My Birthday!

Yes, it is my birthday today and you can see that I have spent most of the morning posting on my blog. I've also been drinking a lot of coffee and eating biscotti! I forgot to mention that after the tour last night- we all went to the Depot and enjoyed eating outside on their patio-so pretty! It was such a nice way to end the day.

In about an hour I have book club. We'll discuss The Other Boleyn Girl, but probably end up talking about what everyone is doing this summer and how fast it is going. Dan gets home early this evening and we will grill pork chops and veggies on the grill. I requested a day of jet-skiing on Ottertail tomorrow-fun to look at different lake country and then pizza at Zorbas. So that will be Dan's gift to me-just a fun day together. :) He has a BB game in the evening. :(

My family will be up this weekend and I am looking forward to that! I hope the weather allows for lake lounging/fun but there'll be Flekkefest activities if there's rain. 6 of us are doing the 5K run or walk on Sat morning, rain or shine. Where are my tennis shoes???

NOT a cottage!!

This is a mansion, but it's my kind of mansion and I will tell you why with the following pictures. It was the 5th house on the tour and I have interior pictures because I got them online at Andrew's website. The house is on the market for 1.85 million. They built it in 2009 and it's their "summer house." We wonder why they are selling it. This house was a favorite of Jans and mine.
Here is the beautiful vintage summer kitchen. In this photo it looks like a small kitchen but to your right is another wall of cabinets and another huge sink. The cabinets are full of Pyrex, tons of floral juice glasses, floral plates and a special butlers pantry that displays vintage glass cake stands. I almost died in that room, too bad there's not a photo, of the stand display, not me fainting.
This is the guest room above the garage-perfect for a bunch of little ones. They used metal floral tray stands for a nightstand by each bed. I collect & use those too.
This room was very charming, more colonial than the others.
Back to the kitchen, notice her linens hanging on the stove and sink-I collect those too! Look closely at the countertops-they're a mossy green laminate-50's style with a metal edge!! They looked gorgeous!!! No granite in this kitchen!
Lots of old furniture and plenty of cat hair too. They have 4 cats!! Hmmm, who else would ever have that many cats. That funky lamp looks better in person. I wondered where they kept the litter boxes and they were in the basement as I suspected, but each cat had it's own cage with litterbox and sleeping box-kind of like a little animal shelter. I know some cats who would never go for that idea, unless it was for Big Kitty.
Look-she collects hankies! Mine are hidden away in a vintage suitcase. Might need to do something about that.
And look-cute aprons on your left. The cubby on the right holds pyrex and fire-king goodies. Shari and Karen, you would have LOVED this place just for the collections alone.
Ann and I thought this might be a good Smith compound. There are plenty of bedrooms and we think we could live there in peace and harmony. We'd live there year round of course and I'm sure the rest of you will find good jobs in the area. You'll have to or otherwise be the official housekeeper or chef. We're reasonable.

Andrew, what would our monthly payments be? You're the family realtor. :)

Cottage Tour

Ann, Annette, Jan & I had a great time on the cottage tour. You can see them up at the top of this old stone stairway. I have another picture that shows what it looks like closer to the lake-very cool!
This is the first cottage we toured that actually was a cottage! The rest are big beautiful houses!
This was the last house we toured, it was Ann and Annette's favorite! It's on Lake Cowdry and was very cozy and welcoming inside.
My pictures are very random today, this goes with the first place-another style of stone planter.
Here is the bottom to the stone stair you saw on top.
This courtyard goes with Ann and Annette's house and the one below too.
I really love this planter that was used to edge the deck. It was full of lettuce, herbs and carrots. I'm thinking that might be nice on our deck off the TV room.
This was a bunkhouse for house one. They are divers and collect everything they find in here. They spray paint all the anchors (and other metal items) with bright colors and place them along the outside instead of flowers.
This house belonged to a gal we know who used to teach and then became a realtor. She has a gift for painting and decorating homes. This house just sold for around 800,000 and they plan to remodel another across the lake. The left side is original and they added the right side in the remodel, it was darling inside. The interior pictures are already off the realty website so I have none to share with you.

Educational Reads

I am reading and LOVING this book (2009) by Donalyn Miller, who is a 6th grade teacher. She has a blog too which makes me very happy. This book validates the way I'd like to teach 5th grade reading this year. She is a strong advocate of self selected reading and has also changed the way I will use my novel units as well. There happen to be two copies at Thorson Public Library which surprised me. I ordered it this morning and when I saw they had it I drove right in to get it and have been reading most of this hot day, inside and out. I also ordered Readicide by Kelly Gallagher and The Reading Zone by Nancie Atwell-middle school reading super star.

I have exciting news for you...the Vintage Cottage Tour is tomorrow afternoon so I should have some good photo's to share. There will be 5 of us going this year including Ann!

Flekkefest is coming up this weekend and I registered Mom and I for the 5Krun/walk. It's the first for both of us so it will be fun to do it together. Hopefully the dew point will be lower-yikes, it is sticky out there. I'm going to do some face-painting at the library on Friday morning and hope to hit a few garage sales too. They have 30 or more crafters signed up to exhibit in front of the courthouse this year-that should be fun! Anyone up for trolling this year?

The only other thing I have to tell you is that I made home-made pesto for the first time. It turned out pretty good, even if there were a few plastic chunks of my spatula in there-darn blender. Think I will use the hand blender next time as I finished with that and it seemed to work better. Anyway, it was much better than what I buy in a jar but about the same as what I get at Trader Joes.

Stay cool out there, dew points drop some on Wed, then even more on Thursday-thank goodness!

Garden Tour

Jan invited me to go along with her on a Ashby Garden tour last week. We stopped at two inspiring places. These pictures are from Country Gardens B & B owned by Larry Zilliox who hosts PBS Prairie Yard & Garden. It's just outside the city limits near the Barrett road and the website for his B&B is Countrygardensonlakemina.com. There are two rooms on the lower level with a gorgeous view of numerous lakes below. We had a wonderful potluck here and watched the sunset.

There was a pretty rural landscape on the south side.

Koi pond and waterfall

The following pictures were taken from a residence in Alexandria just behind The Depot on Lake Agnes. The house is located on the original settled property just on the edge of what used to be a forest and prairie. The downtown was established on prairie and the Ojibway occupied the forest to the north. I had no idea this spot existed. The owner gave us a nice history lesson, a tour of the gardens and their home and then cookies and lemonade on the patio. It was very nice!!

This looks like a Napa/Sonoma picture!

This place is less than 1/4 mile from downtown. Do you know where it is?? I do now. Annette, you know the owner. He was the gentleman who chatted with Shirley about being 80 and owns the Alexan apartments. His wife was such a nice lady too-interesting people-they moved here from CA 5 or more years ago. He said CA is too crowded to retire in. His roots are in Mn as he went to school here as a child.

Another weekend?!

Wow, considering I haven't done a huge amount, the week is still flying by! Here's an updated picture of my sink. I realize I have been taking a lot of window sill pictures but I thought you might like to see the change of seasons through my window bouquets too. We went out for breakfast this morning at Perkins and Harold and Elaine came in right after us so we ate with them. That was a nice surprise. Fergus Wal-mart is having their grand opening next Wednesday and the grocery is store is very attractive I must say. IT's all set up but empty in the bakery, deli and produce. I've been avoiding the store all summer as they have been in a very messy transition but thought it would be safe now and it was.

I made another batch of biscotti tonight, haven't done that in awhile. I also used my new pizza peel for a frozen pizza and that worked pretty slick. I scooped it right off the rack and sliced it on the board. Maybe someday I will use it for homemade. :) Have a good weekend, everyone!

Slow Children at Play

We laughed a lot taking these pictures!!!

Polly loves the rocks. Nancy says it's in her Scottish bloodline, searching for varmints.

Weekend Pictures

Classic 7 year old smiles!!

Sophie & Polly

Carly & Shari

Ellen & Kayla

Joey relaxed

Miscellaneous Pictures

Stopped at the BB today and found these wonderful books for 50 cents each, hardcover. I have their first book already so these will be a great addition. The authors photograph wildlife in their woods and set it to delightful stories for children & adults enjoy it too. I picked up two other children's books as well, a Harry Potter and the picture book Yonder, which is one of my favorites. That's it, just books for my classroom-it's a good thing.
I went out for lunch with my 5 & 6 coworkers on Monday to Doolittles, had the Thai salad-loved it! Afterwards, Elaine and I stopped in to the thrift store on main street and I scored with this pizza peel for $3.50.
Finally fixed the hook on this tree so I could hang a basket, 5 mn of work, 2 years of looking at it thinking I should fix it.
Shari made this gorgeous bread in my oven with her Artisan Cookbook recipe. (It was delicious too) Now I know it IS possible. Shari gave me the cookbook for my birthday and a nice dough hook/whisk for mixing. I think I will be making lots of bread this fall and winter. Thank you, Shari!!!

When you feel like a nap, go for it!!

Most Recent Read

I just finished The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring. This is a book that I picked up at a thrift store a couple of years ago just because the front cover intrigued me and the description sounded good. I finally got around to reading it and it ended up being a very good book in my opinion. Here's a nice review it got on Amazon, let me know if you'd like to read it. Out of 80 reviews it had 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

I have been reading a plethora of genres for 40+ years, and every once in a wonderful while I stumble across a masterpiece that fortifies my love of prose. "The Book of Bright Ideas" is a precious gem among the junk jewelry of average reads. Button, narrator, gifts a summer to remember as her new best friend, Winnalee, blows into town in a beat-up pick-up driven by her sister, Freeda. Fierce, fearless, and opinionated, 10 year old Winnalee is bound to stir up Button's quietly sad childhood. Through their myriad of adventures, planned and NOT SO PLANNED, life lessons are earned. So many life lessons that Winnalee and Button strive to savor them in "A Book of Bright Ideas," which will quarentee their happiness in the future. Oh, that it could be true!


Kring has a gift of vivid description, rich dialogue, nearly ethereal insight and flavorful charm. Like Harper Lee, Sue Kidd Monk, Kaye Gibbons, and other greats, her work demands and receives your full attention and your deepest respect.

This is brilliant writing at it's finest....read this book and remember why you ever started reading in the first place.

Bear!

If you've been following my blog for the past year or so, you know what this is-bear scat! This time it's down at the neighbor's cabin just to our left-they've been feeding the birds. (And the bears!) Looks like he's been eating plenty of berries too. I'm sending this picture to the DNR for official documentation. Jan still thinks it could be a raccoon. Not me.

Because I've seen this.....

and this....

and this!!!

Just kidding, these pictures came from a Northern Mn blog, the poop is from Sandy Point.

Stillwater-St. Croix

We had a fun weekend with Tim and Emily on their boat on the St. Croix last weekend. Here's a picture from one of the lower windows.
The boat on the left belongs to Stanley Hubbard from KSTP. Can you imagine?!! There are three full time employees on this boat awaiting his beck and call and it spends the winter down in Florida-such a life.

I think these birds are falcons??

Dan and Tim relaxing in their normal way on a Saturday morning!

Emily and Me!

One of the islands between Mn & Wisconsin on the St. Croix, many boats land and camp here.

I-94 bridge between Mn and WI, we anchored here Friday night.

A lovely sunset.

We had a wonderful weekend!