Tea

When you're sick, tea is good. Very very wonderfully good. Especially with lots of milk and sugar.

[Our cream jug and sugar bowl were purchased at a farmers' market in Kirkland, Washington in 2006. The spoon is a silver and porcelain souvenir spoon from Kassel, W. Germany that my parents purchased while stationed near there in the early 1970's.]

Sun

Thank goodness for the sun. It's pulled me right out of my blahs just as I'm coming down with a cold, so I'm dancing around the house with a sore throat and sniffles.

The second bloom on my cactus is opening!

And the view out at the snow-covered slope, crossed with deer tracks and afternoon shadows.

Sauced

This morning Roo and I took a cold walk to the mailbox to mail a letter. Then a friend came over for lunch. Then Roo had a nap while I folded laundry. And then I made more applepearsauce. I also played with Todd's tripod.

The view from our back deck across the ravine to the neighbors' house.

It's always beautiful catching the new moon. Especially paired with Venus, the evening star, high in the first picture.

I obviously still need to work on focusing, but you get the idea.

Tired

I'm suddenly fighting the winter blahs. We haven't had much sun lately, it's been so cold -only in the teens at most- that we've been housebound, and it's hard to get good pictures in the gloom. Roo's still napping wacky, and I've got a project that's been on hold seemingly forever that's giving me the grumps. So here's Todd's favorite fish bowl full of dried homegrown peppers to warm and cheer.

On the agenda for this afternoon: Irish soda bread and hopefully a batch of basic dough from this book. Ed: I ended up making a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies instead, because it's Wednesday and they're Todd's favorite. Yum.

Stew

This morning we ran downtown to the post office to mail off a few small packages, then to the grocery store to buy potatoes. The one thing that didn't make it on the shopping list on Monday was the essential thing I needed Tuesday to make dinner.

For a moment we had some weak sunshine in the kitchen this afternoon, but mostly it was gray gray gray out. My window stars have been up for over a year now, and they're starting to get tired.

Roo enjoys the houseplants by the big window, too. Occasionally she pretends to water them for me.

Dinner

This afternoon I made: wheat/white bread + beef and barley soup.

This time 1 1/2 C whole wheat, 4 1/2 C white. Also used brown sugar instead of granulated. I use the basic white bread recipe from Todd's Joy of Cooking.

Soup based on the recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but heavily veggie laden, with added sweet potato, yellow summer squash, and green beans.

Then I rushed off to orchestra.

Wood

Dining table, highchair, jungle gym slide, front door.

That's my old tan-corduroy-with-rainbow-straps toddler-sized backpack hanging from the jungle gym. Roo hasn't really discovered it yet, but I am sure its time will come.

Sun and Shadow

This morning I made more applesauce and played violin duets with a friend.

Molly basking on our bed, 3:00pm.

Elsewhere, softer light, 3:04pm.

Fancy Pants

As promised, here are pictures of Roo's new flannel lined corduroy pants.

A bit wrinkled from being folded in her drawer, but so soft, comfy, and warm. Let me show you what I made them on...

Here's my machine, a 1948 Eldredge Electric with a knee pedal, in its own pretty cabinet. I think that this was my Grandmother Rosemary's first sewing machine purchased after she was married. Todd did a wonderful job of cleaning and oiling it for me so I could try to use it again.

She still had the original instruction book tucked inside, along with a holiday card box full of wound bobbins and extra needles, and she had the full set of attachments for the machine, including a button hole finisher!

I'm just learning, so I didn't use any of the fancy gadgets and gizmos. Just straight leg seams, a casing for the elastic with a bit of the flannel up over the top, and hems that can be cuffed to show more of the big-eyed-owl print.

The fabrics on the left are more of the chocolate corduroy and a yellow farm-with-pink-pigs flannel; just enough to make her one more, larger, pair.

Now to get a picture of the pants in action...

Bloom

This evening I sat down and drew for two hours. Besides quick sketches for our lino print holiday greeting cards, this is the first true art I've worked on since April 2007. I'm embarrassed to admit this fact. I've done little drawings here and there, but nothing big enough to mat or frame or add to the portfolio. I hope I can keep going on this and have a finished piece by the end of the month.

My cactus has bloomed for the first time! And the two days the flower was fresh it was cloudy and I had to use the camera's flash. How disappointing. Maybe we'll have better luck with the second bud and sunny skies.

Over the weekend I sat down, cut out fabric, and sewed Roo a pair of flannel lined corduroy pants. I modeled them on a pair we're borrowing from April, and I got lots of help deciphering the seams from Sarah, and I have to say I'm extremely pleased and proud of how they came out. Hopefully I can take some good pictures tomorrow to share.

Proud

Ignore the mess. This is where Roo and I ate our lunch.

I'm so proud of our country, and awed by this man's bravery, composure, and intelligence.

Late

We had our first orchestra rehearsal of the spring tonight, and I'm exhausted. I forget how hard it is to leave Todd and Roo in the evening and get out, and once I'm in rehearsal my mind often strays back to Roo at home, because other than this weekly gig she's with me all the time. I'm so used to always listening for her, checking on her.

Last week's color week left out my favorite at this time of year. Being from Seattle, I'm used to green winters, and this is how I cope with the gray season here:

We have plants all over the house, and near the biggest window I enjoy this riot of leaves. There are a rubber plant and a dwarf satsuma tangerine here, and on a sunny day they make me so glad.

They're concealing the over-a-foot-of-snow on our deck.

One More Stripe

This was a late present that just made it to its new home. So I can finally post a picture:

This is the Odessa hat by Grumperina, and I loved it so much I wore it all day before mailing it off. (I borrowed your hat, Chryssa.) I may have to make myself one. Soon.

Stripes/Friday/Plaid

Today I made Uncommon Grace's muffins, a chocolate cake, and applesauce with one Granny Smith, two Braeburns, and three Anjou pears. Yesterday I made chicken stock/barley bean soup and rye bread. It's nice to cook when it's so cold. It makes the house smell warm.

Sometimes our pajamas get folded neatly and tucked under our pillows. Other mornings they get tossed like this once the bed is made. (Other days, I'm still wearing mine at 4pm.)

We got a few recycled fiber rag rugs to put under Roo's highchair. Because way back 3 years ago we got a sisal rug for our dining room. S-m-r-t.

Thurs(Pink)day

The snow in the dell is crisscrossed with deer tracks, though I haven't seen them on the move.

My grocery bag, waiting for the next shopping trip.

These bibs used to be huge on Roo and I hated them, but now that she is bigger and feeds herself they are the best thing ever.

Roo never took to her crib very kindly; maybe I'm projecting here, but she seemed to hate being confined in it. So for her 18-monthiversary we took the front rails off and converted it to a toddler bed, and started gating her doorway at night. The wailing, and chewing and hitting her mouth on the crib rim, and the waking several times a night disappeared, and instead of hours waiting for her to go to sleep, we could leave her to go to sleep on her own in minutes. The catch is that she wants to be as near us as possible, so we put her down in bed, read, sing, and when we leave she follows us and sleeps the night through just inside the door. We lay this blanket out on the carpet every night so she has something comfortable to sleep on.

Why she doesn't mind the gate, I don't know.

Yellow Wednesday

Tomorrow's high: -9 degrees Fahrenheit.

So I'm making some rice pudding.

Roo's ducks wait for her next bath.

It's getting closer...

Tonight's and tomorrow night's lows: -21 degrees/-31 degrees.

Tuesday Purple

Zero degrees, brilliantly clear sky, more snow on the way.

I couldn't decide whether to use this yesterday or today, but we have lots of blue and not a lot of purple around here.

We drink a lot of tea, and this boils water for us fast.

Plumeria bowls from Hot Island Glass in Makawao, Maui, from our trip last September.

Color Week!

I'm unofficially participating in Curious Bird's Color Week. It is blue Monday:

I love the color the snow on the slope turns as the sun sets. It gets richer and richer as the sky darkens.

I make granola every week or so.

A Christmas present finished Saturday for a good friend.

It's good this week is color week; Roo is off her nap schedule so I have no down time during the day to blog.

No Nap

All of a sudden Roo is having a hard time with her nap. Maybe more teeth are coming in?

This is another rescued plant from Lowe's, also showing a lot of potential.

Evergreen

Tomorrow I think I'll have to start taking down the Christmas decorations. I'm kind of sad about that.

Well, maybe the lights will be up for a little while longer.

Cobalt

It's sunny again, cold again. I have a lot of dishes to wash, but I have to empty the dish rack first.

The mug is from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It belonged to my mom or my dad, and I appropriated from the cupboard it at some point in high school for a pencil jar, then took it off to college for tea around my junior year. Now Roo likes to point out the 'ishies' on it, the boat, and the octopus.


Roo and I ran a few quick errands this morning - always errands in the mornings now, because she naps from noon-ish to past two, or three, or some days she naps two-ish to past 4. I never know, but she goes down when she's ready and gets up when she's ready, and it works out pretty well. Anyway, the morning errands were to get her a bigger pair of shoes, and then to get some groceries. In the shoe aisles she found some XS rain boots that captivated her interest, so I helped her into them and she clumped around while I searched for shoes in her size. We picked our pair, comfortable, brown, boys' shoes, actually, and then I asked her if she wanted the boots. (My grandpa sent money at Christmas with instructions to buy her a little something, and I thought the boots would be fun to play in and use in the snow/slush now and in the muddy garden in the spring. Fun and useful.) "Roo, do you want the boots?" I asked, gesturing 'want.' "No." So I asked her again. "No," shaking her head. I put the boots back on the shelf and said "bye bye, boots," just to be sure. And Roo calmly said "bye bye," and then we left. But I wonder if this spring I am going to be longing for them, in their pink and purple waterproof glory.

Midweek

I think a bit of sun every other day isn't so bad a streak. Today we had a faint dusting of the tiniest of snowflakes in the morning, before the clouds took off. When I passed our room on my way to the kitchen to make lunch, I saw the light gleaming off the family cradle.

While eating I searched our soup cookbook for a recipe for dinner. I had settled on Carrot Ginger Soup by the end of the meal, but at 4pm when I started cooking I had changed my mind and made Vegetable Minestrone. And then we met up with an out-of-town friend and had dinner out, anyway.

But dinner tomorrow is mostly made now.

Flat

Again with the no-afternoon-light here today. The sky is gray, the snow is gray, the grass and trees are brown, the houses are brown and gray; Roo on the jungle gym is dressed all in pink. I try to avoid that, but it happens every once in a while.

We eat a lot of these around here. Roo likes them. Even when she is tired of bananas and apples, she will still eat pears. When she says the word 'pear' it comes out like purrr.

My mom gave me this calendar book for Christmas to record the coming year, and I have a lot of dreams about what I hope to write in it. It's filled with beautiful simple illustrations reminiscent of the advertising posters of the '20's and '30's. I could learn a few lessons from the art in there. So I think today's theme will be not flat, or gray, or pink, but pears.

Sun

We had a glorious cold sunny day here, and both the cats and I gravitated towards the afternoon sun patches.

Our bedroom faces west, and we have golden curtains that glow in the sunlight. It was hard to resist lying on the floor with the cat, watching them.

Fabric folds are always a fascinating study for a still life. I should sharpen my drawing pencils. Watercolors might work for this, too.

This morning Roo and I went to the grocery store. I stood for a long time picking out my two bulbs of garlic. One in the bin had sprouted a fan of green shoots, and I almost bought it to bring home to a pot on the windowsill. Then I remembered we don't have sills in this house.

Art

Last night I played around in Photoshop with the fairly blah picture I took, and through some fortuitous combination of processing, I made this. And I really, really, like it.

I've been experimenting with colored pencils in a style very similar to this for a few years now.

Quiet day

It's been a day of dishes, laundry, leftovers, and relaxing. A very gray day, with no nice afternoon light in the house for pictures. Here's the best I could do. I rescued these begonia plants from the clearance table at Lowe's last spring, and now one of them is blooming in the laundry room.

This is my latest knitting project, the Odessa hat by Grumperina, and I love how it is coming together, how the greens and purples are playing so nicely. I'm using the solid green skein every fourth row, since I didn't have a full skein of either yarn. I hope I have enough to finish.

It's a now-late Christmas gift. I think I'm going to have to knit myself one of these when I get a chance.

Garam Masala

We're having a small New Year's party tonight, and Todd is cooking up some Indian dishes to share. And we were out of garam masala, so Todd made some more of his own - and now the house smells deliciously spicy.

He's also prepping some little eggplants our friends brought us from Chicago for a side dish, to go along with the chicken tikka, chapatis, and lassi. Todd feeds us well.

I'm helping with the chapatis, and making mochi and teisen lap for dessert.

Delicious.