Life on the hill

Every time I visited my Swedish grandmother, from when I was a little American girl used to American things, up until mormor Margareta was at least 88 years old, she would offer me a glass of home-made red currant juice. Lucky for me, about the time she stopped making her own juice, I moved into my own house and carried on the tradition of harvesting red currants and turning them into the taste of summer and all things good.
My harvest is tiny, but with a little help from my MIL and her plentiful currant bushes, I manage to make red currant juice every year. I never drink it without thinking about my grandmother. That is how I honor her memory.

 Ok, I know I promised no more late night/ early morning posting recently, but this seems to be the only time of "day" that I am centered enough to actually post. So let me talk a bit about what's keeping me up at night... ( More whining over here... )

Ok, no more 5 a.m. posting for me. If I am only going to post twice a month, I can at least run a proper spellcheck and aim for a little cohesion.
Good news, though, the carpenter brought along his carpenter friends and they got all of the wondows up before 4 p.m.

Interesting news: Our kitchen windows had not been replaced since the nineteen forties - The gaps between their frames and the walls were insulated with old funky blankets, sawdust,  and newspapers dated July 1948. I wonder if there is a museum or something I should contact every time we do construction?

Nevermind. I promise to get a proper night's sleep before I post another update.

I got up before dawn today to prepare for the arrival of the carpenter that will be replacing our old drafty windows with  modern ones. Of course, that alone would not normally get me out of bed at three a.m. - I fell asleep at 7 p.m. yesterday, so I happened to be feeling well-rested when Michelle woke me up.
June has been sleeping better lately (thankls mainly to an allergy medication that knocks her out completely, but that's another story), but Michelle is beginning to have issues of her own. Aside from night terrors, Michelle has pretty much always been a good sleeper and she shuns co-sleeping, lullabies, and the other tools we use to coax June to sleep. This is normally great, but when Michelle has trouble sleeping it leaves us at a loss. About six weeks ago, she started insisting on sleeping in the wicker toy chest in her room. It's too small for her to be able to stretch out her legs, but the stubborn child persisted for nearly two weeks before starting to lie on a makeshift couch we had created out of an old crib mattress and some pillows in a corner of her room. 
Unfortunately, a cat was accidentally locked into Michelle's room for an entire day last week and used this mattress as a toilet. I created a sort of fort in the built-in closet in Michelle's room after that, hoping she might be content sleeping there, but she actually opted for her bed for a couple of nights. Then, this morning, she decided she didn't want to sleep there either. I was able to offer her the option of sleeping in June's crib in the master bedroom (June herself is sleeping on a mattress n her own room), but I don't know if Michelle will be content in the crib for very long, big girl that she is now.
Tonight Michelle will be sleeping at my MIL's because of the construction, so maybe I'll come up with some ideas for the complete makeover our house needs, inside and out, in the meantime. Now that June is sleeping better, I am considering letting her and Michelle share a room. The biggest challenge will be our living room,  which has doors/windows on three sides. We have lots of furinture to choose from, but none of it matches. Maybe I should just put of redesigning the living room until I have a job. Any ideas from you all on furinishing the children's rooom/s would be appreciated, though!

I'll leave you with a picture of a visitor I disturbed from perching on our roof yesterday. I think I caught him spying on the jackdaws that nest in the chimney in our garage.

 A little pic from the garden. Now let's see if I can get LJ-cut to work today...

</div>