The Old-fashioned Dry Sink

I'm so excited to announce that the +7 year project has come to an end. A few years before I met Dan a pulled this old piece of furniture out of the little old house that sits in my parents' farm yard. I had a dream to have it refinished someday.
The old house was the first house my grandparents lived in when they were first married. When my dad was born my grandpa upgraded to the house that I grew up in.
Anyway, this piece of furniture was always sitting in the bedroom of that old house and my sisters and I would play with it when we were little. The ceiling in that room started to crumble down about 7-8 years ago, so I moved it out and into my parents' porch.
It was used as a wash stand/dry sink. There was no running water in that house, so I assume my grandparents used it as there would-be bathroom sink. It probably had an old pitcher and basin sitting on it. The rack on the right side would hold towels. And the mirror pivots to accommodate tall vs. shorter people. The mirror has some spots and actually looks really old.

The bottom part was missing a drawer and part of the little door. Dan started working to scrape the old white paint off a few years ago, but progress was slow due to his lack of knowledge and tools.
After moving here we found out that an older gentleman at our church was a retired high school shop teacher. He let Dan bring it to his shop and helped him repair and refinish it.
It looks a bit different from the white paint it had, but after taking the paint off the original wood had a dark stain similar to this.
This picture outside has a better lighting. The camera didn't do it justice, it looks much more awesome in person. Dan worked many hours on this project and finished it in time to give it to me for Christmas. Thanks Dan , I love you. I'm excited to have this piece of family history in my home.

(I have some pictures of what it looked like before the refinish, but I can't find them right now. When I figure out where they are I'll post some before and after pics.)

Emmee's prayer.

I have to blog about this before I forget.
We just had our nighttime family prayer. Emmalynn said it.
Here's a portion of her prayer.
"Please bless us to be safe on Christmas morning, so that we don't trip as we're running to get our presents."
I was trying so hard not to laugh that I didn't actually hear the rest of her prayer. She's sure asking in advance!

Delicious!

It's always heart warming when your child enjoys a meal you made.
I rarely get that from my girls, who most often say, "You never make anything I like!"
The other night I made a ham-potato chowder soup. Adam ate it with gusto (and both hands) and after every other bite would say, "Delicious."
I'm not sure where he picked up that word, but it sounded so cute we had to video tape him saying it.

I'm back!

Okay, it's been forever since I last posted anything, including my kids' blogs. On the 30th of Oct. the kids and I flew to ND to stay with my parents and see all the relatives. I forgot my cord so I couldn't blog on my Mom's computer. Then somehow the week and a half between getting back and leaving again for the Thanksgiving break was filled with unpacking, laundry and extra homework, not to mention that Dan got a new (new to us, it was an old work computer he could buy for $50) computer and I am now figuring out everything on it. I hate the way the old things look completely different on a different computer, grrrr.
In the coming days, I will be backflashing the last month and a half on this blog and the kids' blogs. (If you haven't been to their blogs just look to the right of this post and look at the blog list and click on a blog name that has the name of one of my children!)
Halloween was great, Thanksgiving was wonderful, and we are now decorated for Christmas, and Emmalynn checks out the window, often.., to see if Santa's watching her! I tell her he is... all the time. HEHE. It works very well too.