Getting This and That Done

January and February is often a time for me of getting stuff done that I've put off for the rest of the year, but this year felt like I checked a lot of things off so I thought I'd share a few of them.  I'm trying to not have things in the house that are broken or not used and if it's possible to get it fixed, I will do so.  I think this is often more expensive than trashing something and getting a new one but honestly, I'd rather keep one more thing out of the landfills and give an artisan some work!  

I took a bunch of artwork and pictures to be framed.  The one above is a vintage map of Scotland (St Andrews is even marked!) that we purchased while in the UK.  I also had a print that Kathleen gave me last spring when she came to visit and something to hang in Bryce's office as well.

Years ago, I bought this pewter vase on a trip to Scott's Antique Market in Georgia.  I love the shape and the topper with holes to hold stems but on the way home, one of the legs sheared off in my luggage, so I've never been able to use it.  I sent it out to a man who works with pewter and he painstakingly put the leg back on.  I'm not 100% sure I would do this one again because it ended up costing double what he estimated and it is definitely not worth that but hopefully it will get lots of use.  

I had a small bench/footstool re-caned.  It's not an antique or even a fine piece of furniture but we use it all the time and the canning had broken down.  We found a local gentleman to redo it and it's now like new!

We aren't really sure where these scissors came from, we think they were Bryce's Moms.  I love the remnants of pink paint on the handles but they literally couldn't cut a piece of paper.  I took them and had them sharpened and while they still aren't super sharp, they usually get the job done in the garden shed. 

I finally, finally, replaced one of the foyer lights.  I've wanted to replace it since day 1 but for one reason or another, just have never found something I loved.  We replaced the nautical themed light (we are an hour away from the beach!) and I love the new one! 

The Snowdrops

One of the things that has lifted my spirits and made me happy these past couple of weeks have been the snowdrops.  Every time Rosie and I come around the bend in the trail and see their happy heads I stop to pause and enjoy them.  

Frankly, our woodland is a hot mess; it's full of invasives, dead/dying ash and the deer pressure on new seedlings is immense (outside of our deer fence).  While I yearn for the English woodlands of giant trees surrounded by bluebells, what we actually have more closely resembles the impenetrable forests of fairytales.  We are slowly working on doing what we can to improve the woods, especially within our fenced area.  I've been planting the snowdrops in an area that was clear due to dead trees and replanted with a small grove of oaks and dogwoods.  Each year, when I order my bulbs I buy an extra bag of snowdrops and plant them in this area.  Each patch is slowly, ever so slowly, expanding and I'm hoping some day this whole little area will be resplendent with snowdrops!

Slope Stories

Bryce and Harris just got back from a spring break ski trip to Mont Tremblant in Canada where they report they had a great 3 days of skiing!  Their first day was bluebird skies, second was skiing in snow and their third was warmer with the threat of rain!  

Lately, I've been thinking about how glad I am that we got the children on skis early  (Harris later switched to snowboarding) in their childhood.  Skiing is a great family vacation in that it's almost always in a beautiful spot, is physically active and good for pretty much all ages!  Usually, while friends are headed to sunny beaches for a winter break, we are headed to a mountain and I wouldn't change that for the world.  

I got a text from Bryce while they were gone that mentioned that Harris was off doing double blacks in the trees and loving it*.  I had to text him back to ask when our kids got so good at skiing!  I remember being surprised last year in Chamonix how capable and confident Grace was on pretty much any level of trail and it seems as if Harris is the same!  

All this to say, it got me thinking about some of our funniest stories on the mountain.  Here are a few...

-  Grace got tobogganed down a mountain one time when Will ran into her with his ski and it sliced right through all her ski gear and cut her leg.  She probably should have gotten a few stitches, she's still got the scar!  (We've been on ski vacations with friends and family and it's been a blast every time)

-  Harris fell hard on his last run of the day in Telluride and it cracked open the back of his helmet.

- In Beaver Creek we put Harris in ski school and got a call right after lunch to come pick him up because he was "being difficult."  He refused to eat his lunch and then wouldn't speak to anyone.  I was furious with him and looking back see that I way overreacted.  He was shy, had food allergies and was really young!  But I took it as a total reflection of me as a parent instead of understanding what was going on with him.  Parent fail for sure.  We put him right back in the next day though and he did fine!

- Harris broke his collar bone while snowboarding in Pennsylvania.

- When Harris was much younger, he fell off the ski lift before it got to the station!  Fortunately, it wasn't too far off the ground.

-- In France, on our last day of skiing, I got off the gondola, got ready to go and my entire zipper broke on my jacket (I guess it had gotten too tight!!) and so I couldn't ski the whole day!  That was a bummer.

- Grace discovered in France and Switzerland that the mountains all have fun restaurants and she and Emma would get an Aperol Spritz!  I didn't dare have a drink before heading down an incredibly steep mountain!  We've had two other magical meals on the mountain while skiing.  One was in Telluride at Alpino Vino and the other was in France.  Both of them were only accessible by skis.

- And the last ski story is one for the record books because it was a doozy at the time.  Bryce and I went skiing (before children) in Colorado and I took a morning lesson because I hadn't skied before.  After lunch I waited and waited for Bryce to come find me (no phones then!) and he didn't appear until after the lifts closed.  He had discovered the joy of skiing in the west and literally had forgotten all else!  We got into a HUGE fight and it is still spoken of in hushed and conciliatory tones to  this day (in good fun, of course!).  We joke that it's a miracle we somehow managed to still get married after that fiasco!  

*Just FYI, Harris did come home with a nasty bruise on his leg from running into a tree!