In good company...

I thought you'd all appreciate these candid shots of me, faithful dog William by my side, after we finished pulling up the linoleum in our new dining room. 

Not a thing of beauty yet, but we're confident that about 48-man-hours from now, things are going to be looking much more hopeful. (Thankfully, Julia is coming upstate to pitch in too... We need all of the hands and help we can get! We've only been at this for two days, and we already feel like we have carpal tunnel and John nearly maimed himself in a crow-bar-mega-hammer accident.)

Farm House Day One: So Much Accomplished, So Much Left To Do!

Our goal for the next couple of days is to get the linoleum floors pulled up and the wretched tar paper under them removed, but I took a quick second to have a sense of accomplishment, by pulling down the wallpaper in our staircase. Literally, this took about 20 minutes (because the wallpaper was in such terrible condition) and now I can refer to the stairs every time I think I'm not making any headway on the floors! : ) 

Silver lining god damnit! 

Scraping...

Scraping...

Scraped! 

Scraped! 

Hot dog folks! We are really doing this. 

Send us all your best wishes. We're going to need them! 

Getting Stuff DONE!

Seriously, we have accomplished more in the past seven days than we have in the past seven years!

Okay, that's probably not exactly true, but we have made some major headway... In the past seven days, I tackled and triumphed over painting my office. It isn't set up yet, but at least the walls have been painted and the carpet has been laid. I got the carpet (for free!) through a client. Long story short: we installed this carpet for a client, they had a minor leak in the room, the insurance company paid to replace the carpet, I had the carpet company cut up the undamaged carpet and bind it for me, and now it's in my office. Voila! Free carpet!

Then I decided to keep things simple, and chose a lovely pale sage-green for the walls. I struggled against my temptation to paint the walls Benjamin Moore's Quiet Moments and thought "This is a year of change!" and chose Benjamin Moore's Crystalline. 

Paired with BM's Decorator's White on the trim and ceilings, things are looking much more soothing and clean than when I arrived to my bananas pink-and-purple office a few weeks ago.

Revisit this page for "BEFORE" photos of my office... It's extreme!

Next on the list: I painted this bookcase. Another client freebie! A client of mine was pitching this bookcase out, and since I had the paint supplies out, I snatched it up and promptly painted it white. (It was originally low-end maple-esque.) I have grand plans for this bookcase: I'm going to move it next to our armoires in the corridor of our apartment to give Jules some extra toy and book storage. Once I move it in there (this coming week?) I think we might also shake up Julian's bedroom configuration, so he's got a little more crawl-around-play-around space in his room...

There is so much more to fill you in on, but this is just a drop in the bucket!

Tune back in to see what else we're up to this week...

You won't believe it! We're farmers!

No kidding! 

At long last, we have prevailed! 

We are now the proud, crazy owners of our insane-o farm house in the Catskills. 

Holy cow. 

Drat! D-I-Y escapee!

I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, "Sh--t! I just gave away a perfect D-I-Y project." How could I have missed it? I guess I was so knee-deep (drowning might be the more accurate word) in moving boxes, truck negotiations, baby food, and actual life that it just sauntered right past me. Buggar.

Here's the scoop: We had this huge brass lamp that was a hand-me-down from someone, somewhere, at some point. Let's be honest: kind of a beast, pretty ugly. To best articulate its charm, let me say that it remained in our possession after it was labeled "FREE" at the yard sale. John tried to donate it to the Salvation Army and they refused it. So-- at first glance-- not exactly a great beauty.

BUT, in the middle of the night, I suddenly realized that with a new more modern lamp shade and a coat of rust-o-leum matte finish spray paint (I'm thinking probably white...) that lamp could be totally transformed!

So, first thing tomorrow, I'm calling the consignment store where John literally begged the owner to take it, to see if she still has it in her shop. If she does, I'm thinking I'm going to swing by and pick it up, to see if we can't give that lamp a new run at life!

Arriba!

Oh wait, there's something else happening too!

I nearly forgot to mention, we're also raising this unbelievably awesome baby, who happens to be both extremely cute and a complete genius.

Who? Me?

I'm pretty sure we're the only people who have ever thought that about their child.

Make a smart face, Jules. I'm telling people how great you are.

I mean seriously... There's a lot going on.

This past week, I started moving into my new office (yes! In addition to everything else on our plate, I'm also moving offices...) So, by night, once Jules has fallen asleep and my work day is through, I head over to my office (across the hall from my apartment!) and start working on my office. Yes. My office is now ACROSS THE HALL from my apartment. You read that right. 

How is that possible? 

Because I am the luckiest woman alive, and happen to have been blessed by the New York City Real Estate fairy upon crossing the Whitestone Bridge 11 years ago. 

Sadly, in New York City, being lucky means renting a psychotic-pink-and-purple room that's 8' X 12', with one window and a closet that you have to access from a separate hallway. But hey! At least there's a window! And at least there's a closet! I know someone who was living in a windowless, closet-less bedroom in Bed-Stuy for almost $700 a month, so comparatively, it's paradise. 

Check out this blog, which really captures the charm of New York City real estate... 

Since everything in my life is a "fixer-upper", I had to start by pulling up the centuries-old carpet (the horror!) then patching, sanding, and priming the whole room. So far, that's as much as I've accomplished, but a new light fixture and floor paint are in the works in the next couple of days. Then I'm onto wall color (hallelujah) and then-- ugh-- moving all of my files and furniture from my other office into the new one. Heave-ho! 

Then, because we weren't stressed enough, nor strapped enough for cash, we decided to buy this rad/ridiculous truck, which was conveniently located in Plainview, NJ. Meaning of course, that John, Julian, and I had to make an hour long pilgrimage to New Jersey earlier this week to buy the truck. 

Whose brakes promptly broke (in the driveway of the seller, thankfully) so we got the truck towed to a local shop where they're now making the necessary repairs. We are pretending we're not idiots and didn't buy a lemon because:

a.) we're idiots.
b.) it was actually quite a cheap truck.
c.) there are only 75,000 miles on the truck, so it's got a long future ahead of it.
d.) we were already in New Jersey, and by gad, we were coming home with a truck!
e.) the guy fixing our car turned us onto this video, to give us some idea of just how tough and enduring our truck really is.
f.) we're idiots.

So-- once we finished that debacle (does it qualify as finished, even though we don't actually have the truck in our possession?) we headed up to the house, and started packing up there. OMG. Evidently, we bought a lot of stuff over the past 5 years. Even after we had the yard sale, there is still A LOT of stuff here! And it all has to be packed up, pronto-tonto, because we are OFFICIALLY scheduled to sign the paperwork on our new farm house next Thursday, May 23rd! (This happens to also be John and my four-year wedding anniversary.) According to wikipedia, the four-year wedding anniversary is typically celebrated with silk, linen, or in modern America, appliances (we're such romantics). I guess we are fast-forwarding a little by giving each other a house, but hey! We've never been good at adhering to tradition, so that should come as no surprise.

Anyway--- that pretty much brings us up to date. We've been busy. New office, new truck, almost new house. Packing old house. Oy.

Just keep saying to yourself:

"Change is good. Change is good." 

  Deep breath.

"Change is good." 

Our new truck!

The many lives of our vintage trailer!

I don't know if you remember, but we used to have a vintage trailer parked on our property upstate.

The Trailer originally belonged to John's parents, and they used it for many years, touring around the United States with little John in tow. About 18 years later, it became my college graduation project, renovated to function as a guest house for John's parents' country house; and then about 8 years after that, it came back to me again, to serve as our "guest cottage" at Fox Ridge. Until about one month ago., when we started getting the house ready to sell. One of the first things we did was list the trailer on Craig's List, thinking that having a wayward trailer parked on our lawn was a little more "po-dunk" than "bucolic", and not really an asset for the sale.

Luckily, it was a super cute trailer, so it sold in about 10 minutes to some lovely folks who are now in the process of bringing it back to life, again, and are documenting the process on a blog called "Maude In The Making".

Check out the blog and follow along to see how the next phase of The Trailer's life unfolds... 

Sweet Dude! Street Find!

Just had an awesome street find! 

Two humongous glass jars (similar to massive, lidless cookie jars- about 14" tall X 8" across) sitting innocently on the sidewalk, waiting for a lass like me to saunter past and find them. Well, BINGO!

Because now I've got them in my kitchen, and I've got to figure out what to do with them. I'm thinking terrarium project would be the obvious option, but I'm a tiny bit tempted to get goldfish and put them on the kitchen island.

Is it unethical to use living things as decorative accents?

Because two goldfish in two huge glass jars might add just the SPLASH of orange my kitchen island is lacking...

I'll have to give that some thought. For instance, what kind of maintenance do goldfish require? I'm looking for something slightly less hard to kill than a ruddy cactus. (The fact that Jules and William have survived this long at my negligent hands defies all odds.) And who would feed them on the weekends?

I am NOT bringing one dog, one baby, one husband, and TWO goldfish back and forth from the country every weekend!

Of that I am sure.

Can you believe that I'm still making quinoa?

I know-- flogging a dead horse here-- but I made another quinoa recipe for yesterday's lunch that was completely delicious.

I started with this recipe as inspiration, but then eliminated all of the ingredients I didn't have (like 75% of them), and added unshelled edamame, pine nuts, and dried cherries; because I had all of those... It's a little slim pickings in the country right now. We've got so much going on up here, I'm disinclined to spend the time making the trek to the grocery store, plus the thought of bringing MORE OF ANYTHING into this house seems utterly crazy. So we made do with the recipe below-- minus the leeks, carrots, and fennel-- and plus the pine nuts, edamame, and cherries. I guess at that point-- it was just barely the original recipe, but I guess you can refer to it for cook times and general instructions, and the salad dressing... Work with me people! It was devoured by all and enjoyed by me, so that's the real point, right?!

Ingredients:

Quinoa:

• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 cup organic vegetable broth
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 
  
• Chickpea mixture:
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided 
• 2 cups thinly sliced leek (about 1 large)
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 1/2 cups sliced fennel bulb (about 1 large)
• 1 3/4 cups (1/4-inch-thick) slices carrot (about 3/4 pound) 
• 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 cup organic vegetable broth
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme, divided
• 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can no-salt-added chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 (5-ounce) package baby spinach 

Preparation:

1. 1. To prepare quinoa, heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1 garlic clove to pan; sauté 1 minute. Add 1 cup broth and next 4 ingredients (through 1/4 teaspoon salt); cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and quinoa is tender.
2. 2. To prepare chickpea mixture, heat 1 teaspoon oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add leek and 4 garlic cloves to pan; sauté 5 minutes or until tender. Add remaining 1 teaspoon oil, fennel bulb, carrot, and fennel seeds; sauté 10 minutes or until vegetables are golden. Add wine; cook 3 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates. Stir in 1 cup broth, 2 teaspoons thyme, and chickpeas; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat; stir in juice, 1/4 teaspoon salt, pepper, and spinach.
3. 3. Place about 2/3 cup quinoa in each of 4 bowls; top each serving with about 1 1/2 cups chickpea mixture. Sprinkle each serving with 1/2 teaspoon thyme.

FIRE SALE ON VINTAGE COLLECTIBLES AND DVDS!!!

John and I held our first yard sale together yesterday-- and it was a roaring success! 

It wasn't exactly a massive financial boon (though $550+ is nothing to sneer at) but the major victory came from the GIGANTIC AMOUNT OF STUFF THAT LEFT OUR HOUSE IN SOMEONE ELSE'S LOVING ARMS! 

Notable victories include the sale of our full-sized NYC phone booth (sold for a $100.00-- a $35.00 profit no less!) and a set of 4-tires/wheels that have been haunting us since we bought Fox Ridge (Yes. We had four wheels that did not belong to a car we owned sitting in a shed for five years.)

DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!

We sold so much stuff, large and small, that things are looking considerably less daunting in the packing-up-and-moving department. The one bleak thing we're still up against... All of the unsold junk still sitting in our driveway. : (

And of course, Salvation Army and the dump are both closed, so my "Get It Done!" attitude has to be put on hold until next weekend, I guess. I swear-- everything takes at least two weekends to get something accomplished. What that says about the timeline for the renovation of the new house---- I don't even want to talk about it!

We're driving up to the farmhouse today to have another jaunt around. Spring is finally in full swing up here, and I don't want to miss the flowering fruit trees on the property-- even if they isn't ours yet.

Needless to say, John is a patient individual for accommodating that request. : ) 

And the heat goes on...

Ya, the heat goes on...

Pretty sure that's actually the start of a song* from the 70's, but in this case, I'm actually referring to the boiler at the new farm house, which was O-FFICIALLY FUNCTIONAL as on Monday morning.

HAH-LUH-F-ING-LU-YAH!

Things were a little touch-and-go there for a minute... An uncertain assessment of the well, a bleak review on the (very old, very outdated, seemingly completely functional) septic tank, and then! Just when we were pretty sure nothing else could go wrong, the BRAND NEW, JUST INSTALLED boiler was possibly broken because some bright star didn't drain the pipes properly last winter. So, not only was the boiler possibly toast, there was no saying how many other pipes burst during this ridiculous period of (idiocy) negligence.

I have to confess-- I was pretty much done in at that point. I like to think of myself as someone with vision, someone with determination, and someone who can't be easily dissuaded (and usually, that's really me to a T) and keep in mind, pretty much every house/apartment I've lived in since I was 18 was essentially in condemnable condition upon acquisition, so it's not like I wasn't familiar with a little adversity -- but for f-sake! It really felt like there was nothing that wasn't broken in our lovely farm house. That this sale is actually, FINALLY going through is really all due to John, for his long term vision and unwavering persistence... But now he shall reap the rewards, as we somehow managed to convince the seller of our dream house (money pit) to discount the sale price by $10,000, AND fix the pipes, AND replace the water pump, AND make sure the boiler was up and functioning. All on her dime, remarkably.

SO! The good news is that the sale is marching steadily forward, and we are most likely signing the paper work to buy our new farm AND sell our old cottage on THE SAME DAY, May 15, 2013!

Whaaaaaaahhhhhttttt!!!!!!!!!

We're starting to pack up Fox Ridge this weekend and we're holding a yard sale to sell off some of the treasures we've accrued over the past five years. Hopefully it will be worth the time and serve double duty: we'll actually earn a little money as well as getting the barn cleared out. We have A LOT to pack. Yikes.

Stay tuned for more updates. 

*Upon further investigation-- I was actually fusing two songs into one: Soony & Cher's "And The Beat Goes On" and another song by Asia, called "The Heat Is On".  Oops!