A Work In Progress

Switching from Blogger to Word Press has been a major learning curve for me; never mind that I got a new laptop that is Windows 8, at the same time. I'm grateful for the people who have helped me through this transition and am learning to navigate my way around the maze. I'm still working on making this site more user-friendly for my readers.

I switched to Word Press Chateau Theme, giving this blog a softer look. I even learned how to put my own picture in the header, an accomplishment for me! I expect this to change from time to time or at least until I come up with a signature header similar to my what my Fleur Cottage page was. Or not.

Another BIG accomplishment was making and linking to an Apartment 12 face book 'like' page for this blog. I will be posting on Apartment 12 page instead of the Fleur Cottage page in the near future. One of my goals is to copy and paste in a post our cancer journey together the past several years that was posted on the Fleur Cottage page. It's going to be a fairly big and time-consuming project but it's something I've been wanting to do for my own sake. Fleur Cottage page will not be deleted, just not used as much, if at all.

Something strange has been happening with the posted pictures not showing up and my brilliant tech friend says it may have something to do with the band width and I, of course, have NO idea what she's talking about! But we or rather she, will be correcting that (we or rather I, hope!). Oh yes, blogging is a lot of fun! Seriously, I love to journal this way and it's good for this brain of mine to be stretched.

We (the Petersheim's and myself) have several exciting dreams planned for ourselves. This place was built last winter and moved into March of 2013 and as new places go, it all takes time (and finances) to make it a reality. One of those dreams is to make the entrance into Apartment 12 user-friendly for my guests. But the dream I'm REALLY excited about is the paint room I'm getting! It will be where I repair, recycle and build (EEK!) my 'one-of-a-kind-finds.' I'll keep you all informed on that one - it's three-quarters built and looks even better than I imagined!

~ Esther

Horton's of Tipton

Horton's of Tipton, Indiana is a small hardware store in small town America with grand ideas to utilize its unique potential. Horton's show us how one doesn't need another building to fulfill dreams and to use what one already has. The family pitches in to make shopping in this small building (and it's very small!) tempting, interesting and FUN! The proprietors are patient, very friendly and answer questions with patience in the middle of chaos. Just simply fun, fun!  This post is picture (with permission) heavy and really doesn't do justice to the ambiance of the place.

Cute handmade angel wings for sale.

Handmade burlap flowers.

Embellished NEST spelled out with letters from basic stencils - I like this idea!

French room packed with Parisian items, many hand-made.

This room was walled in with burlap and kitchen-y things on display.

More handmade goodies.

An old piece of moulding+rusty doorknob face+old rusty screw=a rustic place to hang a knickknacks.

This fudge is made in the store and passed around while one shops...creamy, smooth and delicious!

The place was teeming with females of all ages with a few men tagging along; of course, the hardware store was there for them to stroll. Very few customers left empty-handed, including me and even managed to bring the delicates home with me on the train. There was an area for clothes and jewelry and a room for ephemera (pronounced e-fem-ra...yep, I asked!) packed with 'stuff.' Even the bathroom was decked out with a theme and old peeling paint shutters and burlap on the walls before entering the room. 'Course, living with peeling paint shutters in a house in real life is NOT sensible AT ALL but they sure added a lot of ambiance to the theme!

Sad to say, I don't have a picture of the outside of the store or the beautiful old courthouse across the street that looks like a church building (Indiana towns have gorgeous courthouses!). I blame the frigid cold and the excitement of the day for that! There was a Peddlar's Market a block from there that we strolled through and L and I did several thrift stores and a Hobby Lobby on the way home. Such a fun day!

Because of L's health, we lounged around home in the afternoons, sitting beside each other on the couch playing WWF's on face book between chats. We ate lunch out Thursday but shared a sandwich so we could indulge in Carvel's ice cream for dessert. I was VERY tired by the time we came home and took a three-hour nap. Friday we thrifted, went to Green Oaks, another ah-mazing! place where beautiful furniture is made out of recycled architecture pieces; sadly, I forgot my camera. We again shared a Mexican meal so we could indulge on the fresh salsa and chips. Saturday on our way home we stopped at Golden Corral, our only indulgence...their home-made chips were so yummy! But the best meal was the chicken recardo served over rice and beans, a Belizean specialty L made on Thursday evening...so yummy!

I'm already making plans to go to The French Market in July 2014...want to join me?

~ Esther

Apartment 12: A New Blog In A New Place

A bend in the road...

One of the constants of life is change.  Some changes are easy; some changes are very hard. Many times, change comes like a thief in the night, stealing the comfortable life we lived and force us into another direction. And life begins on a new page and in a different place.

In actuality, my 'bend in the road' is more than that...it's a total transformation of life as I knew it. I am a widow since mid-summer. Our home is dismantled and I live in a different place. A collection of old and chipped but pretty dishes, my fetish for mirrors of all kinds and sizes, the little trinkets that were so fun to collect over the years are sold. But the things that really count are still mine. No person, place or thing can ever take my memories or who I am away!

Apartment 12 blog is birthed out of a desire to share my life in my new home. Several years ago our youngest daughter and family planned to build a new house. In their plans they designed the basement as an in-law quarters 'when it was needed.' This need came much sooner then we expected after my honey was diagnosed with colon cancer the second time. I quickly named my new home Apartment 12 - apartment sounds much homier than basement and 12 is the house number. Sounds simple and sensible to me!

Apartment 12 is roomy and perfect for one person. It's in the boonies, a.k.a. - 'a backwoods area' Webster says. It's quiet all the time except when the dog barks, or the chickens cackle, or the goats m-a--a--a. I can see LOTS of stars at night and the moon? Beyond glorious! Do I miss Fleur Cottage, the 'dawdy haus' (grandparent home) where my Honey and I lived for nine short years? Fleur Cottage will ALWAYS be special in my heart but life has changed and now I'm here at this place for this time. It's easy to stay stuck in the past or yearn for the 'old life' so much so we become useless for the present and that is not a place I want to be.

I've lived here now for a little over two months and as all adjustments go, there are pros and cons.  I am surrounded by Amish farms instead of traffic and shops. It takes anywhere from seven to thirty minutes or more to go anywhere instead of three to twenty minutes. At Fleur Cottage, there was little privacy stepping outside the front door; at Apartment 12, one can do most anything with all the privacy one desires. Life is a bit slower here for me, something I needed after our journey of the past several years. I miss my family that is thirty minutes away but my time is my own and I can easily hop into my car to see them. I've learned that one can adjust to most anything and I want to accept the 'bends in the road' with grace.

~Esther