The Invited

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon

Helen and Nate decide to leave their cushy city life and head for the quiet of the countryside. They plan to build the house of their dreams themselves, board by board. After finding the exactly perfect piece of land in Vermont and buying it for a rock bottom price they feel like things just couldn’t be better. Until they’re not.

As soon as they move onto their property and begin building the town starts to talk. Helen is told about the woman, Hattie Breckenridge, who lived on the land over a hundred years ago and met a violent end. Things begin appearing and disappearing, money, phones, food, talismans. 

Helen taught history and is very conscious of the life force she feels in found objects. She is determined to find old things to incorporate into their home and if she can find objects that came from their area all the better. She finds a beam from a school, bricks from an old mill for their hearth, and in an antique shop, a mantel. And with these objects the life forces Helen is conscious of begin to appear to her and she is even more determined to learn about Hattie and her descendants. She is living on their land and the beam and bricks and mantel are telling their story, Hattie’s story, sometimes desperate, sometimes mysterious, sometimes scary, sometimes hopeful.

As I read this I often looked around the room at the things I’ve acquired at antique shops with new eyes. You never know who you are inviting in.

Plans change

Sometimes plans change.  Sometimes changed plans can work in your favor. My plans with Friend Laurie for today changed but it's still a gorgeous sun shiny day so I took advantage of preparing some stars.  Friend Jan gave Friend Marilyn and I some antique scrappy stars  she knew her church quilt group wouldn't get to.  Many years ago Marilyn and I worked a quilt together so we thought it would be fun to do this one together.  By together I mean we both work on our own but they will be basically the same quilt for both of us.

 I took advantage of the sun and gently soak washed the stars and put them in the sun upside down to dry.  It's such a pretty day today it didn't take long. 

These are very old scrappy stars and no two are alike and are all hand pieced on a foundation fabric. Marilyn is going to prep hers with the starched turned under edge technique.  I'm going to needle turn mine.   We found some fabrics in her stash with dark backgrounds so the stars stand out. Marilyn's is a blue/gray print and mine is a green print. They didn't do well with a light background.
    I'm going to baste them all down and use it as my take-along project this summer.

 A Lowell friend - the one who gave me the feedsacks also included this quilt top in the mix.  It was very chewed up around the edges, like a dog or mouse or something got at it.  Last night I got the seam ripper out and took off the bad edges then this morning gently soak washed it (by hand) and let the nice day dry it. Without the borders it's a nice child/crib size.  I'm on my way to seeing if the good part of the borders might fit back on it now that it's smaller.

Ironed, folded, stacked, now I do what I'm horrible at.  Cutting the background for the stars. They say measure twice, cut once.  Well, I can measure ten times and still cut it wrong and will then call Marilyn in a panicked screaming fit to fix it. It happens.

Flower Day

I look forward to this day every year.  The weather people have stopped forecasting snow, the days are warm enough and I choose a bright-sunny-blue-sky day to go to the greenhouse and buy my geraniums.  I go to a place quite a way from here but their prices are unbeatable and so with blue skies and sunshine and windows rolled down and radio on I have my ME day. The car is filled to overflowing.

 The caladium are for the planter on the front porch because it's in the shade and they love it and so do I.

But there is nothing happier in a pot than a calypso red geranium.  Nothing. So I surround the porches and fill the planters with them. 

Endurance

Busy spring brings busy kids and everyone is happy to be out moving around again but try as she will our daughter just can't be in four places at the same time.  As Elizabeth said, "mom needs a transmorgifier." 

 Elizabeth and her friend were paired for their first tennis match yesterday

 She wasn't upset with the loss of the match because she said they did better than they expected.

There were several kids on the tennis team that had to be at school for their orchestra concert early that evening. There was a two hour window after school to play the tennis match, change clothes, eat, and arrive at school for the concert  so the coach had those kids play first. What a trooper!

 Spring concert was amazing.  These kids have never touched their instruments until last September and now they're doing this!

After running 22 laps around the track after school for Girls on the Run Adelaide fell asleep 15 minutes before the concert started.  She did wake up and cheered her sister's performance.