Lake Cabin

A few months ago our nest officially emptied. We took Callie to college on a Tuesday and that same week on Friday, we closed on a cabin on a lake in Minnesota. I like to think of it as us getting home, looking through our 5 bedroom house to make sure we were alone, confirming to each other that all the kids were launched, sitting down and counting our money to see if there was any left and then saying "LET'S GO BUY A CABIN!".

But the truth is that we had been looking for a cabin for about 3 years and the girls had been kind in sparing our finances by earning academic scholarships. So, for 3 years we've been looking as ugly house after ugly house floated across our computer monitor. We've been patient. We are too young to buy a cabin and we don't have time to use one. But, the time was right. Its a buyers market, afterall, and when the realtor said she had something she wanted us to look at, though it was out of our price range, we looked.

And the picture you see is what we found. A cabin, built in 1955 about when we were being born; the first cabin on the lake; moved to a new location; this cabin was owned by the same family all those years. When the 94 year matriarch decided it was time to sell it, it was our lucky day.

So what do I like best? Is it the lake? Is it the living in small space challenge? Is it that we have a new dream to realize and work on together? The enjoyment of working together with the girls as we turn it into our cabin? I can't isolate just 1 thing. I'm torn between wanting to get it turned into a cabin we can use and not wanting the process to end. I can't wait to sit by a toasty stove and watch the snow fall as I look out over the lake. Or listen to a loon as we drink coffee in our adirondack chairs and watch the sun come up. Or take walks around the lake and return to our little nest to make hot chocolate and read a book or knit. I guess I'm a dreamer and have alway been a nester. Empty, or full to brimming with a family, I love making my nest and if the children are raised, then I can picture their families and the times we can share with them when all 600 square feet of it is full to bursting! So here's to vertical living and finishing our cabin!

Launching a Spiritual Experience

It will be on a fast track but the quilt I am about to make has been a long time in the think tank. I really mess up Christmas ... every year. I have sent gifts to Chile that should have been sent to Minnesota, bought "surprise" evening bags that one daughter said looked like a case for CD's (affectionately said, of course), and just saved Christmas 2010 by returning a coat I luckily learned was too small. So after Christmas last year I resolved to return my gift giving back to the years when I made gifts; to return to a homemade Christmas. My plan was to make each daughter a killer; the name we give our old family comforters that are crafted from wool and heavy cotton batting; appropriately named killers for their weight should one not be able to get out from under them.

By September I had accomplished having my sewing machine over-hauled, pricing my fabric, sketching my pattern and consulting an expert about the batting. But I had yet to make the plunge and start the project. Until ... a daughter home for the weekend was musing aloud how she liked the Pottery Barn comforters and I disclosed my secret plan. We made a trip to Bonnie's Quilt Shop in Pocahontas. So much for the surprise! The colors were selected by her with some help from me.

As I was telling this story while skyping a friend, she advised me to make this project a spiritual experience and to let the quilt become itself without too much thinking. That was like permission to not think ... which can get me in trouble at Christmas! So, here I go. I am going to launch a spiritual experience and not be burdened by over-thinking the outcome. Merry Christmas to me!