For Keeping Warm comments: 201

I finally figured out the bonnet, but it did give me fits. I can't really even explain why because I can't even really remember (something about Row 11, something about decreasing 7 stitches every other row on the back). But I think I've got it down now, and this bonnet came out too big for her now anyway, so I am going to try again. Now that I understand how to make it (felt like a miracle), I think this is the perfect I-want-to-knit-but-can't-concentrate-that-well-so-please-don't-make-me project. My goal this year was to use up stash yarn, so these little pieces fit the bill. Plus, our lady doesn't have that many hats that fit her right now, so a hat that works up in just a few days is really nice. I usually knit while carrying her in the Moby. Oh how I love that thing. I don't really like putting it on (it's super dramatic; I feel like one of those gymnasts doing a floor routine with that giant ribbon thing, except that instead of twirling it I'm stepping on it and falling over), but once she's in there, I can do almost anything (except breathe). I made the bunting last year. And the heartwarmer, too (and oh how I love those things). I guess I didn't enter that pink vest on Ravelry because it's not in my projects, and I have no idea where I got the pattern or what yarn I used! Bah.

Isn't the quilt Andy made for Amelia so adorable??? Love love.

Now, the oatmeal. I saw this on Bobby Flay. Oatmeal layered with apples and raisins cooked in butter and brown sugar, drizzled with cream. Here is his recipe. It was DELICIOUS. I love oatmeal. He cooked his in milk, which I also did this time but had never done before, and I must say that it will be hard to go back to water now. I'd like to have the wherewithal to make this every morning. Ribsticking.

Saturday afternoon sunset. I long for these. We don't get many. They hit me deep. They remind me of home. Fleetwood Mac. Woodsmoke. Wooden houses. Bare trees. Brown leaves. Brown river. Orange sun out the back bedroom window. The way the train rolled through. The dry cold. The sound of crows. How I planned to live in a hollow tree. How I planned to cook over open flame. How I longed for snowfall. Up to my knees, or more.

This baby girl! She is a wonder. Life gets better every day. I am so grateful to the veterans of every war for the sacrifices they and their families have made that allow us to live in safety and security here at home. Thank you.

Just Us Girls comments: 259

It's just us girls home today. Nice and quiet. I made chicken stew and chicken stock while my mom and sister held the baby. I think those were the first things I've cooked in weeks and weeks. Something about the kitchen reminded me that I hadn't cooked in a while but now I can't remember what it was. I'm trying to put some of my normal activities back into my days, when I can. Cooking (I honestly haven't needed to at all). Reading at night before bed (just finished Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, which was strange, and strangely readable, and for some weird reason I just couldn't put it down). Need to knit something because knitting is like my multi-vitamin. I shouldn't go without it or I become unbalanced. I literally just cannot decide what to make. That has never happened to me before. Maybe this bonnet. It would be cute with a little bound edge and ties in Liberty lawn. I have the book with the pattern somewhere. We'll see if I can actually find it.

Shine Bright comments: 224

We are each growing and changing so much every day. Outside our windows, autumn leaves shine bright — it's the prettiest autumn I can remember here in a long time.We've been getting out for a walk every day since it feels like only a matter of minutes before the rains come. Today is rather dark and quiet, which I like. I need it. I'm drowsy and flopsy and warm. The baby is drowsy and flopsy and warm. She's sleeping beside me as I write. She snorts and bubbles and wriggles in sleep, stretching her legs and curling her toes. Oh how I love this girl. I guess I'm still in my "speechless" phase. I'm so in love with all of this. Even the hardest parts of it are still so much easier than anything was, before she was here.

(Her sweater is here, and the pillow pattern is in here.)

Settling In comments: 289

Oh. Warm little baby hand on my chest as I write. Dreaming-baby breath on my chest. Birds and squirrels everywhere in the front yard. A riot of yellow leaves and fluttering birds. Joanna Newsom playing somewhere else in the house. Clover Meadow sleeping on the ottoman. The light rain falling. The past two days have been mostly just about us; our visitors have started to disperse and we are finding our daily rhythm alone together. Andy is home for six weeks. He has skipped more than a few vacations over many years to save up that much time off. It's so awesome, so very awesome to be able to have him here at home right now. (Actually, right now he's at the store. But, yeah.) I have the window behind me open. The air is cool and damp and gray, with birdsong and wet pavement sounds. My prayers go out to everyone on the East Coast who has been affected by superstorm Sandy.

Thank you so much for all of your incredibly kind comments these past two weeks. My heart is so full of your words and wishes. Thank you. Thank you also for commenting on Amelia's name, but I can't take credit for that! It was definitely a group effort. Her birthfather wanted her to have four names (first, two middle, last). Her birthmother picked Amelia; we picked Beatrix; and then her birthmother picked Jolene. I think they are all beautiful names and I love how her whole name came together with something from each of us.

We had our first walk up to the bakery the other day. The weather was gorgeous — cool and crisp and the leaves blazing bright. It was the first time I'd been out of the house just for whatever-time in weeks, really! I carried her in the Moby (which is where she spends most of her day) and it felt so good to stretch my legs. I think she loved it, too. Andy walked the dog with a bottle in his back pocket, just in case. We got chais and wandereded through our familiar streets together. People smiled at us, which felt strange and wonderful. We smiled back. Walked slow. Crunching leaves. No rush. No rush at all.

Fall Food comments: 47

Lots of cooking, lots of eating: Pumpkin pancakes, patitsio (we split it into two dishes and froze one), the apple pie (from the freezer, which I thawed for about 20 minutes and then baked as normal and it came out great), chicken with morels (for a Sunday night dinner-party; there wasn't any left to freeze), mashed potatoes from the potatoes from our garden, and roasted vegetables. Thank you so much for all of the freezer-food recommendations! I'm going to go through the list this week and make a few! I also made brownies yesterday. I'll show you those tomorrow.

The weather will be turning here in a few days. They say rain, rain, rain. We have half a cord of wood left from last year. It's stacked and ready to go. I'm going to try to knit exclusively from my stash for a while. The freezer is filling up. We have apples and carmel wraps. I say bring it on.

*Oh, and here is where I made the table runner, from a pattern by the Purl Bee :-)

Octobery comments: 112

I need to fuss with the garden today. It looks a wreck. Not that I know what I'm supposed to do with it. But I'd better do something or the neighbors will start complaining. That's part of having a garden in the front yard. It's everybody's garden. Though, wait, I'm the only one who works on it. Hee hee. I'm wishing I had grown a pumpkin now. I see them in the other parkway gardens around town and they are big and charming.

The leaves haven't really turned color yet, for the most part. It's been very dry and very clear. The past few days have been terribly windy, and Clover and I don't like wind at all. We're sensitive girls. They say that there will be good star watching this next week. Perhaps a trip to an open field tonight. Our house is so tree-wrapped and the neighborhood so bright it's hard to see stuff.

I'm still trying to work on my freezer food. Do you have any suggestions for good things to make that freeze well? A lot of people asked me if I was going to thaw out that apple pie I froze before baking. I don't plan to. But I've never actually done it before so I'll have to let you know how it goes.

Look at the gorgeous wedding cake my sissy made! She's amazing. I love her.

And the best randomly received magazine-selling pitch ever. We'll take a subscription to Fine Cooking. Just to prove about the no rocks.

Early Autumn comments: 92

Before the rains come, there is warm, early-autumn light. It's the best light. Oh, I love love love it.

On Sunday afternoon we wandered around up near the park near the woods. When we were tired we climbed a long hill and put the quilt under that big green canopy of leaves you see up there and were drowsy. So nice. Warm. Dappled light. The sound of leaves rustling. No talking. Just resting. Quiet. Then some dude came along and started playing the BAGPIPES. For an hour. It had to have been an hour. And when I say playing I mean practicing. Not even complete songs. Just parts. It was seriously deafening and sort of hilarious. He cleared out the park. We were too lazy to move. Portland.

Busy and Bright comments: 118

Crunch and crisp and the pink light of late September. A bit quiet-feeling lately. I am busy, and hopeful, and anxious to get out into the woods. Maybe this weekend. I'd like to lay on a blanket under a tree and read for hours, with my head on my love's stomach, and my little dog's chin on my ankle (that's where she likes to rest it). The days feel brief and brilliant.

Cloudy Fall Morning comments: 106

Cloudy, and I can almost feel water in the air for the first time in ever so long. Hallelujah. Happy dance. Suddenly, under the flat gray light, I can see the fall colors. More dancing. I harvested the onions, a couple of eggplants, my precious butternut squash, another smattering of candy-sweet tomatoes this morning. I still can't get over what those tomatoes taste like. The vegetable beds are quite worn out. I thought about watering and decided, again, to let it go. I'm not sure how much is left to take out. Sweet potatoes — I don't think they did much. Carrots — the one I pulled was about the size of one of those little yellow Ikea pencils. This garden was a great experience for me.

Out there, the sound of acorns falling from the great oaks onto the pavement and the tops of cars. It's the sound of my childhood Septembers. The constant pinging of falling acorns on Forest Avenue. We had so many ancient oak trees there, and that sound of acorns falling, and bouncing, like other sounds from that place — freight trains coming then going, the cooing of an unseen mourning dove in the morning, cicadas, another freight train — is something I feel like I never hear enough. It's a sound you don't remember you've forgotten until you hear it. And it sounds like it's all yours.

I've decided to become a frozen-food person, and this morning put frozen pizza dough and two little frozen chicken pot pies from the bakery (where I go almost every morning to get a chai — kind of a little luxury I allow myself) in the freezer. It felt kind of like the year that my friend Allyson and I decided that we were French and wore stripes and scarves and spoke only Franglais, or the time I decided that I was a ballerina, and stood, whenever still, in fifth position. Or sometimes first position. Usually fifth, so there would be no mistake. This morning I decided that I would be one of those people who cooks things like soups and stocks and chilis and curries in big batches and freezes them in clearly labeled containers, and who then, when she is hungry, takes them out and cooks them for dinner. Eureka! This actually seems do-able. I have very low expectations for myself with meal planning. But this seems do-able. I have a freezer, and electricity. I want to believe.

September mornings forever remind me of traveling around Europe when I was a lass. I pulled out my scrapbook from that trip this morning. I haven't looked at it in ages. Photo taken in September of 1990, in Berlin, when I was twenty-one.

Catch Up comments: 83

I slowed to a wander on Sunday. It felt good to be so lazy and slow. The weather has been gorgeous. Bright and dry and just generally so pleasant. Our yard has been suffering the drought. It's been months since it's rained, I think. I was watering a bit through the summer and then I got busy and stopped. Andy spent the day moving the hose around from place to place. He did an imitation of a hydrangea before and after watering that was spot on — I wish I had a video. "Before" was this sad, parched, drooping, reaching thing; "after" he was bouncing in place and looked like he was on his way to a birthday party. :-) Pretty cute. I think the yard is a bit happier now, but honestly, I'd be relieved to stop worrying about it. A good rainy day would be most welcome, but all week we're supposed to be mid- to upper-eighties, and clear as a bell.

Before the slow, we packed and shipped orders, cleaned the fridge, got some groceries, did some laundry, watched television. Every night lately we've been falling asleep before 10 p.m. I made the blueberry cake again with marionberries, and a version of this pasta for dinner, but with sage instead of rosemary. I need to get it together, and get back into my cooking routine. I feel like this happens every year at this time! I need to sit down with my cookbooks and get inspired to cook for fall. Maybe actually plan [shivers involuntarily]. I suck at that. I don't mind the cooking; it's the thinking of what to cook every day that hinders. "What should we eat?" "I don't know. What do you want?" "I don't care. What do you want?" "I don't know. Pizza?" And pizza, because unless I'm actually looking at a cookbook or a recipie or a restaurant menu it's the only food I can seem to remember. I have the palate of an eighth-grade boy now. Hrrmmmm.

Making a new little preppy-hippie quilt. It's very yang. Thinking about maybe putting together a little quilt kit this winter. I think that would be really fun.

Puppers worries so when her Andy is down in the front yard without her. . . . What if he should fall down? Or need help with the sprinkler? Or someone should walk by? Or someone and A DOG should walk by? "Could you open this thing please?"

Last year (or maybe the year before?) the dahlias were $2.50/bu. Inflation. Still, a bargain.