Terrible/Perfect

Tabula rasa

Cleeeeeeeeeaning up in here. Whooooahh.

I realized pretty quickly into this three-kids-and-1,200-square-feet-of-house gig that I needed my space clean. And I don't mean picked up, I mean organized down to the last paperclip. I notice that I get really, really angry when my space is chaotic, which is not good for me or anyone who lives with me. I don't know if it's some kind of diagnosable condition, but I am the kind of person who simultaneously struggles with organization and cannot function like a normal human being without it.  

I've spent many years getting to know the enemy, and enemy, thy name is stuff. I'm suiting up in a power loader and preparing to kick that shit out of the air lock.

When I no longer had a basketball in my gut, after the cloud of pregnancy depression lifted, and once my surgical incision healed up, I began getting down to it. I've slayed some pretty decently sized dragons by now, and my living room is approaching the point that I feel like I can actually consider carefully adding some things in over time: a couple of throw pillows for the couch, some lighting, a rug, wall art.

I've got so very much left (the girls' room is horrific), but I'm making progress every day. We will get there, dammit.

My mother will be so pleased.

Potter Party

We had a Harry potter themed party, sort of...construction paper bunting in Hogwarts house colors was about as far as I got. But I like them so much I think they'll stay awhile (Mr. T made a big gnarly three dimensional fake spider web over the top of the Slytherin wall and plopped the paper spiders in it, it's a great simple Halloween decoration). If you ever decide to make a paper bunting like this, you can save all the little circles left over from hole punching to use as confetti. Whooo, Martha Stewart in the house!

And Sara, let me know if you want your clock back. Ahem.

On the move

We're moving in two days. Just in town. Not that big of a deal (she says, as she pulls out clumps of hair). I'm trying to appreciate the aspect of it that's like turning the house upside down and shaking it...you have to put everything you own in boxes, which gives you an unusual opportunity to take stock, pitch things, organize things. But. We're moving into a space with about 150% the square footage as the place we're in now, which should dramatically improve our clutter situation. I'm taking one of the bedrooms as an office/sewing room, which is madness, and wonderful. That is probably 75% of what clutters up our one common room right now, so I am elated to be able to put it all in a dedicated area, organize my supplies on shelving and in the closet and be able to shut the door to the room altogether.

I've been thinking a lot about interior design, which baffles Mr. Terrible. I painted one of the rooms in the new place, pink for the girls, and got started painting the common area white, and he does not understand why that matters. I appreciate that. On some level, it really doesn't matter at all. But I'm at home all day with the kids, and I want, for once in my life, to live in a really nice space. A decorated space. That takes quite a bit of attention to minutiae. It takes fussing over paint colors. Moving little objects around. I'll try not to bore or alarm him, but I'm going to go ahead and do it.

One decision I made a long time ago was to keep all of our books in our bedroom. It happened for two reasons: first, we have such limited space that it became imperative to keep an extremely lean collection (the rule was: a book stayed if it held extraordinary sentimental value, was irreplacable, was re-read often, or was a relevant reference book) and second, it just struck me that a book collection might be a very private thing. It seemed that what I would choose to keep if I knew that no one outside of my immediate family was ever going to see it might be very different from what I would choose to keep if I thought my collection would be seen by anyone coming into my home. That's admitting a weakness, but there it is. I wanted to choose my books without self-consciousness. Without vanity.

Our collection is small, and silly, and lovely, and changing, and private. I love it.

I had very serious second thoughts, though, about having a public book collection after seeing these gorgeous Penguin Hardcover Classics:

Ain't no secret that I love me some P & P.

Image via Amazon.com

All lined up there, spine out. Oh man. Hmm.

Maybe in a corner of the new bedroom. Just for me.

Pot o' gold

I don't know about you, but I was getting tired of looking at that busted up yellow tabletop. It needed refreshing all along, and today was its lucky day. Benjamin Moore 2022-20 "sun kissed yellow", which is brilliant and delightful. Exactly what a bright yellow ought to be.

It looks like we're moving house pretty soon, within town. I'm pretty excited. We're good friends with the homeowners, and we've (I've) been given the go-ahead to paint the walls. I have never owned my own home, so at 31 years old I've never painted the walls where I live. I have no idea why but it's been hugely motivating for me. I've been spending FAR too much time at the Benjamin Moore site searching for the color that best approximates these beautiful tiles, and the right grey, and the best color for a little powder room with no window. 

I watched my friends' children this week while their mum is out of town, and it was such an odd feeling: puttering around, washing dishes, doing laundry, scooping dog poop, in a house I'm going to be living in in just about a month.

There's going to be a sewing room. I kind of can't believe it. The only way to justify that kind of space for that kind of activity is to turn my thoughts towards building a business, which I have always wanted to do anyway. Having a dedicated space, where I can fence out little wandering hands and fuzzy dogs and stack packing boxes or whatever in the closet may finally make that possible.

But first: yellow table.

I had no idea refinishing furniture was so immensely satisfying. I'm kind of scaring my husband, for real. I was going on and on about this amazing paint scheme I have in mind for the painted wood panels in the dining/great room area and what I'm going to do to a couple of chairs that I bought at Goodwill and all of a sudden I realized that I could see the whites of his eyes and foam at his lips and he was straining at the bridle, ready to bolt. It's not the expense or time involved, but I guess altering things is a concept deeply alien to him. He doesn't care about design at all. I take that back: he is drawn to certain aesthetic qualities, but he doesn't think about objects and color in the same way that I do. Or maybe he doesn't think about old, crappy objects and pale, apothecarian green in the same way that I do.

Oh well. If I ever get to the point of reupholstering something he might pass out.

Out with it

I think we're done with these, now. Mostly.

Have you ever used a cherry stoner? It is the most fun you will ever have removing the seed part of a piece of fruit.

One issue with destoning cherries that my two year-old and I would like you to be aware of is that, if you are not paying close attention when each cherry gets the plunger you may not know if the stone actually came out. In that case you need to eat the cherry in order to check. This may happen every three or four cherries. Also, if you are a very small child you will need to stand by the bowl holding the newly stoned cherries and try to eat them as fast as they roll out of the stoner, but because your mouth is quite small this will not happen and your mother will accrue a significant pile. Try to accept this.

All their little hearts on a plate, the promiscuity of trees.

I did this a while back. A month ago, maybe. Everything about it was brutal, and beautiful.

Nothing but the significant passage of time would remove the stains from my hands.

Picklin'.

Ideal

A thrifty find: two and a half pints. Did you know that you can still can in these? Because you can still can in these. According to the United States gods of food safety and the prevention of botulism, BPA is safe as a liner in metallic jar lids, even in the high-heat, often high-acid environment of canning, but old school rubber rings and glass lids, despite being widely used in Europe, are a no-go. I find their advice suspect.

My long-term plan includes Weck jars, but in the meanwhile I'm buying wire bale glass jars whenever I see them. A few new jar rubbers and I'm making some all-natural vacuum seals.

Guess who has two thumbs and is going to be ready for the Zombie Apocalypse?

This guy.

In(ter)dependence

July 4th strawberry lemon marmalade, of which the two year-old says "Whassina jar? Whassin it? Iss strawberry lemonade!" Crazy tart and wonderful.

Now I'm trying to figure out exactly how many jars of summer we'll need for the (many) months when the small perfect strawberries of July are a distant memory. On toast, stirred into homemade yogurt, filling birthday cakes, shared with friends, um, eaten directly out of the jar (I'm looking at you, small children of mine)...hmm. I think we might be looking at two jars a week for the off season.

I'm looking forward to a summer of executing a whole host of delightfully excessive plans.

Happy fourth!

Tomorrow is now

It's February. There might be snow tonight.

And right now I'm thinking thoughts about a big stack of strawberry flats, locally grown black walnuts, growing beans, peas and tomatoes in my yard, getting an upright freezer, pricing tray dehydrators, how concerned I need to be about bears when we go mountain huckleberry picking, whether or not I might make wine, just for kicks, from our thick-skinned, juicy tart grapes, putting grape leaves in the jars when I can garlic, filling buckets with blackberries, discovering, somewhere, an abandoned orchard, asking our neighbor if we might pick the plums he lets fall then sweeps up into the garbage can, and making fruit leather and homemade Larabars from all that gathered, dehydrated fruit (or from what I buy at the Co-op tomorrow because I'm not waiting to try that). I might do it all; apparently (and I didn't know this, but it's true), quitting junk food gives you superpowers. I did, and I have them now.

Laserbeam. Eyes.

Like Cyclops, only not super dumb.

A caterpillar party

So, so very much happened to this cake.

While I was mixing the batter, I thought to myself "Golly gee willikers. This batter is stiff!" and then I realized that I'd neglected to add the bowl full of milk, oil and vanilla extract to the dry ingredients (just the eggs and sugar). So mixing was a bit cacamamie. Then I got busy with something and overbaked a tad. I think this cake should come out at the "toothpick is almost clean" stage, because when I made it the other night it was moist, and stayed moist for 24 hours just sitting out on the counter. This particular batch of cake, not so much.

When I went to decorate, it all went swimmingly until it came time to use the "writing icing" I bought at the store, which has the vague warning that "results may differ on glazed desserts" written on the tube. I've successfully written on many cakes before with beautiful results, but this stuff was total fail sauce. It was sticky and gummy and runny all at the same time, and even when I wrestled it into reasonable submission it then began to liquify, turning my birthday message into the unchecked tears of a sad clown.

It said "Happy Birthday Little Bug", WHICH WAS ADORABLE. And then it did not.

The last blow occured while I was driving on the freeway with Baby today, when a truck started to pull out from the shoulder right in front of me going about 5 miles per hour. I had to slam on my brakes and come to a complete stop to avoid hitting him. It was a world of suck. I stopped about 2 feet from dude's bumper and was very lucky that there was little other traffic and no one was behind me to slam into me when I stopped so dramatically quickly. Anyway, the cake was in a bag, on its stand in the front passenger footwell, and was "secured" in a upright position until it experienced some resistance to its change in velocity and awoke from its deep, cakey slumber to find itself in a top-down position.

Poor cake.

It survived, however, to be lit up and then eaten.

This party was very simple and fun to put together. It had, as you can see, a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme. I made the cake and cupcakes and did basically a whole meal and ate so much that I became a big, fat caterpillar and made a small house for myself called a chrysalis (butterflies don't make cocoons!). Now I am going to rearrange my cells and emerge as a competitive figure skater.

The fabric on the table is from Andover's Eric Carle line and I love it to bits. I'm happy that I had it to use for this occasion, and now I'm all fired up about fitting it in to a project. Often I feel turned off creatively by licensed prints, but there are several out right now that I would love to make quilts out of. The Carle stuff is all wonderful and makes me nostalgic for reading Big Kid Brown Bear, Brown Bear many hundreds of times when she was an infant. The Robert Kaufman line of the good doctor's work is done well, too. It's too much! I need to stop looking at fabric. 

Except: ruh roh! Somebody else has a birthday this year and I have promised myself I will make her a quilt for her bed. I've been looking at fabrics and putting colors and prints together and moving them around and feeling unsatisfied and frustrated then I saw Paper Dolls from Studioe and I think I'm back in the game. 

She's also talking about an Alice in Wonderland tea party theme, with little "Drink Me" bottles and "Eat Me" cakes and costumes and a tunnel to crawl through to simulate going down the rabbit hole and her baby sister will be the Jabberwocky. Eight months may be just enough time to plan the event.

Hopefully her cake will be less battle tested.