Terrible/Perfect

Burn notice

Last week was very, very strange. It was one of those periods in life that have a shape that you can see quite clearly in retrospect but seemed totally dark and nebulous going through...if I'm digging for a metaphor I think maybe we'll call it being hit with a surprise tornado. Oh, yeah. Tornado. That's why my couch is up a tree 30 miles over.

I suppose I have the snow to thank. I'm not sure things would have come to a head in quite the way that they did without it.

Things haven't been right for months. I guess I knew that. I mean...now I know that I knew that. I didn't know that I knew back then. But it was one thing after another...moving, Halloween, a quicker than quick shift into the holiday blitzkrieg, pulling life back together after the holiday blitzkrieg...the normal stuff. I figured it was just stress. Normal stress. Mr. Terrible made plans to attend a two-day meditation retreat. I'd have the kids by myself for the weekend, he'd be home for the Martin Luther King holiday. That was fine.

But things really hadn't been fine for a while, and we got snow. Lots of it. That Sunday was a Snow Day, the super fun kind when everything is really fresh and lovely, and the kids were in and out of the house all day. Wonderful and exhausting. The house was crazy. Mr. T came home from his two days away after we'd all gone to bed. I was asleep in the big bed with both of the kids and remember vaguely telling him there wasn't any room and to go sleep somewhere else.

I suppose I was expecting him to come back to us all fresh and Zen-ful, seeing as how he'd been hanging out in a zendo for two days, but his transition home was really rough. Then he went back to work, and then we got some serious snow and work was cancelled and he was home with us. Except...he wasn't.

Not to put too fine a point on it, because he deserves his privacy even if his wife doesn't seem to need much of her own, but things just weren't working. I found myself in a string of tasks with both kids hanging off of me, literally hanging off of me in a couple of instances. I was helping the toddler soap and rinse her hands while I was sitting on the toilet. I was finding the Play-Doh for the screaming toddler while I was on the phone with my sister. I was opening the oven door to check on the dinner with the fussy toddler on my hip.

And he was reading a book.

I will admit, I lost. my. shit. with him that night. Totally f-ing lost it.

Which turned out to be good, because he managed to mentally check himself back in to the Happiness Hotel that is the life of our family the next day, and because it made me understand what had been going on the past few months:

Burnout.

My job is taking care of my kids and my home. And for months, I have been a working person getting absolutely no reprieve from work. Literally the only time I haven't been responsible for watching at least one of my children is after they go to bed. That's a minimum 14 hour work day, 7 days a week, for months on end.

For a while now I have had very little interest or desire to do...well, my job. All of it. I love my kids, but it had become painful to be around them so unceasingly. I had no motivation to take care of my home. I deeply resented my husband. I was just done. 

Things were laid bare, though, and now it's on the table unequivocally that I need time off every week, measured in continuous daytime hours, not five minute stints at the sewing machine constantly interrupted with demands to wipe a butt or pour a cup of milk.

He needs time off, too. He should get his cup of coffee and NPR by himself, in peace, on Saturday morning, and his weekend meditation retreat every now and again. But I need it too. Even if it's really super hard for him to adjust to being the on-call guy, to flying solo with a high-strung six year-old and a three year-old that wants nothing but, in equal parts: her mother, opportunities to communicate to her father that he's one of God's Unchosen, and the complete destruction of all order in the universe, it has to happen.

The alternative is that I kind of hate everyone.

And I don't. I don't hate them. I love them to bits. I even love homeschooling, even though tossing the big kid on a bus would halve my workload for much of the day. 

Mercifully, just having that little breakdown, that moment when the machine that hasn't been oiled in far too long up and bricks, eased everything for me really quickly. It gave me much needed perspective, an ability to name the problem, which is so very much of almost any battle.

Poof, like magic, I'm enthused about learning science with my science-loving again. About helping her earn Girl Scouts badges. About reading stories to the goofy, frustrating Mama junky about dogs who really, really love chasing balls.

I wasn't depressed. I wasn't lazy. I didn't need a divorce. I don't care if my job isn't taken seriously or if everyone who has ever raised small children has also been spread really, really thin and just sucked it up, I got burned out. It's a thing. I'm dealing with it. It's going to be fine.

The snow came, it stayed, and then it thawed.

Snowpocalypse Now

We've had some Weather around here. I'm not sure whether to capitalize it or italicize it. We've had some weather. Unlike many of our friends we've been extremely lucky and haven't lost power, so almost a week (has it been almost a week already?) of being snowed on and snowed in has mostly passed in a lovely sort of home-cozy way, filled with four-legged friends with velvet ears, hot drinks, soft, soft yarns, beautiful books, beautiful babes, and a birthday tart for one who turned three (no, I did not make it myself). 

I am prepared to be extremely pleased in almost any situation. It's an excellent policy to have, if it can possibly be managed.

The land of ice and snow

Himmel im Winter

Breathtaking winter skies these days, morning and night. Beautiful, beautiful.

Back again

I'm back here again.

My debit card expired and I hadn't updated anything connected to it, so a few things expired with it. If it wasn't essential I just let it go, intentionally, for a bit. I'm a terribly disorganized person so I let things go without meaning to pretty often, but sometimes allowing things to drift away feels lovely.

Things are getting busy. I made commitments a while back that are now coming to call. I'm still staying up late, like I did over the holidays. My body couldn't afford it then and definitely can't afford it now. I need to stop doing that.

I dropped the concept of resolutions a long time ago. I just don't function in that way. I have to approach everything sideways. But for a whole host of reasons I'm focusing on finishing longstanding projects in the craft room as well as starting a few new ones to use up materials. I'm making a huge sampler quilt. Struggling with perfectionism. Planning to paint walls and buy new shelves.

Beginning again, again.

The Handmades: Bags

I managed to make a couple of things for both of my kids this Christmas, so: huzzah! But I procrastinated, and ended up being rushed in the day or two prior to Christmas Day finishing things up. Which meant it was the perfect time to decide to make some lined drawstring bags to wrap the gifts in.

Last year my sister had passed along some remnants of Christmas fabrics she'd used to make pajamas for the whole family, including a couple of Hello Kitty prints, and I knew the girls would really enjoy them. We've done fabric wrapping for a couple of years now, and love it. It's actually very beautiful, simple to make and use and eliminates all the trash that's made opening gifts.

For the new bags, I used this lined drawstring bag tutorial and they turned out beautifully. They're lined, and have a double drawstring and a gusseted bottom, so they're very sturdy and they stand up well when they're filled.

There were paper tags with my kids' names on them, which I did a super duper job covering over in MS Paint.

The books we bought them fit perfectly in the simple fabric pouches I made last year (sitting underneath the new bags in the picture), and the handmade things fit in the Kitty bags. Just right.

Unexpected bonus: my girls stored their stocking loot in them after they'd finished opening the stockings and gifts. My older girl automatically popped all her stuff in her bag, which was a pleasant surprise. The bags kept everything together and they could carry them around or put them in their room or whatever and not lose anything or get things mixed up. Most excellent.

One of my goals for the coming year is to burn through my fabric stash, and I will be making more of these bags as birthday wrapping (if I was going to buy fabric for that express purpose, the Sarah Jane balloon print would be incredibly sweet), as well as some to use as project bags, maybe some to sort and store toys for the girls.

Simple and useful. 

A bit of lace

Whew. I finally finished up the gift for my big kid and have it blocking. I think another project for the girls is going to have to wait until after Christmas. I'm just not productive at night at all. Knitting and watching some TV is about all I can manage. Maybe some little handwork...not cutting pattern pieces. Ah well. I'm grateful to have kids who will be elated to find handknits under the tree. I hope that lasts forever and ever.

The Angels Have the Phone Box

Design here.

Ho Ho D'oh

I'm a real sucker for a miniature village. I think they're delightful. We had one when I was a kid, and it was something I loved setting up and kind of carefully messing around with, like we did with the nativity we had. I've wanted to start one, but it's an investment...the really nice ones are expensive, and for the village to look good you do need a decent collection of buildings.

I found these at Goodwill today, and budget be damned I went ahead and bought them at all of $11 for the three. I'm so pleased. They're just my style.

I'll have to get some of that sparkly fake snow, or a big piece of felt to put underneath. Maybe I'll go by the hobby store downtown and get some bottle brush trees.

Next year I'd like to get ahold of the Flanderseseses' house. 742 Evergreen Terrace should have some neighborinos.

Chikun an' a biskit

This is super, super good. Especially the biscuits. Dang.

Chicken stew from Ina Garten here, modified with, ehm...homemade vegetable stock, miso instead of the bouillon cubes, vegetarian chikn' pieces instead of the bird, sage instead of parsley 'cause it's what grows in the yard...I think that's it. I'm mos def planting out a new herb garden in the spring. Although...come to think of it, I think there might be some parsley growing further in the back. Anyhoo.

The sweet potato/yam biscuits are bomb. It's the Stephanie Congdon Barnes/3191 recipe here. Whole this-stew-and-that-biskit idea from Melissa via Alicia. I love how Alicia's is insanely pretty, with the scalloped heart-shaped biscuits. Of course. I happened to have two cooked yams in the fridge (I said what what?) and the dough came together super easy in the food processor.

Word of advice: the biscuit recipe says bake for 12 minutes at 400, the stew says bake with biscuits for 20-30 minutes at 375. When (not if!) I make this again, I will turn up the temp when the stew goes back in with the biscuits on top, and bake until the biscuits really start to brown. They were underdone when I first brought them to table and I had to put them back in for another full 15 minutes before they were really done.

Hoo. Mr. Terrible, God love him, ate over half the whole thing. Then he started to tell me how lovely the stew would be inside a pasty. I said "What is it with you and putting things in bread?" and he said "That's what my people DO!" Which is true.

I've tried to explain it to him so, so many times: telling someone who has just cooked for him that the food would be "really good" "between a couple of slices of bread" or "with some hot sauce" or "with a pile of curry on it" is not a compliment.

Oy.