remember i used to make things?

remember that? when i would do crazy things like sew, or use my gocco, or make collages? that was fun. i have hit a funk, both mentally and medically. all i really want to do right now is sleep. every morning i sleep just a few minutes later because i know i can make up time in the shower. who needs to shave? not in the winter. nope. yesterday i stayed in bed so long that my lunch consisted of some cheese stuffed in a pita with some mayo, the squirt kind, its faster. thats it. nothing else. not smart. i know. everyone in our house is going through varying degrees of sickness. eliot being the least sick, arlo being the worst. so sad. she wakes up with her nose and face crusted with goo and her eyes almost crusted shut. breaks my heart. i myself have been toying with some strange nocturnal sore throat. completely fine during the day, but by nine oclock or so it feels like i am trying to swallow shards of glass. ouch.

nocturnal sore throat be damned, david and i got out of the house last night. our dear friend beth came over to be with the sleeping children while we had coffee and caught a movie. thank you beth! we talked about the kids (of course), work (bleh), and the future (always). while i have a fairly strong grasp of what my distant future will look like, i sure do wish the near future was not so hazy. i suppose there will always be hurdles, dare i say that is life? but it would be nice if time to time they were smallish ones. certainly i should clarify that my life is in pretty much no way hard and that i am deeply thankful for what i have and what i have managed to accomplish. lets see if i can get any sewing accomplished, huh?

the boy is five

yesterday eliot turned five. the official age of big boys we have been informed. big indeed. big heart, big hugs, big smiles. eliot you changed our lives in so many ways i cant even begin to keep track. i cant imagine life without you.

i remember life before you, and sometimes it seems nice, but i could never go back. i wouldnt trade you holding my hand on the couch. i wouldnt trade you telling me that you think i am great on a whim. i wouldnt trade telling stories under the covers with you for anything. nothing.

i know that soon enough you wont be asking me to play transformers, that you will be off with your buddies doing what buddies do. i know that soon you wont let me give you kisses outside of school. i know that soon mom and dad will be soooo embarrassing, but i know too that in our house, away from buddies, school, and anyone else you will let me give you hugs and kisses and rumple your hair and scratch your back. dont worry, i wont tell. it will be our secret.

eliot - "you are my sweetest downfall. i loved you first"

time in the middle

david was out of town for three days, which gave me a whole day at home with the kids yesterday. even though i come home at 2:30 four days out of the week, it was nice to have the whole day. i realized after we dropped off eliot at school that i really dont get to spend much time with just the girls, they are both napping when i get home from work. after i put arlo down for her morning nap, i realized that i spend even less time with just collette. i need to change that. it was wonderful spending time with her, one on one.

i am an oldest child and have what some might say is an, ahem, strong personality. i think eliot is headed down the same path. yesterday as i chatted with collette, i started thinking about how little i really know about her personality. or i should say, that i know her in such a different way than i know eliot. of course there is no way to capture that first child mutual discovery experience with other children, and arlo still has so many baby needs that take most of my time and attention. but that doesnt mean i cant discover collette on her own terms.

she wears her heart on her sleeve, for real and to her advantage. cries at the drop of a hat, i think that has a lot to do with the advantage thing. is a total night owl. is small, but mighty. can bully eliot and drop him to the ground with a body tackle if she feels like it, but also just as gladly plays along side her big brother. has a love of all things fuzzy, because she likes to pick with one hand as she sucks the thumb of the other. is turning into a ham, and is just plain wicked cute. i love you collette, thanks for hanging out with me yesterday.

more argyle

its friday. i am almost done with the work week. these socks always make me smile, not the new ones, but old good woolly ones. glad to know that i am not the only "closeted clown" out there. i certainly get a lot of flak at work for my sock choice. i sometimes wonder why people dont have better things to do with their time than catalog my socks day by day. sad really.

i have piecing, sewing and hopefully quilting in my future this weekend. kc is supposed to get another dumping of snow on saturday. so you can bet when i step away from my sewing machine i can most certainly be found with one of my books, my pink mug and my hot water bottle relaxing somewhere at home. i just reread that sentence. i am an old lady. lordy. have a good weekend friends.

this, that and santa

i feel like i am juggling a lot right now. luckily they all seem to be things i actually want to be juggling, so that is nice. this is the stack by my bed right now, which for me is revolutionary. i used to be a strict one book at a time girl. i mean, i wouldnt even think about another book until i had finished the one i was in, and now i have three going and just picked up two more. my thirteen year old bookworm self is getting a little panicky, and my rebellious thirty year old self (is that contradictory??) is being somewhat belligerent to the nerd in my heart. go figure. for me crafting is always competing with reading. i have been making progress on eliot's birthday quilt. that is to say, i have things assembled, ironed and ready to cut. i foresee lots of cutting and sewing in my weekend. not so much reading i guess.

work has calmed down which is always nice, still busy but minus the frenzy. and just yesterday i found a new pair of argyle socks hiding in the bottom of my sock drawer. what does that have to do with work you might ask? nothing, but the fact that i spent most of my work day smiling because i had new argyle socks on. i have a severe dislike of solid/plain colored socks and try my best to avoid them as much as possible. why? i dont know.


monday this beauty came in the mail from melissa (melissa, sadly your gift which is 90 percent finished has been out ranked by the quilt. i didnt think you would mind. christmas in july?) and i cant stop looking at it. she added this stitching for me, which i love. i hope to see/have/experience/appreciate bounty in all things this year and on into the future. i think i am going to hang this in my room to remind me every day. thank you melissa, spot on.

e l e v e n

oh sweet arlo, how did you do it? how did you manage to make eleven months go by in a blink? and just when i think you couldnt possibly get any cuter you manage to bowl me over with those eyes, those cheeks and that grin. i keep putting your little hand in mine to somehow stamp in my memory how soft and chubby it is, just how small it really is. i just know that in no time you will be running to keep up with eliot and collette, you will be on the top of the dog piles on dad and you will be telling me about your day in halting sentences. little lady i love you so much, you will always be my baby no matter how big you get.

eireann started it

apparently this is national delurking week, and sweet eireann introduced herself (you should go say hi!), i thought i would do the same.

my name is hannah. this is my space to do whatever, as you can see. i like books, blankets and hot water bottles, preferably together. i like sleep, even if i dont get as much as i think i should. i love to eat and cook and mince. i like to take pictures of anything and everything. i love sending my kids to bed freshly bathed because those last kisses of the day are the sweetest. i love my husband. he works hard at all things. i like it here, i hope you do too.

candy

::for the eyes::from mav the genius behind p2p press::




::for the ears:: begin to hope:: latest cd by regina spektor::

i cant get it out of my head. if you go to the music part of her site you can listen to it too, or watch the video for fidelity. here we are at wednesday already. wow. things are busy at work. we are very behind schedule on a report, which someone just noticed and that same some just lit a fire under our you know whats. great. especially when the very last thing i want to do is artifact analysis with things like this and this floating around. not to mention a certain someone i know is turning five (good lord!!!) at the end of this month. all that to say i will probably be taking at easy around here, but you can still find me over at flickr. i mean i am still taking pictures of this one. i cant stop...

my pillow says thank you, she missed me

eliot and collette spent the weekend at my parents house. david and i spent the first five minutes or so missing them and then we got over it and had a nice dinner. its true, dont act surprised, besides remember that we still had one little one in tow. then we hauled arlo over to some friends house and played one of the most rousing games of pictionary in recent history. whew. arlo was a champ, and slept in the pack-n-play, like eliot used to, and then god bless that little girl she slept until 10:30 the next morning. wow. it was like college, i hadnt slept that long in forever. i stayed in my pjs until well past lunch time. and it was excellent. i would like to tell you that i spent the whole weekend cleaning up like some people, but no. instead i watched lots of romantic comedies on tv and spent more time with friends on saturday. and what did that little cherub of a girl do sunday morning? slept until ten again! i slept so much i hurt my back, which is a sure sign of aging. also made me realize just how freaking loud the other two are in the morning. ok, but i shouldnt be so hard on them, because they are sweet and i was glad to have them back (for about five minutes...), if only they could work on the volume factor. 800 square feet isnt that much for five people. but they are cute. dang. my friend vikkie took these shots a couple weeks ago and i love them so i am sharing. thanks vik!

how can i be?

wow, i certainly didnt expect so many of you to be taken with my mom's story like that. sorry to spring it on you. i so rarely cry that i forget to think about it. honestly i wrote that story to remind myself that i really do love and appreciate my mom because she is so so driving me crazy right now. case in point, we got into an argument on the phone last night and i had to hang up. ah life.

and now to lighten things up, shall i tell you a little piece of my own story? and by that i mean how much of an idiot i can be? i had my own little christmas miracle last week while i was downstairs crafting away. how many things have i quilted? quite a few. two big blankets and little things here and there. well this particular afternoon i was working on a little project and my damn quilting foot kept falling apart. i was starting to hit that note of panic because i really needed it to hang on so i could finish what i was making. not to mention that i didnt really want to have to shell out another $35 for one. so after about the seventh time of me getting out my little screw driver and removing the whole foot so i could snap the pieces back together, i had an epiphany. you know the little arm thingy that actually walks the foot up and down? you know the one that is supposed to rest on the screw coming out of the post so that it can go with the motion of your needle? this whole time, for a YEAR people i have been using my walking foot incorrectly! i have had that stupid little handle just resting on top of the screw post so that it doesnt so much "walk" my quilt through, but bumps up and down sporadically of its own accord. i have literally been pulling with might my quilts through my machine, forcing the fabric to walk instead of having the foot do the work for me. yanking even. yes, i fully admit that i am a crafting idiot, and yes i am pretty sure that an actual light bulb was floating above my head and there was an audible ding when it lit up. i can not believe that i have been using that stupid thing that way for so long. so long. when i put two and two together (and the chorus of angels broke into song) you would not believe how easy it was to quilt. my fabric slid through my machine like butter. it was so easy. so easy, and i am such an idiot. needless to say i feel like i could quilt the whole world now.

i mean look at those stitches!!! so smooth, so even, so uniform. it is a whole new world. anyone need anything quilted? i am ready to go. i even dug out the six year old multiple yards of fabric that i have for eliots baby quilt. that project is finally going to happen, five years late, but it will happen.

ok, so now that i have admitted how stupid i can be, lets talk some shop. i changed huffmania over to the new blogger, so some of you might be seeing that big red exclamation point in your bloglines. if you feel like it, i think re-subscribing should fix it. also if you are having problems commenting, please let me know. haeshu at gmail dot com. and i plan on dusting off the recipe box this afternoon. alicia got me going... oh baby. and last but not least, laura from spain, por favor mandeme un email! me gustaria mucho hablar contigo mas!! have a wonderful weekend friends, there is curry and white wine in my future. mmm mmm.

her story

this is my mom. i talk about her here sometimes, but i thought it would be a good idea to tell her story. recently she has been driving me crazy, but then last night as i was looking through some old photos i found this one, a favorite of mine since i can remember. as i sat there looking at it, my irritation melted away, and i felt so much appreciation for her, for her bravery. i love this photo for so many reasons. i love her hair, i want mine to look like that. i love her clothes, that they are back in fashion, i love that she is wearing yellow converse and petting a baby squirrel that she rescued from the side of the road. but thinking about her story, about her life at that age, this photo suddenly struck me on a different level. i see a sadness around her mouth, i see that she is alone in the picture, and in a sense she was so alone at that point in her life. i see her petting that small life and see her reaching out for something to care for and above all i realized that she was so brave to do what she did. and so i thought i would share that story. it isnt particularly amazing or harrowing, but it is hers and therefore it will be mine forever.

my mother was born in 1954 in bogotá, colombia. she is the second child in a family of three girls and one boy. her dad worked a hard job in a factory and loved to sing along with opera records late at night on the hi-fi. her mother stayed at home with her children and her mother in law and kept the house spotless. a family of the 50's. she grew up a happy child in a life that was good, but had its fair share of ups and downs. many times those late night opera sessions were spurred on by alcohol. at one point her mother moved out of the house for six months because she was fed up with her husband. a bold move for the time that ended up serving only as a temporary fix. but still she was happy, maybe a bit prone to mischief but always with a twinkle in the eye, a laugh and a big smile. as a teenager she had friends all over the neighborhood and would go visiting. there was a boy she liked who lived up the street. she liked to walk that way and see if he was home. one day she made the short walk and found out that he was home and had a friend staying with him. an american. tall and gangly, with longish straggly hair. she noticed him for sure, but still had her eye on the neighbor boy. this american was staying for a while. his teenage cynicism had him exploring central and south america, and he was in no hurry it was the 70s. besides, this colombian girl with the big brown eyes was worth some time. they started spending time together. he lost his dictionary on the bus the first day in town and was slowly building up his spanish skills. i like to think there was giggling over grammatical errors, but that they made him that much cuter and slowly the neighbor boy realized he was no longer needed for those walks around the block, they were doing just fine on their own. two months go by, he says he has to go back to the states for money, but that he will come back. she says ok, but doenst really believe him. he leaves, and keeping his word, comes back a few weeks later. three more months go by and he asks her to marry him. she says yes. she is 20 and he is 19. her parents are skeptical but dont say no. he doesnt tell his mom back home because he is afraid she would object. they get married. she wears a bell bottomed jump suit with pearl buttons all the way up her tiny torso and flowers in her hair. he wears a blue suit with a fly collar and has grown a mustache to look older. they honeymoon on the coast and then comes the jumping off point. she says good bye to everyone she has ever known, to a family she has never left, the few blocks that made up her world until then and leaves for the land of dreams. america. reality sets in. she lives in a house with her new husband and his mother. his mother does not disapprove, but does not quite give her approval either. she doesnt speak a word of english and her mother in law doesnt speak a word of spanish. he works all day at a gas station for $2.15 an hour. she sits in her room crying most of the day until he comes back and she has someone to talk to again. she misses her mom. her sisters. her block. she is afraid of her new mother. he has friends in washington, why dont they put a mattress in the back of his red toyota pickup and drive there? it is beautiful and they say you can make money picking apples. they pile their belongings on the mattress under the makeshift shell of plywood that he has tied down on the back and begin their journey. they stop in montana at a rest stop. she sits on a picnic table to stretch out her legs. she sees a little movement in the grass. a baby squirrel. she approaches softly, and picks it up. feeds it some crackers, slips it in her pocket and on they go. she is lonely living in a world of millions and she knows only one person. they arrive in washington and pick apples for a season. stay with friends in some cabins. after a few months, they drive back to missouri. she finds out she is pregnant and has never been happier. in june a baby girl is born and her life is changed forever. here is her very own doll to take care of, a little thing that she can talk to, coo over and whisper spanish nothings to. someone to keep her company while he is at work. someone to share smiles with, someone to give all of her love to.

mom sometimes tells me that i saved her life. that i was the best thing that ever happened to her. it struck me last night what that really meant. how brave she was and how alone she must have felt then. being 20 in a strange country with out a thing to her name, a penny in her pocket. not even able to speak the language. thirty years later and she has four children. lives in the house she first came to with my dad, and though my grandmother doesnt live with them anymore, she comes over every morning for coffee. they love each other and my mom calls her mom. they speak the same language and a day doesnt go by that they dont see each other. my dad is still gone most of the time. they still speak in spanish with each other and they have had their own share of ups and downs. and life goes on. i love you mom.

bounty

my dad baked for christmas. 35 pounds of flour later and we were all amazed. sadly the lemon squares and cranberry oatmeal bars didnt make the picture. we had a wonderful, relaxed holiday. my time off at home was well spent with the kids, coffee and sudoku. i was also able to get reacquainted with my bed. i am not going to lie to you, there was a night were i was tucked in with the lights out by nine pm folks. and it felt good. really good. what didnt feel good? grating the crap out of my middle finger with my micro plane. ouch. i had to pick out a ribbon of skin and toss all the ginger i had just grated. so there you have it. a good start. my personal goal for 2007 is fitness both mental and physical. so far i have managed to tivo seven episodes of yoga to this end. now to actually dust off my mat. keep your fingers crossed (not grated).

but seriously. i spent a good part of last night pondering 2007 and i realized that it boils down to bounty. there is already so much in my life to be thankful for. i am rich in family and friends near and far. so this year i plan to spend more time appreciating what i have instead of worrying about what i dont have or cant control. any extra bounty that comes my way will make things that much sweeter. i want happiness and beauty to be a part of every day that i open my eyes to. i have realized that for me that means a mindset that i need to put on every morning, just like getting dressed. i will choose to be happy, i will choose to see beauty around me. i hope you do too.