To grandfather's house we go..

My sweet sweet Grandpa Emerson was just moved into a hospice house and I am coming home from visiting him in Connecticut. Needless to say I'll be going up north a lot these days and will be keeping an eye out for all things homey and special to keep my spirits up (and yours, too).

When I came to my grandpa's house this week I was greeted by a happily jumping fire in the entryway. My grandmother designed the double sided fireplace so that it's the first thing you see in the house when you come home, what a nice welcome!

Also made extra special with amazing cat andirons with marble eyes (the other side of the fire hosts equally neat owl ones).

It's been a long time since I peaked my little scardey cat head down the cellar steps to the sluice way. As the house was once a mill, the "basement" floor is a little stream going the length of house, once upon a time powering the turbine, show here.

This is the little stream's source. My grandfather's property runs alongside this New England beaut for acres and acres.

I even borrowed my pa's hound dog for the country outing.


How excited I was to have the pup along side me was mirrored by how excited the pup was to find himself along side this local crayfish.

I love New England's skeleton of ancient abandoned mills and factories and I love even more when they are repurposed into something special, like this used bookstore, Books by the Falls.

I could have stayed in here for hours, it was everything a New England bookstore should be. Tall dusty stacks of classics with a sweet old man extolling the virtues of Emily Dickinson while tallying your purchases.

I snapped up a 1943 edition of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" for $4. Goes to show if you plop me down anywhere in the country, I'll still be dreaming of home.