Porch spruce-up

This year I cashed in a few holidays for front porch progress. For Mother’s Day, Erik bought me three lovely red hanging planters from Lowe’s. Thanks to his toil and talent each one is auto-watered, dramatically extending the survival rates for these pretty petunias.

For our anniversary, I requested a porch makeover and we made a weekend project of it. We cleaned up the porch and moved in a bench and side table from other parts of the yard. Then I purchased/sewed a few pillows and added a clearance pot and birdbath stand.

We also added a few things to the walls to cozy it up. The rustic tree art lived on our mantle inside for about a year until I decided to replace it with a zestier watercolor. Now the tree livens up our porch – a fitting motif for a house we affectionately call ‘Wild Oak’.

By the door we put up a vintage chalkboard from my favorite ‘upscale flea market’ (is that store title an oxymoron?). It’s a perfect spot for spontaneous sketches and greetings to guests. Here my poetry is joined by Erik’s tracking of our gas meter. A multifunctional piece!

We also wired in some low-voltage pathway lights along the front path and added plants with my parents.

Usually there’s plenty of kid detritus to counteract the tidiness, but I like to think of it as adding to the laidback hacienda feel. Come on over to watch the sun set and cruise a bit in the cozy coupe!

Playroom progress: A closer look

It took me forever to settle on a paint color for this space. I’d been leaning toward yellow since it’s our whole-house accent color, and a playroom is the perfect space for an accent shade to take center stage. But I feared that it would look country, gender-neutral baby, or intense in this busy space. So I retreated toward our standby, greige. It took the advice of a talented interior designer to talk me into a different kind of yellow, with the tiniest hint of green. Fresh and modern but not too loud. So I ended up using Martha Stewart’s ‘rice paper’ color, a creamy yellow, with hints of lime from the green accents in the room.

The colors and nature motif in the lamps and lampshades (Target) were the starting point for the space. They tie into nature’s palette outside and the creative mood that I wanted to evoke.

We bought the low plywood play table on craigslist while the house was under contract. It had been handmade for an in-home daycare and was being sold for a song. I knew it would make an ideal surface for the kids to engineer their duplo/train/playmobil and other creations. So it lived for several weeks in the back of our station wagon before the house closing because we didn’t want to unload it twice. Erik may have gotten some strange looks going through security into work, but it was worth it!

Our arts and crafts table is another CL treasure. I love the vintage French look to its blue-grey metal frame. And the small size and light weight make it great for moving around the room for forts and projects. I also like how the clear plexiglass top lets it recede a bit so the playtable can dominate avoiding the awkward dilemma of two dueling tables vying for authority in the room.

The table’s colored metal frame happily stews with a slew of other metals. There’s the bronzy door handles, a stainless steel art hanging system, a tin oversized clock, a chunky brass curtain rod, and these vintage metal file boxes.

I also mixed art styles. There are a few skilled pieces by grown-up artists amidst vibrant groupings of kid art. I love the message it sends to L & E that their art is just as beautiful and full of meaning as professional pieces in our home. I also hope it inspires them to grow further in their painting abilities!

As you would expect, toy storage is abundant. I loved that we could use both our white bookcases in this space. They’re such big pieces that we’ve often had to split them up, losing some of their clean and organized impact. The larger one holds mostly art items and there’s lots of open space on the lower white bookcase and in the play table cubbies. For now we keep most of the toys in the grand toy closet. I allow 1-2 toy sets out at a time to minimize clutter and keep their toys fresh and exciting as they rotate into play.

The ‘rug’ is just a remnant piece from when we recarpeted our old house, but it’s great for now since I don’t stress about messy art projects or other mishaps. Eventually I’d love to get something huge to go in this space, and switch out the old white chair for a compact loveseat to make things a bit cozier. Way down the line for the teen years, I could see moving out one of the tables and bringing in a sectional couch and a TV.

We’re often found building racetracks, painting masterpieces, perfecting forts, and pretending to be turtles in this happy sunny space. And for me, the cherry on top is an old rotary wall telephone that receives incoming calls. Fortunately it can’t dial out, so the kids can spin the clicking dialer to their hearts content. Our next project in here is more of a modern than a vintage endeavor though. We just ordered a heating/cooling unit, and hope to get it installed before our much-awaited visit from Auntie C!

The crown jewel of home layout

Two years ago when we started looking at houses, our realtor told us that few clients ever find their ideal layout. My first response was shock – how could anyone buy a house if it’s not their ideal layout?!? Then I moved on to solemn vow mode, promising myself that we would surely wait for the perfect layout. Well fast-forward seven months of arduous house-shopping and we were almost ready to settle. But just then an intriguing photo-less house listing popped up, we toured it the next morning, and our search was over! Wild Oak offered just what we’d been looking for… single-story, open kitchen-family room, small masterbath, big mastercloset, coats & shoes space in the back hall, separate formal dining with space for a big table, and a small front entry area. Is that being picky?

Those were all excellent, but the most compelling layout feature was a large bonus room that’s separated from the main living areas. I love having a separate playroom for toys so that I’m not constantly staring at them with mixed feelings. Part of me wanting them cleaned up and the other half wanting to preserve the kids’ creations for further play. A separated playroom is also nice for distancing the kid soundtrack so that grownup conversation can still be had when we entertain. Most significantly, we hope that if we’re still here when our kids are teenagers it will be a space where our kids can get together with friends. Private enough to make it appealing as a hangout but close enough for some supervision. Bring the parties here please!

Just as important, we envisioned a separate playroom that could do double-duty as a private area for houseguests. It’s so nice to have the guest space separate from the other bedrooms so that visitors aren’t awoken by our kids’ nighttime cries and don’t have to worry about being quiet if they get up early from east coast jetlag. And Wild Oak’s bonus room has its own bathroom, sealing the plan for private guest quarters. Finally the separation appealed to us because it lets you heat/cool the space more or less than the rest of the house as needed.

Yet somehow most houses have the second living area/playroom in plain sight of the main living areas! Leaving all those toys in view, a clash of kid and adult volume levels, and no possibility for the room doubling as a private guest space or conserving on overnight heating/cooling costs. Wild Oak’s previous owners had their act together though. They added an addition behind the garage that’s connected to the rest of the house by an L-shaped laundry/pantry/mudroom hallway. This provides easy access and some sound monitoring for kid play with the doors open, but plenty of privacy for overnight guests, teenagers, and toy messes. It’s also been fun since it allows for a more bright and kid-geared decorating aesthetic without clashing with the rest of the house since it’s not in view.

Well, clearly I can wax on at length about the merits of this layout. But let’s move on to a couple more photos. Here it is at play with the Ellabelle and Luke-a-boy, far enough removed from the rest of the house that the clutter and paper clippings don’t bother me too much!

I’ll be back hopefully tomorrow with some more pics and details on the room. Who knows, maybe October will be my month of blogging and I’ll work my way up to a house tour yet!

More first pets: Pollywogs!

We made the summer a regular pet-fest here, with plenty of mates for Russell the lizard. First there was “Climber” an interestingly colored beetle found on our patio that stayed alive for a remarkably long time in Luke’s bug house.

Then we happened upon an enormous puddle in a parking lot, brimming with tadpoles. We scooped up a cupful to take home and Nika and Papi helped the kids transfer them to the water table. A perfect home for the wiggly crew.

Here Luke is watching them happily swim as he eats breakfast the next morning.

We didn’t know what rate to expect for their transformation, but the fascinating process proceeded somewhat slowly giving us plenty of time to admire and photograph the pollywogs in various stages. First their legs appeared,

Then arms grew out and tails got shorter,

Finally they lost their tails entirely and started jumping out of the water. Funny little froggies – wait, I think they might be toads?

Our third little pet is still in transformation. The kids received a butterfly kit from my parents and sent away for the caterpillars a few weeks ago. We watched them hang from the top of their jar, harden into cocoons, and transferred them into a larger habitat. Now we’re just waiting for the butterflies to emerge!

I think this will be the last for a while in my series of posts on our southwest-y critters. Are you breathing a sigh of relief? Next up are some pics from our recent home projects and of course more kids on bikes. Now there’s a little time left in Eleanor’s nap, so I think I’ll pull out my autumn-y decorations to put up with the kids this afternoon!  

Love at first lizard

For years now every cute pooch that passes our way has left me with a twinge of regret, slowly mounting to guilt. Luke and Eleanor would be so delighted by puppy kisses, doggy chase, and canine cuddles. And wouldn’t a pet teach them responsibility, respect for animals, and provide a faithful friend in moments of frustration? Yet, I couldn’t quite sign on for the complications that a pooch would bring into our lives. Did we want to spend big bucks to board a dog every time we traveled to visit family? What about all the hair and furniture abuse in the house? Shouldn’t I at least wait until both kids are fully toilet-trained before taking on another potty pupil? So we hemmed and hawed for the past few years over the merits and troubles of dog ownership, never quite ready to take the puppy plunge.

But then it dawned on me: dogs aren’t the only pet available. There are plenty of lower-maintenance pets that could help teach our kids the same valuable lessons, making a more gradual bridge to the responsibilities of dog ownership. Thus began our backyard hunt for a lizard. We had lots of laughs chasing the lightning-fast critters for weeks, never getting nearly close enough to pick one up. But then one morning Erik heard a curious rustling in our recycling bin. He looked inside and lo and behold, there was our new pet, conveniently contained in the bottom of the bin.

The kids were elated when Erik came in with the news and ran out to help. Unfortunately in the hubbub of scooping the lizard up, he shot off his tail as a wild wiggling decoy. Luke thought that was hilarious but Erik kept his cool and got the tricky little guy into the bucket nonetheless.

Luke had picked out a perfect name weeks before. He chose “Russell” because we always hear these lizards rustling in the leaves and grasses. Here Russell is spying a cricket on the rock.What a wild spectacle it is to see him pounce on a cricket and chomp it head-first with its legs sticking out on either side of Russell’s mouth.

Erik is a pet softie so Russell didn’t stay in the white bucket for long. Soon he moved on up to this 55-gallon tank. Now that the weather’s cooled a bit we’ve added a heat pad and UV light. We keep it by our back door so the kids can go outside to check on Russell or just look through the window at him anytime.

It’s precious to see them collecting ‘presents’ to add to Russell’s tank and going out to say good night before bedtime. What a sweetie that little Russell is, I hope he’s happy with us for a long time to come!

Monsoon adventures

After months on end without more than a few drops of rain, the heavens opened. With a fury. Sheets of water beating the ground. Hail clattering on the roof. Relentless, sustained pounding in a climax of the Southwest’s seasonal monsoon storms.

Unfortunately, at the time I was stuck in the Home Depot parking lot due to long delays at the paint counter, worrying about getting home in time to make dinner for the guests we were expecting and shivering from a dash through the icy bucket loads. But there was no dashing home. Central Blvd was a river at least a foot deep, and so I waited with all the other stranded drivers on the Home Depot high ground, awestruck at the sustained torrent of rain. 

Meanwhile, back at Wild Oak, Luke was running out into the sheets in crazy bursts of courage, Eleanor was crying with her hands over her ears in protest of the raucous volume, and Erik was taking photos. Then, for a brief time, our home turned waterfront.

An arroyo crosses through the edge of our property, nature’s watershed path for the looming mountains behind us. But in the year we’ve been here, we’d never seen even a trickle of water run through.

But that afternoon the arroyo surged to a rushing flow, certainly too fast and deep for a child to walk across. If its size was gauged by Albuquerque’s Rio Grande, this would definitely be a Rio Pequeno. Erik missed getting a pic of the wild flow since he didn’t want to bring the camera out in the rain, but here it’s still trickling.

All summer the cacti had been drying up and dying from the miniscule precipitation we’d been receiving. So when our rain gauge recorded 1.5 inches in just over an hour of the storm, we were all elated.

Then, unbelievably, the mega-monsoon repeated itself two weeks later, but with even more fury of wind and rain. We only heard about that storm, as we were in New Hampshire at the time, but what a sweet repeat for our thirsty landscape. Since then occasional storms have continued to frequent Albuquerque, in happy downpours or soft showers. The climatologists say that the extra rain hasn’t brought an end to our region’s drought but it certainly has helped to save the fading flora and fauna. And it’s been our first true monsoon season in our time here, as the drought had obscured the typical month of drenching afternoon storms in late summer.

This year, we’ve driven through the hail to rescue Erik, mid-bike-commute home. We’ve splashed in puddles and waded in gentle arroyo flows. I’ve been home for many of those and cherish the drama and the deluge – the extra-pungent rain smells from the dusty desert ground, the thick clouds rolling down the mountains, and the rush of rain out the canals on a flat adobe roof. Here’s hoping for many more drenching monsoon seasons to come!

Bully is back and other wild encounters

Thanks to the hanta virus (which thankfully has not been reported in our area), my severe snake-phobia has melted away and left behind a stranger who delights to see a snake outside our house provided it doesn’t have a rattle. Now I say, go snake go and eat those mice! Both Bully (our former reptilian house guest) and his heavyweight mother/father were recently spotted near our front door on sunny afternoons. One time the kids were with me and we all enjoyed the enchanting swish, swish, swish as he slithered away into the grass. Another time we found a fresh snake skin on some branches. What a fascinating souvenir these friends leave for us to find.

There was, however, one stressful reptile encounter back at the start of the summer. I went out to check on Erik and the kids’ progress cleaning the front porch. Just on the edge of all the action I was startled to see this little guy lying unnoticed.

It can be hard to tell if small snakes have a rattle or not, so we followed our standard questionable snake protocol and took a photo to check the pupil shape via zoom. And… AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! Vertical slits! Venomous. The only venomous snakes listed in our local fauna book are dangerous rattlers.

I started to despair. We were overrun. The rattlesnakes were at our door, waiting to storm our home. Pack now! Where’s the ‘for sale’ sign? Load the car!! But truly the little guy seemed to lack the aggressive temperament associated with rattlesnakes. We sent off photos to a friend, a bona fide NM wildlife authority. To our great relief we quickly heard back that the snake is poisonous but not dangerous to people because his venom is mild and he’s rear-fanged: a night snake. They’re seldom seen because they only come out at night and are extremely shy, but this one was injured and trapped on our porch. My sympathy was stirred and I pitied the poor little guy.

Snakes aren’t the only local resident that’s more active in the warmer months. The past few weeks we’ve heard numerous reports from neighbors about the garbage and birdseed seeking antics of a local black bear. These were all benign but there was one startling bear encounter earlier this summer in our neighborhood. A young black bear pushed in a single-pane window and entered a house in search of food -- an exceedingly rare incident. For some reason the owner confronted the bear (instead of leaving with the doors open), and he suffered a bite on the hand as a result. We have yet to see a bear, but we do hope that they stay in the mountains to avoid execution by the NM animal control units!

Other wildlife encounters from our first year at Wild Oak include Eleanor’s favorite: ‘deers’ munching right outside her window during bedtime stories. Luke and I were awestruck by a gorgeously striped and whiskered bobcat striding down our porch in the middle of the afternoon. Then there are the endless bunnies and hummingbirds, frequent hawks, occasional quail coveys, and a returning roadrunner in the backyard.

I’m still not a fan of scorpion season, but my abhorrence has dimmed a bit as time has passed. Upon close examination the variety that we’ve seen seems to be one whose sting is on par with a bee. All in all, a small price to pay to live in a city-side nature oasis.

I’ll be back to post soon on the three wildlife species that the kids recently adopted as pets: Rustle, Climber, and Froggies!