Bright Frost comments: 490

It's been cold again this week. Between that and remodeling people here it hasn't been easy to get outside but I'm so anxious for a walk in the woods I can't even tell you. I can't wait! Though I am loving the sun we've been having. I showed it to Amelia the other day from the back door and she flinched and scowled at it, thoroughly appalled! Like, "Ack, what is that??!" True Oregonian!!!

I think I mentioned that I was reading The Palace of the Snow Queen. I like it a lot but it is not light reading, really. Do you have any recommendations for easy, fun, fast reading? I think my choices last summer (spy and pretty heavy mystery novels) were a little too dark. I didn't really make it through anything. I'm looking for something — novels, I think, or maybe even travel non-fiction — that is lighter and funnier and just . . . relaxing and fun to read?

***Forgot — here is the Summer Reading Booklist for kids we (you and I) made a few years ago. The link was broken in the original post — sorry about that!

Cold. Snap! comments: 203

Cold! I like it! It feels like winter! There was black bean soup, lasagnas, hot tea and cinnamon rolls, Andy-made risotto, and cupcakes. There was a crackling fire in the fireplace most days, and glowing sunsets, and scarves and gloves, and I took one of my favorite pictures ever of Mt. Hood from the side of Mt. Tabor late Friday afternoon. Our amazing baby girl is three months old. She is such an incredible joy. Her personality is coming through more every day. She is very laid back (almost never cries), very cuddly, "talking" up a storm, smiling all the time, trying to figure out how to laugh (it comes out like a fake cough — so adorable), chewing on her hand, making us laugh with her funny faces and noises throughout the day, still sleeping throughout the night. Oh, girl. I love you so.

Bunnies, bunnies, bunnies. I have been sewing bunnies and bunny dresses and bunny boots. I have been tweaking my bunny pattern — changing things by millimeters, trying to get the bunny I want (you'd be surprised at how much very small changes in the pattern entirely change the personality of the bunny). I'm about to start Bunners #4 and I think I've almost got her to my liking. I have been having lots of conversations with Andy and Greta about making bunny kits (and a pattern). To that end, I've been sourcing materials and planning assembly and wondering how much time it will take us to wind a thousand tiny skeins of sport-weight wool yarn for bunny capelets. I've decided that the bunnies should be wearing Liberty peasant dresses. Obviously bunnies would wear Liberty peasant dresses! That only makes sense. More on the bunnies later. Slightly obsessed with the bunnies.

Tomorrow the construction starts on the upstairs cabinets. That will be loud and messy for a week. I'm excited about it but I can't wait until it's finished. I have looked at about five hundred rolls of vintage wallpaper (here and here and here) trying to pick out wallpaper for one wall of the bedroom. I like about a hundred of them. How do you choose, seriously. I don't know. They're quite amazing.

I saw Silver Linings Playbook over the weekend and I LOVED it so much. New favorite movie.

Wonderful Day comments: 241

Such a nice birthday! The weather was absolutely balmy. We went for a long walk around the neighborhood. I tried to make a cake just like this one, but I used  Cloudburst Frosting instead of the two frostings she recommended, and I think hers was much prettier! It tasted great, though. Andy made dinner for me. My mom and sister came for the morning. I got lots of lovely messages and cards and presents (though I can't imagine any better present than Amelia). Thank you for all of your kind wishes!!! It was a wonderful day.

I'm very tired! We had some construction here last week and through most of the weekend. All of the carpet came out of the stairwell and the upstairs landing and the guest room (which will be Amelia's room when she moves out of her nursery). Under the carpet was beautiful hardwood flooring that had been covered for many years. The contractor (Jozo of Euro Masonry) installed all of this gorgeous wainscoting through the stairwell, as well as trim around the stairs. It was a lot of work but he did an amazing job. I love it so much. Everything still needs to be painted (this white that you see is just the primer), and the stair risers need primer and paint. But it feels like this is how the stairwell was truly meant to be, and that feels really good. I love doing good things for this old house. Construction starts next week on the wall of built-ins and the window seat for Amelia's room. I'm really excited about it. I'll take more photos of the hallway once it's painted properly. The light in the house is incredibly dark — the skies are dark, the clouds are dark, the days feel quite dim from morning until night. I have so many little lamps and electric candles on throughout the day, from early morning until we go up at night. Ah, winter.

*Her bonnet is Little Heaume on Ravelry. I need to make an entry for that — sorry! Here is my link!

comments: 249

Mornings, noons, and nights. My girl and I are early risers. Up around 5 a.m. (which is when Andy gets up to go to work), I take my shower by Christmas-tree light, and bring my trusty coffee pot and my fake candle back up to bed on the tray. Then I wait for my lady to wake. When she does, I go in and unwrap her from her swaddle and she smiles at me. Her big huge darling smile. (That's been happening for about a week. Still just can't believe she does that. It's my favorite moment of the day.) She unfolds her tiny arms and reaches up with her fists and down with her tiny toes and stretches everything. She makes her little blustering noises, tiny snorts and snuffles — it's hard to wake up. I say, "Good morning, my dear lady! What are we going to do today?" Then I pick her up and she buries her face in my neck and puts her warm hands on my chest. I kiss her neck where it's warm and soft (well, where isn't it warm and soft) and we linger here, only minutes (before she wiggles and yawps and calls for her breakfast), but for as long as she'll let me. The day begins. These lazy, busy, soft, warm, long, lovely, lovely days at the end of the lovely year with our sweet, funny, silly, snuggly, adorable, adorable, darling girl. I look into her beautiful navy blue eyes and make a wish.

***

Just a minute ago it was "snowing," small almost-flakes that Greta (miracle Posie assistant, who comes three afternoons a week and who has kept everything running like clockwork, running better than when I ran it myself, quite frankly) and I, both of us Midwestern girls, watched from the windows with pure longing. I can see why they call them flurries. Such a pretty and capricious word. The flakes swirled and fell, invisible as they hit the ground. Inside, we are cozy and keeping warm, piled under our various piles of calico, wool, and goosedown. We seem to have so many piles like that here. A pile for every room. We don't do much (well, dear Greta does, but the rest of us don't). Just sit, and snuggle, and drink, and sometimes rock in the rocking chair, maybe make some tea or hot chocolate, maybe watch Downton Abbey, maybe light a firelog or add some wood to one that's already flickering, and then go back to the downy pile. I like to turn all the sounds off and listen to the furnace sometimes. Last night, late last night, I finished The Long Winter. That book was awesome. I can't believe I'd never read it before. The scene where Almanzo and Cap are trying to make it back across the frozen slough with the sixty bushels of wheat and the horses keep falling through the snow? Ouf. The way she described Prince standing in the snow hole with his head down, waiting for Almanzo to help him again almost made me cry. MAN do I love pioneer lit. I still have to tell you about my other books. But I am so lazy.

New Year's Eve. A goodbye to the old year, even as everything here still seems so new. I still haven't really found the words to describe most of how I feel. Part of that is probably just plain old tiredness. I was generally worn out by the holidays when I didn't have a three-month-old baby. Part of it is (still) just plain astonishment. Even when I'm just thinking to myself, hearing my own voice ramble on inside me and not even trying to talk out loud, I'm still just mostly thinking, "I am astonished!" And that feeling looks like a big blue Montana sky.

Part of it is that gratitude just floods me moment to moment, and humbles me speechless. I think in prayers now, and I guess they have a language all their own.

I wish you a very, very happy and fun New Year's Eve, and a really wonderful new year.

Merry Bright comments: 244

*** Wishing you all a peaceful and joyous Christmas, filled with everything and everyone you love. ***

With much love and best wishes from us here,
The Paulson Family: Andy, Alicia, Amelia, Clover Meadow, and the Queen Bee

Decembery comments: 260

The past seven weeks have flown by like a team of reindeer racing through the night sky. Everyone said that would happen and everyone was so right. Amelia is so big and beautiful. Each day she is more like a baby and less like a newborn. Something else I didn't know about infants is how much personality they have, even in these early days. I laugh so many times a day at the funny things she does. She frequently seems to me as if she is auditioning for a play. The expressions that cross her face in rapid succession (we burst out laughing at how quickly they change) suggest that she is trying on every character in an already-vast repertoire of characters. There's happy baby, mad baby, worried baby, quizzical baby, curious baby, peaceful baby, hand-wringing baby (that's my favorite — the weensy hands wringing while she's sucking madly at her bottle as if it's the last bottle on earth), wise baby (that's little lips pursed into a perfect circle), silly baby, blissed-out baby, Maggie baby (that's sucking on her pacifier, like Maggie Simpson), I-got-this baby, which is all confidence and happens when she's holding her head up, and what-was-THAT! baby, when she sees something she just cannot believe.

Oh my dearest, sweetest dear girl. I spend hours sitting and just watching her breathe in my arms. She holds my finger. Her fingers play with my arm. I kiss her eyelids and trace snowflakes on her cheeks, wedge my nose into her warm neck. Sometimes I have to go out by myself to get some stuff done and then, alone in the car, driving my old familiar routes out to the post office, the fabric store, over the little mountain whose village-like view I like to treat myself to in every season, I usually cry a little bit, thinking about everything that came before, how hard it was, and how hard some things are, and how tender life is, for everyone. Everyone you meet. December, with its fog and dark trees, and delicate branches waving in the cold, and its white berries hanging heavy from wire-thin black branches waving in the cold, makes me feel soft and tearful. I wind the car through the trees. The cold air smells of cedar. The route is old but I am new. I hurry to return home even though I'm trying to go slow, to let myself go slow enough to feel it all, to settle into every mile of this journey. Every season of this life. This glowing, golden gift.

Winterlikes comments: 207

I like winter. I like wool socks and toasted oatmeal and the rocking chair in front of the fireplace and a warm little baby cheek on my chest. I like beeswax candles that smell like golden honey and glow through the evening. I like gray afternoon skies swollen with rain, and black birds that hop from fence to tree. I like nightlights that go on at dinnertime, and curry dinners that start early and end early, with Mexican hot chocolates at the end of them. I like travel shows about how Christmas is celebrated in other countries. I like piles of tiny wool undershirts and booties that don't fall off and baby blankets stacked in every room. I like tiny white lights that brighten every corner, and electric Swedish candles in every window. I like my pale gray flannel sheets. I like Medieval Christmas carols and a new stack of books about snow (I have this one and this one so far) on my night stand. I really like hours and hours of sitting with the baby in my arms, watching her tummy move up and down as she breathes, watching her rose-colored eyelids flutter as she dreams, feeling her fingers thread themselves through my fingers while she half-sleeps. I like tiny warm baby feet in my hand. I like little handmade stuffed-animals and dolls and little mice that wear sweaters and calico aprons. I like bunnies. I like plain white nightgowns with long sleeves. I like things with peppermint chips in them. I like Pillsbury sugar cookies decorated with buttercream frosting by kids. I like corgis that lean on you when they sleep, and stare longingly at you when they're awake. I like husbands that are great fathers. I like knitting with a baby asleep on my legs. And for the record, I like miracle snow, and if Brother North-wind wanted to send some this way this December, I'd do fifty pirouettes and faint with glee. Not that I want for anything at all, but . . . just saying.

*Her pink sweater and her Christmas dress, halfway done! I finished the stocking yesterday :) Yay!

'Tis the Season comments: 161

Over the river and through the woods to auntie's house we went this year, a beautiful Thanksgiving in a million different ways. I love how long Thanksgiving weekend is. You wake up the next morning and it feels like Sunday except that it's Friday. The weekend hasn't even started yet. It's so great.

I remember my mother always working on Christmas projects late into the night, trying to get them finished in time for Christmas. I totally get that now. I can't say I've ever understood that before, but I get it now. Because you have so many more ideas and so much less time. But I am trying to make two things I really love for Amelia this year: a knitted Christmas dress (which I will tell you about — I'll take another photo of it this week) and a Christmas stocking. I bought this pretty pattern from this cool Etsy shop, and had an idea to make new stockings for each of us using motifs from the sampler pattern. But in reality I might only get Amelia's done. We'll see. I guess I've never been much of a stocking person in the past, though I've made a lot of them. Andy and I haven't actually gotten any stocking stuffers for each other before, now that I think about it. I think that needs to change! :)

I'm making soup all by myself tonight so I need to run to the store. I can't believe I am this excited about going grocery shopping and cooking dinner. WOW. That's weird. I will let you know if it lives up to my skyrocketing expectations!!!

P.S. Her dress (and maybe I will get a pattern written for that someday), and her blue bodysuit :)

P.P.S. These smiles. Oh my stars up above! They light my world.

Settling Days comments: 262

Oh, really nice days. I still don't feel like we've quite settled in — still a lot of visits and a lot of activity at the house — but I think we're getting there. The days do go quickly, as everyone says. She is an incredibly happy, laid back, comfortable, and most placid baby. I'm constantly amazed at how at home she seems in the world. I think she's going to be one of those people. I've never really felt that way myself, so I recognize it when I see it: She lounges and cuddles and kicks and flails and stretches and sighs and, always, settles. Her tiny fingers grip my fingers. She relaxes into your arms so completely, big belly breathing, all heavy and sweet. She looks at me now with her beautiful almond-shaped eyes. In the mornings, we sit on the chaise-lounge and she stares at the big windows, up toward the trees. In the tops of the trees I see (I don't know what she sees) birds coming and going against the autumn-frosted sky. She lies on my legs and looks around at stuff and makes little noises, awake but calm. I really didn't know babies could be calm like that at this age. She seems so peaceful. And it gives me a great sense of peace, myself. My darling, darling girl. I am learning and changing every day. She is just beginning to smile a little bit. Every time she does it my heart soars across the universe. Whoosh.

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.