I Can Do Anything Good

Thanks, thanks to Sweet, Sweet Life for sharing this today. Take the 15 seconds. You won't regret it.

I am so pitiful and insecure.

DB asks, a few posts back, how come I haven't posted any pics of reJuJu clothing. I've been thinking about answering that, and here is what I've come up with:

1. I have a hard time taking pictures. You know how I'm trying to make a new recipe every week? Well, many of them end up sucking donkeys. Same with taking pictures. I know the idea is to keep trying until you get it, but I have many more marks in the failure column than in the success column in these areas, and it is quite demoralizing. So, thinking about taking photos of things I have made is a little daunting.

2. Also, how to stage the clothes is tricky. If I put them on myself, who takes the picture? I've thought maybe I need a dress form or mannequin or something. But is that pretentious? Or just practical? And what to do with the range of sizes I work with?

3. But both #1 and #2 can be addressed. The real problem, my friends, is that I am pitiful and insecure. I am worried that I will post something and that you, kind readers, will think, "That's ugly." Or, "that's nothing. A monkey could do that." Or, "oh great, another post about her silly little hobby."





I keep making the things, anyway, whether you like them or not. And not everyone will like what I make--I intellectually understand that. I just really enjoy doing the sewing, you know? And am not sure how I feel about it being so visible. So up for critique. But down that path lies growth, right? And I'm all about growth. So I can also address this worry, I suppose.



4. I can't really sew. Zippers make me shudder. I loathe ripping seams. I rarely follow patterns. Some times I make things from scratch, but they are pretty rough-hewn; a lot of times I just add stuff to things already made. So it's not even a big deal. Will posting here seem like bragging?

5. And, finally, I don't want the kind folks I work with and who pay my salary to think that I'm spending all my time sewing: I definitely don't. It is, in fact, my hobby--something I do nights and weekends in moments when my family is busy doing other things. I'm not making any money to speak of off it--a little pocket money, mostly. So I just needed to put that out there.


I don't know. None of this matters so much, I realize. You're getting another little glimpse into my sad little ego's machinations. But read the header: you were warned.

And yes, I did sneak some photos in. Do you still like me?

Train Time

This is a very good way to spend a Friday night, sandwiched between two unpleasant experiences. The first, a cheesy (nonvegan) risotto casserole that bombed, and the second, my exhausted children fighting over who gets to put a piece of train track where (I love my kids, but they are NOT VERY NICE after their first week of summer camp has drained them of all energy and civility. Both were whisked off to bath pretty soon after these lovely pics were taken).

[Aside, have you noticed a theme here? That there are two things I am TERRIBLE at? Being photography and cooking? I'm sure there are more, but these are the two most obvious at the moment. My next post will examine this in more detail.]

On to the train saga.

Picture 1:



The girls playing nicely together, building a massive train track (thanks to Cate and Kevin for loaning us this cool, massive set. They have 3 boys, obviously).

Uh-oh. Trouble looms. Nolie is doing something on her own, without boss-lady Addie's permission.



Boss-lady Addie works on, not yet having noticed this transgression.



I build the train and drink a glass of wine, knowing this quiet bliss is soon to be rent by a tornado called boss-lady Addie and her bad post-camp exhaustion-inspired 'tude.



Uh-oh.



UH-OH.



This is not going to end well.



Nolie knows it, too.



The boss-lady tries to mug for the cameras (she knows all about good PR. She's like BP, that way). But everyone knows the jig is up.

Spacing Out

Remember how, this last winter, Eric tore down one of the walls in my office/studio space, and put flooring over a staircase leading down to his Man Cave, pretty much doubling the size of my workspace? But remember how it was the middle of the semester, and I didn't have time to paint or think about flooring or anything?

Well, despite a deadline list a mile long (you know, because we teachers have summers OFF) I did take a wee bit of time this week to finish this remodel. These pictures are pretty premature--E still has to get the remainder of the wood floor in. But I couldn't wait. I had to share. Cuz I'm very, very excited.

This is what you see when you walk in and look left. This used to be the entire space, AND it had a queen-sized spare bed in it, plus my desk and all my sewing gear. Wow. And it still seems really full.



I don't have a hoarding problem, do I? DO I?

Continuing around, here is the West wall. I thought about putting the "office" part over here, but the light is so much better for sewing on this side, and my little old eyes are getting sad and tired. So crafty crap goes on this side.



A close-up of my favorite crafty books and things:



Moving on, we've done this project pretty low-budget, but one of the splurges is this folding banquet table from Home Depot, because you can rotary cut on it and spread stuff out. I worked on a project last night and got it: ahhhh...space. At the end is my little oooooold sewing table that I love. On the drawer is the scratch mark from a bear that tried to get into the drawer, way back when, because it had food in it. Don't want to sew on anything else.



And now, for the right side of the room, the office part. Cluttered but cozy, yeah?



And yes, hanging on the left are THREE racks of clothing donations waiting to be cut up, remade, and refashioned into other things (this includes two family wedding dresses. Lord help me. I don't think I have the fortitude).

And, the view (dark here--sorry!) from my desk, looking into sewing land, because one should always have hope of time off, free time, time to play:



I know how lucky I am to have this space, especially when sewing is just my hobby. I've been feeling a little guilty claiming this amazing space as my own instead of turning into some tranquil spa-like guest room or something. But, you know what? It's where I spend most of my time when I'm not asleep or at work. The girls love being in here, playing dress up out of the rag bin, or doing embroidery, or drawing. And I do a lot of dreaming in here.

What do you think? Am I a spoiled beeyooootchly? Or should I just be grateful and love it? Or both?

Blurg. Today was about lists, and I've decided that this summer it would be nice to not make so many damned lists. I live my life by lists, usually, but I'm a bit tired of them. "Little tyrannies," N might call them. I have to keep the big list, you know? Because otherwise I would fret about missing deadlines and the like. But the little, daily list-making is tiresome, tiring, tired. Retired.

For today, anyway.

I had the most overwhelming urge to take a vacation, solo, today. This, just days after gushing over how much I love my children. And of course I still do. But there are days when the hours between the time I get them both dropped off in the morning and have to pick them both up just whiz by, the fastest time in the universe, a bullet-train of time.

This probably is because of the lists. I'm too busy finishing things on the lists during those hours and then the hours are gone and I had no time to rest or read or just blah out. The list is usually finished right as I'm picking the girls up and then I'm jealous of my time and we all know how it is when you can't be fully present but wish you were somewhere else.

Blurg.

Tomorrow, there will be no list. Maybe Wednesday. But not tomorrow.


On a completely unrelated note, you can go check this post out over at Huffington, if you're so inclined.

McCall, the Payette, the North Fork, and the Rest

Like usual, we didn't take our camera with us to McCall (which is in Idaho, for you non-potato-farmers out there). Because we're doofuses who don't care about our children, or preserving memories, or about posting on blogs. None of that matters to us, harumph.

I wish we had for one freaking time remembered the camera, though, because it was a weird trip, and I'm not sure how to make sense of it.

We stayed at my Grandma and Grandpa Davies' cabin there, a 1960s construction with a pretty good expanse lakefront and property up the wazoo leading to the back road. There are cabins on the property and huckleberries and hummingbirds--in the summer anyway--and it's a beautiful but run-down place now. I've never stayed there without some of the insanely massive Davies clan around, and it was odd to have my grandparents' presence everywhere in that house (like, as in, it seems virtually untouched for the last five years), but my grandfather passed on and my grandmother doesn't live there anymore. My dad and his bajillion sisters and brothers visit and care for it now, but there's definitely a sense of waiting looming over that house.

It was weird to sit on the shore of Payette Lake, the mountains' blue forestcover hooded in clouds, "bullying the sun," as Addie puts it. The water was still and glassy until the rains hit, and they lasted all of our second day there. I've only ever been in August, when it looks like this:



so it was strange to witness McCall's transition from winter to spring: cold, moody, dark.

We went ice skating, which I'd never done before there, and went to the Gold Fork Hot Springs (also new to me). And this all happened meanwhile:

I broke into unexpected sobs throughout, mourning my family and the happiest of my childhood days, all different now.

I relaxed, feeling months, maybe years, of stress slough off. I'm not sure why this was. Maybe that place is magical, as I've always thought?

Best of all, I fell in love with my daughters, marveling at how much easier it is to travel with them now that they are grown, enjoying their banter and chatter and laughter, soaking in their preciousness.

I survived the stomach flu and Eric having the stomach flu.

I hung out with my mom on her birthday, talked with my stepdad about his radiation treatments, asked my Dad about McCall and its history, his history there, checking closely for signs of his Christmas Day stroke but not able to pick out much at all.

And that was in about three days.

It's good to be back. I feel renewed, ready to finish the studio remodel, happy to be having this lazy summer time with my girls, ready to read and sew and whatever else, and to work some too.

This doesn't make any sense, this post, does it? Oh well. It can be like life, then, and we can just shake our heads at it and move on to the next thing.

Truer Words

We're doing our thing this weekend so I may not post for a few days (I hope you're doing your thing, too), but this passage from Ode Magazine jumped out at me, and I wanted to share it for pondering during these fine days:

...we only experience pleasure--real pleasure--when our attention is entirely engaged by one thing: having a conversation, preparing a meal, watching a gripping film; only, that is, when we're not dividing our attention between tasks. Our attention is pure energy. It transforms whatever it comes into contact with. Animals and children know this far better than we do. Over and above food, warmth or money, it's attention they're really looking for when they come to us. And they bask in our attention as though it's sunshine. Adults are the same way when they're passionately in love: nothing can beat gazing endless into the loved one's eyes.

Hope you have lots of gazing coming your way...



...and lots of silly dress-up, too.