Big-Girl Ways comments: 70

I couldn't be more proud of my girl these days. Every week brings new challenges and new accomplishments, and it's all just so thrilling to me. I'm starting to feel nostalgic about entering the last month of her little playschool. For the past two school years (they don't go in the summertime), she and three of her friends have attended a little "school" at a neighborhood grandmother's house, and it has been just the best experience for all of us. Next year she will go three mornings a week to an official pre-school, and while I know she will be very ready for that, I will miss our bouncing morning walks through the neighborhood (because she can't wait to get there), our lingering after-school traipses to the bakery together, the ease of walking home with friends for playdates. The Portland school system being what it is, and our location in it being what it is, these past two years will likely be the only time in both of our lives that I will get to walk her to and from school. Her new school for next year is about a mile and a half away, and that's too far for me to walk there and back on my bad foot (and too far for a three-year-old to walk anyway). Her kindergarten, if she winds up going to our local public school, will also be just over a mile away, as well. Next year, I'm probably going to drive but park several blocks away, so we can still get that walking experience together. One thing I can do is ride my bike very slowly on the sidewalk so that I'm basically just sitting on it next to whoever is walking. I'm not very good at this and there are a lot of crashes/near crashes/crushed toes, and it's hard to hold someone's hand when they're walking and you're riding a bicycle. But anyway. I'm enjoying every minute of our current playschool walks, and every minute of this time. My girl is growing up, and I am so excited for and proud of her. She loves everything and everyone and every day, and is doing so many new things that it's really quite exhilarating and awesome to watch her. Her sweet, funny, cuddly, goofball personality is blossoming, and I love it.

Weaving all but abandoned, I've been stitching like a madwoman, watching the Night Neighborhood come to life. Pattern and kit will be forthcoming. I have a 65%-off framing coupon for JoAnn's if I can finish by Wednesday, but I'm not sure I can. . . . I hope I can because framing is so expensive, and, for various reasons, I'm looking for a new framer. I always stretch my pieces on foam core myself (trust me, unless you have some sort of master-craftsman-framing connection, you want to do it this way; you will do a better job than anyone else will on your piece, and it really isn't that hard, just time-consuming) and I'm not sure JoAnn's will let me do that. I've never had anything framed there before. I'll keep you posted.

In between all the stitching, I actually designed yet another cross-stitch sampler. Two, in fact — these are birth announcements, one for a boy and one for a girl. It's just bizarre to me, even after all of these years, how the creative process works. I never, ever seem to know what I am going to do, and sometimes I'll feel like I don't want to do anything at all. I'll go and do something else, something that has nothing to do with work (recently, the weaving), and I'll be totally consumed by it, and having a very, very good time when suddenly, zombie-like, I just get up and walk away as if in a trance and go straight into my studio and put my little head down for several hours in a row and BLOOP, out pops something else entirely. There must be some whole other process happening that is just totally invisible to me that brings this condition about. It feels like magic, though.

Morning Light (and Night Neighborhood) comments: 50

Oh my, the mornings! Honeygold and fragrant with apple blossoms and lilac. We moved some chairs to the front yard and that one hour, from about seven a.m. until eight, is now my favorite of the day. Andy had the whole weekend off, which rarely happens. The weather was consistently beyond glorious, which rarely happens. I said I wasn't going to make a cross stitch pattern and then five minutes later I did, which often happens. Good thing my capriciousness is so predictable. It keeps me employed. And out of trouble. More or less.

Sugar Pie comments: 68

I've been sort of a slug lately. Sitting a lot, weaving a lot, reading a lot. Subtext there is, of course, that every other moment, indeed almost every single waking moment, is spent toddler wrangling. Motherhood is so physical. I really underestimated that. The moment she is occupied elsewhere or sleeping, I go careening across the house and onto my sofa and start gulping big, deep breaths of air. Eventually, trance-like, I start to weave until I'm less windblown and catatonic. Honestly, I feel like around 4:00 p.m. there should be people standing on the sidelines with Gatorade, offering to empty water bottles over my head as I keep picking up my feet and putting 'em back down until bedtime. The minute I get to sit, I sink. Only my hands have energy. Occasionally I read books, usually while eating. I take Amelia to the library just about once a week. We get as many as I can carry in my basket to the car; we usually park quite a ways away and linger on the way there. I have truly loved the freedom of reading library books again, not just for Mimi but for me. My choices are seriously random: whatever's facing out; whatever doesn't seem like it will be too sad, or too hard, or too serious. I loved Oh! You Pretty Things (which reminded me, in a weird way, of If You Follow Me, which I also loved). Currently reading Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse. I honestly hadn't been to the library in years, mostly because I am such a slow reader, and I couldn't get my books back on time, and I always wound up paying for them anyway, and it just wasn't convenient, somehow. But with a little kid it's totally different, of course, and although I do have to pick out my books very, very quickly, I am enjoying the complete freedom of choosing books by their covers, without reviews, and without the risk of spending money on something I won't want anyway.

Weaving #2: The one with the pink tassels. Inspired by Marianne Moodie, Erin Barrett, Rachel Denbow. I'm just making stuff up as I go along. Talk about noncommittal — you just add things on the fly and if you don't like them, you take them out, no prob. Teaching myself to do some shapes, some beads, a little bit of bling (gold embroidery floss). I have all of this yarn in my stash, so many small skeins, none of it really enough to actually knit anything besides something striped, and then, you know, gauge, care (washable? non-washable?), fiber content, etc. Weaving does not make me think about these things.

Weaving #3: Sheep in the Fields. I just had an idea and I wanted to see if it would work, and it did (meaning, it came out pretty much just like I was hoping). You build up curves by doing short rows (knitters know the term). I like this one.

Weaving #4, on the loom: Tiny Houses. I was so inspired by the pictorial weavings of Kayo here. I mean, look at this one! Isn't that smashing? Apparently, you draw on the warp to get your shapes. I didn't do that — I just started weaving with no plan, and I put some houses in, then I put some path in, then some background. I have no idea if that's how you're supposed to do it. But it's working for me, post-toddler-catatonia. Excited to finish this one. It has taking the longest of the three because it's all done with the needle, and not with the shed or shuttle. See how I threw a weaving word in there. Don't ask me to define, I'll get them wrong. But I know 'em when I sees 'em.

I actually wanted to do a little village in cross stitch. Maybe I still will. That would require some attention to detail that I will have to unwillingly muster, and is unlikely to happen in the near future, though I'm nothing if not craft-capricious, so you never know.

Oh jeez. I forgot to tell you about the pie. Rhubarb custard pie. If you like eggs and sugar and rhubarb, I highly recommend. Meems added "candles" (dried spaghetti) because apparently it was Weaving's birthday (he's four, like Ceiling). Also, sauce: Meat Sauce from Apples for Jam, one of my favorite cookbooks. Do not add the 3 cups of water to this sauce. I've made it that way before and you basically water down a perfectly delicious sauce for absolutely no reason. I added 8 oz. of sliced and sauteed mushrooms to this. You must add salt and pepper while cooking, to taste. Eat over spaghetti with a big blob of ricotta. Amelia asked for more. Thumbs up.

***Teepee poles are just replacement tent poles that Andy put together. I can't remember what we used to use, but probably bamboo stakes? Fabric held on with binder clips. :)

Flowers Fair comments: 64

First walk in the woods of spring, just the two of us. A Wednesday afternoon, temperature perfect. The trillium is blooming, and the yellow violets. We don't go that far, just up the trail a bit to the meadow, wandering as if we have all day, and we do have all day. Trying to catch a butterfly. Stuffing pockets full of rocks. We turn around and go back to town for ice cream when we're done. Days of green. The smell of trees. The song of birds. The soft trail. Holding hands on the sidewalk. Her little hand in mine.