Adirondack Summer

Hello friends! How are you? It has been a while and I have a ton of blog reading to catch up on. I hope you had a wonderful summer. Our summer was filled with lakes, ponds, nature...and a few unexpected days in the hospital.

Let's begin with the fun stuff. We explored several quiet ponds by kayak. We set out to explore the quieter side of the Adirondacks this summer. And I think we achieved that.

One of my favorite parts of the summer was hearing the loons call as soon as we slipped our kayaks into their pond. There was a loon family (a male, female and 2 babies) on a pond close to our house. We respected their privacy as much as possible, but I couldn't resist taking a few pictures with my zoom lens. The first evening that Billy and I encountered them was a time I will never forget. I couldn't help but think of John Muir's words, "the clearest way to the universe is through a forest wilderness."

We explored some fun places in Vermont.

We are mostly shielded from the news when we are upstate, which turned out to be quite a blessing this summer. 

We did have an unexpected trip to the hospital in July. Billy was told he needed emergency surgery for an attack of diverticulitis, but instead ended up hospitalized with IV antibiotics for a few days. He is feeling much better now, but he will be having surgery in September. He has suffered repeat attacks over the last 15 years and it is time to deal with it (hopefully) once and for all.

Back in the mountains, we spent our 20th wedding anniversary visiting a waterfall.

My mom and her husband spent a few days with us along with my brother and sister-in-law. Here we are all cleaned up and on the same boat my brother got married on 18 years ago.

And here we are hanging out on the trail in the woods.

And of course there were many days spent on Schroon Lake. Dogs included.

I have to admit that I truly enjoyed the break from home decor. In fact, the only thing I decorated all summer was the mantel at the cabin to include some of our pictures and items collected over the course of the summer hanging from a piece of driftwood.

I am back and refreshed with lots of new inspiration. We came home from upstate and I was itching to get back to work on our house. I immediately switched our upstairs living and dining spaces. And we built some new shelves. I will post pictures soon! We have plans to finally tackle the ceiling in our kitchen. And I will definitely be adding some fall decor. But first, we need to get the kids back to school and Billy through his surgery.

Read More

Blue & White Summer Living Room

Today I thought I would finally share a few pictures of our very casual summer living room before it is time to change things up for fall. I added some touches of my favorite color combo at this time of year, blue & white.

I mainly used items I already had around our house. My only new purchase is one pillow cover for this sofa, which inspired adding all of the blue and white throw pillows I had in the house. You have already seen most of them in our master bedroom, but I thought it would be refreshing to bring them down to the living room for the summer.

I took some of these pictures when all the peonies were blooming. To me, there is absolutely nothing like the scent of fresh cut peonies. I miss them already.

The scent reminds me of my childhood and the weeks that the peonies are blooming are the best. I even cut a few on my way up to the mountains for Memorial Day weekend and when we got there, the lilacs were blooming up there. So I made a bouquet of both of them. They smelled heavenly.

Back to the blue and white, there was a vendor called Family Heirloom Weavers at the Country Living Fair in Rhinebeck, NY that had the absolute best prices on textiles. I purchased the runner on the coffee table and the blue and white pane pillow cover for $20. I regret not buying more and I really hope he is back next year. He was doing so well as he always had a line at his booth. I searched and did find that they sell on eBay, but the prices seem a bit higher. I added where I purchased the other pillows in the picture below.

We decided to remove the tv from over the faux fireplace. Nobody ever watched it anymore and it is pleasant to have a level in our home without a big black box.  I had to come up with something to cover the outlet that is now centered over the fireplace for the television, so I grabbed this sign that I purchased at Hobby Lobby a few months back. It had been hanging over my desk and I love the saying. Although is a bit on the small side, it fills in the space over the fireplace until I come up with something else for the fall.

We hope you are having a wonderful summer!

Read More