sometimes I make things

I am woefully behind the times. I think the first blog I discovered may have been dooce, and it was this entry that had me hooked. Around the same time, I was making the shift from dabbler-knitter, to "knitter" and googling all sorts of things like "short rows" and "kitchener stitch." It was through those internet rambles that I started to discover knitting blogs. I think Elizabeth's may have been one of the first. (It's fun to backtrack a little, because I think Knitty got me there in the first place.) For a long time I used Elizabeth's page of links to navigate (Hi Elizabeth, if you've dropped by! I'm still coveting that Weekender Bag, but there's no way I'm going to have enough time to make it before we leave.), then I got brave enough to venture out on my own. I found Alicia and Jane (see how we're all on a first name basis!) and oh my gosh how inspiring have Amy's aprons been? I really will get brave enough for Tie One On, soon, I promise! It was the way these women (and many others, really) wrote about their lives and crafting and (in some cases) raising kids that inspired me. So how can I have been doing this blog thing of my own for almost a month now and not talk about the things I'm making?

Shy, maybe? A big part probably. Woefully miserbale photography skills? Well, you knew that already. Really woefully miserable documenting skills. (I have tons of stuff out there that never got photographed or documented.) But yes, sometimes I make things. The photo at the top of the post is the wee start to a pair of Fetching fingerless mits. Wrong time of year (I gave a lot of these as Christmas gifts), but a good gift for Callum's 1st grade teacher. I'm hoping she'll wear them on the playground next year and think of what fun she had.

Necklace Roll

This necklace roll is a gift for my jewelry-artist friend Marianne on her 40th birthday. I own so many beautiful things that she has made, I wanted her to have something that I made that shows how much I appreciate her gifts. Here's a look at the inside:

I've been making some handbags too:

I'm in the "learn as you go" school of sewing. Hoping to get more proficient and well, faster as I go along. I'd like to truck out a bunch of these little bags and try some new designs too.

So yes, sometimes I make things. I hope to get some work time in this weekend (Callum asked today if sewing or knitting was a "chore." Most definitely not! But I'll get better in the documentation and the photography, and hope to have a gallery of photos somewhere around here.

honeysuckle land

Neel left yesterday morning for a week-long meeting in Washington DC. (over Memorial Day Weekend, of all things) He's been gone less than 24 hours, and already everything has gone to hell. We were away all day yesterday and somehow the house is trashed. How is that possible? We slept late and Callum had peanut butter toast and lime slices for breakfast (you know how careful we have to be about scurvy), and the final blow was the decision to not go to karate. We got home at nearly ten last night, but if Neel had been here, up he and Callum would have been, and out the door to karate by 8:30 this morning. I'm definitely the slacker parent in this regard, and it takes the merest whiff for me to say (jumping up and down and clapping gleefully), "Ohh, I know! Let's stay home instead!!" Callum and I need Neel to keep us on the path of responsibility, and I am so grateful for his steadiness. Still, a day off won't hurt us, really. And the payoff is to sit in the back yard, suck on a lime and watch our hydrangeas burst onto the scene.

You'll be hearing more about these babies soon, I promise.

It'll be hard to top yesterday. Finally, finally the waiting was over for this. (And let me record it here, that I thought it was much better than the reviews are claiming, although I seem to have forgotten most of what happened.) After that, a swimmingly good afternoon and evening with some dear friends. Friday nights are valuable family time, and I feel very grateful to be taken under their wing. It was a perfect evening. The kids were in the pool, out of the pool, in the playhouse, on the playhouse, on the trampoline, back in the pool and out again, at the very last minute, wringing every valuable second from this early summer evening. All this while the grown-ups (if you can call us that) sat and talked, sipped cocktails and smelled the pork tenderloin on the grill. Not a bad start to the holiday weekend. I missed Neel, ensconced in the gold-leafed glory of the Mayflower Hotel in DC. Much better to be here, watching the fireflies light up the evening and slapping at mosquitoes.

It is only rarely that I feel a twing of regret that our son is an only child. Our family vibe works so well with the three of us (with Neel's steadyness navigating!), I don't really want it any other way. It's hard for me to describe how happy it makes me to see my boy running with a pack of friends like he did last night. I'm an only myself, and he's much better at it than me. I'd watch, paralyzed with shyness before dipping a toe into the giddy frenzy that a pack of siblings brings. Not much has changed for me, really. But for Callum, it seems seemless, his slide into their games and rambles. Assimilate is the right word, but then it isn't. Too clinical for his brave heart that dives right in. As assured of his place as if he were meant to be there, as if he'd been there all along.

We do the highs and lows of our day each night (another gift from these dear friends...dinner was good too!), and last night it was so hard to choose. Pirates? Swimming? Trampoline? None of those. For Callum it was his first taste of honeysuckle. Taste after taste after taste. We could hear him in the depths of the yard saying, "Let's pretend we're in honeysuckle land..."

Here's to another glorious summer.

karmic cloud

Me and my crocs, stare into the abyss.

My three or so readers have noted my blogging absence. I have been under a karmic cloud, that's fer damn sure. We'll start with the migraines. Six out of seven days. There's a dad of a kid at Callum's school who gets them too. We have the same triggers, and if Mike leans into me in the hallway between Kindergarten and First Grade to say, "How's your week?" I know exactly what he's talking about. We seem to be on the same pain/trigger cycle. And earlier this week, I got into the back of a friend's car after lunch (see below for more lunchtime karmic woes) and picked up her newly purchased copy of this. Flipping through, I somehow turned to a stunningly beautiful and accurate description of migraine pain. I wish I could copy the text here, but go buy the book. I hear it's even better than The Kite Runner. I love owning books, but I hate buying hard backs, so I'm going to borrow Megan's copy as soon as she's done and buy my own in a few months.

So first the migraines. Then there was the golf tournament that I've been working on with some parent volunteers for several months. It rained all day. At the beginning of the tournament, as all the golfers were lined up in their cute little carts (seriously, those carts looked just like the copper and blue version of the Mini Cooper Convertible...might need one of those) it started to pour. Not the scattered showers that were predicted, but one of those all-day soaking rains. I have to say that golfers really impress me. They really will go out there in anything and have fun. It wasn't until several days later as I was thinking back through everything that had been going wrong that I thought of that rain, but from were I stand right now, I feel sure it was my fault.

Then there was the stomach flu. Earlier that week, I'd walked into our Main Building to see a preschooler sitting on the bench by the office with a trash can pulled up next to him. Not a good sign. I suppose you could say it was good karma that I managed to hold off until after the rainy golf tournament, but sitting by the toilet for 5 hours on Friday night, I wasn't really thinking about the up side of the situation. Also on Friday, my computer broke (that's the reason for the inadvertent blogging break). Sunday my cell phone died and all it's chargers threw themselves off a cliff after it in grief. After three attempts, I still can't manage to purchase the correct charger. What do we do when that happens? Buy a new one of course! Seriously, I'm due a new phone and was planning to get it this week, so I went silent on the radar for a few days rather than buy a charger that I'll only use for a little bit.

After that it was the bad lunch karma. On Monday a group of us took a friend out for lunch at the same place we'd had my birthday lunch. Remember the deliciousness? The lovely server who, unprompted, brought us champagne? No such luck this day. Lousy service, obnoxious server. He got our soup wrong and never apologized. What's up with that? And of course, no champagne.

The bad lunch karma continued at this weekly stand-by. This little place of Mexican awesomeness. I seriously love this restaurant. But we had to sit in the hall (never good, like being sent to the kid's table), my normally sublime veggie taco was not at its standard.  It was fine, really, but I am so used to that veggie taco being the best thing I'll eat all week that it was a particular let down. The conversation was not sparkling and it felt more expensive than usual.  Don't worry, I'll consider it a personal duty to try again next week (and to get there a little early), but the karma clearly continued.

Tuesday evening seemed better until I went outside to tell Neel something and must have put my foot down wrong. First goes my ankle. And I think, okay, it's just my foot, I can get back upright. Then suddenly I'm on my knees. Okay, it's just my knees. I can get back upright. And suddenly I'm lying sprawled out on our flagstone path.  I have a bruise on my hip that looks like this.  Only purple and without the shade.  Cheaper though.

Still, things might be looking up.  I sense a shift.  Like a slow clearing in the west.  The problem is that the cloud seems to be hovering near me.  My friend Shoshana was walking out the door yesterday with a birthday cake in hand when her dog ran in front of her, tripping her and slamming the cake into a wall.  (That's some good dog karma, though.)  Oh, and she's a little concerned about identity theft right now too.  The cake was still delicious.  Then Megan was trying to get out of a parking lot yesterday when it got shut down due to a gas leak.  At first no one was allowed to start their cars.  Then a nice firefighter let Megan go ahead and leave (don't worry, she didn't trigger an explosion...it's not that bad around here).  As she was pulling out, she clipped a fire hose and another firefighter ran after her threatening to charge her with a felony.  A felony!  Who knew?

Last night, when I was on a walk with my neighbor Jean, she pointed out that perhaps I should have mentioned all of this on the phone rather than waiting until we were in person, but I'm sure things are going to be fine for her.  (Hi Jean!  I'll be thinking about you guys today with that minor surgical procedure you're heading in for!)

And really, today's the day I can get a new phone, and I think that might just do the trick.  My dad always says that if you leave electronic things alone long enough they'll heal themselves.  I'm not sure exactly how that applies, but I'm just certain that it will.  In the meantime, I think I'll follow the lead of my canine friend here and hibernate until the skies are truly clear.

lush

–adjective, -er, -est.

1. (of vegetation, plants, grasses, etc.) luxuriant; succulent; tender and juicy.

2. characterized by luxuriant vegetation: a lush valley.

3. characterized by luxuriousness, opulence, etc.: the lush surroundings of his home.

[Origin: 1400–50; late ME lusch slack; akin to OE lysu bad, léas lax, MLG lasch slack, ON lǫskr weak, Goth lasiws weak

I think I might need some more peonies. Yeah. I do.

weekly reader

Backyard dojo

You know, Callum had a really good week last week. The first grade had two performances of "Stone Soup," and his granddad came up for the shows. This kid can project his voice, let me tell you. He spoke at each of his great-grandparents funerals when he was only five, so public speaking seems to come easily to him. And he is not shy of being heard. My favorite part of the play was watching him mouth EVERY line along with his classmates. Apparently he was quick to correct you if you got it wrong. Kinda like at home.

He's up to 2,520 on his "scroll." Man, that is some teacher who can make you want to write your numbers as high as you can go. They are going to hang them from the ceiling in the Early School hallway next week.

11 days until Pirates!

It's first grade, so really it's our first go at school. Real academic school. Each year (okay, this year and last year) has had it's obstacles. Last year was hard. Fine motor skills were a problem . Oy, the handwriting, the buttoning, the tying of shoes (still haven't got that one). And I was really worried that he wasn't reading. We red-shirted Callum. He has an early fall birthday, so he was turing six at the start of kindergarten. But still, despite his age advantage, the reading was hard. He memorized his way through some Dick and Jane books, but that was it.

Checking out the snake in our backyard this weekend.

We go to a great school that really does have in inherent faith and trust in a kid's own particular pace, but still, I had to remind myself to be patient. Have my own faith in him. Trust that it's about the process of learning as much as it is the reading itself. The reading will come. And it did. Bit by bit, word by word, it did. When he reads a book to me now, my heart sings a silent song of joy. He sounds out billboards, and I know, I remember the heady excitement of realizing that you're finally getting it. He's been reading all year now. Words here and there, sounding out the grocery list or an address on an envelope.

It wasn't until last week that I finally got it: he can read. I'd picked up a pack of jelly beans for a snack, and we shared it on the ride home from school. Callum would hand me a bean at a time and would read the flavor for me from the back of the box. After several beans, it dawned on me. I'm not having to tell him the flavors. I don't have to have to say, "Hold on a sec. Hand me the box and I'll see. No, I think that kind of pink is bubble gum. No, this is blueberry" He's reading them. He can read. He's reading the flavors to me.

Cool.

Okay, math, you're next.