I can’t believe it has been almost a month since I posted last!  I honestly felt like it was last week that I was on here telling you the tales of the homestead.  Since I last wrote, my oldest has started to do band camp with his new high school, and that has taken a bit of my time running him back and forth for that.  Along with waiting the two hours each night on the nights before camp started that they had practice.  What a large amount of dedication and time marching band has turning out to be!

Well, we’ve had some progress on the homestead since I last checked in with you.  My dear husband has been hard at work on the master bedroom, the above picture is him working on it a couple of weeks ago.  Since then, he’s made great progress on it, and we are finally looking down the tunnel to a bit of light.

This is the beautiful result of many hours of labor, some swearing and a LOT of trips up and down a ladder for him, but he’s done a great job.  Tomorrow, my goal is to get the walls that have dry wall  on them painted, then his next task is to finish the trim that needs doing and putting down the flooring.  Oh, I just am giddy about the prospect of not having to set my bed up every night and picking it up and rearranging the living room every morning.  And the complete luxury of a little privacy, yes, really looking forward to it!

Also since I last wrote, my parents came down for a visit.  We were incredibly fortunate to have my father complete the shower stall for us, this is how it looked while he was working on it.  I will get a completed picture up on the next post, it’s truly a work of art.  The floors and walls are so off plumb, that it really took his considerable woodworking skills to get it right.  He did a great job with it all.  We decided to complete it all in wood, which we’re painting white to brighten it.  I am thrilled with the outcome of it.  It is not perfect, but there was no way it was going to be perfect with what he had to work from the beginning and it is definitely no comparison to how it started.  Yes, very thankful to have had his help.

Michael said he was so thankful my dad was willing to tackle it.  He could have done it, but it would have taken so much longer than it took my father to accomplish it.  As he completed it on Thursday for us, I just need to clean up all the fingerprints on the painted wood and paint over the nails heads to finish it up.  I took a little longer then normal shower the first day it was done enjoying the look of it all.  Sweet!

Each summer, my side of the family has a gathering that was dubbed the LLF, which we just affectionately refer to as The Lobsterfest.  The first L is my maiden name, which I’d rather not share here.  It’s a family gathering that brings us all together to enjoy some yard games, or board and card games if it’s raining, some great food that culminates in the lobster dinner.  It’s a giant potluck (though, honestly I always wanted to call it a potlatch, it just sounds more Northern Exposure-ish, and I like the term), and we pull out our cooking skills and have a good time together.  We don’t get to be together as much as we used to as most of the kids/grandkids are grown and onto their own lives, so it’s nice to take this time to enjoy each other’s company.  It includes boyfriends (we’re all girls on my side of the family, so outside of my boys, they are all either married into or dating the girls in the family).  This year, we were 20 in number.  Makes for a great corn hole tournament!

Lots of family memories in the making.  We were so grateful to my niece and her husband for hosting this year.  We’ve always done it at my parents home up in Maine, but as time goes on, and this is the 15th year we’ve done this, it has become a lot for my parents to handle.  In addition to that, most of us live within 40 minutes of my niece’s home, so it works out well for all of us.  Looking forward to next year already…and there will be the joy of a new baby in the family to celebrate, too!

I also managed to get some waxed beans canned from the farmer’s market since I last checked in.  I’m going to try to get a couple of bushels of tomatoes this week so I can get some salsa and sauce done.  The larder is not growing much this year so far, too much going on in the rest of my life.  But, I do REALLY love canning in my new kitchen!  So much wonderful counter space, the exact temperature regulation that my new stove allows, and the ability to do all this while I’m doing other things is great!  Because we have an open concept to most of our living space, it allows me to multitask while the canner is canning and I can just glance at the gauge to be sure it is doing it’s thing just as it should.  Loving that part of it.  So far, I planned the kitchen just as I wanted it to be- functional with canning in mind, and allowing for more than one person in the kitchen at a time.  Yes, so far, it’s been working out just fine.

I hope you are all enjoying the last vestiges of summer.  Very, very soon, we will be on to my favorite time of the year, my happy place if you will.  Autumn is to me change, contemplation and buttoning up.  I like to get the wood stacked, the flannel out, and plan out some new soup recipes on a chilly cold autumn day, if it’s got a spot of rain going on, so much the better.  We’ll leave that for another post as we don’t want to rush away the summer, either. So, until next time, be well and blessings to you all.