That’s right, friends. I refinished these dressers one.year.ago. and now I’m blogging about them. I knew we’d get rid of all of our cheap Ikea furniture when we left Canada, simply to have less stuff to drag back across the border, so last summer I pilfered these from my parents (thanks, parents). I refinished them during visits home and left them in storage at their house (thanks, parents) until we moved to the 433 in November, when they brought them over to us (…thanks…parents).

I’ve been telling myself since November that eventually I’ll have a day of good light in our cornerofthehouse bedroom for photographing, but it ain’t going to happen. So, here you go:

My dresser, which is actually currently being shared with Mikey. THIS is why I keep getting rid of clothes.

Hazel’s dresser, formerly my mom’s dresser, formerly my grandma’s dresser – I had to strip a LOT of layers of paint off of this cutie. Somewhere, I can’t even begin to remember where, I blogged about my longing for these mint-green glass drawer pulls from Anthropologie to add the finishing touch to her pretty red paint. Shortly afterwards they were gifted to Hazel by sweet sweet sweet Molly. They are delicious and I love them and I love Molly.

Old news. The end.

I took the lint shaver to Andy today. She’s as smooth as new. But still… pretty dirty. I have vowed to hold off on a bath until after we go camping for a week.

…but when she farts in the bathtub she cackles and says “duck?!!”

And then I laugh until I cry. I think I’m a pretty smart, educated, well-rounded lady… and still… doesn’t really get any funnier than my kid farting in the bathtub and yelling duck. I live a charmed life.

Week 26 – Garbage bag full of clothes to goodwill. About half of these were things I was keeping on hand to repurpose, but decided to let them go so I don’t have to move them in September.

Week 27 – I took a garbage bag of clothes and two big, noisy baby toys (that Hazel has outgrown and that I don’t want to move) to the consignment shop, but I forgot to photograph them. Instead, here are two pairs of jeans, leggings, and two shirts that I bought with part of the store credit from my last drop-off :)

Week 28 – Selling some records.

Here is where my schoolhouse-living fixation began: about five minutes down the road from my parents. I have driven by this place a thousand times in my life and never thought too much of it until someone started renovating over a year ago. They have gone really really slowly, little things here and there. The light fixtures are new since the last time I drove by. I don’t even know who these people are or where they live. The other side of the building has amazing rows upon rows of windows, but I didn’t want to walk around through the snakey, tickey weeds to photograph it while my mom sat in the car with the sleeping kidlet.

Dear people,

Please do not get rid of that old ceramic doorknob. I love it. The new light fixtures are perfect. Also, I think the glass bricks are weird. The rest is awesome – keep it up.

love,
emily

After months of scouring the ReStore, every Goodwill in my path, various other thrift shops, no less than 50 yardsales and innumerable trash drivebys, I finally found the perfect piece of furniture to revamp into a tiny kitchen for Hazel’s second birthday in October. A tiny kitchen that I’m hoping will be almost entirely thrifted/repurposed/handmade, with some ideas stolen from this retro pottery barn kitchen and a few other places (I hate it when a company like pottery barn gets something so damn perfect!) I have been finding little details for months, I have fabrics picked out and felt food planned (and crocheted food hopes using this book from VD), I have a piece of furniture to make into a tiny fridge, but I’ve been missing the main component – the sink and stove. I looked at this piece at least three times before realizing how perfect it actually is. As soon as the lightbulb came on (while standing in line at the post office) I drove back to the ReStore, strapped Hazel onto my back, wrestled this puppy into the front seat of my car and brought it home. And then spread out a few of my favorite little details to photograph and feel like I’m actually accomplishing something other than spending money and shoving things in a box and daydreaming.

nightstand = $15.00 @ the Habitat for Humanity ReStore
faucet = $5.00 @ the ReStore
mixing bowls = $.50 each at Goodwill
tiny bamboo utensils = $.25 each in chinatown
tiny wooden mixing spoon = $.25 in chinatown
egg whisk = $1.00 at a yardsale
most perfect plates = $.99 each at Target (and I kind of want four more, but even though this line of picnicey stuff is still out the tiny polkadotted plates are gone in every store I check – please grab some for me if you see them!)

I have this recent obsession with living in an old schoolhouse – I *love* this one.

My mom has a list of trees around home she wishes she could transplant to their yard. This knotty, holey dude is on it.

Out of commission.

Random aqua paint seemingly applied after the house started falling down – win.

…and now I have this kid. This tiny little Scout Finch lookin’ kid with whom I can play footsies under a blanket as we lounge at opposite ends of the couch for half an hour before dinner. Me reading the new Mothering and she watching a 70s episode of Sesame Street, saying the next letter seven or eight times while listening to an alphabet song.

This kid who responds with a list when asked “what’s in the sky?”

“Moon… buhds… ay-payne… stahs… wain… sun…

The kid who points to my “H” necklace and says “H… Hazies.”

This kid who tells me to “back up!” when I’m in her way. Who casually names the animals and people who live at Grandma’s house while she pees on the potty. Who lifted up her shirt and “nursed” Andy today. Who stares at a bunch of photos of she & her people clipped to a string on the wall and ticks of a list of everyone in them: Ca-ca… Cana… G’ma & Pa-Pa… Dada… Pais… Walties… Mama… Cinty & Mah-yo… Mo…

This kid who applauds wildly and exclaims “yays!” at the end of her own songs, of anything Mikey plays on guitar and banjo, and at the end of an assortment of recorded songs, most consistently Bad Moon Rising.

Most of her songs are about dogs and Andy. She looks for her daddy first thing every morning, pats his back gently (because he’s always asleep on his stomach), mutters “Dada” and cuddles against him for a few more minutes of rest. She bursts into tears if she sees another person crying. She talks about Luca and Aunt “Miney” about seven thousand times a day. She wants to know the name of every person and animal and thing in the world. She tries to keep every single grain of sand in the sandbox. She pages through at least fifty books a day – on her own, aside from what we read to her – in their entirety. She is starting to talk about things she did a few days ago or a week ago. I think that so far we disagree less than most parent-toddler teams. I feel like our ratio of hangout time : simply taking care of her time is getting more even every single day.

Her intellectual growth over the past month or six weeks has been the fastest and most alarming thing yet about having an always-getting-bigger offspring in my care. And also the most entertaining, fun & fascinating. I am so excited to watch the rest of her life more than ever.

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

-Bob Dylan

My mom made Hazel this family of floppy people (named by Mikey, of course) for Christmas. They went mostly unnoticed for a few months, but several weeks ago – after Alice came to live with us, Hazel walked into the room with the “mom” of the four and held her up for me to see.

“And-ee.”

We have suspected that doll-Andy is named after Uncle Andy, which was verified a couple of days ago when Hazel quietly stared at a photo of her favorite bearded uncle for a few moments, then pointed at the doll and said, matter of factly, “And-ee.”

Andy has been going on every Hazel-adventure lately, sharing about 75% of Hazel’s solo reading times, getting introduced to all of Hazel’s (real life) friends (Luca calls her “Annie”.) She gets carried around by the back of the neck so she can always see everything. She gets fed, she gets loved, she gets lots of hugs and kisses and reassurances of “okay Andy, okay” after falling on the floor or getting run over with the wagon. Mikey & I are expected to give her lots of hugs and kisses if she is presented to us for lovin’.

Andy has a family but they are less important. Seamus, the man of the house (father? son? brother? drifter? we aren’t sure), is largely ignored most of the time. Baby Hazel gets lots of very gentle care and spends most of her time sleeping in bed. The older sibling has not yet been named – we just call her “the purple kid” or “PK”. Sometimes the Floppinbergs travel as a family or get toted around in a big tangle of floppy limbs, but usually it’s just Hazel and Andy.

The last time we were at my parents’ farm Andy had a bit of a tussle in the horse pasture and came up completely red-clay-mud-faced and featureless. Hazel was horrified and turned a cold shoulder to her best friend until she’d had a bath. Usually Andy can do no wrong, though.

Andy is getting a little dingy. And pilly. And her skirt is starting to come undone. I think I need to invest in some good fabric pens so she can have a bit of a face lift, I need to repair the wardrobe malfunction, and I feel like some kind of doll botox might be in order because she is losing her fiberfill here and there, one fiber at a time.

The past couple of weeks have been so busy and so strange and I feel so mentally unhinged that today I organized, purged, and then rainbow-ordered Hazel’s books as a means of destressing. It worked wonderfully.

EmmaLee & Hazey reading my current favorite & most perfect & wonderful book: All the World. I was so taken with the text that for the first twentysomething reads I overlooked the illustration of a breastfeeding mother (not uncommon for me to see in real life, so it didn’t register for awhile that it’s so uncommon to see in a BOOK). Also: community, various family arrangements, farmer’s market, old Volkswagen bus, dogs, peace and fiddling. What else do you need?

Slip, trip, stumble, fall
Tip the bucket, spill it all
Better luck another day, all the world goes ’round this way

I can think of about 47 adults off the top of my head who could benefit from reading this book :)