Tag Archives: DIY

May you find what you need in this construction phase of life

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For the past six months, every time we visited our local Cenex store, my daughters would pick out a color swatch from the paint section and ask to re-paint and redecorate their rooms. I would tuck the swatches, bright purple and dusty pink, inside the folds of my purse and tell them, yes, we’ll put it on the schedule, and then dread the day they would ask again.

The task of a redo — a cleanout — always feels so daunting to me. When you live in a house long enough with children, things seem to pile up in the corners and crevices of every room, stacks of papers and tiny pieces of their imagination, creations and childhood spread all about waiting for you to come digging or looking for that lost piece of paper or the most important Lego part in the world. It takes diligence to contain it and to help teach them how to do the same. Truthfully, I’m not so good at it.

While my daughters have been on winter break, I’ve done my best to focus on them in a way I don’t do as much anymore now that they are 7 and 9 and much more independent. I used to sit with them and color. I used to coordinate art projects. I used to have to supervise every outdoor excursion, cut up every meal.

I woke up sometime this year and realized I sort of miss them in a way that feels sneaky, like it would be easy not to notice. I’m nostalgic for their baby faces and their baby voices that I’ll never hear again.

And that imaginary red thread that connects me to them, it used to be close and tight, but slowly, surely, inevitably, it’s unspooling, and I’m not sure what to do with all that slack.

I suppose these are the types of musings many of us are doing at the cusp of the new year between planning the dip for the party and undecorating the Christmas tree. I want to say something profound about how the past 365 days have taught me lessons and I’ve abided, but after I am done typing this, I’m taking my daughters to town and we’re picking up a few gallons of paint and I’m doing what I’ve done all year — the next thing there is to do.

Surprisingly, lately, I don’t feel much like pontificating.

Yesterday, in preparation for painting over nail holes, scuffs and the occasional crayon mark on their walls, my oldest daughter and I unloaded the clothes from her pink hand-me-down dresser drawers and repainted them a dusty blue to match the new bedding she picked out on a recent shopping trip. She helped me unscrew the glass knobs and sand and scuff the bright pink paint, sang along with every word of every Taylor Swift song on the speaker, and made the funniest little digs and jokes as she worked, and I thought, oh yes, this girl, like me, like her father, she likes a project.

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A project. I suppose that’s it right there, the word to sum up a year if it doesn’t sum up a life. What are we doing if it isn’t project after project?

Specifically, this year featured an album release, a music video, art classes and events, and a new retail store for our non-profit, taking care of cows and bottle calves, teaching the girls about horses, a new garden spot, fences and water system fixing, and wrapping up the loose ends of a five-year-long house renovation. I just bought the toilet paper roll holder for the new bathroom last weekend, finishing one thing so we can move on to getting that wall the right lavender color for Rosie’s room.

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Putting the floor in in our new addition

Anyway, I wanted to find a way to make this New Year’s note to you inspirational even though you are all probably running into as many encouraging quotes as you can handle this time of year.

Regardless, I think I’ve finally come to what I want to say since the winding journey from the Cenex’s paint section where we started. My husband and I, when we were young and first married and searching for where to land, or where to go next, made ourselves a life motto that has carried us through this year, and all the years since, for better or for worse: Our life is a series of choices, and you’re allowed to make a new one anytime you want. If you don’t have the tools, if you don’t have the muscle, someone you know does. Replace those old knobs. Build a new wall. Take one down. Ask for help to undo the hinges.

I’m realizing now, with my daughters growing up, that I don’t want to say “right before my eyes” at the end of it all, but more “right by my side.” That red thread, when you’re building something together, it seems to tighten up a bit. That’s always been the case for my husband and me, so of course, why wouldn’t it be for our relationship with our children?

Happy New Year to you and yours. May you find what you need in the construction phase.

The Yellow Boat

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Winter visited us again this past weekend, but spring teased us a bit the week before, so we know it can happen. This got me thinking about spring cleanup and all the little relics that are often left behind in the draws of ranches like ours, waiting to be repaired or picked up by the junk guy, but more likely just staying there for years reminding us of the time when we were younger and it ran.

Which got me thinking about my husband’s yellow boat.

The Yellow Boat

Lake Sakakawea

A few days of warm weather will get the plans rolling. And the smell of the thaw, the sound of the water, the blue sky and sun and things uncovered by melting snow had me poking around the place, in search of projects and things I could accomplish.

And in my search I stumbled upon one of the ranch’s most unique relics. Sitting next to the shop covered loosely by a blue tarp and snow turned to ice water is Husband’s yellow boat, the one he brought with us to the ranch when we were first married.

I want to talk about this boat because it’s almost April now and it’s time to start making plans to cast a catfish line, pull on some cutoffs and grill something already.

I want to talk about this boat because I want to talk about boy I once knew who spent hours in the garage with his dad, sanding, scraping, painting and turning the remnants of an old wood and fiberglass flat bottom custom junkyard find into a 11 by 6 foot piece of bright yellow marine-time dream come true with a 40 horse Johnson, quite a mighty motor for a boat that small.

A boat they were planning on turning into a legend, buzzing around Lake Sakakawea and turning heads.

And as soon as the yellow paint dried, that’s exactly what they did.  Father and son proudly loaded it up in the trailer and headed to the big water, visions of speed and notoriety bouncing between them in the pickup before they plopped that boat in the water and squeezed in side-by-side, shoulders squished together, chins nearly resting on their knees, reaping the benefits of the many hours spent on dry land turning a relic into a masterpiece.

They pushed it to its limits, testing what it had, wondering if they never slowed down if they might just keep going forever, out toward the buttes that hold the lake in place, to the river and then into the ocean, a man and a boy in a tiny yellow boat they made together after the sun went down on their real lives and that boat turned into all that mattered between them…

But boys need to become men on their own time, so they brought that boat to shore so that boy could drive his old Thunderbird out of the driveway to the highway that would take him away and back again to live on a ranch by that lake with a girl who used to sit beside him in that old car when he drove too fast and played his music too loud.

But I never sat beside him in that yellow boat until one day I came home to find my new husband holding a fishing pole and a tiny cooler full to the brim with beer and a container of worms.

“We’re going fishing,” he said.

And off we went on a hot July evening, the windows rolled down on the little white pickup as we followed the prairie trail down to our secret spot on the lake below the buttes. The place without a boat ramp, a picnic table or any sign of human life…

My new husband and I pushed that little boat in the water, navigating the deep mud on the banks of the lake before we jumped in and sat back-to-back with our poles in the water, the little cooler on my lap, trolling the shores for hours without a bite before the sun threatened to drop below the horizon, convincing us to call it a night.

Funny how fast night came then when my husband, in an attempt to hook up that little boat and pull us all back home, backed up just a bit too far, and, well, there we were in our secret fishing spot stuck in the mud up to the floorboards, miles from the highway, cell phone reception, or any sign of human life.

And there are many relics on this place, old tractors, used up pickups, tires and spare parts that need to be hauled away and given new life. But over the hill in the barnyard, covered by a tarp and a fresh dusting of spring snow sits a little yellow boat on a little trailer that was never meant for fishing…in fact, now that I think of it, that boat might not have been made for anything really, except to be made.

I will be playing music and telling stories March 28 at 7 PM at the Fargo/Moorhead Community Theater in The Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead, MN. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door or in advance at www.jessieveedermusic.com/shows Hope to see you there!

Forever’s in the Saw Dust

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Us, in the olden days…

When my husband and I were freshman in college at the University of North Dakota, I used to
visit him in his small, stinky dorm room in Walsh Hall and he would make me tuna salad
sandwiches.

This seems like a silly way to start things off, but every single one of us is living in the ordinary,
everyday moments here, and February has drug on and left us with March and more routine
and I think there’s something to say here…

Recently, our little routine has been intercepted by a home remodeling project. Our plans,
homework and furniture are covered in a layer of sawdust as the girls and I help my husband
where we can between work and school, laying flooring, handing him tools, holding boards and
picking playlists heavy on the Taylor Swift. He’s been working hard to finish a project that, for
so many reasons, some in and some out of our control, has drug on through years. It’s finally
the time to wrap it up and so here we are working supper around hammers on the kitchen
table, and evening snuggles next to the table saw.

Take note of the fireplace ‘decor’

This house of ours seems to be a structure changing and growing along with our lives together.
Maybe only a poet could draw the comparison eloquently, but when it was just the two of us,
new in our marriage, it stood as a brand-new cozy cottage in this valley full of hand-me-down
furniture and the dreams we had for our lives here. I remember the first night we spent
together in this house. The waterline hadn’t been dug yet and our upstairs bedroom still had
walls to put up, so we lived downstairs in what was going to be the guest room and we just laid
there, side by side, looking up at the stars out the new window with no blinds.

Fast forward through the years and those two extra bedrooms are now home to dozens of
stuffed animals, puzzles, games, art supplies, night lights, baby dolls, twenty to twenty-five
Barbies, a couple Kens, one Christoph and their dream wardrobe/house/barn/car/camper.
When we were in the planning phases of this house, we didn’t have children and I wondered if
we would regret the staircase or the hardwood flooring if they arrived. Then my friend
reminded me that they would only be babies for a blink of an eye, and that you make your
space what it needs to be along the way. And so here we are taking that phrase quite literally,
adding an entryway to catch the mud, cow poop and the occasional bottle calf at the pass. And
we’ve added a pantry too, because out here so far from the grocery store you need to have
more on hand.


Which led us to where we are now, expanding our living and dining room so we
have more space to host gatherings and holidays, putting our bedroom back on the main floor
and turning that old bedroom loft into an office space for all the paperwork that piles up when
you find yourself smack dab in the middle of middle age.


It seems ridiculous and over the top when I lay it out here, our little cottage in its first form
would have worked perfectly fine for us through any stage. But looking back, I doubt we could
have helped ourselves given my propensity to dream and his to make things. And that’s how
we’re in what is turning out to be, after all these years, a quite beautiful sawdust covered
predicament.

Which brings me to the tuna-salad-sandwich my husband made last weekend during a break
between laying the floor and me taking the girls to 4-H. I sat at the kitchen counter and talked
with him about grocery lists and schedules and mundane things you only say out loud to
someone you’re married to because they listen in a way that’s sort of not listening and that’s
just what you need sometimes. While I chattered, he made his way around the kitchen
gathering ingredients and carefully chopping and mixing—the tuna, the celery and then the
onions, followed by the mayo, the mustard the salt and pepper and some other things I’m sure I
didn’t catch. I looked up and joked, “you sure make a big fuss over a sandwich,” to which he
replied, if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right.” And it was that ordinary moment
in the middle of February in the middle of marriage in the middle of our lives that flipped the
mundane to affection and then to deep gratitude.

He handed me a plate with two slice of toast, and offered, as he always does, for me to serve
myself first before he stirs in the jalapeños and I guess what I’m trying to say right now is that
sometimes we look for love and forever in heart shaped boxes when maybe the best of all of it
is hidden among the years of tuna fish sandwiches and saw dust.

That’s all. That’s all I wanted to say. If you need me I’ll be sweeping and then vacuuming and
then sweeping again…

Us, these days…

One nail at a time…

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I’m not positive, but judging from the evidence, my husband’s New Year’s resolution is to get his entire 2024 to-do list done by then end of the month. By the time you’re reading this he will have a total of five days or so to finish up an 800 square foot addition on our house that has been in the works since 2020, because when we have an idea we like to make it nearly impossible and seriously expensive. Unless, of course, we do it ourselves. Then it’s just nearly impossible and only pretty expensive.

While I type, my husband is currently underneath the floor of the house with the sleeping snakes, spiders, centipedes and the cat that somehow found its way into the duct work to scare the pants off of him, rewiring and rerouting things to make the lights and the heat work in the new space. Which is better than where he was this weekend, standing with both feet on the top of the post of our staircase with a saw between his legs and his head in the rafters. It’s like we don’t own a ladder. But we do. We own several. My daughters were looking for one the other day to get something off the ceiling in Rosie’s room, that, according to her, wasn’t slime. 

But oh, it was slime. A lot of slime. Slime she and her sister attempted to remove from the ceiling by throwing more slime at the ceiling. And, honestly if that isn’t a metaphor for how I’m handling life these days. Getting to be too much? Throw more at it to see how it lands and then find yourself home late on a Wednesday night surrounded by slime covered in saw dust rolled up in dirty laundry wondering what’s for supper. 

Yeah, what should we have for supper? I asked my husband who poked his head up from the opening of the floor in the middle of the house, covered in dust and insulation, and then, for some reason, I just lost it laughing. What an absurd view. And, also, what an amazing guy. I can barely figure out how to use all the features on the dishwasher and here he’s been just going about his business calculating how to tie a new living room, fireplace, bathroom, bedroom and roofline into an existing structure, complete with plumping, heating, wiring and dealing with a wife who can’t decide on tile colors. And slime on the ceiling.

When he finally opened up our living room wall last weekend revealing the almost doubled amount of square footage in the living space and about ten thousand separate tasks to complete, I wondered what twenty-seven-year-old me would say now. Because, if you don’t recall, we were able to invest in this house because of the crazy idea my husband had to completely renovate a repossessed house complete with a hot tub in the living room and carpet on the walls. And that’s where we lived for two or three (or a hundred years? What is time in these situations?) pulling up nails and carpet, ripping wallpaper off the walls, cleaning, tiling and refinishing cabinets in the free time we had between our full-time jobs. 

Statistically speaking our marriage shouldn’t have lasted past the first tiling project, but here we are. It can’t be helped, none of it. Just like the wires in the walls my husband just pulled out of our house, our marriage is tangled up in the drive to keep building things. And because I’ve known this guy for so long, I’m having a hard time deciding if I would have turned out like this without him. Like, if I married a chiropractor and we lived in a finished house in the suburbs would I have dared suggest that we turn our garage into an entryway and just, you know, pop out that wall to extend our living room and while we’re at it add a master bedroom on the main floor because we’re going to get old someday and the steps up to our current bedroom are already annoying?

I’d like to say I didn’t know what I was getting into, but like, I did…

Because never in the history of our relationship living together have we been under a roof that we didn’t put under construction. I used to blame it on him, but at this point I think we just do this to each other.  

And right now, the guy is on a roll. Me? Well I’ve been yelling “careful” a lot, because my plan for January turned from thrive to survive and that just has to be ok for now. 

See you all in February, hopefully hanging out with my sanity. 

Deep calming breaths…

P.S. We’re heading to Elko, NV on Wednesday for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. One of my favorite events of the year. I’m taking this new song with me, about a guy who’s hard on equipment and hard on the heart. Enjoy this living room session where the tear in the headrest of my chair is very noticeable and I am singing facing a room full of settled sheet rock dust.

Stream “Hard on Things” and the new album “Yellow Roses” everywhere, or get a signed copy at www.jessieveedermusic.com

A ranch house is a work in progress

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My husband and I have lived in our house over the hill from the homestead place at the ranch for nearly nine years. I remember the day that it came, in three parts on the back of a semi-trailer all the way from Wisconsin where they started it — the framing, the siding, the windows and some sheetrock here and there — and then we were going to finish it — the floors and doors and loft, the light fixtures and fireplace and railings and the garage and the yard and the deck and and and and…

This photo is why this chandelier will live in that spot of eternity

Let me just tell you the ideas come fast around here, but the progress is slow. I wish I could blame it all on my handyman husband, but it’s my fault really… I’ll take the blame for all those ideas.

Last weekend, my daughters helped their dad put rock on the pillars outside of the front entrance, the one that we added three years ago, turning the house side of the garage into a giant entryway. Because when we designed the house initially, it was only Chad and I and our boots and hats and coats, and we grossly underestimated the amount of space you want to kick that all off (and the mud and the slush and the poop) when it comes down to it. Add a couple munchkins in the mix, and the family and the friends and the help that comes through the door, and, well, you’re facing a renovation project that shrinks the garage and gives us another spot to put a fridge and a hat rack and all the muddy boots you can manage.

Because when you live out in the middle of nowhere, apparently one cannot have enough refrigerators or hats or muddy boots.

The ranch house. It’s a thing that you see featured in HGTV shows, in those big ol’ spreads in Texas-themed magazines and Southern blogs. The sprawl of the family table, the cast iron kitchen sink where you do dishes looking out the cute curtained window facing a lush spread of a lawn, cattle grazing across the fence, a sleepy dog in the yard, maybe a kid on a tire swing or something.

I’m here to tell you that my reality in particular is a little less frosted and shiny.

Yesterday I stood on my back deck, the one that isn’t finished yet but needs to be redone, and yelled at a bull who found his way to the only green thing on the ranch, the unmowed weeds in my yard. And he looked up at me, fully confused and offended that I would be asking him to leave. And so he took a run for the broken fence where he entered, a burst of movement creating a burst of poop that he distributed from one end of the yard to the other, making sure to deposit a few decent piles in front of the kids’ swingset.

It was picturesque indeed. About as picturesque as the barn cat that has decided to poop on my patio table. Like, all the dirt in the ever-loving world and that’s his spot.

Help me.

I feel like I’m ranting. Sorry. There’s just so much poop out here.

Meanwhile, inside the ranch house, the calf-vaccination guns are in the dish drying rack, the kids got a hold of the calf tagging marker to decorate the 37 gourds they got from Grandpa’s garden and they’re all spread out across that kitchen table and we cannot move them because They. Are. Not. Done. Yet!

And outside, one dried-up petunia plant sits outside the half-finished rock pillar. Half-finished because a fence needed to be fixed, supper needed to be served or the sun went down in the middle of the project.

It’s fall y’all, welcome to the ranch house. Watch out for the dive-bombing boxelder bugs on the way in.

Nine years ago we pictured raising our family here, a family we weren’t sure if we could ever have. And so we were thinking about light fixtures and where to put the outlets, and having the carpet or no carpet debate.

And what a thing life is, so surprising and messy and unpredictable that of course we wouldn’t be able to envision that the Barbie Dream House would take up half the basement and I would be showering with at least two or three naked baby dolls every morning in our master bathroom that my husband and I tiled together and lived to tell about.

I didn’t know it then, when that house rolled down the hill, that it would shift and change and grow in this little spot we chose for the rest of our lives. And that it might not make the magazines, but it’s us, isn’t it? Unfinished and flawed and an ever-loving work in progress.

Making the costume, making the memories

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Ok, so Halloween is just around the corner. My daughter will turn 2 in a little over a month and a few weeks after that (if not before…) we’ll welcome a new family member into our house and our home and our hearts.

And so, as you probably guessed, I’m feeling a little panicky at this point. There’s not much time left to get my office cleaned out and made into a proper baby’s room or make the “plan ahead” schedule for the work that needs to continue to move forward while I’m in my post-baby fog. Running my own business means I don’t technically get maternity leave, so it’s up to me to get prepared if I want some time off. So far I’m not prepared.

At all.

But I could be working on being prepared, except there’s too many other fun things to do, like hit up the pumpkin patch in the big town this weekend, force Edie out of her prairie dress and into one I’ve had in the closet for six months and make her pose for her “almost” two year-old photos and, of course, most important of all, get to working on her Halloween costume.

Which is what I did a few weeks ago when she was at her Nana and Papa’s (instead of working on the office/baby’s room like I planned.) I found this adorable idea online and ordered the supplies and sat in front of Netflix and got to work.

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Buy this costume from lauriestutuboutique on Etsy. Or try to make it like the fool I am…

When the tutu was done I was so excited at its poof and fluff and pretty certain my frilly daughter would find it suitable and wonderful and whimsical just like I imagined. I couldn’t wait to show it to her, to try it on and finish up adjusting the straps before hanging it in the closet to await the big day of Trick-or-Treating. I could just envision her delighted smile and giggle. I felt like Martha Stewert and super-mom and the winner of Project Runway all combined into one emotional, pregnant mess.

And then she got home and crushed my dreams. One look at the brown, orange and yellow tutu sent my toddler into a physical reaction of distaste and disgust. And then, because she’s a good talker, she followed up the sour look on her face with the following words, spoken as she pushed the homemade costume away from her before turning her head

“Don’t like it. That dress is gross.”

Cue a mother’s heart breaking in half. I had to go into my messy office/baby’s room, papers and baby decor scattered from wall to wall, and sit with my failure, my unnecessary hormonal tears and the “gross” tutu I had created for my baby who clearly isn’t a baby anymore.

She followed me in there then, and with the same disgust on her face, removed the tutu from the bed, placing it outside the door and out of her line of sight, and then climbed up beside me.

“Mommy cry? Don’t cry mommy,” she said as she leaned into my shoulder. And that made me laugh and shake my head, realizing I was watching a strong, independent girl who knows what she wants develop right before my eyes.

But what Edie doesn’t know is that I’m a strong, independent girl myself and I am working on ways to win this battle, the same way I won the battle of the dress this morning and managed to get her to smile for the camera in that adorable denim frock just the way I envisioned, dammit. It took an hour, some tears and a gramma intervention, but it happened.

I won.

This time anyway.

I’ll keep you updated on the Halloween costume situation. But if she’s going as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz this year, it’s because we just might be able to pass the dress she’s currently obsessed with off as a costume, all it needs is some ruby slippers, a basket and a Toto.

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Happy costuming parents and friends. Enjoy this “From the Editor” piece for this month’s Prairie Parent, where I explain why I even try. And while you’re there, read more from our amazing contributors on traditions and why they matter in our families.

 

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Making the costume, making the memories
Prairie Parent, From the Editor
October 2017

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Passing the Halloween torch

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It’s Halloween. And true to my nature I stayed up late last night gluing Edie’s gumball  machine costume together and cursing myself for waiting until the last minute, because, EEEK! I ran out of little pom-poms and I live a good hour and a half from the nearest 24 hour Walmart.

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Why couldn’t I just order her a costume from Amazon.com for crying out loud?

Why? Because it looked like an adorable and easy idea a month ago when I found it.

And I think I like to make stuff. Even if I procrastinate the shit out of the process.

Halloween has been one of my favorite holidays because of those two things, because I rarely make plan until the last minute and apparently I like the thrill of creativity under pressure.

Some of my best work has come a good hour or two before our last minute plan to attend a Halloween party.

White Trash.

Bacon and Eggs/Before and After

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But it’s been a few years since we’ve hit up a bender of a Halloween party. Last year I could have gone as a blimp and I wouldn’t have needed a costume.

This year I spent the weekend obsessing over staining the house. And in case you’re wondering, it didn’t go well. I mean, #1:  Who in their right minds designs a house that needs to be re-stained every few years? And #2: Who makes that house so tall even their tallest ladder can’t reach the top?

It’s a Halloween worthy nightmare that will last our entire lives. (Or at least until we make enough money to buy ourselves out of DIYing…)

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This is the short side of the house, so who needs a ladder?  I call it Redneck Renovation (Innovation?)

Anyway, I’ve never spent a Halloween with our baby, so I’m planning on doing what we can do for the holiday with an almost-one-year-old. I’ll find mom’s witch hat and we’ll head to town this afternoon to hang in her store and hand out candy. Then I’ll make the rounds, say hi to some neighbors, show her off and likely, spend most of my time putting the bubble gum hat back on her head.

Don’t worry, they’ll be pictures tomorrow, you know you can count on it:)

Oh, and if you don’t yet, follow me on Instagram for photos on life out here.

And because this baby and my Halloween crafting project makes me nostalgic, here’s this week’s column on the memories I have of trick-or-treating along the country roads.

Coming Home: Princess of the frozen tundra passes the Halloween torch
by Jessie Veeder
10-30-16
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I was a princess once.

It was a long time ago in a faraway, mysterious frozen tundra called North Dakota. I was beautiful. My crown was made of glittery pipe cleaner, my dress a hand-me-down from my fair mother, shoulder pads for dramatic effect, taken in at the waist with 37 safety pins, and it swept (drug) on the ground ever-so elegantly, collecting fallen leaves, dirty snow and candy wrappers the way every magnificent princess ballgown should.

I addressed my kingdom in a short, 1990s camcorder clip featuring a stunning and dramatic speech littered with impediments because I was a princess who couldn’t quite say my “R’s” correctly. And before I headed out the door to survey my territory, I pulled on my baby blue, puffy winter coat and well-worn snow boots, even though I fully intended on a mink shawl and glass slippers, because it was Halloween in North Dakota, and when it comes to parents, there are some arguments even a princess can’t win.

Yes, I was a princess once.

And then I was a clown in a hand-me-down, red and white, homemade zip-up suit and hat, complete with rosy cheeks.

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And once I was Pippi Longstocking, and I made my braids stick straight out and wore my dad’s lace-up work boots. And long ago, I was a ghost with spiders in my hair, then an old woman in a lace dress taken from my great-grandmother,

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and an alien with neon-green hair and a tinsel dress that my mom wore in a 1970s production of “The Wizard of Oz” in which she played the Tin Man.

Yes, ’tis the season for goblins and mermaids and 7,000 Ninja Turtles and “Frozen” characters to start gearing up for an evening of a make-believe parade down city sidewalks and doing the things that children do on a holiday that was invented to keep us young and full of imagination.

But my Halloween memories don’t include those sidewalks, because we didn’t have many on the miles of gravel roads connecting us to our “next-door neighbors.” Our trick-or-treating rituals looked more like dressing up in homemade costumes my best friend and I had been planning and perfecting for weeks, standing in front of dad’s deer horns hanging on the wall to pose for a photo next to my little sister who was dressed as a pumpkin and then piling into the minivan with the neighbor girls while our dads drove us through the 10-mile loop so we could unload and load up again at all seven houses.

One year my best friend went as a picnic table, to-scale and complete with at least two table settings, so you can about imagine how that car ride went.

But we didn’t care; you could have piled six more kids in that minivan, and we would have never wished for a sidewalk or streetlights. We were convinced us country kids had the best Halloweens. Because at that time, we were some of the few, we were special, and our neighbors were expecting us. So at each of those seven or so houses, we loaded up on handfuls of candy, treat bags complete with pencils or pinwheels, full-sized candy bars, bags of popcorn and a chance to take our time, show off some tricks and model our costumes, strutting and showing off what we worked so hard to put together.

And at the end of it all, we all we unloaded at the final house, dragging pieces of our costumes behind us, disheveled and tired and ready to dump our pillowcases full of treats on the carpet to sort through while our parents visited in the kitchen.

Today, in my kitchen, the supplies for Edie’s Halloween costume sit in a box on my countertop, and I just realized the torch has been officially passed as I turn from back-seat princess to minivan driver. But my friend up the road has four kids, so if we want to ride together like we did in the old days, we might need to see where we can get a small bus … especially if anyone plans on going as a picnic table this year.

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Sunday Column: My husband, the seamstress…

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So I found this photo in the archives last week and I realized I never told you all about the red velvet pants.

Yes. These red velvet pants.

IMG_20141020_0001So here we are. Husband and I, celebrating our birthdays in the beginning of our senior year. I just turned 17. Him, the big 1-8.

Now there is about a million things to say about this photo. Like, there was once a time when it was cool for an entire football team to take bleach to their hair in honor of some sort of brotherhood camaraderie.

So there’s that.

But I think that the pants are really the star distraction of the show.

The pants, my eyebrows and the unbelievably proud expression on my high school boyfriend’s face as he squeezes me tight…

Why is he so proud you ask?

Because my friends, the young man just spent his hard earned cash from working on the county road crew in the summer on the perfect fabric and a week behind his mother’s sewing machine, whipping up these beauties for the girl he loved…

Yup. And I had just opened the homemade gift in front of about a dozen of our best friends. And now I am modeling them, crooked butt seam and all.

It’s a beautiful thing, young love.

And the pants? Well, I realize now they were just a little foreshadowing into my life spent with this man, if I chose to stick around to see what sort of project came next with him.

Turns out there were plenty…

And I have a hunch there’s plenty more to come.

Coming Home: Some gifts just can’t be bought
by Jessie Veeder
10-19-14
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