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I thought it might be a good idea today to remind you about subscribing to Days of Serendipity. That’s right, you can have my blog posts delivered right to your computer along with content from your other favorite blogs all in one place!  I know that not everyone knows about RSS feeds – heck, I haven’t thought about them much until recently, but it saves the time of trekking from blog to blog and wondering who updated recently. All you have to do is click on the “Subscribe to Feed” link at the top left hand side of my page, add in a few extra clicks and, voila!, my self-proclaimed wonderfulness will be at your fingertips. Now, ignore my sarcasm and scoot!

Picture of the adorable tea caddy my husband bought me in Paris.

Indian Summer

We were uncommonly productive this weekend. Was it the beautiful weather or that I ate less sugar? Hmmm…

A Sweet Question

I am not in denial. I am a sugar addict and this I readily (proudly?) admit. We talk about cutting back, but then I feel that I have to bake a seasonal cake, or buy ice cream to soothe a bad day, or support fair trade with a hefty purchase of dark chocolate. There is nothing that cannot be made more special with a treat. Hence, sugar is what makes my world beautiful. Well, that and sparkly lights.

Then today on her show, Martha Stewart hinted that she eats dessert/sweets one or two times a week. Which made me think, am I normal or am I a sugar freak? So tell me, dear friends, how often do you eat sweets? Let’s take an informal little poll and lest you think that your confectionary consumption is shameful, allow me to start off by admitting that I indulge on average two or three times a day…

Yummy photo from this person

Over the Moon

Aren’t the faces of the people in this photo hilarious? Sometimes, I want to sit on the moon, look down at the earth with binoculars, and watch everyone’s lives play like a movie.

Bread is rising on my counter and I’m loving the smell of my new Toasted Marshmallow candle from here.

Postcard found here.

Etsy Favorites for Autumn

It has been forever since I’ve posted any Etsy favorites, hasn’t it? Well, here are a few that I knew you’d like:

Fall Macarons by Lemonade Stand NYC

Crocheted Fingerless Mittens Pattern by Frouges Art

And I Walked Tape by Mister Rob

Are there any handmade artists you’d like me to share about? Just send me a note!

Malady

Monday is grocery shopping day and we had “nothing” left in the house to eat by the time I picked Sean up after work. (I have determined that an evil grocery shopping fairy slips one or two boxes of foods that we don’t like and will never want to eat into our cupboards out of spite.) Our heads felt heavy and tired for no reason: that I-would-like-to-curl-under-a-blanket-and-stay-there-for-eternity feeling that you get right before coming down with something.

Usually I crave heavy things like sweets and cheeses and meats during our grocery date, but yesterday I couldn’t keep my eyes away from the fruit and vegetables. I envisioned toast and soup and tea and green bean casserole. My heart’s deepest desire was for orange juice and Sprite and a cable knit blanket with gray plaid lining. A citrus craving is like my death toll for health. That, and pink cheeks, but I don’t have the pink cheeks yet.

We decided to lay low and pamper ourselves. Sean played computer games while I gave myself a foot bath. And then we confessed that it would be sort of nice to get sick for real. You know, spend a day napping, reading, doing puzzles, watching favorite movies. That is bad, isn’t it? But today I feel fine. Except that I can’t get warm or feel rested. And I keep shopping for wrist warmers.

P.S. Don’t forget to vote!!!!!

Baubles

Yesterday was a calm day, but not today.

Yesterday was sunny and bright. The yard was strewn with gold. I practiced yoga in my bare feet in the sunshine and collected leaves in my cozy gray skirt.

Today is a cleaning and organizing frenzy. I dragged a mountain of moving boxes through the wind to the curb for recycling. I polished faucets till they gleamed.

Yesterday was a day of good news, beloved books, magazines in the mail, and choosing the biggest, roundest pumpkins.

Today is for baking chocolate chip pumpkin bread, stringing leaves into garlands, folding three loads of clothes warm and soft from the dryer, arranging urns on the front stoop.

But tonight is for carving jack-o-lanterns, drinking hot cider, and watching Halloween cartoons.

Happy Halloween!

Pretty Things to Look At

1. Jenny of the Little Green Notebook has exactly my decorating philosophy: buy used and old and inexpensive and make it what you want it to be. I’m still working on seeing the potential of various pieces and understanding how they can work together, but reading other people’s blogs always gives me tons of new ways of thinking about decorating. We’ve been working on our dining room lately, so her recent dining room makeover came exactly when I needed the inspiration.

2. You can download this from A Field Journal to make for your very own.

3. We want to frame old star charts like this one found on Ebay for our bedroom. Pretty, no?

4. Lately, I cannot get enough of Pia’s beautiful photos and finds. She lives on a houseboat in Amsterdam and manages to have the most beautiful life – I think mostly because she keeps her eyes open. While we’re on the subject of other people’s blogs, did you read this? Absolutely, deliciously creepy!

Homemade Donuts

I love to celebrate seasons and holidays with food. Something just doesn’t feel right unless all of the right foods make an appearance during any given season. And fall is the time for crispy homemade donuts and cider. Here is the (easy) donut recipe I made with my mom as a child and whipped up last night in about an hour.

Homemade Donuts

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. shortening
• 3 tsp. salt
• 2 packages yeast
• 1/2 c. water
• 6 1/2 c. flour
• 2 eggs

In a small pan warm up milk, sugar, shortening, salt and water until shortening has melted and the mixture has reached bathwater temperature. Pour over yeast, mix gently, and let sit for a couple minutes. Stir in two cups of flour. Add eggs and beat one minute. Work in remaining flour, kneading on counter if necessary until dough is elastic. Set in warm place for 15-20 minutes. Roll out and cut into circles (I use a juice cup to cut them out) and use your fingers to make a hole in the middle for the donut shape. In a wide, shallow pan, pour about one inch of olive oil and heat until a small ball of dough dropped in bobs up and down and the oil gently fizzles around it. You can use a big slotted spoon to drop the donuts into the oil and turn them from side to side until they’re brown and crispy and cooked through. Tip: pull open your first donut or two to make sure that they’re cooked through – if they’re browning immediately, then the oil is too hot. Place warm donuts on paper towel to drain excess oil and then roll in powdered sugar or a combination of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. You can also leave out the holes and inject your donuts with raspberry jam if you prefer!

Eat them fast (preferably warm)! They’re only good for about 24 hours before they go stale just like the donuts in the bakery, so feel free to cut your batch in half and share them. A full batch yields about 40 donuts.

A Firelight Colored Tree

 

Dear Readers,

Today I looked for inspiration. I thought about books, I read blogs, I searched for the perfect color of grey thread in my sewing basket, I sang in the shower. But none of them lifted my spirits in just…that way. And then I looked past my laptop and my pile of magazines and my clutter, through the window right in front of me. And there was a firelight colored tree, flanked in wavy green branches, decorated just below with the prim pattern of weathered wood fence tops. And the window screen pixelated my view like a painting. And the wind made the colors move and blend and fall. And the outline of the window framed my painting. I love paintings. And I didn’t want to use my laptop anymore. I wanted to enjoy life instead of looking for it. This weekend I will paint in warm gray, I will venture outside to share warm food and comfort, I will cuddle under a soft blanket to draw in his warmth next to me, I will bake cookies and bread to have with tea. I will organize and work and laugh. I will worship. Dear Readers, I wish for you the same.

Love,

Katherine

Turning the Pages

My father-in-law sent me this wonderful link today which any of you other book fanatics might enjoy too. The British Library has a virtual collection of rare books such as a handwritten and illustrated copy of Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland and Leonardo DaVinci’s sketches. You will need to download Adobe Shockwave Player if you don’t already have it, but it is more than worth those two or three extra minutes. To turn the pages, click and drag or use the slider at the bottom (much easier). Enjoy!

Pages from the Flemish “Golf Book,” British Library

I Heart Spending Less Than $1

Now that I’m learning not to buy things new as often, it’s much easier to find beautiful, useful things that are also second-hand. All of the items below I’ve scored recently for less than $1 each.

Can you tell they’re children’s size gardening gloves? They seem to fit better than the adult sizes… I’m not sure if I want to keep the ledger in my purse for a notebook or just use the paper for crafts.

According to the backs, these coasters are from Taiwan (not the same as “Made in Taiwan”). I just wasn’t so sure that Sean’s Penn State coasters belonged on the dining table.

These are my crowning find. A complete set of 20 children’s encyclopedias from 1940 in almost perfect condition – for free!! Can you believe it? The people at the sale thought no one would want them! Well, I think I’m pretty fortunate they weren’t snatched up before I got to them. They’re full of beautiful old stories, paintings, photos, maps, even French translations and craft ideas for kids. My first plan is to make color copies of some of those illustrations, like the plants, for framing. Also, I imagine some of the information is probably out of date, but if a favorite cousin ever wants to borrow them for homeschooling she’s welcome.

We’re very lucky to have lots of antique and second-hand shops in our area, so that our biggest expense for the house has really only been paint. Everyone always says that paint is a cheap way of redecorating, so I was super surprised to discover that even with Sean’s work discount paint is not at all cheap. Plus, did you know that painting a room is really hard? Like, blue paint on the white ceiling and tan carpet, three coats of it, and lots of hours hard? Somehow I thought that painting a room would be just as simple as painting the side of a barn. I was vastly mistaken. This painting process will take months of weekends, I have no doubt, but I am trying not to get tired of it already. Any experienced painters out there with tips to share? I’ve already learned that nail polish remover gets latex paint out of carpet pretty well. What else?

Moss Garden

I’ve seen some moss gardens on Etsy that always look so fairytale-esque, so I decided to do some research and create a little garden of my own. I already had this shallow ceramic container filled with stones for decoration/drainage, so all I had to do was dig up some nutrient-poor soil from our backyard (moss loves that stuff) peel some of this soft, green moss from the patio bricks, and add some decaying bark for extra nutrient. I just mist it once or twice a day, and so far things are going well. Eventually, the moss is supposed to cover the whole surface of the dirt and rocks, but I think after only a week it’s still sort of adjusting. Hopefully, hopefully it will be very lush and pretty this winter when I’m craving some green!

Happy Sweetest Day to everyone in Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan! We already have our annual Sweetest Day tradition ready for execution.

Fine Dining

Welcome to our dining room! This dining set is our latest and greatest acquisition. Craigslist has been our best friend for setting up house economically this past month, but estate auctions are absolutely the best for furniture as we proved last weekend when we snagged this in utter disbelief for $70! Everyone at the auction was congratulating us, including the auctioneers, because they couldn’t believe it either (I think I did a little happy dance in my seat once we realized Sean had the winning bid). All we know is that we were praying for a good table and here it is – after a lot of maneuvering with a friend’s van and a brief altercation with a bored cop…

It’s an antique of solid wood with hand carving and inlaid details, six chairs including the armed one at the head, and get this – four leaves! Now there is absolutely no reason why we can’t host Thanksgiving some year. One of the auctioneers explained exactly how I should refinish it and promised that it should only take me one day (big sigh of relief). I need to be on the lookout for the perfect fabric to re-cover those chair seats too.

Other plans for the dining room include:

• Getting the rest of the knicknacks off the floor
• Painting the walls gray
• Possibly changing or getting rid of the shades on the chandelier somehow (thoughts?)
• Putting up crown molding (although that’s our winter project for the whole house)
• Finding a buffet or something to store linens and candles
• Oh, and curtains

The Office

I’ve gotten several requests for photos and posts about the new house, but up until a few days ago there wasn’t anything more interesting than new tools and trashcans  and a dehumidifier. We’ve unpacked, but haven’t really arranged anything permanently anyway – unless you count the insides of the kitchen cupboards. But now, for the rest of this week, I will share a few photos and projects from around our casa. Just for you, because you asked.

This is our office with one coat of paint and edged in painter’s tape. Once it was deep red. This really bothered me and I couldn’t relax or concentrate. Red should be for Christmas or carnivals. That is all. So I decided upon navy blue instead. But I didn’t want it to look black at nighttime because that would also bother me. So we chose a slightly brighter color. And it was scary. No one told us that when the paint goes on the wall it looks a lot different than when it is completely dry. Also, we may or may not need to touch up some blue-splotched places on the white ceiling and door. Later, we will replace our special Walmart bookcases with shelves that cover the wall and circle around the room over our desks. Do you like how Sean organizes the top of his desk? He does.