Posie Gets Cozy

In the Woods

A night, a morning, a day, a night, and a morning at a little cabin in the woods.

Winter Spring

Thank you for all the nice hour tour comments! You guys are all so sweet. So sweet. Thank you. I guess our house has changed quite a bit since we started redoing things last year. Redoing the windows and then the bathrooms was a pretty major event for us. We were not redoing-type people but now maybe we are a little bit. Not much, but a little bit, I guess. Good changes. It kind of made me want to do a before-and-after photo kind of thing. I have a photo album of the very first pictures we ever took of our house twelve years ago when we bought it. It was early spring — March and April — when we moved in. We were so happy. The first day we got there there was no furniture yet or anything. There was a fireplace and an area rug. Neither of us had ever had a fireplace before. I remember Andy built a little fire and I took a nap on the floor in front of the fireplace. When it was time to go back to our apartment for the night, we didn't know what to do with the fire, which was still going, so Andy picked up the burning log and ran with it through the living room and out the front door and then threw it into the front yard. Then hosed it down. I was still lying on the floor the whole time laughing so hard, thinking, I don't know what you're supposed to do with it but I'm pretty sure that's not it. Oh man. Still cracks me up so bad.

A Little House Tour

Photo by Julie Smith

My sweet sissy did a little house tour and interview with Andy and me the other day for a home design web site she is working with called Houzz. I loved the questions (and I love Andy's answers) and I love the the pictures she took. She tape recorded the interview we did and said our voices (hers and mine) sounded so similar that it was like listening to one person talking and laughing — and not either of us, but our other sister, Susie. Hah! I busted out laughing when she said that. Awesome. Anyway, always so much fun working on stuff together. Click on the link in her post to get to the tour. Thank you, Julie! xoxoxoxoxo

Counted Cross Stitch, Part 1

Cross stitch is easy. It's just two little stitches crossed over each other. See that?

Counted cross stitch is not worked onto fabric that has been pre-printed. Counted cross stitch uses special fabrics that are called evenweave fabrics. These fabrics are woven so that they have the same number of warp threads (or, the threads running lengthwise through the fabric) and the same number of weft threads (or, the threads running crosswise, from selvedge to selvedge). In counted cross stitch (and from here on out, I'll just call it cross stitch) you work each stitch over the grid of perfect squares made by the warp and weft threads of your fabric.

Cross stitch can be done on different kinds of evenweave fabric, including evenweave linen, some woven ginghams, Aida cloth (which has a very ponounced grid that helps you see the holes into which your stitches go), waste canvas (which is a removable grid you temporarily apply to a piece of non-evenweave fabric that helps you place your stitches), and various other types of fabrics made especially for cross stitching. The fiber content and type of weave of the fabric you choose to use is largely a matter of personal preference.

What really matters is the "count" of the fabric. Thread count refers to the number of warp and weft threads per inch in the woven fabric. Stitch count refers to the number of cross stitches per inch you will have in your finished design. Aida cloth, for instance, is labeled according to stitch count; 10-count Aida cloth gives you 10 stitches per inch. Evenweave linen, however, is labeled according to thread count; 32-[thread]-count evenweave linen will give you a stitch count of 16, since cross stitch on this kind of linen is worked over 2 warp threads horizontally, and 2 weft threads vertically.

Count is very important when choosing fabrics for cross stitching because the number of stitches per inch can drastically change the look of a design. In general, fabric with a lower stitch count will produce a coarser looking design, where the crosses will be larger and more pronounced. Fabric with a higher stitch count will produce designs that are smaller and finer. For the Winterwoods sampler, I will be using 28-count Cashel linen, which gives me 14 stitches per inch. Typically, 2 strands of embroidery floss are used on 28-count linen. This is my favorite size of cross stitching, because the crosses are large enough to still look like crosses, and small enough to give detail without making me go blind. For cross stitching on evenweave linen, I use a large-eyed, blunt-tipped tapestry needle. I like a size 24 needle.

To work designs in cross stitch you follow a chart. Each colored box on the chart represents one set of crossed stitches. Each set of crossed stitches is relative to the other stitches in the design, so you're only ever "counting" a few stitches away from the last stitch you just made. Each color on the chart represents a specific color of six-strand embroidery floss. A color key helps you define each color of floss. If the chart is too small for you to see comfortably, just enlarge it on a color copier. A good full-spectrum lamp is a must in dim light. I use an Ott light.

Every design should tell you the dimensions of the design area, or the outermost edges of the stitching. In the Winterwoods design, the design area is 111 stitches across by 140 stitches down, or approximately 8" x 10". The fabric you use for any sampler should always be at least 3" longer on all sides beyond the design area. This margin helps hold the fabric in the hoop when you are stitching motifs close to the edge of the design area, and also allows you to stretch the piece properly when it comes time to frame.

Facing a blank piece of fabric and unsure where to start stitching your sampler? One way of starting is to find the center of the charted design (just fold the chart in half lengthwise and widthwise to find the center at the intersection of the folds) and begin stitching from that center point in the center of the fabric (to find the center of the fabric you can fold that the same way you folded the paper). But if you're like me, since you know your design-area dimensions, you can just measure the general placement of the design area in the center of your fabric piece, then just start stitching from the uppermost left corner of the design. Either way works.

Once you've found a place to start, place your fabric in the embroidery hoop: Lay the fabric over the small hoop, then place the larger hoop over it (making sure to open the screw enough so that it fits easily over the fabric), then tighten the screw so that the fabric is fairly taut. I've wrapped the bottom hoop with twill tape, which helps prevent the hoop from leaving a mark on the fabric. I almost always use 4" hoops. They fit in my hand well, and that makes me happy and comfortable. I move the hoop around as I stitch. I don't worry that this will distort any previously worked stitches, because it never has. Just don't tighten the screw too tight. Common sense. Some people don't use hoops but I always do.

To start stitching, you can either tie a knot in the end of your floss so it won't pull out the front, or leave a few inches of tail hanging out the back side, then weave that end in later by threading it back onto your needle and running the tail end under a few finished stitch (after you've worked several stitches in the fabric). Pro stitchers will tell you that you should never knot your thread to start, but I don't know; for beginners I think that whatever is easiest and familiar is best, just to get you going. There are other ways of working in your ends than leaving a tail on the back and weaving it in later (I sort of hold it out of the way so I don't get it tangled in the stitching); I've tried several different ones but this is the one that I like these days. This always works nicely for me. Some people stitch over the tail as they work, but somehow it always winds up in a tangled mess for me. But if you can do it it will save you a step. (A knotless loop start works well with non-variegated floss, but with variegated I don't use it, since folding a length of thread in half will mix up the variegated color shades and they won't pool properly [see below].)

Now, go. Count stitches on the chart and work them, one by one, on the fabric. Keep the legs of all of your stitches going in the same direction — if the ones on the bottom are going from lower left to upper right, they should always go from lower left to upper right, and the ones on the top should go the opposite (from upper left to lower right). Because the Winterwoods sampler uses hand-dyed, variegated floss that contains several different colors or shades of color in the same length of thread, I recommend completing each stitch before moving on to the next.

I always do cross stitch this way, anyway, though some people, when they're doing a large area in one color do all of the bottom legs first, then work all of the top legs on their way back to the starting point. I don't like the way the thread pulls on the fabric when stitches are done like this. And with variegated floss especially, working one stitch at a time helps "pool" the shades of color and gives a better effect, I think. So don't do it like this:

Unless you want to. Like I said, no one is watching. Keep working stitches in the same color until you've finished all of the stitches of that color in that motif. To end a thread, turn your work over and run the floss under a few stitches on the back, then snip it off. Don't carry threads from one motif or letter to another because they will kind of show through from the front. Finish off each color and each motif.

To start a new motif, you will count the "empty stitches" between the motif you just worked and the starting stitch of the next. I always start the next motif with whatever stitch is closest to the one I just worked — that way I have the least number of empty stitches to count. I walk my needle across each empty stitch space (remember, that's 2 threads), counting in my head. When I get to the starting point of the next stitch in the next motif, I take my needle and gently work the threads away from each other, making the "hole" large enough for me to keep my eye on as I bring the needle around to the back, and come up to the front.

And then I make that first leg of my first stitch on the next motif. And on and on and on through the alphabet!

I am always amazed at how many beginners truly worry about what the back of their stitching looks like. As you improve, you'll find lots of ways to perfect your technique, so if you're just starting out, please don't worry about stuff like this too much. For one thing, once it's in a frame, you will never see the back of it. For another, you are the only person who is going to care what the back looks like. If you don't care, I really don't care. (Even if you do care, I probably still won't care, 'cause I'm like that.) And I can tell you that Andy Paulson did not care for even one little second about what the back of his stitching looked like. And I don't think he has any regrets about that. So, there you go. The back improves as you improve. For what it's worth, here is mine:

Using variegated floss is pretty cool, because it allows you to have several different colors or shades of the same color in one motif, all without changing your floss. You just stitch, and color variations appear. It's a lot more expensive, but very worth it in terms of giving texture, depth, and ease of stitching to a piece. I love it. To keep my floss organized, I buy plastic boxes and bobbins designed specifically for storing floss. I unwind any skeins onto the bobbin (or onto the cardstock label), and label the number and manufacturer on the bobbin with a waterproof pen. After separating strands for use, I rewrap unused strands back onto the bobbin.

When I'm working a project with lots of different colors, I thread several needles with floss so that they are always ready to pick up and use. I stick them into the side of the sofa and then frequently forget about them, but don't do that. You should stick them into a pincushion. But remember to unthread every single needle in the house when you aren't using them, or put them into a sealed container, like a floss box. Kitties love to suck up thread, and I was at the vet once when a lady had to bring her cat in because he had swallowed a threaded needle. Not good at all. Remember to always unthread everything and put your stuff away if you have kitterses.

Also, I will again be offering my favorite embroidery hoops, scissors, twill tape, and these tapestry needles in my web shop when the kits and pattern become available (sometime this spring). You can purchase these supplies a la cart, and I'll ship them all together with the kit.

The company that makes the flosses I like says its hand-dyed flosses are colorfast (or will be soon), but I don't wash this sampler when I'm done, I have to admit. I don't want to take the chance. I press it face down into a terry cloth towel with a dry iron, spritzing a bit of water on the back with a spray bottle. I frame all of my flat pieces myself, with the help of a local do-it-yourself frame shop. To see how I do it, you can check out this tutorial I wrote.

These are all just my ways and opinions and by no means a totally comprehensive tutorial, of course. You will find the ways that work best for you as you practice. I'm exhausted now (muscles have atrophied from lazy winter break), so if you have any more questions just let me know and we can talk again later. If you are a cross-stitch enthusiast, please feel free to add your tips and suggestions (or corrections!) to the comments. There are lots of good resources out there, including the best embroidery book ever written in the entire universe. I'll show you some pictures from that and I can tell you about my other favorite books and shops and sources, too, but right now I have to go . . . do something else.

Mondaymorn

The weekends always go too fast. I love the feeling of . . . lowered expectations. Something like that. It's early Monday morning here now. Crows calling outside. The heat blowing through the register. The sky turning bright gray. My neighbor's screen door slamming as the kids leave the house, one by one (there are six) on their ways to school. Cars starting up. I have a busy week, too. An inch of rain promised for tomorrow, so I'd better get at it today. What I really want to do is sit around dreaming about the veggie garden we're going to start on the parkway. Maybe I'll do a little of that. I need a stack of seed catalogs. Must get one of those!

I figured out the shirring on my machine — thank you for the advice. Turned out that I just needed to loosen the tension on the bobbin case (and I didn't even know bobbin cases had tension). Then it worked perfectly. I used this pattern to start, but modified it heavily — adding 3" to the neck/upper sleeve edges, lengthening the sleeves another 6", lengthening the whole thing and turning it into a dress, adding shirring at the waist. It was fun. And it will be pretty in linen. (By the way, my apron from last week, which I totally adore, is from here.) I have several yards of nutmeg brown linen and another inky blue. My Tasha Tudor dress.

Cross-stitch tutorial tomorrow. Candlemaking? Here is some information for you. Bread talk is here. Any seed catalog recommendations? I am the world's most pathetic gardener so I'll need help.

On Saturday

I sewed. He made beeswax candles and bread for me. I love him.

These are called waxflowers.

Very dramatic weather in the Great Pacific Northwest these past couple of days! Raining cats and dogs here in town most of the day yesterday. Right now it's calm, but I don't think the drama is finished yet. Andy has the day off and is sitting under the Pendleton blanket I got him for Christmas, drinking coffee (I made cappuccinos yesterday with the frother/steamer that Jillian recommended and that little thing is so cool!) and reading "a book about mixing." Which has something to do with music. I've been making a peasant blouse, and am trying to figure out why the elastic thread I've been using to do the shirring on it keeps shredding, and the top thread keeps breaking. Must keep trying. It's my first time using that thread. I've been hoping every day this week that my new cross-stitch fabric samples would arrive, but no luck yet. I wasn't completely happy with the fabric I chose for the original one and am going to back to something I know and love called Cashel linen. Now I'm just waiting for Zweigart to send me several color samples to choose from and then we'll get this show on the road. I'd like to do the tutorial on the actual fabric I'll be using in the kits, but it won't make that much difference — the thread count is the same (and after I do the tutorial, you'll know what I mean by thread count, if you don't already!). So if I doesn't arrive today, instead of waiting longer I'll just work on the tutorial over the weekend with the original fabric and get that posted on Monday. The needlework industry is weirdly fascinating and weirdly frustrating. I'll tell you about it sometime. I love it, but it also drives me crazy. Maybe it's me.

White Night

It snowed for a few minutes yesterday morning, but for the rest of the day it was cold and dry.

I kind of wanted to go somewhere, but they kept warning that worse weather was on its way. So I stayed in and drank pots of tea and hung out with the puppers and later sauteed some mushrooms and tossed them with noodles and cleaned up the kitchen and read in the bathtub. I put on the big fluffy white robe my mom gave me for Christmas, and we all (the girls and I) headed upstairs to knit. Andy got home a few hours later, and around 10:30 or so we noticed that the night had turned white:

It's all mostly gone this morning. Oh how I love that snowpink night sky. It always reminds me of one time when I was little and we had a perfect snow. In the middle of the night it was so light out you could see everything. We had a new puppy — it must have been Loki (chocolate Lab) — and we took him to the park next door to our house. The snow was so deep and light, and everything was so quiet; our neighborhood was asleep. It was just our family. We all stood in a big circle in the park and he ran from one to the other of us, big ears flapping, big paws thumping, sinking over and over again into the snow, so excited. Snowpink sky reminds me of that night, and my silky brown Loki. Sweetest dog.

For Five Minutes, It Was Glorious

All of a sudden, snow began pouring down yesterday afternoon. I became extremely excited and started rushing around. I scurried and got my fire going perfectly. I raced upstairs and put on my long-johns. I herded my animals onto the sofa with me. And then [big smile] I pulled up my quilt and propped my chin in my hand and got ready to watch the big flakes finally fly outside the big window.

But I wasn't there a minute before it was over. Almost as soon and as flurriously as it had started, the snow stopped. Within minutes, the weather was all "gorgeous" [please note sarcasm], and sunny, and warm, as if snowflakes had never happened.

C'mon, son! [Sad face.] Not cool.

Well. Be that way. Apple streusel bread, then.

It was a good pretend snow-day, anyway.

Just Us Girls

They say

it may

SNOW.

Andy's working all weekend, so it's just us girls here. Watching the sky. Holding down the fort.

January, linger.

Back in the swing, but it's a slow swing. I have been thinking about January a lot. Or, rather, thinking about whether it is actually possible to hibernate in winter, the way animals do. My animals become cold-honey slow in the winter. I am with them all day, every day. It's impossible not to know their routines, their moods, their changes, their needs. If I don't intuit something they need, they tell me. When Eileen was here pet-sitting last fall, one day she texted me something like, "It's weird, but they actually do tell you what they want, don't they?" And yes, they absolutely do. If you do not live with animals, you might think it would be difficult to understand them. But if you do live with animals, I bet you know exactly what they are trying to tell you, pretty much every minute. Really, it's very easy. You guess once and get it right, and suddenly whatever it was you just did in response to whatever it was she just did is a vocabulary word, forever, for both of you.

They change with the seasons. When I listen to the pets in the wintertime, I hear them sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. They look for the warmest spot and then they curl themselves around it and they sleep. This is not what they do in summer. In summer, life is all about outside: Someone's coming in, someone's going out, someone's walking by, someone's in the yard, someone's left the yard, someone's going to get the hose, someone might drop some food on the ground, someone's coming in again, someone's going out. Busy hours. There is so much more to be alert for. But in the winter, especially after Christmas, it is just quieter. All of the windows and doors are closed. We don't hear outside noises. It's often raining. It's quieter activity-wise because what could there possibly be to do, after all that was just done? December feels almost manic, socially speaking. January feels like a deep breath — a sigh — in the conversation. It's closer, and darker, and that always feels quieter. It's resting, stay-still, no-rush time. Maybe the only sanctioned time for it in the whole year. We are animals too, after all. All I want to do is stay bundled and curled. Make soups that take four or five hours. Make bread that takes eighteen. Watch movies about ice skaters. Linger over lazy lunches. Read snowy Russian novels. Oil wooden spoons and cutting boards. Take long eucalyptus-infused baths. Knit stuff. Refill the teapot. Blow off my chores. Read illustrated cookbooks. Scratch furry little corgis behind their ears. Coast on momentum, I guess. Be long and linger, January. Don't rush off. I need the time. I need the time.

Getting Back in the Swing

Nice and cold today. Makes me happy. I'd like some snow, please. Perhaps everyone would. Or not? I am routinely surprised by how many people don't like snow. Like, really don't like it. I never seem to stop missing it, somehow. I've got problems.

Black bean soup tonight from this great magazine. This will be the fifth thing I've made from it, and we've been very happy with all of it. I love slow winter cooking. We've been cooking a lot. Thank you for all the sweet comments about my birthday cake, by the way. The recipes for it are here, and for those who have asked, I got the little pink cake stand at Sweetwares here in Portland. (Also, a few people have asked me about my gray dishes with the blue flowers. Unfortunately those were from Target on-line quite a while ago and I know they don't have them anymore. They just say Euro Ceramica on the back. My blue and white dishes are "Blue Delft" by Maruta Japan.)

I finally finished the sampler! Took me a while. It, too, made me very happy. I will definitely offer it both as a downloadable chart/pattern and as a kit. I am sourcing materials now and making sure we can get what we need. I plan to work up a new sampler with a few changes that I made while testing this one. I'll photograph the new one properly as soon as I finish and frame it, but I don't have it in me to rush. In the meantime, I will tell you what I know about counted cross stitch so you can see if it is something you would like to do. I am really, really looking forward to this one. Thank you for being interested. I think it is going to be so much fun.

If you have anything to ask about counted cross stitch, please do ask here in the comments on this post! And then I'll do a little tutorial next week or so.

Birthday Delight

Oh, what a nice birthday weekend I had. French pastries for breakfast, a woods-walk, pretty flowers, macaroni and cheese at Jake's Grill, a waxing moon-rise from the front yard, a glowing cakelet for dessert, a wish, a movie under quilts, Sunday games with my family, sweetest cards and calls and presents. Thank you for all of your sweet wishes! What a wonderful birthday it was.

Very, very excited about all of the sampler enthusiasm — thank you so much! I am thrilled. We will talk!

It's my birthday tomorrow, so I made myself a wee little birthday cake. And took a big huge picture of it. :-)

Up and At It

I spent yesterday sort of organizing my computer and my bookkeeping stuff. I always dread it so much, but then when I sit down to actually do it I get all ambitious, organizationally speaking: This is fine! Why don't I run these reports all the time? How come I don't use Quicken more? Right. It reminds me of that one time Andy Paulson mopped the hardwood floor of our apartment with Murphy's Oil Soap and, while mopping vigorously, had some sort of olfactory-inspired crazy-talk fit: "This is so easy!!! It smells so good! Why do we not do this all the time??? Yeah. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna wash this floor every night when I get home from work! I will do that! I will do it!" Pan to me, falling off the couch laughing with my hands over my mouth. That was in 1996. He did very kindly wash the kitchen floor for me one other time, just the other day. I sat in a chair with a cat on my lap and said things like, "It's so weird, it doesn't seem like just yesterday when you said you were going to wash the floors every day. It seems more like it was . . . oh . . . sixteen years ago." But I totally get it, because every year when I am printing out year-end summaries and pretty pie charts of income and expenses I have the same sort of unlikely enthusiasm for keeping house, financially speaking. It lasts about as long as it takes to hurl it all toward the mailbox and get it out of here and off to our accountant. Bleh.

Do you like the sampler? It's about the winterwoods. I'm kind of infatuated with it. It's not quite done, but almost. There are a few little things left to do. I think maybe I'll just become an alphabet sampler designer now. I really love these. I drew all the letters freehand. I wanted them to look like letters you would carve into a tree trunk with a Swiss Army knife (not that I've ever done that [wink] ). This will definitely be a pattern. Trying to figure out whether I can also afford to make this into a kit. Counted cross-stitch supplies — the really good ones, which are what I used here: varigated hand-dyed embroidery floss, 28-count Danish linen — are expensive. I always think that if you're going to take the time you should use the best stuff. Well, we'll talk more about it. Still thinking. Please raise your hand if you like kits.

Are people afraid of counted cross-stitch? I keep hearing this. DON'T BE SCARED. OF COUNTED CROSS-STITCH. I will help you.

Winterwood

We went for a walk in the woods last week.

Magical place. I love it so much.

New Year

Good, really good days. Andy had all three days of this long weekend off, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and yesterday. I can't remember a lazier, cozier, nicer, more pajama-clad time ever. It was like being in a blanket lair. With lots of warm animals, embroidery, HD television, and shrimp cocktail (New Year's Eve). There was talk of going for a walk somewhere but the talk faded away. I took a picture of the moon on the evening of New Year's Day instead. I made seafood chowder and Dutch-oven bread (inspired by this lovely little film) using my dad's old Dutch oven, which was cool. The bread was a miracle. So easy (I think the recipe I used was much easier than the one they used in the film, honestly) it doesn't seem possible. And possibly the best bread I've ever eaten. I know I keep saying that but I mean, seriously, is that not one beautiful loaf of bread? And there's nothing to it. I can hardly take credit for it. It's that easy.

Thank you for your new year's wishes, and your gentle words, and . . . just . . . all of your kindnesses here, and your confidence. It all means so much to me. I don't really know how to say. But I really thank you.

I am almost done with my cross-stitch sampler (that's how much sitting around I did) except that I ran out of thread. Today is a day to get some stuff done: pay bills, clean house, wash the floor, run errands. The poor little Christmas tree, who has been here since the day after Thanksgiving, probably needs to be officially retired. The kitchen is kind of trashed. Winter break is pretty cool. If it went on any longer it might get boring, but probably not really. I confess I'm gonna try to get my chores done really fast and then see if I can stretch out lazytimes a little longer. It has felt very good to truly rest.

When I was little, I used to like New Year's Eve. My dad was a musician and usually worked that night, and my mom would go to wherever he was playing. We three girls would spend the night at our grandma and grandpa's, and that was my happy place: The house was overly warm and almost new. Everything was tidy and beige. In the spare bedroom where we slept, the bed was dressed in heavy cotton sheets and thick wool blankets. There was wall-to-wall carpet, and we would become wild on the floor in a way we never did at home on our hardwoods; we did headstands and somersaults and backbends and walkovers and my grandma would just have a fit. I don't know if she was more worried that we would hurt ourselves or that our underpants were showing. We were so oblivious to either concern. Our grandparents were very old, the oldest people we knew. We were their only grandchildren. I remember one time in seventh or eighth grade, when it was the height of fashion in my crowd to wear rolled-up men's boxer shorts to volleyball practice, I raided my grandpa's dresser and came out into the living room wearing a pair of his. I asked him if I could have them. My grandpa spoke perfect English with a heavy Italian accent, but in that moment he was sure he did not understand my question. Confusion ensued. You want to wear my underpants, to school? Me, French-braided, smiling: Yes! To school? Um, Yes!?!? Could he not see how cool these were? My father gave me $10 and told me to go to Marshalls.

At my grandparents' we would lay on the floor in front of the television and watch all the New Year's Eve shows, and at midnight we would muster a sort of imitated enthusiasm, not old enough yet to truly understand what a miracle another year really is. At bedtime, my grandma would walk around the house, turning everything off. She finally would pull the chains on her cuckoo clock, lifting the heavy pine-cone weights, and then stop the pendulum so the clock would not cuckoo through the night; she'd set the hands for seven so that the next morning it was always ready to start again with just a push. It was so quiet at my grandma's house at night. Our parents were night owls; almost never did I go to bed in a quiet house at home. But at my grandma's you could hear every possible noise: the bed creaking when you moved. The heat turning on and off. The freight train approaching and then going past. Every little house-click and house-thump. Almost twenty years ago I had a panic attack on an airplane in mid-air. Tears streamed down my face. I closed my eyes and was back in my grandma's spare bedroom, in the warm dark with the night-light left on in the hallway, my grandparents sleeping in their twin beds on the other side of the wall. Safe.

I've conjured that place several times this past year, trying to find purchase in my life and in what has, at certain times, felt like being in free-fall. I think that's how most of life is, in a lot of ways. You step forward, and step forward, and then you touch back — everything still here? Still here. Okay. Forward again (then). Life pulls you forward, even when you feel tired. I never was an adventurous person, in my own opinion; I always had big plans but only for little, mostly prosaic things. I always was and still am happiest in slow, mostly quiet places, with long, mostly quiet days. Winter suits me. When I look back on 2011, I am, I have to admit, still sort of bewildered and shaken, not sure what happened or even what to do next. I'm trying to be at peace with that gauzy, half-blurred feeling, and on certain days think it is easy to just — let it go away from me, a long piece of crinkled muslin tossed up and carried off into the wind. On other days I seem to wear it, spiraled and close, like a scarf. Maybe I'll just lose it somewhere, and not even notice. Leave it on a bench or a bus. I won't mind.

I'm not much of a planner, and never manage to remember to make any grand resolutions for a new year. My regular resolutions always seem so obvious. But I like how New Year's Eve prods you say them, even the obvious ones, out loud, along with everybody else. I want to appreciate the health, happiness, and home-life, and the people and pets, that I am so lucky to have. I want to be more generous and helpful, because I haven't felt like I've had much to offer anybody lately. I want to be a better friend and listen more when people are talking. I want my shoulders to relax because they're riding too high. I want to be outside more. I want to cook more and eat healthier. I want to have patience. I want to trust my intuition again, and have more faith in myself. I want to not always feel so left behind. I want to be more free, and even brave. I want to give more love than I do. Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. That is my wish for 2012.

Curried Lentil

I realize that the barf-looking-soup factor here is high, but if you let that stop you from making it you'll be sad. This was possibly the best soup I've ever had in my life. Andy asked me if I would make it again today. I used good curry powder and homemade chicken stock. Seasoned well with fancy salt and fresh pepper. Delight. I'm really starting to like this winter, I think. Normally if it doesn't snow all I do is pout.

I have a new bestie. My new BeeFF. She's skampering along after me everywhere I go lately. So sweet.

Winterweather

We have two impossibly gigantic, Rackhamesque oak trees across the street from our house. Now denuded of leaves, their branches almost look like huge black feathers waving in the wind, especially this wind; it's been storming for two days. A week or so ago I had a dream that a tree fell from across the street into our yard (naturally, it was a different tree — that is, based on the place from where it fell it should have been one of the oaks, but because it was a dreamtree it wasn't anything like the oaks). I'm certain the dreamtree was much smaller than the real trees. It just missed the corner of the house. I believe that if one of the oaks falls, it will land on our roof.

Our luminous niece/goddaughter came to spend the night. We fed her pizza and waffles 'cause we're cool like that, or rather, she fed them to us. She made homemade pizza for dinner from scratch, proofed the yeast and made the dough and rolled it out and topped it off. I sat on a chair in the kitchen and talked her through it and it was so much fun. We watched Shirley Temple in Heidi and I knit and we talked about Lapponian reindeer-herding dogs (since she asked me what my second-favorite breed of dog is), and looked at pictures of them. I was worried the power might go out last night because of the wind, so I brought her a candle to keep near the bed just in case she needed to get up. It's hard to believe she is thirteen years old already.

I'm making curried lentil soup tonight, and we bought good semolina bread from one of my favorite bakeries. I'm working on a new cross-stitch sampler that I am redonkulously excited about. I realize that would sound like an oxymoron coming from the vast majority of people on earth.

A Christmas Weekend

Saturday : :

Sunday : :

Monday : :

Tuesday. It's very early in the morning, still dark out, two days after Christmas. I'm upstairs in bed, nightgowned and tucked under flannel sheets, duvet, and quilt, drinking coffee out of a thermos so I don't have to go down to the kitchen for more. Andy's already left for work. The dog's sleeping on my feet, breathing out in little puffs, dreaming forest dreams. The Bee's here, too, prancing nervously back and forth across my legs (and then falling off my legs; that's how she does it). She's gotten weirdly social this winter, I'm not sure why. I think the Lady Violet is downstairs on the new quilt. I left it all rumpled up on the sofa last night (too lazy was I to do anything but bumble out from under one quilt downstairs up to another one upstairs), which I think she probably loved. Usually I fold the new one smoothly over the back of the sofa, which she doesn't love. I'm trying to hold on to the gentle quiet of this Christmas weekend just a little bit longer.

Merry and Bright

We wish you a truly happy Christmas, filled with love, hope, warmth, good food, gentle times, and quiet joys. Thank you for being a such a sweet part of our days, and our lives. We love you guys.

                                                            Love always,
                                                                        Alicia, Andy, Clover Meadow, Violet, and Bridget Paulson
                                                                                          xoxox

Nicest Days

The week before Christmas. In some ways I think these are the nicest days. I try to get almost everything done early so I can actually putter slowly through. I still have a bit of candy to make for neighbors but that might be it. I made votive candles yesterday, and two pillars. Used almost all recycled wax from other spent or messed up candles, which was cool. My family is coming for Christmas Eve dinner, then we're going to the neighbors' along with several other neighbors (man, I love my neighborhood) for Christmas dinner. Last night I made this, pasta risotto-style with dried porcini. Andy has been off for five whole days in a row! And has Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off! If you live with a medical professional, you know how unbelievably rare that is. I'm pinching myself. Sweet season of light and love. Very grateful.

Warm and Cozy

We got a new table and haven't stopped talking about it. It's a big old oak rectangle. I was wondering if it had been in a school — when we got it home and turned it over we found ancient chewing gum on its underside, so probably. I think it's the table of a lifetime — I've been waiting for the right one forever, and found this one unexpectedly and for a steal. That never happens to me. I finished the cards and worked on a present for my friend and polished the silverware. We talked about how special and beautiful Forest Service cabins are. I read the new issue of Kinfolk. I made this butternut squash risotto. It was the first risotto I've ever made (i.e.: I am lazy), and it was foolproof, and delicious. Very nice last-weekend-before-Christmas. Hope yours has been lovely and peaceful, too.

Enchanted

On my way out to run errands this morning I stopped in the park and went for a little walk. I felt a bit nervous being alone in the winterwoods; all I had in my pocket was a Swiss Army knife and a skein of embroidery floss and a ponytail holder, so I didn't stay very long.

Snowhearts

For my neighbors and friends, chocolate sugar cookies. I added one teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, and an extra 1/2 teaspoon of salt to this recipe. Baked for only 6 minutes (instead of 10-12, but I have a convection oven, so things go faster). Really good.

Yesterday conversation:

Me: "I'm going to get your Christmas present tomorrow!"
Him: "Oh!!! Are you going to the guitar store?!?"
Me: "Er . . . no . . . "
Him [sad]: "Oh . . . "

Thank you for all the nice words about the quilt these past weeks. I really enjoyed making it, and it's been perfect for snuggling under while watching my new favorite show, Coast Guard Alaska. I was getting grief about  watching Ice Road Truckers so I switched to something more refined.

Quiet Moments

I do love my new little prairie-girl quilt. I take it everywhere I go (when an animal isn't already on it, and then when I get all settled they get right back on it/me). It is lined with wool, which is poufy and warm and snuggly wonderful. I always wash and dry my quilts before I use them because I don't like them flat and formal; I like them wrinkled and crinkled and soft. I've also decided to go back to tying on all my future quilts. This is how I used to do them before I knew there was any other way to do them. I've done them all sorts of ways since, and this is my favorite. Makes it feel most like an eiderdown.

Oh, and don't I feel foolish for making fun of Quiet Moments! Yes. Quiet moments are quite nice. :-)

Kitters Cozy

I'd love to show you the quilt, but now the kitters has claimed it. I'll see what I can do.

I explained that it was time to make the quilt sandwich, and she wasn't allowed to get on the quilt yet.

She explained to me that she wasn't actually on the quilt. . . .

No, not actually.

Kind of a literalist.

Mwah. Right on your big ol' nose, you. Precious love.

Late Afternoon

Just peppermint tea and a gingersnap.

Like Pictures

The fields, the furrows, the city. Gingerbread for one, and knitting something russet-colored and garter-furrowed. I fixed up all the quilt sashing, and put things back together. Today it will get its layer of wool, and then I will be warmer. Pale pink goes on back, with inky, midnight blue ties. The binding is mouse-gray weensy-gingham, the color between gray and brown. I sprayed some herbal concoction onto the back of my throat last night and told Andy it tasted like licking the wall of a shed. Disgusting at best. Must mean it works. Looking through all of the photos I took on the train. They are stamped with latitude and longitude information, so I know exactly where each one was taken. There are hundreds of them. I am printing them out. I want to see where we went. Gave up on Middlemarch. Andy's got a very charming and well-behaved little fire going here. Dog is prancing frantically in place, anxious for her park jaunt. Sweet schedule this week — Andy hanging around home on a Tuesday. So nice.

They have pear-cinnamon cider at Trader Joe's. I never go there but I read about it. Field trip!

December

Lovely, dark fog this morning in the yard. Frost on the rooftops, on the dried leaves in the yard and the grass. I can hardly see the tree just down the street; it's muffled in its cloud, and I like it. I'm in a nightgown and kneesocks, thinking we should go outside before it lifts off. But I have candles here, and the corgi has already gone upstairs and back to bed and Andy. It's still early. I like the quiet. I have a sore throat.

Lovely, warm weekend: candlelight dinner for two (and a game of Farkle, which is really fun), Saturday morning farmer's market and a bouquet made just for me, Sara Pajunen from the band Kaivama at Scan Fair, working on my quilt until I messed up all the vertical sashing (made every little strip 1/4" too long, which added up to . . . way too long). The minute it got dark I climbed into bed (= flannel sheets), watched A Princess for Christmas, had some more hot chocolate (I have a problem), and worked on my scarf. Which I also messed up, but which is also almost done.

Dawnlit

Have a good weekend, dear friends. Thank you for being here lately. Stay cozy and warm now. xoxo

Logs Around a Hearth

Logs around a hearth. I haven't stacked them right. I think you're supposed to do them in some kind of order. I always forget. I think I might use wool batting instead of cotton. More on that later. I've got some Liberty lawn in these squares. Probably a mistake to use different fabric weights (I've done that before; the lighter weights ripped to shreds, eventually) but they're so pretty I couldn't help it.

A few answers about: the snowflake mobile (Pottery Barn Kids), the tree topper (from this couple at the craft fair at Mt. Angel Oktoberfest), the plant on the dining room table (anyone know? I really don't), the gray scarf (it's my Aestlight, here).

I cannot believe all of this sunshine we've been having here in northwestern Oregon in late November/early December (eeek, it's early December). It's absolutely wonderful. Normally the sky is gray as a mouse. Today (and yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and . . .) it's blue as a jewel. As my Grandpa Lucie (his last name was Lucie) would say, "Beautiful, beautiful."

I have been eating five or six clementines a day. Is that normal?

Twilit

The edge of the roof and the sunset sky. I started my quilt yesterday. Log cabin. It's kind of a stash thing. I went through my cabinet and pulled out all the little folded up pieces of fabric that I liked. All different colors. Some from a lot of the things I've made in the past few years. There were probably twenty or twenty-five different fabrics. Then I cut a 2" strip from each, selvedge to selvedge. Then I threw them all in a big pile next to the sewing machine. Then I cut a stack of 3" squares for the center of each block, or the "hearths." (The "logs" get piled around the "hearth" in each block.) My style is to pick up strips randomly and just go. Haphazard, slap-it-together, as if I worry I'll get distracted and forget to finish it at all if I proceed with anything other than speed and reckless abandon. Quilts — all quilts, even little quilts — seem bigger than my attention span. I completed twelve blocks by late afternoon. I measured the back of the sofa and I need forty-eight blocks, total. It'll be, like, 60" by 80" or something. I think purchased throw blankets are always too small. I don't like elbows and toes poking out. Plus the doggie hogs half of the thing. (I have told you that our dog is seriously quilt-obsessed? Not kidding. It's almost weird. A quilt comes out and no matter where she is in the house she comes running and hurls herself toward it. I should find all of the pictures I've taken of her on quilts. It's really funny to see her expression once she is snuggled on a quilt. It's almost accusatory, like, "Why have you been keeping my quilt away from me all my life?")

Inside, just around dinnertime, I noticed that the light in the house had changed. Everything was pink. I ran outside. Sunsets are rare. Too many trees and hills and houses around to see them. Winter sunsets are really rare. Too overcast. But not last night. The rare sky was the exact color of all of my hearth blocks. How cool is that. I was really, really pleased.

I want to make the background on my quilt winter white. That's probably a bad idea (black dog/muddy dog) but I don't care. The other colors in it are grays and blues and aquas and mustard, and black gingham, and some pale pink and navy and dark brown, and I guess there is a bit of red maybe. Winter colors. Maybe there's some honey gold in there, too. Can't even remember.

Sometimes when I see people at the fabric store fussing carefully over their fabric choices when making a quilt, I wonder what it would be like to be them. There's something very touching about it. I feel moved whenever I see someone doing that. Trying so hard to get it — this little thing — right.

Winterthings

Making oatmeal. Watching movies. Cutting strips for a quilt. Looking at my photos from four trips across the country. Talking to my friends, and not talking so much. Getting back to work. I put all of the ornament kits back in my web shop, though they're almost sold out. Collecting wintry essential oils. Clove bud, sweet orange, cedarwood, rosemary. Reading Middlemarch. Working on my fire-building skills. I think I am getting better at keeping the fire going nicely. Filling bird feeders. And one for the squirrels. Quiet, silver days.

Winter Busy

There is pale morning light in the living room. There was fog this morning. It settled into a lovely, wispy frostcloud on top of the yard's fallen red leaves. A flock of fat birds were busy in our plum tree. For long minutes I watched them from the back door, then off they flew: On to the next stop. It's Andy's first day back at work in over a month. The dog and I console each other — she hates it when he's not here, and so do I. I plan a long walk arond the neighborhood to cheer her up. She sleeps beside me now, front paws curled under, tongue just barely peeking out. Sweet, warm, gentle friend.

Our weekend was quiet and peaceful. In all honesty, I had kind of forgotten that the holidays are starting! We had a beautiful Thanksgiving at my sister's on Thursday. We started and finished our Christmas shopping on Friday. On Saturday — egads, I already forgot what we did on Saturday. Oh yeah — we decorated the house for the holidays. On Sunday afternoon we made candles together. That was really fun. Very, very fun. We made Mexican hot chocolate. We made turkey tetrazzini. I have plans for a new throw quilt because it's cold in here. Something very improvised; I have no aptitude for forethought. I'm making a scarf to go with my new coat. I knit about a hundred rows of garter stitch in fingering-weight wool, and I'm not even done with the garter-stitch part. Even that sentence is mind-numbing. Busy hands, happy heart, as they say. Over and over again that proves true in my life. I am so grateful for my crafts.

Thank you, most sincerely, for every word you have given us these past many days as we get reorganized. I really am so overwhelmed by the comments and emails I continued to receive through the weekend. I don't even know how to begin to respond. Please know that we have been touched by your kindness more than I can ever say, and I am especially grateful for all of the love you have sent out into the universe for the baby and her family. Thank you very, very much. Your generosity has moved me to tears about fifty times in the past week. I'm really speechless about it. Thank you.

Morning Light

Near Sandhills Road, Towner, North Dakota; 8:14 a.m., November 17, 2011.

I honestly don't have words to thank every single one of you who has left the sound of your voice (and a piece of your heart) here the past two days (and the past few months, and always). Thank you for your encouragement, your generosity, your frustration, your tears, your prayers for everyone, your endless kindness, and your love. Andy says thank you for telling us not to give up. We both read every single word you shared, and with each one we felt lighter and stronger and more free; we talked about it several times throughout the day, and stayed up in bed late last night talking. Thank you for being here, in this very moment. It is so good to be part of the world all together. Look how beautiful it is!

I have a lot of thoughts about everything but they are all tangled and jumbled around today. It is storming something fierce outside! I have a new coat. My neighbor's awnings are about to blow off. We need candles, and mushrooms, and black elderberry syrup. We have firewood. We have animals sitting on top of us every minute. The leaves will all come off the trees today. I'm back in my window seat by the fireplace, watching winter roll in, making some plans. I have coffee, I have people, I have love, and things to give. This ain't my first rodeo! Back on the horse.

Walk on, girl!

Well, things fell apart.

The sweetest, most wonderful baby girl was born. We received a phone call telling us so just hours after she entered the world. The social worker said on the phone that the baby's mother was doing well. Incarcerated, she had given birth quickly and alone, with no one but the hospital staff and a prison guard at her side, as is mandated by the law. We had not been allowed to be present at the hospital or even know that the birth had happened until we received the social worker's call. When she finally called, we were instructed that, although we had permission to come to the hospital and spend time with the baby, we could not visit, talk to, or even see her mother. And all of this, with heavy hearts, we did already know.

We had met the baby's mother back in August, when a reader of this blog sent me an email and told me that a friend of hers who is an adoptive mother had received a letter from her daughter's birthmother that day. Her daughter's birthmother, who was in prison, was writing to say (among other things) that she had met a young woman there who was six months prgenant and looking for a loving home for her baby. The adoptive mother did not know of anyone personally, but that day she asked my blog reader, her good friend, whether she knew of anyone who was hoping to adopt, and the blog reader said yes, well . . . no . . . well, it's weird, I kind of know them: Andy and Alicia. I read their blog.

We wrote to the baby's mother immediately. A week later we received from her the most poignant and  beautiful letter I have ever seen, full of her hopes and dreams for her daughter. We wrote back and told her ours. The fit was perfect. Within weeks we were headed to the prison to meet her. In the gray visitors' room at the correctional center, she walked toward us with a shy smile. We fell in love with her immediately. I believe the feeling was mutual. We stayed for hours and hours. She didn't want us to leave. We didn't want to go.

Not allowed internet, email, or phone access, she corresponded with us on paper throughout the fall. The three of us wrote long letters that often crossed in the mail, each describing ourselves, our lives, and our ideas for the brightest possible future for this baby. She met with the social worker from the adoption agency as well as our attorney and formalized arrangements for us to adopt the baby at birth. She was studying constantly for her GED and had made careful plans for her own immediate future after her release, all aimed at helping her gain control of her life. Everyone who met her was deeply impressed with her. Her story was painful to hear. Her beauty, courage, and love for the baby brought me to tears daily. Throughout September and October, as I shipped ornament kits, shopped for cradle mattresses, and knit onesies, I cried almost every day. I vowed to her and to God that I would spend every day of the rest of my life being the kind of mother the babygirl, as we called her, deserved. I wanted to make every one of her birthmother's dreams for her come true, and I believed I could. Her dreams were simple, and broke my heart: Please read her bedtime stories. Please do her hair for her. Please let her go to sleep with a full tummy and happy thoughts at night, and when she wakes up I want her to know what kind of day she is going to have. I never had those things, and always wanted them, she said. She will have all of them, we said, she will have every one of those things. All of those things, and so many, millions, more.

That was how we came to be at the hospital the afternoon of the baby's birth, where we cried when we met her, held her in our arms for hours, then convinced a nurse with sweet-talk to hold the door to the baby's mother's room open while we walked by so that we could see her from the hallway on our way out for the night. The nurses had already heard all about us from her. "She says you're amazing people!" the nurse who was taking care of the baby's mother told us as we blushed happily. "I'm so, so happy for all of you!" She indicated that we should wait while she took the baby back into her mother's room for the evening. In one motion the nurse opened the door and signaled for us to walk past just then. The baby's mother sat up in bed to see us: Andy gave her a double-thumbs-up and a huge Andy-smile; I blew her kisses heavy with all the words I wasn't allowed to say. Her long hair fell down her back as she sat up, and she waved. The room was dark; only the light from the television flickered blue. I saw the prison guard sitting next to the bed. The huge door swung closed, and she was gone. We walked on, dazed. We texted the nurse, who had given us her personal cell-phone number, and asked her to tell the baby's mother that we loved her. She said she would, and asked us how to spell the name we had chosen for the baby so that her mother could put it on the birth certificate. She had wanted us to choose it ourselves. Her name is Maisie Alice, we said. And thank you. Thank her. Thank you thank you.

***

What we didn't realize was that unbeknownst to the baby's mother and to us, someone had been quietly working on a plan to derail this adoption. Our attorney called us the next morning as we were about to leave for the hospital and gave us the news that a putative birthfather had surfaced just hours before. As I listened to her voice come out of the speaker-phone, explaining, I felt as if I were falling backwards down a hole.

That same morning, the baby's mother was also getting ready to be discharged from the hospital. Though standard procedure dictates that the baby stay for forty-eight hours, incarcerated women are allowed to stay only one day. Twenty-four hours after giving birth, she was to be taken back to the correctional center and finish recovering there. An hour before she was about to leave, the social worker rushed in to give her the news that a putative father had come forward; if he was found to be the biological father, she explained, the adoption would not happen. The nurses and the social worker later reported to us that she became extremely upset. For several hours past the time she was supposed to leave, they worked to calm her. She changed the baby's name. She left the hospital. And the next morning we arrived to take the baby home. Well, first we took her to a shabby little drug-testing facility to have her cheek swabbed. And then we took her home.

For six days, as we waited for the results of the DNA test, we loved her with our whole hearts. We held her and kissed her and fed her and got up at night with her and changed her and stared at her and rocked her and laughed at all the funny things she did and sang to her and gave her everything we had to give in those moments. We almost never put her down. She curled into our bodies as if she meant to stay. She didn't cry unless her diaper was being changed, and sometimes not even then. She loved to be swaddled with her right arm out. She loved to be held. She loved to gnaw on her fingers. She laid on the bed and kicked her little legs and stared calmly up at the two bright windows. She played with the nipple of the bottle as she drank, flickering milk on her butterfly tongue just for fun, and looked into my eyes as if she thought it was all quite funny, this world outside the womb. Andy visited the baby's mother in prison. He stayed with her for several hours. We all continued to hold out hope that the adoption plan would be realized. Through each long day, we tried to distract ourselves by just loving the baby, and praying that we would get to be her parents.

But it was not to be. A week after her birth day, the DNA test finally came back and said no, she was not to be ours. When Andy read the results, I fell to the floor, sobbing. I had thought my heart was a fleshy, pulpy thing; I didn't know it was actually made out of blown glass. It shattered into a million pieces. I hoped that a tiny, painless shard flew into the babygirl's heart, and would be lodged there forever. I hoped that someday she would love snow, or horses, or mountains and not know why. I prayed for her to have a good life, filled with happiness, filled with love, filled with every thing, filled with every single good thing. We kissed her warm cheeks, and let her hold our big fingers in her tiny hands, and told her goodbye. Goodbye.

At our request, our attorney called the father first thing the next day, and asked him if he would be willing to surrender rights to the baby and place her into an open adoption with us. He said absolutely not. The social worker came to pick her up later that evening. I was shaking as Andy put her in the car. We watched them drive away, the social worker squinting in the darkness at her directions, and prayed for their safety on the road, prayed for her safety forever. We made immediate plans to leave Chicago, and took the Wednesday train back to Oregon. The trip is two days long. We got home Friday, where our warm house and our patient animals waited with worried eyes. We are home, we told them, we are here. We are here. It's okay. We are here.

***

I've been writing this post for two days now. I think about the baby and her mother all the time, almost every moment, still. I don't know exactly where the baby is right now, or where she will end up; we don't really have a right to know, anymore. She's in the system after all, just as her mother tried so desperately to avoid. There are many answers that I don't have; there are many complicated and private details that I've glossed over or left out of my telling of this story here. Some of them don't flatter the people who will now be in this baby's life, and I am choosing to think the best of them and their motivations in spite of everything.

With baited breath and so much hope our closest friends and family have waited out these long weeks with us, and they are here for us now, bringing flowers and food, kind notes, warm hugs and warm arms, words of hope and encouragement, and prayers for the baby and her mother. We are so blessed to have these people and the life we have. As we sat together in the lounge car of the train one more time, rolling across the snow-covered angelfields of North Dakota, we held hands and counted our own blessings, one by one by one. One of the great privileges of my life was getting to watch this person that I love more than anything on earth get to be a father for those eight days. If fatherhood were merit based, this guy would have a dozen kids. We got to be parents, and see each other as parents, and be seen by each other as parents, and we decided we were great at it. So now we know. It was a privilege to spend eight days with this exquisite baby girl; as soon as I saw her, I knew and loved her. To have finally gotten to meet her, to have been there on the day of her arrival on the planet after such a long, hard wait — that, too, has been one of the greatest gifts I've ever received. I also made her smile four times in a row on Saturday afternoon, just with the sound of my voice. We sat in the golden sunshine, alone in the house while Andy was at the prison, and she smiled at me four times. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. No one will ever be able to take that from me, or from her. I will never forget her, and she will be in my prayers every night, forever.

There were so many signs all along that this adoption was meant to be, things I rarely mentioned or even acknowledged, except to my secret heart. Each one that revealed itself pulled us further and further down this unlikely road, and made us feel like someone up there really wanted us to be this baby girl's parents in this world. We were outside of our adoption agency, outside of our familiar spaces, stretched beyond all certainties, and still, through all the risks and speculations and worries, we felt protected by a sense that it must all be happening for a reason. Now I wonder what that was all about. I can only decide that we were brought together for some reason, and perhaps that reason is to stay in the baby's mother's life, if she will have us. That remains to be seen. But there was so much friendship that lay ahead for us, I was sure of it. We love her, and of all of us I think I feel most broken-hearted for her: She doesn't get anything the way she wanted it. Alone she carried this baby, and alone she loved her enough to want a better life for her than the one she herself had, than the ones she could see unfolding around her. We did everything we could to try to make that happen, but neither she nor we can change things now. I will write to her tomorrow. I will wait for a letter from her.

Day at Brookfield Zoo

Our childhood zoo. My first time back in twenty years! The same and different, like everything. I miss our animals so, so much.

Day in Downers Grove

On Friday we went to Downers Grove to buy some yarn so I wouldn't go cray-cray when I run out of what I brought.

Sunset

11/2/11

'Burb Days Daze

There's an incredible storm going on outside. Rain and wind are whipping the trees in every direction. I'm inside, next to the fireplace, listening to the clock, to the mad wind, to the rain whooshing through and rapping the windows like a gravel shower. It's the strangest thing, to have these strange, quiet days, so far from our usual places, people, pets, work, and activities. Part of me is kind of enjoying it, part of me is seriously antsy. Thank goodness we're with family. When Andy's parents are at work, we don't know quite what to do with ourselves, and yet, we don't really want to do much. Yesterday we had the laziest day we've probably ever spent in our entire lives. We're car-less, far from anything we can walk or bike to, and have no wish to roam, anyway. I'd shipped all the baby stuff ahead of time, so we didn't take much with us when we left Portland — a bit of knitting, a couple of books. Yesterday afternoon we took a walk around the neighborhood here. This is a gated 55-and-older community neighborhood, very nice; we get stares and howdies when we go out. I saw a guy riding a Hoveround with a little white dog sitting at his feet on it, nice as pie. (I just asked Andy how to spell Hoveround and he cracked up.) Around three or four o'clock we were sitting in the grass by the lake and a string of cars began driving away from the clubhouse. Andy: "Bingo must have just let out!" I say I love Bingo, and wonder if they'll let me play. Andy amuses me constantly by doing spot-on impressions of his parents' cat. I made dinner for everyone — pastitsio and salad; I dragged the cooking out all day. The stove was a gas stove, and awesome (ours in Portland is electric). We wrote letters. We put fake UFOs into our iPhone photos. (There's an app.) We texted people. We watched TV. We watched Happy Feet. We played Wii. We each spent about an hour designing our Miis, changing face shapes, eyebrows, glasses, noses. An hour! hee hee :-) It might have been longer than that. My sense of time is inaccurate. I'm not totally sure what day of the week it is, either.

I have my big black camera with me but I forgot the USB cable that connects it to the computer. I spent an hour figuring out how to pop out the memory card and put it into the computer so I could get the old pictures off, which is how I found the picture of the house that I had taken and forgotten. It looks different than it did when we lived there. The new owners have made some unfortunate changes, in my opinion. I don't know what's going on with the windows, for instance. I don't understand why the window trim is brown. It should be white. They took out all of the original leaded windows and replaced them with what looks like vinyl or fiberglass. They also paved the driveway, which was always gravel with a path of dandelions and grass down the center, I think. In some ways, though, it's exactly the same. That's probably why it's confusing.

Today we're going to Menard's with Andy's dad to get rock salt for the water softener. Field trip!!!!!

Our House

My childhood home. Taken from where I sat in the park on September 7, 2011.

(Just found it on my camera!)

Thank you so so so so so much for all of your comments on the last post. Thank you so much for all of the kind things you say here every single day. Thank you. xoxo

Still waiting! :-)

Hurry Up and Wait

Here we are, in Chicago, waiting for the arrival of a very special baby girl. The phone rang last Tuesday afternoon, prompting a flurry of suitcases, phone calls, housesitter arrivals, ticket purchases, last-minute instructions, and general running around the house in small excited circles, like side-by-side triple axels with barely stuck landings. But we somehow managed to make it out of there just fine. Zing!

Arriving, we found that baby had decided to wait after all — very good baby!!! Once again we are waiting for a phone to ring, letting us know that she is here! It's Monday morning at Andy's parents' house. The house is incredibly quiet. Andy's parents both left for work early this morning and now Andy and I are here alone, goofing off and passing the time, fussing with the temporary mini-nursery, folding baby clothes, playing with the kitty, walking around the lake, bouncing on the yoga ball, daring each other to see what baby formula actually tastes like, setting up baby monitors and bottle sterilizers, knitting tiny heartwarmers, trying to figure out how the baby sling works, trying to figure out how the baby carrier works, trying to figure out how the television works, checking the phone again, talking about our hopes and dreams, sitting on the back deck watching geese fly overhead through the cold, crisp air. It was not too long ago that this subdivision was a farmer's field.

On the verge of motherhood, in some ways I feel like I am suddenly, ironically, back in my own childhood. The sky looks the same as it did then, and also like nowhere else I've lived. The leaves look the same, the bare trees look the same, the leaves smell the same. The color of the light from the streetlights is the same. Passing through Oak Park on the expressway the other night I cried in the car, thinking of my dad and missing him more than I could say, thinking of how he was always here, always, always at home. Before this past summer, the last time I had been in Chicago was ten years ago, shortly after he passed away. He died in Oregon, but that never seemed right. One afternoon during our visit here last month, I sat in the park across from my old house for several hours and stared at it, and it looked just like my dad to me, and it looked like me, and it looked like my family. I felt like I was looking at people. Our life was so thoroughly there, in that place. My parents lived on Forest Avenue for almost thirty years until they moved to Oregon in late 1998 to be nearer to my sister and me (we were already there). For several reasons, I wasn't able to come back then, that autumn when they were moving. The house is in a cul-de-sac. It was strange to have to sit like a stranger, across the street in the park where the swings used to be; it was the same point from which I had looked at my house a thousand times before, pumping my legs back and forth on the swings: house closer, now farther, now closer, now farther away. I didn't dare get too close this time. I felt like I could walk off the sidewalk and right up the front stairs into the past. But I didn't want that. I could hear acorns falling from the hundred-foot-tall trees. I walked a few blocks down Linden to Thatcher and the edge of the woods, my first woods, and looked in at them. My dad had dragged us there to go walking around all the time when we were growing up, and we had mostly hated it. Go figure. I was told never, ever to go into them alone. And so I didn't this time, either. But I missed him, and wished he were here now, for all of this.

Andy's parents live farther out of town now. The suburbs stretch farther than they did when we were kids, the neighborhoods out this way a strange mix of farm fields and gated communities. I love the prairie grasses and the cornfields and the cattails that line the sides of the road. I love the the bare, black oak tree branches against the blue sky, the way the downtown skyscrapers rise like mountains. I love the rusty El tracks overhead, the busty pigeons, the wide, wide sidewalks downtown and all of the people and buses and taxis. I love the museums, the planetarium, the Art Institute where my parents met, the fancy old apartment and office buildings. I used to work in one of them, on the corner of Michigan and Madison, but that was a long time ago; I'm a tourist now. I'm absolutely amazed at and intimidated by how many expressways there are, how many lanes of whooshing traffic, how many people and malls and stores, how many things to eat. Andy is sitting in his dad's recliner at this moment, reading a book about hot dogs and eating from a gigantic wax-paper bag of cheese-and-carmel popcorn from Garrett's, which he walked into the room carrying on one arm, like a baby.

We wait, and dink around the house, and pray, and wait.

Sunday Drive

These days feel like such a bonus. As the baby's due date inches ever closer (less than three weeks from today), we leave the house only a little bit, somehow, staying close to the phone and our suitcases, in case she arrives early. I really thought she would be six weeks early; I'm so thrilled to have been wrong. The past three weeks have been a gift, and although the past few months have been filled with a kind of emotional intensity I've never experienced before and still can't even describe, each day of them has been so precious to us.

I look around at everything, at the things we do and the places we go and the people we are, and wonder how they and we will change. I can't wait.

 

Yesterday morning we decided to drive up to Multnomah Falls and have brunch at the lodge.

We talked about . . . babies. :-)

I think this will be a pretty nice place for a baby to grow up.

Cuteness from My People

In our family, people were always making things and selling them. All the time. It was just what our People did. Our dad was very entreprenurial. He was a musician by night and a commercial artist by day (I don't even know if there is such a thing anymore), but in his spare time he was always inventing something and selling it through mail order. The one I remember best was the light that you put on the top of your car antenna that went on whenever you were talking on your CB radio. That was an awesome one. My mom, too, always had businesses while we were growing up — she made and decorated cakes to order for friends and neighbors (our little sister, Susie, is now a professional pastry chef and wedding cake designer), she sold bread-dough baskets and wreathes, she made jewelry. I had my first business at age 13, when I sold model horse accesories (blankets, saddle pads) that I made out of felt and embroidery floss through a classified ad in a model horse magazine. My sister Julie is one of the most amazingly creative people I know. For many years she has designed a line of greeting cards; they are now sold at Target, Whole Foods, and Cost Plus. (But don't ask her about them because she will get all twitchy and modest about it; I know this because I just this very moment tried.) She recently opened an Etsy shop with her own very Julieish style, which I love.

I swear, I didn't plan this metaphor yesterday, but you know what they say about apples. Not falling far. My most excellent and exquisite niece Arden, Julie's daughter, has likely inherited more creative talent from both of her parents than anyone in the universe (says her proud auntie). But she is her own girl, and she has very specific interests and a unique style, and now her very own Etsy shop, too.

Remember this post, when we were learning to make a granny square? Four years ago. Sigh. That went way too fast. Way too fast.

I love my family. They are awesome.

I think I'm going to make an apple pie, but I might look for a different apple pie than the apple pie I usually make. I love apple pie. This apple is a Jonagold. I don't know if I've ever made a pie with Jonagold apples? I like sweet apples. My grandpa ate a yellow apple — I guess it was a Golden Delicious apple — after lunch every single day. He peeled it with a sharp little paring knife at the kitchen table. When I went to Italy when I was in college, I walked into the room at our pensione (which was somebody's very old apartment that they'd turned into a sort of hotel) and it reminded me so much of my grandparents house, with a little square oilcloth-covered table, that I promptly burst into tears. The strangest thing was that my grandma's house had a very particular smell — kind of like Italian cooking with just a hint of mothballs — and earlier that same day, on the train from Munich to Rome, all of a sudden I had smelled that exact same smell. And I'd never smelled it anywhere else; my grandparents were gone, their house long sold. So when I later saw the table I just cried.

My grandpa was the fastest eater I've ever seen. My father was constantly yelling at him to slow down. But he ate an apple a day and he lived until he was in his late eighties, I think. Every time I eat an apple I think of him and his yellow apples. Always yellow. From the "pepper store," which is what we called the Italian greengrocer he liked to go to. I think it was this one, in Elmwood Park. Caputo's. I see from reading their history page that the founder was from a seaside town in Italy that was close to where my grandpa was from. I wonder if he knew that. He probably did. Those guys liked to stick together.

Alpaca and Wool

I have a strong personal preference for alpaca and ultra soft merino wools. It's taken me a long time to figure this out, in a way, because when I first started knitting and crocheting I didn't really know anything about fibers other than how "soft" or "scratchy" they were in the skein, and what color they were. Color was the biggest consideration. I would make all sorts of choices based on very particular shades of colors, and pretty much completely disregard fiber content, yarn weight, halo effects, drape, etc. It kind of makes me giggle now. But over and over again, I would start making something and even though the color was lovely, and matched the color of something in my imagination, the fabric I was making was bewildering me — I wouldn't like it, and I had a hard time understanding how the yarn in the skein (which is obviously how you buy it at the yarn store, and often they don't have a sample made up) translated into a particular finished product. My brain just couldn't extrapolate that very naturally. (And I STILL, after years and years of knitting, can't read yarn labels easily, and I've just totally given up. The first thing I do when I walk into a new yarn store is try to figure out if they've labeled their yarn by weight [i.e., worsted, DK, sport, etc.], and I breathe a huge sigh of relief if they just keep all of the yarns organized by weight. If I owned a yarn store, this is TOTALLY HOW I WOULD DO IT. Still, some do it by color, some by fiber content, some by brand [that one truly bewilders me, though I suspect it just makes it easier for them to shelve, or something?]. But anyway.)

So, after many fails, where I would make something and it would have a sheen to it that I didn't like, or I would be knitting and just feel like it was requiring more effort than necessary (specifically with respect to the yarn and not the pattern), or the finished fabric would be sort of rigid when I wanted it soft and floppy, I would be very confused. And I finally noticed that every time I happened to knit with alpaca and with certain wools (or with llama or camel), I would feel much happier, and the thing I was making came out looking like the thing I was dreaming about. "Oh! I get it!" Then I started (years and years into all this), just out of pure curiosity, actually reading the label for fiber content (because I still can't read it for gauge, and always seem to have to ask someone to help me). And lo and behold the yarns that I love now are always alpaca/wool/camel/llama, and nothing with any sort of microfiber, or cotton, or acrylic, or whatever. And that is how I apparently reinvented the wheel for myself the hard way by spending a lot of time and money and knitting a lot of fails. Some things come so easily to me, and some things — egads, I flunk. Just not quick on the uptake. It's like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny when he's talking about how many times he had to take the Bar before he passed (I love that movie). Isn't it like seven or something?

But, I guess, eventually he wins the case, so. . . ?

Knit knit knit.

A Skinny Little Onesie

It's ribbed, so it's all skinny. Hopefully the arms will stretch out a bit. I stretched the body a bit when blocking but the arms didn't want to cooperate, really. I think it's really cute. I knit the second sleeve backwards, oopsie. I sort of think I did the first sleeve wrong, too. Here is my Ravelry link with all of the info on the pattern and yarn. And buttons. I followed the pattern exactly, I think. The yarn is so soft and luscious. It's fingering weight so, egads, now you know what I mean by the 2x2 rib. Endless. But it massaged my frazzled brain into nice smooth waves, I do think. So it was good. I finished it too quickly, in my opinion. Knit knit knit. I did some pants (not pictured — forgot to photograph those) at the same time, alternating. (Those pants are cute, don't you think?) I only seem to be able to knit lately. Nothing else.

Well, purl. I purl, too.