Oh, HELLO!!! Hi! Happy New Year, dear friends! I am home alone in the house here for the first time in many weeks. I'm in my office and have my hot tea and my fake fireplace on. Clover Meadow is in her office basket here with me and Bridget is in Clover Meadow's living-room bed (a recent development that leaves Clover bewildered and the rest of us sheepishly on edge — but Bridget gets what Bridget wants. Apparently she's the alpha in the entire family). Outside the sky is flat and gray and chilly. Inside I've been tidying — oh the post-holiday endless tidying! I have a new box of thank-you notes that need to be written. I have a new stack of my own books I need to find a place for. I have a small mountain of tiny toys to put away. But the tree is down and the Christmas decorations have been put away (we left the general "winter" decorations out) and the piles are dispersed. Mimi is back to school and Andy is back to work and I should be getting back to work, and I will. But today I am missing them, as I always do after everyone's been home for a while. I think I would like some peace and quiet but as soon as I get it I'm at a loss, and missing the chaos of their warm, loud, messy, darling presences so fiercely it stuns me slow.
Christmas was really nice this year, just lazy and simple and filled with family and fun and lovely gifts and lots of hanging out here. Aunt Susie slept over on New Year's Eve. We blew up Amelia's air mattress and dressed it with flannel sheets and quilts and pillows and she made a nest for herself in the middle of the living room, and stayed up until 11 p.m. that night, long after Andy got home at 9 (and I went upstairs to bed). She spent the night in the living room with Aunt Susie on the sofa and in the morning Andy was back up at 5 a.m. for work and I luxuriated until late morning, listening to my sister and my daughter playing together downstairs. No one needed anything from me so I shuffled down for coffee and then shuffled back up to spend four hours shopping for mini-embroidery supplies on my iPad. Ahhhh, pure bliss of idleness! Much of vacation was like this, in fact. The house was fuzzy and soft, meals and mealtimes were fluid and ridiculous, made of cookies and salad rolls and delivered chicken makhani and delivered chicken makhani again. An endless loop of movies featuring impossibly quaint small-towns, vaguely dissatisfied orphaned corporate executives, and gingerbread-house-building competitions (or episodes of Nature Cat) played tirelessly in the background. A gazillion Perler beads turned into ornaments. Every game and puzzle in the game-and-puzzle cabinet got played or made or was given away. Every new colored pencil, crayon, and bottle of paint got used and spilled. It was glorious, lazy, lingering fun, and for the first time, on the Sunday before school was scheduled to start again, I was sad that it was over. Age seven is basically EXCELLENT.
Amelia got her wild hair cut just after new year, and this was a long time coming as it had really turned into a crazy, vaguely felted sort of cloud around her head. Two big snarls in the back that I would diligently try to untangle — literally pulling hair strand by strand out of the nest — just kept coming back. It was nuts, and a source of howls. She couldn't brush or comb it herself and she wouldn't let me brush or comb it for her. So she decided she was ready to have it cut above her shoulders, and so it is. A cute little bob and bangs. I'm not crazy about the bangs, myself, but she wanted them again and they do look cute on her. I do miss the wild-child tangle, as the haircut aged and matured her in an instant, and it's funny how haircuts do that, isn't it?
My goals for 2020 are to be more organized both for upcoming Posie projects and for meal planning. I basically do neither of these, ever, in any real or dedicated sort of way. I don't make lists and I don't write anything down and I have no calendar beyond the Portland Public School lunch menu, and this is not Grown Up. I would also like to be more organized about my personal knitting and crafting projects, as these are important to me and I have a lot of ideas for things that sort of get lost in the shuffle. Since my office is all nice and fancy now I would like to figure out how to do a little more forward thinking about my schedule, and my plan for the year, especially when it comes to timing Posie projects so that we are not is a mad scramble to get something seasonal out the door. That is one of my least favorite states of being, so I am going to work on that.
It was my birthday yesterday! I'm really old now!!!
Happy birthday fellow Capricorn (mine is tomorrow)! xoxo
Happy birthday! Happy 2020 to you all, including bossy Bridget and the long suffering Clover.
Happy Birthday to you!! The haircut is so cute and she does look so grown-up. My son is also 7 and I agree with you that it is basically the best!! Though parents assure me that other upcoming ages are also the best. :)
Happy Birthday!
And here I am thinking age 2 is the best! :)
Great haircut, Mimi!
Happy Birthday dear Alicia! Hope your year is filled with joy and calm xxx
I use the Notes app on my MacBook to keep track of my sewing plans, knitting plans and whatever else I am planning. It helps me to keep track of what I would like to make and helps to keep these plans from getting lost under the new and shining projects on Instagram and Ravelry.
Happy, happy birthday!!
Happy Birthday!!
Dear Alicia.
Wishing you a happy birthday, and a new year filled with happiness. I want to thank you for your beautiful photography, your wonderful words and all your talent and creativity that you share with us. I am a long time reader, years before your delightful Mimi. I have so enjoyed every post & all the love you have in your home. Please know how much your blog is appreciated and how much joy it brings. xoxo
Alicia, have you tried either the Tangle Teaser hairbrush or the Wetbrush? They are life changing for tangle prone hair
I completely second what Patricia just said lol!! xoxo
Yes, also wholeheartedly second what Patricia said. I find it so relaxing to sit down with my Feedly and get inspired by what others are doing. Many are no longer posting. Feeling Stitchy just posted a goodbye today and it made me so sad. Thank you for continuing to share your life and talents with us. Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday, Alicia!! It looks like Mimi likes her new quilt?! Wonderful holidays!!
❤️Welcome to "old" dear Alicia~
.....but, as you WILL come to realize, it's only a number~! Your sweet Mimi will keep you Young-at-Heart. And the Wonderful Memories of Mid-year breaks keep youth alive.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday!
The Holidays sounded great at your home, little one's do make the holidays fun!
Can't wait to see pictures go Mimi with her 'shorter' hair!
Happy New Year
Happy Birthday! Thank you so much for sharing you and your family with us!!
Amelia's haircut is so cute. It suits her, bangs and all.
Slow, easy, simple Christmas' are the best. I wouldn't want them any other way.
Like you, I'm cleaning, organizing, and preparing for a year of making. My little shop is in need of restocking, so I must tuck in and sew up a storm.
I keep a list of this and that, only because if I don't, I'll certainly forget them . . . but then again, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing. Ha, ha!
Happy Belated B-day!!!! XOXO (we're all getting older, but we're also becoming wiser, too).
*H*A*P*P*Y* * *B*I*R*T*H*D*A*Y*!*!*!* Alicia! I was sad when I saw Mimi getting her hair cut but I do understand the knotted long hair.. I'm sure she'll enjoy it flipping around. I was glad to see you posted.. miss you!
((hugs)), Teresa :-)
Happy belated birthday, my dear Alicia. It’s so nice to hear and see your lovely world again. Can you tell us where you acquired that impossibly cute sheep ornament? I am smitten with it. Mimi looks like a young girl now as opposed to the little girl we’ve been watching for the past few years. Talk about impossibly cute. Happiest wishes to you and yours. xo
Just wanted to say Happy Birthday, and also recommend Sprouted Kitchen Cooking Club (or another similar service, of course) as the only thing that has made meal planning bearable for me, in that you don't have to plan for three nights of the week, just shop for the three recipes you're sent. We love it and highly recommend it for anyone hating the meal plan struggle.
Happy Birthday! May this year bring you much peace, joy, and love.
The photos are beautiful - I absolutely love the umbrella ones. I just read a "trick" for making those rainy days under an umbrella more magic: spray a little perfume on the inside of the umbrella fabric and when it rains, you will be surrounded by the pretty scent of the perfume. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't speak to how it works, but I thought I'd pass the idea along!
Sounds like you had a lovely holiday with your family. That is wonderful. Happy New Year to you and yours and I look forward to your 2020 posts!
So good to hear your Christmas and aftermath was slow, relaxing and magical. Thank you for this little blog--your pictures always impart a sense of calm and are so peaceful in spite of the chaos you say is happening on the other end of the picture and we all dearly love this glimpse of life. Happy Birthday and may you have 2020 vision for your business this year. Happy Planning as well.
I remember being seven years old very vividly. Clearly, it was a most excellent time in my life. I'm 50 now. But seven was the bomb.