Ambition

The summer birds have reminded me that early morning is a great time to be quietly alone. In these green hours, my best company (besides our beloved tabby cat on my lap) is a book. For years, I have been making a stack of summer reading for myself. Sometime after the weather starts I scavenge our shelves for books I may have neglected, and have a bonanza at the bookstore. Here are the books on the summer shelf this year:

Fiction:
Narcissus and Goldmund. Hermann Hesse
To Say Nothing of the Dog. Connie Willis
The Hummingbird's Daughter. Luis Alberto Urrea.
The Best Science Fiction, 2007. Rich Horton, Ed.



Poetry:
Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize. John Alexander, Ed.
Good Poems for Hard Times. Garrison Keillor, Ed.
(Note: Keillor’s talents extend beyond folksy storytelling. He is an excellent editor. The first collection, Good Poems, was one of the best collections I’ve ever found.)

Non-Fiction
His Excellency, George Washington. Joseph J. Ellis.
How to Practice: the Way to a Meaningful Life. Dalai Lama
Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different. Gordon S. Wood.
Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Childhood. Jennifer Traig.
The Educated Child. William J. Bennet, Chester E. Finn, Jr., and John Cribb, Eds.

Not on this list are the many little mystery novels I call my "potato chip" books. Those silly little series with recipes, etc...they are so fun and quick to read! Rest assured I'll be reading a bunch of these, too.

And yes, Uncle Edward, Corelli’s Mandolin remains on the list, too. Why don’t I just give in and read it, already?

Cupcakes part 1

When you mix together some free time, a visit from Grandma, an exuberant 5-year old, and an over-the-top shopping spree at Michaels (courtesy of Grandma--thanks mom!), you get cupcakes! Ballet cupcakes. Because it's a rule in our house never to bake unless you share the bounty with people outside of the home, we made them for Ada's class. Ada is the best froster, we decided. And I'm not bad at smoothing out the shoes. Grandme is best at cutting (and tasting, Ada reminds me to say) the fondant. We made a great team. What will we make next time Grandme comes?

Thoughts on the reunion, and a girl in the mirror

For the past few weeks, I've been spending an unusual amount of time looking backward. Planning a 20th reunion will do that to a person, I suppose. So many names, so many people. I was not, by far, a popular or well-known person, but for some reason I remember almost everyone. There were 450+ members of our graduating class, and I am determined that each one is invited individually.

Ideally, we would all attend the reunion. We would all be the amazing grownups we thought we could be. We would leave behind us the grudges, the resentments, the cliquishness. Ideally, we would instead make a celebration of the past--the good and bad of it, and acknowledge how our adolescence influenced the people we've become. We would be one, big, happy group, the same as the day we graduated.

Oh idealist! Of course, this assumes there was a real unity to our class--a happy unity, at that! And there wasn't. How could there be in a group so large? We may have been physically "together" in the same building and in the same town, but we were not all "together," were we?

Still, there is something to be said about remembering those formative four years, and the fact that we all did have the same environment. We did start together. We have a something of a shared past, whether our memories of that time are happy or angst-ridden, or most likely, both. And that's why I'm spending time on the reunion. Contacting people has been such fun--I am revisiting memories I had long forgotten, and hoping others are doing the same. Good memories, bad memories, formative memories. These are a few of the roots of the me I am today.

Here I am, reflective in another way, sometime around 1985. I love this photo--me, in my favorite Esprit pants, no doubt worried about what I saw in the mirror. I look at her now, and I feel--well, love. Thank you to her and to my parents and friends and all who brought me to happy today.


It's funny to spend time in the past, with these photos and memories. Esme and Ada, and life in general, have a way of keeping me firmly rooted in the now--the right now!--kind of present. These reunion diversions are fun--and between the laundry and the dinner and the nursery rhymes and violin lessons and ballet class and diaper changes, I think about these things and wonder what Ada and Esme will think about when they wax nostalgic...

Really, get real Monday—why do I blog?

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of questions from my non-blogging friends. “I don’t really get blogs in general, but yours is cute,” a friend will say. Or, “What’s it for?” Or,“What’s the point, why not just send pictures, or keep a diary?” Good questions.

I guess I wondered these things myself before I started blogging. Isn’t it a bit, well, self indulgent to keep a blog? It is sort of like a diary, but with pictures, and more importantly, an audience who is reading that diary. Which makes it sort of narcissistic, too, a bit of “look at me! Look at me!” Yikes. I don’t really mean it to be that way, but there it is…

And it’s not totally honest, either. It’s not like I’m posting the countless bad photos we take, or the disorder that seems to follow us in the course of the day. Having two little kids is messy, and exhausting, and sometimes disheartening, that’s all there is to it. That stuff doesn’t usually make it to the blog posts. At first impressions we are all sweetness and light. Hence the need for a “get real” Monday (thanks Randi, at I Have to Say).

Now I’ve concluded that keeping a blog reveals some of my more base qualities--my self-indulgent or narcissistic tendencies—talk about dirty laundry! (Look at our messy, messy studio these days!)
But honestly, doing the blog serves a bigger purpose for me, and for most bloggers, I suspect. Connection.

We are so busy, all of us! Connection is the casualty of all that “busy-ness”. How often do we see our closest friends and family? For someone like me, far removed from family, it’s not often. Of course, we are on the phone all the time, but that’s something else again.

And while we may have lots of activities with friends and colleagues, I think I’m so busy running from thing to thing, getting countless tasks “accomplished” each day, I don’t get the chance to spend time with friends the way I once did, before grown-up life happened. No lazy days at a beach swapping secrets and jokes, or late nights in the dorm, waxing philosophical and dreaming of the future. Grown-up life eats up almost all the extra energy and time, and for me, most of my mental energy gets tied up in the practical, day-to-day management of our home and family. And that’s how it should be. Our focus is our family.

With the little bit of leftover energy I have, I like to make things—crafts, food, words. I like fabric, and paper, and hand-written notes. I like to cook for my family and with my family. I like to take pictures. I like to read. I like to design little projects. I like to plan, and play.

This blog gives me a little outlet for all of these things—it helps me make new connections to other people who like to make stuff. It’s a way to update our friends and family on what we’re up to, what we’ve been thinking about. Blogging about my plans for making things makes my plans public, and that tends to make me more accountable to myself. Thinking about a blog from a rhetorical perspective, it is like a diary, a day-planner, a Christmas letter, a sewing circle, a letter, a photo album, and an email all rolled up into one.

Of course, our life is blessed in that I do get to make daily connections with my daughters, and my parents, and my best friend—my husband. Keeping a blog shortens the distance between me and the rest of the great people in my life. So that’s why I do it…for real.

Sabine Kim's quilt is finished

I got word this week that Sabine's quilt is finished. I got this photo from Meghan, at Z and S Fabrics. It was she who organized the quilting. Look at the detail! You can see more photos of the quilters at work here.Thanks to Shanna and Patricia for organizing such a worthwhile project! It was a pleasure to be involved in making a block. Ada and I picked the fabric together, and then we learned about applique and embroidery together. Here's the block I made. I'm eager to make another bird study like this, perhaps in a different color.

On a more serious note, I must say that projects like this make the blogging community a real thing. Working on the block for this pretty little quilt--well, it gave me a chance to feel connected and to express, in some small way, my deep sympathy for the Kim family's loss.

Easter and eggs

Ada loves Easter. The bunny, whom she suspects is perhaps Santa dressed up as a rabbit (because "rabbits don't really walk around and carry things," is very generous with her. Last year the rabbit delivered two separate baskets of treats--one to our hotel room, and one to our house for when we returned from vacation. That bunny. Always so thoughtful.


This year was no exception. Somehow the bunny heard of Esme's desire for a baby of her own (she is always playing with Ada's dolls--a major no-no around here). Now Esme has a little baby girl called Rose (Ada helped pick the name). And Ada got a coffeemaker, which every new mom needs, as well as a couple of mini Playmobil sets. What a great thing that Mommy loves Playmobil, too.


Somehow I managed to rein in our egg decorating this year. Only 10 eggs, and Ada enjoyed coloring each one.

Apron swap--what we sent. And how much fun to make!

We love making things, and this swap was a great opportunity for Ada and I to work together on another project. Here is the apron we made for Patricia's Marley at Willow Lane:

I went with a classic retro style and print--teacups and flowers that Ada helped me choose. As I was working with these old-style fabrics, I couldn't help but thinking about both of my grandmothers--both very crafty in her own way. One was a Swedish farm wife who quilted and knew how to stretch out her materials. The other grandmother was a city lady, refined, interested in collecting, and a very accomplished knittter and needleworker. I just know they both would have loved this sort of swap, and they both would have loved the prints we chose.


For the lining of the pockets, we used a wonderful dotty print. It was so cute, we used a bit more to make a chopstick holder (or an ipod holder--great idea!). And we got extra for a few more things I've been dreaming up...




And then finally the recipes. We had such fun putting this together, I think I'm going to start a whole new recipe project. More on that later...

We just loved this swap. And I can't wait to do another.