good, bad, happy, sad

I think life has never been quite as much as a roller coaster as it has been this last week. The move is falling into place more easily than I could ever have hoped, with very little effort (other than the crazed work schedule before the house went on the market) on our part. I'm not quite ready to talk about this house, don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I will say we aren't having to keep the house super tidy these days, which has been a big relief, particularly since I've been spending a lot of time on the couch or in bed over the past five days.
But on the New York end we are set, having very very luckily landed a 2 bedroom plus and office apartment a mere three blocks from Will's building on campus. We've seen the outside of the building, which is a very pretty "pre war" as the craigslist ads say, and is next to an old school fire station (which could be interesting, but we are up high so hopefully wont be too bad). The spot is a block from the library and sits right between two big parks so really, we couldn't have asked for more. Except maybe to see the inside. At the moment we only have a floor plan, which is not so bad when you're married to an architect who can scale little pieces of paper to match your furniture. This has allowed us to figure out, at least in theory, which of the things we have will fit and what we'll need to acquire. Now we are busy debating what the different rooms will be used for. Should we, for instance, give the largest room to the kids? Which would mean that we would need to switch down from a queen to a full size bed (Which I just realized that we have in our basement) or should we take the large room and put our desks in there and give the kids each a room. Or have them share and turn the study into a playroom/schoolroom. Decisions, decisions...I've been spending a lot of time with those little bits of paper, I tell ya.

So this is all good. Very, very good. And much stress has been relieved. But that means, of course, that we now have time to dwell a little more on what leaving means. Evie will not get on the school bus with her brother for the first day of school, spontaneous evening playdates won't just happen in our yard, kids running around putting on a "play" while parents drink a beer on the mudroom steps. Briton will not get to join the student council or the crossing guard as a fourth grader as he had planned. Friends, these friends, will not be a quick stroll up a quiet street away. Change is always hard, even when it's a good change.

And so, between rearranging little yellow squares of paper, dreaming up all the interesting things we can do with a new space, trying to decide how many boxes we need to pick up, adding to my stack of cool educational books and hearing my kids talk excitedly about all the things we will do in New York (and a lot of sleeping, because man this bug had got me good) I'm feeling a little heartbroken to leave my life behind. All part of moving, I know. But sad, never the less.

Still, under the sad, I'm getting excited. Now back to my yellow squares. Any brilliant idea about space configuration?

who knew?

So did you watch the Wedding this morning? I fully planned to but in the end, getting up for the bus wasn't going to happen, much less waking up for a wedding at 5 am. (I did watch it later thought)

Who knew that one little teeny tick bite could make you feel so freaking bad. That's right, good old Lyme's. Fun, fun, right?

Horse pills started, Heat pad is at the ready at all times for my achy joints and much napping is occurring (my head feels extraordinarily heavy that's normal, right?) and I'm hoping that after a restful weekend I'll be back up and running. I better be, because an apartment has been found!(Yay! More on that soon!) and the packing will soon commence. So my sleepy, achy butt better be over this thing ASAP!

Hope you have a lovely, restful weekend (minus the Lyme's Disease, of course)

t-shirt to ruffle dress: a tutorial

Our kids have a deep and abiding love, ok, obsession, for our local cupcake and cookie shop. And when I say our kids, I really mean all four of us. And the dog too, actually because they ususally have treats for her as well. The very first day they were open, Briton happened to have lost his two front teeth and we were cruising downtown looking for a treat to celebrate, and low and behold, a cupcake shop had appeared. The owners snapped a photo of him, all chocolaty and gappy and we've loved them every since, making a pretty regular weekly trip for a one of their yummy cookies (my favorite is chocolate salted caramel) and always, always staying for a chat.

Earlier this spring we were in there for our post library treat when Evie pointed (for the millionth time) to their shirts and giggled over the dancing cupcake, it never got old for her, and I think it never gets old for them to see her love it. So the next week when we went in, there was a t-shirt waiting for her, and for me to make into something (this is how much they know me, they handed it off with a "it's too big but I bet your mom can make somethign out of it for you!") And since it's hard for me to resist a challange, and because someone wasn't going to leave me alone till she could wear it, the ruffle dress was born.

You can use either an second old shirt for the ruffles or buy jersey fabric for them, I've done both. The first time I used an old shirt but then I decided I wanted the ruffles to be bigger so I pulled them off and cut jersey strips. Either is fun and both ways the dress was well loved (as in, Evie didn't take it off for three days) I've been puttering with the idea of making her a skirt like this too, since she loves the poofyness of it and it's easier to keep clean than a tutu, kind of a meld between the skating skirt and this dress, but that may have to wait until after the move. Or maybe not.

T-shirt to Ruffle Dress

You'll need:

2 Adult t-shirts - 1 small or medium, one large or extra large (or 1 shirt and 1/2 yard jersey fabric)
Also a t-shirt that fits perfectly
Sewing machine armed with a knit needle (it's worth it to go get one, but you can go without)
Fabric scissors, pins, thread and all that jazz

1. First lay the smaller adult shirt on your cutting surface and lay the child sized shirt over it so that the neck lines up. Pin in place and cut around the child shirt leaving a 1/2 inch seam allowance all the way around (leave the neck and the top of the sleeves uncut)

2. Turn the newly cut adult shirt inside out and, with a zig zag stitch, sew up the bottom of the sleeves and down the sides of the shirt. Try it on and trim the bottom to the lenght you want the finished dress.

3. Lay the larger shirt on your cutting surface and cut just under the armpits to create a large tube from the bottom of the shirt. Discard the top.

4. Cut the bottom of the shirt into equally sized strips or cut four strips from your jersey (I made mine 3 inches wide and cut four - I know, there are three there, but I did cut a fourth, promise).

5. With your machine on it's longest stitch length, sew along the top edge (about 1/4 inch down) of three of the strips and down the middle of the fourth . DO NOT BACK STITCH!

6. Pull gently on the bobbin thread on each strip to gather, maing sure the gathers are even along the strip, until the ruffles are about as big around as the bottom of the dress.

7. Pin one of the ruffles along the bottom edge of the dress and sew along the top using a zig-zag stitch. Pin the next ruffle on so that the bottom of this ruffle covers the stitching from the first. Continue until you have attached all of the ruffles, leaving the once that is stitched through the center for last.
8. Remove the gathering stitches and trim all threads!

what sparks a memory

Last weekend, after our crazy week of house prep, we got the heck out of Dodge. It was something we actually planned with our supper club long ago but it was so perfectly timed and so effortless (as heading out for a weekend with friends should be) that it felt like a spontaneous reaction to the stress of the days before.
It might surprise you to know that, for a girl who has a hard time sitting still and not doing most of the time, when I go out to our friends cabin I am utterly delighted to do nothing. Hours spent playing cards, laying in a hammock, watching the kids run around and around the yard or pretend the picnic table is a pirate ship, lovely sweet nothingness. And good eats as well, which is always part of the game when this group gets together. Although I'll tell you the truth, I'd be happy to hang with these folks even if we were just eating cold hot dogs.

In front of the house, just across the road, is a creek that rushes and bubbles by. It's one one those bodies of water that seems cheerful, you can't help but smile just looking at it. But we never just look at it, not with five kids and a Nigella around. No, we revel in it, wade in it, spalsh in it. Cathch all sorts of beasites in it (this time it was a salamander and a brown trout).
When I was in ninth grade, my creative writing teacher gave us an assignment to compose a story that was inspired by an olfactoy memory. IT was kind of a brilliant project ebcause first we had to leard what olfactory meant and then we had to put it to use, digging into our teenaged brains for some memory that woudl serve for the story. If I remember correctly, I wrote about Seattle, and how the smell of salt water took me back to a childhood trip there. I only remember that because I described Seattle as gray and season-less and my mom thought that was kind of rude to the city of Seattle, but really, to me, gray and season-less is a compliment, my kind of place. Although I probably couldn't have told you that at the time. But ever since then I've love how a smell, or touch or sound can take you back to a place you thought you'd forgotten.
This weekend I was sitting on the rocks next to a quiet creek in Virginia, watching the kids wade knee deep in the water, with the sun prickling my skin, almost hot enough to go slather on sunscreen, and suddenly I was eight years old. My feet dangled over the side of our cabin cruiser and the Northern Idaho summer sun beat down on my shoulders as we bobbed up and down, tied to the dock while the boat was gassed up. I could almost taste the strawberries and cream flavored whistle pop that my dad bought when he went into the little floating shack to pay, could practically hear the funny whir of the outboard motor about to roar to life, newly filled and ready for a day on the lake. Maybe a trip across to the shoreline bar where I would drink a Shirley Temple while my parents had a beer, or over to the reedy inlet where we might spot a turtle or twenty, languidly sunning themselves on old logs.

ANd then, just as quickly, I was back in Virginia, because someone had a splinter and needed a kiss and someone else was wandering just a little too far upstream. I didn't mind, it was lovely to revisit that old memory, just for a few moments. It made a wonderful weekend even better.

Do you have those moments? Where some small thing sparks a memory so fiercly that you feel almost transported back to that exact spot in time?

the only thing better than rainbow hair

You may recall that a few weeks back, Evelyn learned the terrible life lesson that no, in fact, your doll's hair will not grow back rainbow if you cut it off. I say that jokingly, but really, it is a hard lesson to learn, as several readers pointed out. It's terrible to find that your doll is not real. Although at the time I didn't really see it that way, I only saw it as a) maddening and b) hilarious, but it was a real little heartbreak for my girl. Since then Eliza has been quite the pariah. Banished from Evie's bed (by Evie, not me) neglected during playtime, the poor doll has gone with out kisses, hugs and her normally plentiful "feedings". I knew this was due to the hair incident and have been meaning to replace it, but life has gotten in the way in these past few weeks. I wanted to take Evie with me to the yarn store so that we could have just the right hair, but anytime she was free and the store was open I seemed to need to paint to nail or fix something in preparation for putting the house on the market. But finally, finally, yesterday we were both free, the sun was shining, someone was looking at our house so we needed to be out of it and the yarn shop beckoned.
We wandered down to The Needle Lady, checked to see if their resident dog Nikki was in (he wasn't) and then got to work looking at everything that could possibly be called rainbow in the shop. We looked at huge fluffy yarn and dredlocky handspun and silk and cotton before she fell in love with an almost violently colored, truly rainbow hued cashmere yarn. Of course.

I actually probably would have bought it for her too, all $30 for a tiny skein worth, just so that she had the hair of her dreams (and hopefully would not cut it again) and also because, hey, the girl knows her fibers, I couldn't fault her for it. But at the last minute she found something better than rainbow hair. Pink and purple sparkly rainbow(ish) hair. She gasped and squealed when she spotted it (I might have gasped myself, but from relief at the much cheaper price tag)
At home she helped me wrap it around a book to make wigs, Waldorf style, and sat very patiently on the floor under my desk while took off the mangled old hair ("Eliza looks weird mama!" Indeed she does!) sewed the new hair in place, gave Eliza a final trim and tied back her bangs so that you can see her eyes.
I have to say that I much prefer the orange hair, this pink sparkly version looks a little Fragglish and since the yarn is cotton and thinner, it's not as full, but Evie adores it, and Eliza, once more. When I handed her off, Evie said "I'll never cut it now, it's SOOOO beautiful! And I love it!" I guess when you have pink and purple sparkle rainbow hair, all is right with the world.
We did have a very serious talk while I was sewing about the fact that Evelyn's hair would not, under any circumstances, grow back pink and purple and sparkly. Just in case she was thinking about it.

here we go

It's official. We are on the market. Well, the house is. But you know what I meant. I kind of want to cheer and cry at the same time. Ya know?

Fingers, toes and everything else crossed that we sell before we head New York-wards.

exhale

After a mammoth work day on Wednesday out house is, for the most part, done. I mean done enough to put on the market of course, no house we ever live in will be done. How could it? There are always projects to do, things to fix or tweak, paint to change, plants to put in the ground, that's just how we roll. But this house, these projects, they are done. We have a few little things to finish, but nothing dire. And so up it goes on the market on Monday. And suddenly, I feel like we can exhale.
Ahhhhhhh......

When I go back and remember the house we bought,
I almost don't even recognize it as the place where we live, the place we love, now.
So happy...