When a tropical storm sends torrential rain for 4 days, guess what is NOT getting done? Home construction. The vinyl guys can’t work. The drywall guys can’t do their stuff until the insulation guys spray between the walls and they can’t do that until all the vinyl is out of the garage and finished on the outside. So, we are at a total standstill.
My plans for the day before all this rain was to attend a bi-monthly shopping event at Farmhouse+Family. This is a small family-owned warehouse full of decorating items that are right up my alley for the house. These are things that both our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had around their homes through the years. Think galvanized metals, wire frame baskets, tomato baskets, olive buckets, pitchers, metal signs, wood crates, sugar molds, etc. When I told Stephen I wanted to go, he decided to go with me and look at some furniture pieces for us to consider for the house.
Unfortunately, I underestimated the popularity of such a place. We got there 30 minutes early and this is the line 30 minutes after they opened the doors. There is a staggered entry so there are not too many casualties from frantic farmhouse shoppers. I had a list of 5 things and I was crossing my fingers they would not be gone. The first item was a galvanized French pitcher. I already know what I’m going to do with it. I just needed to find one.
I sent Stephen off to find a windmill. My great-grandmother had a windmill in her yard and I wanted something similar, but inside on the wall. He found a half windmill and it is HUGE! It will be perfect on the wall overlooking the kitchen, dining, and living room in the vaulted area. I still could not find my pitcher. I did find an olive bucket and a few cotton stems. Stephen found a sign he loved so I grabbed it up. I gave up on the pitcher and got in line.
After a couple of minutes in line, he got restless and wanted to go look around one more time for anything that might catch his eye. It was at this point in this whole house-building process that I finally realized he has the same vision for our home as I do. It’s not just me that’s decorating our home. This might explain why we have had very few arguments over design or décor. I think my insistence that every item I plan to buy already has a specific use is helping this process along. I’m not going crazy grabbing things off Wayfair and at estate sales and planning to “do something, not sure what”. He has watched me spend hours researching traditional farmhouse materials and we’ve discussed at length our memories of our families dating back to the early 1900s.
Anyway, he caught my attention and held up a pitcher. It was the one I searched for 30 minutes trying to find. And he found a square metal tomato basket that I didn’t know was available. I saw the large rectangle ones, but I did not have an idea of how to use it so I passed it by. The smaller square one he held up will be perfect in the kitchen to hold our coffee paraphernalia.
This is the checkout area. I am thinking about those cathedrals. We are not a Catholic family and do not have much history with cathedral church buildings. Our buildings are very low-key. But, these are pretty and they scream farmhouse. That stack of buckets are the larger olive buckets. I got a smaller one but I may be back for another big one.
Ugh. On one hand, our 70-something-day drought in Sept-Nov last year has been completely wiped off the charts. But 9 inches in Tuscaloosa over 3 days is getting old. No leaks in the new house and no flooding are also good points to this.
Lunch is Jason’s Deli. I’m starting the Keto train again, which I will detail this weekend (hint: my pancreas needs this). It’s basically paleo+dairy-baked goods or sugar in any form. Ordering a chef’s salad instead of the salad bar is the only way to get extra protein on my salad. Stephen brings me extra olives and occasionally a cup of olive oil+vinegar. I threw the tomatoes to his plate and DEVOURED this whole thing. I was hungry.
And along with cutting sugar is trying to drink more water. I drink plenty of LaCroix in the summer in Alabama. But plain water is not happening very often. I filled this up and hope to drink it and a refill (or 2). Road trips with water are no big deal since I have the teacher bladder of steel.
I had a big lunch and by 8pm, I was hungry again, but not starving. I stir fried up some broccoli and mushrooms and then reheated leftover Boston Butt from a fundraiser. The salsa was an added spur-of-the-moment thing and it will now be a planned thing. I loved the salsa with the smoked pork. The buttery vegetables were perfect.
I got in a very quick treadmill run this morning but it was not the full 3 miles that is scheduled. I may make the Sunday long run a little longer than my plan states. Virginia Beach race trip will be here before I know it!