Had I the Heaven's Embroidered Cloths...: Remember, Remember

The 5th of November... I actually know very little about Guy Fawkes day, but the rhyme is cool. :P Now that we're in November and past Halloween/Reformation day.

So one evening Emmy got out of the shower- "it wasn't very warm tonight." Ooookay... And then Cecily got in the shower and there was random whimpering and squealing.... yup, no hot water. (I shouldn't have laughed, but, how can you not? 😄) So Tim came over to replace the thermocouple. I'm always glad he's used to kids, because he had a very curious and talkative audience.

Bob made me 'help' him replace the memory on Grandma's computer. Mostly I just provided moral support, youtube tutorials, and cake knives to open the case.

The girls brought a bunch of apples home from the farm and Emmy decided she NEEDED to make a pie out of the Winesap apples (which she has also declared are her favorite apple variety ever. Whatever. haha.). Somehow I was out of both lard and Crisco so we were forced to make a butter crust- they taste good, but oh.my.goodness are they fiddly. I was very frustrated, but her enthusiasm makes up for it.

She also insisted on using my pie bird and decorating the crust. 😂 Everybody needs an Emmy Marjorie.

They spent a lazy Saturday afternoon trying to rake up the small amount of leaves on the ground to jump in. And Miriel has a dirty face because she was eating dirt.

We carved pumpkins! Cecily was the only kid willing to clean her own pumpkin....

Happy pumpkins!

And then it was time to go trick or treating! Little Masha was quite excited.

We had a tiger/Tigger, Bethany the Ballerina Fairy (from a book), A kitty cat, and Masha and her favorite Bear.

For some reason Masha thought she needed to hop everywhere.

They took answering the door very seriously. I thought it was kind of nice having trick or treating the night before instead of Sunday night since it left Sunday free.

So then we had a week. Monday morning a house went on the market that met a lot of our criteria- more bedrooms, on a few acres, not a ranch, cool woodwork and character and lots of original windows, and not re-muddled and whitewashed and modern farmhoused to death.... we got a few texts about it at 6:30 am, sent it to our favorite realtor and went to look at it that afternoon, Bob was actually more excited about it than I expected him to be, talked to the bank and put in an offer by 9pm (nothing like signing papers in the parking lot at tumbling class). I forgot how stressful and intense the process is... and the current market is insane and doesn't help. And then we had to wait until Friday when the sellers were going to review all offers. And I tried not to get my hopes up and refrain from refinishing floors and removing wallpaper in my head.... I was not very successful. I mean, it wasn't a perfect this is my absolute dream house house, and we knew it would need some repairs, and we would have been trading living space for bedroom space, buuuut.... when your realtor agrees that 'this looks like a Jenny house' it's really hard not to get excited.

Miri is actually super helpful with the laundry folding- she remembers who wears what better than I do and is a great little sorter.

We hadn't been to the library in a while, mostly because the older girls were visiting the school library and I didn't want to deal with the downtown parking mess. They have a baby and a stroller in the kids room and somebody was loving it.

So Friday while we were waiting to learn our fate, I decided it would be a great time to self clean the oven. Which is stinky, so the windows needed to be open, and if the windows are already open I should probably replace the broken window crank that I've been procrastinating on for months. For the record, these are the dumbest style of window ever. You can't clean the whole window from inside the house, they don't open wide enough for them to be an emergency exit, they don't really work well for catching a breeze, you can't shoot a BB gun out of them at varmints with out a lot of contorting, 0/10 do not recommend.

There we go, all fixed and working again... please tell me I'm not the only one who has to clean something or fix something when I'm stressed and nervous.

Unfortunately, the sellers went with a different offer. bjldakjflskjd. Bob is probably less disappointed than I am; it had more drawbacks for him than for me. And on one hand I'm not super sad to not be trying to move in the third trimester. But on the other hand, this is probably the first house that's come up that was more 'I like this' and 'I love this' than 'I guess I don't hate it.' Yes, I know I'm picky, but IT HAD A LAUNDRY CHUTE. And narrow strip wood floors under the carpet. And a lot of original wood windows (for the record: wood windows are repairable and with properly fitted storms are just as energy efficient as vinyl replacements.... and they won't end up in a landfill every 20 yrs because they are repairable. There's more than one reason old houses are drafty. end rant.) So yeah. Disappointed. Frustrated. I don't really know. I just feel kind of stuck... there are no houses for sale (currently 5 listed in the entire school district), there's no land for sale, there's no family land (well, farmland but that would require much cajoling and entail switching school districts AND churches and that sounds overwhelming)... woot. Anyway, I shall end this pity party now because, I know, "if that's the worst that ever happens we'll have lived a pretty good life."

Friday evening we took the girls to the HarvestCall family night and packed shoe boxes and health kits and knotted comforters... good times.

We had a nice sunny Saturday to finish clearing off the garden and to play in the dirt. :) Bob and the girls also spent far too much time seeing how far they could launch green tomatoes off the end of a stick...

Way back in April I started this project- Tree House Blocks; wood cut outs that look like tree tops and tree trunks. (There's a pdf pattern here at this website if you need an extra before Christmas project 😋.) It took me forever to get them sanded, and then ~~morning~~ all day sickness, and then polyurethane-ing them was a loooong process.