greenclogs

goodbye November. it was fun.

Well, I did it. Almost - I missed the 23rd and didn't make it up like I meant to. I looked at these trees today on the bike path at the end of our street and saw that long line of posts like sturdy little soldiers. I think the daily posting has been really good for me - it has been so valuable to sit down and focus my thoughts at the end of each day. I didn't feel pressured to talk about anything specific. I set no big crafting goals. I just lived and talked about it. I discovered important things about our rhythms and about myself as a mother. So thanks for putting up with me every day. I doubt I'll post every day in December, but I promise to post more than twice. 

Today was a lovely day. Attitudes were better. Progress was made on the room. Chores were negotiated. The sun shone. I let a lot go and we spent time outside, finding the remaining leaves and looking at how things have changed since the budding of spring, the bloom of summer and the glorious fall color have passed. We have been here for 3 seasons now, for 9 months this weekend. All that's left is winter. My girl is hoping for snow and my boy just wants to visit snow while he learns to snowboard. I just hope for more of these clear days that will help me get through my first winter dark and rain in several years. I was reminded today by a neighbor to take vitamin D. I have to pick that up - lack of vitamin D is something I haven't worried about in a long time. 

The girl's room isn't quite done but she worked until she could see the sheets on her bed and didn't dissolve into tears. I have picking up and picture hanging to do tomorrow along with finishing up the painting in the kitchen. We're getting there. Every day, progress is made. But today, we stepped back and took some time to stomp in puddles while absorbing our vitamin D. It was good for all of us.

Thank you for taking this little journey with me this month. It's been fun. Tomorrow we celebrate the daddy's birthday, so I'll see you in a few days. 

the disaster zone

Tomorrow I'll have an extended and hopefully thoughtful post on creativity and mess and boundaries and all of that. Tonight, I am all worn out by spending the day helping the 9 year old deal with the messes she left all over the house this weekend. Hopefully I'll be in a better frame of mind after a good night's sleep. 

I'll leave you with the before photos. Tomorrow I'm crossing my fingers for beautiful after photos. 

going bold

People, you are probably getting tired of paint around here. I, however, am not. 

I went into the basement stash of paint colors (what? you don't have one of those?) and pulled out the leftover paint from my studio in Scottsdale. I had a light aqua and this one, which I think is more of a turquoise. The light one was way too wussy for the kitchen - it was all too pale with the white cabinets and fancy fretwork. I painted a big swatch of this one, and with Annika's encouragement I just kept painting. I think it's a winner. A very bold winner for my vintage 1940's kitchen. 

I think I can get away with this because most of the kitchen is white. There's an eating alcove, seen here, and then the rest of the galley kitchen is white cabinets on both sides, white appliances, white counters, and even a white floor. So the color goes in between the counters and upper cabinets, in the alcove. along a stretch of wall above the sink, and on soffits around the ceiling. It'll work, right? Just nod your head and humor me like even my menfolk are doing. 

Also, Amy sent me the world's most awesome Thanksgiving card. I immediately put it in a frame. It'll stay in the kitchen in a white frame instead of black, and accompanied by some other favorite cards and photos by friends. We love our pie around here. Gunnar is more than a little ticked that I kept it and didn't let him take it to his room. 

I'm excited about my little kitchen revamp. I have this room and the guest room to paint and gussy up before Lindsay and her boyfriend arrive on the 15th. Nothing like a deadline to get me motivated! This is a good way to shake off the post-Thanksgiving back to normal blues and keep me from starting Christmas gifts that I won't have time to finish. 

Happy Monday!

handmade holidays. or not.

It's a quick Sunday night post with no pictures because, well, I didn't take any. 

For the last few years I've been a pretty big stickler on making Christmas gifts. Many things have been made over the years - pillows and bags, sweater vests, hats, quilts, potholders, napkins, dolls and stuffed animals. It has largely been a lot of fun. I'm glad that I make nearly all of my gifts - both for Christmas and for birthdays, but I don't think I'm doing so much of it this year. And I'm feeling a bit guilty about it, which is very silly. 

I'm still going to buy handmade this year at Crafty Wonderland, from creative friends with small businesses, and if not handmade then from local independent shops. I think this year I'll give my family the gift of my sanity. I'll spend a bit more, but not much, given the cost of supplies and my time. Frankly, this year, I think I can do more good by spending money locally and with small business people who are struggling to make ends meet in this economic climate. I know they can't compete with Black Friday sales and deep discounts by huge retailers. I'd rather put my money into the pockets of that I know and talk to and see as I go about my days. I feel good about being able to do that.

I still have a few handmade gifts that have been in the works for a while, but I think I can do that without becoming a crazy person who sews until 2AM every night. I can relax and enjoy making those things. I can have time to make new stockings that all match and Christmas Tree Pants for my trees. We'll bake cookies. We'll hang out by the fire and read stories while drinking hot chocolate. I'll sneak in some crochet and knitting on quiet evenings. It'll all work out and all get done. 

I feel like a big load has been lifted this year. I need a break (especially with that very busy 60 minute napping toddler). How about you? How are you tackling Christmas gifts this year. What do you have planned?

p.s. I would like to state for the record that I planned ahead for stuffing the Advent calendar this year for the first time ever. Maybe there's hope for me yet.  

sparkle power

It is really hard to capture good photos of a spinning sparkly lighted tree at night. I set my lens to manual focus and played with different levels of blur and I love the different effects. 

As the tree spun, I could see where lights needed to be adjusted. 

The best part is that I can just plug in the spinning stand and then stay in one place to put the lights on - no throwing lights around the tree. It moves around for me. So easy!

I think the spinning tree stand is the best $5 I ever spent. 

 

Bring on the Christmas decor! I'm ready to counteract the winter gloom with some good old fashioned sparkle power. 

tomorrow

Tomorrow we find the base for the tinsel tree and we assemble it while convincimg Miss I Take It Apart to not take it apart. 

Tomorrow we assemble the Christmas village (and see above on not taking it apart).

Tomorrow we buy a new fish for the fish bowl. 

Tomorrow we make new stockings and hang them. 

Tomorrow we eat the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers. 

Tomorrw marks the beginning of our Christmas season. 

And today was pretty great in its wind down of autumn/Thanksgiving. 

Hello tomorrow. 

Thanksgiving 2011

I missed posting yesterday - I guess I'll have to get in an extra post over the weekend. Today was a pretty wonderful day. We cooked dinner for my grandma and Elmer, my aunt and uncle, and Jeff's parents. My dad came by for lunch before they headed elsewhere for dinner. Jeff's parents brought crab, shrimp, and oysters with them from their beach place so we had crab cocktail and fried oysters with a beautiful mushroom bisque soup for lunch. I'm especially grateful for those extra four crab sitting in my fridge right now. 

We had a few snafus in the process of cooking dinner. We're pretty used to having two ovens at Thanksgiving and this year we don't so there was a lot of juggling dishes with our smallish oven. Nothing would fit in there with the turkey, which was a challenge. It all worked out in the end, and the food was all hot and very delicious. My aunt brought old school green bean casserole, which totally brought back memories of childhood Thanksgivings and Christmas dinners with the green bean casserole and the candied yams with marshmallows and Swedish meatballs. 

The biggest issue we had was that in the middle of the day we had to drop everything and empty out our basement freezer because it decided to stop working. We crammed our kitchen freezer to the brim and then ran a bunch of meat over to the next door neighbor's house since she had plenty of room in her freezer. I guess I'll be braving the crowds tomorrow to buy a new one. I'm grateful that we were home and needed something from the freezer so we figured out that we had a problem sooner rather than later. That would have been a seriously expensive amount of food to replace. But, it all worked out and we kept on cooking.

We've had quite a year since last Thanksgiving and we have much to be grateful for. I was so happy to be able to host my grandma for dinner and gather together with people from both my family and from Jeff's. I'm grateful for all of the extra food in my refrigerator and for the ability to send some of it home with her. 

I hope your day was peaceful and that you spent it with people you love. Thank you for being here. 

maintaining

A few weeks ago, there were two spiders in our front yard. One was right outside the kitchen window where I sit for much of my day, with her web carefully anchored to the window frame and in three places on the rhododendron under the window. The other was firmly attached to our van in two places and to the fence on the other side (I drove our other car for those days because we didn't want to disturb her). Annika and I spent a lot of time watching the spiders - expecially the one right outside our window. We observed the building of the web, the triumphant completion and the waiting for prey, the continual repair of the web. Annika wrote stories about her; she imagined what it would be like to be a spider. Charlotte's Web was reread. After a few days, she was gone, probably taken by the wind to hopefully build elsewhere. 

Tonight, as I cast about for something to talk about, I happened upon a series of photos that I took of the spiders in an attempt to capture their fleeting, fragile homes. As I looked at them again, I was struck again by their constant work to maintain and rebuild their webs.

That's what I spent my day doing today. I scrubbed counters and cabinets and toilets. I put things away (again). I vacuumed. Jeff folded laundry. After doing all of the laundry yesterday (a LOT of laundry) there is already another load that needs to be done tonight. I just washed the slipcover on the couch, but the muddy-footed dog has dirtied it already, because really it's her beautiful white dog bed. The floors need to be mopped again. The tablecloth needs washing. I picked up the legos yesterday, but they are on the floor again. And as I gazed at the photos of the spiders, carefull spinning and respinning - making it all clean and orderly over and over, I realized that I'm like that spider, with my constant (but not always very vigilant) reordering and cleaning and spiffing up of my home. I paint. I hang pictures. I decorate. I move furniture. I move it again. I replace curtains. I do dishes. I do them again. I bring out Christmas decorations. I put them away and bring them out again. And while I grumble about it, at some level, I enjoy the process of maintaining my home and making it a comfortable place for my family. I enjoy it more when I'm decorating or painting, but even doing the dishes and wiping down the insides of the cupboards has its own satisfaction. I appreciate it when the rest of my family pitches in and shows that it matters to them too. 

I joke that most of life at home is about holding off entropy. If I'm sick for a few days then chaos quickly descends upon us. But really, it's true. We're not far removed from the spider and her web, from the bird and her nest, or the beaver and her dam. Part of the daily fabric of our lives is the maintenance of our living space, our home. It's essential. I may not enjoy it all of the time, but the more I can remember that those small acts of maintenance are what make our lives operate smoothly and happily, the less reluctant I am about doing them (may I remember this with a mountain of dishes after Thanksgiving).

Tomorrow I'm getting in touch with my inner spider and reconnecting the strands of my web. And I'll be proud. Then I'll do it again. This is the cycle of my days. I'm grateful that today I see the beauty in it. 

on the edge

Just like little miss "I don't sit in chairs" here, we're on the edge of the holiday season. Today, I made 5 dozen rolls for Thanksgiving and my children looked at me as if to say "that's it?" - granted, 2 dozen of them are for the school post-Toilet Bowl Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I may be making more on Wednesday. You tell me. Are 3 dozen rolls enough for 6 people plus a birdlike toddler? 

Tomorrow will be all about pie crust and cranberry sauce, as well as picking up our turkey. The bread for stuffing is diced and in the fridge. The house is being spiffed up for the arrival of Jeff's parents. Wednesday night dinner is planned. Lists are in process. We will feast on Thursday. Then we dive straight into Christmas prep on Friday. I'm getting excited to deck the halls. How about you? 

deep fall

It's not just fall around here anymore. Our early fall was more like late summer - the warm temps and sunny days continued into September and early October. Because of this, the autumn foliage has been amazing and colorful. It's in full force right now and we're enjoying every minute of it. The weather has also taken a turn toward cold and rainy. Really cold, really rainy, and really dark. Deep fall, which feels more like winter, but still has the remaining colors of autumn. 

Today we had a beautiful clear day, so we headed out to the back yard for garden cleanup and prep. 

Jeff pulled the remaining tomato plants out of the beds (even harvesting a few last red tomatoes!) and I turned the soil over. The rains had saturated it so that it was easy to turn and aerate. There were worms wriggling around everywhere. We turned everything under and planted about 75 cloves of garlic from 6 different varieties. We planned where to build the next beds so that we'll have triple the garden space next year. Our ultimate goal is that the bulk of our vegetables come from our own back yard. Winter greens are being babied indoors for a few weeks, and will be sown outside soon. We're lucky that freezing temperatures aren't common around here, so hopefully our winter crops will survive and even flourish. 

We let the chickens out into the yard to forage. They ran all over the place, finding worms and bugs and tomatoes to eat. 

Sadly, due to the rapidly shortening days, we aren't getting any eggs right now. We could be lighting their coop to extend their laying time, but in their first year especially, I think it's important to follow their natural laying rhythms. We'll appreciate the bounty of eggs so much more when it returns in the late winter, once the days are longer again (one of many reasons to look forward to those days). Despite the lack of eggs, the chickens are still delightful. They're healthy and happy and fun to watch. When it's sunny, we let them out to forage and on the rainy days they stay in their covered coop/run even if I leave the door open for them to roam. I think they like the rain even less than I do. 

The fall color is making its way indoors as well. We're bringing in leaves, pine cones, and seed pods that we find in the yard and discover on chilly walks through the neighborhood. Construction paper in shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown is in heavy use. We have planned our Thanksgiving menu and are readying the decorations for the feast table. 

While part of me misses the lovely weather of Phoenix at this time of year - the perfect tems, the ripening lemons (oh, how I'll miss the lemons), the return to an outdoor lifestyle - I'm grateful to be back in the familiar rhythms of the Pacific NW. I missed the showy foliage, the fires in the hearth, the candles lit in late afternoon as the skies darken. I didn't miss the rain, but I'm more at peace with it now and I appreciate how it helps us turn inward to the comforts of home and family. I'm ready to settle in for the long winter.