Vintage Home and Farm

It's been an unusually cold winter here in northwest Washington State. Punxsutawney Phil's weather prediction that we would suffer 6 more weeks of winter is holding true so far. Here it is late February, and once again we've had several more days of snow with more to come. While the snow is bitingly cold, I will say it is quite beautiful.  Walking down the long driveway to our newspaper box each morning gives me a chance to take in the frosty cold and pristine morning. Thankfully we did have a few days of dry weather about a month ago, which allowed us to get the new windows installed in the house.  We chose Ply Gem windows and had a local installer put them in.  With the divided upper panes, it's hard to notice the difference visually from the 1940s single pane windows, which allowed us to retain the charm of old-style windows, but we certainly do notice a stark difference in how well the new windows keep in the heat.  Many of the cold drafts in the house ha

It's been a hard winter.  Not only did we have to say goodbye to my grandmother a few months ago -- she had lived a long, happy life and passed away at age 98.  We also just recently lost my mother-in-law. It's difficult to say goodbye, and hard to know what words to say to those who are still here, shouldering the pain of their loss. What remains in the midst of this loss is love.  Love that was expressed when we were with each of them, sharing moments together.  For my mother-in-law, of whom our thoughts this week have been consumed, those moments grew to many especially during her last five years.  We were lucky to be living near my in-laws, and were able to help when her dementia set in and grew over a five-year period.  Each week included a number of visits with my in-laws, helping out, and also having them over for dinner.  The timing of our move north about six months ago coincided with the necessity of moving her to a memory care facility where she received much-ne