The Resort: A History

Ever wonder how I came up with the name for my blog? Well, wonder no more.  

We bought this house where we live now over twelve years ago.  We, with the help of our kids, had decided the house we had then was no longer suited to us.  It was a split entry, with numerous steps to be climbed each day. Dan has bad knees, my parents were getting older and had bad knees, and the steps didn't seem to be such a good idea anymore.  Other problems were:  no shop for Dan (he used the garage and moved out the vehicles when he wanted to work) and not enough room for returning children, spouses, and grandchildren.  We began to look at houses.  

Now, you need to know that we started married life in an 8'x35' trailer.  Dan had purchased it when he got out of the Navy and started grad school.  When we got engaged, he asked if I could see us both living in such a small space and I assured him it would be no problem. We lived there for a year and a half and it worked perfectly until we were expecting Matt.  We rented for a while, and then moved to another town and bought our first real house.  It was tiny, under 900 square feet on the main floor, but it had a basement, a carport, and room to park our pickup off the street.  It was warm and cozy and housed us and our (by then) two tiny children. 

Several years later we sold that house and bought a slightly larger house, still small, around 1000 square feet on the main, with a full basement.  It did have three bedrooms on the main floor, which was what we were after since we had a son and a daughter.  Fancy it was not; it had one bathroom all the time we lived there, although just before (as in weeks!) we moved we put one in the basement.

Thirteen years into our marriage we moved back to our college town and bought the split entry house (which had four bedrooms and three, count 'em, three toilets!) where we lived through our kids late grade school, junior and senior high, and college years.  Then they got married, and a house that was fine for four had trouble housing all the people who were now showing up for visits and holidays.  And then there were those other problems.  

Growing up, neither Dan nor I lived in large houses; no basements, one bathroom, but that was pretty standard for the day.  So here we were, at a middle-aged stage of life, our home paid for, both of us with good jobs, looking for a "last" home (before The Home, as in Old Folks).  It was amazing what we were qualified to buy! We did have our "wants", however, which narrowed things down a bit:  shop for Dan, a sewing room for me, and bedrooms and bathrooms for guests.  We found a real estate agent who heard our desires, and one Friday, in the mail, I found a flyer for a house that had distinct possibilities.  When Dan got home from work, we searched it out on our way to our usual Friday night dinner date.  We went straight back home and called the agent for a showing the next day and then we went to dinner.

The showing confirmed what we already suspected; this was our house!!  Not a huge house, just a perfect house; it was as if it had been built for us and it just took us a while to find it.  Shop?  A good-sized one under the garage.  Five bedrooms, making it easy for me to have a sewing room.  Three bathrooms, including a master bath that had a shower, a first for us as our other house just had a half off the master.  A pantry!!  A gas fireplace in the living room for me and a wood insert in the basement fireplace for Dan.  It was brick; Dan would never have to paint the outside of a house again! And it all sat on one acre of land just outside of town.    It even had a glassed-in sun room and a hot tub.  A veritable resort!!      

And now you know.   My blog is named after our house.    

Did It!

First, a short story.  Friday night, about one-thirty, Dan was awakened by something.  Then, as he says, he saw a bright light and then heard a boom!  Turns out a car hit a power pole on the highway just east of us, and the bright light and boom were the end of power for us.  We got up to a cold house and were thankful for a gas fireplace in the living room and the wood insert in the basement. Brrrr!   We have our own well, so no power means a limited, as in very small, amount of reserve water.  No flushing!  We got ourselves together and drove downtown, hoping they had power, and discovering they did, rewarded ourselves with a yummy breakfast at the Breakfast Club.  

We got back home about ten and found that the power had just come back on.  Yea!!  Unfortunately, we had no cable (apparently another victim of the accident), and since our only choice for high-speed internet is the cable, no internet.  Until after noon today.  It was actually kind of nice.  

So, onto what I did.  I made the runner for the coffee table to match my "Valentine" quilt!  I found the bag of scraps from the pink, brown, and red quilt, went all through them looking to see which colors had enough to use, and came up with this:

I was stymied for a while because I didn't have enough of the border fabric (or any of the other fabrics) to do the binding, but then I remembered I had purchased the rest of the bolt of one of the red fabrics in the same line (Buggy Barn's In the Pink 2), and so I had a solution.  

Here's how it looks with the quilt:

See the little wood bowl on the coffee table?  A gift from Kathy, my oldest friend (as in time of friendship, not age!), for Dan's and my fifth anniversary.  It's made of myrtlewood and has made it through thirty-five years of children and grandchildren with hardly a scratch. Something about its size is irresistible to small ones and it's seen a lot of action, right up until now.  

And for any quilting readers, may I recommend these little clips made by Clover:

In addition to being cuter than cute, they are perfect for holding the binding edge in place while hand stitching it down.  I love them!  They come in packs of ten and can be found at your local quilt shop.  

Decorating

I got the last of the Christmas decorations down last week.  It always seems strangely empty when I'm done, so this year I decided I'd get into Valentine's Day.  I've never really decorated for it beyond a bowl of M&M's or setting out cards, so I'm basically starting from scratch. Add to that an aversion to shopping, and you can see that I didn't have much to work with.  But I love a challenge!!  

I did have two table runners I'd made, so I started with them.  One I made last year after Valentine's Day and another I made several years ago.  The older one is just done in reds and creams, the closest to Valentine's fabrics I could find in my stash (and that was when I discovered that most of my reds were Christmas fabrics!).  Now my challenge was to figure out what to put on the runners.  It took me a while, but I came up with two ideas I kinda like.

Here's the dining room table top:

The candle holders and the candy dish are reproduction pink depression glass.  I got the candle holders well over twenty years ago at a Women's Ministries Council gift exchange at church and I've loved them.  The candy dish is from the same company (whose name I can't remember) and I purchased it a year or so later.  It's been gathering dust on top of a bookcase for years as an object d' art, and is finally being used for its true purpose.  Of course, the final pieces are the M&M's, a mix of plain and peanut.  

In the kitchen I finally came up with this idea after prowling the internet and looking (mostly in vain) for ideas:

It's simple:  a luncheon plate, a bowl, a candle, and some conversation hearts.  I love our crazy grocery store. I call it crazy because it's always so packed with other shoppers, but it does have what you want.  In the bulk foods section, I bought a couple scoops of red beans to put in the bottom around the candle, and a couple scoops of those hearts!  Sprinkle, sprinkle, and I was done!

I have a quilt I did several years ago that I'd like to put out in the living room since it's done in pinks, reds and browns, but at the moment it doesn't go with other things too well.  I'm thinking I'll see if I have some fabric left and make a small runner for the coffee table, and maybe a pillow.  If I have fabric.  Stay tuned!

Weather report:  Still lots of snow!  It didn't rain, for which we're thankful.  Blue sky and absolutely gorgeous out as I type.  

Snow!

Yes, the storm that we were supposed to get this week actually came.  It's beautiful, but I'm not sure how Dan is feeling about it as he's out plowing once again and also contemplating shoveling the roof.  There's been no school for the last two days, and even the universities shut down, which never happens.  We were without power last night for about five and a half hours, just in time for me to have to throw out a loaf of partially baked bread in the bread machine.  

Here's a little look-see from our house:

Looking east:

The snow has stopped and the sun is trying to come out. Rain is forecast, but I'm hoping not as that would be a fearful mess.  For now, I'm enjoying the beauty.

Impromptu Fun

While I was talking on the phone with Ann yesterday, she happened to say that one of her little men had been mentioning that he'd like to come stay overnight at Grammy's and have aebelskivers for breakfast.  Since today is a holiday, Papa Dan and I decided to issue an invitation for last night.  Both big boys decided to come, and so we had a sleepover.  They came bearing bags with pajamas, books, reading headlamps, and MP3 players.  

Years ago we found a good deal on an electric race car track and they hauled it out last night.  It's a little worse for wear after years of putting it together and taking it apart, but they got it going.  After staying up until 9:30, they headed for bed and their piles of books.  By the time we went to bed a little later, they were sound asleep.

They heeded their mom's advice and slept in, but we were all finally up by 8:15.  I headed to the kitchen to make a double batch of aebelskivers, and they played games on the computer and my iPod and decided to create the ultimate race track in between.  Get a load of this!

The aebelskivers seemed to be a hit.  I'm not certain how many I made, but it was close to fifty, and we had four left.  

What a fun time this Grammy and Papa had with the boys!  We'll leave you with one last picture of the track:

  

Forty Years

In 1972, the first spring we were married, a new song came out on the radio, The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA, and I loved it.  It was my theme song and I felt like it had been written just for me.  I hadn't thought about that song in years, and I heard it on the car radio this week.  It took me back.  (Yes, I came home and downloaded it from iTunes.) 

On Monday, Dan and I were married forty years.  How can that possibly be??  Truly, it seems like just a few years, maybe ten, or fifteen.  But it's been forty years since January 9, 1972.  I've been so blessed to get to spend these years with with my sweetie.  Here's just one reason why. On Christmas day, I picked up a smallish box, a gift from Dan, that was heavy.  When I opened it, here is what I found:

Yes, it's a good sized river rock, so it is "written in stone."  I love it!

Aebelskivers

Or ebelskivers.  They're spelled both ways.  

I mentioned in my Christmas post that I received an aebelskiver pan and recipe book from Ann and Eric for Christmas.  I first ate aebelskivers during a trip to visit our son and family years ago.  Amy made some for us one morning for breakfast and I was fascinated by them. Little round balls, kind of a cross between muffins and pancakes, they were eaten with jam and a dusting of powdered sugar, and they were quite tasty.  

I've seen the pans in several kitchen catalogs and toyed with getting one, but didn't.  Then this Christmas came and a list was requested.  Ponder, ponder.  I must confess that at this stage of our lives, there's not much we don't have, so I pondered some more.  Several things came to mind, and then the aebelskiver pan popped in, so I added it.  And then forgot I did, so when I opened the package with the pan, I was completely surprised! And then I opened the recipe book--recipe after recipe. Too fun!

Several days after Christmas, I decided I needed to jump right into this new method of cooking before it became a "buffalo", and totally forgot to take pictures.  I assure you, however, they were delicious.

This morning, I decided to make them again, try filling some, and take pictures.  For those unfamiliar with an aebelskiver pan, here's a shot, along with the cookbook I received:

Here's the first batch:

And flipped over:

And ready to serve:

I filled the first ones with grape jelly and learned that wasn't such a good idea--the jelly turned too liquid and ran out when I took them out of the pan.  I used strawberry jam in the next batch and that worked well.  I also did some plain ones.  I liked the ones with the strawberry jam best; they had just enough filling for me. Dan likes them plain so he can add as much jam as he likes, and he likes more than I do.  

Aebelskivers are a Danish creation and quite famous there.  I can claim no Danish blood, but I am a quarter Norwegian, so that's close enough. While these are definitely not an every day breakfast item, for a leisurely morning treat, they are wonderful.  Thanks, Ann, Eric and boys!