greenclogs

focus: on family getaways

It's time for the third installment of focus, a little photo project that Larissa and I are collaborating on.

Each week we hope to take time to Focus ourselves and to Focus our cameras.

To Focus on looking and seeing,

to Focus on how we spend our time,

to Focus on friends and family and what's important,

to Focus on what's been there all the along but we just didn't take the time to look.

This week our Focus is on 'noticing the details in our familiy getaways, since we both conveniently were on vacation.

We are very lucky people. I talk a lot about Cannon Beach and how forturnate we are to spend so much time there. There is another wonderful beach place that Jeff's parents own on a small island in the San Juans (in Washington state) that we don't get to nearly often enough. We went there this weekend. 

After a couple of busy days in Seattle seeing family and some old friends, we picked Jeff up from the Bolt Bus and began the trek north. We stayed with my uncle in Mt Vernon on Thursday night so we could get on the 6:25 AM ferry and avoid the Friday crowds. We drove along the lake and through lowlands in the predawn fog, We watched the sun rise over the Cascades while the fog gently lifted and the ferry arrived. 

The rest of us are experienced ferry travelers, but this was Kit's first trip on the ferry to Friday Harbor. Her concept of a boat was nothing like this, and it was fun to watch it dawn on her that we really were driving our car onto that big boat. Her mind was blown. 

We arrived in time for breakfast on lovely Henry Island to the warm welcome of Jeff's parents. I hadn't been up here in years because of our time in Arizona - getting here is no easy task - and it was even more glorious than I had remembered. There was crabbing and mussel gathering, rock throwing, treasure collecting, friend visiting, and way too much eating. There was also a lot of just sitting on the deck knitting and watching the world (if the world is expensive boats) go by. 

I'll just let the photos do the talking now.

It was a glorious, family filled weekend. We are lucky people, indeed. 

focus: on the kitchen table

It's time for the second installment of focus, a little photo project that Larissa and I are collaborating on.

Each week we hope to take time to Focus ourselves and to Focus our cameras.

To Focus on looking and seeing,

to Focus on how we spend our time,

to Focus on friends and family and what's important,

to Focus on what's been there all the along but we just didn't take the time to look.

This week our Focus is on 'the kitchen table.

I discovered a few things about my kitchen table this week. First is that I cannot keep the tablecloth clean. It's dirty within seconds of being put on the table. So, I need more tablecloths. 

I love our kitchen table (really it's the dining room table). It's a 54" round oak pedestal table that's nearly 100 years old. The table is in constant use - as a landing pad for stuff, as a place for crafting or studying, and of course as the spot where we take our meals together. 

For some reason, the cat also loves the table. He's always up there to see if something good is there for him. Usually there is, since there are people in this house who think that clearing the table is for the birds. Or at least for the mama. 

The kitchen table is the center of our family life. I was grateful this week to really pay attention to how we use the table. And to putting more effort into keeping it clear and ready for meals and projects and family time. I'd call it a microcosm of our home and our life - if the table is in order then I feel like everything else is too. I don't know that I had connected the dots on that until this week. I guess that's what this Focus thing is all about - gaining a better understanding of myself and my life. That's a good thing, indeed. 

Happy Wednesday, friends. 

Focus

I am excited today to begin a little collaboration photography project with Larissa from Stitches in Play.  We are working together, pushing one another just a bit to not only stop and notice but to truly Focus. 

Each week we hope to take time to Focus ourselves and to Focus our cameras.

To Focus on looking and seeing,

to Focus on how we spend our time,

to Focus on friends and family and what's important,

to Focus on what's been there all the along but we just didn't take the time to look.

This week we're focusing on the garden, and boy does my garden need some focus. 

It all looked so sweet and tiny and orderly when I left for the beach. Now, not so much. This bed is a hodgepodge of garlic, carrots, beets, dill, mustard greens, and volunteer tomato plants. I have decided to just go with it by thinning out everything and letting it grow. 

This bed is far more orderly. Kale, chard and edamame. Easy peasy. I pulled the garlic from the other half of the bed and now it's ready to replant with more carrots, peas, lettuce, and beets. 

Some of our strawberries are everbearing, so there are flowers and little berries still. Hopefully we'll get them before the squirrels do. 

Oregano is flowering, as is cilantro. I'm okay with that since they keep reseeding themselves. My herbs are flourishing - they love our temperate climate. 

The volunteer tomato plants are huge and flowering. I have very little hope for tomatoes, however. We were going to plant starts when it warmed up, and we didn't. When these sprouted on their own, I decided to just see what happened. It was warm so late that I think a harvest is pretty unlikely. I'll be buying crates of tomatoes for canning anyway, so if we do get a few then it'll be a happy bonus. 

It makes me sad to thin carrots, but it has to happen. At least Kit was able to get a tasty bite from this one. 

And some harvesting! We have been eating chard, kale, carrots and beets since we got back. So, so good. Kale chips are on the agenda tonight. Or maybe a kale salad. Yum.

Lastly, my chickens seem to have gotten over their horror at the 90 degree temps of 2 weeks ago and started laying eggs again. That was one lean week - We really depend on those eggs to round out our garden bounty. 

Now that I have taken the time to see what's in the garden, harvest what was ready, and thin out the rest, I can focus on where it's going. We want to try and have a year round garden this year. This evening my focus will be on garden books, graph paper, and planning. The more work I can put into it now, the more it will pay off later in terms of food for our family. 

Thanks, Larissa for suggesting this collaboration. It's just what I need right now. 

lately

We went back to the beach for the day on Thursday. Gunnar had some work to do. Also, after being there for a few weeks, it feels weird to just be home. I need a transition back to here - an easing in. 

He's turning his sand dollar art into a floor mural of sorts for our favorite shop at the beach. There's a ramp that takes you from one room to another, and this will grace the ramp. His smaller versions are conveniently for sale right there in the shop. 

Also, he looks very grown here. Very young man. I'm not sure how i feel about this. 

We're dogsitting the sweetest little dog on the planet. I think she has even mellowed my dogs out. I love her. Maybe her mama won't notice if we just keep her. 

I made a mini quilt. Or a giant trivet. Or whatever you want to call it. I know I said I was moving on with my color scheme, but when I asked the bride what colors she wanted in her dining room, she said "yellow, light blue, red." What's a girl supposed to do? But really. I'm moving on now. (thanks to Beki for the reminder about how much I love the wonky maverick star)

Next time I'll draw the heart before I stitch it. However, I love the echo quilting pretty fiercely. I may want one of these for me. In a different color scheme. Really.

I started a part time work at home job today. It feels really good to be working again - this is the longest I've ever gone without a job. I know that doing what I do at home is of tremendous value, but so is bringing in a financial contribution again. We need it. 

I have a new little project/collaboration to talk about tomorrow. I'm excited. 

I'm going to sit outside and knit for a while and enjoy the cooler day. I hope you're doing the same. The enjoying, if not the knitting. 

a graduation quilt

There's a stack of quilt tops and blocks in my studio that I'm slowly plowing through. I finished this one at the beginning of May right before I left for Lindsay's graduation. Well, finished except for handsewing down the binding. I nearly machine stitched it on so I could bring it with me and give it to her when I was there, but I didn't. She is in the middle of such a huge transition that I figured that she didn't need another thing to pack as she moves to a new apartment. Plus, it's not like she needs a quilt during the summer in LA. Lastly, I wanted to bind it properly and that just wasn't happening in the 15 hours that remained before getting in the car. So, it stayed home and waited patiently for me to pull it back out and finish that binding. 

When we go to the beach in June, I pack a few projects - one knitting, one crochet, one handstitching. I also had a sewing machine down there *just in case* I needed it (which I did). I have gotten much better about not bringing too much now that the beach is closer to home, which means that I've also gotten better at working on most of what I bring. This quilt was packed into the bin and it sat there for over a week while I sewed baby bibs for some friends and knit 1/3 of a sweater and crocheted a bunch of granny squares. Near the end of the trip, I pulled it out and started stitching down that binding. 

I know a lot of people who love the hand stitching down of binding. I am not one of them. I have probably mentioned this before. For me, it's a real labor of love. With each stitch, I thought about my girl and about her life that lies in front of her. In those stitches, I put my hopes and my love. I see her snuggled up under it with her love, or someday (in many years) her babies. I hope it sees her through many years of laughter and love and happiness and that it helps comfort her through the bad times. All those thoughts carry me through to the last stitch. I put it in the wash and the dryer, and I was amazed yet again at how beautifully it all comes together even though it's not perfect. Just like life. 

Quilt details:

Inspired by the Moda Positively Perfect quilt but heavily modified. I made my blocks (and the quilt) much bigger and I kept to a symmetrical order. The finished size is 75x75". She wanted it nice and big.

All of the fabric came from stash. The backing is primarily what remains of a Merimekko duvet cover that I found at the Crate & Barrel outlet for $10. Love it. 

The quilting is in a big X pattern that is a counterpoint to the square patterning and accentuates the fabric placement. I could have done a better job of lining up the squares on the quilt back, but that skill eludes me. 

I quilted it on my new sewing machine, which was lovely. Having a larger throat space and built in dual feed made all the difference on a quilt this big. 

As a side note, I think it's time to move on to a new color palette after the last two quilts, much as I love this one. I think I'll play with some pink and green. 

I hope she loves it. I sure do.

re-entry

We're back from the beach. Our suitcases are full of sand.

There is a mountain of laundry.

We have sunkissed faces and filled up hearts.

There's also some new (and fantastic) art by Gunnar, a blocked shawl, a completed book by me and 5 by Annika, a bound quilt, a 1/3 complete sweater, and 372 tiny quilt pieces cut out.

But for now, we're still thinking about the sun and the sand and the surf. We're reliving those perfect moments with friends who are like family. We're grateful for the gift that is living near the ocean. 

Now it's time to send the sand outside, settle in, and focus on the rest of summer at home.

and she is 10

It always surprises me that milestone birthdays take my breath away a little bit, even though I've done them before with the older kids. But they do. 10 years ago this little bundle of love and contradiction entered the world and our family has been so much the better for it. 

Oh, Annika. As usual, I'm not sure what to say. You are just So Much. So much love, so much brain, so much angst, so much independence, so much need, so much creativity, so much procrastination, so much lazy, so much busy. You are one of the most complex people I know, and I say that with love. I understand you the least of my children, but I think understanding you is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. It can't be done. Instead I just love you. I hold you tight when your emotions overwhelm you. I listen to your ideas as they come flowing from you all day long. I try to help you understand how to balance your need to create and be and live your own life with playing well with others and being respectful of their needs (aka "the house is not your garbage can"). I marvel at all the places your mind goes and try to help you channel all of that toward productive goals. Mostly though, I just love you.

You're going to do great things, my girl. I'm just buckling in for the ride. Happy 10 years, Annika. I'm forever grateful for you.

Love,

Mama 

beaching it

We've been reveling in surprisingly great beach weather. Today we're back to celebrate Annika's 10th (!!!) birthday, which will get its own post tomorrow. I came home today and got ready to blog, only to discover that I had malware on my site from the old malware issues at Craft Hope. A couple of hours of frantic link scrubbing and a recheck by Google have put me back in action, but not after serious consideration of just archiving the blog and living in a post-technology nirvana. Whew! That's not happening.

So, here's a quick look at our time at the beach thus far. 

I think that sums it up nicely, other than the photos I need to take off of my phone of Kit's first experience in the ocean. She was delighted and undeterred by falling down.

Until tomorrow and the teary-eyed birthday post. xo

her hands

We had lunch with my grandma on Wednesday. We try to see her every 2 weeks or so, whether it's a quick trip to drop off some eggs and some food for her freezer, or a longer adventure. The girls love going to see her. She has a basket of toys for Kit. Annika talks and talks about whatever is interesting to her at that moment and my grandma is always interested and engaged, which makes A so happy. Sometimes we go to lunch. We stick with hometown institutions like Burgerville, Bob's Red Mill (where I also knock out my bulk grocery shopping), or Tebo's. We're all about the cheap, easy, and local. This week, Gunnar came along since school has ended for the summer, so we picked up Grandma and headed to Tebo's for some strawberry shortcake. 

We sat at the table and I watched her play tickling games with Kit. As they played and laughed, I started taking pictures of her hands. I think I've talked about her hands before, but I'm too lazy to go find it in the archives. It bears repeating. I love these hands and their gnarled beauty. When I hold them, I feel all of the work they have done. The baby tending, cookie making, years and years of typing, garden weeding and planting. I remember sleeping over at my grandma's house and she would tickle my back and my face until I fell asleep. When I was a teenager, she held my hands and remarked on how they looked like hers when she was young, then laughed at her own 65 year old hands. She doesn't bake much anymore and she lets other people do the heavy lifting in the garden. But to me her hands will always be strong and beautiful. 

She is beautiful.

We drove her back home and I helped her out of the car. We hugged, and I watched her walk to her front step from the car. Her body isn't very straight anymore, and it's tiny now - bent over from arthritis and age. She walks in slow measured steps and I can see the pain that I know she feels but doesn't discuss. That's her way. My eyes filled with tears and I glanced over at Gunnar, who teared up as well. In that moment we were struck by how lucky we are to still have her in our lives like this and we realized how short the time may be. He put his hand on my back, we smiled at her through our tears as she turned and waved from the front door, and waved back. We drove away, filled with gratitude for the time we have left with this beautiful lady. Hopefully she can fit more frequent visits into her still busy schedule, because we're going to need them.

summertime

Summer, while not official until next week, is official in my book. School is out. The sun is shining (for now). We're prepping for our trip to the beach. Have I mentioned how much easier that prep is when it's an 80 mile drive instead of 1400 miles? Much easier. 

Strawberries are in season! I picked up my first flat on Saturday and we have been eating like they are going out of style. I also bought rhubarb at the farmer's market. Crisp was made with olive oil instead of butter, which was surprisingly good. I'll be buying another flat tomorrow for making jam. And then another for freezing berries for smoothies and ice cream.

Related to the olive oil crisp topping is that I'm doing a 30 day vegan workshop. It has been such a great way for me to segue our family into a summer style of eating - lots of fresh whole foods that are mostly plants. We haven't been strictly vegan. We're still eating all of those eggs from our chickens and have kept yogurt for morning granola (and I have had to keep my tablespoon of half & half for my coffee). But overall, it has been pretty great to discover new dishes through the workshop and figure out how to rework some family favorites. The experience really deserves its own post, so I'll do that once the workshop is finished and I have finished processing what it meant in terms of how we eat. 

I am nearly done with that shawl up there. 1.5 rows, bind off, and blocking left. I'm going to go work on that right now. I'm itching to start a new sweater and I have some granny squares to make. Those and the seaming up of a very old knitting project are the agenda for my beach knitting. The shawl in on the agenda for beach wearing. The Oregon coast in June is big on the grey and drizzly. Perfect for shawl wearing. 

I swore off Facebook and Twitter for the summer. That may mean that I'm here more and it may not. I just don't know. What I do know is that I want to connect with my people in more meaningful ways. I want to walk in the woods and pick berries and sit on the patio with good food, cold beer, and fun conversation. Plus I have a mile long summer bucket list that does not allow for much computer time. I'm looking forward to the break. So, I'm going to live up to that right now. Time to go sit on the patio with my coffee and some leftover crisp and finish that shawl while Kit digs for worms. 

Happy Monday!