Nothing Cuter

Eight little girls, tongues sticking out of the corners of their mouths in concentration as they cut and pinned and sewed.

There are parts of teaching that I don't miss. I don't miss grading or tests or dealing with the administration. I loathed parent teacher conferences, what was there to say that hadn't been said every day at drop off and pick up and in passing in the hall and weekly newsletters and notes and ... (I know, not all school work that way, but mine did) I don't miss the meetings and the in-service trainings.

But I miss the teaching. I remember a moment during my student teaching when I was on my own with my kindergartners , the light was streaming in the windows, the tables were bursting with math counters and read aloud books and playdoh. I looked around and though, this, this is fun. This is what I love.

Which makes teaching sewing or crafts or creativy things just about perfect. All the fun stuff, no SOL testing.

Now if I could just remember not to put pins in my mouth while I'm demonstrating. Must not pass on that bad habit! Very naughty.

Molasses Cookies

Molasses cookies are a favorite in our house, probably second only to chocolate chip, although Briton would probably say it ties with snickerdoodle. But while I have a good, solid chocolate chip recipe and several yummy snickerdoodle ones, I've never found a really good recipe for molasses cookies and so I usually just end up buying them when I want one with my evening tea.
Last night I got a wild hair to make some cookies, well past cookie making time, into get everyone into bed time in fact. The jar o' chocolate chips was running a little low and I wasn't in the mood for sugar cookies or snickerdoodles so I did a what-the-heck websearch and landed on a recipe that looked promising. And boys howdy was it. Yum. I mean YUM. They came out of the oven long after the kids were asleep (that one hour wait is crucial I think, so don't skip it!) and Will had crashed our on the couch so it was just me and my knitting and my cookie with a mug of eggnog (I know, I'm early on that one but it was just sitting there staring at me at the grocery store! I couldn't help it!) At some point Will must have woken up though and helped himself because there were several missing when I got up this morning.
If you like molasses cookies, make these. Tonight. They have that perfect chewy but crunchy from the sugar coating texture. It's been very hard not to eat a few this morning. The original recipe called for margarine but I'm just a butter girl so I substituted and I can't imagine that they could have been better with the margarine, so I'm sticking with it.

Molasses Cookies
adapted from All Recipes


3/4 cup of melted butter
11/2 cup white sugar - 1/2 cup reserved
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups of all purpose flower
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Beat butter, 1 cup of sugar and the egg until smooth, add molasses until well mixed. Fold in the flour, soda, salt and spices and chill for 1 hour.

Preheat your oven to 350 and pour the remaining 1/2 cup sugar into a bowl. Roll chilled dough into walnut sized balls and then roll in sugar. Place 2-3 inches apart on a lined cookie sheet and bake 9 minutes (you want them puffed up, starting to crack and just barely browning around the edges. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for 15 minutes on the pan.

Makes 2 dozen

Full Circle

I've written before about how I sometimes feel I'm living my parents life again, at least the part when they were in their thirties. It's a good thing, this multi-generational de ja vu. My parents had a great time in their thirties. They still do. But I think that period, at least from the outside looking in, was probably one of the best. Like us they lived in a small town, had a child in elementary school and another in daycare/preschool. they didn't have a whole lot of money but they did have a whole lot of great friends. They were renovating a house, although their house was decked out in metallic gold wallpaper that didn't want to come down, a problem I'm really glad I don't have to deal with. And like me, my father was a writer. Except instead of writing for online blogs and magazines, he wrote for a newspaper.
I grew up in the newspaper. Literally and figuratively. Literally in that I spent a lot of time in the newspaper office, scrunched up under my dad's desk playing with line tape and those funny pencils that you sharpened by pulling a layer off of the tip, peeling the string down. I can't tell you how many of those started out new and ended up in ruins by the time I left. The dark room was magic, and a little mysterious, with it's two sided door. People would slip in, close the door and then disappear when I went to check. The cold room in the basement where they kept the heavy books full of back issues smelled faintly musty, but I loved to flip through the old volumes, seeing how the masthead and the typeface changed over time.

But also figuratively because my dad wrote a column about life, and part of that life was me. So everyone in town knew pretty much everything I did, and a lot of things I didn't know I'd done. The secretary at school would regularly find me in the halls and say "That was so cute what you did!" and I would wander off, wondering what it was my father had written about that time. Was it my horrible viola playing? My overactive imagniation? Most of my elementary school days can be tracked by reading those old columns.

In college I was a journalism major. It was what I knew and since I loved to write and didn't have anything else particular in mind, it seemed like a good choice. Plus it had no math requirement, which sealed the deal, I hated math. But I didn't want to work in newspapers. AT ALL. This was partly teenage angst and rebellion, after all, at 18 no one wants to be their parents. But it was also the fact that I knew I would never make a good reporter. I had grown up watching my dad go after stories. Hunting them down, talking to anyone and everyone and loving it. I didn't have that in me and I knew it even then. So I grumbled about how the journalism class load was print heavy. How those of us in other fields (I was in documentary film) were learning things we'd never use. NEVER. We shouldn't be forced to take classes for NEWSPAPER FOLK.

Never say never.

I called my dad last week to tell him that I've been offered a chance to write a small monthly column in our local paper. Blogging has its similarities to writing for the news for sure. And blogging the way I blog is akin with the type of column my dad wrote, but writing for the paper still has a different significance, at least for a newsbrat like me, than chattering away online (although it will still be my first love) I guess it's just in the blood. So to all my journalism professors who had to put up with my "I will never be a newspaper girl" attitude, to my father who grinned and nodded and probably knew where I was headed all along, you win. I'm a newspaper girl after all.

One Thing

This weekend we had one of those wonderful cozy weekends that I love. A spontanious supper party with friends involving a delicious sausage soup that I must get the recipe for, a roaring fire in the fireplace, lots of cuddles and naps on the couch for every member of the family, a new knitting project (using the teeniest needles I've ever seen, I'm not sure if my eyesight is good enough for this one, we shall see) some quiet sewing while kids played and daddy snoozed, a morning excursion to see Evelyn sing in her first concert. Perfect.Perfect. Perfect.
I started working on some placemats for our table during that lovely quiet sewing time. We have some, a set of the hard English variety that are very practical but not very warm and homey feeling. And ever since reading this excellent book I've been determined to make our dinners feel special more often. Our table is long and substantial and great for buffets, but it's not very cozy. I'm hoping that adding some nice fabric placemats will help in that department so that is my project for the week. Placemats. And maybe cloth napkins as well if I have time. I'd like to make a set of eight so that we have extras for guests and spilled milk incidents, but I'd be happy with just four for now.
What about you? What projects would you like to finish this week? Or even start this week? Anyone working on holiday baking yet?

One Thing
A new Monday habit. Share the one thing that you want to do this week, just for you. Tell us what you are working on in the comments and link back to your blog so we can see all the fun things you do!
So, what will you be up to this week?

Apple Factory

On Sunday the kids and I made an impromptu visit to one of the local apple orchards. My intention was to pick a few apples. Just a few. We weren't dressed for apple picking, not shoe wise or many it's freaking cold out here wise. So just a few!
Ha! While I boosted Evie up to a branch where she could twist off a few Fuji's for her bag, Briton filled his. FILLED. SO not a few. And then as we were paying I noticed that they had scratch and dent apples, perfect for applesauce, at a great price and I though, "hey, we eat a lot of applesauce around here, why not" And so I bought half a bushel. I'll tell you the truth, I didn't actually know what half a bushel was going to look like. It's one of those terms that you hear but never quite know. I remembered though that my parents once brought home a bushel of apples for apple butter and we had A LOT of apple butter that year, so I knew half was probably a better way to go. As it turns out a half a bushel of apples is about 25 pounds. Which added to the 16 pounds that my son picked in about half a second meant that we have quite a few apples in our kitchen.
A fair number are good for eating. They are small and firm and sweet and just right for snacks. But most of them needed to have something done with them, so I've spent the past few days maxing batches of applesauce, apple butter and last night, an apple pie, and there is still a large bowlful staring at me every time I walk into the kitchen. "Boil me, puree me, make me into jam!" they say. My stove top has spent the week cluttered with my big preserving pot on one burner simmering apples, my largest stew pot on another cooking down the applesauce or apple butter (which, if you didn't know, is really the same thing, only the apple butter has been cooked down further. So if your applesauce ever gets a little too thick, add some more cinnamon and jar it up!) The foodmill, a bowl for the skins and an assortment of spoons for stirring, smooshing and tasting trailing off one either side of the cooktop.
I think I'll have to do one more round of applesauce, if I can find some more jars in the basement (where do all my jars go? Oh, right, they end up holding bugs and marbles and spools of thread. Hummm....must get more) and then we can use the rest on baking projects and to make a batch of apple squash. Briton has been angling for some more Grimmbena since our last batch ran out. Maybe I'll pull some blueberries out of the freezer and make apple blueberry this time. yumm...

What's your favorite thing to do with apples?

Puzzle People. Or, Being a Pack Rat Has Benifits

I'm a culler. Meaning that I like to sort through our things on a regular basis and cull out what we don't use and get rid of it. Well I can't really say that I like it. Sometimes I like it, but mostly I like when we aren't overflowing with stuff, so I feel compelled to do it. But it's not my natural state. Really, I'm a pack rat. A recovering pack rat. And the two sides of me really battle it out over craft supplies, or even things that might be craft supplies. It's hard to toss out/recycle/donate that bag of this and that which could, at some point, be useful. I suppose that's what the definition of a pack rat though.
Like a bag of puzzle pieces which has been sitting in my art chest in the mudroom taking up space for about eight months. Every time I open that drawer I wonder if I should just toss them in the recycling. The organizer in me says yes, they are taking up space. The pack rat in me says no, you never know when you might need a few puzzle pieces. So far the pack rat has won out. And you know what? The pack rat was totally right! Yesterday Evie and I colored puzzle pieces and turned them into wreaths and trees and people and I couldn't help thinking "what if I'd thrown these out?" Happy that I hadn't.
Last week I was interviewed for an article on living in a small space. At just over 1100 square feet and with two work at homers, I suppose we are living small, although most of the time our house doesn't feel particularly small to me. I guess part of that is due to finding that balance between culling and saving. The reporter and I talked about the importance of organization and how people don't need as much "stuff" as they have but that you also have to have spaces and times when things can be all over, because with two kids, two pets and two grown-ups who are prone to projects, that's just how it's got to be.

With our playroom gone, we have been doing some experimenting around here, especially as the temperature has gotten colder and the nights have come earlier, with using the spaces we do have in a way that accommodates everyone's projects and activities. It doesn't always go smoothly, and we haven't faced any long periods of "too cold to go outside" days, but I'm far less worried about the prospect of the winter than I was last spring when we decided to make this switch. Maybe that is, in part, because that longer than long, snowier than snowy winter that we had has faded a little from my mind.
Or maybe we are just starting to figure it all out. The office is a family space. The coffee table is the spot for puzzles and checkers and playdoh and doodling. The hallway is the perfect place for a train to rumble along. It's still a balancing act. Keep, toss, pull out, put away, you work here, I'll work there, they'll play over there. But I'm finding that I am much happier to have this balancing act than the ones we might be having if we lived different lives.

Do you live small? Does it even feel small to you? Or do you need space to stretch and sprawl and run? Although I definitely have some strong feelings about living small, or smaller, I know there are people who wouldn't dream of it. If you are living small, how do you handle that balance between what to keep and what to toss and where to put and do all the things that happen in a house?

Slipcover - Check!

Mostly because I was working on it instead of doing things I should have been doing. But whatever. I have a nasty cold, I should get to do things that make me smile. And this does.
Yes, yes, I know that the Orla-esque print is everywhere, but I've been a fan of the stem print since back in the day when you could only find Orla Kiely in the Made in Ireland store. Before Target and Anthropologie and everyone and their dog fell in love with her. And I still love it, so maybe this is my ode to Orla chair, since I very much doubt I'll ever get to have this one. Sigh, so pretty....

But back to the rocker. Will and I have been talking about adding some kind of print to the white slipcover on our couch and I decided that maybe trying it out on the cost-me-all-of-$15-to-make chair slipcover might be a good idea. And now I really like the white couch/orange mid century chair/white and orange printed rocker thing we've got going, so it may just stay this way. Or I may get really adventurous and make a few slipcovers for the chair so I can change things out when I get bored.
The slipcover was relatively easy, if a little time consuming. The back of the chair is an odd shape to fit well since it has to be loose enough to fit over that wide top but tight enough not to bag once it's on. I built it inside out, cutting out each piece and then pinning together and sewing the seams one at a time. There was a lot of back and forth from the chair to the sewing machine and a lot of pins, but it all worked out. I also painted the rockers and legs to cover up the weird smear marks that I made trying to fix the loose rocker long ago.
To make this print I used one of my all time favorite techniques - freezer paper stencils. If I was going to be stranded on an island and I could only bring one craft item, it would probably be freezer paper. That's assuming that I'd be needing to do crafts on this island of course, and really, I guess I'd need a few other things, like, say, something to use the freezer paper on. But you get the idea. I love the stuff. In fact, our coffee table is currently wrapped in it (plastic side down) so we can draw and color to our hearts content around here without worrying about Mr. Smells A Lot markers leaking through onto the actual table.
If you have a hankering to try out freezer paper as a fabric stencil, just cut out the image you want printed and iron it on with a hot, dry iron and paint away. I generally take the stencil off when the paint is still wet. I tell myself its to prevent any excess paint oozing off the paper and under the stencil, but really it's because I'm impatient to see what it looks like. There is always a magical sort of moment when you peel away the paper to find a crisp lined print remaining on your fabric. In fact, it's got my fingers itching to do another freezer paper stenciling furniture project. Maybe it's time to replace the dining room chair covers again...
In other news, Will is home (yay!) and he brought me three new Oliver+ S patterns that my lovely mother in law picked up at my favorite fabric store (squee!) the pie was yummy (num!) and I'm going to start teaching a sewing class for girls next week (whoo-hoo!), with more classes to follow I hope (maybe even some for grown-ups) so now I just need to stop sounding like a tragic consumptive in a Victorian novel (cough cough cough).