AROUND HERE

Well hiiiiiiiii.

And now for an assortment of completely off-topic topics for your pleasure. It's probably going to be hideously long because it's been five millennia since I've been up in this joint. 

Ahem!

Item one. Clomid boobs. Are not to be trusted. 

Item two. So I have these chickens?

Look at them colluding on something all cute like. I'm onto you, ladies! 

So we've taken to calling them The Ladies and The Babies. Well, *I've* taken to calling them The Ladies + Babies. Those're my girls. Gosh I love those turkeys. I look forward to letting them out in the morning and surmising their evening activities (today I walked in on five individual circles in the straw, each the perfect size of a chicken butt, like mysterious crop circles--were they trying to send me a message?; the other morning I came in to find all eight of them battling for space on the coop window ledge, poor Cuddles front + center getting smooshed all to heck, her little face pressed against the chicken wire, all of them packed in there tight with one Cuddles eyeball sending me an acute expression of alarm mingled a knowing understanding that that spot in the front means she's boss, and that's worth something, so she'll take it like a champ), and I look forward to ushering them up the hill and tucking them into bed at night. 

Somebody always has an attitude about something. 

I find it delightful!

Huck only likes The Babies because he has decided he is their mom, but me and Cuddles, man. 

Tiny Cuddles. She's kind of like my assistant manager. 

She'd be the one to stage a mutiny, I'd bet.

Speaking of the Huckleberry Hero (his chosen alter ego), well, these days we are into buttered noodles. It's buttered noodles all day errday. I like mine with salt and pepper, sometimes thawed peas from the freezer, but really it's just about the butter and the noodles, if you're a Huck. He's a noodle purist. All day. Every. Day.

I used up the last of the carrots from the farmer's market in a SPECTACULAR failure of a supper. 

No, I can call it that now because I live in the sticks. Don't even argue with it.

But the good news is, my Getting Off the Brooklyn Eat-Out Wagon has been successful! (We eat a lot of cereal.)

I've been crocheting dish rags for Christmas presents. It's soothing as all get out. 

(Sorry for spoiling the surprise, sissies!)

(The water filter is a Soma and I love it.)

Dressing in blankets nearly 100% of the time. (Hat is from Aporta!)

Crunching in leaves that are still hanging on. Though they're starting to get smooshy. 

Points to Idaho for having this policy of nobody raking their leaves, ever. 

By February it's going to be sliiiiiiiiime. 

Nobody asked me for a picture of a cute red house but here I am, just the same!

In my next life I want to be a red house. 

Get it, Huck!

Okay this is old school out the yin yang and happened a million years ago, but. The other . . . month? . . . Huck met a snow owl.

Is that a snow owl? I don't even remember. BUT LOOK AT HIM, will you? He is perfection. 

As is this dude. The other month I met a pony! 

And then we fell in love. 

A photo from a sunny day in September . . .

And this! From last week.

Good grief. So we are attempting the Danish art of hygge.

GET US DRESSED / BRING IT ON, WINTER

on huck: wellies, jeans zara (similar), luvmother sweater, plaid coat old navy (similar)

on me: boots, socks, jeans, tee, cardigan, coat, bag

Not to alarm you or whatever but we haven't seen the upside of 40 degrees since the beginning of last week and I'm not expecting to see it again until half past the second coming, so. 

Pull out your woolens, kids, and hold onto your butts. This is it. 

This is also the first winter in Huck's life wherein a car is involved. Hooray! It has a heater! We're moving up in the world! It also has a stereo, too, but that up and stopped working just this morning, just in time for me to miss out on the all-Christmas radio station that started up finally, so I'm like--you know?? 

You know what else, I don't think having a car in the winter is all that and a bag of chips. Dressing for that dash from the front door to the car door and then surviving those excruciatingly arctic first five minutes before the heater starts pumping and then you're suddenly wearing too many layers is its own kind of torture. It's hard! I have to say, I almost prefer the forty-five layers of coats and walking quickly until your blood heats up method of winter survival. (Guys I miss having to walk.) (As do my skinny jeans.) (#idahospread)

So Huck + I are here today with Luvmother to remind you that wool is your best friend in these scenarios, because it maintains a temperature. It doesn't just heat up till kingdom come. This is especially good with kids, who have the worst temperature gauge of all of god's animals and would happily walk outside in a snowstorm in just their skivvies or else insist on wearing their coats fully buttoned after they've been home a few hours and you're watching their cheeks get redder and redder and you're like, KID. LET ME TAKE THAT OFF FOR YOU. Huck's been living in this gray sweater but we've also really loved this gray hoodie, this gorgeous sweater (elbow patches!), and these cozy sweats for nighttime.

Anyway, Huck has been wearing his Luvmother wool tees and sweaters near daily since the temperatures dipped. They're soft, they're lightweight, they wash + dry in the machine like a champ--they're really beautiful to look at, too. Like, I wish they made these in my size. 

I also like the idea of those old thermal union suits with the bum flaps that you wear while smoking a corn cob pipe and brewing moonshine in your bathtub? 

Idaho dreams.

The end. 

TRANSITIONAL DECOR FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Something fun today from me + Martha Stewart! 

I love to play the "too early!" game whenever I spot Christmas decorations up in stores too soon after Halloween. Hello, Thanksgiving is to be appreciated. However! I also like to cozy my home up for the holidays as soon as humanly possible, especially once Daylight Savings Time ends and my home becomes a cave that could really use some extra cheer inside. It's a conundrum. And I do mean that sincerely, because look! You either take this kind of stuff seriously or you don't, and those that do, well, you know what I mean here.

So Martha + I (well, the Martha Stewart Living section at The Home Depot and I . . .) are teaming up today to show you a few early holiday decor ideas that are fully Christmas tested and Thanksgiving approved! It's exciting, I know! :)

My trick is wreaths. It is never too early for wreaths. 

I love a wreath sans door, just for the heck of it. 

In the kitchen, I love a more petite wreath, something a little less grand and a little more natural, plus cranberries.

(Bonus Diet Coke in the shot, whoops! :)

I don't have a mantel but I love this garland with it's soft blue-green pine. Don't you think Barry deserves a garland? The oversized lit kissing ball is also sweet. We'll pretend it's mistletoe ;). 

A little sparkle on the way to the commode . . . nothing wrong with that ;)

I'll admit to moving the garland around a bit to find just the right spot. Because that's FUN.

There's no bad place for a garland. 

Mission accomplished! Not too Christmassy, definitely full of cheer. 

A MOSCOW UPDATE + ADVENTURES IN HOMEMAKING

Well, geez! It's a blog post!

The time for putting up drapes and cursing over floating shelf installations has finally come to an end. We're in. We're settled. Now's it's the time for remembering to vacuum the drapes and getting nit picky about what all gets to stay on those shelves. Debating the wonders of portable dishwashers (but how does the water drain out?) has long since been interesting (so we've been using it as kitchen storage, hah), and killing errant spiders on a case by case basis, playing judge jury and executioner, has also, thankfully, slowed down.

Professor The Holbs has been flourishing at his position at WSU. Huck has learned to count to 100 by tens and singles and can point out a hard C whenever he meets one. Earl the Squirrel has put on two pounds since last week at least, and I'm about to can the bajeebus out of a twenty pound box of granny smith apples.

We are all doing our best to survive the Clomid. (It's a group effort.)

Our chickens! Oh those stupid chickens. I love our stupid chickens. Some afternoons, before the big 'usher-the-girls-up-the-hill' bedtime routine (they follow me now! well . . . most of them . . .),  I'll stop to watch miss TootsieFootsie in her daily weirdo bath time activities. First she'll fluff up her feathers till she's twice her usual size, then she'll wiggle her butt down into her favorite hole in our yard, then she'll vibrate all over in the dirt, scratching and wiggling and twisting in place while Linda looks on with a confused look on her face. All the ladies love their dirt baths but Toots likes to take her sweet time. She'll bathe and fluff until she is completely and fully comfortable and content, and filthy, and then sit there. And then sometimes Linda sits on her face.



That is how I feel out here, too, Tootsie.

I fluff out, I get all my feathers just so, I hole up in my house and I positively vibrate. Dust flings everywhere, dishes fly from one cupboard to the next, momentary pauses to push down the French press or bark orders at the kid . . . chairs moving all around the kitchen because I still haven't found my happy place with this tiny dining table . . . Me and dear Toots The Other One, we are happiest when we are fluffing. 

(I should probably invite her in one of these days. I get the feeling she'd know exactly where I should store my cookie sheets so they'd stop clanging + falling around when all I wanted was the loaf pan.)

Earlier in October the weather promised a few stray showers, so when one blew in we opened all the doors and let the smell of dust kicking up from the concrete mix into the house and breeze through the drapes. It was everything. Outside all was quiet but for the sound of the wind whooshing through the trees, a car engine starting up down the street, a chicken's satisfied clucking at the farmhouse next door, and a dog's bark mingling with a goat somewhere to the southwest of here or there . . . and Huck occasionally shouting at the cartoon he was watching upstairs.

But today, we have snow. 

Winter is already knocking at the door. As are my chickens.

Just now I found my girls, huddled together in a clump of feathers at the back door, pecking away at the glass until they had my attention. Obviously I was delighted to see them, and what do you need, ladies? And I swear to you Linda looked at me and chicken-messaged me, Um, can we come in?

So this might turn into a blog about my chickens from here on out?



I'm trying to enjoy the last of the breezes while they aren't too harsh, and to notice the earth while she's still the color of fire, not steel.

I'm also making pear butter.




(The zest + juice of one orange plus two teaspoons of cinnamon + one teaspoon of nutmeg per every four pounds of pears; cook, smoosh, simmer to thickness, preserve.)

I've also been practicing my Meg Ryan . . .



"She could curl an apple in one long, curly strip."

And enjoying the end results.



(Friends swear by ginger as the secret ingredient.)

Our creaky pre-1900 farmhouse with the janky 1950s updates has got gaps in all the door jambs and really lousy double-paned windows, plus a super efficient but highly terrifying gas heater that I'm certain is going to blow us up this winter. So I guess we're pretty set.

I'm also going to get hella good at making borscht!!!! I feel like borscht doesn't get enough credit in this world. 

The view out the kitchen window where I "work" (aka try to answer emails but get distracted). :)

And the view from my basement.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HENRY HOLBROOK

Can you get over this, my baby is five. 

And he is delightful. And funny, and kind, and mischievous, and not just a little bit of a stinker. He's the most fun I've ever had. He requested an orange pumpkin shaped donut (to go along with the giant gold candle I bought in Paris that we're now using as the Official Holbrook Candle, haha), a party with his friends and cotton candy, and that we celebrate his special day at the arcade where he could run wild. 

Dude guess what, Dance Dance Revolution is still kind of hard.  

Oh, Huck, the world puts on its best for you. This is what it looked like on the day he turned five.

And this is what his party looked like on the day after he turned five.

It was chaos in the best possible way. 

I can't get over this picture. I also hope you appreciate the accidental color scheme of the Twizzlers, hot dogs, ketchup, tablecloth, and marshmallows for s'mores. We went SUPER sophisticated with this one. ;)

We're lucky to have a lot of fun friends all of our ages. Good work, Idaho. 

And then the Huck in his mercy declared, LET THERE BE COTTON CANDY.

And so there was.

And he saw that it was good.

Happy Birthday, baby.

And thus we conclude Holbrook Birthday Season 2015 and declare it COMPLETE.