1.30.2013

Been Going On

Sorry, life happened. So, the blog hasn't.

I've instead been spending time doing time-consuming things like taking my sister's company's website from this:


to this:

Click here and check it out. And then plan a trip out to Crested Butte and let them pick you up at the airport. BOOM. Spring break: PLANNED. You're welcome.

And I've been working on a little collaboration to whip this room at our church into shape. Adios, pink mantel.


Here's some of the proposed design we came up with:



And there are oh so many other things that I've been up to these last few silent weeks. 

I surprised John with a packed car and we went away as a family for the weekend a little while back. We bounced on a trampoline, threw lots of rocks into the lake and drew sidewalk chalk in the street. Clearly, Annie dictated all of our activities. 

We came back and Annie got dedicated at Church.

John turned....gasp...33. 

Our downstair's neighbor called to say that their ceiling was wet and sagging and we realized we had a leak under our sink. Lovely.

And more. Much more. But there's a glimpse, for now, of what's been going on.


1.10.2013

18 Merry Months of Joy, Peace and Jesus


I'm a broken record. But, yes this monthly is coming at ya a whole month late! Maybe I ought to just scratch her birthdate out on her certificate and say she was born in July to make everything align. Probably not. It's sort of akin to when we tried to change her name a month after she was born and shyed away when we saw the court fees. Goodbye forever, Aniston.


Gosh darn it. Isn't she precious? This was BY FAR the most fun time we've ever had doing this. I usually spend the first few minutes where she's crying - sorry grandmas - to adjust my camera settings. But this girl was so on fire with her modeling that I went straight to the little green auto button and got going. Couldn't pass this stuff up. (I remembered later why I never do that...Hello, over-exposure!! Also remembered why I never draw the text in the middle of the page...)

But so that I never forget, here's what was really going down on that butcher paper. Girl got her song on.






But in the end, I contend that there's no clear winner.


By the way:
Here's last month's picture HERE!
And here are all the pictures HERE!

1.09.2013

Three years ago today

Three years ago today, I woke up and drove with my friend Kate to get my hair done. My hair was styled rather unlike the plan had been. In fact, nothing at all like the plan. The plan was up. My hair stayed mainly down. Then we went to lunch at Room 39. Only not the one on 39th that I so dearly love. But it was good. I ate a burger. With fries. And we drank mimosas. I tried to lift the burger completely to my mouth so as not to affect my hair styling. When I turned to see the waitress, I very slowly moved my neck. I was wearing a bulky sweater and jeans. "This is how I always do my hair when eating a burger out to lunch," I said with my eyes, smiling. "I'm one of those girls." I don't remember what we talked about. Kate, do you?


We drove to my parents. I helped sweep the floor. Arranged wine glasses in neat little rows on a console table floating in their living room. Stirred chocolate powder in a stewpot of milk.

"Did you call the sushi place? Did they get the platters I dropped off?"

We cut stems off of the hydrangeas, dipped them in allum and arranged them in vases. I turned my old bedspread inside out and covered their coffee table, then arranged flowers and white candles. Earlier we'd gone around snapping branches off of people's Christmas trees laid on the side of the road. Laid on the side of the road because this was the second week of January. The fading greenery draped around the house.

A girl came and did my makeup. I got dressed too early - it took all of three minutes? - and stirred about in my mom's closet while I heard guests arrive. My mom asked me to do her hair. I did. She didn't like it. We redid it. She didn't like it. So, she wore it the way she's worn it for 25 years. But at least it passed some time. In the final minutes my dad sat in their bedroom watching a playoff game as the clock continued to tick.

Earrings! I forgot earrings. I sifted through my mom's jewelry.

Ah, the cold. It was so cold that day. And with the doors open throughout the house to let guests in the draft enveloped me. I found a pair of long johns in my mom's drawer and put them on under my dress.

I looked in the mirror. My hair was flat. My appointment was too early. Should have been in the afternoon. All that time had sucked the curls out. Next time. Oh, God no! There won't be a next time! I promise! We're committed!

It was time. Only it wasn't. My dad and I walked out a little too early. But that was okay. It was in keeping with the mood. Not too contrived.


Music played. Not just any music. John's sister sat on a barstool in my parent's kitchen and sang with a guitar. Valentine stood beside the oven with her violin. Peter was in front of the sink with his trumpet and there was Hermon, with his trumpet, too. They played an Otis Redding song.

That's How Strong My Love Is.

Only it wasn't that strong. Can I say that? It was strong. But now, three years later, it's just so much stronger that it makes the old strong seem weak. That's surely how it goes with lots of marriages. You think you're to the ceiling with your love and yet year by year it grows.  I suppose it's because often you get married to the person you think you know. And then life happens and you see them more deeply. You're vulnerable and so you see each other more honestly. And that makes you uglier. Only, they're committed to loving you regardless, so that makes it more beautiful again.

There's nothing lovelier than someone seeing your ugliness and by staying, making it safe. Making you safe. Because what a wonderful thing it is to be known. Don't we all long for that? To be truly known....and still loved. To gasp, throw down the heavy facade we lug around, expose the brokenness and then be held anyway.


So the song played and ended. I walked down the 10 foot aisle, passed our closest family to John.

The pastor was pastoring. We were vowing. And suddenly from the front row, my mom got up and left. To get a kleenex? How touching. Oh, no. Oh, wait. She's in the kitchen. She's opening the oven.

"Huh? I am. I mean, I do. I do take you to be my lawfully wedded husband."

I glance over again. My mother is taking a frozen pizza out of the oven while I wed my husband. A frozen pizza she insisted on for those who don't like sushi. A frozen pizza I expressly forbid at my wedding. "They can eat the dumplings if they don't like sushi," I said. "There's only twenty of us. They'll survive."


"I now pronounce you man and wife." I remember crying during the ceremony. I don't remember how it felt though. It was mainly a daze. A cold daze with the temperature below freezing on a screened-in porch, except that I remember feeling hot. So it goes with those big, important days. You go from being cold all your life - always turning up the thermostat and putting on a sweater - to suddenly having a hot flash standing in the snow.


Anyway, it was three years ago today that we wed.


We ate sushi and then cheesecake. Our closest family from the ceremony were joined by our closest friends and even more family for the cake eating. We toasted to marriage with glasses from Italy. We didn't dance.


My dad gave a speech in front of the fireplace. Everyone listened and laughed and said "Here, here!" Laura and Peter and Hermon and Valentine came out and played That's How Strong My Love Is again.

A few more toasts were spoken. Mingling, mingling and more mingling. A few pictures. Lots of conversations and stories and catching up and congratulating and asking and telling and hugging and smiling. Scavengers raided the refrigerator for leftover sushi. You know who you are. And then the night was over. Three years ago today.


Annie, that's how I married your father. Three years ago today.


That's how I sealed the deal with your charming, very attractive, stunningly humble, limitlessly kind, get on the floor and roll around with his daughter, get on his knees and pray for his family, unnervingly generous father.


Three years ago today.

Oh, and here's the rest of our story.




1.01.2013

More than you wanted to know: Part 2

Note: Read the first half of this post here.


Three months, three spools of thread, a couple broken needles and a lot of headaches later, the quilt is done. Praise the Lord.

Annie tried to pop in all the pictures I took of the quilt, like she made the dang thing. What nerve.


But who can resist her cuteness? She can have all the credit.

When I left off yesterday, I'd reached the point where my piecing was done, my layers were basted and the actual quilting began. I ended up loving free motion quilting. I went with a "pebble" shape because it seemed on the easier end for an ambitious beginner. I used white thread on top and navy bobbin thread which I guess was kind of cool for the flip side....except not really.  I'm not in love with the back, but it's alright. Next time I would have chosen bobbin thread identical to the backing fabric. Also, I'm retarded and I threw away my instruction manual for my machine. I figured it would be online. Everything is online! Not this, my friend. Unless you want to cough up $19.95 for the PDF. So I stupidly attempted to adjust my tension dials but couldn't figure out what was what and went full force with bad tension. So my bobbin thread shows through on the front of the quilt. Something had to give. I was racing against the clock. I had a baby to feed and a dog to walk.


On the right you can see where I sewed in the "tag." The plan was to smack it on the back, but whateves. Plans are for normal people.


Speaking of, here are the other blocks I made on Photoshop. Being as it was a gift for John's dad and stepmom, I wanted to include the names of all their children and children's spouses, kids, etc.):


These close ups are too close up. Promise they look better in person.




Oh yeah, here's the quilt! Again, looks better in person.



And here's the back with my navy blue bobbin thread and those random quilt squares from an old, never finished Kaffe Fasset project. 


In keeping with the theme of the present, I bundled up the quilt for Christmas and wrapped it in...why, more fabric, of course.





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