life – Little House on the Fairy Hill

Reimagining Sithean Part 2 – Transformation

It’s a quiet Sunday morning in the back half of October, the beginning of week 6 of construction. Other than a couple of quiet weekends our life has been moving at double-time for months now, and we really don’t stop until November. This weekend has been errand-heavy, and today we’ve got to get the house tidier in between commitments. The fair is over in our town, and the weather is starting to get chillier at night.

The back half of the house has been gutted for over a month, the vast majority of the excavation is done, and part of the foundation walls are up. We’re about 2 weeks away from new windows and replacement of our current furnace with a new hydro heating/cooling system. Our existing windows, the ones with the handblown mullions, will be saved aside and likely turned into stained glass over the next several years.

Our living room is kitchen, dining room, pantry and living room combined, and we have one functioning sink and shower for the whole house. When they gutted the upstairs bathroom they left us the toilet so we have that at least. Eli’s studio and our bedroom are filled with clutter and clothes, because there’s not enough places to put things.

I don’t like clutter, so it’s a lot sometimes, but we’re dealing with it.

The kids rooms are generally intact, and the zipper walls keep out most of the dust on our side of the house, at least for now. While it’s weird, it’s surprisingly not awful. An inconvenience, rather than a problem, living in a construction zone.

And it’s fascinating to watch the transformation up close. We have an amazing team, too. Our excavator, Jacob, who is magically turning a dirt pile into a house shape. Our lead carpenter, Ryan who keeps everything moving. Colin, who patiently explains the construction as it happens. The foundation guys, whose names we don’t know because they are quiet and refuse our efforts to bring them cold drinks, walking atop 9 foot tall foundation forms like they are stilts. Alan, the master plumber and Dana, his assistant. We get the sense that they are as committed to this project as we are.

Artisans, all of them. I have endless respect for people who can build things, can take a drawing and turn it into reality. It’s one of the things that drew me to Eli.

Throughout the process, the folks who have worked with us to painstakingly make every choice have been wonderful, from the supply folks who took us through faucets and shower heads, and then found less-expensive versions when necessary, to the flooring folks who pressured us not at all and instead showed us flooring that we immediately fell in love with. We have been so blessed to really like these folks, and we can’t wait to invite them all back when we’re finished so they can see what their hard work has wrought.

So far we’ve had over $19k in extra infrastructure costs, from burial of the propane tank to having to move a water line and pour one wall of the foundation higher than planned. I’m guessing there’s a little more out there – none of it the ‘fun’ stuff, but all of it things that will make the house what it needs to be.

The unknowns financially scare us, but we’re rolling with them one at a time, and rolling with this whole crazy ride one day at a time. There’s nothing else we can do – the kitchen is gutted, the things for the house are ordered, there’s a giant pit in our backyard – this is happening, and we’ll figure it out. Every time I get freaked out I remind myself that we have a 100% success rate of figuring it out in our lives so far. That’s not bad.

We are renting 2 storage spaces for all the things, but we’re hoping to consolidate to 1 by mid-December when the stove gets moved to our kitchen. Very early on we made the decision to have everything we needed to buy – light fixtures, cabinet handles, fittings – in storage and staged so that when the time came to install there was no mad rush to stores. By and large, we’ve done that, with just one light fixture, chosen but left to buy, as we are cash flowing our purchases.

Similarly, we’re almost done picking paint colors, several months in advance. In most cases we’ve gone with soft creams, but with bursts of color – deep green with dark grey trim and a slightly lighter green ceiling in the hallway and mudroom, my office ceiling will be Benjamin Moore’s Tapestry Gold, a rich yellow that reminds me of autumn leaves, paired with softer walls in Benjamin Moore’s Rich Cream. The kitchen cabinets are Farrow and Ball’s Down Pipe, a dark grey that has both green and blue undertones.

And we’ve bought richly colored wallpapers for the powder room, the upstairs hall bathroom and the master bath. A particularly fun find for the upstairs hallway was Mind the Gap’s The Station View wallpaper, which makes me delighted every time I think about it. Another fun find was Claret & Key, wallpaper in which you get to pick the ‘season’ color scheme – there are 4 for every pattern, and then the background color, of which there are over 35.

The only room we truly had design help with was the kitchen, so we’ve been mentally putting all our choices together, but I think we’ve done a pretty good job.

We’re cooking in 99% of the time, between instant pot, air fryer, grill, and hot plate. The crock pot got packed in the mad dash to get the kitchen emptied when it was demolished a week ahead of schedule, so we’ll probably not see that until we move back in. We’ve spent more on groceries than I had originally planned to, but I think we’ll see that temper itself shortly.

While dinners are not frequently fancy, they occasionally are. Eli has taken our camp cooking situation as a challenge and has turned out some truly amazing meals. The salsa, salsa verde, jam and various and assorted items we preserved in the freezer, like pesto, peaches, shredded zucchini and raspberries this summer are coming in handy.

The other night I came home from a work trip to homemade black bean soup and cornbread cooked on the grill. Last night we cooked some hamburger with onion combined that with pumpkin ravioli, pesto, toasted almonds and parmesan.

We’re hardly suffering.

These are the golden hours, watching the home we dreamed about be created. Every piece and part, every color, every fitting will have been chosen by us. While it’s not our hands doing most of the building, it’s our creation – from my inspiration to build out in an L-shape, to Eli manifesting that in a 3-D model, the changes we worked through of that model due to budget constraints – everything in this house will be made for us. That’s an astounding thought, and sometimes to me, it feels like too much – that I’m too fortunate, that no one should be this lucky.

I remember our first day here, after days of traveling – both filled with adventure and exhaustion. My Mom took the trip with us, and I will be grateful for her presence for the rest of my days.

That first morning, the kids found their way straight to – and we named – Oona, the eminently climbable mother-tree in the backyard before even eating breakfast. My son’s melt down when the promised playset arrived in pieces and boxes in the pouring rain because I couldn’t build it right then and there, and them pulling up their chairs and watching their father put it together, because we both agreed despite our divorce that our childen needed home. I remember watching the magical landscape change, and that June watching flowers drift across the driveway from the Honey Locust that is our fairy tree, home to the fairies that Sithean, The Fairy Hill, is named for. Eli’s first visits, and eventually permanent arrival, our missing piece.

It hasn’t all been delightful – a 70 foot pine tree fell on the house our first autumn here, I lost a job, we lost people we love, and animals we love. We’ve had financial challenges, mental health challenges, all of it, but we’ve come out the other side, every time.

And life is changing now. The kids are growing up, life is busier and more complicated. Never again will they crawl across the snow after a storm, pretending to be foxes. We are slowly packing away their childhoods while we pack away the house for the renovations. It’s a little sad at times, but also delightful to watch them grow up.

But it’s still magic. I feel like my life has been an endless series of transformations, and here we are in another chrysalis of change. And my children will carry the magic of this place with them always, no matter how they evolve.

I can’t wait to see what’s next.

An Autumn to Remember

The weather is still warm, but we’ve started to roll into Autumn. The leaves are turning, and lovely, and the nights are cooler. The transformation of the trees never ceases to amaze me.

So too is Sithean transforming. We are heading into our 3rd week of renovation, with about 27 or so weeks to go – to date only demolition and a lot of time with our truly lovely work crew.

Our living room has become our pantry, kitchen and living room. The porch, intact for now, holds our grill, which is used almost nonstop these days, especially the burner on the side – we have a hot plate, but if we really need to cook something stovetop style, that’s our best bet. The good news is that we have a lot of appliances – our rice cooker and instant pot, already in heavy rotation with a kitchen, now are used nearly daily without.

It’s like camping. The downstairs bathroom, the only one that will not be renovated, is the sink for all things water.

And we’re still packing things up. This weekend it was the hall closet – the new flooring will go into it, so it has to be emptied- as well as our son’s closet and bedroom, which we are simultaneously working on as he has begun to seriously outgrow his bunk bed.

Yesterday I grocery shopped at Hmart, Costco and Whole Foods, because this Friday starts off the fair in our town, and other than getting milk or a few things here and there, we’re basically locked in through mid-month. We have been dedicatedly eating down the pantry and freezers, but that had to slow so that we can plan on a couple of weekends with limited access beyond our home.

We love the fair, and that family gathers with us for opening night, it’s truly an event for us. This year our home is not really conducive to family gatherings, but by next year it will be. Other than a few paint colors left to pick and a single light fixture left to purchase, there’s not much left to choose – at this point, we are just in a waiting game to see what it looks like in real life. While the decision fatigue has been sometimes real, and at times construction planning was a second full time job, that work is almost done.

We are still packing things up and moving them around, but that too, should be done in a few weeks. Which is not to say that when we wrap that up it won’t be the end of a long, exhausting marathon, but we have to empty and clean these spaces anyway. And of course, once we’re done there will be more cleaning and moving things around and moving them back in, but that’s ok. One day at a time right now.

In general, it’s not terrible. Cluttered and dusty? Sure. But we have a small table set up in the living room we can eat at, and our meals are good so far. We like camping, and this is like that.

Last night I cobbled together a pound of chicken, sauteed onions, garlic and poblano peppers, a pint of salsa verde, a cup of chicken broth and some seasonings and put them in the instant pot for 20 minutes, then added a little parmesan, mexican cheese, and cream cheese to make a variation on Chicken Chili Verde, and it was downright delicious. Tonight I’ll make Instant Pot Beef Bourguignon.

Our kitchen limitations are causing us to be more intentional, but we’re still eating off of regular plates and using cloth napkins. At the end our budget will be very tight, but that’s nothing new either. And we’ll have a lot of finish work to do ourselves, but that’s ok.

And in the meantime we still have an abundance of raspberries to pick in the backyard, 3 more weeks of our summer CSA, and the simple pleasures of home – there is really something satisfying about curling up on the couch after a long day of paid work or house things and eating a delicious meal that we magicked out of our temporary kitchen.

So what are we eating this week through this long race?

Sunday: Instant Pot Beef Bourguignon & salad

Monday: Eli will make grilled chicken pita pockets, broccoli from our CSA

Tuesday: It’s just Eli and I on Tuesdays, so we make simple things in bowls. We have some wax beans to eat from our CSA, so we’ll make those our veggies.

Wednesday: Tortellini, spinach and chicken soup made with the roaster chicken I bought at Costco.

Thursday: Burgers, tater tots and broccoli

Friday: Pizza with Family

Saturday: Chicken soup with rice

Maybe by week 20 we’ll be completely over this, but for now, life feels pretty good.

The First of the Sunflowers

It’s August. While everything is still green and lovely, the prolonged stretches between rains mean that slowly that is changing although we did get a soaking, all-day rain a couple of days ago.

Last week we brought home eggplants and tomatoes from our farm share, along with the greens that have been so prevalent until now. We are officially moving into late summer.
We also brought home 5 gorgeous sunflowers picked by my lovely daughter. I love sunflowers – they are so magical.

We are having waves of heat interspersed with cooler days, with temperature swings of 50s and low 60s overnight to ramping up to the mid-90s occasionally. It’s been an odd summer, but aren’t they all now? One day it was so hot we could barely move, the next I had to change into sweatpants because it was downright chilly.

As weird as it is, we’re enjoying it.

We’re enjoying summer food, too – last Friday night it was too hot to cook so we made a salad and a charcuterie board. Detailed meal plans that make sure we have hot, home-cooked food during the school year begin to degrade at the beginning of summer, and by this point in time we are full-on winging it. The kids can spend extended days at their Dad’s, mealtimes become focused around when they woke up. For my daughter, now 16, this is likely her last summer of idleness before jobs and college prep consume her time. She’s bored now, actually, so that may come sooner than later.

The world seems to be descending into a kind of darkness we haven’t seen in a long time – Gazans are literally starving, the world’s efforts to make a whole people disappear. The war in Ukraine lingers with uncertain (or possibly terribly certain) outcomes ahead, and our own country has built a secret police that takes people away in broad daylight from their homes, cars and gardens. Cuts to food programs have a horribleness I can’t understand – in the wealthiest country in the world, in the wealthiest point in history, it’s shameful.

It has oddly reversed roles for Eli and I – normally I’m the political one but the more things worse, the more he monitors, his protection instincts firing on all cylinders, while I want to close in the walls of our sanctuary here at Sithean, just to keep us all safe. Which, of course, I can’t, that requires engagement.

And I do delight in our sanctuary while I worry. Sitting on the porch watching dragonflies and bees just doing their thing is one of my favorite weekend afternoon activities.

We’re just a couple weeks away from breaking ground in our endless efforts to make our dreams and reality the same for this place. It’s happening, and it’s going to be amazing. But a lot of stress to get there, for sure. Once we break ground, we’re off to 30-week odyssey that includes about 10 or 12 of those weeks without a kitchen. So we’re eating down the pantry and freezers as quickly as I can, as we have about 8 weeks left until we convert to grill, instant pot, rice cooker, air fryer and crockpot. I’m content we’ll figure it all out.

Mostly. I am stressed about it too, but the only way out is through.

Last week we added a second storage space down the road – we think we’ll need 3 by the time this is all said and done, but one thing at a time.. We’re just about done picking everything other than paint colors, with my daughter’s bathroom still the one room that’s forming up. If all goes well, we’ll close and pull the permits this coming week, and start in mid-August.

Our weekends are buried in preparation, planning, sketching every room and every floor. It’s very much fun and also mentally tiring, but in the end our art project of a home will come to life. And we’re ready, after all the long years of hoping, planning and thinking, it’s here.

Last weekend we finally took a day off and rested from the house planning We took the kids to the movies. It’s some of the last expensive fun we’ll have for a while.

And as we eat down the pantry and the freezers, I imagine meals will get more creative, but that will be fun.

So what are we eating this week?

Use up: lettuce, mangoes, peaches, cucumbers

Monday: Dinner out, a small celebration

Tuesday: Just Eli and I, so we made Jose Pizarro’s zucchini gazpacho – pretty good, I added ½ an onion. Liked it, probably won’t make it again. https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/jul/08/courgette-almond-gazpacho-recipe-jose-pizarro

Wednesday: Garlic chicken, rice pilaf, salad

Thursday: Chicken Kebabs, rice, roasted broccoli

Friday: Just E and I, so bowl food

Saturday: Just E and I, tbd
Sunday: E’s enchiladas, refried beans, salad, mango and regular salsa

Monday: Chili & macaroni salad

I expect it to be a delicious week, busy in preparation, but also one of the last few of quiet before the transformation begins. Happy August!

A Hazy Shade of the Future

It’s lovely here, all green and lush with everything in bloom. Which is due to the near-endless rain this spring. Actually it’s raining again as I write this, I think the 13th Saturday in a row. And it’s only just started warming up – it has been cold too. But summer is starting to roll in despite itself, and maybe that means that the chill is waning.

Sithean in the spring is a wonder to behold. Everything seems to bloom all at once, and stark and mud becomes pink and white and flowering and it’s hard to believe that anything will go wrong.

I mean, as long as I don’t read any news.

I’ve been gone a while, not because I lost interest in blogging but because I’ve just had so much going on in real life there’s been no time or room to write. I’ve been doing my best just to stay afloat, to keep the house clean, groceries bought, food cooked, laundry done, and kids where they need to be. Some of that is burnout. I’ve never been so tired in my life other than when my kids were sleepless babies, but this time the tired was me unable to think one more thought, remember what I was trying to accomplish, or figure out what I was supposed to make for dinner.

On that last, a combination of instant pot, helpful husband who makes great meals and a lot fewer ‘recipe’ meals and a lot more of ‘here’s these things I put in a pot that are cooked’ meals. Generally these were things i wouldn’t advertise on my blog as being meals, per se, but it’s normal mom stuff. A carb, a protein, a sauce or thing to hold it together, some vegetables.

No one starved although my son did grow so, so tall and is still growing.

But as the garden springs back to life, so do I. Or at least, I’m trying, the burnout seems to be waning, although it’s not completely gone. I’m still not totally on point yet, but I’m going to fake it til I make it.

After nearly 9 months of winding down a business line, which was both an experience I wouldn’t trade and really, really challenging and emotionally exhausting, I finally was able to start a new job, a new thing, and be back to building things.

We are all healthy, and we are finally moving forward with our renovation and addition – we’re still in the planning stage, but we think we’ll be able to break ground in late July. It’s likely over the next year that this blog focuses more on our renovation and addition, because that will be the thing that will take up all of our time and money.

So, so much more money than I had hoped, but we finally aren’t waiting any more, just rolling the dice. It’s a terrifying leap off of a cliff, but I also think it’s more than time. While we’re not getting everything we wanted, we are getting most of it, and it’s exciting. Also exhausting to look at infinity variations of design, but that’s exciting too, make no mistake.

It’s been an eventful 6 months, and it looks to be a more eventful 2025 and 2026, but that’s ok. May specifically gets filled with kid activities, shows and performances, and lots of end-of-year related items. Early summer, where we are now, with everyone having finished school yesterday, and me being surprisingly emotional as my son graduated from elementary school and I realized that chapter of our lives was done. The next few weeks are filled with chilling out, camp and this year, for my daughter her first overseas trip sans parents with a leadership organization for 10 days. We’re nervous, it’s coming fast, but we’re excited for her too.

And we’re excited for us.