Pumpkin Festival!

This morning, Oliver and I met my friend Erin and her son Luke (the tiger) at their house in Franklin and then drove over to the Pumpkin Festival. I'd seen an ad for the event in the Nashville Parent magazine, and since Erin and I still hadn't managed a moms'-and-boys' play date (owing to Oliver's several bouts of illness), she eagerly agreed to go with us. Her husband is out of town this weekend, and mine is working two overnight shifts (the FIFTH year Wes has worked the overnight on the wrong end of daylight's savings -- poor guy).

The festival was a lot bigger -- and busier -- than I'd expected. Franklin has an adorable historic downtown with little shops, boutiques, and restaurants, but today it was bustling with kids in cute costumes and parents trying to keep tabs on them in the throngs. There was a chili cook-off, a row of pumpkin- and woodcarvers with beautiful wares, a huge kids zone with bounce houses, games, and pony rides. Oliver and I were only there about 90 minutes, but it was fun and nice to get out in the cool but pleasant weather. We left when Oliver got fussy for lunch. We also got to meet one of Erin's friends, Lindsey, and her son Josh, who is just a little older than Oliver.

I've been very grateful to Erin for including me regularly in her social circle. Erin taught at the Webb School in Bell Buckle, just south of Nashville, with Jessie Brown, my college roommate. Jessie was kind enough to introduce us to each other when I got to Nashville. Erin earned her doctorate at Vanderbilt and still works there and is a really wonderful woman. She invited me to her book club, various events of hers and her friend's, and has made time to chat with me on campus or over email. I've also gotten to meet a lot of other women who work at Peabody through her.

Wes and I are not really Halloween people. Neither of us grew up in houses where it was "celebrated," and it's not a big deal to us. I don't know what we'll do when Oliver is big enough to want to participate in Halloween celebrations. For now, we enjoy the fall focus of the holiday. It's truly gorgeous right now with the changing leaves and cool temperatures.

House Tour, Day 5

This is the end of the house tour. There are two important rooms not featured here. The boy's (or one day, hopefully, boys') room -- where Ollie will go when he gets outsted from his crib --, which is still just empty furniture and boxes of photos, and the studio over the garage, which I should probably photograph since it'll be eons before we spend the money to do anything of substance up here.

Pictured here is the office nook, where I am presently sitting, in the dark, hoping no trick-or-treaters rings the doorbell (equals barking dog, does not equal sleeping baby). I often work downstairs on the couch with my laptop, but when I want a desk space, this is what I usually use. If we were to stay here truly long term, we would have this area built in with a desk, drawers, and a work station for the printer and so forth. It's not bad as it is, though. It's nice to have the wire insanity upstairs instead of down in the main living space where Oliver can play with the cords. It's also nice that the printer isn't permanently attached to the computer, since I often plug in my laptop to print straight from it.

Tea for two

Two recommendations for great white tea: 1) Bigelow White Tea with Tangerine, and 2) Tazo Berryblossom White (with hints of blueberry and white cranberry). I drink both with a little bit of honey. White tea has the smallest amount of caffeine of any tea and lots of other health benefits (antioxidants, etc.). As someone who has never enjoyed green tea, I'm happy to have found something else that's not a black tea and tastes so good!

House Tour, Day 4.5

This is at the top of the stairwell, just next to the upstairs bath. We managed to find a baby gate that blends with the rail upstairs. Oliver loves crawling around this part of the upstairs, especially the part that hangs out over the stairs. The floors upstairs are original heart-of-pine floors, and I really like them. They're rugged and more generous with moving furniture around since they're already scratched and marked.

House Tour, Day 4

The upstairs bathroom. Oliver had a bath there just tonight -- a bubble bath, in fact. He loves this tub, and I think the whole room is just adorable!

House Tour, Day 3.5

And is this Ollie's room. We painted it and tried curtains and then took them down. We've put up a few things on the wall, finally. The changing table will reattach to the crib when Ollie moves out and a new little person comes along, but for now it works well where it is. We might put a stuffed rocker/glider in, but I actually like my wood one. I'd like to replace the bench with a cute little bookcase for the board books, and we definitely want to put a rug down in this room. We don't even have to wait for the dog to die since she doesn't get upstairs much (we recently put permanent gates at the top and bottom of the stairs).

House Tour, Day 3

We have a ground-floor master in this house. It wasn't something we were looking for, and it's not ideal with little babies and having to run upstairs in the middle of the night, but it is a decent space. Wes and I have a king bed that just fits with a night table on the far wall. We got a dresser and nightstand from his parents that are a bit traditional for our tastes. Wes's mom, who is a whiz at refinishing furniture, tried her hand at the night table, but the stain was uncooperative. We're either going to live with them as they are for a while or possibly paint them and change the pulls to win a few years before possibly getting something new. Our plan right now is to have our master closet done to optimize space there and then get one big armoire for the bedroom for additional storage. Wes wants some kind of hope chest at the bottom of the bed, too, which we could use for out-of-season clothes or sweaters or extra linens. We also have a pretty painted table that has nowhere else to be and goes nicely in our bedroom. Unfortunately, it looks a bit out of place and serves no real function.

The paint in the bedroom needs retouched, but I'm perfectly happy with the color. The bathroom is nice, but it's no laid out well. There's virtually no storage and very limited space for two people to be at the sink at the same time. The tub is nice, though not used often, and we're fighting mold pretty hard in the shower stall.

And no, I'm not worried about my vacuum being alone at night. There's just nowhere else to put it!

Finding my way

I had a special moment in the car this afternoon coming home from my internship site. I had driven to the elementary school on the interstate, which was already becoming congested in the southbound lanes when I was driving north. Rain has a pretty noticeable impact on traffic here in Nashville; I shudder to think what happens if it snows or sleets. So when I headed home, I wanted to avoid the major thoroughfares. I knew where I was and the general direction of where I was trying to go. So I followed my instinct and the map in my head and made my way to Oliver's daycare probably faster than if I'd taken the interstate with even little traffic. I knew where the city should be at each point to be heading in the right direction, how the numbered roads worked and what the cross-streets are. I had this moment when I realized quite suddenly how close I was to my destination when I thought, "Hey, I know my way around."

House Tour, Day 2

The kitchen and half bath. The only thing we did in here was tone down the bright green paint they had on the walls. It doesn't photograph well, but the paint color is called "organic field." I bought four different paint samples and put them all on the wall and then ended up choosing something completely different. My big mistake was getting flat instead of semi-gloss, and now we have lots of sponge marks on the wall in the eat-in area. The high point of the kitchen that we added -- or was given to us -- is the table and bench made by Wes's late grandfather.

House Tour, Day 1

Inside the front door of house, to the left, is the living room. We hope, eventually, to make it into a library space. We're planning on putting built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace with a gap for the windows. We haven't figured out the final plans for this, as the fireplace make supporting the shelves more challenging, but it's probably the next major project on our list. We got the desk from Wes's parents (who have been extremely generous in giving us furniture to use in the house). It's a beautiful piece, and I really like it. Unfortunately, it's too small for Wes -- something he forgot when we decided to get it from his parents. So we'll probably eventually replace that with something that fits him and is a little more contemporary, which seems to be more my style (though I like the odd, special classic or antique piece). The couch in the living room is more than four years old, and it's showing its use. I tried to steam clean it with some upholstery cleaner, and that helped some, but being the main piece of furniture (plus dog, plus baby) and being such light fabric is working against us. We did paint this room to match the hallways and upstairs. It was previously the color of the bedroom, which was a little too mottled for my taste next to the fireplace. The rocking chair and cute side table came from Wes's parents also. We tried out some variations of coffee tables in this room, but they all felt too crowded or out of place, so we're going with the more barren look for now. Hopefully we'll also add a rug when, well, the dog dies or something.

Inside the front door to the right is the sitting room or "parlor," as Wes prefers to call it. We have totally changed this room and, notably, spent the most room in here (not including the garage, which is "furnished" with two cars purchased in the last 6 months). We painted the room a color that I love. It's purpler during the sunny hours and more blue or periwinkle in darker hours. The chair was ours. The side tables are from Wes's parents. The bench has a storage area in it, which is being used for games, toys, and blankets. The couch we purchased, and I love my chaise lounge. I practically live there doing schoolwork. The couch, though still light, is a machine-washable slipcover, so we were a little less nervous about it. The large cabinet is actually a built-in television cabinet. The top opens on a hinge, and our 52" monstrosity is mounted on an articulating arm so it can pull all the way out if we want to angle it heavily for a group of people. There are two shelves that house or boxes and remotes. There's also two shelves on bottom for more storage, but they're empty. We still want to put a cushion and some pillows on the bench, get a good throw for throw (a Momma N. afghan, maybe?) for the couch, and put a rug down.

So those are the front rooms. Visit again tomorrow!

Welcome to my living room

Or my front porch in this case. As my sister duly noted in our phone conversation this evening, I've been "made in the shade" for over a month. More accurately, I've been very, very busy as a full-time student, part-time employee, full-time mom and wife. And while I've done my utmost to keep up the other blog for those family members who don't get to see Oliver very often, I've done a poor job maintaining this one. I guess they could merge, but there's something important to me about keeping those separate identities alive, and my separate blogs are a kind of manifestation of that.

So for this week, I'll show you what I've been up for the last several months -- a lot of it just this weekend -- and share pictures of the house since we've moved in. There's a lot we still need and want to do, but time and money are limited entities.

The front of the house hasn't changed much since we moved in. I spent Friday morning mowing, weeding, and pruning, then bought two mums and potted them for the front porch. The elm tree is fantastic, but according our neighbor -- a true "tree guy" -- the gray on the trunk is fungus, and it will eventually have to come down. I wouldn't mind putting flowers around, but I'm not really sure where they would go and am hard pressed right now to find time to think about it all, let alone plant them. Our goal, as Wes named it, is maintaining. With all the rain we've had, we've been lucky just to keep the lawn at a reasonable length. Next spring we're going to try a vegetable garden out back in a plot previously used for that purpose.

So for those patient souls who have checked frequently (or infrequently) to see if there's something new posted, know that I'm trying to put things up more often to make the visit worthwhile. I love seeing new posts on friends' blogs (HP has returned after a stint away, and Kim is back after giving birth to her daughter last Monday), so I ought to return the favor (of sorts) :)