Family in Feast and Feria

Don't miss the Loveliness of Autumn Fair hosted by Michele at The Family-Centered Life. It's lovely...all the entries are wonderful. I'm thinking of mixing up some spiced warm apple cider and read over all the entries. They are a treat for all the senses! Thanks, Michele, for hosting!

Michele is hosting the Loveliness of Autumn fair on Monday, October 9th.

How do we live our lives during Autumn, simply and elegantly?

Autumn is a time that marks the beginning of the college football season. So for us, Labor Day marks the beginning of Fall, Family and Football.

You see, my husband is a Penn State graduate, and loves PSU football. We have season tickets, but going to home games requires a road trip for us. There are 7-8 home games per season which starts Labor Day weekend and ends right before Thanksgiving. Oh, and I musn't forget the bowl game around New Year's Day -- not a home game, but it is more football. We don't go to every home game, but most, so it's a lot of travelling for the fall.

But instead of whining and trying to make myself into a football widow, I have embraced the Nittany Lions and their football season. I find out the schedule and don't accept invitations that conflict with big games. I've learned the Penn State traditions. I don the blue and white colors of the team. I cheer for JoePa and his team. I share my husband's happiness when they win, and sadness when they don't. And in doing so, I have become a fan, and closer to my husband in sharing his interests. We learn new things every weekend. And we are building family memories.

My husband is from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and his mother still lives in his old homestead. My mother-in-law is a widow, and no other children live nearby. I consider it a priority to visit her often. The day will come when she isn't here, and we want to store up the time we have with her. She enjoys the company, the special time with her grandson, and a chance to go the good-weather games. Our weekend trips are visits to "Nana" as well as driving to State College (or "Happy Valley") for the Saturday game. I look forward to our "home away from home." We're relaxed and happy.

At the game, we do a simple tailgate. Only once in a while have we grilled; usually we pick up sandwiches and eat them when we arrive. One of the unique things of Penn State is that most parking is in fields, so our tailgates are in grass, not hard parking lots. It's perfect to toss or kick a football and run around before walking over to the stadium. The whole tailgate and gameday is still a family friendly atmosphere. Penn Staters generally are neat and tidy tailgaters. Walking back to the car you will find everyone's tailgate area all tidied up, with small bags of their trash behind their tires. I always am impressed by how clean they leave the area.

Nearby are the fields and stadium are cow barns. On windy days even in the stadium you can smell in the air the evidence that PSU is still an agricultural university.

Gameday has evolved as the family has grown. As a young engaged and married couple, dh and I attended the games together, with his mother and another friend. Colder or wet weather or night games I tended to stay behind. Then we got pregnant, and since it was a high risk pregnancy and long recovery from a c-section, we missed travelling a season, but we gained a treasure.

And I've missed a few more seasons staying back with my son while Daddy attends the game. I really enjoy going up to my mother-in-law's whether I watch the game at the house or in the stadium. My son loves seeing his grandmother, I enjoy the hospitality, and we all get to enjoy the mountain air and watching the leaves change (PA is about 2 weeks ahead of Virginia for foliage). Sometimes we do some shopping -- enjoying less crowds, cleaner stores, an easy drive -- a dream comparing to Northern Virginia's congestion.

Our visits to Pennsylvania in the fall involve football, but they are also opportunities for nature study, learning family history, sightseeing, cultural and historical visits in the area. Being a train town, one of our favorite spots is Horseshoe Curve. And our drives to and from include stops along the way, like farm markets, pumpkin patches, historical sites, antique stores, etc.

Over his lifespan of three years, my son has learned different things about Penn State football. Besides the basics of the game, how to catch, throw and kick, there's the unique Penn State traditions -- the marching of the band, the cheers of the crowd, singing the Alma Mater and the Fight Song, watching the Nittany Lion mascot and hearing him roar throughout the game.

Right now my son is very enthusiastic about the band. The Penn State Blue Band is one of America's finest. If you put your mouse over the Drum Major, he does a flip in mid-air-- something he does twice at the beginning of every home game. It's quite fun to watch. That's just one aspect. Ds loves the musical instruments and loves being able to see and hear them all being played.

This year our son attended his first PSU football game -- actually two games. Ds is now an official Penn State Football fan. He has learned to tailgate, and no rain or long walks or tiredness have dampened his enthusiasm. We called him a true fan last weekend because he even endured the rain! He loves sharing this special interest and time with his father, mother and grandmother. And vice versa. The smiles, the excitement, the stories, the reminiscing...I treasure these in my heart.

I'm no saint. The trips can be hard and tiresome, and sometimes take a few days for me to recover. I miss out on some events that happen back at home. I don't get as many fall home projects done. But despite all the hardships, it's all worth it. We are making memories for a lifetime.

Meredith has commenced the first The Fair of Loveliness of Simple Elegance in the Kitchen. So inspiring! I'm loving the peek into the kitchen, the heart and hearth of the homes. Now I can imagine my 4Real friends sipping their tea in their lovely kitchens.

I even have an entry! But Meredith put it well that my kitchen is the center of the home. This is where I live the Liturgical Year, create family meals, have wonderful family conversations. That is what the kitchen is all about.

I'm looking forward to the other Loveliness Fairs, and I'll be hosting the Loveliness of Advent Fair on November 27. Looking forward to all the Fairs!

Yesterday I cleaned my kitchen. I clean my kitchen everyday, but today I worked on those clutter piles, those odds and ends that wait to find a good home and now have clean counters.

What is it about a clean kitchen that inspires me and makes me calm and relaxed? I was positively giddy last night, enjoying the vast expanse of a spotless kitchen. And I wasn't cleaning for guests or an event, which makes it even more fulfilling. The cleanliness is for us! And it is simply elegant!

Welcome to the tour of my kitchen.

For larger views of all my pictures, click on the links throughout the post. Through the entry hall you will find the kitchen, in between the dining room and family room.


We've been in this house a year -- the anniversary of our move is tomorrow. My kitchen is not beautiful, but is spacious, lots of counters and functional. There are things that need to be changed -- it's quite a 1980s kitchen. I dislike the wallpaper. I don't like the color of the cabinets, nor the knobs. The appliances are original to the house, breaking down and soon to be replaced. The lighting is fluorescent and awful. There is no backsplash. The floor is a fake-ceramic-tile-pergo-type flooring. It's not yellow as it appears in the pictures. But I want wood floors.

These are just minor ascetics and projects that will be tackled one by one, time, energy and money allowing. But I don't look at the wallpaper much. I have very little wall space..we fell in love with the kitchen view. I have a picture window with backyard views of nature at all times and natural lighting from the bay windows. My "room with a view" is cheery and uplifting. I don't need much to decorate this kitchen. If it's clean, all eyes go to the beautiful outdoors. That, to me, is my simple elegance. Who needs to improve on nature?


The floor space in my kitchen is expansive. The U-shape is nice and open, but it is a lot to walk across doing prep work. I've seen other similar kitchens with islands. It works, the Cook isn't crowded, but you lose that open airy feeling. The other major drawback? My son couldn't set up his cars, trucks, trains!

I have few upper cabinets. Most are lower, so I have the dishes accessible to younger people. Drawers are shallow and few, so the utensil crock stays on the counter. I bought that crock for my husband before we married when he moved to Virginia, and the design includes the name of our little town. The other items that remain on the counter: paper towels, water pitcher, bananas, toaster oven, microwave (for now), ring holder and outside thermometer. I'd love to keep everything off the counter, but for now this assortment is manageable and not too cluttered.

My elegant touch this month is to have a basket of fresh vegetables from the garden. Nothing is as inviting to me as homegrown juicy red tomatoes.

We're a family of 3, so we continue to have our meals at the kitchen table. There's a hummingbird feeder on the window...and last night was the first time one came to feed. We're hoping there will be many more to come. The table is quite small, so if another person is added to our numbers, we'll need another table. The dining room is off to the right of the kitchen. It's carpeted, so family meals aren't relaxing if I'm figuring out how to clean the spills and crumbs. It's also a bit awkward because there is no pass through, nor a close counter to hold food or plates. It's quite a few steps to the closest counter from the dining room table. When dinner with a toddler only lasts 20 minutes or so, I don't always have the energy to be toting all the food and plates back and forth from the dining room.

But we do break the monotony of the kitchen table by eating on the screened-in porch. This is right off the kitchen and family room. When the weather is nice, we're outside. It's one of our favorite places to be. We just finished painting the deck and porch, which makes time out here even more enjoyable. The next step is to find some outdoor shades that fit (and aren't expensive) so we can shield ourselves from the setting sun to make dinners even better.

The refrigerator area is my weakest spot. I do keep baskets and my son's cooler on the top. The wine rack is a waste of space. If you really enjoy wine, you don't want to keep them in the warm kitchen. Look closely and you'll see that all the bottles are actually empty. Project procrastination -- I'm saving the labels, but since I can't find my label remover at this moment, the bottles are just sitting there. We hope to replace the fridge sometime soon, but it works. We have our LeapFrog letters and farm which keep little hands busy. All the magnets of Penn State and Steelers football are also there for my son's enjoyment.

The microwave is temporary. How long is temporary, I'm embarrassed to say. My built-in microwave caught on fire last Thanksgiving. My maternal grandmother had died a few days before, so my mother is letting me use her old microwave until we get a new one installed. I want to put one over my stove. I had that in my other house, and it was convenient and off the counter. Where my built-in microwave sits I want to replace with a double oven.

The pantry is small and cramped. There is a small mudroom to the right off the eating area that we plan on adding shelving units to house both extra food items, toys and school supplies and the notorious shoes and other paraphernalia. Since I have 9 foot ceilings, I'm going to use all the vertical space I can.