Clackamas County Fair 2015 comments: 69

It's always the best. I think it's my favorite day of the whole summer, the one we spend at the Clackamas County Fair.  We saw sheep and cows and bunnies and cavies and pigs and alpacas. We ate kettle corn and strawberry shortcake and too much terrible lemonade. We said no to hot tubs, monster trucks, sunglasses, and hippie bags and yes to bubble guns, arrowheads, and cowgirl hats. We listened to a really young guy sing an Eagles medley, and some really old guys sing river songs. We dipped candles, gazed at lady spinners, watched blacksmiths, listened to a harpist, played the drum, and went in a teepee. We sifted corn, rode tractor-trikes, were mad because we weren't tall enough to go on the bears, were happy because we were tall enough to go on the cars, and danced on the midway. We washed our hands a lot. We heard what animals sound like. We talked a lot about Old Man Donald (i.e.: Old McDonald). We congratulated 4-H-ers and never made it into the jam and jelly, vegetable, or cake exhibits. My baby rode a pony and I cried. For goodness' sake. It was just the best day.

Here are our other trips to the fair:
2014
2013
2011
2010
2009
2008

***The white dress Amelia is wearing here was made by my mom for me when I was her age. I'm not sure what pattern exactly but it looks a lot like (vintage) Simplicity 6184. . . . And unfortunately, I know the moccasin man doesn't have a web site. We had his card once a long time ago but don't have it anymore, I'm sorry. You just have to go to the fair! ;)

Still Summer comments: 116

Wah! Here, there, and everywhere. Often in the kitchen. I'm surprised, with all the shopping, cooking, and cleaning, and the broken dishwasher, there's been time to go anywhere, seriously. And yet, I have a moment every single day where I ask myself, "Can what I'm about to do wait until fall?" And if the answer is yes (and it's almost always yes, though I'm so anxious for it), we go back outside. These days. There is so much to do. Andy's two-week vacation starts today, and we are staying home this time. Already, most of the days are accounted for. I picture myself running around a track, knock-kneed, arms flailing wildly; I cross the finish line, and fall dramatically to the ground then do a really fast volleyball roll where I land flat-out on my back, and then someone pours an entire bottle of water directly onto my face — and that's September. I bought Amelia her new yellow raincoat and she put it right on. It's very wishful thinking but we girls can dream. We had one lovely, rainy moment that we watched from the kitchen door and I tell you, no two-hundred-and-fifty raindrops and ten whole minutes were more appreciated in the history of the world.

THANK YOU thank you for all of the party hat kit (and pattern) orders. Thank you!!! Things started slowly but have been rollicking along, and I truly thank you. It's a weird time of year to be launching a new kit, but I have so many plans and projects coming up. I'm sort of just whacking at things and hitting them back over the net. But I'm so excited that these hat kits are out there, and I hope you like making them. I'm already working on stuff for Amelia's birthday in October (that embroidery project above, which will be a quilt, bumped the log cabin out of the queue, and that's now planned for Christmas). I absolutely love where her birthday falls in the year. I think it would be my favorite day of the year anyway, but this is the first special occasion we've ever had that falls in October, and wow, what a treat.

Is this not an insane amount of cooking above? Agreed. And much of it repeated recipes, which I'm finding is, as you mentioned, the way to go. I'm ridiculously happy with how this is all going. Above please find blueberry custard pie (without the streusel this time and just a sprinkle of demerara sugar; much improved, in my opinion), chicken with peanut sauce and ginger rice (and steamed broccoli; and I have made a LOT of peanut sauces, and this one is my favorite by far), Sarah's quinoa salad with tequila shrimp added, my dad's Chili Lobo, and another round of blackened fish tacos (which I now make regularly, baking the tilapia in parchment paper at 400 degrees F for twenty minutes, and serve with my dad's coleslaw, avocado, and mango). Amelia and we are in negotiations for a big-girl chair, so she can sit at the table and not be in the high chair. I have mixed feelings about this, as it will change dinnertime from what is now a pretty relaxing scene (because she is fully restrained in her high chair, and seems rather content to be once she is actually in it) to one where she constantly wants to leave the table (cue ensuing negotiations, etc.). She may be ready but I'm not sure I am. Especially with all this 4:00 p.m. cooking, I really can't even express how much I love collapsing into my chair for dinner knowing that she's happily strapped in, unable to destroy anything else. We successfully negotiated the stop-throwing-your-dishes thing (which was a big problem here); I used my Parental Reverse Psychology on her (yay!) and bought a bunch of Very Fancy china salad plates and bowls at Goodwill ($1 a piece, cheaper than plastic, quite frankly), explaining that she now had her own set of Very Fancy Dishes and needed to take care of them, and could not throw them, drop them, fling them, or otherwise. Weirdly, this totally worked. She carries them in to me after dinner as if walking a petri dish across a crowded lab — very, very carefully (she assures me). I make a big deal over this, and she is proud. And I am so proud of her. Any advice for the chair?

Also, yes, I should advise you that I intend to fully embrace the whole toddler bento phenomenon when she starts playschool two mornings (including lunch) a week next month. Whaaaaaa? What is happening here?!?! How have I never heard of such a thing? It's too adorable. I'll now be spending approximately all of my free time in the kitchen cutting stars out of cantaloupe and piercing hotdog bites with dry spaghetti. I can't wait.

***Garter scarf to go with new toddler raincoat. Not at all impressed with my edges or weaving in of ends. May rethink concept, or actually Google proper way of doing this. Go through back loop on first stitch? You can't slip it, when changing colors? . . .

***Her coat is from here.

August comments: 55

August. Dry and irritated and fragile with longing. I was in the back yard this morning, shuffling like a shaggy bear through dead leaves, pawing my way through gossamer cobwebs connecting every object in a fine lace of shimmering silk threads. Everything is so, so dry. Everything is in the wrong place; the chairs are all at odd angles, the table tilted and shoved. There are overturned pots on the patio, toys filled with dust and dirt, broken saucers, sizzled stalks, lanky flowers. Two dirty washcloths left outside for weeks. Cups crusty with the remains of juice. Crushed sidewalk chalk, colorless leaves, apples fallen with wormholes the size of pennies. The hydrangeas, of which there are many and of which half are so parched they are dying, are dramatic in their need for attention, and still they suffer from my neglect. Some of them have some kind of bug that wraps itself in a little white pod, and slowly sucks. Some, the ones that climb the walls, are covered from head to toe in the sepia-brown remains of their once-white flowers, a wall of sepia-brown. Things have been let go. Once they start to go, my instinct is to flee. If only some water would fall from the actual sky! To the river we go.

Amelia has begun a new phase; I hold my breath while thinking this. It seems that she can now play by herself for long stretches, her own imagination occupying her for hours, in fact, especially at the rivers. Who knew this would happen? Everybody? Not me. She's still pretty much playing parallel to other children that are around, but she likes to be near them, easily sharing her toys and easily asking to use others', interested in what the bigger kids are doing, very concerned if any of the littles cry. But these stretches of play are suddenly so much longer, so much more interesting to her, so much more involved. I watch in fascinated admiration, listening to her made-up voices and made-up conversations between rocks and cups, sticks and sand. She squats and stirs and talks and trills. I sit half-deep in the cold river and try to breathe as deeply as I can. It's been years since I was able to sit for a long stretch, and it turns out you don't forget how. My whole body sinks with relief, warming a thin layer of water around me. I don't move at all, just let the green water run slowly past me, downstream, away from the sun. The most beautiful day in the world, right here.

There have been clouds. Some. I sang a rain song and she asked to put on her rainbow coat. There was no rain. But there could have been. I felt it. Sweet promise. These pictures are mostly from the front yard, which has benefitted from the sprinkler and some of my capricious attention. Andy's taking Amelia to the museum and making dinner (Indian) tonight. Today I'm staying home. I just want to be here, clipping hydrangeas and dragging the hose from place to place. I think it will be really nice when they get back.

For your dinner, might I recommend a fish sammie, or some yum woon sen?

Down Home comments: 59

So, naturally, all we ever do is eat now, with occasional trips to some kind of water and some kind of summer reading. NOT BAD.

It's very good.

There has been: Homemade pizza dough and sauce from one of my all-time-favorite cookbooks, The River Cottage Family Cookbook; another very excellent pasta dish with prosciutto and peas from Barilla; possibly the best pork carnitas tacos I have ever had, let alone made — done in the SLOW COOKER, to boot! My history with the slow cooker basically sucks (you might remember the Alicia-slow-cooker-disasters of a few years ago), but I'm not kidding — this stuff was beyond good. I did everything exactly how that recipe said, and served the tacos with really good thick, home-style tortillas (can't remember the brand, but I think they're new, they have cursive writing on the package), minced red onion, diced avocado, diced mango, and a few blobs of sour cream (go for Wallaby, if you can find it, oh my). Squeeze of fresh lime over all. My gosh. Reason alone not to take the slow cooker to Goodwill.

I've been so lucky with my recipes lately. I also made this blueberry custard pie. It was delicious, though a bit heavy on the streusel topping for my taste. Next time I make it I might even leave that off; it looked so gorgeous when I took it out of the oven to put the streusel on (you bake it for twenty minutes before to put the streusel on) I almost didn't add it. It kind of overpowered the more delicate custard and blueberry flavors, for me. But still, seriously not complaining, it was very good. And some of those blueberries came from our little bush.

I got a huge stack of young-adult library books for myself from our downtown library the other day. They have a ton of vintage books in the children's department. I actually had, like, a bit of an emotional moment back there. It's just trippy to see these actual copies of books I read as a kid in the 70s and 80s. They have tons of them! I've never thought too much about time travel before, but I think I just did it. . . .

I have so many library books checked out right now it's just silly. Meems and I have gone to a different branch every other week or so this summer. We've hit Belmont, Hollywood, Woodstock, NW 23rd, North Portland, and Central (downtown). Central is my favorite so far. Mimi's still a little too young — she prefers playing with the toys there, or pulling all of those plastic alphabet separator things off of the shelves, or just pulling books off the shelves and throwing them on the floor in general. Or pulling the special library tape off of the special library-book dust jackets. I've had to ask a couple of librarians to give her a little speech about not damaging the books and she takes that very seriously. When she forgets and starts to pull the tape off a cover at home I say, "Remember what The Lady said about not pulling off the covers of the library books?" And she gets this wide-eyed "oh yeah!" sort of look on her face, and stops, remembering what The Lady said. But she's also at the great age where we can now pretty much read any book and she will sit still and listen, and help finish sentences. (Isn't it incredible, what they remember?) We read five or six and sometimes up to nine or ten books a night. For a long time she would reject half of any new ones I introduced, preferring to read the same ones over and over. But now, at almost three, she's down with all of it, and my heart trills with joy. I could read all night.

Speaking of books, try Hemp Masters: Ancient Hippie Secrets for Knotting Hip Hemp Jewelry (I say this with a straight face) if you want to make a micro-macrame necklace like mine. I got it a few years ago and made myself a necklace then (here's a picture, no pattern). I wore it so much it broke (they eventually break). I've wanted another one ever since but just never around to it, even though I still had all of the hemp and beads and stuff. I used 42 feet of 10lb hemp cord (like this) and some small wooden and stone beads for one necklace. I pretty much looked at the book to learn how to do the knots but I couldn't seem to follow the patterns. So I just started going, figuring that when I got down to about 8.5" I would place my center bead, and then mirror what I had done (square knots, switch knots, pretzel knots, half knot sinnets — these are all in the book). I've done most of it at night while watching my favorite show, Ice Lake Rebels. I'm almost finished (probably tonight) and I'll add the lobster clasp (bites nails — a little nervous about finishing it off properly, stay tuned).

And, yeah, I'm also making a plastic needlepoint canvas log cabin for my daughter's third birthday. Because I cannot help myself.

Eighteen XOX comments: 58

Thank you EVER ever ever so much for all the Cooking Things and meal-planning advice! Awesome. I haven't even had a chance to check everything out, but seriously, I am inspired and excited. Yesterday I thoroughly cleaned out the two big cabinets in the kitchen (baking supplies, cans, pasta, oils, etc.). It really wasn't as bad as I thought. It just needed some TLC, which, admittedly, not much other than this big, beautiful baby girl has gotten over the past three years. I left her in the living room to her own devices most of the day yesterday while I cleaned. Seriously, she was psyched. I think she's at the perfect age to have a little less attention. She built a dolly high-chair fort, spread out every single ponytail holder and barrette we had (oh, soooo many), dumped entire baskets of Fisher Price and Calico Critters people/cars/animals all over the room, took out all the shoes and boots in her basket, took out all the hats and scarves and mittens in her other basket, rode the neighbor's electronic fire engine, watched Charlie and Lola, ate her weight in fresh fruit, "read" her magazine, had a fit when I wouldn't give her any more bubble-tea straws, and made block towers. I made breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was exhausting, all that cooking, and cleaning up after all that cooking, but pretty cool (especially since today I have everything we need). We almost never just stay home all day, ever (well, we did take a walk up to the grocery store). But anyway, it was a good day (possibly because it was also cool and cloudy and so wonderfully gray out), and I am feeling excited. After she went to bed (passed out at 6:45, actually), I added more recipes to my Paprika app, and that thing is AWESOME. More on all of this as I get more organized. But again, thank you for the commiseration and encouragement. I really needed it! I was so overwhelmed. But even in just a couple of days I've gone from panicked to pretty excited, which is so nice (for once).

Also so nice: Being married eighteen years last Sunday to my true love. Celebrated at the river, right where we started going so many long years ago, talking talking talking, then and now, and dreaming our dreams together (then and now). Driving home through the woods, sandy baby (miracle baby) sleeping in the back seat, Joan Armatrading on the radio, sun flashing hot through the trees. All I need. It's everything.

***We didn't build them, but the rock formations pictured are called cairns. Interesting and lively (as they say) debate here about them to be found here. 

Haystack Rock comments: 91

It's only an hour or so away, but it feels like a million miles. What you don't get from pictures is the smell of the ocean and the sound — the incredible volume! — of the waves. It's loud. It feels like the edge of the world. The air is always moving. Everyone is there, and everyone is so happy. The sound of children all around, and the waves, and the birds. We arrive at low tide, and walk all the way to the rock. Amelia screams and points when she sees kites. She draws a face and carries shells. She runs and runs and runs, a little tiny run, only inches per stride, around and around. Carrying buckets and dodging waves. The water flashing silver under gray skies. Fish and chips and a caramel apple. Flowers along every fence and saltwater taffy. Home by sunset, with a sleeper in the backseat and Ryan Adams on the radio. These loves. You forget how extraordinary the ordinary can be. I absolutely love Cannon Beach.

Her first time. Second time. Those were from last summer with Amelia and Andy. This one is from my trip with the girls last September. Awesome place. I want to go back again.

***Yep, that's my Ramona cardigan! And her swimming costume (as we call it) is from J. Crew.

Berry Hot comments: 76

Meems and me to Smith Berry Barn, Hillsboro, Oregon; July 8, 2015.

Yes, that's string cheese in the candle holder, "just like Mommy's."

Her dress, made here, exactly five years ago. Never, never, never give up.

Hello, Heatwave comments: 57

We alternate between pool and air conditioning. The air feels, as they say, like a blanket. I know exactly which kind of fluffy wool blanket, too. Soft and thick and pale gray and vaguely fuzzy. Water, water everywhere. My yard absolutely feels like August, not June. It's dry, and there are things blowing around, dry things. There are plums already falling, and smashing, and smearing the front sidewalk and the stairs. There is brown grass and brown plants. But we have apples, for the first time, in the backyard. The Cox's Orange Pippin tree we planted I don't know how many years ago — it has apples the size of billiard balls on it, and that's a first. Usually they all fall to the ground when they're the size of golf balls. I don't know why in either case. The climbing hydrangea on the garage wall, once lush and so green it didn't look really, looks like it's hanging on for dear life now. Sigh. This is too hot.

Strangely, with the heat, over the weekend we had clouds. Don't let them fool you; it was still hot as a gray blanket. At the pool our girl is so happy, and so are we. We might have been there four or five times this week. I think I was born to be a pool bum. I think I was actually born to be a ski bum, believe it or not, but oh, right now, I love the pool so. Not that there's much bumming with a two-year-old (well, there is for Mama when Daddy's there). When he's there, I sit in the shallow water and never want to leave. My tolerance for pool time has always been high.

Back in the studio, I have an idea. Usually I have a lot of ideas and no time to work. Yesterday I had all day to work, and a bunch of party hats burst forth. So weird how that happens. I was going to do something else, actually. But then, these came out. I try to go with it. I'm thinking kit, actually. No ribbons on the hat, but elastic instead. Off to find the right kind. And poms to top.

Oaks Park comments: 51

First time at the amusement park! Cautious but confident. Went around the merry-go-round three times. Went down the big slide three times. Won two donuts and a star. Shining eyes, up for everything, so happy with what she finds of the world. and the summer. Choo-choo! Xoxo

Oaks Park, Father's Day, June 21, 2015.
One of the best days ever. I love it there.

Sunshine comments: 113

Days alone with a toddler are really hard to describe. I don't know why. They're some of the absolute most exhausting and absolute most sweet days I've ever had in my life. In between those two extremes are a lot of utterly prosaic hours — the taking off of boots that are on the wrong feet; the cleaning up of water that gets carried in a soap dish to the bed; the picking up of hundreds of thousands of barrettes, doll shoes, blocks, puzzle pieces, wooden dogs, sippy cups, pieces of tape, felt pancakes, tiny saucepans, wooden boats, baby sweaters, Matchbox cars, bunny stickers, little socks, plastic wolves, and ponytail holders; the pitting of cherries and slicing of apples; the changing of diapers; the braiding of hair that's halfway down her back; the practicing of arabesques on alternate legs; the learning to skip; the learning to spin; the strapping into car seat covered in crackers; the grabbing of soy sauce bottles as they're about to be flung; the grabbing of almost everything as it's about to be flung; the recapping of markers left on the floor; the wiping of chin; the drying of tears; the putting on of Hello Kitty Band-Aids; the smothering with kisses; the getting of hugs; the taking off of pants put on backwards; the washing of dishes; the popping in of Charlie and Lola DVDs when the sun starts to sink, and all I want is a half an hour to sit and stare at the sprinkler before dinner.

She's not a stay-at-home girl. Every day, we go somewhere: the library, the bookstore, the fountain, the park, the museum, the other museum, the mall, the pool, the playground, the river, the woods, the store, a friend's house, a restaurant. We go out. She's easy. She'll go anywhere, do anything. She likes places, and parties, and people. A diaper change in the back of the car, cold milk, and some dry clothes buy us hours. She sleeps on the way home. I listen to Elizabeth Mitchell radio on Pandora and try not to sob. Children's music. I had no idea. I can't even listen to this song without bawling. I've never cried more to any music than to children's music, usually in the car while she sleeps. I look at her face in the mirror. I drive slowly down through the woods. The sunlight flashes through the trees. The birds sing up above. I drive through downtown, with the buildings and people, then back over the shimmering river, and go through the Burgerville drive-through for a fresh strawberry milkshake. It tastes like every single dream I ever had, all come true at once.

Happy, happy, happy Midsummer to you. May it be filled with everything little and sweet. Xo