the warmth of the sun in my hair

by dailies

For St. Patrick’s Day I spent two days in preparation: a soda bread with caraway seed, corned beef, roasted cabbage and butter carrots – all vegan. I have a very pragmatic attitude toward cooking: I do my best, but I also know it doesn’t always work out. In this case, my efforts paid off. It’s funny I make traditional Irish fare as I don’t even care for it. I guess I love these small rituals, these observances. I also enjoy cooking – now that I don’t have to do it every day, three times a day.

I drive the two boys to the pizza parlour and hand my son my debit card. Despite the fact my children are old enough to walk here and there I have a fear of them being struck by a car – either while they are in a car themselves, or while they are walking. I tell them, “be careful”, and maybe I shouldn’t but I can’t help myself. When they were very small, I worried about drowning. I’d walk over a bridge carrying one baby and holding the hand of the older and I’d have horrible visions.

My son and his best friend are so happy together. They spend about twenty hours immersed in their own word – mostly gaming and eating and laughing – before the lad’s mother texts and asks us to send him home. My son comes and finds me shortly after and wants solace. He is a young man now but he still seeks me out. Both children do so I am surprised to think, perhaps it will always be like this.

Both Ralph and I have a weekend full of volunteer work: cooking for others and hosting events, answering phone calls and texts and email: he as an eSports advisor, me in the Recovery community. I am vaguely sensing I need some down time, a break; I am also uncertain when I will take one. I love my work (paid and volunteer) so much that in the morning I almost spring awake – but I also know I am out of balance, overworked, stretched thin.

On that account my child has finished their last paper of their community college career; they study for two more finals and are finished in a couple days. The entire family is getting used to the idea of them being finished; I know that we will then be onto driving school, and trying to fund a car, and trying to set up a (quasi-)business for this child.

Years ago when I got sober people in Recovery used to tell me about a life “beyond one’s wildest dreams”. I am experiencing that now and it is very funny. It seems to take as much focus and mindfulness as anything else, and it seems to be entirely out of my control. I do pray daily and lately I have felt so much gratitude for our health and safety. These things will be threatened in time, but every day we have them is very precious indeed.

time is luck, and other commentary on those blessings we do not recognize

by dailies

Working for myself means I work all hours and each day unless I tell myself I’m not going to. It’s surprisingly easy to work every day. I get to remember and take time off, for my sake – for my family’s sake.

This morning’s roster involved a cancellation, a challenging client, and a do-over. By about four PM I was ready for a rest. I tied my hair back up and slipped into first some loungewear and then into bed with a good murder mystery. Ralph made a fresh pot of coffee and I recovered after a fashion.

About six Nels comes back inside, breathless, smelling of black powder and ozone. “What have you been up to?” I ask. I’m thinking of all those years the children needed so much supervision – gone, poof! – and they are young adults now. As evidenced by the next thing my son says: “I’ve been lighting fireworks – and cleaning up after people,” he tells me as he holds aloft a garbage bag full of the miscellany of this most litter-prone holiday.    

While I rest, Ralph packs up a picnic dinner. We pull out a quilt and grab coats, and drive down to the river. I suppose I love small-town life as we can park only a few feet away from the shore, and walk to find a comfortable spot on the green grass. I can smell sugar in the air from cotton candy, heavy marijuana smoke. Talk is pleasant, no fighting, no loud drunken brawling. My body feels chill and even in a coat I sidle up to the warm chest of my husband, holding myself close to his familiar form. His strong arms and the way he smells, clean like fresh-cut grass and so comforting. I can’t hold anyone in my family for long without my 13 year old slipping in between us. The whole evening the children are holding me close or holding my hand. They are a great comfort to me even as old as they are, they seek out touch as much as they did when they were small.

The big fireworks display, when it launches, regales us with a half hour of successive incredible pyrotechnics. My favorites are the waterfall-like gentle rains, and the little after-crackles of some of the larger multistage blooms. As a family we are held together in complete comfort and intimacy, safe on our little quilt, a soft cotton island in a sea of green grass.

The drive home is a cautious one, but passes without incident. The celebrations have kicked up in our neighborhood; my cats and dog, however, are calm. The house begins to settle; I can only hear the washing machine and the pop-pop-pop and the pleasant music from my son’s Minecraft game. Time for a hot shower and time to rest, and tomorrow to take up work again, to what end I’m never entirely sure.

We Visit Louis

if you fall asleep, down by the water / baby I’ll carry you all the way home

by dailies

We Visit Louis

Christmas was not precisely difficult this year; but it was a bit off. On the 17th of December, a series of ATM fraud charges cleaned out our account – I mean entirely, taking our pending mortgage payment, and everything. Talk about an unpleasant surprise!

Then, Ralph shaved off his beard and left a huge push-broom moustache. Which he occasionally tries to rub on my soft skin. So that’s something that happened.

But – it’s impossible to have a poor holiday, or just a poor regular day, with my children. They keep things spicy. On the 9th, our oldest came out as non-binary, meaning they no longer associate with either the male or female. Fine, fine. After all – this is the child who changed their name at age eight. Not only do I totally respect this child’s autonomy, I also know it’s unlikely it’s “just a phase”, not that I wouldn’t support my kiddo – phase or no.

Night Creatures

(night creatures)

Using “they” and “them” pronouns for Phoenix has been such a novel experience – even harder than getting used to a name change. Ralph and I are at the stage where we are gun-shy around the female pronoun set. Every time we say “she” or “her” – about my mom, a friend, or a kitty cat – we flinch as we are sure we are getting it wrong! But – we’ll get used to it. Phoenix is very patient at correcting us politely.

Nels has taken off in gaming. He and I are downstairs at night – I’m sewing while he’s into Competitive Play on Overwatch, and has been recording, editing, and uploading compilations to his YouTube channel. In true Nels style, he is entirely immersed. After the summer where he was outside with the local tribe of boys – I mean he was always outside if he wasn’t at home eating or snuggling/sleeping – now he’s gaming all day unless I drag him out on errands.

Nels, The Joy of Gaming

The last few weeks I sewed so much for gifts and for clients that I was shipping and packing up and delivering faster than I could photograph. Having a little space to sew for myself, has been lovely.

So, we’re getting through. We had a lovely gift exchange and our first Christmas in our new house (we were traveling last year); we enjoyed our first vegan Christmas as well, with a repast from The Herbivorous Butcher. Life doesn’t get boring, let’s just say that!

Wishing all of you a really fabulous end-of-year.

Me, Kitchen

Hot Patterns Plaid & Simple Woven T-Shirt Dress Badge

hot patterns plain & simple woven t dress sew-along: bodice preparation

by sew-a-longsewing journal

Hot Patterns Plaid & Simple Woven T-Shirt Dress Badge

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Hello stitchers!

Wow – December is already here! I hope, if you celebrate the holiday, that you are finding peace and serenity during what can be a very intense time of year! I know it can be difficult to sew for yourself this time of year. If you are joining me here to make yourself a holiday dress, a daywear dress, or just something special – good for you!

If you are here to make the dress as a gift – good for you, too! The sample dress I’m showing here, is going to be pressed and off to a friend just before Hanukkah. I hope she likes it!

So – who’s pumped to get started?

Yeah!

Christmas Eve Travels

“Look – there’s a *marshy* area!”

by dailies


Christmas Eve Travels
I can’t think of a more beautiful drive than the coast, at sunset. We’ve bought some quick road food and we’re completely packed in our little family sedan – gifts for family and one another, some food for the Christmas dinner Ralph is planning. The curvatures of the highway make me ill; I’d fare better if I’m driving. Instead I’m navigating dinner plans with my sister through text. Trying to find a family-friendly place to share a meal.

I finished my last Christmas present this morning – a hooded one-piece pajama set for my daughter. My mother used to sew my brother and I lovely bits for Christmas – I could remember hear cheap Kenmore hacking into the night while we were prevented from entering the living room. I remember one year she made us quilts – pre-printed panels of cats (in my case), an inexpensive burgundy velveteen sashing. This is back when we had a fabric store in town! It wasn’t a “true” quilt (as quilt snobs will tell you!) as it was tied, rather than quilted – it was a comforter.

Well, I absolutely adored that quilt. I don’t know when it went missing but I loved it. My brother had something in a blue theme – I can’t remember what. I think I will always remember the love I felt receiving something that someone spent their time constructing with their hands.

My thoughts are on this time of year – a time of plenty, a time of tipping service people a little more, of procuring gifts for family and friends – but also, strangers. My thoughts as we speed comfortably along the sunset-speckled glittering roads – tired as I am, I have a festive cheer.

And I’m not the only one. “I packed my sparkly tiger shirts,” my son says happily, from the backseat. I did not know he had more than one, until this  moment.

The shirts, we were to find out – in lieu of even one extra pair of underwear.

L8 Nite of Tic-Tac-Toe

this is what I get for momsplainin’

by dailies

Tonight I’m sitting across a small table from my daughter. I’ve been working all day and have had little to eat; I’m famished enough to order and then devour a corporate coffeeshop’s blueberry scone and roasted tomato sandwich – too hungry to do anything else.

My daughter and I talk about school, the upcoming quarter. We talk about what might come after that. And I tell her, my eyes stinging a bit, how amazing it is to watch her grow. I can’t really get the words out but it’s like, this is a person whose opinions and desires are getting more pointed, more developed, and more adult than I would have guessed. She is as always fiercer but also imbued with a deep-seated compassion I do not recognize, it may have been helped by a few of us but it has an unshakeable foundation past my understanding.

And I don’t say all these things, but still she doesn’t see what the big deal is. I tell her, “Well… it’s like, when you were two. You know. The stuff you cared about. Like you didn’t want us to make you wear a hat. Or you REALLY wanted a bowl of chocolate ice cream – “

She immediately lifts her head, and gives me that tiger-eyed stare and says, “Mom… have I really changed so much?” her voice the dry tone, the perfect comedic, sarcastic, self-effacing bit. I dissolve into laughter and resist the urge – it comes daily! – to reach out and pinch her. WHY is this my child?

My son is at the counter, ordering a cookie. He is leggy and thin, his jeans on their last wear if I can somehow catch them away the next laundry cycle. I have made myself only say it once. Only tell them once. Okay, twice. What does it look like to the community if a tailor has children who look unkempt and shabby? I can tell you my kids DO NOT G.A.F. ABOUT THIS. Which also makes me laugh.

My health is pretty good. My wrist and shoulder hurt; from clerical work, from knitting, from sewing. I am tired and a bit worn out and I’ve accidentally overdone it for the season. No surprises there, really. In all – considering I’m balancing out-of-home work for the first time in a baker’s dozen years – well, I’ve done rather well!

It is so rainy and wet outside – and my car so damp and foggy inside – that the drive from the coffee shop to pick up my daughter’s friend, is a tense one (for me). After about ten minutes somehow the heater is working so the glass is all clear, and the car oppressively hot. I can’t express how comforting winters are here. I live in this rain-drenched corner of the world and I adore it.

I wonder how much of the rest of it I will ever see? I wonder where my children will go, what they will do? They have developed such quick wit, such strength. I suppose that is how most parents must feel, on balance. Parents that let their kids have their wings, at any rate.

Late evening, home. Five feet to my right Nels and his neighborhood friend play Tic-Tac-Toe, their pallet bed festooned with all the necessities: books, pen and paper, a small lantern that throws a constellation upon the walls, the ceiling. Their giggles are earnest and comfortable; as if they’d been lifelong friends, instead of just these last six weeks or so. Grilled cheese and tomato for a late-night snack; the cats are settled in, the dog has had his evening walk.

Tomorrow will be another day of cooking, of wrapping presents, of music and the energy of children. Somehow it all gives me life, although the days fly by a little quickly for my comfort.

L8 Nite of Tic-Tac-Toe