We have lived in this big house for two and a half years now, and unless we are directed otherwise, we are still planning on putting it up for sale in 2011, and downsizing. After an amazing amount of remodeling and redecorating, not much is left to do. But even though the kitchen was completely renovated before we moved in, I never put up any valances until recently.

I wanted something 1) blue and white, 2) something with a large print because the kitchen is good-sized, 3) a little different but not outlandish and 4) very easy to make.

These are simple rectangular panels sewn from Waverly fabric (sun resistant) I found very inexpensive online. I bought the off-white curtain rods and the rings with clips online at Penney’s. When Sara first saw them last week she said, “Mom, they don’t hang, they dance!”

So that’s what I think when I see them now. Dancing valances. (You can click to enlarge the photos if you like.)

I think every room needs a bit of whimsy and I like the result. Here’s where I would like your input. One person who saw them said I need to put up more rings to clip to the curtains. Another person thought they had just enough. I’m undecided, and I do have extra off-white rings I could add.

When you look at these photos, do you think I should add a few more rings, or keep the valances as they are? Please leave your comments, and I thank you for your opinions!

UPDATE added on Oct. 22: I took the advice of the majority and added four rings to the kitchen valances. Here’s a new photo:

Thank you for your input!  I like them better….

Have a blessed week!

Audrey Elizabeth will be three years old in December. I like to call her The Auds. Last week she came over to our house and when she ran in the back door she smiled that brilliant smile of hers, threw her arms around my knees in an enthusiastic hug and then squealed, “Hi Grandma! It’s me! Audrey!” I then had to tell a few dozen people that Audrey did that, because it was the sweetest thing I’d heard in a long time.

I try to have a grandchild or two spend the night on a regular basis. There’s nothing like one-on-one time to read books, to lay in bed and play I Spy, to make peanut butter chocolate balls together, to build with Magformers, to talk, to snuggle. We have a guest room that our grans could sleep in if they wanted to, but they always choose a pallet made of blankets on the floor of our bedroom. I make a big deal out of covering them up and tucking them in, singing with them and praying for them before they doze off. Then I climb into my own bed a few feet away and look at the innocence on their faces and I try not to cry. I’m getting soft in my old age, in more ways than one.

Anyway, Audrey spent the night at Grandpa and Grandma’s a while back and here’s a photo of her enjoying her peanut butter toast at breakfast time.

The Auds is not blasé about anything. If the words she speaks could be seen written out in the air above her, the end of each phrase would have ten exclamation points after it. And she says things that are so endearing, like “Can I wear my swimswoop?” and “Gwamma, can I have a squishy byvin?” (vitamin), and she calls her siblings “Cwehwa, Hyja and Weevy” instead of Clara, Elijah and Vivie.

What are the auds that when Audrey is thirty she’ll still be saying swimswoop and byvin and Weevy? I know the auds are not good because she’ll probably be on a world speaking tour by then, but I’m keeping my hopes up nonetheless.

Michael and I recently drove north to spend some time in Grand Marais, sitting, reading, pondering, resting and refreshing ourselves. We returned to the Croftville Road Cottages, one of our favorite spots on the north shore. Three little wonderfully renovated cottages sit right on the edge of massive Lake Superior, and they’re much more spacious than they appear from the road, are reasonably priced and always clean, and the proprietors, Teresa and Mike, are so friendly and helpful.

Grand Marais is famous in our neck of the woods for its abundant moose population, and I was personally looking forward to seeing a moose on this trip. There are moose crossing signs on the highway, several businesses with moose themes (The Mangy Moose Motel!), and a well-known hiking trail that leads into the woods of moose country, where people can supposedly catch views of these creatures that weigh up to 1500 pounds and measure seven feet tall.

It rained for most of our drive up, but we knew there were two cozy fire stoves in our cottage waiting for us. The leaves were just past their color peak, so many trees were almost bare, but there were still some gorgeous reds and golds to be seen.

This is the first photo I took after we arrived, looking toward the lake right outside the back of our cottage. Most of the birch and poplar trees had lost their yellow leaves, but the bushes were still ablaze.

Here’s one of the two comfortable bedrooms in Cottage 2:

There’s a framed print on the wall that reminds guests that Lake Superior is the graveyard to over 350 shipwrecks, many over 100 years old. According to legend, “Lake Superior seldom gives up her dead.” This is because of the unusually low temperature of the water, estimated at under 36° F (2° C) on average. Normally, bacteria feeding on a sunken decaying body will generate gas inside the body, causing it to float to the surface after a few days. The water in Lake Superior is cold enough year-round to inhibit bacterial growth, and bodies tend to sink and never surface.

This is alluded to in Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The Edmund Fitzgerald’s 29 crew members all perished when “the gales of November came early” in 1975 and “The Mighty Fitz” took on water in a fierce storm with thirty foot waves, broke in two and sunk within minutes.

Here’s a satellite photo of Lake Superior…1333 feet deep, and the largest freshwater lake in the world:

The little town of Grand Marais is touristy in the summer and very quiet in the winter. Most eating establishments close in late October. We’ve had The Crooked Spoon Cafe recommended to us before and had never been there during its operational months, until this last trip. We decided to eat dinner there on Friday night. Here’s Michael outside — we had to wait 40 minutes to be seated.

It was fairly plain decor inside the cafe, but the food was unique and delectable.

Michael chose French onion soup en croute with melted gruyere cheese, and “fresh Lake Superior whitefish, sauteed with a light cornmeal crust and served with lemon basil aioli, oven-steamed Minnesota wild rice and sauteed broccolini.”

I had the special of the night, the “pan-roasted beef tenderloin with port wine demi-glace, buttermilk smashed baby red potatoes and grilled balsamic asparagus.”

But first came the delicious salad with homemade blue cheese dressing:

After dinner we strolled around downtown and bought some gifts, and then went home to our cottage, happy to go to bed early and sleep as late as possible the next morning, which is a rarity for us. The cheery fire in the stove was the perfect ending to a relaxing evening.

When one is accustomed to getting up at 5:30 a.m. seven days a week, however, one’s internal clock isn’t easily reset, so I was up at the crack of dawn and took these photos of the sunrise on the lake. These were taken from the living window at the back of the cottage.

We ate breakfast at home and enjoyed the freedom to lounge and read and revel in the peace. We walked down to the cliff by the lake and sat on the swing, as we have each time we’ve visited this place.

The clouds had passed and the morning was delightfully crisp and sunny.

I decided to wear my moose-hunting scarf.

We opted to drive far up The Gunflint Trail, go looking for moose, and have a north woods lunch at The Gunflint Lodge.

About a third of the way up the Trail, there’s a sign pointing to a parking area which leads to a hiking path that goes deep into the woods. These particular woods are known to be frequented by moose, and there’s even a “moose-viewing platform” near an overlook on a small lake. We had no place we had to be, no phone calls to make, no schedule to adhere to, so we decided to search for some moose. Here’s Michael at the beginning of the path:

Not far from the moose meeting place was this plaque, telling us how to spot signs of moose:

Then we happened to see an eerie sight off into the woods. It would have been easy to miss, and I gasped when I saw it. It was an old, ruined, semi-buried car, filled with what looked like decades of forest debris, and its doors were strangely open. (Update: A reader informed me that the car is a 1955 DeSoto Fireflite Coronado.) When we got home I showed the picture to Carolyn and she raised her eyebrows thoughtfully and said, “Hmmm, I wonder what is inside that car?” *Shiver*  A DeSoto in DeWoods. Yikes.

Below is a partial view of the swampy lake where apparently large numbers of moose congregate. We were standing on the wooden platform and could hear the wind in the leaves of the huge trees all around, the chattering of red squirrels and the calls of jays.

But we never saw a moose, much less a moose congregation.

So, we enjoyed our walk through the woods, back to the car and drove further up the Gunflint Trail, oohing and aahing over the brilliant fall colors. I never get tired of them and I’ve lived here almost thirty years.

Gunflint Lodge is a long-established cabin resort on Gunflint Lake, and we stopped there for a hearty lunch. It was so hearty we didn’t want dinner on Saturday night. Here’s a distant view of part of the large lake. If you enlarge the photo you can see the napping ducks on the shore:

The Red Paddle Bistro at Gunflint Lodge is quintessential north woods. There were animal skins and a moose head on the walls, canoes hanging from the ceiling, and all the paraphernalia to make it seem like a true Voyageur’s camp from long ago.

Michael loves to catch and eat walleye in almost any form, so he had the battered walleye sandwich with bacon, fries and a side salad.

I had a wonderful salad composed of field greens topped with spiced pecans, fresh Minnesota blueberries, crumbled blue cheese, served with a maple vinaigrette dressing.

Back outside we fed a female mallard duck some cracked corn. I took this picture because I liked how the tips of her wing feathers matched the flowers nearby.

As we drove slowly down the dirt road away from the lodge and back to the Gunflint Trail, we saw something in a small crab-apple tree.

We parked the car and got out, hoping to get a little closer.

Sure enough, it was a medium-sized black bear, chomping away on the tiny crab-apples. We were shocked that he had climbed such a young, slender tree and it was actually supporting him without any branches breaking.

Closer yet. You can enlarge all these pictures by clicking on them — look at how dexterous he is with his paws and how much he seems to be relishing his autumn snack. Soon a half dozen other people had gathered and although we were all quiet and still, the bear finally noticed us, grunted a bit as he effortlessly backed down the tree, and sort of galloped off into the woods.

Well, at least if I haven’t seen any moose, it was fantastic to see this bear, I thought. Back on the road, less than one minute later, a large timber wolf ran across our path into the woods. I tried hard to stop in time to get a photo and I did, but only the most observant and patient will see him. Enlarge the picture below, then zoom it with your computer if you can, and if you look to the left of the tall pine in the center of the shot, you might be able to see the tail and the back leg of the wolf, dashing toward the left of the scene. It takes concentration to see it, but it’s visible.

Delighted that we had seen a wolf and a bear all within a couple of minutes, we turned onto the Gunflint Trail and headed back down toward Grand Marais. In less than a mile I spotted something trotting along the side of the road ahead, and as we approached we couldn’t believe it. It was another timber wolf, a young one, and she seemed to have a destination in mind. Her ribs were showing and I wondered if it had been awhile since she had succeeded in a fresh kill. I slowed down, determined to get a picture this time, and right as I was about to aim I saw there was a line of cars behind me and I was holding them up. I sped up and held the camera with my left hand, hoping something of the wolf would end up in the shot. I was tickled that most of her did.

Back at our little cottage we got into our jammies (well, I did anyway — Michael doesn’t wear or even own “jammies”) and we read, played a game, listened to soft music, and turned in early. We were feeling a little wistful that we would have to be leaving for home before noon on Sunday.

As we were leaving the cottage I stopped on Croftville Road to take this picture of Lake Superior and its typical shoreline that always seems to combine tall pines, colorful birch and hardwoods, and rocks. The water in this lake is the best tasting I’ve ever had.

We’re looking forward to our next time up the shore, which might be many months from now. As we drove home we continued to watch for moose on the sides of the road but we never saw one.

I thought that sometimes life can be like that. You want in the worst way to see a grand and elusive moose, and you even ask the moose’s Creator to arrange it so you can spy one. You do your part. You drive to the local moose capital and start scanning. You drive deep into moose country and hike to a moose-viewing platform in the heart of known moose territory. And then you ask God to do the rest — the part you’re unable to do. You ask Him to prompt a moose to go to the vicinity of where you are waiting expectantly.

And instead of a moose, you end up seeing a bear at close range gobbling crab apples. You see a female duck with iridescent purple wingtips and she’ll eat corn from your hand. Instead of a moose you see not one timber wolf, but two, one of which jogs right alongside your car for as long as you’re able to stay with her.

How many times have I asked God for one thing I really wanted badly, only to receive something I didn’t want nearly as much, but later saw the blessing of? Too many times to count.

So God hid His moose and showed us His bear and His duck and His wolves instead.

We’ll go looking for moose again someday, but right this minute as I type this, I’m thankful and thrilled with what we saw.

Have you ever asked God for a moose and gotten a duck or a bear instead?

My friend Ember left a wise comment last week for Edition 46 of Wednesday’s Word, and I asked her if I could quote her.

In response to Samuel Johnson’s words, “Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not,” Ember wrote:

“I find I tend to get fond of the people I am kind to, and grow to dislike the people I am mean to.”

Penelope Wilcock

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Hopefully,

Every once in a while you might find a song that so speaks to your life, you want to listen to it over and over again. This is one of those songs for me. The song is by a young woman named Maron Gaffron, and it’s from her CD called “Uptown.”

I like all the songs on this album but today I’m sharing “The Housewives’ Song,” and you can read the lyrics below.

Every time I go to the grocery store or to Target, I’m surprised and saddened by the magazine covers that sit in plain view for little girls (and boys) to see.

When I was young, there were beautiful models on the covers, but they were dressed and they weren’t selling sex — they were mostly selling Prell shampoo and Cover Girl Peeper Sticks and Bonne Bell Pot o’ Gloss lip gloss. Today at eye level we see bulging bosoms spilling out over tiny garments, airbrushed perfection that is never attainable but whispers to your daughter that she should try to attain it anyway, and article headlines about what men and women really want, that you in your married and monogamous stupidity never knew about or experienced.

Sometimes I wonder how little girls can retain their innocence these days when they’re bombarded by the messages on television and on magazine covers. This is how you should look…this is how you should dress…this is what pretty is…this is what will bring you happiness is the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) ubiquitous message vibing out to girls and women.

I’m a grandmother now, so I guess some could say I’m out of touch with the times, or have grown a little stodgy. That might be true, but I know what beauty is not, and it is not found on the cover of Cosmopolitan or Vogue. Yes, the women on these magazines might be beautiful by the world’s standards, but I think true beauty is so much more than just a symmetrical face, white teeth, large eyes, a narrow nose, long legs, full lips and flawless skin.

If I could wave my magic wand and perform one good deed today, I would want the truthful lyrics of this song to be sung over every little girl, every young woman who thinks her happiness is found in how much attention she gets from the opposite sex, every middle-aged woman who peers in the mirror and frequently sees new lines and sags in her face, and every elderly woman whose physical beauty has long ago faded. I would want the words of this song to go deep into the hearts of all who listen, and take root. I would want this song to drown out the lies being force fed to our little girls and young women, and I would like to see little girls allowed to be innocent little girls who are not exposed to the media’s barrage of propaganda.

Click on the title below:

Housewives’ Song

Don’t look for your beauty in the eyes of your children
Don’t look for your beauty in the eyes of your man
Don’t look for your beauty in the eyes of the world
Your beauty, you’ll find it in the Lord

Don’t look for your worth in your friendships
Don’t look for your worth in your pay
Don’t look for your worth in the things you do each day
Your worth now, you’ll find it in the Lord

‘Cause it’s like a mirror looking in
When you find the strength to stand
It’s not you, it’s the Father inside
And when the storm clouds pass on through
And they’re only raining on you
Run for cover, in the Father you can hide

Don’t look for your strength in your coffee
Don’t look for your strength in your routine
Don’t look for your strength in your diet and exercise
Your strength, you’ll find it in the Lord

Don’t look for your rest in the glow of the television
Don’t look for your rest on the telephone
Don’t look for your rest in the shopping mall, sister
Your rest, you’ll find it in the Lord

‘Cause it’s like a mirror looking in
When you find the strength to stand
It’s not you, it’s the Father inside
And when the storm clouds pass on through
And they’re only raining on you
Run for cover, in the Father you can hide

Charm is deceiving and beauty is passing
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised
He said, “Come unto me all you weak and heavy laden
And I will give you rest.”

They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength
They shall rise with wings as the eagle
They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint
Teach me Lord, teach me Lord to wait

“My strength is made perfect in your weakness.”
He said, “My strength is made perfect in your weakness.”

Wait on the Lord, be of good courage and now He shall strengthen your heart

Just wait on the Lord….

Words and music by Maron Gaffron

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Getting down off my soapbox now,

Our daughter Sara came by a couple of days ago and I saw her strolling around in the front yard while talking on her cell phone. The next thing I knew she was standing at the kitchen sink filling a square vase with a little water. Then she began to quickly and deftly arrange a few leaves and bits of nature she had gathered from outside. It took her about five minutes, and when she was satisfied with her fall creation, she put it on a console table we have in our living room.

Isn’t it lovely? I wish I could think of things like that.

When I went grocery shopping yesterday I took my camera with me to take a few pictures of things around our house, and of the neon trees in our neighborhood. A couple of people saw me stop my car and photograph their trees and I could see the suspicion puzzlement in their eyes. 🙂

Got leaves? Got apples? Got flowers? Got weeds? Maybe you can make a gathering of autumn’s beauty from things you find outside too. If you do, please send a photo and I’ll post it on the blog!

How do you decorate for fall? What things do you bring into your home to highlight the season?

“Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.”

Samuel Johnson

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This is the time of year I feel most like myself. The air is cool and crisp, the trees are flaming with color, the sunlight is low and slants into the windows making everything look golden. Thicker covers are needed at night, simmering soups are called for, and adding warm and cushy SmartWool socks to my Birkenstocks is just around the corner. Life is a harmonious and swelling symphony of the most breathtaking sights, delicious smells, invigorating tactile experiences, and familiar and soothing sounds.

In the winter, I know I’m me, but I don’t feel as much like me as I do when autumn arrives. Once the joys of the Christmas season are fading, when it’s twenty degrees below zero outside and I can almost see the icicle-y fingers of bitter cold scritching and scratching to gain access around our windows and doors, I feel like I’m the slightly anxious, on-guard me.

In the spring, I know I’m me, but I don’t feel as much like myself as I do in the fall. Spring in northeastern Minnesota doesn’t ever quite know what it’s doing. Some days spring just snows and spits ice pellets from the sky, other days spring warms and brings lime-green buds out from the trees, still other days spring just rains and makes mud and drear part of every morning. I’m always happy for winter’s passing, but spring feels like Minnesota’s limbo season to me, bringing us out of the long, dark frigid months, yet propelling us toward our short, therefore often frenetic summer.

In the summer I’m still me, but I don’t as much like the me I am in the summer if it’s hot and muggy. A muggy, sluggish me is not the best me I can be. When the air is so moist it’s a labor to draw a full breath, and when it’s so hot outside I’m checking the weather reports seven times a day for hopeful news of possibly cooling temps, and when the local world is wearing shorts and tank tops, I don’t feel fully like me. People this far north often try to fit in as much activity as they can in the summer, because there might only be three months of warmth. Barbecues, swimming, beach bonfires, fireworks, fishing, camping, gatherings at lake cabins, gardening, crowds, grad parties, sailing. The older I get the more contemplative I become, so the running to and fro and the head-spinning activities of summer don’t feel as nurturing and soothing as I would like things to be.

It’s silly, I know, to give all this mental effort to what I feel like, with the approach of each different season. Every day is a gift from God. Winter, spring, summer and fall are all His wondrous making, and they each bring their own kind of beauty and glimpses of His glory. I love living where a dramatic change of seasons happens each year. It’s not productive to give so much thought to how much I love fall and how I don’t feel as much myself in the other three seasons. But I am what I am and it is what it is. I love every part of fall and wish it lasted longer. It always seems like the trees glow, change, blaze, and then drop their leaves in almost no time at all.

So this morning it was cool enough to turn on the newly installed furnace.

It is time to remove the toile quilt from our bed and get out the thick toile comforter.

It’s time to take out my navy blue wool pea coat.

It’s time to take the screens off the windows and carry them down to store in the basement.

It’s time to make sure everyone’s mittens, hats and boots are at the ready.

It’s time to dig through my recipes and make a grocery list so soups and homemade breads once again give a heartening aroma to our home and warmth to our bodies.

It’s time to decide what my Winter Read will be. I keep a book or two at hand every day, but I like to have a long Summer Read and a long Winter Read each year. Don’t laugh when I tell you I’m considering The Brothers Karamozov by Dostoyevsky. Too many people have said it’s the best book they’ve ever read in their lives for me not to give it a try.

Yesterday Sharon and Chris and their three little ones, Sara and I went on The Timber Twister and whooped and hollered as we whipped around the curves and reveled in the exhilaration of speed and breathtaking surroundings combined together. What a delightful fall memory we made.

Today I will have lunch with a dear friend. And tonight I will meet with my SAGgy buddies, as we have done once a month for the past eight years.

This is the time of year I feel most like me. I don’t know very well how to explain what that means, I just know it’s true. Fall makes me feel more alive, more able, more hopeful, more aware, more content, more settled.

What does fall mean to you? Or when do you most feel like you?

I would love to read your thoughts.

All three of my daughters love the new Japanese restaurant in our city. I’d heard them and others talk about it for a long time before I finally ventured in to try it, and now it’s one of my favorite lunch spots. So, a few weeks ago Carey and I had lunch together at Hanabi.

Hanabi is edgy, youngish and hip, so I’m not sure why I like it so much. Because I am not edgy, youngish or hip. Well, edgy maybe, but certainly at 53 I’m not youngish and I most definitely am not hip. Hippy? Perhaps. Hip? No.

Carey and I went to Hanabi to eat fantastic food, to celebrate my birthday, and to decide on the first book we’re going to read in our newly established Two Person Book Club.

I am not one who eats shellfish very often, but I ordered their shrimp tempura lunch special and it was beyond delicious. I tried not to roll my eyes and moan when I tasted the first cloud-like bite of sweet potato tempura. I didn’t want to embarrass Carey. She might never go to lunch with me again if I roll my eyes and moan at the table.

This was my plate. I did not take a picture of the miso soup that came as the first course. Clockwise from the top left: White rice with little seeds on it (what are those little seeds I wonder?), three little steamed shrimp dumplings called Shumai, four California rolls (avocado, cucumber, crab, seaweed and rice) with pickled ginger and green wasabi, shrimp and vegetable tempura. Once again, at Hanabi you take a bite of food you never thought you would eat and you say Oh. My. Gosh. In a good way.

Here’s my talented and loving friend of twenty-five years:

Carey’s meal was similar to mine, but her main item was called Beef Negimaki, which is basically broiled strips of beef marinated in teriyaki and rolled around scallions. It was delicious, but a little scalliony.

Anyway, for our first book to read together in our newly formed Two Person Book Club, we decided on Ben Hur. I’m on chapter eight and am loving it so far. The language is rich and it’s quite the transporting read.

For my birthday Carey gave me an authentic Irish Tin Whistle. Carey’s sister Gen plays the instrument beautifully and Carey has been learning through tutorials on youtube. I hope to be playing the music from The Lord of the Rings and/or Titanic by next week and I’ll be sure to alert you here on the blog. 🙂

Carey is one of the most gifted people I know. You can read what I originally wrote about her here. She has her own business, and makes absolutely gorgeous jewelry that she offers online. She’s detailed, precise, wonderfully artistic, and I’m always amazed at how reasonable her creations are priced.

Years ago Carey used to make dried floral arrangements and once in a while I would go to help her when she was doing a show. Dozens of people would line up at her booth before it even opened, and while other vendors were there at the show all day, Carey invariably sold out of everything before noon. I used to tell her that I thought she could sell her florals for more, but she was quite content making them so reasonably priced. Everything she makes is unique and eye-catching. If you’d like to see some of Carey’s amazing handiwork, click right here.

So if you live in my city, try Hanabi. If you’re not opposed to shellfish, have the shrimp tempura lunch special. If you’ve read Ben Hur, why don’t you leave a comment and share your opinion about the book? If you would like to schedule me for an exhilarating tin whistle concert, please contact my agent here.

And be sure to visit Carey’s site and tell her Julie sent you.

Thank you for reading my little blog, and have a blessed week.

If you want to get warm you move near the fire. If you want joy, peace, eternal life, you must get close to what has them.

C.S. Lewis

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Hopefully drawing closer,