This Old House - Moffett Edition

I have always been fascinated with history - particularly that of my own family. One day I hope to put together a collection of anecdotes and photos and make a sort of Moffett history book - but for now, I will share with you the story of my recent trip back to one of the houses I lived in when I was a baby.

I was born in Frederick, Maryland at Frederick Memorial Hospital. I lived in a small cottage on an estate in Frederick for my first few months in the world but the property ended up being sold for development, so my parents moved to a giant old farm mansion out on Ed Crone Lane - as my brother and I grew older we simply referred to it as "The Frederick House". We lived in this house for a few years until we hit the road to go tree planting (more about that adventure in another post).

My first memories are a surreal jumble of events that occurred at The Frederick House - including the time when the attic door blew open during a storm and a horde of bats flew down into the living room where we were watching TV and my father had to chase them out of the house. The property was sprawling and flanked by farm fields. There were some interesting landmarks at The Frederick House as well. Among the creepier ones was a path that led from the main house to the shed (back in the day, the slave quarters) which was made of stones, but not just any stones - they were actually slave gravestones! There were fireplaces in every room in the main house and it was so big and run down when my family moved in that we didn't even use some of the rooms. My parents actually put in a lot of work on that house. My father was working construction jobs at the time and he took scraps from work sites to build some things - he added a brand new porch on one side of the house and built me and my brother a playhouse in the back yard.

For awhile now I have been wondering whatever became of that house. I have been to Frederick several times in the past year or so because my good friend Trevor lives there and each time, I've thought about driving by the old house and seeing if it was still there or not. My father always told me that he didn't think it could possibly be still standing - Frederick has gone through a lot of development since we lived there 20 years ago!

The other day I got it in my head that I wanted to go see it, so i called my friend Ben (who also lives in Frederick) and got him in on the plan. I would drive to Frederick after work, meet at Ben's house, we'd get bundled up and grab some flashlights and head out there. Now most of you are probably thinking - Why did you go at night? It's the dead of winter! Are you out of your mind? Well... I can't really explain why I decided to go when I did... so just read on.

First we Google Mapped the area but you can't tell on Google Maps if a house is actually there or not so I had to download Google Earth and try to check it out that way. The house is kind of buried in a clump of trees and the Google Earth picture was from pretty far away so it was hard to tell if the actual structure was still there or just some trees disguising a foundation. In any event, the driveway was still there so I figured it wasn't paved over with a Wal-Mart just yet. After that we went to a liquor store next to Ben's place and bought some bottles of wine. Then we set out for Ed Crone Lane. It was freezing cold and snowy but luckily the farmland was well it by a full moon! (Creepy, I know.) We drove by the driveway once and there was a giant chain link fence blocking us from driving down. Not to be deterred, we parked the car on another street and then took our flashlights and wine and jumped the fence!

It was strange walking down the driveway - I remember going up and down it many times as a youngster - and the trees were sort of shrouding the area where the house would be, so I was a little nervous we'd get down there and see nothing.

But this is what we saw:



The house was there...still standing...but a burnt out shell. At first, I was just excited that it was still there but then the eeriness of the empty brick husk started to sink in. We walked around the whole house and even went into it. There were no floors or anything - just a collapsed roof and beams and charred bits of metal and wood piled up in the basement. The old slave quarters/shed was still completley intact and the path of stones was still there. My dad told me to look for the cornerstone that had the year the house was built etched into it but I never did find it. Perhaps they took it out before they burned the house down (I later found out that it was burnt as practice for fire fighters). I am glad there was at least something still there. The saddest part was probably seeing the porch that my dad worked so hard to build reduced to broken 2x4 planks strewn around and overgrown with weeds.

The full moon added an interesting light and made for some really great pictures (thanks to Ben's great camera and skills):

Worst Day of the Year = Cause for Celebration!

Valentine's Day is an overly commercialized holiday that most adults dread. Those of us who are single dread possibly not having a date or having to feel completely inferior watching everyone around them receive flowers and candy. Those of us who are in couples stress about gifts to give and how to be original on such a cliche occasion. Some of us even get stuck in the position of having forgotten the date and facing up to the wrath of our other halves. Gone are the days of cartoon character valentines for everyone and cupcakes and candy hearts during recess.

So what is the remedy? How do we escape the impending doom of Valentine's Day? Celebrate something else! It just so happens that I have a little dog - named Scrappy - who was born on February 14, 2004 and there is nothing better that I can think of than celebrating her birthday to distract all my friends from the Holiday That Shall Not Be Named.

We started this little tradition last year by having a few people over to the house, eating some cake and drinking "Scrappy's Brew" (bud light bottles with the label covered by a custom label that I made...any excuse for a craft!). This year the celebration quadrupled in attendance and the decorations, food and brews were way over the top! Scrappy also received a ridiculous amount of gifts, which really surprised me. She got a brand new dog bed, a new travel carrier, a matching jacket and hat, gourmet dog treats, a new leash and some toys! What a spoiled dog. Some people even brought their own dogs, which was a lot of fun... despite Scrappy's jealousy issues. The only casualty of the night was a wine glass that broke when the golden retreiver who came swiped a shelf on our bar cart clean with his tail!

Below are the invitations that I created and sent out to the girls - because really the girls were the only ones who could really appreciate them! The little dog on the front really did look just like Scrappy - underbite and all!

This is what the food/favor table looked like:

There were cookies in the shape of fire hydrants, dog bones and puppies, lots of candy hearts, baked brie, chips and spinach and artichoke dip and m&ms. The best thing was that we turned our not so classy boxed wine into part of the theme of the party and made it look like a dog house! And of course, there was cake!

The brews this year were perhaps the most labor intensive yet awesome part of the party! We made labels of two varieties. I made the one with the little drawing of Scrappy on the front and Alec (our guy friend from down the hall who was really a trooper when I recruited him to help me) drew the ones of the heart being pierced by a dog bone (instead of an arrow, you know). Then, I took it one step further by making little covers for the bottlecaps (I drew them on sticker paper and then cut them to size). So adorable! Everyone was impressed.

Below: Scrappy's Loot! Aren't those giant pink bows fabulous!?



We had a lot of flowers spread around the house, but the pink tulips were my favorite!

We managed to crowd over 20 people into our little apartment and good time was had by all! I can't wait to see what we'll come up with for Scrappy's big 5th birthday next year!

A Fun Project!

Craft projects always make me happy... they allow for creative outlet, give you something to work on and at the end you have something cool to keep or to give to someone else!  One of my favorite go-to spots for classy crafts (think more something you'd proudly display on a bookshelf in your home and less something with beading and puffy paint that you made at camp) is Paper Source.  They sell kits and even offer free online tutorials on how to complete their crafts(check out their How To section of the website).

The downside is that some of their crafts are pricey and time intensive but recently I found a really easy and cheap craft that anyone can do:  Decorative Letters!

Materials:  Paper Source is a one-stop shop for everything you will need!  For those of you who don't live near an actual Paper Source store you can order everything online!

• Paper!  

• Letters!

• Adhesive glue and a glue brush!  (I put a picture of the kind of glue that I bought - there are other kinds, of course, but this one didn't require any mixing and stays wet for a decent amount of time which makes it a bit more forgiving)

• Pencil and Scissors

• And you can include anything else that you would want to fancy up your letter.  For example, when I did this craft with my roommate, Sarah, she went and bought some matching ribbon to attach to the back of her letter so that she could hang it on the wall in her room!

My Directions:  This is how I completed the craft... I'm sure you all can figure out the method that works best for you.   Here's what my workspace looked like:

     

• 1) I bought a patterned paper and a plain paper in a complementary color for my letter design - my goal was to cover both faces of the letter with the pattern and then the edges in the plain paper.
• 2) First, I traced the outline of my letter (both sides) on the patterned paper and cut it out.  This way the paper would fit perfectly on each face of my letter.
• 3) Then, I cut strips of the plain paper a little wider than the sides of my letter so that when i applied it the edges would wrap around the faces and be covered by the patterned paper.
• 4) I covered the sides of my letter with the plain paper first.  I brushed very thin layer of glue on the letter in the spot i was working and pressed the paper gently down.  Then I brushed glue onto the overhang pieces of paper and and pressed it down to the face of my letter.
• 5) After the sides were completely covered I brushed a think layer of glue on the front face of my letter and applied the pre-cut patterned paper.  I repeated the same process on for the back face of the letter.
• 6) If there were any stubborn parts of the paper still sticking up, I just brushed glue over them to get them down - the glue dried clear so you would never know it.
• 6) Let dry overnight and - voila!

Here are some pictures of the ones that I did:

   

With the L i just covered the whole letter with patterned paper but the method I used was the same.

Sidecraft! Sarah got inspired to cover a whole box with paper - she struggled a bit but it came out beautifully:

 

After doing these first couple of letters, I decided to try to do one for my boyfriend but needed a manly looking paper so I chose this world map wrap.  I don't have any pictures of the finished product but it came out really cool looking and is a great addition to his desk!

Welcome to the World of Moffett

I have stressed over the opening entry for this blog (I guess they call them "posts" not entries in the blog world) and haven't been able to write it for months. I was feeling pressured to set the tone for the entire blog in a few short paragraphs and, instead of just settling down and getting it out there, let the entire thing fall by the wayside.

Then I realized...there is very little likelihood that anyone will read this, so what have I got to lose?!

This blog is not themed... unless you consider "whatever emily wants" to be a theme... and I will write about whatever I happen to be influenced by, doing, or thinking about. I probably won't post daily or even weekly due to my hectic schedule and periodic bouts of laziness. However, I hope that in spite of all of this whoever reads this blog will enjoy it and occasionally find a few things worth passing on to others!

Welcome, one and all, to the world of Moffett.