Sisterly Love

I don't know if I mentioned this on the blog, but about two weeks ago James had to go back to the hospital with a respiratory infection. He's doing fine now, but his sisters have been worried and are going to great lengths to ensure that he is a happy and healthy baby. This is one of their latest attempts at making him happy. An entire gallery of Hello Kitty pictures above his bassinet. If you look closely you can see that the tape that holds them up is in the shape of a cross. It's supposed to be a red cross, because my little Clara Bartons are setting up their own domestic disaster recovery unit right here in our house. They are thoroughly convinced that their intensive regimen of dances, songs, bad jokes and Hello Kitty pictures has helped the patient turn the corner and start down the road to recovery. Maybe they are right.

A Reading Nook

I've been trying to come up with ideas to use the $100 my grandma gave Isabella for her birthday. The kids really don't need any more toys, we're pretty well stocked on books, clothes and craft supplies and Grandpa is renewing her Children's Museum membership, so I decided to hold onto it until the right idea occurred to me.

Yesterday, as I was perusing the back-to-school and dorm stuff (I love that stuff, don't ask me why) I saw these pillows and an idea popped into my head. I'd make them a reading nook.

There's a space at the top of the staircase on the way to their room that has always bugged me. It's too large to leave empty. It looks blank and cold, but it's really too small for anything useful. Inefficient, unused spaces drive me nuts. A reading nook is the perfect thing for this space and, with the girls sharing a room, it's something that can give them another place to hang out.

The space is simple, two $12 reading pillows, a $3 IKEA rug, an old wicker basket for books and a set of $20 IKEA decals I had bought for another project, decided against and forgotten to return. I think it looks pretty good and the kids just love it. Finally, that awkward little space will be put to some use.

Baby's First Name Day

A Name Day is an old European custom, similar to a birthday, but celebrated on the feast day of whatever saint you happened to be named after. I'm the kind of girl who is always looking for a reason to celebrate, so we have celebrated our name days as long as we've had kids. Cheyenne and Isabella's are actual holidays, so they have been easy to celebrate. Isabella's falls on the 4th of July (St Elizabeth of Portugal, otherwise known as Isabel or Isabella) and Cheyenne, who's middle name is Nicole, celebrates on the feast day of St Nicholas, which, given our German heritage is like a mini version of Christmas.

Saturday was James' first name day, the feast day of St James the Greater. There is an old tradition for the feast of St James of building grottos with sea shells, sea glass and candles to raise money for travelers making a pilgramage to the burial place of St James in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I had some shells and sea glass on hand from Cheyenne's Purple Mermaid birthday party, so we decided to give a nod to tradition and decorate the table with shells and sea glass, primarily scallop shells, the symbol of St James.

Next we had to figure out the food. Coquille St Jaques (scallops in a white wine cream sauce), the traditional food of the day, is way out of our budget, so Cheyenne and I headed to the bakery to see what we could come up with for a treat. We decided that the cream cheese coffee cake looked sort of shell-like and at $5.99 it was in our price range.

Grandpa came over and we had our treats, said a little prayer for James and spent the rest of the day in the pool. I'm not sure James really noticed, but the rest of us had a great time celebrating.

Alaska

Image courtesy of Noel Zia Lee

My camera is temporarily lost and nothing terribly interesting is happening here this week, so here's another poem I wrote. I'm having fun with this.

Alaska

Larger in my own mind than I am in reality, I step off the ferryboat, embarassing grandmother and other baggage in tow.

We eat cheeseburgers at an old cafe with a rainbow on the sign and the faint odor of dead salmon on the patron in the seat behind me. Farewell to civilization.

I am 12 years old and far from home, driving the 10 mile road past ruined cemeteries full of prospectors and fishermen, forgotten names on whitewashed tombstones, to the house my uncle built by hand when tales of his grandfather's travels lured him North and West and into the woods, never to return.

I am loosed from 20th Century moorings and vaguely uneasy, awed as I am by Cathedral Peaks and trees that stretch to heaven. It's a wilder wilderness than I have seen before, older and more fearsome and I can see now in its treatment of the old rundown fishing shacks and the wary eye the dog casts to the woods what is meant by the words "fear of God." It is magnificent.

In a plane the size of a minivan we soar above ice the size of fear. Above pools of water that ring in purple, green and indigo like the drawing of a child who is tired of the colour blue.

I wonder if it is really possible that thousands of miles away there is such a thing as a suburb and a home. A strange calm washes over me as I see myself for the first time in the right proportion, properly small.

I feel shaken and hungry, held on the edge of a vastness reason cannot explain and certain that I will never again worry about getting to math class on time, or the price of milk. Set apart by sanity to wander all my days.

The Year of Temperance - Part 1

Photo courtesy of yomi995

I've mentioned before that every year I set an intention (and sometimes one or two sub-intentions) for the year beginning on my birthday. This year is the Year of Love and Joy and last year was The Year of Trust. Well, my birthday is about two and a half months away, so I've been kicking around ideas for year 31 and I think I've come up with a winner. 31 is going to be my Year of Temperance.

It's amazing how one year flows into the next. I don't think I could have tackled this before my year-long focus on love and joy. Like a lot of people, I tend to use indulgence as a cheap substitute for love and joy. Hot fudge and marshmallow sundaes are much more easily attained in times of crisis than real joy and require an outlay of only $3 at Culver's versus the much more expensive humility, trust and sacrifice required to obtain actual virtue. The problem is that the hot fudge and marshmallow sundaes don't really do the trick. 8 months into my experience with the real thing and I don't think I can stomach the substitute any longer. My heart wants more.

Zach, who's birthday is four days after mine, is joining me in my intention this year. We've identified a few areas we want to focus on for the year.

-Food. This is a problem area for both of us, although Zach's metabolism hides it well. I gain weight watching him eat. It's also a hard one to fight in our culture. Not that I'm complaining. An over-abundance of food is a problem most people in the world at most times in history would have loved to counted as their biggest challenge. I was reading the introduction to a cookbook I own that was written by a monk and I was struck by the simple wholesomeness of their diet. The monk, Victor-Aintoine D'Avila Latourette, talked about how Benedictines eat a (mostly) vegetarian diet, in solidarity with the poor. While we will not be going vegetarian I do want to bring that spirit of gratitude for what we have and appreciation of "enough" to our table. That whole "starving kids in China" thing may have been a bit abstract when we were kids, but at 31 and 27 I think it may prove to be a much better motivator.

-Clutter. While there are many lovely things about living in a house passed down through generations, one of the downsides is that you tend to have some clutter. We've been sorting through our inherited belongings for a year and a half now and we are not yet where we would like to be. This coming year we would like to tackle the ancestral clutter once and for all.

-TV. This one isn't really a problem in the summer, but in the winter we watch more TV than we should. Now that the girls are going to be in school we are cutting out TV on school nights except in rare cases.

By cutting things out of our lives and learning new habits we hope to make room for better, healthier blessings.

A Poem For James

I am not a very good poet, but I liked this one I wrote....


I cradle you in delirious arms, seven pounds of milk filled sweetness born a little to early and a little too small, wondering, not for the first time and not for the last, what it is you want from me

Blueberry blue eyes, echoes of your sister and grandmother, stare at me demandingly, your furrowed brow insistent and indignant

For a moment you look like a Jim. A little old man with a bald patch and double chin, with hard candy and a driving hat leaving church just after communion in a race with the Lutherans for the best seats at breakfast.

You grunt and squirm and I am humbled by my own ignorance as I offer you breast and blanket and pacifier and your consternation only increases.

Just go to sleep, I think impatiently as you scrunch up your face, bleating a little lamb cry in frustration at my impotence. Not for the first time and not for the last, I want to fix this but can't.

And then, out of nowhere your eyelids close and your body is still and there is nothing but the sweet rhythm of your breath rising in your chest and the sweet peace of hard-fought and well deserved sleep.

Frugal Chair Rehab

My grandma bought these chairs at an antiques auction when I was a little kid. For years they occupied a space in the lingerie department of her little dress shop. When she retired from the clothing business they were passed on to my mother, who eventually passed them on to me. I love them. I love the carved wood detail and the beautiful clawfoot table that accompanies them, so for over a year now I have kept them out in plain view in spite of the fact that the colour of the fabric fights with everything else in my living room. No more. $15 of Amy Butler Royal Garden Fabric has transformed them into this.

I was a little nervous about this project because I wanted the updated chairs to stay true to their Victorian roots. I think we accomplished that. Now we have the perfect little table and chairs for playing chess or sipping coffee in the morning sunshine.