When they greet us at the door we call them our kitty comittee and they are growing like weeds.
Here they are on May 14.
And here they are in the window again on June 18.
It’s very difficult to get good photos of the girls – the black ones. We adore them all and they show us their big little personalities more each day.
And, we got great news – our previous fosters (Steve and Avery) finally got adopted.
There’s a fun new business in Chicago called The Strip Club.
From their web site: The Strip Club” is Chicago’s first and only photobooth studio featuring a collection of rare, vintage photobooths and our retro-style digital photobooths. Each booth has a different format and feel. Customers take their own photos the old-fashioned way, climb in the booth with a friend, pay for their photo, and have some fun!
Claire humored me when we were close by and we took some photos. So fun!
I have struggled the last couple summers getting motivated to work on my windows. And I realize it’s because it is at it’s heart a demoralizing endeavor
The reasons I am trying to restore the nearly 100 year old windows on my house are a) they are lovely windows that are a big feature of the charming exterior b) old windows are meant to be repainted and reglazed – they are made to last. c) when we briefly looked into window replacements the windows were very expensive and they would alter the look of our house in several negative ways.
So I tentatively began to restore my windows and I built confidence and I felt very motivated.
But now there are several things that discourage me (in no particular order).
So what is a person to do. A person who loves her house. A person who appreciates good architecture and a solid old building. A person who doesn’t mind learning new things and getting dirty.
There are some great resources – people who have been very encouraging (Scott Sidler and Stacy Grinsfelder) but after the initial excitement at the though that I could do the right thing for my house myself – I am very very discouraged.
And yet I carry on since overall I feel doing something vs nothing is better. So here are some photos of my current window project.
Here’s the saga of my pea plants this year.
I bought shelling pea seeds because I forgot to order snap pea seeds and that is what the store had.
They were growing really well.
I made one small harvest.
Shellng peas is fun.
Most of them weren’t big enough yet – I needed to wait.
But I was able to make a salad from my little container of lettuce.
Yum.
But back to the peas. We had two days of storms and their trellis fell down… twice. I was able to pick them up and hobble together a sturdier support. But now the vines are all wobbly and a bit wilted. I’m just hoping they will survive until they are nice and fat and I can harvest them all.
Note to self – make a much more stable trellis next year.
I have lots of wild strawberries growing around in various beds and I’ve seen a robin eating them. And I’m trying to grow poppies (below) for the first time.
Peony season is done but it was great.
I follow a woman gardener online and she walks around her garden and refers to all the plants as “she” So I’m going to start doing that too. It seems appropriate.
And now I’m waiting for my green beans to get big and also looking forward to lots of annual flowers blooming.
I’ll begin with a springy photo of home. After a long stretch of chilly weather we are finally getting some warmth.
So here’s what my family members and I have been up to.
Brian took himself on a mini vacation to Lisbon a few weeks ago. He sent me several photos of interesting tiles.
We got to see Jennifer and Jenna on their way back from Madison. Everyone loves to visit us lately because we have kittens!
I went to our very mini Memorial Day parade with a friend. As I’d hoped – they did have grown men on tiny cars.
And then it was time for Brian to visit us here in Wilmette. Claire and I never eat outside these days because we would rather be inside with our kittens – but I do miss outdoor meals.
Brian was patient about the feline situation.
Then he was off to a meeting in New Jersey and then another in D.C.
In more kitty related news Claire and I were invited to the cat shelter’s fundraiser ball – they had a last minute cancelation so we got to dress up and hang out with a bunch of cat lovers.
This week Claire had exams and next week she starts summer school. Here’s where she sat studying for much of the weekend. The kitties are very supportive.
Bea also has a big exam coming up next week and then she will be done. She had the last two weeks off and spent much of it with a friend in Rimini, Italy. Here are some of the photos she sent from various places.
The photo below is from the hometown of her friend. The mountains glow red like this for a short time at sunset – called the Rosengarten.
She also found a two euro coin with an image of Trier Germany – the namesake of her high school (New Trier). The high school has a bas relief sculpture of the same Roman building on its exterior.
And back at home I’m doing some work on my old windows and of course I have some knitting and sewing projects happening too.
Home sweet home
We’ve had our third set of foster cats for almost two weeks now – so it’s past time to introduce them. They are about 10 weeks old and they are cute, cute, cute!
We call them Boris, Sylvia and Nellie and we are having so much fun with them.
On Tuesday we said good-by to our good boys Steve and Avery. We had them for about four months! Much longer than I expected since we only had our first batch of fosters for two weeks. They were such good cats and we developed nice reassuring routines as they seemed to get more and more affectionate.
We’re eagerly waiting for news that they have been adopted.
They were very helpful flower arrangers.
They monitored my knitting progress – when they weren’t preventing it.
Stretch!
In the last couple weeks I had the doors open and they just loved watching for birds.
And here’s the last photo I have of them some final cuddles on my lap before I took them back to the shelter.
The next day we got the news that there were some kittens in need of a foster home. Truthfully our need for kitty company was just as urgent. So we brought home three 8 week-old babies. One is tucked into my sweatshirt sleeping right now. The other two are sleepy but too busy climbing my pajama pants to settle down.
Stay tuned for lots of photos of Boris, Nellie and Sylvia.
Bea was in Italy again recently. She spotted a Marmot above (middle) and went for a frigid swim below.
She always has the biggest smiles when she is dissecting something (a pig heart). Hmmm.
And a couple photos Brian took while on a run. He know I like to see the sheep.
Here are some photos from a recent walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden
And in my backyard I turned over my compost pile and sifted it then I filled up my big pots with the nice fluffy compost. So very satisfying!
Today Claire turned 16. We went to the Secretary of State’s office after school and now she has her driver’s license. Just few minutes ago she drove away to pick up a friend and go to a school event.
What a big day.
I was very happy that Brian was able to be home for the weekend and we celebrated a couple days early. I made a too big cheesecake.
I feel like Claire is so sweet and easy to get along with. Sometimes I wonder if we will ever have any typical parent/teen disagreements. Yes, she often rolls her eyes at her mother but I deserve those eye rolls. Mostly we just get along and laugh. And since it’s just us at home most of the times these days it’s a very good thing that we get along.
Having cats in our lives has been a huge change. If we’re home we’re likely talking about our kitties or talking about something else while petting our kitties. Having our little family of kitties has been really positive for us.
So I had to make her a kitty collage for her birthday. That’s Sam and Fred our first foster cats.
I have a feeling I’m going to look back at this time with my Claire E. fondly.
Happy Birthday dear.