Conquered and Hung

Have you ever really wanted to do something but fear held you back?  Does your perfectionism hinder you?  I used to be proud of being a perfectionist, but the reality is that setting high subjective standards for yourself and others can lead to all sorts of problems - pride, when you believe that you have attained your goal, and depression, when you fall short of your expectations.  The fear of  failure will often steer a perfectionist away from trying new or challenging things. 

old dining room window shade

Rolled up and secured with a chip clip

Fear can be such a nasty thing, and I desire to conquer it.  Maybe that is why Yahweh gave me an unexpected opportunity a few weeks ago.  No, I did not jump out of an air plane or throw myself off a mountain.  Thankfully Jesus is full of grace and mercy and usually gives us small lessons before the big ones come.


Actually the rope on the dining room window shade heaved its last load.  It was some early version of a pleated shade with no insulation and almost paper thin.  It did help tone down the hot glaring sun rays that stream through our window, but it was on its last thread.

I don't know about you, but I think that replacing window treatments is an inconvenience.  New window dressings always make a huge impact in a room, but that is why it is so stressful to pick our the right covering, and it is often expensive unless you make your own curtain, shade, or blind thingy.


I should also mention that I have been an admirer of roman shades for a very long time.  I have read books, blogs, and websites on how to make my own roman shade.  I should be an expert by now except for the fact that I had never actually made a shade.  Several years ago I bought fabric to make two shades for my kitchen but chickened out and found someone to make them for me.  They turned out o.k.  After waiting four weeks and slapping down $300 I decided that the next time I would make my own!

My first Roman shade

So I embraced the moment and set my mind to the task at hand.  I decided that I would find inexpensive fabric and accept the results of my humble endeavor to cover my window.  JoAnn's had upholstery fabric on sale for $6.99 so I bought 4 yards.  Because my window width including the trim is 63" I had to make two side seams.  Matching the fabric pattern took some time, but I am happy with the results.

ta-da, a fully functioning roman shade!

It took two days to measure, cut, and sew the fabric and lining, and it would have taken only one day to attach the hardware and hang the shade if we had not had company coming for diner.  I have not calculated the total cost, but I know it is less than $100.




I am still not an expert, but I am more than just a dreamer, and fear did not hold me back.  Thank you Lord for the opportunity! 

Here are two very helpful Internet resources if you need a little encouragement to fight your fear and make a Roman shade:
I found this blog on Pinterest, Alissa from 33 Shades of Grey does a great job of showing the basic process.
Blog tutorial

The following link leads to actual video footage from a business website.  Sailrite sells fabric and hardware.  I watched this video several times!  It is very thorough.
How-to-Make-a-Roman-Shade-Video

Summer Garden Progress

first harvest - peppery radish

After July Fourth, summer finally arrived.  Temperatures began to hit the high nineties.  Through most of July I could sit outside in a skirt and sandals and not feel cold.  At the beginning of August it became too hot to eat lunch outside on the deck, but cool enough to enjoy our evening meal Al fresco.

beets, carrots, radish, beans, lettuce & spinach

Higher temperatures mean garden growth - yeah!  I have been able to harvest lettuce, spinach and radish from my seed garden.  Surrounding the seed beds with chicken wire did prevent the chickens from scratching all six beds up.

I managed to surround most of my squash plants with various assortments of wire fencing to deter total poultry invasion.  Now that the tomato vines and pepper plants have fruit on them we had to decide to keep setting up makeshift plant enclosures, or just put up a fence that completely surrounds the entire garden.  Since time and money are limited we decided on a temporary fence that encompasses the entire garden plot.  So far 3 foot high wire fencing and wooden stakes are working just fine.  The chickens seem a bit disconcerted that they can no longer take dirt baths right next to my cabbage plant or peck away at my tomato vines.

cucumber and squash 

I have been able to harvest zucchini, and crooked neck squash should be ready this week.  We also managed to make an asparagus bed right in front of the cucumber trellis.  Hopefully, if the warm weather holds, we will get a decent tomato and pepper harvest now that the chickens can't get to them.

gooseberry, squash, tomato & pepper plants

Right now my tomatoes are the size of marbles, but maybe in two months they will be ready to eat.  I planted three squash plants that self-seeded from my compost pile.  I think that at least one of them is a butternut squash plant.  

Sometimes it is fun to be surprised! One year we had cantaloupe plants grow from compost seeds and they produced small but yummy melons.  We saved the seeds and grew them for several years at our last garden.

pots on the back patio

I purchased the geranium plant in the above photo last summer at Ace Hardware for $1.  It along with its two sisters survived the winter in a sunny window.  The hummingbirds just love these geraniums.  I stood just about a foot from this plant and watched a hummingbird insert its long, narrow beak in several of the blossoms.

Last summer I planted those red geraniums on this shelf pictured above which graces our front deck.  The hummingbirds were just crazy about those red blooms.  This summer I planted sweet potato vine, coleus, and fuchsia on the front deck shelf.  I just love this combination but the hummingbirds aren't attracted to it.  Next year I will try to satisfy my love for stimulating container plants and please the hummingbirds too.

Transplanted

We seven Ankenys have been living in our house for a whole year!   I am so thankful for what we have been able to accomplish in twelve months.  In fact, while I was perusing through my poetry journal, I found a poem that I wrote while we were in the process of getting ready to sell our house back in March 2017.  This poem helped me to reconcile all the emotions that I was feeling while we prepared to make a new start.  We did not now if or when our house would sell and where we would eventually end up.

Uprooting
by Racheal Ankeny 

Fifteen years and more,
Here we live,
Roots plunging deeper, children sprouting taller
Blossoms abound. 

Planted, watered, fertilized
Are we.
Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, Sisters, Cousins
Surround us like a forest with outstretched branches. 

Here we have grown.
Celebrations and happiness we have known,
Also suffering, sadness, and grief. 

To this house our wee ones we brought,
All healthy and vibrant with life.
Five seedlings carefully sheltered
Beneath 523 S. Elder Street's eaves. 

Can roots grown too deep?
Ours feel dry.
They're likely to shrivel,
Only different soil will satisfy. 

We seven have waited,
Praying for Yahweh's direction,
Hoping to find a way. 

It's time to uproot!
Carefully we dig and pull.
Painfully, excitedly separating,
Choosing what to leave.

To our Lord we look,
And set our gaze North.
Full of hope, anticipating adventure,
Anxious to venture from the encircling leaves. 

By Him the future is held,
The soil he has predestined for us,
To be planted, watered, and fed
All over again.

Cherry Pie - from tree to table

Esther took this photo of Lillia wearing Eleanor's sweater that I knitted 😊

Up until July 4th it felt like spring up here.  It was breezy, but mostly warm with scattered showers.  The cherry trees gave us our first fruit of the season.  We have two small cherry trees at the bottom of our hill.  Last year, when we moved in, the cherries were full of worms, but this year we harvested them before the annelid invasion.

Lillia and Eleanor picking cherries for pie.

I don't know what variety of cherry we have, but they are on the sour side; which is perfect if you want to make pie.  I picked up a cherry pitter at Ace Hardware, which was disconcerting because I am pretty sure that I gave the exact same contraption away right before we moved.  How was I supposed to know that my very own cherry tree was waiting for me?

Doesn't it usually seem like the ripest ones are just a bit out of reach?

The girls gathered together to start the process of making homemade cherry pie. 

We ended up with about  eight cups of cherries.

While the girls picked, I looked up cherry pie filling recipes on Pinterest.  I found a recipe that called for lemon juice, cornstarch, sugar, butter, and almond extract.  I did not have corn starch so I substituted arrowroot starch and the filling was too watery, so I threw it in the fridge and wrote 'corn starch' on my shopping list.  Then I found my pate brisee recipe and blended the flour, water, butter, and sugar together to make that fabulous concoction called pastry.

I was able to thicken the filling with corn starch and I even threw in some tapioca pearls for good measure (who wants a runny pie?).  I rolled out the the chilled dough and remembered how lovely it is to work with gluten.  After assembling the pastry and filling in my glass pie dish I placed the pie in the oven.  After about fifty-five minutes - voila, beautiful, buttery cherry pie.

A rustic and rewarding Lordsday treat

 At the beginning of July cherries and service berries were ripe and ready to be picked.  We found plentiful amounts of service berries just down the hill from our property.  We picked several pounds.  They were juicy and sweet, almost like blueberries, but with seeds. 

patriotic berry tart

A service berry and cherry tart seemed like a natural outcome to all our berry picking.  Lillia made the tart crust and I made the filling.  It turned out to be the perfect patriotic treat on the Fourth of July.