My Cherry Obsession

As cherry season nears, I think about my complete obsession over this beautiful and tasty fruit. Here are some pictures I took last June.

Cherry shake from the Purple Pit in Hood River, Oregon.

Old fashioned milk pail as a planter. Cute!

Cherry pickin'

Ranier cherries are my favorite! Gorgeous color and sweet taste.

But some years, only the red cherries will do! (So I planted both!)

Thanks, Purple Pit for your hospitality!

Road Trip! Summer 2014 Revisited

Every year for my husband's birthday, we plan a great road trip somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. One year, we drove down to California via the coast and nearly killed each other on the last leg of the trip. Ashland, we need a do over! Another time, we visited the rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula and spent some time in the San Juan Islands. Wow, what a beautiful part of the country! And last year, we decided to explore central Washington.

We spent out first night in Seattle, ok a suburb of Seattle (big mistake! splurge on the location!). Didn't get much sleep that night, due to the insane amount of teenagers inhabiting this hotel, but whatever~

Took a spin on an insanely huge ferris wheel and got in some great views of the city.

Heading out of town, the moon was calling my name. It hung so low and large, I begged J to pull over and let me take a picture. Look where we ended up.

Wow, if this is any indication of what Seattle is really like, outside of the tourist traps, sign me up.

The next morning, we headed up to Woodinville, a suburban farm oasis just outside of the city. There was a festival going on at the Lavendar farm. Beautiful day!

Before we headed out for our first night of camping/yurting, we stopped in Woodinville Whiskey Company for a few provisions for the trip. The building is absolutely gorgeous.

They even gave the kids a whiskey tasting. Kidding! They also bottle maple syrup. It's amaaaaaazing! Last time I was at Whole Foods, I noticed they started carrying it, thank goodness. Woodinville is a long drive from here!

Window-mania! I'm so OCD

When I put my mind to something, sometimes it goes into complete overdrive. The obsession of the moment is windows.

It started one day when I realized I had some serious rot issues on a small cabin on the property. I really wanted to replace the rotten ones, but not for $600 a pop. On a whim, I did a quick Craig's List search on my way to the Portland Rebuilding Center. There was an ad for 17 casement windows pulled from a Reed College dorm. I texted the seller just after I pulled in and did a quick round through the salvage warehouse. Without any luck there, I checked my phone and already had a response. I was running around quite a bit that morning and was already late getting to the farmhouse, but the seller was just around the corner and a split decision later, I was in front of her house.

Not having been in the market before, I wasn't sure what I was looking for or what I really needed, except I needed windows. Down in the basement of this house were 18 gorgeous, solid, heavy, casement windows of various sizes and a box of hardware. She had bought them about 7 years before was asking 60-70/window. I offered her $500 for the lot, and seriously questioned my sanity as I was doing it. But what the heck, right? $25/window, she would probably say no, and I would be off the hook.

15 minutes later, and a trunk full of windows, I was headed to Hood River.

The problem is, that's not where I stopped. I kept returning to the Rebuilding Center with a renewed enthusiasm for old windows. I bought about 5 leaded casement windows on an especially crazy morning (solid, massively heavy and in frames). I had to rent a Uhaul for these, and during a struggle to move one of them, my husband stepped right through an especially large set of 3. Oops!

And another set of 3 with broken panes, but I could fix the panes. It was a deal!

I didn't really know what I was going to do with these, but what I did know was the windows in place were so rotten and inoperable, that anything would be an upgrade. We opted for new wood windows for the first floor, exactly the same configuration as the old windows, and went crazy fun upstairs in the "attic."

All of the original windows had been covered and were completely broken or missing sashes. I took this one in to be matched up:

Want to see what we did with them?