BaNNeR RooTS

Beautiful Happenings

The day started out pretty rough for me. It was just one of those slow mornings, complete with fog and a slippery drive to town. 

And then beautiful things happened. I visited some trying-to-nap girls during my lunch break. I ate leftover salmon with jalapeno cream sauce after my air shift. And I came home with my family. We had cornbread and fruit for dinner. 

Then I made pie. Apple pie. 

While the pie was baking, Fen started covering the visquine walls with the real deal--pine boards. He first put some rigid board insulation in and then screwed the boards in place. It's simple. It covers the brown-papered insulation we've been looking at for two years. It's beautiful.

We went to bed so satisfied. Progress is a beautiful happening.

65 by 65

This is how we (by we, I mean Fen and his brother and some friends) changed out a window to a bigger window.

We now call the space in front of our massive triple-paned window the studio. I think studios are technically their own little room but we don't care. Sid loves her studio. I love sitting on the couch typing up blog posts and listening to Planet Money or This American Life podcasts or stalking my favorite craft and cooking blogs. What's best is it feels like this house is kind of coming together. 

 

When it Rains

We try to find cool things to do. We work on the house, bake, sew, read, let the kids play Lego Star Wars on the computer, bake some more and make music. Sometimes being cooped up doesn't seem so cool when I don't want to do dishes or can't find another project and I think, "Man, I should be picking blueberries," and get bugged by the rain. Then one of the kids decides to play outside anyway and the air is charged with thoughts of dewey cheeks hugging kids with damp hair.

Yesterday was one of those exciting, sometimes boring rainy days. While the bread dough was rising, Fen made my week. First off, we started this project called "Building Our Home" in the summer of 2007. We moved in on October 16 just when it was getting cold (we were living in an Arctic Oven, a warm tent). We've lived in this place for nearly two years and the project is far from finished. Little steps and installments are celebrated. I celebrate lights.

I know it doesn't look like much. It looks pretty crappy actually, but look at those two yellow wires sticking out of the I-joists. They are for light bulbs. I now have light where I make bread and pie. 

See? It still doesn't look like much but after nearly two years of an unlit quasi kitchen, I'm feeling really fancy with those coil sticking out of those 2x6s. 

And we even have a working light switch for those coils. It's magic. I sure am happy Fen knows what he's doing. 

So in the middle of all that magic, it's important to take some time for afternoon delight. And no you crazy-minded people, I'm not talking about THAT. We enjoyed some tea. Tea with ayuu, feeling very Little House on the Prairie meets Sinrock Mary. 

And after tea, Sid and I found another tired t-shirt.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We added a ruffly part straight on the middle. OK it's not straight, but it is mostly in the middle and it works. The base of the ruffle is a 5-inch wide panel cut from one of Joe's ripped up t's. I ruffled it, attached it to the shirt and sewed a 3-inch wide panel on top to smooth it out after realizing it needed more structure. We cut the sleeves and tied on tassles...skinny strips also from Joe's t. Sid likes playing her air guitar in it. And she ungas too. We call it her Unga Air Guitar T.

And before calling it a day, let's take a look at how the day started. After my morning cup of black tea, honey and milk, I made my way to the outhouse. I love going to the outhouse during rainy days. The greens are greener, the browns browner, the air crisp. This is what I saw and laughed:

We live in a special place. We live in a place where you can use your bicycle to the bathroom. While this project called, "Building Our Home" can seem messy, laboring and just plain crazy sometimes, I celebrate moments like this. 

When We Don't Pick Berries...

We sew. And work on the soffitting. Such was our activity tonight. I'm sewing and Fen's working on soffitting...just in case you were wondering. Let's get that straight right away. Ha.

 

Fen got to rent Roger Thompson's bucket truck for the day and I'm so happy. I can't imagine him doing the project with a ladder. YIKES! So the soffitting is up and it looks goooood. Yay for bucket trucks! 

So while Fen was hydraulically soffitting and trimming, I was passionately sewing. OK. Not passionately sewing, but I was sewing. 

BEFORE:

Sid had a tired t-shirt that went way up her belly when she raised her arms, so to keep her mile-long torso from exposure, she gave me some leftover fabric from a dress. 

AFTER:

So happy. So it's not the most amazing sewing job, but it makes us happy. And it's simple and simple is good.

After making Sid a new, old shirt, I found a way to reuse a shrunken up scarf I found at a garage sale.

BEFORE:

Passionately sewing:

After:

To keep our hands warm and our drinks cold, I made wool beer cozies perfect for fall-time get-togethers. They'll be perfect for our beer of choice: the Golden Hammer of Justice, aka Hamm's. *smile. Yeah. We know we're classy. We're soffitted, trimmed and coozy.

Fen's Day Off

So I had this idea of what our bathroom vanity would look like. I told Fen about it and one day he drove home with some 4x4s and 2x4s. 

Fen gets every Sunday off. This is what he did today. I'm so happy.  

It's simple. It's sturdy. It's homemade. It's beautiful. Thank you Fen.

Bucket Half Empty

So I'm always surprised at my husband's optimism. He came home very excited because he had all the tools, pvc and hoses needed to hook up our new washer. YAY! We were pretty darn pumped. 

So, he was busy upstairs with the shiny, fancy front-loader and eventually gets the first load going. I couldn't even hear the thing, it was so quiet. WOW! Right. Well. During the final rinse, a puddle formed on the floor. So we try another load to see if it would happen again. And it did. So we try a different kind of cycle and it leaks more. And more. So much that it's raining in our livingroom downstairs. 

I'm sad and bummed and thinking bad thoughts about the person who put our machine together and thinking about the other washer I should have purchased instead of this one. It feels bum in my chest. I get a headache. I guess I don't handle these things very well. And Fen says, in high inflection, "Well, I probably spilled more water when I used the other washer." Oh gosh, I don't share his optimism at all and I tell him this. We laugh.

So I guess all will be OK. We'll make some calls tomorrow. I'm grateful for the warranty I purchased, just in case something like this happened. And I'm grateful for my husband who, along with Advil, helped ease my headache.

Hot Water

This was our faucet for a long time.

Check this out.

Willy came by today. We now have hot water through the kitchen faucet and a drain. I can't help but feel like I'm bragging and I know how silly that is, but living without hot running water for 2 1/2 years makes this feel like a real luxury. I'm actually looking forward to doing dishes tonight. 

I know that won't last long, but I'm relishing while I have it.

Alapaa

I got back from the trip to Unalakleet and was so happy to realize we had our outhouse back. During the epic storm, all we saw where the outhouse sat was a snowbank...no sign of our poop-hole. During Fen's day off on Sunday, he resurrected the outhouse and even put steps in! It feels almost fancy. We don't even have real stairs in the house yet! 

 I got back from Unalakleet Tuesday and Joe flew in Wednesday evening. Sidney stayed for entrepreneurial reasons, among others. She is crafting earrings with Auntie Heidi to sell at Auntie Karen's Kuupiaq House (coffee shop). 

Joe got back and spent some quality time on the computer and then went up to his bedroom to pay attention to his legos. He came downstairs and showed me a lego version of his mother. 

I hold really big microphones. He's thinking about painting the eyes brown, so it's a work in progress, but I thought his creation was pretty darn cute. 

Joe wrote to the Lego company this morning. He said they should really think about creating an Iditarod lego set. "I think kids would really like this." He was very displeased when I told him the Iditarod Headquarters gift shop in Wasilla did not have a lego set of a musher and a dog team and immediately knew he had to do something about it. It was a very convincing email and we're anxious to hear back. 

8 things I love right now...

1. Wood stove warmth. Remember all the driftwood we gathered last summer? It's kept us warm all winter. I'm bragging because we were cold as heck last winter before we had the soapstone. I was always FREEZING.

2. Adventurous kids. Joe came inside one day. I was happy he wasn't frozen to the bone. He got hot chocolate.

3. New rabbit tracks on the way to the outhouse. They give me happy thoughts before placing my butt on the frozen seat.

4. My husband who does the dishes when I make dinner. It's my blog. I can brag. It's smart though, 'cause then the kitchen's nice and primed for making him chocolate chip cookies, because I LOVE baking and he loves my chocolate chip cookies. 

5. Sidney helps her Dad with EVERYTHING. When he fills up our water tank, she helps him. When the snowmachine's not working right and he takes it apart, she helps him. They're so cute together.

 

5. Bob Marley's song, Three Little Birds. Relax people, he says. 

6. Sledding in the backyard.

 

7. Our new kitty. We think his name is Roscuro. 

8. My brick red enameled, cast-iron soup pot. 

Electricity, friends, washers and moose ribs

Last night we had Mori, Kris and Cedar over for moose ribs. We love, love, love having that family in town...especially little Cedar, who captured Fen's heart last night. They're friends now and Fen even gets to hold her sometimes. He's real happy about it.

After a week off, Fen went back to work this morning at some insane hour...6:30 or something, which means he had to wake up at 5:30ish to get ready and drive to town. Nuts. Anyway, while off work, he learned how to wire the place. There are outlets in the entryway and wires poking out where the lights will shine and wires running into our livingroom. Wires, wiring, outlets, hook up (heh, heh)...we say those words a lot right now and it makes us really happy. Soon (sooner than I thought) we'll have real light switches and outlets. YAY!

And there's more. We also got a portable clothes washer and used it for the first time yesterday. Yes. We currently have clothes hanging in our bedroom, waiting to be folded. Anyway, more on the washer. It's one of those that you dump water into with a handy 5-gallon bucket. It washes, drains, we add more water for rinsing and it drains again. THEN, we put the clothes through a separate spinning compartment. I guess it works. Lots of dirty, ugly water came out when we hit the drain switch. Sweet!

Even more. Fen also put insulation up in the entryway, so we'll be able to get dressed for the weather in there without freezing. I can't wait. It looks pretty too...the insulation is pink, so we all pretend we're princesses when we put our hats and gloves on. MMmmmm, it's so nice.

One last thing. If you're ever in Unalakleet, go to the little tanish-brown house with a black and orange polka-dot curtain. You'll know what I mean. Real cool people live there.