Loma Alta Tree Farm

We all went to Loma Alta after Thanksgiving. It was a lovely afternoon with family. We did the the hayride and hit the snack bar a few times. Frito pie, yum! We didn't come home with a tree though. I started to get a mild pain between my eyes the longer I frolicked among them. It would quickly disappear once I left the field. Usually we get a live tree from out of town. That way , we "reckon", it has no allergens that will affect us. So far it's worked.

My mom was amazed at how different they all were. I was also surprised. I pictured rows and rows of the same shape or size. Nothing like that. There were stumps left over from seasons before and baby trees. Lots of Charlie Brown looking trees could be found. They were just starting their tree lives. We'd spot a majestic specimen and race to it only to find it was too majestic and towered over us more than we thought. I saw real garland for the first time. The old needles that nestle in the branches. It sounds silly but I didn't know what the silver and gold shiny stuff was supposed to do or where the idea came from. The natural garland was rusty brown and together with the baby pine cones hanging from the tree branches, made the tree look already decorated. I really want one in my backyard now.

The Virginia pine is not a full tree, not at all like a fir. It's sparse with weak branches. Perfect for Victorian paper ornaments, popcorn and some sort of feathered garland. It would also make a great Mexican themed tree: lots of shiny, tin and straw ornaments. Still, we had a great time. Next year I'd love to explore another tree farm and just sort of enjoy the grounds. Loma Alta set the standard pretty high though. I have to admit, after hanging out with the trees for so long and admiring their quirky shapes and awesome sizes, it would have been hard to cut one and then see it die. I love live trees though, the scent, the color and when you have no room to store a big plastic tree every year, it works out. Mail ordering again.

Musical Fruitcake

A delightful discovery just in time for the holidays!
Though not currently active has many posts to enjoy.

Craft blog rant by a Fortyhourdayjobber

Who has the time? Not us Fortyhourdayjobbers who enjoy making things. This time of year beckons the crafty and creative side in all of us crafty girls to come out. During my lunch break I'm completely enveloped in the blissful worlds of Purl Bee, Angry Chicken, Wee Wonderfuls and Posie Gets Cozie...etc. It's so inspiring, it's just so .... lunch over and I return to work bothered and frustrated because I have four more hours with a computer in a cubicle and meanwhile THEY are all doing their own creative thing and my ideas are stuck, simmering in my head.

It's depressing really, but like a moth to a flame I check out the craft blogs every lunch break. I have ideas, I have loads of ideas, I have loads of creative prowess and I have loads of supplies and now I even a place to work on it all* but what I lack is time. TIME! Don't get me wrong, I am very happy with and thankful for this job. Especially with the state of things in today's socio-economic climate. However, I love to make things and the day job clashes with this...completely. There was a time when I was cool with just having a few hours after work and on the weekends to create and bake and live in domestic bliss but I was unaware of the goings on in other homes all across the country. When blogs took off and the hip, artistic crafty women of the world all began to post their sharp, well lit photos of their intricate, cute lil projects...that's when I realized I was 100% Fortyhourdayjobber with not time to meet my artistic and crafty goals...EVER!

Who are these people? They all seem to have three or more children. Do the kids* ever go to school? They'll post photos of a perfect lil pastry they made this morning with a tiny kid hand reaching for it. They'll showcase the quilt made from hundreds of tiny blocks, each embroidered and inspired by a photo of each of their children at play...then there are the soups. I love the photos of the hearty soups that have a billion ingredients (always from the farmer's market) all choppy-chopped into teeny tiny perfect pieces and plopped in some delicious order and then photographed in a vintage tureen or some cool hip bowl that leads me to a site that sells tons of cute, cool hip bowls and collectible, pricey vintage tureens ......STOP!

Fortyhourdayjobbers, if you have anytime in your busy schedule, take back the blog. I would like to read how someone comes home, after putting in eight hours, and hits the project. I want to see photos of the project placed on a regular , un hip table or set before the backdrop of a house that is less than tidy on a Wednesday evening. I want to hear how NOT well fed everyone in the household is and how everyone suffers while things are being made and photographed and uploaded and written about. I want some doggy noses or kitty paws reaching for the homemade object d'arte.

I have to fit my crafting into a few hours after work and 48 short hours at the end of the week. Umm, I need to balance it with the other things that need to be done weekly. I need to keep my house tidy, hubby time, gym time, hang out with friends, grocery shop, run some errands, there is reading time, movie watching time, cooking and in between all this I try and fit a nice four hours of crochet, sewing or card making. Yes I'm jealous, because in eight hours I could master the art of the fruit tart (I oculd be just as good as any of those turquoise and red, flowered, hip,vintage apron wearing women. I could shop for vintage barkcloth to make a fabulous lil cafe curtain. I could make a cute book with book making supplies I just happen to have lying around and make ten more to post as giveaways to the first ten Fortyhourdayjobbers who praise my work and ability to do so much. I could design my own fabric and send it to Spoonflower, get it back and make a great Anthropolgie worthy skirt, pose in it (just me and the self timer) until I got the perfect picture and then post it on my blog. I would set the table for lunch in such a cutely original way, Colin Cowie's eye would bleed. I could crochet a wonderful, colorful, intricate tablecloth out of the tiniest gauged thread. I just need some time. That's all it takes, time. I would bake and sew and cook and design up a storm, if I didn't have this day job.

This Christmas if you receive anything handmade from anyone with a real day job, you are loved. They are showing you their most sincere and warmest love. They have spent all their free time after work to give you a cute, special, practical item. They were up until the wee hours of the morning before finding the perfect stopping point and hit snooze in the morning until it was too late. They may have passed on the last four chapters of that book they were into or ate weenies for lunch and dinner that day because they would rather finish your gift than do anything else like make a decent lunch or go grocery shopping, things they should have done. That is a gift.

This is a jealous rant, if you have a craft blog, don't get all pissy. I adore your blog, I love it to lil Fiskar, flower shaped, hole punched pieces and I'll continue to be tortured/inspired by them. They serve to remind me that I'm a person who likes making things and making things is as important as a gym membership, six month dental visits and vitamins. It's good for me, keeps me healthy. It is necessary to create in my spare time and it's something that should be done as often as possible lest I become ill. Seriously, there are four years in my past where I didn't make a single thing and I was so unhappy and always had a cold. I thought making anything was just a waste of time. It never is. What was I thinking? Haven't had a cold or flu since 1994.

So Fortyhourdayjobbers, make use of the time you have and complete all those projects. Somehow. EEK! Don't let those craft blogs get you down. Use them to power up. You are just as good as they are, and given the free time, you'd have a craft blog I'd envy in a minute. IN A MINUTE! So go on, exercise your creative muscle and know that it's something you must do and make time for. Enjoy those craft blogs during your break and when you feel like screaming because it's been four days since you have made yourself a decent meal and the scarf you are making is just mucking up, I am here for you, in Beatsville, I understand.

Remember: baby steps, keep all timekeeping tools out of sight and these craft blogs are carefully written. No one could possibly live the lives portrayed in those crafty posts. Right?



* Said place is still needing to be unpacked and organized at the moment because I just got it. The plan is: I'll be there every chance I can. Should help with the creative process.

*Always photographed very happy at play against cute Eames furniture or among the idyllic setting of colorful,newly fallen leaves in a forest or a perfect, green moss groundcover or against a very bountiful garden...or in a smocked and embroidered dress their crafty mom sewed for them with a handmade doll in matching frock.

* Kathy Cano-Murillo is an uber busy, crafty chica who doesn't hide it. Reading her blog, doesn't matter who you are, you got nothing on your plate compared to her.

The house

My dream house has always been a long Ranch filled with atomic age elegance and don't forget the intercom and glam pool in back. On the other hand I have always loved the pre-war bungalows with voluptuous porches and don't forget the built in phone niche in the hallway. Then again I do love the understated post-war honeymoon cottages with hardwood floors, intricate crown molding and matching shutters and screen door.

So pick an era already! I have fallen in love with our home. I was first introduced to it in 2003 and thought my husband had to be The One, because in addition to all the other reasons, he had picked out a house I'd always pictured myself in. Though I love Ranch homes, I can't quite see myself in one for long. But I adore the older homes from the 40s. They were the first homes I ever liked as a kid. I remember them in Del Rio all having hardwood floors, pink tiled bathrooms and glass door knobs.

The house is a post-war honeymoon cottage. A twenty one year old vet back from WWII built our home. He was single and decided to purchase a lot in a new development that was once part of the old Wilder farm. He picked a lot near the creek because it reminded him of his childhood home in Elgin. His family had a farm by a creek. Before the war he had helped his father build roofs and thought he'd design and build his own home. With the help of family members, he constructed a simple five room abode with hardwood floors, a back porch and hip roof on pier and beam. The design was based on his parent's home which was built in 1929. It was a much smaller version of their home. In fact he used the old tiles they had leftover from their bathroom in his own. His mother told him to leave the kitchen a bit spacious to attract a wife. So he made the kitchen nearly as large as the room that he hoped would be the nursery one day. It took him a year to complete the house and it was 1949. He built the shed/garage after the house was built because he bought a new car the summer of 1950. He would park his car in the garage every night without fail.

During this time he had been working and going to night school to learn to service appliances. He would mostly repair washateria equipment and there was one located where Roomservice is now. Mr Taylor never found a wife while he lived in our house and not much is known of him once he moved. On Friday and Saturday evenings he'd have some friends, cousins and his two brothers over for card games and beer.

He sold the house to a young , newly married couple in 1954. They closed up the porch and created a small utility room. They had a baby girl and painted her room yellow and their room a pale, mint green. They lived in our house until 1966. During this time some cement was poured in the garage and seeped out of the frame and into the driveway creating a mess that held until recently when it was broken up and thrown out. It was around 1966-1967 that the house began to get passed around and used as a rental until my husband bought it. The records show that it was sold just about every other year if not every year.

In the backyard I have dug up old marbles, vintage toys, parts to a 1956 Nash Ambassador, and found some cute old hair rollers and hairpins. Inside the garage were short notes and numbers and dates written on the wood slats. When living in the present, coming upon the past this way is always a reminder that time passes quickly. The glass marble and plastic toy will outlast us all.

Home Lumber Co.

I am constantly trying to keep a list of where to go for vintage house supplies. I know where I can get vintage looking tile in vintage colors, I have the sites selling vintage wallpaper and paint schemes bookmarked and so it goes. But where to go when you want to replace a sixty year old interior door? The last few years, every time I saw a house in the hood about to be demolished, I'd check the interior doors,so I could take one and replace our bathroom door. Our bathroom door suffered the most back when the house was a rental. It had water damage and the knob was cushioned into a mess of wood putty that had been painted over a zillion times to create a surface that was actually stable but soft and it bugged me. I can't stand having something rigged. If I know it's rigged then it's ruined for me. So long as I don't know, I'm fine.

After numerous trips to the Habitat Re-Store and several postings on Craigslist I sort of gave up. I tried to adopt the attitude that if the putty pool around the knob works, doesn't look like putty, no one notices it, then move on. But I couldn't, because it was rigged and it bugged me. So one day on the way to HEB I saw several vintage doors that had been stripped down to the bare wood. I immediately pulled into this place. It was Home Lumber Co. on Burnet Rd. I had heard that this place harbored many an obscure treasure for those wanting to get their vintage homes back to their original state. Unfortunately, none of the doors matched the style or even the measurements I needed. I then noticed that pieces of these doors had been cut out and fitted with new pieces of wood. I didn't notice when I looked the first time because the work was so perfectly and meticulously done. The new wood fit so smoothly, you could barely see the seams. Rigged, but with spectacular precision. They've been repaired!

Frank, the owner, came outside and asked me if I wanted to buy a door. Told him my story and he said to bring the door in and they'd fix it. I drove home and William and I took the door down, hung a heavy curtain up and rushed the door to the Home Lumber Co. Frank said,"It'll be ready in a few weeks, he works slow and carefully. This is a good door, they don't make doors like this anymore, it's Doug fir." Cool! A week later we got a call that the door was done. The damaged wood was out and new pieces fitted so perfectly. When I see something done skillfully and delicately and precise it's hard to ever settle for anything poorly rigged. He told us how to paint it and care for it and we went on our way. It's like a new door again and I know that under that paint there are two perfectly fitted pieces of wood that seamlessly flow into the original door and I'm in complete admiration of the talent behind that.

Mellow, it's so mellow

It began with a visit to the coop on Friday after work. Just going through my usual hen maintenance, I found, peaking out of their private room, two small eggs! Finally, the hens are laying! They were perfect eggs too...I had read to expect some problems but they looked perfect and they tasted like yummy fresh eggs.
This weekend I also got to see The Dead Milkmen reunite at Fun Fun Fun Fest. They did not disappoint. My friends and I wanted to be up front but settled for mid ground with almost a foot of space around us. Once they started with Punk Rock Girl a huge wave of aggroslamdancers surged forward leaving me tangled in a bed of deadly elbows and toxic pits then I saw my best friend sail by in front of me, sideways, telling me to be careful. The survival instinct kicked in (literally) and we dug our way out of the flesh heap fast. We were naive to think that we could pogo that close (which really wasn't too close) to the stage. We left feeling revived and 18 again except for the fact that we couldn't make it in the mosh pit this time.

FINISHED!

A-Mazing!

It felt like Christmas Eve when I still believed in Santa Claus. Crowds of people gathering all over the US just like it's New Year's Eve! At the party I was at tonmight everyone was so anxious and nervous and excited to hear the news.

I'm back

We were in Del Rio this past weekend. While there I got to check in on Dash and Chickiebaby. They have grown so much and are the cutest little roo brothers. Roosters don't normally hang out together, even when they are sibs, but these two are best friends and they warm my heart to see them strutting along together. I also got to see my grandfather's new chickies. A surprise flock of the tiniest Serama chickies. This is a very tiny breed so the chicks were almost thumb size.



I usually start in on Christmas earlier than most but Del Rio already had the decorations up all over the city. I was told they were installed two weeks ago! Hmmmmmmmm, no, that's not right.