Today’s post is sponsored by 3M. They’re providing our dust masks and covering the dump fees around here.

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU**

Hi everybody! There’s Martin going to town over here. Someone at the hangar mentioned “winter in the tire house”, and BANG. He was a crowbar operating machine. More on all of our progress later.

But first? Here’s a little giveaway for any of you want to do a little DIY. 3M is offering all of this goodness to a Making This Home reader:

Items include:

How to win:

1. Like 3M Frameworks on Facebook.
2. Participate in the translation sweepstakes by posting a comment on their page where you translate dialogue and actions… like Martin’s remodeling response to the tire house. (This automatically enters you in their $250 drawing, too. BONUS.)
3. Leave a comment here telling us your translation posted on their fb page.

Open to the US only. Giveaway closes Monday, Sept 19. Winner will be drawn at random with random.org. GOOD LUCK!

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU**

Share on Twitter and Facebook if you want.

We’re doing it! This week, the hangar is undergoing some serious transformations. Our piles to recycle and throw away are already heaping. The donate/sell pile includes hundreds of lightbulbs, airplane posters, WWII airplane instruments, and trunks. We’ve been seriously attacking the attic.

It’s so exciting!

It’s so depressing.

I do not like going through someone’s old things. I do not like having the person who collected all of these things standing watch as I pull them out. All these memories were heaped into boxes and stashed in corners of the hangar. Now we’re flushing them all out 25+ years later.

These photos are all of the area where we’ll be building our kitchen and bathroom. (You can see the layout here.) I’m sorry for the poor photography. Standing up there and seeing all of this stuff was just too much. All I wanted was to snap photos for our records and then get out.

I raced back to the tire house afterward. Overwhelmed. Fearful. Sad.

I came home and told Martin, “I was in the attic. I took pictures, and it was…”

He looked up from his work. His voice was as sad as I felt. “I know.”

I didn’t go back to the hangar for two days after taking these pictures. I just couldn’t.

This past week as we have been pulling everything down to the main hangar floor to sort, we have to wear dust masks. My pink shirt looks tie-dyed pink and brown and gray because of all the dust and grime.

The elderly owner of all this stuff is seeing these things come down. The owner is remembering them.

The owner of all these memories that are buried in heaps of dust is depressed.

It breaks my heart.

Why wasn’t all this stuff removed instead of being wedged into the corners of the attic so long ago?

For as much as I love the sense of clean, open space, I struggle with pulling out memories that probably should have been removed long ago. I struggle with knowing which memories are ones to hang onto. (Logbooks, photos, old documents like marriage licenses and birth certificates, and journals we always keep. If not for the owner of these things or the legacy we hope to build here, then for the local archives.)

Otherwise, I struggle with figuring out which things are junk and which things should go into the sell/donate pile.

I struggle with knowing just how much to show the memory owner and say, “What was this?”

Was I joking about the boost of energy and creativity in the autumn?

Nope.

We found an apple tree sagging with apples the other day. The next thing you know, Martin and I were emptying our canvas shopping bags in the car. We marched right over to that apple tree and started picking.

Autumn is creeping in around here. RVs are high tailing it out of here to go to warmer states. The bucks are loosing the fuzz on their antlers. And we’re baking apple everything.

And then? Martin and I flip through the pages of this…

Everyone at Gadanke has a new baby sister. But she’s no baby. This journal is the fattest book of all, stuffed with recipe cards and memory cards.

Martin’s grandma kept asking me, “When are you going to make a recipe journal? When are you going to make a recipe journal?”

After this horrible experience with his grandmother who could not speak English, I don’t ever want to upset a woman in her kitchen EVER again.

So I’ve been studying our relationship to food for months. I dripped watermelon on my shirt during America’s Independence Day. I held a beer with Germans near the Black Forest. And I got to witness Turkish families preparing some favorite foods.

I saw the joy.

I tasted it.

And then BANG. I saw the impact of a food culture totally shook up during strawberry and asparagus season in Germany. We were hit with an E. coli outbreak.

Strawberry stands had to slam their doors shut just days after opening for the season. Stores were pulling possibly contaminated food from the shelves like crazy. Everyone was afraid to eat anything, anywhere.

Food. It matters.

It’s a huge part of what shapes us.

So I hope you love this new journal as much as Martin and I and his grandma do.

{Taste: of food, of life}

I hope you savor the taste of food and the taste of life. I think that this recipe journal really covers so much. There are spots to paste in photos around the table, receipts, and pieces of packaging. There are prompts to write your stories.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope there’s the taste of apples. Lots and lots of apples. Maybe not yet. You probably aren’t waking to 40 degree temps like us (5 Celsius). Yet.

And if there’s not lots of apple everything, come on over to the tire house. But bring a cup of sugar; we’re all out.

When the mornings feel a little cooler and the grass slowly starts turning gold, do you get bursts of creative energy?

Oh man. I hop out of bed ready to just CREATE. It happens every autumn as sure as the smell of forest fires. I’m like a whirlwind inspired by anything that blows past me in the breeze.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one. A lot of women find autumn is the most inspiring time of the entire year.

The knowledge made me pause. Celebrate. And then a few of YOUR emails made me jump into action.

The {Become} journals at Gadanke have been uplifting so many women. Our creative whispers need to be heard; we need to nurture a safe place for them to emerge. And for some, these upbeat colors do just that:

What if we tap into that natural, intense inspiration that autumn brings with it? What if we look deep to the soil? What if that’s where we begin to dream?

So many hopes. So many what-ifs. So I say, “So long only bright, bold, daring {Become} journals. And welcome autumn inspired creative self diaries!”

{Become : me, my creative self} in harvest orange

{Become : me, my creative self} in acorn brown

My all-time favorite words are by the poet, Rumi:

You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?

Acknowledge the creative whispers in your heart. Listen to your cravings this season. I really hope this journal can help us all keep doing JUST THAT.

What do you think? Does autumn pull your heartstrings, too?

Welcome to the hangar where stuff is slowly disappearing.

Where there are only little piles left to sort and attend to.

Where you’ll still find a cool little nicknack to pause and explore.

Where the neighbor’s cat will still come to hang out and examine all progress.

Where you can sit down and stare at the utility sink because that’s as far as I got this chair before I sat down and took a nap one hot afternoon.

Where that cat likes to nap now, too.

Where 75 percent of the stuff is gone.

Where two planes are gone.

Where there’s a heap of stuff to keep and a heap of tools ready to go.

Where there’s a date set for next week’s calendar that simply reads: DEMOLITION DAY

These are my parents:

They’re our biggest European travel buddies. And whenever Martin and I say something crazy like, “What if we move into an airplane hangar?” they say, “COOL!”

In one year, my parents will be celebrating 30 years of parenthood. (I think you say “celebrating” there!)

Now if you’ve read older posts on Making This Home, you’ve probably gathered that (1) I have a brother and sister and (2) I’m the oldest child. So uhhhh… I guess you can pretty much guess who’s turning 30 next August then, right?

(We’ll see if I’m smiling this big on THAT DAY!)

It was such an incredible experience giving Martin a Gadanke {Love Letter} for our anniversary a few weeks ago. I instantly knew: my parents need a book next August.

Now as you know, my mom does not read my blog when we’re in Germany. So if I get to Germany, I’ll talk about this project then. Otherwise, it’ll be pretty hush. ;)

Here’s a little peek of what I got started.

I chose the flower garden {Love Letter} from Gadanke. I’m going to use the prompt on each page to write about memories. Sometimes it’ll be a list of brief memories. Other times it’ll be traditions. And sometimes, I think I’ll just focus on one specific memory. We’ll see how it goes each month. I’m still not sure if I want to put in a photo every month like in Martin’s book.

Here’s the first page:

I used: this circle hole puncher and photo, red and blue pens, and date stamp. Love a date stamp for journaling. (Maybe too much this time!)

Mom and Dad, your memory of this post is getting fuzzy. Fuzzzzzzzy…. Fuzzzzy…

Who is someone in your life that you love? What would you say?