My Little Things of Spring comments: 106

Tiny flowers everywhere. It's the time when everything is tentative and delicate. In a few months, I won't notice the flowers, really. Everything will be riotous and rampant. I'll be dragging the lurching hose around the yard so the whole thing doesn't frizzle to a crisp. (I say to Andy, back when it wasn't raining, "Hey, why don't you ask for one of those really cool automatic hose-winder-upper things for Father's Day?" He says, "Oh. Okay. Will you get me one of those hose-winder-uppers for Father's Day?" Me: "Absolutely. I mean, since that's what you really want!" Clever Mommy.) But for now, Mama Nature waters it all for me. My plants unfold their wonders, cautious and chilled. I dodge cold raindrops to witness. The unfurling never ceases to fill me with spring fever. And it is a fever, isn't it? You start to feel quite shaky: Let me get into the woods.

If it hadn't been raining, though, and I hadn't stayed home, I wouldn't have been knitting my Cricket, which is coming along nicely and which, I must say, I have thoroughly, utterly enjoyed. Why. I don't know. Everything about it has pleased me. The pattern is sweet. The yarn (leftover bunny-kit yarn) feels good and has a little bite to it, a little spring bite, so the stitches feel defined and reflect the light in a very chalky kind of way that I love (I don't like shiny yarns anymore). The whole thing feels utterly and completely handknit. Do you know what I mean? In other words, you can see the variation in the tension of the stitches, little bloops and frets, places where you put it down and came back to it, places where you stopped and had to keep someone from crawling into the fireplace (always toward the fireplace), places where you fell asleep in the middle of a row, places where you started dreaming about cabins and cocoa. I like yarns that record these things. I don't want them too smooth or so soft that all the bumps and blunders disappear. I want my hand in there somewhere. So she'll know, when she wears it, that my hands are there.

Now, this dress. This dress. Never have I wanted a mommy-and-me outfit more. LOVE. I used this pattern. And this fabric (in Gerbera Turquoise). Quick and easy. Made in a morning. There will be more.

And for some reason, because it feels like fall, I guess, I just want to eat mushrooms. If you take some leftover grilled chicken with rosemary and lemon (thanks to Andy — I have no idea how he does it but I can ask), and you chop up a couple of Portabella mushrooms and saute them in ghee (funniest sentence of the week: Andy: "Are we seriously out of ghee?", which just about made me fall off the couch laughing because — he knows what ghee is? and he's amazed we're out of it??? [which we weren't, which somehow made it even funnier, because we don't have milk or eggs, but we have ghee]), then pour about 1/2 cup of white wine over all of it and let it bubble down to a glaze, then add some salt and pepper and cream and Parmesan cheese and let that bubble down just a bit, then add some al dente spaghetti and get it good and coated, you, too, can have something yummy in your tummy. And yeah, I say things like that now.

Rain Rain comments: 99

Rain, rain. In the early mornings, before it is light, we all lay in the big bed with the windows wide open and the heated mattress pad turned on. The rain falls on the leaves, a constant tip-tapping. The breeze is cold and wet but we are warm. Amelia rests her cheek on my belly. I stroke her back and her tiny fingernails stroke my arm. I dare not move lest she move. I want her to stay. There are pillows and pets in every space. We talk about buying a little cabin in the woods near the mountain, so she can grow up with trees and pine needles and wood smoke and the sounds of the mountain creek, with snow in the winter and ski poles and snowshoes, with campfires in summer, sleepovers in the panelled loft, wildflowers in a jar on the windowsill next to her bed, sunlight filtered through the endless trees, sand on the floor where she puts her bare feet. I want that for her, for us. I pull out the computer in the dark and check the real-estate listings. The screen glows with moss-covered Forest Service cabins. This one has a porch. This one has a river-rock fireplace. This one is awful. They ruined it. This one would be perfect. Dream. She sleeps and breathes. My hands on her small body, feeling her breathe in the dark before rain-dawn.

We can't complain about the weather, when so much of the country is suffering, but it is cold and again cold, and sopping wet. It feels like green winter. Andy says that people have big gardens here because it makes you appreciate the rain; the gardens are happy, and that makes you happy. But for the cold. Everything is drenched and glistening, heavy with flowers. The peonies slump in the yard. The grass is half-drowned. The pavement is dark and shiny. I check the beet seeds daily. Chioggia and Bull's Blood. Nothing yet. It's Friday, the end of a long week. I imagine myself crawling under the duvet cover at the end of the day and watching my TiVo-ed episodes of Nigella Forever Summer. As soon as I turn on my side, I'll be asleep. If I have time tomorrow, I'll make some frothy dresses for Amelia. Clothes like summer flowers, to wear when it gets warm.

Catching Up comments: 68

* T H A N K   Y O U * to every single person who ordered Maggie or her clothes or her supplies in the last few days!!! Thank you very, very much! The sale was wonderful and I couldn't be more pleased. I am so grateful for your orders and your enthusiasm for this little bunny. Everything went without a hitch this time on the web site (I think?) and we didn't run out, which made me very happy and did not give me a stomach ache like it did last time. The amazing Greta is already busy packing and shipping orders and will continue to do that throughout the coming week and next, I expect. I really can't tell you how much I love thinking about Maggies going to good homes all over the world. I'm hoping we'll have Maggie kits consistently in the shop now. I think that will be really nice. I love this job. Thank you for making it possible for me to do it.

We had a very, very, very nice weekend. Man, it was great. The most relaxing one in I can't even remember how long, actually. I needed it. We cooked a lot. Andy made my dad's chili (Chili Lobo; we make it with ground turkey), I made this yummy Dijon chicken and mushrooms with linguine, and Andy made homemade pesto to use in Ina's pasta, pesto, and peas, which is a staple here in the summertime (and, in winter, with jarred pesto, it's really good too.) We had breakfast at one of our favorite places. We got some flowers for my front-porch planter, and Andy planted them for me (the best). I had some help with my verggie garden from a very talented gardener named Alica (but who pronounces her name A-leesh-a, like mine), who prepared and planted my little beds for me. I just knew I wasn't going to have time to do this and it was looking terrible. Now it looks pretty, and we have tomatoes, peppers, basil, potatoes, herbs, flowers, butternut squash, pattipan squash, and onions. I pledged to water it every single day this week, though today it is so cold and the forecast says rain. But still. This I can do.

I cast on a new sweater for Amelia, and this made me so happy I can't even tell you. Every minute of knitting it has calmed and pleased me. After months of making bunny clothes and fussing with bunny patterns and re-fussing with bunny patterns it was a huge relief to just follow someone else's pattern. Oh sweet mercy! And what a cute pattern it is. I'm slightly concerned that the neckline looks overly large on some of the finished ones I've seen. But I think I'll make the ribbing a bit longer, and it will be okay. . . . I don't know. After seeing how fetching she was in her Nutmeg Cardi (made ever so long ago) this past weekend I was so inspired to make her more sweaters. She's growing so fast. (I wish that Nutmeg Cardi pattern came in more sizes; it's just 0-3 months.) It's been too long since I've knit something baby-sized (which feels huge after all the bunny-sized)! This is sized 2T (the pattern goes up to size 10, and there is an adult version, too); I have an idea to knit the ribbing on the cuffs quite long, as well, so the sleeves can be turned up quite a bit without looking funky and wrong-sided. I'm very happy to be knitting for pleasure again.

I think I should take a shower. Amelia is down for a nap. I have a pile of vegetables I'm going to cook up for her and freeze. Clover Meadow is lying on a giant buckwheat pillow and a huge throw pillow that are on the couch, all at the same time. I should take her picture because it looks so funny. It's so cloudy and dark outside. We'll take a long walk when Amelia wakes up. The roses are starting to bloom all over the neighborhood. My beloved peonies are blooming. And my allium (the fourth photo from the bottom)? This is her first year here in the back yard. I am so excited. I go out and look at her every day. She's just about to bloom.

*** My heart and prayers for comfort go out to the people of Moore, Oklahoma. Peace be with you there. ***

Big Hearts comments: 156

The weekend was truly wonderful. In every way. It was a dream come true. I'm continuously overwhelmed by not only the incredible beauty of motherhood but of adoptive motherhood. My life is so full now. It's filled not only with this incredible baby but so many new, extraordinary people in Amelia's birthfamily, who were here on Saturday celebrating the holiday with us. It's filled with so much new love. There is so much love for this precious girl. And it gets bigger and fuller and more beautiful every single day. I wish I had better words to say but I can't even get my arms around it. It all, all of it, pretty much blows me away continuously. I have no expectations. Reality has surpassed anything I could have expected or imagined. Now I just try to do my so-flawed but so-earnest best in every moment, and ride the wave. And it is a grand, most awesome, extraordinary wave. I am so, so blessed.

On Sunday morning Andy and I got cardamom lattes at the coffee shop, just like we did the morning Amelia was born. We went up to the park and walked on the trails and smelled the wet grass and the flowers. We had lunch with my mom and then sat in the yard. It was warm and cloudy, just the way I like it. After my mom left, Amelia conked out in her crib (it was a big weekend), and I sat under the big umbrella out back while it rained softly on the umbrella and the trees and all of my new flowers he planted for me last weekend. It was a warm rain. We ate Chinese take-out under the umbrella and the tree while it rained, and we talked about everything.

I send a wish out for everyone who wants to be a mother. I wish you, especially you, a Happy (belated, sorry — last week was crazy busy!) Mothers' Day. I know that in our hearts we all are mothers, whether our children have arrived yet or not. I always wished that people would say that to me, had seen that in me, during the long years of waiting. There are so many ways to be a mother. And I send a wish out to the birthmothers and -grandmothers, whose hearts are so big and so brave and so strong. I wish you a life filled with as much love as you've given, and you have given, I am very, very sure, much more than you will ever know. I pray that it all comes back to you a thousand-fold. Over and over and over again.

Bowl Food comments: 108

Thank you for all of the bowl food suggestions! This thing is going really well for me. A few people suggested the book Bowl Food: Comfort Food for People on the Move and I was going to go get it (really good subtitle), when I realized I already had it, and about twenty of the page corners were already turned down. Can't even remember when or where I got it. This book is cool. It's small, so I can take it to the store. It's not chatty; it's just recipes. With a Thai influence, for the most part? It's got a pretty color picture for every single dish. And it's all the things I like in one place: soups, salads, pastas, rices, and curries. I'm excited. So far I've made the chicken with Thai basil, chiles, and cashews and the shrimp, tomato, and saffron (my mother-in-law gave me a little tin of saffron for my birthday — isn't that a great present?!?) pasta. Both were very good, and really pretty involved, I must say. But that's probably what made them so good. Really filling, so a bowl is actually more than you need. It's Peanut Butter Puffins for breakfast, then I pick a recipe in the morning. Amelia and I walk up to get groceries somewhere after breakfast (we have a few options for that, so it's kind of fun), and then I do whatever prep I can do ahead of time while she naps during the day. She hangs out with me in the kitchen while I cook. She is SO good about this. I eat very early while she's still happy. Bedtime is between six and seven. I've been trying to come back downstairs and hang out after I put her to bed, but usually I just . . . pretty much watch episodes of Psych and fall asleep!

The weather here over the weekend was cray-cray. It was about 85 degrees and windy as all get out. Naturally, I was completely miserable. Trees were whipping around and throwing down sticks and leaves and immature plums all over the yard. Leaves blew in every open door, covering the kitchen and the studio. I think I swept four times. But it was too hot to keep things closed. Bees found their ways into the house and buzzed angrily against the few windows that don't open (why do they do that? when there's an open window just a few feet away?). The light flickered madly as the leaves thrashed back and forth in the bright sunlight. We replanted all of our containers that didn't make it through the winter. But it was just too hot and kind of crazy outside to really enjoy it. I find hot wind utterly unnerving. Monday morning Andy woke up and said, "Is it supposed to be nice again today?" And I said, "If by 'nice' you mean COMPLETELY HORRIBLE then yeah, it's supposed to be nice." Curmudgeonly me!!!

Babies in sleeveless onesies, though. OMG. Utterly, utterly sweet. My sweet, sweet girl. She's drooling so much I keep checking for a tooth, but no. Not yet!

***Shoot — I forgot to add that for those who have asked, the baby food book I am using is this one, given to me by my friend Ann. I like it a lot — it's nice and simple and straightforward. Making baby food is so much fun. Watching her eat it is completely amazing. I'm sure that sounds silly or something, but it's true. It's one of the best things in the whole wide world. The whole time she's eating I'm just sitting there thinking AW YEAH!

Big, Beautiful Spring comments: 138

The weather has been unbelievably gorgeous. This is perfect weather: Sunny, smooth, in the seventies, a bit of a breeze but only in lovely, dress-fluttering way. Mellow-yellow days. This has been the best spring weather I can ever remember. We haven't really had time to clean up the yard, even. And already the hydrangea (that's climbing hydrangea, on my fountain wall) has fully leafed out, and everything else looks fat and lush and happy. I think I actually have to water some of my wine-barrel hydrangeas already. That's unprecedented!

We've had kind of a quiet week, with sore throats and runny noses moving from one of us to the next. I'm last. I've been cooking and knitting generally laying low. Walking around the neighborhood a lot, especially in the mornings and the late afternoons. This morning Amelia and I saw a woman walking a baby (pygmy?) goat on a leash. Down a very busy street. Awesome. Everyone's yard is gushing greens. Everything smells so nice. The scent of cut grass is in the air. Lilac. Roses are starting to bloom already. This little pearly pink one sits on our woodshed. The bush that has probably been here eighty years. I put up a rosebud hair clip tutorial on my web site. Good for using up your extra felt scraps!

I made myself a dinner bowl last night of jasmine rice cooked in chicken stock and coconut water, black beans from this recipe, corn salad (I just used frozen corn) from this recipe, and a whole avocado. I would've added some shrimp but we didn't have any. It was pretty good, not great. Fresh corn would've been a major improvement. I like the concept of a dinner bowl. I think I'm going to start looking for recipes that go in a bowl. (Especially since I just bought myself a really pretty Japanese bowl with a lid on it this morning. Inspiration.) Rice, quinoa, noodles. Those are fast and good. I need a plan . . . that happens in bowls. And is not soup. Do you have any favorite bowl-food recipes?

There's always ice-cream bowl. In a pinch. I've done that.

Power Sewing Session comments: 104

We're all fighting colds here. :( Waaaaah! Oh well. I got some power sewing done over the weekend! It was a blast. I haven't sewn much at all lately. The lovely Amanda linked to this baby bib tutorial and I made some in a hurry. I'm not sure how many to make. I did eight. They're really fun and fast. I also made Amelia three more pairs of big bubble pants. I love these so much. I think she could use a pair every day, honestly. It's a good project for 1/2 yard of fabric. I made the legs a bit fuller, as well. My girl's got some chunky thighs! Is there anything cuter?

She's sleeping right now. Greta's coming over in a bit. We're making progress on the next batch of Maggie kits. I'm still thinking mid-May, and I hope that's not too ambitious? We'll see. I'm almost done with my patterns. Greta's still cutting dress fabric. Martha's still winding yarn. Tiny buttons are here, though one color is backordered (naturally). Yarn, too, was backordered (blah). Oh well.

I made this chicken with peanut sauce over the weekend and oh my stars, it was so good. I felt quite proud. Almost as proud as I felt the other day when I was making a Boboli pizza and squirting pizza sauce out of the little plastic baggie thing that comes with the crust and thought, "Wow, look at me! Making a pizza that wasn't even frozen first!!!" Puff puff. I was so pleased. Then I remembered that I used to make actual pizza dough, from things like yeast and flour. And sauce from actual tomatoes! That's funny! I burst out laughing. While I ate my Boboli I pledged to make a greater effort to cook more. I really miss it, actually. I'm making baby food for Mimi, but I am possibly the most pathetic regular meal planner in the world. When I am busy or tired, cooking — fancy, yummy, fun-type cooking, not just survival cooking — is the first thing to go in my day, always. And when I'm busy or tired, I seriously could not even care less what I eat. This chicken was so good, though. I am inspired. I want to do better at cooking for Andy and me. I feel like I say this all the time!

Do you know how to make a little rose hair clip? I'll take some photos next time I make one and show you how. I've bought a few (you can get a poufy one like Amelia's here, and similar rose ones here and here and here and here — there are a lot on Etsy that are adorable) and have been making a lot. I like making them because you can do them in so many different colors (and they get lost all over the house, so we need them in every room). They're really fun and really easy.

An Excerpt comments: 126

 I couldn't sleep last night. Irony! Because I'm super tired! Damn you, Irony. Who invented you, anyway.

Anyway, around 3 a.m. I finished the book I've been reading for a couple of weeks: Bilgewater by Jane Gardam (suggested by Lily [thank you Lily!]). (I also got to read in the bathtub on Sunday afternoon, which was seeeeeriously awesome — thank you for that, honey.) Sort of a coming-of-age novel, published in 1976, it was slow and weird but readable and random, and wonderful for that — kind of like a Shakespeare comedy, I thought, actually? — and just perfect for what I felt like reading right now. Marigold Daisy Green lives with her father, the housemaster of a boys' school in Yorkshire. Here's how Thursdays are there:

    Thursdays were always the evenings when these conversations with Paula took place and had done so "from long since" as our Mrs. Things say, because Thursdays were the evenings when father received visitors.
    He had done this since before the way, even before he was married, and the visitors had always been the same: one or two, never more than three Old Masters. Uncle Pen and Puffy Coleman were inevitables and the third was often an amalgam of cobwebs and dust called Old Price. Every term-time Thursday at about seven-thirty these people came roaming around like elderly, homing snails. They unwind garments in the hall when it is not cold, drop walking sticks — Uncle HB has a shooting stick — into the hall-stand and trail dismally into the study. Paula [the house matron, and Marigold's frequent companion] takes them ccoffee and glasses and father slowly unlocks the shelf-cupboard in the bottom of his desk and brings out a bottle of wine which he never opens until well after they have all arrived and would probably never open at all if he were not kept very firmly at it by Uncle HB who often brings a personal hip-flask, too, though I don't think father has ever noticed. . . . If Old Price drank more than two sips he'd go up in a little wisp of smoke. . . .
    Sometimes, when I was little I was allowed to sit with them for a bit — well, not so much allowed. I just did. They did not seem to notice and I learned much. When I was four or five I would sit for ages under the desk playing with a heap of old shoes . . .
    As I grew older I became too large to fit under the desk and . . . I abandoned the Thursday receptions for Paula's sick bay readings and learned there much more interesting, universal, and philosophic things.
    I have read novels now full of intelligent conversations. In novels there is often a set-piece thrown in called The University or College Conversation. This can take place between students or long afterwards, in the evenings of the students' days. there are a great many pauses in it and as the pipesmoke rises and the firelight flickers on the rows of mellow old volumes, wisdom and gentle nostalgia hang in the air. The nature of God, the reality of solid objects, the non-existence of Time are touched upon, tossed gently to and fro. Not so with father's lot. Up with Paula, the floor above — and Paula has had no education at all — we talk on and on about:
    sin
    death
    love
    harmony
    ethics
particularly ethics, e.g. when Posy Robinson comes in all tearful for his mama and we have only two eggs and two rashers and two spoons of cocoa, our four feet on the fender and a lovely play coming on the wireless after the news.
    But downstairs! Here is a sample of the chat on one of the Learned Thursdays:
    "Cold night."
    "Rather better."
    "Pretty cold. Got your coal yet?"
    "No. Got your oil?"
    "No!"
    "Time this House had oil. No more expensive."
    "Smells."
    "Not at all. No shovelling, what's more."
    "Your house has a Man."
    "Man! Idle oik. If we got oil we could get rid of him."
    "Get rid of Gunning? Get rid of Gunning?"
    "'Bout time. Been here since the zeppelins."
    Uneasy pause while it is considered whether Old Price has been here since the zeppelins.
    "I once saw the zeppelins," says Puffy Coleman kindly. "I was just a boy. There was a burst of flame out over the sea — off Scarborough — and then we saw a lot of little flames dropping into the water. . . . That was a terrible war.'
    "Terrible."
    "What was terrible?"
    "That war."
    "Which war?"
    "Well — the Last War. The — zeppelin war."
    "I can remember," says a very feeble voice in hte corner if it is a warm evening — he comes on chosen evenings. Old Price, like Masefield's blackbird — "I can remember the zeps. All the boys ran out along the cliff tops cheering. In their pyjamas."
    "Ah, " says Puffy Coleman, lowering his teeth.
    "Ah, says Uncle Pen HB. then, "It wasn't that war."
    "Yes it was. What d'you think it was? The Napoleonic War?"
    "Scarborough was bombarded in the Napoleonic War," whispers Old Price.
    "Now then Price, you weren't in the Napoleonic War," says Pen.
    "No. No. I only said — uff, uff, uff — "
    Father gazes at the uplifted wine. The Primavera watches through her wicked eyes.
    "D'you think Price was in the Napoleonic War, William?"
    "What's that?"
    "Uff, uff, uff — "
    "Ha, ha, ha, ha," says father, bewildered, looking round sweetly, kindly at one and all, not at all sure, for he is a good bit younger than the others, what might or might not be so.
    They reflect.
    Oh it's wild stuff.

Ha! I thought that last line was funny. I like how she writes. Mimi and I went right down to Powell's and bought all of her other books that they had. Then I finished this one and I really liked it (luckily, since I did that backwards a bit). Hopefully I'll like the others, too. And now I have to go because it took me about five hours to type this thing (but it was actually kind of fun to type — I like typing) and I'm starving!!!

*These are not our chickens, and this is a local community garden, not mine. Just photos from our walks.

**And yes, it does sort of remind me of I Capture the Castle. And also The Country Life by Rachel Cusk.

comments: 171

My best friend lives in Boston. We've been friends for over twenty-five years. We text or talk almost every day. We happened to be texting on Tuesday, just at the moment that local news was breaking on her end. Martha, three-thousand miles away. I had been out walking around the neighborhood with Amelia. We walk very slowly, up and down the sleepy, quiet blocks, ambling to and fro. I pick blossoms from trees, a sprig of rosemary, a froth of blooming lilac that somehow fell into the grass for her to sniff. This is an English daisy. This is a daff-o-dil. This is violet, like your kitty you never met, like your great-grandma's favorite flower, and oh how she would have loved you! The sun dips and bobs in and out of white clouds. The April wind is still chilly. Amelia stares placidly out at the world as it rolls by. These are the houses and gardens and bakeries and shops and driveways and trees and sidewalks that will become — that are already starting to become — her little corner of the world. Our streets. Will be there a memory, locked away, of the scent of apple blossoms there? Of how we linger every time in front of the big sepia-colored wooden house I've always liked while I study their tulips? Of the smell of the spicy tea that I drink as we walk? Of the canopy of ancient dogwood trees, arching above her in pink arcade just as we approach our own driveway, and turn? Will she know her trees the way I knew my own, the way I feel I would still know them, the way I did know them even two summers ago when I visited Forest Avenue, alone, for a whole afternoon. I walked, tearful for my own reasons, up then down the other side of my street; two oaks towered over my house, planted much too close to the front stairs, still there, familiar as nothing else I've known. The king and queen of my former kingdom. Protective lion, lioness.

My neighbor brings me hot chocolate and a coffee-cake slice every couple of mornings or so, while Amelia naps. Every time, it feels like the most perfect, decadent, luxurious gift. I think about this small kindness, the millions of generous, civilized kindnesses that make up most of all of our days, and then the rare but terrible rendings that rip the weave of them so viciously, and with such terrible permanence. The spectre ebbs and fades but is always present. As a child, I grew up with a father who, upon entering any public venue, scanned the place for exits, identified each one, and briefed us on the disaster plan should this performance of Timbuktu or the Ice Capades be fireballed. I will just say that it was a very hard way to grow up. But it comes from this: You would do anything, anything to try to protect your child.

My heart and thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston this week. With those lost, and those injured, and those helping, and those witnessing. I wish that Martha and I lived closer, were neighbors, wish that together we were walking our little girls under the blossoming branches, teaching them (Martha used to be a landscape architect) the names of flowers. Teaching them to be kind and gentle people. Teaching them to be brave, generous, building, healing people. People who make things, and don't destroy them. People who reject cynicism, and instead create, and repair, and provide medicine. People who practice peace, acceptance, optimism, faith, joy, and, always. Always: Love.

Sweetest Flowers comments: 168

Honestly. The sweetest ever.

***The facial oils and perfumes that I love are from my dear Amy Karol. I made the knitted bunners a couple of years ago from a pattern by Barbara Prime.