A New Year!!!

2013 was definitely an eventful year. It marked our first year of marriage, we purchased our HOUSE, which still seems exciting after three-quarters of a year having it, and we welcomed our love Pippa, who has lit up our lives more than I thought she could!

 
late summer

late fall

I knew having a dog would happen for us, because we both love dogs and we have space for one here (although nowhere fenced in---on the to-do list for 2014!) but I did NOT think a puppy would be happening, nor did I think we'd be getting any animals the first summer of living here. But, one look at that face and of course I was sold. And as she continues to grow (I don't even have a guess of how heavy she is now, but she passed her mom's mere 40 lbs by August) and shed all over our pretty floors and rugs, I just love her more. And can't imagine not having her to explore with and take on long walks each weekend and day of vacation.

Vacation has been so great, and school starts tomorrow...I will miss waking up and taking walks with sweet Pippa each day. It's always beautiful and tiring, and it will be sad to go back to just weekends.

She loves it! The trails are away from the road, so she doesn't need her leash. Free to gallop through orchards and fields and the woods:

In other news, I finally had time (with almost two weeks of vacation!) to sew covers for the glider rocker that I acquired earlier this year from another teacher. It has thick, comfy cushions and a padded footrest that glides! WITH the glider! Your feet move with you. It is a beautiful thing, and ideal for grading papers/having a warm mug of tea after a long day. Maybe it's a teacher thing, but I knew instantly that I loved this chair, and that Jesse would not. BUT he didn't banish it upstairs, and we both agreed that it would be better if it was brighter and not so....dark blue.


SO I found major sale fabric in Keene, which was so fun. The fabric store could easily entertain me for an entire day, but I didn't even browse the 'nice' room that had beautiful fabrics that were really expensive. Instead, I looked only in the sale section, and found a few different fabrics I liked. A few of them were a little bright, but would make really pretty pillows or small curtains for the kitchen window above the sink. Future projects, maybe.

I found this, and somehow the muted mustard-green seemed ideal.

I love the flowers and the color would go in any of the rooms in the house that this chair may end up; a bedroom upstairs, our room, or a living room. I don't have a sewing machine (yet!) so I brought it over to my parents, and my mom showed me how to use one of hers that I believe was made two centuries ago...yes, in the 1800s. It was her grandmothers, and she used it when she was growing up. Needless to say, it's got new wiring :)


I'm grateful for my mother's guidance with the whole process, because I would not have bothered with at least five of the steps that she deemed necessary (such as marking your line, making sure the fabric seams are aligned, etc. etc.)

And after a morning of hard work and more precision than I anticipated, voila!


It's currently in our bedroom, and all I have left to do is attach fabric to the footrest with cute little pins I found (the pillow isn't removable from the wood).

Jesse has been away for most of the past two weeks, observing a new program that they'll take over next year, but he was able to sneak away for Christmas Eve and morning. And then the gifts kept coming, with this arriving in the mail two days ago!

When clearing out the barn, Jesse found a box of records, really cool ones (Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, jazz and 50s collections) that instantly made me want a record player so we could listen. I found some old holiday records when Christmas shopping, and bought them up (less than a dollar for both) and now we can listen! I remember listening to the Peter Pan musical, Harry Belafonte, and french records in my mom's home office when we were younger, and I've always loved the crackly sound of records. I brought the box of records in from the barn early on New Year's Eve morning, when it was a brisk 0˚ and they sound....a bit warbly. Hopefully it's because of the cold, and hopefully we'll be listening to music on that in no time! It already has a home on our shelves near the TV.

Last Saturday was the 4th annual Holiday Party hosted by Kelly and Jake, who are newly engaged!!! It is so exciting, and the party was so fun--all of us girls get together (which seems to happen less and less each year, life is just busy) but the party was extra special this year:

So excited, and I am honored to be part of this :) 

Missing Jesse, but seeing him for New Year's Eve was so special and I am so excited for another year with him. I went to see him in NY where he's been working with Thai Scholar students applying to college. He took a bunch of them skating, and while it wasn't on my list of things I was eager to do (I would have packed my skates), it was on a beautiful mountaintop and actually fun. Jesse was pulling kids around the rink, showing them how to stop (and stand...and move) and he was so patient and encouraging, I was reminded of how he was the first summer I worked with him when he taught us how to surf... He is really just the sweetest. He's worked so hard growing his business and I am so proud of him and proud I get to be his wife. As sappy as it sounds, seeing him in his rental (figure) skates, helping his students attempt to skate around the rink reminded me how great he is; at his job, at skating :), at working with kids from all over the place. 

Excited for 2014!

Decorating for Christmas!

We found these two stockings two years ago, and they never fail to get us in the festive mood when I pull them out of our ornament box (note the box, singular--we don't go crazy on the decorations, but since we have an outside now, maybe we'll step it up...)

Our tree topper! Love it so.

I made Jesse hold up every tree they had in the 'smells best' section of trees. We picked smell over needle strength, so I'm sure it will start shedding needles soon. I'm ok with shedding now :)

We found this boxwood wreath for sale a few weeks ago and it was too pretty to put outside:

Holiday cards are the best decorations for our mantle:

Seeing how close she can get:

After playing in the snow! 

A weekend in December

Lots of walking at Hooper (Pippa is loving the free reign of the greene):

 An attempt from our christmas card photo:

and another reason I am loving 5th grade...I get to read pieces such as this:

new additions

We are loving the door that my dad installed for us that was in our barn. Jesse painted it gray one day after I sent him a link on Pinterest, and I love the blue-ish tint. It goes with the poster print we found a couple weekends ago, and with our new rug. The many pillows that came with our couch are soft and comfy but it was a little much having them all, so I put these ones on:

And put the gray couch ones on our window seat:

It's much comfier to sit on the bench now, and I like the gray with the blues in our sun-dining room. I also hung our super-bright-but-we-love-it tree that we bought when Jesse first moved in a few years ago. Who knows if it will stay in this room but I like the brightness for now, especially as it gets grayer and colder outside...

And last but not least, I ordered flannel sheets for the winter! Jesse and I both grew up in old, cold houses and luckily we both like sleeping when it's cool. But unlike him, I never realized the magic and coziness of flannel sheets when I was younger; instead I would get my hot water bottle ready and jump into bed, waiting forever (it was probably a minute or two) for my freezing bed to warm up. Whenever I slept over at my cousin Caitlyn's house, it was always so cozy and warm, and I now know it was because of flannel sheets! So thanks to the L.L. Bean catalog that we've been getting each week it seems, we have new comfy sheets:

Pippa approves. She is also taking up more and more of the bed.... she used to fit on the bottom blanket.

Almost Thanksgiving!

It's crazy to think about this time last year;  I taught on Monday and Tuesday, and our offer was accepted on the house! Jesse was traveling with a group in Boston, and I remember waiting in such suspense to hear back about our offer, and then our counter offer... Our realtor warned me that because of the holiday, it might take awhile, and I was afraid we'd have to wait days to hear back--the day after Thanksgiving seemed like YEARS away, let alone the week after which I don't think I could handle. I was wondering how I'd sleep the next few nights, and she called to say our offer was accepted! I couldn't believe it, and can't believe it was a year ago that it all started.

It took many months, but worked out perfectly because we were able to spend most of the winter warm in our teeny apartment, and move in the spring, as we had ideally hoped to. We made our offer last November, earlier than we'd thought, because we realized how much we really wanted this house, and that it was actually a possibility for us after being just a dream for a long time.

It feels like each year, more and more things happen and change, and life is just moving right along. Thinking back to a year ago always surprises me at how much has happened, and I am thankful for a lot this year!

This love-bug:

mornings at home (all times of the day at home, but quiet early mornings when just Pips and I are awake are pretty nice; even if they're colder and darker each day!):

walks and finding new trails, away from roads so Pippa can roam free:

(and then nap)

Good old-fashioned mail, especially when it's from friends! Invitations to Kelly's annual partay and this magazine (thank you Cat!) came on the same day, and it was the best mailday!

(I still love seeing our names and address on mail, I don't know when that will get old but it still makes me so happy...as does our own real-life mailbox :)

And it means it's officially the holidays...! So I can display this tree-topper proudly, even though it's been on the mantle since I picked it up at the Santa's Land sale a few weeks ago...

It has been reassuring and so nice having family close by, as it always has been but especially as the weather gets colder, and a bit more...precarious (I won't say 'dangerous,' because it isn't even December yet...plenty of time for ice storms, blizzards, etc. etc.) They are so helpful and having them nearby make it seem less lonely when Jesse is traveling!

 

Since I met him 10 years ago, I have felt like I was lucky to know Jesse. It was too much for my 16 year-old self to even hope that I'd get to share my life with such a sweet, smart, handsome man someday:) So I feel thankful for him every single day...whether he is here, or away.

 And of course, I am thankful for this house, which keeps growing on me with each day and each new season, and with each new detail we make ours. Like rugs!  Jesse is in Hawaii, and so I had to get his input on rugs via picture messages:

And we were able to agree on one:

Even when the wind knocks trees across our road and we lose power, even when Jesse isn't here and I have to keep the wood stove going myself (this also requires getting it started, which took a bit of practice), I feel so thankful that this is where we get to call home.

November (or, keeping warm&a new couch!)

Somehow this blog is becoming a monthly-entry situation, which makes me sad sometimes. But then I realize that life is busy and busy is good sometimes, so until there is time again (think December vacay) it will have to do.

Fall came and went too quickly, as I knew it would but it has been so beautiful and fun! I wish the memories would carry me through the impending looooong cold winter months ahead, but I know that by...January? hopefully not sooner? I will have forgotten how great fall was and will just be willing spring to come.

Halloween was a sort of sad bust, with NO trick-or-treaters. Zero! After about 7pm I gave up waiting in the kitchen and retreated to the back fireplace room, so some may have possibly arrived late and I didn't hear them. Not even our charming jack-o-lantern enticed any!



Hopefully next year the cold rain will stay away, and the trick-or-treaters will come. In the meantime, we are enjoying the last few precious green sunny above 32˚ days.....

We discovered a great field a short walk from our house, which I was nervous to walk on (you have to walk directly past the 'private property: no trespassing' sign to get to the field) but I feel braver with Jesse (the local) with me. Who is confident that it's fine to walk there, since they clear XC ski trails through it all winter. We'll see this winter, and who knows, I may pull my childhood skis out of storage! (severe childhood...I used them from ages 5 to 10....)



Pippa enjoying being off her leash:

And in home-improvement news...we got a new couch! 

We ordered it a few weeks ago, and then sort of forgot about it until it came on Saturday. The room has been cold, but we were using so much wood in our fireplace room that we realized it wasn't the best place for us to watch TV or relax. So we found a door in our barn, and my dad 'installed' it for us last week so that the heat from the woodstove in the kitchen stays within this room. The door isn't painted (the other side is a cool olive color) so we're brainstorming whether to paint it white, which is what we're slowly doing to the cream trim in this room, or to pick a fun color. This way we can enjoy this room, and our new (and larger) TV that we got weeks ago.

Back to the couch: we ordered it in a light gray and we love the color!! And it's so comfy, so it passes our tests. Now we just need a good rug and low coffee table...

We are debating upgrading our stove in the kitchen to a bigger one that will give off more heat. This one is awfully pretty but a bit small. We'll see. In the meantime, it serves its purpose for making rainy weekends amazingly cozy:

And our Pip's first snow!!

(side note: she always cocks her head like this when you call her, or when you say anything really, and often from side to side. It appears that she always has a crooked neck but really it's just when you talk to her or say something :)  It's like she's attempting to decipher what in the world we're saying.) 

 I missed the first snow, I was at school surrounded by excited 5th graders (not as excited as 1st graders were last year, I think I was more into it this year than they were.) A great perk of Jesse working from home is that he is there to let Pippa play outside, and keep her from being cooped up in her crate all day. This week he's traveling, and he will be a lot in the next couple months, but knowing that she is able to be with him most days makes me much less guilty. The trials of a being a working mother! Ha. I was so sad when Jesse told me how excited Pippa was, running and leaping at the flakes. BUT I'm sure there will be PLENTY of other snows that I will be here for that she will enjoy. 

October

I have always known how pretty fall in Vermont can be, but I think this year has been my favorite fall. It's so beautiful! Being outside on the precious weekends and the last hours of weekdays is wonderful and I don't remember loving it this much, ever (having a house& a husband & a puppy to enjoy it with this year may have something to do with it  :)

We bought a new piece of furniture for the summer living room (we decided it's too cold in there for winter) that should arrive by early November, and are enjoying almost nightly fires in the fireplace room. Next order of business; get some pumpkins.