A mudroom! This space is one of my favorite places in our farmhouse. I’ve always wanted a mudroom. I grew up in a small apartment and never lived in a house until we bought the one in NJ that we left last year. Years of looking at design magazines, and my year as an interior design student in college, just left me with this picture in my head of what domestic living should look like. And one of those pictures is having a happy, functional space for the mess of everyday life. Not to hide it away, but to give it its own room to kind of revel in the mess of family life, without destroying the rest of the house. This is also the height of privilege, having an entire room in a home that’s basically for dirty shoes, but as a kid with limited privacy and space it’s just something I dreamed of. And here’s the before and after for ours.
We’ve been bombarded with snow this week. Today’s Saturday, and the first storm was last Sunday night. School was closed for two days, and then another (smaller) storm came in Friday at lunchtime, so all the local schools closed early. My birthday is just a few minutes away now, and yet another snowstorm is set to head our way either tomorrow night or Monday, I think. And here’s the thing we’re learning about Washington–they don’t have a lot of snow plows.
Whoopie pies are just the best, and they’re easy to make at home with kids. Whoopie pies, we’ve learned, just aren’t really a thing in Washington. And they’re H’s favorite treat, and something she’s been missing from NJ (Whole Foods made really good ones back east, but all the baked goods at Whole Foods here in WA are too…healthy). So, I’ve started making them. The Christmas batch was such a hit that she wanted to help me make some more this past weekend. Sunday night while my beef roast cooked we made them for dessert.
It’s been a little more than six months since I last posted here, which is a record. This blog is ten years old, and I’ve never gone that long without posting! But it was kind of a welcome break–I needed to concentrate on packing up, moving from New Jersey to Washington, getting settled, finding a house, getting H settled at a new school. It’s been a ride, and we’re just starting to settle down.
We have some news—we are moving to Seattle this summer! Well, to the Seattle suburbs. An opportunity came for us to go, and we’re taking it. We went out in early March to look at schools and neighborhoods and fell in love with the area.
It took a while, it always takes a while. I didn’t go overboard this year, and if I’d planned better I would’ve put up more decorations. Unlike Christmas, which I start thinking about in July, I just don’t think about Halloween until October 1st. And then it takes me a couple of weeks to get it together, maybe next year I’ll get on top of it.
We bought H a cedar playhouse from Costco for her birthday back in the spring, but Adam didn’t get a chance to assemble it until a few weeks ago. At first it was too cold to build it, then he broke his toe and couldn’t build it. So, finally, she has her playhouse now in the backyard!
A spring tutorial! H’s been more and more interested in flowers this year as they bloom all over. She’s been picking dandelions everywhere we go, and digging holes in the mulch in the backyard with the gardening tools her grandparents gave her. I do not have a green thumb, but she’s fascinated. So I’ve been brainstorming some gardening projects we could do together, for me to learn some things and for her to watch things grow.
It’s always time for a haircut when I go into “bun phase” or “Detective Odafin Tutuola phase.” I didn’t make it to Fin Phase, but I was sporting a lot of buns. I hadn’t had a cut since last July. I got it cut almost two weeks ago, but I am behind on life after Miss H’s 5th birthday.
I’m still getting my new year together, but I’m tired of looking at that cod recipe as my top post. Not one of my best photos, even it was delicious food. So here are some photos of Hamilton, the Greatest Dog, while I continue getting 2017 organized.