Preserved...For Preserves!

We found this crazy wire contraption in the eves of our attic the other day, and didn't know what it was. But you guys did! You were right: it holds Mason Jars for canning, and I did indeed have it upside-down in my last post.

So now I need to find a wacky oval pan and I can make a heckuva lotta jam! (That always makes me think of Monica's Jam Plan to get over her breakup with Magnum P.I. Richard.) Or wouldn't it be a cute holder of containers? I could fill them with silverware and flowers and things at a picnic! Or, I could do THIS.

I spent an hour looking all over the internet for one like it, and I only found small round canning racks, or single-jar holders. I haven't found any that are as large as this one. And by the way, there is a whole world of Mason Jar arts and craftiness that I find super-cool.

So my questions now are these:

• What was this doing in the walls of my attic?!?!
• How the heck old is it??

I should show you some of the other cool stuff we've found in our centurial home.....

So Here's What Happened

Around five o'clock this morning, David and I sat bolt-upright in bed to the most sonorous rumbling we've ever heard. At least... I thought we were sitting up. I think we were just jerked into consciousness and were still laying there, staring into the dark. The traffic on the bridge behind our house is a constant white-noise for us, so we both thought a horrible accident had occurred. A trash truck had driven off and crashed into the park below! The bridge itself was somehow coming undone, cable's ripping out of the ground for sure!

"What. Was. THAT?" We were both sitting up in bed now. We realized it was thunder...and we had just torn a huge hole in our roof. We jumped out of bed and ran willy-nilly around the house; I'm not sure what we were doing. I went to the back door to see if it was raining and a light mist was coming down. I was about to stick my hand out to see how it felt when the air crackled and popped (yes, quite like Rice Crispies) the sky lit up with a flash and then "BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!" Another tremendous rumbling of thunder! Now the dog was running in circles and I beamed like I'd just pulled up to the gates of Disneyland.

I ran to get my shoes on-- we had to get that hole covered; it was really starting to rain! By now 2  kids were in our bed and the dog was underneath it when David informed me we were out of tarps. We laughed at the irony of tearing off the roof because it was leaking, only for it to rain the very next day. We should know by now that when the weather report says sunny and 80's all week (no matter what the weather report says, really) in Portland that means "rain". Our only option seemed to be to haul our backyard canopy up onto the roof.

It was...ridiculous. Even the neighbor, who had thought we were being bombed, saw Dave on the roof in the rain and asked if he could come over and help. We finally got the awkward and useless canopy onto the roof (although Taylor and I feel a little victorious over that) and the rain had stopped! Neighbor-dude got a tarp from his house and he and Dave put it up, letting us know he's ready and willing to help us with anything else we need.

Seriously, we are blessed with the nicest neighbors. I once won an Ice Cream Block Party from Dreyers for an essay I wrote on "Why I Love My Neighborhood". It's just that great. My block, not my writing.

So here we are today, Father-and-Son Demo Team, under shelter of plastic.

Taylor (who's awesome) made these handy-dandy hammer-holders! This is not the best photo, but he was proud of those hammer-holders and I wanted to get them in the picture.

 Nothing fills a boy with a sense of worth and purpose more than some good, hard work.

He spent all day alone with me (at Taco Hell and the grocery store and running errands), and only a couple of hours doing this with Dave. He comes up to me at bedtime and says,

"I had a good day today with Daddy."

(Hm. Chopped liver.)

Where are the other boys, you ask?

I had the settings all wrong for this picture, but I had to take it quick before anything changed. I love finding my little guys just reading away amongst a scattering of literature.

...and all our attic junk.

...and a moose antler.

Alright Thunder & Lightening....bring it on!! Of course, now it will only be hot and sunny for the rest of the week.

Coming up.... the Weird-Wire-Cage-Thing-From-the-Attic-Eves mystery is SOLVED!

Stay tuned. (Riveting, I know....)

What Is It?

We found this in our attic eves today:

Any idea what it is?

Our house was built in 1907, and has been randomly modified in various ways ever since. So there's no telling if this dormer came with the original house, but it's time for this rickety, leaky bad-boy to go.

DEMO-TIME!

Making progress! There was a nasty, fogged-up window here, with no ventilation except for these two wood flaps, through which --legend has it-- the previous owners' three-legged dog would climb out and bark at the neighbors. I also happen to know that racoons will crawl in those flaps and poop in your attic, too.

I am ecstatic to:
a) see the sun
b) smash something with the sledge hammer
c) not be making food for someone
d) all of the above

Seriously, if you know what that cage-thing is, tell us, please!

I'll try and keep y'all up to date on what comes of this massive hole in our roof.

Naked and Unashamed

He starts off, you know, appropriately dressed...(usually). Like this:

He looks really excited for a fun-filled day at the beach, doesn't he?

But before long, one thing leads to another and this happens.

Emancipation!

When he's naked, he feels no shame.

He has not yet tasted of the tree of

the knowledge of

Good and Evil.

Everything is just...Good.

Oh yeah...I am SO not going back to those days!

To have faith like a child.

To be naked and unashamed.

To not have to cater to the knowledge of evil

...constantly struggling with it's presence.

In heaven we will all be clueless naked babies on the beach.

That's right.

Minus the sunburn.
Burns are for hell.

Remarkability

It is a remarkable woman who sets her table for 10 sloppy little come-and-go pancake eaters who rotate a jar of honey non-stop for the better part of an hour.

It is a remarkable man who shows no fear and even says "bring the dog".

It's a remarkable couple who have room in their hospitable hearts to double their household for a weekend and breathe life into another family of seven.

It is a remarkable thing to have friends who are so remarkable, and we are appropriately humbled and grateful. Nous vous sommes extrêmement reconnaissants, Dennis family!

Dog Days of Summer

Technical Difficulties

I am having a hard time on this blog thingy.

I mean, not only do I not feel like it's a priority in my crazy-busy life, and not only do I question why I need to spill my thoughts onto the whole interwebs (hasn't it all been said before? nothing new under the sun, and all that?) but I also....

CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO UPLOAD A SINGLE DANGED PICTURE.

See, I gots me a laptop, and I gots me some wireless in the house. And I thought this was the perfect recipe for ease and convenience and that the blog-posts would consequently come rolling out prolific, from a cozy spot on the couch, or by the light of the bedside lamp under my heavenly egyptian cotton sheets, or from the backyard summer firepit for that matter. Part of this new convenient laptop is the ability to put the camera's SD card right into the computer which then sucks out the photos and places them directly into a Windows Live Photo Gallery, where I can (theoretically) do some limited photo processing. That's where I keep my photos.

What just happened?

OK, wait. Somehow I fooled around with it, tried one more thing and...did it. Gosh dern, this stuff is so confusing. Because when I click "upload" and "choose files" it automatically sends me to a file on my computer that is not what I'm looking for. And then I can't find what I'm looking for.

But look, I did it. I wrote down the address I need to look for and after a glass and a half of wine (a.k.a. therestofthebottle), I'd better stop typing now, before my backspace button wears out.

Adios muchachos.