George Taylor House

The George Taylor House is for sale! The real estate listing doesn't have much detail, but I suspect it's because the house is in pretty bad shape. According to county records, the Catholic Church has owned the house since 1991 and from the looks of it, it's been a poorly maintained rental for that long or longer.

The Taylor house is on the National Register of Historic Places for its Gothic Revival style and cross-wing plan. The location is really transitional right now (it's just east of the lot where the St. Francis of Assisi used to stand), but it's a total gem of a house. The lot is large--almost a 1/3 of an acre. The MLS listing says it's 3 bedrooms and lists it as a single family home, but the county records say it has 6 bedrooms and is a 2-family residence. The house is eligible for Provo's pioneer neighborhood home buyer assistance programs. Anyone want to make it a good home?

Finals

Matt is about half-way through his finals--two more exams and a substantial writing assignment to go. He's on a trial advocacy team that will be going to a competition in DC in February, so he'll need to spend some of the break preparing for that. Matt isn't sure how much down time he'll get with all that he has going on, but at least he won't be going back to school in the evenings after this Thursday.

I'm still only about half-way done with my Christmas preparations. All of the easy gifts have been purchased and wrapped and I've been steadily replacing plans for handmade gifts and treats with things I can buy. Evidently I'm much better at shopping than sewing and baking.

We bought and decorated our tree on Friday and then I ran out of Christmas Spirit and all of the other decorations are just sitting in boxes blocking the walkway. In the meantime, Winnie's been playing in the boxes and our house looks great! Nothing like Halloween and Thanksgiving decor strewn about the kitchen floor just in time for Christmas. Maybe we'll finish tonight for Family Home Evening. . .

Hooray!

Look what Santa is bringing me!

Look what Santa is bringing Winnie!

Now Santa just needs to find something as fun for Matt.

I Thought I Took More Pictures. . .

This is the only picture that ended up on my camera from our Thanksgiving weekend at my parents' house. Jack is just 5 weeks younger than Winnie and they are really cute to watch together. Don't let Winnie holding a fork fool you. . . While Winnie begs for utensils before she's willing to eat, her hands are still her tool of choice. Jack looks a lot more fierce with that fork than he really is, too.

Breakfast

This is the way we do breakfast at our house. Let's just pretend my floors are clean enough to eat off, okay?

Funny Bunny

Closet Envy

I never feel like I have the right organizational tools to make my house function well. If I had them my house would always be clean, I would know where everything is, I'd be able to see everything in my closets at a glance and putting stuff back would be easier than getting it out, right? I frequently look at the Container Store website and dream about what my closets could become if only I could afford to put about $3,000 worth of shelving into them!

I'm not sure how I'm going to add another baby's wardrobe to the closet in Winnie's room that already acts as clothing/office supply/guitars and music gear storage, but I think a system like this would make it much easier. I love the shelf for shoes!

I think this is the best kids' work/play station I've ever seen. No growing out of it--just move the components as needs change. (I do think it's funny that they appear to be storing paints at ground level in an area that seems to be designed for very little kids, though.)

If I could put a shelving like this in my 4' x 6' storage shed, would I be able to fit all the bikes, camping supplies, patio furniture, pots and tools we own into it for the winter?

Snow Day

This past weekend we went to my parents' house. The forecast had predicted snow, but we didn't think it would be like this!

I took these pictures on Saturday evening. We got another 3 inches or so during the night and ended up with 15 inches by the next morning.

18 Months and Counting

Monday was Winnie's 18-month birthday. At her check-up she was in the 27th percentile for weight (Carlquist genes), 80th for height (Morrise genes) and 97th for head circumference (both sides). She can say just about anything at this point and she's starting to use three and four word sentences. She's also starting to sing, although she's very selective about where and when. She prefers fill-in the blank type singing where she only has to provide a word of two, but I do catch her singing Rock-A-By to her babies from time-to-time. Winnie's current obsession is giving a hugs and kisses to everything--a loaf of bread in the grocery store, the oven, her shoes and Mom and Dad when we're lucky!

Here's her picture face. It's been weeks since we've been able to get anything but a squinty-eyed shot of her.

Birthday Pictures

We celebrated Matt's birthday on Sunday. In Matt's family there's a tradition that you get to be the "king" and everyone brings you gifts. Here Matt is ready to be presented with the peasants' offerings.

Here's Matt ready to blow out his candles. I only had 5 candles, but luckily 30 is a multiple of 5 so it was all the same. :)

Happy, Happy Birthday, Matthew Dear

Happy birthday, Matt! He's 30 years old today and I'm glad I've gotten to spend the last 5 years with him. I don't think I've ever heard anyone who knows Matt say anything but good about him, and that includes his siblings. Amazing, no? It's because there isn't any bad to say--he pretty much embodies all the characteristics I admire most. Do you know Matt started his own blog?

theringofscribes.blogspot.com

We're not doing much to celebrate today because Matt's schedule is pretty packed, but I have promised him the best black forest cake known to man when we celebrate on Sunday.

My Realistic Dream House

There is a house for sale in the Joaquin neighborhood that has been rehabed by Neighborhood Housing Services. This house is my current dream house because it's actually priced in the range we'll be looking at when Matt's done with school. As an NHS project, I know the house is sound, 3 bedrooms/2 baths and fantastically, it sits on .38 acres. For that size lot I'm ready to take it without even setting foot in the house! Most of the houses in the neighborhood sit on lots half that size. Too bad we aren't going to be ready to move for another couple of years. Think the housing market is bad enough that it will still be for sale? Here's the "before" picture from the NHS website (no "after" available).

Grapes, grapes and more grapes

When I first moved into our house, 5 years ago, I planted grapes along our privacy fence. Last year was the first year I got any fruit off the vines and what I thought was a seedless, red, table grape called Canadice, turned out to be Concord grapes with seeds. Concord are not the grapes you usually buy in the store to eat fresh, but they are the flavor of most grape juice and jelly. Unfortunately, I dislike the flavor of grape juice and jelly! (Blame it on my mom who didn't like it either and never fed those foods to us because she couldn't even stand the smell.) So, this year I'm faced with a bumper crop of quickly ripening Concords, and very few ideas about what to do with them. I just discovered a recipe for grape pie that I think I'm going to try. Anybody else have any suggestions?

Update: As I started looking at recipes, I realized I was going to need a food mill to do just about anything with these grapes that didn't include the seeds. I bought this one from Drugstore.com. I love Internet shopping! I paid for it by cashing in a $40.00 Discover cash back reward, finding a $5.00 off coupon code, getting free shipping from Drugstore.com, linking to it through my Ebates account for 6% cash back and using my Discover card for their usual cash back. Once I made $11.00 buying Matt's b-day present online this way!

More Recipes

Our family loves lentils; they're all things I think a food should be--tasty, cheap, and good for you. I just didn't have many recipes that used lentils until I recently discovered that lentils are a good substitute for ground beef in most recipes where the beef doesn't have to be formed into patties or meatballs. In recipes like meatloaf you can substitute lentils for a portion of the ground beef, but I've never tried more than about 1/3. Recipes like Shepherd's Pie are prime candidates for a complete substitution. Once cooked, one cup of dried lentils is about equivalent to a pound of ground beef and costs roughly $0.40.

This recipe varies from my normal rules for a good dish in that it takes more than 30 minutes to prepare (the lentils have to simmer for 25-30 minutes), but it's not time you have to spend actively cooking so I make an exception. We actually like these tacos more than tacos made with ground beef.

TASTY LENTIL TACOS

INGREDIENTS
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon canola oil
1 cup dried lentils, rinsed
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 cup salsa
12 taco shells
1 1/2 cups shredded lettuce
1 cup chopped fresh tomato
1 1/2 cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese
6 tablespoons fat free sour cream

DIRECTIONS
In a large nonstick skillet, saute the onion and garlic in oil until tender. Add the lentils, chili powder, cumin and oregano; cook and stir for 1 minute. Add broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Uncover; cook for 6-8 minutes or until mixture is thickened. Mash lentils slightly. Stir in salsa. Spoon about 1/4 cup lentil mixture into each taco shell. Top with lettuce, tomato, cheese and sour cream.

Nothing to Say, Just Pictures of Winnie

Matt made Winnie blueberry crepes for dinner and then we interviewed her about her day.

My favorite cheesy smile.

She has to wait a little longer before she can successfully borrow my clothes.

Jake & Cassanda's Wedding

Matt's brother Jake got married this weekend in the Logan temple. We really like his wife, Cassanda, so we were excited about the wedding. It was a beautiful day, the setting was gorgeous, Cassanda looked beautiful and Jake looked handsome. Everything went well--once I got the mess with forgetting my temple recommend straightened out. We were good enough to take our camera, but true to our roots (Matt only took 3 rolls of film his entire mission and I didn't think to take a camera on my trip to Japan) we didn't take any pictures. So until I get some from someone else, here a few pictures of the wedding flowers that I did for them.

Cassanda's bouquet.

One of the corsages.

After the wedding their was a reception in Cassanda's home town of Soda Springs. Matt and I stayed in Montpelier that night and the next day took our time driving home. We stopped in Paris for a tour of the historic Paris Tabernacle and lunch. I'd highly recommend living in Paris if you could find a way to make a living there. Of course, we didn't take pictures there either, but here's a picture of the building from visitIdaho.org

We ate lunch at a great place called "Antiques and Eats". The whole store smelled like fresh bread so we couldn't help but try some. Yum. I think it was one of the most interesting road trips we've take so far. I loved driving on the highways through all the small towns. They were small but they all seemed rich with history and had a lot to offer for their size.

Two Weeks of Fun

I can't believe how quickly this summer has gone. Matt goes back to school on Monday! We're planning for Matt to graduate a semester early and we like to think of it as "he'll be done in a year", even though it's technically a year and 4 months. Thinking of it as a year makes going back to school this Fall seem better. It means we're nearly half-way done. Okay, that's easier for me to say than Matt. I'm not sure half-the time and half the work will coincide.


Matt's summer internship ended on August 8th, and in the last two weeks, between me working and not feeling well and Matt going to Youth Conference, we've tried to cram in all the fun we possibly could. Aside from watching movies, and staying up way later than I should have (these days that's anything after 10:00 pm), two of our favorite outings were Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point and Hogle Zoo.

We went to Farm Country on Saturday, August 16th. We invited Matt's brother Jake and his fiance Cassanda. It's a good thing they like each other because having one car seat and two adults in the back seat of the Tercel is one cozy ride. Matt, Winnie and I really enjoyed Farm Country. Jake and Cassanda enjoyed being together and could see that Farm Country would be a fun place to take your kids. :)

Winnie and Matt, learning to speak goat.





Me, Winnie, Jake and Cassanda on the wagon ride. Why are you yawning, Jake? Isn't Farm Country the most fun you've ever had?


It took a minute for Winnie to decide that riding a pony would be okay. Her new stall tactic is to ask for a hug anytime she doesn't want you to put her somewhere, i.e. in her car seat or to bed. As soon as she could see Matt was going to put her on the pony she suddenly was very cuddly. She didn't take long to adjust, though, and as you can see, ended up really liking it.

Last Wednesday we went to Hogle Zoo with Annalise and her youngest 3, Colin, Aidan and Logan. Inexplicably, Winnie's favorite animals at the whole zoo where the crocodiles. Wouldn't look at anything else in their building if she could help it. If we let her go for a second she was bee-lining for the crocodile enclosure.



All the kids were really good at the Zoo. At the end of the day, we'd worn Winnie out.

Matt's Show

Matt's playing an acousitic show tonight at Muse Music. He's playing some old favorites and a few from the Sky Series he's been working on. Check out the details here.

Water Fun

Swimming at Grandma & Grandpa Morrise's


Jumping on the trampoline with a sprinkler under it at Grandma & Grandpa Carlquist's

Grandma

My Grandma passed away while we were home over the 4th of July. She was 94 and she'd been by herself since my grandpa died 3 years ago. It was getting harder and harder for her to be independent and she'd been lonely since Grandpa died so her death was bitter-sweet.

Grandma loved to garden and always had a very large, amazing, flower garden. Growing up, I spent hours with Grandma every day while she worked in her garden. I was supposed to be helping, but I think all I really did was talk and pick the flowers. I got to make the casket spray and the easel sprays for Grandma's funeral with flowers from her garden and flowers that Grandma always grew--pink roses, purple and blue delphium, purple iris, white stocks. . .

(Ignore the background--I was in Grandma's basement canning kitchen).

The flowers looked like Grandma to me, so I was happy with the way they turned out.

Time Flies

I can't believe it's the middle of July already! Our yard sale went pretty well. We sold a guitar for a good price, which allowed me to buy this cute bag I'd been eyeing on Etsy.

And this cute fabric to make a baby quilt. I bought the fabric online and only realized the band only runs down the selvage edge after I bought it. I thought I'd be able to use it as a border on all sides of the quilt. Now I'm not sure I have enough.

We went to my parents house for the 4th of July and I raided Mom's fabric and patterns. I'm going to try to make a jumper, a romper, pajamas and a coat for Winnie. Last time I tried sewing clothes, they didn't turn out very well. Considering that 15 years have passed since my last attempt I thought it was time to try again. Plus, I shouldn't have to do much tailoring to make Winnie's clothes fit right.

As part of our yard sale, we sold our TV/home theater system. Now, instead of watching other people do projects (I'll miss you most of all, HGTV) I hope that I'll get more of my own done. One thing it has forced me to address--the wall I never painted behind the entertainment center.

Lovely, isn't it?

Right now, what I miss most is that we can't listen to CD's, since our DVD player was our CD player as well. We don't plan to be totally media free--we want to buy a laptop for me that we can use for movies and music.

Yard Sale

We're having our first ever yard sale tomorrow. Actually, it's a complex-wide yard sale because I figured a lot of people in the townhouses wouldn't have enough stuff to be a big yard sale draw. I'm a little nervous about it because the complex-wide sale was my idea and I've been in charge of advertising it. I posted the info on every free online venue I could find and then put up some street signs today (they ended up not nearly as readable from a distance as I'd hoped). I have a few more street signs to put up in the morning, as well. The problem is, I have a curse. If I'm responsible for something nobody shows up! I've thrown a party where not a single person showed. When I was the Enrichment leader, there was a time only the Relief Society president and I showed up--not even the teacher came. Only 3 out of 23 people came to my baby shower (family not included) and the baby was already born! Poor Winnie. Not even her newborn cuteness could prevail. Here's hoping we have better luck with yard sales and make enough money to replace some of the stuff I'm selling!

If life went according to my plans. . .

If life went according to my plans, Matt would work for the Public Defender's office where he's currently interning, and we would live in this Center Street house (the Knight-Allen House), a mere 2 blocks away.


Built in 1894, the house is 2,400 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms. It has a detached garage and sits on a quarter acre lot. The house is considered a historic landmark by the Landmarks Commission as "the best and most unique example of Victorian Eclecticism in Provo", but it's not feeling the love it deserves. Currently it's 2 units and county tax records indicate the owners live in Spanish Fork. The tax records grade its desirability an A and its condition an F. Doesn't this house look like it needs me?

Winnie's Room

Here are a couple of recent additions to Winnie's room.

This is the Ikea crib that I painted black. I still want to put some vinyl decals on the foot of it, but haven't gotten around to making them. In the meantime, the Alice in Wonderland quilt that my grandma made her hangs on the crib. I love this quilt--I've used it to decorate the whole room around.

I bought these Red Riding Hood prints off of Etsy. They're paper cuts by a local artist named Cindy Ferguson. I'm amazed by how expressive she can make a silhouette. You can see more of her work on her blog.

And finally, here are a couple of recent pictures of Princess Winnie.

New Office

I got entirely new office furniture last week! After 8 years of looking at the same wall for 8 hours a day, it's nice to have a new view and to not have my back to the entrance. I used to face toward the back corner of my office (where the locker is in the picture below). I'm now oriented so I face the secretaries and the hallway. I didn't take a before picture because I was sick the day they removed everything, but here's the after.

I don't quite have everything put away yet--moving has forced me to face my horizontal filing system and clean up my act! There are a few piles still to sort and file. Luckily, I have a lot more filing space. A few other highlights are my locker (finally, a place to hang a coat and put my purse!)and the slat wall system that enables me to keep everything up off my desktop and that can be reconfigured any way I like.

Another One

Another Center Street house is for sale. I don't want this one quite as much as the Van Wagenen house, but it still looks lovely.



http://utahrealestate.com/802491


Refreshingly, I think this one is only $20,000-$30,000 over priced.

A long weekend?

Matt and I both had yesterday off for Memorial Day. It was a long weekend that didn't feel very long at all! We were considering taking Winnie to the zoo yesterday, but it turned out to be rainy and a little cold. That coupled with the length of my to-do list kept us home to work on projects, but I still don't feel like I even put a dent in my list!


We painted Winnie's new crib/toddler bed black. For this painting project I used Krylon 360 spray paint. I love this stuff! The paint went on with a beautiful finish and had a great nozzle that really is much easier on your fingers than a traditional nozzle. Right now the crib is airing out in Matt's parents' shop because the 360 is a lot more smelly than the Krylon H2O I used on the dresser, but when everything is assembled and in place, I'll post pictures.

I made a mobile for my cousin's baby shower, which ended up being cancelled because baby decided to come a month early. I've been planning to make something similar for Winnie since before she was born, but never even got around to buying the supplies until last week. The shower was a great motivation to get going on this project.

I actually really love how this turned out, but couldn't get a picture that I think showed it well. You can't really tell in this picture, but the leaves are green vellum so they have a nice translucence. The birds are regular card stock, and the branch is from a Redbud in Marshall and Susan's yard that died last summer. The arm in the top corner belongs to Matt and does not come with the mobile. I'm planning to make Winnie's about twice as large (I had to keep transportation in mind with this first one) with red vellum flowers instead of leaves. I am somewhat concerned about how well this one will travel from Utah to Las Vegas--especially since, when we got back in the car after leaving it at Aunt Sue's, I found a leaf that had already been pulled off. If it doesn't make it in one piece, sorry Patrice!

Other than that, Winnie took her first tumble down the stairs, we did some projects around the house (a new shelf in the office, some hooks for my aprons in the kitchen, miscellaneous wall repair for damaged caused by my tendency to hang things on the wall and then decide to move them), tried to organize the office/Winnie's room/Matt's recording studio to help them all co-exist peacefully, and did laundry, laundry, laundry. How can 3 little people create so much laundry?

Spring in the Garden

New Old Dresser

I have a dresser that's been in various stages of stripping/refinishing for probably 20 years, and before that was in a flood in my great aunt's house. Mom inherited it and started to strip it but never quite finished. I, in turn, stole the dresser from Mom's basement because I loved the lines and of it and love free furniture. :) I've had it for 7 years now and never finished stripping it, so I finally gave up and decided to just paint it for Winnie's room. I never remember to take the right pictures when I do projects, so there is no before image but here's the after:

Okay, so it's only mostly "after" because I still haven't finished painting the carved details white. The green is "Moss" Krylon H2O spray paint. I hate rolling/brushing paint and love the ease of spray paint. I really liked that the H2O dried and hardened much faster than a brush-on latex paint would have and had very little odor. Unfortunately, all four cans of paint that I used on the dresser didn't have a uniform spray--it almost came out looking foamy, so it was really hard to get a smooth finish. By the time I'd sprayed all of the coats, most of the paint looks smooth enough, but it's not the even finish I've gotten from other spray paints.

Now I just need to buy some drawer liners. I have this funny quirk where I love antique furniture, but hate to think about my clothes (or Winnie's clothes, in this case) touching drawers that have been exposed to 100 years of dirt.

Books

Winnie reading to her newest baby.

Rough Start . . .

Matt started working at the public defender's office Monday. It was a rough start, thanks in large part to me having given him the wrong address. I wanted to go see where he'd be working, so I looked the address up on online and we drove by and checked out the office on our way home from work/school. It was after hours so we didn't try to go in, but didn't have any reason to think we weren't in the right place because their signage was on the door. Unfortunately, after waiting around for about 25 minutes for someone to open the door, and about 10 minutes after Matt was supposed to be at work yesterday, he discovered they'd moved--2 years ago! Oops! So much for my power to find anything on the Internet. When Matt arrived at the right office, he was told that that the person he's supposed to report to is unexpectedly out of town for a week, so they didn't have much for him to do--except go to some hearings at the court house that had already started.

The good news is that Tuesday went much better and Matt is getting to spend some extra time with Winnie.

On another front, they dropped the price of the Van Wagenen house another $50,000. Another $100,000 to go and it will be priced where it should have been all along:

http://utahrealestate.com/745603

I hope someone buys it that appreciates the wall paper in the bedrooms. The wall paper in the kitchen and the dining room need to go, but the bedrooms are lovely.

Slip Covers

I bought the fabric for my chair slip-covers. It isn't the Sunbrella fabric that I originally wanted, but it is half the price of the Sunbrella.

(On my screen the fabric looks a lot more green than it really is).

I'm going to use cream piping and put cream ball-fringe around the bottoms of the skirts.

Weekend Projects

I painted a wall between our dining room and kitchen with chalkboard paint this weekend. Right now it's pretty stark and black, but I think it will look great once it's gotten some chalk dust rubbed in. In our little house, I thought it was a good solution for providing Winnie with an art space--$10 in paint and some chalk. No extra furniture or big supplies. I was proud of myself for getting this project done the same day I bought the paint! Normally I'd let the paint sit on the kitchen counter for a few months before getting it done. I think I'm going to add one of Ikea's kitchen rail systems just under the bulletin board so that I can connect baskets to hold supplies and clips to hold up other art work.

Last year we put a stone patio in our back yard and this weekend I got most of the plants in, started my fountain and did a bunch of other necessary clean-up projects. I still need to finish a couple of smaller projects and mulch. I'll post some pictures of that when I finish--hopefully next week.

Irony

I saw part of a show on TLC the other night, called "Greenovate" where some people were remodeling their house to make it more "green". I had to laugh that in an effort to be green they were demolishing perfectly functional, solid wood kitchen cabinets with a sledge hammer.

"too many so-called renovations simply involve replacing things that are old and substantial with ones that are cheap and flimsy but just happen to be new. That seems less like renovation and more like 'ruinovation." Arrol Gellner

Haircut

I had my hair cut last night and think it's pretty cute. Here's a picture:



Okay, so that's actually Ramona Quimby, but right now we have the same hair!