Thursday, July 7, 2011

Ketchup

The summer is just sprinting away and I need to document some major events. First, there was Sweden...


I was home for 5 glorious weeks, the longest in about 10 years. Which meant I could partake in croquette and in celebrating grandma Annalisa's 95th birthday.


Grand dame!


Cuzins! BTW, Anna is conducting a contest on her blog where you can win a homemade bracelet.





I even got to visit one of Kajsa's markets. Yeah markets are a blast! We love links and here is one to an interior design article in our local news paper featuring Goat Valley. It's in Swedish but click on the little thumbnail picture and there are 10 or so photos to look at. Goooooorge.





Cool dudes go to markets too. My uncle Perra and step grandson Kevin.

Usually it's family that brings me to the homeland but this time was a little different. I went over to shoot a short film called Orangeriet, The Conservatory. Like us on Facebook! The Conservatory is a lovely creepy horror film that takes place in a remote run down mansion in rural Sweden. The original screenplay is by Sarah Bergmark Elfgren and it's directed by Lovisa Inserra.


We shot most of the film in a mansion 40 minutes outside Stockholm. This wonderfully disheveled house was the perfect setting for our little gothic adventure.






We had an amazing crew and a super talented cast, little money and less time. So it was hard. It was intense. And it was superbly awesome. Wrapping the short was only mild relief though since we had simultaneously been prepping an even more ambitious project. A 2 day musicvideo extravaganza concert party shortfilm. The details are still so hush hush that I will return with more when I can show the goodies. Cause goodies they are. So happy. So so happy.

I came back to the States quite exhausted. 


Arriving in Clintondale to see my whole yard dug up (on purpose) was only more overwhelming so thank gawd we had this planned.





Off to the Vineyard for a week for us. Actually the first few days were rainy and gray and we welcomed that more than sun and beach. We relaxed and played games in Rosemary's lovely screenhouse, ate wonderful seafood and slept in. On day 3 we changed gears as friends came over from Boston. The weather looked up and we took off to Aquinna for some beaching. Friends left and family arrived. James' 2 sisters with kids, all in from California.


Susan, Rosemary, Donna and James!





Nephew and niece and niece and nephew. Gabe, Sophia, Sarah and Jack. 

More games, more beaching and more seafood. What else could you ask for? It was an absolutely amazing trip. Recharged we went back to Clintondale. I finally felt ready to face the mess.


Bob is digging trenches for our new electrical lines. We are burying them to the cottage and we are pulling power to the barn.


So many positives to this huge project, one of them being taking photos of our view without having to photoshop out the damn power lines. That's hours saved right there folks.


This is our old pole that is kind of an eyesore right in front of the dining room window.


New pole out by the street and out of the way.


Most of this ugly stuff is going on in the back. The front is looking good. It's quite amazing how many people stop by and tell us nice things. If I'm out in the yard it's almost a guarantee. It's so lovely and encouraging. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed and think there's no end in sight to our fixing up but wonderful passer-byers, blog readers, friends and family all put it in to perspective for us. Thank you!


Hosta update!





Happy happy Hydrangeas have been joined by one of my sister's ceramic all year round blooms.

We have not yet moved in to the renovated part of the house. With me gone and James doing a TV show on Long Island things have fallen behind. 


All the doors are in upstairs though. It's looking mighty busy and looking at this picture we just decided to paint all the hinges white.


All the trim is in upstairs and downstairs. The arch came out lovely and we went simple on all the baseboards. All will be navy in the end except the doors which will be white.


We picked up our lovely drapes that Rosemary sewed when we visited the Vineyard. I had to take them for a test ride, of course. Looking goooooood.

We also came home with this game board, another beauty from Rosemary. Kind of completes this corner of the dining room.