Languishing's Annual Holiday Gift Post

I know I can't include photos right now, but I can't bear to let you all face the holidays without Languishing's wisdom. I stand by most of my suggestions from years past, and in fact they offer many good ideas if you're stumped. Seriously. Who doesn't love pudding? (Oh, lactose intolerant people, I'm sorry). But perhaps you want STILL MORE Languid goodness. If so, here you go. Some bigger ticket items for the bigger ticket folk on your list.

1. A Hoover Windtunnel T-Series. I am not a brand-specific girl when it comes to most things. I take what I can get for free, and I use it until it falls apart. But last year for Christmas, Myra bought both Jess' house and my house new Hoover Windtunnels, because Consumer Reports rated it as high as a Dyson. That's right. A Dyson. And this model costs less than $100.

Our house only has one room with carpet, but it's the room in which we spend most of waking hours. Our old Dirt Devil did what I asked of it, on the rare occasions I asked it to, or so I thought. But once I opened the Windtunnel, I knew I'd never go back. It glides like an angel, is remarkably quiet, and picks up dirt that's been there, I assume, since before we moved in. I'm embarrassed to tell you how many times I had to empty the canister the first time I used it. But with such joy! What's not to love about a quiet, easy to use appliance that makes your house cleaner than you ever thought possible? I've totally drunk the good vacuum kool-aid, and it inspires me to clean other things. Really. I just love it so.

2. A Costco membership. Now, this doesn't make sense if there's no Costco in, say, a 75 mile radius of your home. But if there is, and if your recipient doesn't live alone or as a simply as a monk, consider a gift membership to this particular wholesale club. One just opened in West Fargo, and I love it very much. I also love the Costco business model, which pays employees a fairer wage than Sam's Club, offers much better health benefits, and their CEO makes what strikes me as a reasonable (but not obscene) amount of money. Costco offers great savings on electronics, fair savings on gas, milk, and bread, and things like an entire case of dried seaweed. You know, in case you're into that. Also, you can order your own casket, if'n you want. (Let me be clear: I am not advocating purchasing a casket for a holiday gift. That's even beyond Languishing's Code of Appropriateness).

3. An X-Box. My sister as a Wii, and I suppose she'd disagree with this, but I tell you, our X-Box is one of the most powerful electronics in our home. The one I've linked to is the Star Wars model (which we don't have, but V and I covet. A lot), but you could go simpler. You can run Netflix through it, play video games, listen to Pandora or Rhapsody, and we have a Kinect, which opens up the possibility of actually getting off our duffs and moving around.

4. V says I need to include a toy on this list. "All toys are good," she says. But she especially likes this Baby Alive, the brunette, "because she's brown and has brown hair." She's also a fan of the Lalaloopsy cult, er dolls. Just lots of love for toys in general here, I guess, is what we're getting at.

Well my loves, that's what I have for you. What's your favorite gift you've ever received? Or given?  How do you feel about your vacuum cleaner? Or about Baby Alive?

Summertime!

Grades went in on Monday, so today is my second official day of summer. I thought you'd like to share in the joy that is my to-do list.

Walk the girl to school: done.
Morning nap: done.
Clean the kitchen: contemplated.
Selfish thrift-store shopping: done. Sweet $3 red mary janes scored. Photos to follow.
Mow the backyard: done. I had to restart that poor mower four times, but I got it done.
Pick the girl up from school, walking the dog to and fro: done.
Clean the dining room: considered.
Make a tasty supper that somehow includes broccoli: done. Unanimously voted as tasty.
Sew myself a cute summer purse: done. Photos to follow.

It was a pretty great way to start my summer. Hope your day was full of things you like, too.

C is for cookie!

I wonder how many other people participating in the A to Z blogging challenge will choose cookie? It's certainly an obvious choice...yet I like the idea of writing about baked goods while getting a solid Sesame Street song stuck in my readers' heads.

A run down of my favorite cookies of all time.

Jumbos: often called chocolate jumbos, or Grandma's jumbos, these rolled out chocolate molasses cookies were my Grandma Beulah's trademark. She cut them with the doughnut cutter, and made a boiled frosting (called, surprisingly, Grandma's Frosting) with cream, and sugar to spread on top. My cousins and I would seriously eat these until we were sick: they epitomize Johnson family Christmas in so many ways.  My mom and sister and I try to make these at least once a year, but they are sooo labor intensive, and sooo addicting, that it's getting to be harder and harder. It's so much easier to make a simple powdered sugar and milk frosting for white cookies. But I swear the work it takes to make them is a huge part of why the jumbos taste so awesome.

Chocolate chip: Yeah, that's right. In a cliche post topic I pick the cliched American Cookie. We go all out here at Languishing. I like the recipe on the back of the Toll House package (remember that episode of Friends where Phoebe and Monica are trying to recreate Phoebe's grandmother's chocolate chip cookies? And Phoebe keeps saying "It's French. Some fancy French name!" And finally they figure out she's been pronouncing "toll house" with a French accent? Good times).  My junior year of college, I lived in a house called the Dollhouse (which doesn't really rhyme with Toll house, strangely), just across the street from campus, and my sister would come visit from the dorms and we would make batches and batches of cookies. She taught me to take them out of the oven early to make sure they were soft, and we watched TV while we waiting for those 9-11 minutes to pass. One of my fondest memories of that house.

Sugar: Oh, sugar. Like jumbos, these have to be rolled out to be really awesome, and I rarely have the counter space. But when I do, I love to make big old sugar cookies, usually in the shape of hearts, get them just browned the edges, and then frost them 'til I'm dizzy. I used to have this great old recipe for sugar cookie frosting that used alum and raw eggs, but I haven't made it since I used older (still edible! I swear!) eggs one time and the frosting ended up tasting like earthworms. Such a waste of a good batch of cookies. Jess and Mom and I like to frost sugar cookies with our kids at Christmas time, and let the kids run the sprinkle application. Everyone goes home happy.

I hope you've enjoyed my stroll through Cookie Memory Lane. What's your favorite cookie recipe?

"I come from a town, the kind of town where you live in a house 'til the house falls down, but if it stands up you stay there."

My mama has moved. If you go to her house in Hendrum, she can't make you waffles anymore. She's gone south, two blocks south and one block east, to the apartment house across the street from the church which is across the street from the elementary school. She'll probably make you waffles over there, though, if you ask nicely.

I get inordinately attached to places. I always have. But I was surprisingly cool with my mom leaving the house where I grew up. People are more important than things, of course, and moving is a good choice for her. The house is heated with fuel oil, which can cost her up to $400 a month in the dead of winter. That's insane. And she swears it hasn't had a new roof since the late 1970s. The garage needs to be painted again, and the basement gets a little water (or more) every spring. Add in property taxes and home owner's insurance, and it's cheaper for her to rent (I blame Tim Pawlenty, but that's not the point right now).

To top it off, she never chose this house. My dad came home one day when she was 8 months pregnant or so with Jess and said "I bought us a house. It's next door to my mother." And Myra's been there since 1974.

So here we go. Bear with me on a little nostalgia, a little history, and a lot of photos, won't you?

 Above, a corner of the bedroom Jess and I shared for most of our childhood (here it's acting as Myra's craft room). The walls were unfinished, but Dewey had the materials to do the finishing, so we and our friends were allowed to draw on the walls (in crayon, marker, whathaveyou). The stroke (and skillful procrastination, earlier) kept the panelling from ever going up, and we just kept writing on the walls.

 Below, sorry for the blurry photo, but it's all I got: in high school, a couple of talented friends painted me a zodiac mural. I love it, and slept under it for years. The unfinished pine below the mural was part of built-in storage Dewey had framed up before the stroke.

 A copy of the first money I ever made for writing poetry. $10.

 A wall in the hallway that became my room, then Jess', when we couldn't stand sharing a room anymore. My dad had a way of using up scraps, and this flowered paneling is evidence.

See how worn the wood is here? All the edges smoothed off. My grandfather built this house & my grandmother's house next door (with his brother? I can't remember who helped him) with wood from the original Hendrum School, torn down in 1925.

 This photo doesn't do the stairs justice. Most people find them the steepest steps they've ever climbed, but the stairs at my grandmother's are even worse. Ours are uncovered wood, though, and falling down the stairs takes on a whole new aura of danger when you can get a sliver in your butt.

 One of my first household chores was washing these steps, edge to edge. I've been slacking lately, as you can see above...

Above, the hallway on the way upstairs. I love that wallpaper. Actually, I think it might be contact paper. I remember when my mom put it up, when I was very very small.

The stairwell coat-hanging area. My dad built that red shelf. This is the wall he had to cut into when I was six and Bambi, my elderly hamster, got out of her cage and scratched here until my dad woke up and decided he'd have to find her or not sleep until she died.

 Above and below: my mom's kitchen. After Dad's stroke, we had to add on a bedroom and make the kitchen wheelchair accessible, but the house was still not really "hers." A few years ago (7? 8? I forget), Jess and I gave her a kitchen makeover with the help of our friend Carla and other sneaky collaborators. We did a mosaic on the backsplashes, painted and all those fancy things.

 Below, the only window in what was my parents' small bedroom. After the addition, it became a piano room, and after the piano, it became a guest room. In the mid-90s, Myra decided she wanted a room with floor to ceiling fabric on the walls, and this was the winner. It's hard to tell, but this room is yellow with white lace trim.

The front door, inside the porch. I will always remember the feel of that doorknob. My uncle Harry added the deadbolt after my dad's stroke. Before the stroke, we never locked our doors.

Below, the hallway to the backdoor and the basement. Isn't that gingham wallpaper awesome?  

 The light to the basement is up above the stairs, and when I was too small to reach it, I would lay on the landing, stick my arm through the spindles, and flip it on from above. I tried this method again when I was seventeen and almost got stuck there permanently. See the ledge above the stairs, to the right in the photo? That was a favorite place to hide puzzle boxes to keep guests from "cheating."

 The view from the back entryway. That green carpet used to go all the way through the kitchen.

Our little house on the prairie. We'll miss it, but not too terribly much. It was a pretty good place to grow up, overall.

  

*I have another post on this subject, but this was getting ridiculously long.

**Quote in the subject line from the song "Mira," from the musical Carnival!  It's a great little song.

***If you know someone looking for a little house of their own, 28 miles from Moorhead, we hope to have it on the market by May. It'll need a new roof soon, and the garage needs paint, but I'm pretty sure it's not haunted and I know it was filled with love for many years.

Something rancid this way comes

V and I went out of town this weekend after a very busy Friday. We left Shaunsie home alone and had our own adventures, and wandered home yesterday evening. Mondays are one of my days to sleep in, so I didn't really venture into the kitchen until late this morning. And there was a smell. I mean, a Smell. Like a peach sat in a hot car for a few days, and then you put it on a plate in a small, closed, damp room. Only worse.

At first I thought I'd been watching too much CSI. I could hear Nick say  to Warrick (because in my heart, Warrick isn't dead), "You smell that?" and  Warrick raises his handsome eyebrow and knowingly mutters, "Decomp."

So I looked for the body. The three of us were accounted for, thankfully, and Seven was wandering around by my feet. Ah, the fish! Oh, poor fish. Wait, he's not dead. He was just sitting still. I checked the garbage disposal (ick), took out the garbage, opened and closed cupboards and the fridge, trying to figure out 1. what had died here and 2. where it was, exactly. My mind raced: we've never had mice in this house (knock on wood), and I hate mice with a white hot passion. (I may hate mice more than I hate squirrels. No, I only hate mice when they're in houses. I hate squirrels everywhere.) I swept under the stove. No corpse, but I found that old Martha Stewart's Halloween Issue I thought I'd left at Crystal's.

Then I started to get worried. Hallucinations of smells is a sign of a brain tumor, right? I mean if everything starts smelling like pickles, I'm probably gonna die. But this smell was clearly in the kitchen, somewhere between the sink and the trash, and it certainly didn't smell anything like pickles.

Finally, under a cream-colored kitchen towel on the counter above the dishwasher, I found the source. A baggie with just a bit of raw chicken, somehow left behind from Thursday's supper prep, hidden under the towel. Four days on my kitchen counter was plenty of time for terrible things to happen. I was totally relieved, and totally grossed out, and vowed to keep a cleaner kitchen. For now, I've got four scented candles and some incense going on in there, and I'm gonna go eat some pickles.

When you live in an ancient lake basin...

My mother likes to talk about Lake Agassiz. Maybe it's because she's a former elementary school teacher, but it's a little embarrassing, actually, to bring friends home from college and have them get Myra's lecture on The Big Lake. But she's right. I know she's right everytime we leave this valley, and my ears pop like I'm on an airplane because I'm not used to the elevation.

So it surprises no one that our basement (hell, everyone's basement in the eleven county area) takes on water this time of year. I honestly don't know why so many of us have basements, even. And every year I swear I'm going to be ready for it, and every year I get pissed off when it shows up. Really, really pissed off.

Today, I cursed the rain, my basement, the people who built this house, the people who sold us this house, my realtor, the guy at Menard's who sold me a lousy 8 gallon wetvac, my grandparents for settling in this area, the length of my own pants, my dad for having a stroke instead of staying well and living long enough to help me with this crap, gravity, those disgusting little centipedes that curl up and die all over my basement, linoleum, the nasty consistency of wet cardboard, and Lake Agassiz.

(I emptied the wetvac 5.5  times in 20 minutes. That's right. 44 gallons of water. The first photo is of my basement, just an hour after I got rid of 44 gallons of water. The second photo is my damn stupid long pants.)

I know, geologically, that this is what we deserve. But it doesn't mean I have to like it.

Stu-stu-studio.

As part of our life restructuring, we've hired a professional organizer. She was fantastic, non-judgemental but firm, and totally creative. We got rid of approximately 24 garbage bags of stuff for donating, another 9 or so bags of trash, and that was only on the main floor.  We hope to have her back again in a few months to help us get through the upstairs (i.e. my clothing), if I can't do it on my own. It was worth every penny we paid her.

But still, I love stuff. I mean, I really love stuff. It's not right. If I lived alone, I would probably past the point of that show Hoarders. I don't love new stuff, or crappy stuff. I love cool old stuff that smells like someone else's basement, or jars of washers and bolts, or bags of buttons. I love old books, dolls, belts, and ribbon. Oh, I do love ribbon.

As an olive branch, Shaun said the organizer did not have to tackle the basement (an olive branch to me or to her, I'm not sure yet). So everything down there is my fault, and my problem, and my haven. Wanna have a look?

 I keep my needles in the lampshade. And my brass cats, too. Obviously.

The light in this room is fluorescent, so my 6-armed lamp helps with lighting (as does the needle-lampshaded lamp). The laundry line above has a postcard of the Ingalls family, photos of me and Jess and me and V, paintings by V, and the Queen of Spades. The two other prints, nearest the window, I won years ago from The Black Apple (We have at least two prints by Emily on every floor of our house). And on top is a lovely doll using a sewing machine, from Wee Wonderfuls.

 This is the southwest corner, with photos I've taken, an Easter card from our friend Kathy, my embossing tool, some purse handles, and a fantastic wicker-ish purse I bought while garage saling with my sister a couple of years ago. It was $3, and I had to promise I'd hang it up right away before she let me bring it home.

 A corner of my machine, a Shark. I love baby food jars, especially wee ones. These seem to have sequins and buttons in them. I love little ceramic containers and vintage tins, and there appears to be a wee crow bar in this photo, too. Don't ask.The rubber stamp says "Asylum for the Chronic Insane," and I bought it from Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers (now owned by these folks) some time ago.

 The needle/cat lamp, further back. The orange and blue shelf is one my daddy made with leftovers from some great bookshelves he made us, and the shelf is full of things I like: stencils, an octopus V and I made when she was 3, photos, a postcard of Marilyn Monroe, a birthday card from my brother-in-law Brad, a jar full of beads, some buttons...the nails hold supplies (E6000, dollmaking needles, teddy bear eyes, pins, a flamingo streamer thing...). The print in the cream frame is another from the Black Apple, and the robot print in the lower left corner was a thank you card from an order I made to Wee Wonderfuls. It's a knitting robot! The photo in the upper right is me at Glensheen, from this trip.

 My pièce de résistance: I  took one of those trouser hangers, one that's supposed to allow you to hang 4 or 5 pairs of pants, and loaded up my ribbon collection. It hangs from a hook in the ceiling, just to the left of my sewing machine, so I can always see what's available, get inspired, and easily cut off what I need. The last bits or pieces of ribbon and trim that I buy off a spool get hung up on the final rungs, alongside a birthday card from my friend Crystal, ca. 2008 or so.

This shot showcases some of my favorite ribbons, ones that make my teeth hurt with love. Lavender velvet? Rainbow grosgrain? Yellow and red tulips? That crazy green, orange, and yellow on black? Mercy, I love them all.

These are bits of my beloved sewing room. And I've only shown you the organized parts: note you haven't seen the floor. Mostly that's because the floor is buried under 2-3 feet of fabric and other sundry items: it just doesn't make for the most compelling photos. Every few months I get a hankerin' to hunker down there, with my supplies and lamps and ribbons. Come on down and visit me, sometime. I promise most everything will still be there, so long as I can keep the organizer away. 

List #9: Hobbies o' Mine

Nothing too profound this snowy Saturday: just a list of some of my many hobbies. I'd love to hear your favorite hobbies, too, though I certainly don't need anymore of my own.

1. Jewelry making: I especially love making earrings, because they don't take long and they can be so lovely. This summer we made stretchy bracelets for my aunts and cousins, using stretchy bead thread. If you take your time with the knots, you'll be happier with the result. Cute, fast, and easy, just like me! (um...nevermind)

2. Quilting. You've read Languishing's award-winning Quilts of our Lives series, and I do love to quilt. It's hard for me to get inspired without a scheduled retreat or weekend set aside, because they are labor and logic intensive, and I don't have a lot of either to spare. But when I'm quilting, I'm a happy girl.

3. I make books. I can do more elaborate, formal bindings than those in the picture, and am particular fond of Japanese stab bindings (it sounds so violent! But it's not). They make lovely scrapbooks and guestbooks and journals. I taught a group of 5th and 6th graders to do that form several years ago, and discovered working with kids that age is remarkably similar to college age students, but with less swearing.

4. Crochet. My grandmother taught me to knit when I was about 10, but I lacked any semblance of patience, and it ended when I snapped my plastic knitting needles in half in frustration (Sorry, Beulah!). When I was in high school, my mother learned to crochet, and my sister and I followed suit. Mostly I make dishcloths & scarves, now: a girl only needs so many afghans, and the carpal tunnel keeps me from projects of that size. I like crocheting because, after this much practice, I can do it in the dark of a movie theater or while we're watching something at home, and not feel like I'm being indulgent quite so much.  Idle hands do the devil's work, you know.

5. House plants. I have almost totally failed at this hobby, and I have a dozen dead plants in my house to prove it. But I also have a few (5 or 6, maybe?) that persist in living, and I adore the idea of healthy, happy houseplants. I just don't remember to water them regularly enough.

6. Collage: This is how many of my students spell "college." At any rate, I like to cut things up and paste things back together (which is a lot like quilting, now that I think of it). I use collage to make little trading-size cards, alter books, and jazz up my syllabus. Decoupage is my friend.

7. Card-making: Connected to #3 and #6, this was a natural outcropping. My mom and aunt and friend have a ridiculous collection of supplies, and when I can get there to play, it's a breeze to make cards. Lately, though, I've been sending Mary a card a day, which really ups the ante: I'm trying to keep things interesting but don't have access to the supply mecca. It's been fun, actually.

8, Facebook: Oh, facebook, you evil temptress. I came to this party late, but I find myself checking it time and again throughout the day, almost automatically, like looking at the clock. When I'm bored, I get irritated, and want it to entertain me. Gak.

9. Dexter: We don't have Showtime, but we recently discovered how to run Netflix through our XBox 360, so we can livestream all sorts of things, provided our somewhat pathetic internet cooperates (which, by the way, do any of you, gentle readers, have internet through DirecTV? Any thoughts?). We'd heard about this show, and just finished season 1. I love it: it's like CSI meets Criminal Minds meets the Sopranos. What's not to like about that?

These are some of the things (besides blogging) that I do in my spare time, or in my avoid-doing-what-I-ought-to-be-doing-time, like cleaning and/or grading. What's your favorite distraction?

Winter safety

My father taught me to respect winter. At any point during my childhood, we were prepared to spend up to a month snowed in together: between our large freezer, my mother's canning, and dozens of extra large cans of pork and beans, we were always prepared. Our winter-ready car never had below half a tank of gas, and always held blankets and newspapers, hats, mittens, and extra socks for every passenger, as well as food, water, rope and something to pee in. For as long as I can remember, I was told never to leave a car stuck in a blizzard, and if I needed to check the tailpipe (so as not to be asphixiated by exhaust kept in the car from drifting snow) I was to tie myself to the door handle before setting foot out of the vehicle.

I remember being very young when he told me stories of people slicing their horses open and crawling inside to survive (ala the Ton Ton incident with Han Solo), and I know my grandfather had more than once to tie a rope around his waist and the other end to the door handle of his store to walk the block and a half home.

My father was born in 1930, and was ten years old during the Armistace Day Blizzard. On balmy winter days, he would cite the 1940 storm to keep us from complacency.
(photo from the MN Historical Society)


He certainly knew people who had lived through the Children's Blizzard of 1888, and though he loved winter, and built us huge sledding hills and taught us how to make tunnels through the snow, he parented at least partly by fear, because it could save us.



The storm of the last few days, which will certainly be called the Christmas Blizzard (though will not be as infamous as the other 2 I've mentioned, hopefully), is the largest we've had since living in this house (I think) and we were pretty much prepared: I have a freezer full of food (albeit a regular, top-of-the-fridge kind of freezer), and we're just now running low on cookies. V has several new toys to entertain her, and we have Volume 3 of the Addam's Family television show to keep us busy.

So it was with great hesitation that I set out last night, around 7pm. There was no travel advised, and our street is one of the last plowed in town, so even if we wanted or needed to drive somewhere, there was no way the Mazda was going to clear 16" of snow. I layered my clothes, with long johns, wool socks, and thick jeans, and a t-shirt under my sweatshirt under my long wool coat. I pulled on my black and purple winter boots I bought back in college, and wore a thick beautiful scarf my friend Carla made me, and a hat, and wool mittens. I put my wallet in one pocket of my coat, the cell phone in the other, and I kissed my family.

That makes it sound more dramatic than it was: though travel out of town was nearly impossible, in town wasn't so bad. We could see across the street, easily, and though there was a good strong north wind, it wasn't impossible to walk against. Plus, my father's horror stories all took place well before cell phones, and though I hate it when people are stupid and drive around during a blizzard, I figured the police would be willing to pick me up if I somehow couldn't make it back home from my 20 block adventure. I opted to walk against the wind to begin with, so coming home would be easier.

On my walk, I came to appreciate snowblowers a great deal. The kind people who had cleared their sidewalks (I would say perhaps 75% of the sidewalks were cleared or nearly so) in the middle of a blizzard really made my trip easier. Where it wasn't cleared, or where the snowblower had come through before the plow, I waded through knee-deep snow until I got to the next cleared area. I understand the lure of snowshoes, now, too. It was snowing for a good portion of my walk: cold, wet, stinging snow.


But I pressed on.

All the way there, I heard, besides my father, two voices in my head: the Man in Jack London's To Build a Fire, and Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl. This is what happens when an English major takes a walk in a blizzard.

The walk home was easier, though creepy, too, as I realized that my footsteps had largely been erased by the wind. The sidewalks were still mostly clear, and the wind at my back felt gentle compared to the wind in face.

Why did I make such a journey, you ask, when I had cookies and a freezer full of food and the Addams Family volume 3 in my warm home?


I was out of Coca-Cola. And some things are not negotiable.

Whole cloth quilt

This is the second in a series I've cleverly named Quilts of Our Lives. (Apparently, this is my go-to topic when I feel like I need something new on the blog but I really don't have time to craft a brand-spanking new post.)

In the interest of full disclosure, note all the photos from this whole series were taken this summer, when we had green grass and wore cropped pants and generally enjoyed the out of doors. Now we have 8" or so of snow and it hasn't been above 15 degrees in two weeks.

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, I chose to just leave large pieces of fabric as they are and quilt them. Historically, this is referred to whole cloth quilting, and it's unusual, in that one purpose of quilting that I especially admire is the careful use of scraps. It was pretty rare that our foremothers had 6 yards of fabric laying around that didn't need to be cut into clothing or wagon wheels or something. Still, I like the idea of a whole-cloth quilt, and by my definition, the chicken quilt is an example of that.

You'll note, if you went to the whole-cloth quilt link above, that mine looks nothing like those. I mean, mine looks like a preschooler's attempt at Starry Starry Night. I'm comfortable with that.

And you all know better than to do what I do, right? Because I'm not a professional, I'm totally making this up as I go, and often it doesn't work out at all. Okay?

Good.

So I sewed around the edges with the quilt sandwich inside out, flipped it, straightened it, pinned it, and quilted in large (5") squares. The batting is, I think, a warm cotton batt (as opposed to the loftier but less warm poly, or ridiculously warm wool), and both the chickens and the gold swirl backing (pictured below) are upholstry weight, denim-y type fabrics, which make for a good thick heavy quilt. When I bought the chicken fabric, I fully intended to make myself a jumper. Leave me alone: I was a librarian at the time, and desperate for some excitement. Luckily, I needed a quilt more than a new jumper, and chicken quilt was born. Considering its weight, I must've used a denim needle or three to do the quilting, and every 5" is almost certainly the very least amount of quilting that batting allows. (which means that if you quilt it more than 5" apart, it's like to disintegrate sooner rather than later and become sort of a crumbly pile of yuck.) You didn't know you were going to learn so much about quilting when this post started, did you?

The chicken are really lovely, and over the years this quilt has held up very well. That may be partly because it wasn't in daily use, until some little sprout got a big girl bed, and needed a big girl quilt to tide her over until Mama gets her shit together enough to make her "a real one." I don't think the chickens have any idea who they're up against.

Sick day update

We've progressed from low-grade fever to throwing up. Luckily I've slipcovered the couch with a flannel sheet, and it's made a cozy place for a plum-tuckered girl to doze off.

Snuggled up together....

Since winter has finally arrived, I thought I'd start a new series of posts. I've been planning these since this summer, and I'll be posting them sporadically throughout the winter. I've been calling it "Quilts of Our Lives" and then I hear the soaring soap opera music in my head. You do what you like with that information.

One day this summer, I was doing our laundry and realized that we have many, many homemade blankets. Store-bought blankets are outnumbered 5 to 1 or better at our house. This makes me tremendously happy.

This is the first quilt I made at Camp Lebanon's quilt retreat, way back in the 90's. I had already made several quilts by this time, but being surrounded by women quilting made me more careful and conscientious. It's a standard log cabin stitched in the ditch, and is crib sized. I made it before I even met Shaun, and many of the attendees of quilt retreat commented that it would be a perfect quilt for a little boy. Which made V's birth even more victorious: I was thrilled for my daughter to roll around and drool on this. Those are lizards on the green jungl-y fabric. It was also the first quilt I finished with a proper binding, and after machine sewing the homemade binding on one side, I hand-sewed the whole thing to finish it.

It's still big enough for V to use, though not by much. Soon it will be relegated to babydoll swaddling, I suppose. Not a bad way for a quilt to retire.

So much for which to be thankful.

As promised, photos of candlelight, family, and food.
Candlelight by day....

And Shaun's the same....

Our own children's table....

Emmy and Jetch...

Myra and David, waiting for dessert.

Shaun ate so much he split his pants. On the thigh. Impressive, no?

My dear mother-in-law, Mary....

And the only photo I have of me yesterday, loading the diswasher (of course). Luckily, it's of my good side.

I like the shirt I'm wearing, but I often feel like the St. Pauli girl when I'm wearing it. Looking at the link now, though, I'm not sure why that is....

I hope your holiday was chock-full of people you love, and if not, chock-full of lovely barmaids. May we all find reasons to be thankful every single day.

Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen...

Lately, I've been working on several dozen projects at once, as usual. But none of them are particularly photogenic, so I find myself stumped with what to blog about. And then I remember there is no photograph requirement for blogging, except the ones I've developed for myself, so here I am thinking out loud again.

1. V's into telling stories. Constantly. She wants me to tell them to her, with her parameters: it usually involves Toy Story+Star Wars Garbage Chute Scene+Princesses+Will and V. This sounds cute and all but it really gets tiring to constantly think of new variations on this story. Recently I had everyone get trapped in ToysRUs, which was very popular, but has led to demands of trips to ToysRUs. I must remember to be careful where those characters end up.

2. My job: As usual, it takes up great heaps of time and energy, which is fine. But I am teaching a new course in the spring (Environmental Literature) and another next fall (Humanities of World Cinema) that I've never taught or taken before, which is much harder than re-teaching courses I'm already familiar with. I'm in the process of gathering input from colleagues, but I'm also trying to ask friends and family, too. So I pose this question to the blog: What non-English movies have you seen that impressed you, and why? And what elements (books, movies, youtube clips, etc) should I include in Environmental Literature? I'm interpreting the course to be about both the world environment of weather, tsunamis, floods, and global warming, and the environments we're raised in, and the environments we create for ourselves. I've chosen a book of essays by Leslie Marmon Silko, a book of writings (poems, essays, fiction) about the midwest called Inheriting the Land, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy, because I'm an optimist. But I'd still like at least 2 more books, maybe as many as 5 more. Again, because I'm an optimist.

3. My hoarding hairball. I'm trying to figure out why I am more comfortable in a home packed to the gills with stuff, why I love acquiring things as much as if not more than using them. And how to translate this into a living situation that doesn't drive my partner and daughter and me completely crazy.

4. The new V television series, and Flash Forward, both of which are breaking my brain a little and making me happy at the same time.

5. Putting the blog into a book form, for my own records, for when the apocalypse comes and devours the internet. I'm working with BLURB, and am on page 83 of 290. It's tedious, mostly because I have so many photos that the software can't really handle it. So I'm going a page at a time, adding in the photos as I go.

6. Putting the zine into book form. This is an ongoing project, one I've been working on for over 2 years. Languishing the Zine started publishing in 1996 or 1997, and technically hasn't stopped yet. The book form has over 120 pages of very small type. Several months ago, I said to Tenessa (who is 34 today!) that I didn't know where to start editing 120 pages. She laughed at me, since she's a book editor, but I noticed she didn't offer to take it over for me. Unlike the blog book, this book will be available for purchase. Eventually. The other thing slowing me down is I'm missing some issues from 2002-2003, and I can't hardly print a comprehensive book missing two whole years.

As you can see, I'm busy with non-photographable pursuits right now. I welcome your advice, mocking, and open scorn. Sharing these things with the blog world makes them more real, so now I better go get to work.

Caramel Apple Debacle

How to make caramel apples.

1. Get your mom to bring you an entire paper grocery sack full of the apples from her backyard trees.2. Scrounge in your own backyard for suitable sticks. Not too thick, not too thin, not too gross. Gnarly is good, though.

3. Shove sticks into apples. (It's not as hard as it sounds).

4. Warm store-bought caramel on very low heat. Act smug, thinking to yourself of all those complex, candy-thermometer requiring recipes you read about online. Home made caramel is for suckers with more time than you.

5. Dip apples in caramel. Swirl them around, get them good and coated. Place on waxed paper.

6. Watch caramel pool around the bottom of the apples. Think about what this means. Imagine smushing it back up onto the apple when it cools a little more.

7. Realize this is not working.

8. Feel chagrin about step #4. Mutter about this turning out to be a sucky thing to blog about.

9. Blog about it anyway.

10. Find candy thermometer. Look up "homemade caramel apple recipes" on line.

Thrift Score

Today, in my 1 hour to myself between dropping of Shaun and picking up V, I swung by a favorite thrift store, looking for new winter mittens for V. No luck in that department, but I found these fabulous trims, at least 4 yards of each (maybe more--I suck at estimating things) all on one bolt, for $1.99. The black sequins are stretchy, so many of you should expect a headband or bracelet (or whatever else I can think of...a belt? a garter? Who knows...) in your Christmas package from me. The others are thick and cottony and I am envisioning some denim totes with gorgeous handles, or maybe .... a belt? a garter? Well probably not a garter, since these aren't stretchy. I especially like the blue and yellow one.

For this alone I would've been grateful, truly, but then I found a gallon ziplock bag full of ladies scarves. It was stuffed full, and I could see some of the prettiness: some silk, some rayon, some of that cool chiffon stuff. But it was $5.99, and I'm just not going to spend $5.99 on anything at a thrift store unless it's a couch or a chiffarobe or some such thing. I put it down, walked to the checkout, and then dashed back. I opened the bag to find 20--count 'em--twenty scarves. That makes them 30 cents a piece, and even if I wear only one of them, I will get my money's worth. V can have play scarves to infinity, if she likes, or maybe I'll just become that weird scarf-lady teacher that every community college really ought to have. Here are some of the highlights from my new collection.This one feels like cotton or light weight linen, and has very pretty gold embroidery.

This is chiffon, with such pretty stripes. It's oblong, so will be a great little neck scarf.

This is the corner of a large square scarf. Some of these scarves (not this one, I think) are made of frightening sounding materials like "vilon."

And then, the cream of the crop: this is 100% silk, and apparently quite collectible. That link takes you to Etsy, where there are listings for Vera Neumann scarves for anywhere from $11-$29. And I almost wouldn't pay 30 cents for it.

It was a good day for thrift. What's your favorite thrift store find lately?