White.

I'm enjoying the Dwell app which reads Scripture to you - it has been nice to have it on while painting or getting other tasks completed and filling my mind with God's Word.

Thinking about: re-entry to "real life" after the slower pace of the quarantine. How to balance slow while also needing connection and community with others? I know there will be a ton of things getting rescheduled and it will feel busy so I want to be intentional about balance.

We are getting so much enjoyment out of watching little sprouts poke their heads up in our garden! What are some simple pleasures you are enjoying?

Kitchen Update

Every year it seems I have a big project that I hope to accomplish over the summer - last year it was finish my book, the summer before that it was refinishing the dining room table. This year, it was that our kitchen desperately needed repainting, especially the cabinets. I painted them eight years ago - and some of them were fine and others {used more frequently} were really showing wear. You can see the before/after from the first time here and here.

Last time I painted, I used chalk paint and it was not easy to keep clean and just didn't last the way I'd hoped - but when I realize it lasted eight years it honestly isn't that bad.

Anyway, with needing to repaint - I was really trying to think about colors and did a poll recently on Instagram to help me decide which direction to go!

Here are a couple of before photos:

We had this wallpaper border up on the highest part of the wall:

I bought this way before I ever got married or had our own home! My grandma had this wallpaper border at her apartment and I loved the Scripture on it! I also used to have grape dishes and sort of a grape theme in my kitchen - it served me but was feeling dated and also didn't really go with the farmy look I like now. I am amazed at how much lighter the kitchen is with all the green painted over and the wallpaper gone - it feels cleaner, simpler and lighter.

I know this is obvious, but I also didn't realize how much light I was blocking in the one window we have. This kitchen is pretty dark already so to block light and add darkness with color were not a good choice, live and learn!

Anyway, I was sort of operating off of this photo of my dream kitchen:

Another thing is we aren't doing a kitchen remodel - can't rip out cabinets or big things like that! So, I wanted to work with everything that I already had to just refresh it. I ended up painting the lower cabinets gray and the uppers white. The colors that were already in our house were an easy choice for unifying the kitchen with everything else.

We used Valspar Cabinet Enamel paint in Functional Gray and Fossil Stone.

I made a small valance out of an old vintage quilt that was only useful as a cutter - I took the batting out to let some light through and tacked it up there. The only thing left is that I'm going to make little curtains for the cabinets under the sink - waiting for a grain sack I ordered to arrive and a couple of little spring rods from Amazon to finish that project. Almost done though and I'm so pleased with how it is turning out!

Backyard Campout

Our kids set up a tent in the backyard and as of this typing, have slept out there three nights in a row! They've done school out there, played in it, had lunch in it and it has just generally been a huge hit! What a fun thing to do during the quarantine! The first night was pretty chilly but it warmed up for them the next couple of nights.

I decided to join in on the fun and make breakfast on the camp stove Saturday morning - this will be a fun memory!

Garden Progress