Rein It In comments: 61

Routine, Routine, where have you been? I miss you! Come back! I flail like a flapping sail without you. Yesterday you returned, just for a bit, and I baked a pie. I put double topping on it, because it felt like the right thing to do, and I wanted you to stay. The days have been a little chaotic, the house tousled, the yard undone, coughing and Kleenex from one corner to the next and me unable to decide if I'm hot, or cold, or hot, or freezing, or if hellity hell I'm boiling up. Andy made us chicken soup. Amelia and I huddled under (and then on top of, and then under, and then on top of) quilts on the chaise lounge, watching The Aristocats three times in three days. Before things got really gross and I started blowing my nose without pause, we met her birth-grandparents down at the Flock and Fiber Festival (her grandma is an amazing spinner, weaver, and knitter, and her grandpa makes four-foot-long knitting needles, just for fun! So awesome). I bought a rag rug and came home with plans for a new knitted sweater-coat for my girl, but now can't decide on a pattern. If you have an iPad, you can surf Ravelry while your kid draws all over the TV screen with a taper candle and you will barely notice! Ah, Monday. And a slightly cleared head. Both came just in time. We planned to rein it in. We walked to the grocery store and bought apples and cheese. I made lunch at actual noon and brushed my hair. Andy mowed the lawn. I drank orange juice and water instead of doing shots of Airborne and elderberry syrup. Amelia ate an entire sandwich. We're back. Here we are. And that was September.

***Somewhere in there, I also made African Chicken Peanut Stew? And, if you've hung around here for even a second or two, you've likely heard me bleat about my apple pie. . . .

Here, There, Everywhere comments: 67

Oh, it's a bit of a blur around here these days. In the past couple of weeks we went on our vacation, Andy's mom came for a wonderful visit (that's her with my mom and Meems), we saw The Avett Brothers not just once but twice (yeah, we accidentally showed up a night early [duh], and bought more tickets, then went back again the next night, and Aunt Susie was there too!), and now I'm getting ready to take off again: In a couple of days seven of my high-school girlfriends are coming to visit, and we're going to spend the weekend at the beach. It's the first time I'll be away from Amelia for more than a few hours. I know she'll do great, and I'll try to do great! I will try. I haven't seen my girlfriends in about ten years. Beyoooooooond excited.

Try this pasta. It was awesome. I added broccolini and a touch of cream. Good.

When I get home, bulbs. Tiny duffel coats. Smallish wool coats. New dresses. Autumn. We'll talk.

***Also — I keep forgetting to say — thank you so much for all of your kind and generous comments on my last post, and all of my posts this summer (and always). I truly appreciate them. Thank you.

Once More to the River comments: 110

Riverside: To wake up to birdsong and mist rising in clouds of steam. To go to bed to crickets sawing and bats swooping and the big moon rising above the trees. To make s'mores near the firepit after dinner and have first coffee on the grass with your feet wet with dew. To sand on the chairs and the creakiest decks in the world and banana slugs that make your stomach drop. To rocks covered in crusty crud, ospreys that circle silently overhead, fish that jump, and happy babies that love boat-rides by sea or land. I love rivers. Thank you for all these gifts this summer, our many lounged-by, loved, and lovely rivers. You were so, so, so very good to us. Thank you.

Honeygold comments: 123

Hasten, autumn. Bring your mellow yellows and your lowlights, your red leaves and blushing apples fallen into piles on the side of the road. They're already falling, and the fields are tinted russet, and dry. It's okay. The yards, my yards, have defeated me: the flowers, the pots, the hanging baskets, the watering — as usual, things have frizzled into colorless, wilting beggars, laced with spiderwebs from chair to pot to post every morning. I can't keep up. I cry uncle. I'd like to put the hose away, drain it for good and sit on the deck in my nightgown, nursing a big cup of strong coffee while Amelia throws blueberries into the yard, listening to birds make plans in the golden-leaved morning light.

The house is just as bad. Outgrown clothes, piles of catalogs I'll never order from, sofa cushions blobbing in every direction, pillows on the floor, sand-covered shoes in a heap by the door, dusty succulents on my windowsills, toys piled into bookshelves, books stacked next to the bed, half-filled bottles of shampoo and mismatched conditioner, slivers of gooey soap in the dishes, balls of yarn tumbling off of tables, stacks of fabric waiting to be cut, mail that hasn't been sorted in weeks, everything pushed into the centers of tables and counters to keep it out of the reach of a little girl who carries her mini-chairs all over the house and (quietly, looking back) stands on them, and reaches, reaches. There are only so many places to put things one shouldn't touch, and the things of summer, the sunglasses and sunscreens and sandals and beach towels and beach chairs and beach balls and pails and shovels and cups and water bottles, have filled every nook. I'd be happy for a good thunderstorm, and a cleaning lady, and a trip to Goodwill.

Instead, we go 'side. To the waterside. Woodside. Riverside. Fieldside. At sunset, where, in the relief of honey light, with a big baby girl heavy in your arms, it's nothing but beautiful. Where it washes over you, and makes you cry. Because it's August 23. It's been an incredible summer. I don't want it to end.

***The green cottage is my mama's house.

Quiet Colors comments: 58

At first I was thinking that these little dresses and the sweater I finished looked very springlike, palette-wise. But then we had a rare cloudy day, following by some  l o v e l y  sunny but cool days (oh sweet mercy, they are the rarest of beauties) and I realized that there's a quiet, silvery sort of beauty to the end of summer, when things are tufted and feathery and dried to a dusty powder that shimmers and floats. We've been outside so much these past few weeks, done so many things I can't even remember what, not the least of which has been spending every waking moment among the gardens and trees and leaves. This second wave of photos is the park where, a couple of years ago, the bagpiper came and honked us out on an afternoon much like the one we spent here last week. I have so many photos I've taken and haven't even posted. I've spent much more time outside than in. I've spent more time at rivers than I have at home. I've spent much more time rolling around on quilts with a big baby girl and our man, sand in my sandwich and sun in my eyes, than working. Is it any wonder, then, that the end of summer makes you teary, fluttering, a little melancholy. It's dark by 8:30, and someone had a wood fire burning in the neighborhood. The plums are hazed with dull plum blue. Our girl runs and falls and picks herself up and runs some more, dancing whenever she hears music playing (even a cell phone ringing), feeling at home now in the water and sand, carrying a green maple leaf like a flower. Soon, soon it will be autumn-leaf pink instead of green.

***The blue dress is my knock-off version of this one (I like the original better than mine; it's wider, and I like the flatter sleeve cap); the pink sweater is my finished Lottie; and the smocked dress is a little bishop dress I made based on this pattern, but I'm not that happy with it because I think it's too full, and there are so many pleats that you really can't see the smocking. I think I've done enough of them now that next time I'm just going to make up my own measurements. I'm very picky about this.

Days of Sun comments: 73

At the end of a beautiful road lies the ocean. We wind through the fields and the forest while she sleeps. Ryan Adams, cinnamon buns, sunlight flashing through the trees. The road twists through the hills, dipping and bobbing. In the back of the car, quilts and pails, sand and sandals, a striped tent and four bottles of sunscreen. This summer it's been the days in between the days at the water. Our girl grows bigger and braver and more beautiful in each moment, in each summer afternoon, the world opening before her and before me and him through her. It's all new. It's never been seen before, not by me, each moment a marvel to me, this second childhood that is the first childhood I only dreamed of as a child. How blessed we are, how monumentally blessed. She hands me her barrettes, her bunny, her blueberry, her sticks, her stones, her seashell, a coffee stirrer she picks up out of the sand, her eyes as bright and deep blue as the ocean. Thank you, my lovey. Thank you and thank you and thank you, my dear, sweet lovey. For each and every one of these precious and bright and incredibly beautiful little-big things.

Riverside comments: 57

Even I, the woman with the highest tolerance in the world for listening to herself complain, got sick of hearing myself complain. I (finally) decided that if I couldn't beat 'em, I'd join 'em. At the river. It was a perfect day. (And, I swear, it was also ten degrees cooler there.)

Oxbow Park
July 29, 2014

(For those who have asked, her "swimming costume," as I like to call it, is from J. Crew.)

Summer Breeze comments: 83

In the dappled shade Amelia and I walk up and down the streets near our house. We're trying to stay in the shade; it's so hot, but we just have to get outside. She's in her stroller with her bare legs curled up, keeping them in the shade of the stroller hood. She has a gigantic, larger-than-lifesize photographic kitty-pillow that she clutches, faced-out towards passersby. Trippy Kitty's eyes are slightly wild. People look amused as we walk by with the giant, real-looking kitty. Mimi's hair is going in every possible direction. I'm drinking the biggest iced coconut chai you've ever seen. Four p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Bees buzzing the lavender. A guy trimming his spent roses. The baseball game on the radio in a yard. "Mommy?" "Yes, miss?" "Da?" Points at a tattered flag. "Flag!" "Mommy?" "Yes, ma'am." "Da?" Points at a swing in someone's yard. "Swing!" Why are fruit-filled trees so poignant? They almost make me want to cry.

July is dressed up and playing her tune. At the pool, there was no usual whining, no refusal to get further than one centimeter into the water, no running around the pool deck taking other peoples' shoes (while frantically signing "shoes"), no eating soggy popcorn from under the table where someone had a birthday party earlier that day. There was just the three of us, floating dreamily in the middle of the pool near the lane lines. Rare peace at the pool. She pushed her legs out behind her and kicked while Andy pulled her around. I floated on my back, pointing my toes just above the water. It was cold and clear. I tried not to get water in my eyes because it makes my contacts burn like hell. She doesn't mind splashing herself in the face (much), but she doesn't like being splashed by anyone else. What do you do when it's someone's dad dunking his kids and bouncing beach balls off their heads? The teenage lifeguard looked mildly uncomfortable. The kids, naturally, were delighted. All day long she tells them to stop standing on the baby-pool fountain. Now it was their big dad making the thing explode in an enormous plume when he slid his rump off the jet, a (naughty) kid again himself for the day. She didn't have the heart to scold and, in my mind, neither did I. Summer's so short. It's so hot. After an hour of playing with a cup or being carried by her dad through the water visiting the big-kid territories, Amelia came back to the zero-depth area and, by herself, trudged carefully toward the fountain, a frothy stack of water burbling out of the sparkling shallows. Gently, she ran her hands through its spray, soft and aerated, foamy white. She reached further in, held her hands deep in the core of the plume. We resisted the urge to follow her, to show her, to show her something . . . more. It's so hard not to, somehow. So hard to remember just to hang back and watch sometimes. She played there for a long time. I watched her serious face, and tried to memorize the moment. It was the best day we've had at the pool all summer, and when it was time to go I didn't want to go.

Back at home, we're trying to find a rhythm — working, sleeping, cooking, playing. It's been harder than usual lately and I don't know why. I'm often filled with frustration about the weather, wanting to do things outside that it's just been too hot to do (have a picnic on the sunny, scorching flats of Powell Butte, for instance; sit in the dried-up clover above the beach on Sauvie Island and look at the mountain at dusk). Our day ends early because it starts so (incredibly) early, so I often feel that we miss the cooler, quieter evenings. Well, sigh. I'm thinking we should get one of those craft-fair tents and take it everywhere we go. Maybe a portable mister, with a canister I could wear on my back and a misting wand to shoot directly toward my face, or matching umbrella hats. I've got problems.

I saw this vanilla honey iced tea lemonade on Pinterest yesterday and I think I'll make some later.

***Oh, and — her blue dress is Albertine. Have I ever loved a little dress so much? No. I don't think so!!! Sleeves are a bit big  — the whole thing's still a little too big — but tooooo cute. Love it!

Silver Stars comments: 99

It is unexpectedly (at least to me) pouring rain as I write this morning, and so dark in the house I can hardly see. Oh, sweet mercies!!! I'm sitting in the studio, looking out into the garden, which, in spite of being sopping wet, still seems parched and yellow with defeat, my potted plants a sallow tangle on the steps. More than any particular date on the calendar, summer seems to turn from waxing to waning when the blossoms are spent and the soil runs just a bit too dry in my container plants, when I've missed one-too-many too-hot days of watering, when things go from lush to lank and I stand dumbly by, too air-conditioned and mommy-fried to make a move to rescue. It's a shame, really, this particular fulcrum up and over which I never quite seem to get, this see-saw that only sits, end planted in the dusty grass, me heavy upon it, praying for rain. Mid-July and me, both, stuck in the inertia of white-hot air. This morning — Hallelujah! — I get my wish, and wake to the sound of silver showers plinking and tapping, a cool breeze teasing my white curtains, Mimi in the bed between us, signing rain and wind. Ah, all my joys, all here, all here.

Our weekend was short and sweet (and hot). We got lots and lots of berries, explored a historic farm, stopped at the river, went to the pool, walked downtown. I made more fish, following Molly's lead in making stone-fruit salsa (I used peaches and a mango) and whipped cream for all of the sweetest-ever raspberries (I didn't know they could ever be that sweet actually — the sweetest I've ever had). We've eaten bags of Rainier cherries, boxes of blackberries and blue. This is the wonder of July, for me. The berries are insane. It takes only a minute to whip the cream and there you go, best treat ever.

Our girl glows like a peach, looking more and more like her gorgeous birthmama every day, her expressions and her sly humor and her independence blossoming like a summer flower. Her confidence, her seriousness, her curiosity, her kisses, and, more than anything, her loving sweetness, her gentle touch, patting her dolly's back, kissing her dolly, every toy, in fact, the cars and the books and the cups, patting my back, running the tippy-tips of her fingers lightly on my cheek, looking at me with her sparkling navy-blue eyes and her half-smile. Her burgeoning independence fascinates and delights me. She's quietly mischievous and blatantly (and hilariously) honest, alerting me to the fact that she's standing, belly-out, on the sofa, touching the hanging pendant lamp (no-no),  holding the clicker (no-no), eyes always sparkling, daring me to see her though I'm sitting right there, and see her just fine. "Mommy?" Eyes wide. Touch touch, pendant lamp swings. Aw, no-no, baby I say with my "you know this" voice. "No-no," she mimics, signing no twice and raising eyebrows as if it were I who touched the lamp, dumped the mail, turned on the TV. When I got my new glasses she'd come toward me on the bed with such a look of love in her sparkly eyes, getting closer and closer, I'd be smiling hugely back, flattered, thrilled, then whoosh — she'd grab the glasses right off my face in a flash, with a smile. She brings me all the things she's not supposed to have: a rock in the house, a quarter, my wallet, a pencil. "Mommy?" Holding them out to me. Andy and I think she's very tongue-in-cheek in her photos, a little bit dramatic, a little ironic. I scoop her off the sofa and tip her backwards, bury my face in her belly as she laughs. Later, as she starts to nap, I strum the tender inside of her elbow and she answers with a milky chortle, and gently strokes the back of my hand with her fingertips. Our call and response. Every day she is unfolding. I watch and marvel, hardly able to speak, squeezing my lips to the back of her soft arm. This incredible person. This privilege. My stars, my stars. My cup runneth over. My heart overflows.

Hot and Bright comments: 91

It's been kind of a challenging week, and I don't even know why. I feel like I have a million things to say but no time to say them, here or in real life. I'm whirling and scattered, and trying to keep track. To simplify, I apparently started to do the same things over again — same clothes, same dinner, same places. I like that. Eliminate the variables when possible. The heat last week was ravaging. I felt like I was in survival mode. Yesterday it broke with beautiful rain, beautiful thunder, beautiful lightning, more beautiful rain, beautiful gray clouds, beautiful purple clouds, and me, sitting on the back porch sobbing with relief. But today the sun is back, bright and flashing, and I, though rejuvenated, am wary: 99 degrees forecasted for tomorrow. We've been meeting friends in the park in the morning, or heading back down to farmer's market on Saturday mornings to sit in the shade of the big trees, or spending a lot of time at the pool and the fountain (water water water. I love you water).

The knitting project above is my little Artichaut, and she has given me fits, as well. I'm almost finished with her and I'll be glad. I knit her while watching this other cool British show I found on YouTube (I think it was recommended because I liked Restoration Home) called Turn Back Time: The Family. It's one of those shows where they re-create historical environments and the put people in them to "live" within history; this one follows three families through the Edwardian era, the Interwar years, the Second World War, the 1960s, and the 1970s (I haven't seen the last one yet). It was really good. In one of the episodes they mentioned the book Swallows and Amazons, which I realized with a jolt I've still never read (so I promptly got it). And that reminded me of the Summer Reading Booklist for kids that you and I put together four summers ago now. This list was made entirely out of Posie Gets Cozy reader suggestions. Do you remember it?

(Just click on the illustration to download the list.)

I'd completely forgotten about this list. I found it and printed it out the other day and was so delighted that Amelia is the perfect age for me to start keeping it for her. We already read several of the little-kid books on the list together every single night. But I'm going to start collecting and reading all of the older-kid classics on the list, and creating a special shelf to hold all of these for her for when she gets older. I am so excited. I also pulled out my dear friend Jane's book, Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer: A Golden Treasury of Classic Treats, and thought I would try to read the list of titles she includes, as well (and of course we'll have to make some treats, too!). I've kind of needed a project like this, honestly. Something to focus me! And maybe I'll be done by the time she starts reading.

I also finished Kristin Lavransdatter: The Wreath. This book blew me away. I don't even really know how to tell you about it. The last fifty pages or so of this book are some of the best I've ever read in my life. It reminded me of James Joyce's The Dead (though it's completely different, but if anyone's read both of these, do you know what I mean?). My heart was in my throat as I finished this book. It was very intense. I picked up the second book of the trilogy but haven't started it yet. You'd think I had a lot of time to read or something?!? I don't.

Do you like fish tacos? I used the baked fish parcel method from Apples for Jam: Cover some cod filets in panko and a bit of Mexican seasoning (you can slice a few limes and place on top, too), drizzle with a bit of olive oil, then wrap in parchment and bake at 400 degrees (either with indirect heat on the grill or in the oven) for 20 minutes. I added some of my dad's coleslaw, a little bit of sour cream with chipotle sauce stirred in, and some big chunks of avocado, and these were just perfect for a hot summer night. Andy made a really nice Mexican bean salad (but he used fresh corn, and I would definitely recommend that!).

Thank you very, very much for all of your kind comments on my last post. You are so good to me. Thank you. Xoxo