double thumbs up

On Tuesdays and Thursdays Callum stays late at school for play practice. I pick him up at 5:30, and by the time we get home he's ravenous. On these nights Neel comes home before us, and (if I leave detailed instructions) he finishes up dinner to have it ready and waiting. Last night (leftover taco soup and salad), we came home to this lovely surprise on the new, almost-done patio. Dinner al fresco! I couldn't ask for anything more.

For the evening's entertainment, we have...

three hounds. Looking out instead of in for a change. And so put-out and forlorn! They kept us laughing the whole meal. Get a load of all those spider webs, would you? Fall's a-coming, I tell you. Neel's patio rocks.

island living

Ya'll didn't know we lived in the tropics, did you? We don't, but somehow we're managing to grow (and go!) bananas! Neel and neighbor-Tyler planted several banana trees around each of our yards this spring, and a few weeks ago Tyler noticed that one of ours was flowering! To say we were stunned was an understatement. I mean, we're hot and muggy here, but not nearly tropical. Remember all that snow we got last winter?

But if you look closely, behind that gorgeous flower, there they are. Little tiny bananas!

None of Tyler's trees are bearing fruit and our feeling about this is that our own tree has been blasted by the compressor from the air conditioner all summer. Kinda like it's own little micro-climate. I have high hopes for these little guys, but even if they don't get any bigger or yellow enough to cut up into our cereal, I'm calling it. We grew bananas.

tart's boudoir

This was my great-grandmother's chair. We call it the "Tart's Boudoir." I think I told you that we tend to nickname things around here. Everything except me. Anyhoo. Doesn't that look like where this chair belongs? All carved wood and deep red velvet. Perfect for a tart's boudoir.

I don't actually have a lot of good to say about my great-grandmother. I don't think I ever met her, but the stories my dad could tell! Boy-Howdy.

What I do remember of this chair is of it in my grandparent's house. Not a tart's boudoir. Past the days of parlors (and whorehouses, I suspect), this chair never looked like it belonged. It just didn't look quite right with their green shag carpet, ya know?

 
Still, this chair appealed to me, and when my grandparents died, I knew I wanted it. We tried it in the living room, but it just wasn't a look I was going for. Still formulating that look apparently. It landed in the dining room for awhile, but it was damned uncomfortable at the table (too low), even though the red looked really lovely against the turquoise walls.

We have a bare corner in our bedroom where once sat a leather club chair that Neel took into his office, and suddenly this weekend it struck me that Tart's Boudoir would look really nice against the dark blue walls. I had but to suggest it to my husband, and he snuck it up when I wasn't looking. It works, it really works. There's a window on this side of the room, and even curtained it lets in the most delicious shaft of subtle light.

The Tart's Boudoir belongs. In my bedroom no less.

what we did

The nature of gifts change as our children grow, and we're not buying boxes of Legos for birthday gifts anymore...sniff. For some reason this birthday felt different (and fear not, I'm already worried about how we'll handle THIRTEEN), what with turning twelve and entering 6th grade and all. At Callum's school it's not middle school, but oh lordy it's close. Anyway. This year felt milestoney somehow and we wanted to honor what a big deal turing tween seemed to be.

We've been joking for years that when Callum became a teenager he'd move into our third floor attic, fondly referred to as the "soft stairs." Callum named it when we moved in because it's the only room in our house that has carpet. But let's face it folks, I don't think he'll ever sleep up there.

What he might do however, is play up there.

And I guess that's what I mean when I say that things have changed. He plays differently now. Friends running in and out, the Wii or X-box on. So maybe a growing up kind of boy needs a growing up kind of space for himself.

Trouble is, our attic has been looking like this.

  I apologize for the iPhone photo. And I have to admit that this picture was taken not at the beginning of the clearing out process, but part way through it. Pretty scary, huh? We've just been throwing stuff up into that cave for years. I swear I could feel the weight of all that crap just bearing down on me, you know?

So what did we do on our summer vacation?

We cleaned out the attic! We knew we couldn't manage this as a surprise, and we wanted Callum to be involved in every step of the way. As soon as he picked the paint color (Pier 14 by Valspar at Lowes), we started the big clear out. After that the big paint. As soon as the walls were covered, we kicked Callum out to do the rest and surprise him on his birthday.

We still have some work to do. Hook up the X-Box and a DVD player, touch up some paint. And isn't Callum's paint choice inspired? I never would have gone in that direction, but it totally makes the room. We had red velvet birthday cake and watched the Phillies on the donated flat screen (thanks, Tyler!). I'm so happy about this space for him. The Wii will stay downstairs, so hopefully we'll still see him sometimes, but in the meantime, this is good. Really good.

And in case you thought we'd had enough celebrating around here, today's my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom!

dominion

When we moved to the Little Gray House (eight years ago now), I bought all sorts of gardening books. It was our first time not living in an apartment or condo, and I thought gardening might be my thing. Turns out, not so much. I like being outside. I like plants and planning things for the yard, but I'm not passionate about it. I don't have the knack. Neel does. It's his place. It took him awhile to figure it out, but our yard and building our garden has become his passion. I was all too happy to hand over the reins. Turns out I'm the house person. We tend to do things pretty much in conjunction with each other (e.g. In Ikea last week I desperately wanted a gorgeous cream shag rug, but bowed to his better judgement and didn't get it. We do have three dogs and an almost 12 year old boy, you know.), and I don't think there's a thing in the house that he hates or a thing in the yard that I don't love. But still, the yard his his space and the house is mine. Where we each call the shots. Where we each have dominion.

That doesn't mean I don't get to come play along sometimes. Right now, Neel is in the process of building us a patio, based on an idea from this blog. In addition to the 2x2 squares (and lordy there are a lot of those to pour), he decided to also pour four 4x4 squares in the center of the patio. My dad helped pour the first, which was clearly the most arduous (sorry, dad!), and our neighbor Tyler showed up in time to pour the second (it went a lot faster...sorry dad!).

Yesterday, Callum managed to go golfing just in time to pour the third. That left me.

Each 4x4 requires about 12 or 13 bags of concrete, which Neel pours one at a time. That part comes after  excavating and placing and leveling the mold. I helped dig. I helped square the mold and level it too. Then I was in charge of watering the concrete and scraping it out of the wheel barrow into the mold. It didn't take long for us to get a rhythm going, and it was fun! Hard work, sure, but so satisfying too. The concrete part took us less than an hour, and all told, I think we worked on it about an hour and a half. Not a bad Labor Day's labor.

Three down with one more (big one) to go. It's exciting to see Neel's vision take shape, and it felt so good to be working on it together. I think we make a good team.