I feel a little apprehensive about this year. There are so many places this year could take me – good and bad – and I want to pack it full of things that make me happy to balance out those possible dark places.

I want to write more. I suppose that means be in this place more, but I also want to jot down all those paragraphs I write in my head during the day. There is one thing in particular I’ve been writing for a while, and I will write it down today.

I want to read more. I want to reread old favorites and find new ones. I want to read chapter books outloud to my children every night. I want to listen to more books. I want to fill my free minutes with words.

I want to run more. This past year I went from not running since I was a child to running my first 5k race in May and my first 5 mile race in November. I’ve found it harder to run long distances by myself due to time and motivation, so I’d like to find a running group. I have a goal of running the Women’s half marathon in September. I might be able to meet that goal earlier, but I want to take my running habit slow and steady.

I want to photograph more. Specifically, I want to photograph my children more. I want to take a picture of them everyday, and watch how their beautiful faces and personalities grow and change.

Lastly, I want to see friends more. I spent last night with friends, and I will see friends today. Spending time with friends is good for my spirit.

Hello 2013. Here’s to balance and joy and whatever else is in store for me.

My Dad has brain cancer.

He was diagnosed almost a month ago. It came out of the blue. He was fine and nothing was any different about him until he woke up one night (the night of my parents 39th anniversary) and couldn’t speak properly. My Mom said one sentence would come out of his mouth just fine, but then the next one would be just sounds. She thought he was having a stroke and called the ambulance. When they got to the ER the blob that showed up on the CT scan was too big to be a blood clot, and could only be a tumor.

He was put on steroids and anti-seizure meds to control the brain swelling and its effects. He had an MRI, then a biopsy of the tumor (an intense and scary day). He regained his speech and had no more seizures. A couple of days later on a Friday afternoon, the diagnosis came. Relief. None of us could have made it through that weekend not knowing.

The good news is that it’s slow growing and responds to treatment. The bad news is that it cannot be cured. I feel like there are so many unknowns in the future now. I feel like my family should be off the hook with this cancer stuff, as we already went though cancer and treatment with my brother 25 years ago. My Dad is an oncologist even. But that is not how it works.

There is more to say. There have been setbacks. An infection and bleeding in his brain put him back in the hospital for a week, and he lost his ability to remember words again. Now – to rid his brain of the infection and prevent any more bleeding – he’s on IV antibiotics round the clock for the next month. It’s hard, but every day he is better. It was hard for me to be away, especially this past week, when all the progress he made was gone.

I don’t know what the future is going to be like, but I do know we’re going to need to remind ourselves that the road can be bumpy – it will be bumpy – and even the bumpy parts can have bumps.

Lately it seems like I have to completely change my life all the time. Is this the trade off for being in my more emotionally stable thirties? A big project begins, and suddenly I’m putting in a 30+ hour 5 days a week work week. Soccer season starts and I have to figure out how to make and eat dinner and get to my Thursday night knitting group in the 5 minutes I have at home. My children have spring break, but not at the same time, not even for consecutive weeks, so we can’t travel anywhere and I can’t be at work. I start running and following a running schedule without much leeway before my 5k race, and have to find time to squeeze in a run when I’m home with the children. Then I develop tendinitis in my feet, and have to stop running for over a week which was even harder. This blog, too, has been a difficult habit ever since September when my daughter started her 5 day a week preschool – I no longer have set days off and we’re busier with more to prepare each day once we get home, leaving little time in which to write.

April 1

The flip side to all of this change is that I’m happy, really happy. This has been a really good year for my family, and I think being busy and working hard suites us right now. I like being busy at work, and am enjoying the new project. Spending an afternoon hour outside watching my son play soccer and my daughter run as fast as she can down a hill is a joy. I got a lot of hand stitching and knitting done not to mention netflix watching during one spring break, and managed to spend the other spring break at the office with my son in tow. Running makes me feel really good, especially after my forced break. Writing – whatever I can manage – makes me happy, and even if I’m not scrawling or typing words, I’m always writing them in my head.

April 2

One thing that has been hard is my daily picture taking habit. That big work project? Yeah it involves me taking hundreds of photos everyday, and by quitting time the last thing I want to do is pick up my camera and take photographs for myself. I’ve managed to only miss 1 or 2 days of this year’s 365 project, but I’ve used my camera phone for many many pictures, which I swore to myself I would not do again this year. I also haven’t posted anything from the last 2 months on flickr. Oh well. Someday I will find time to catch up.

April 6

The newest and best change for me is that I’m posting on habit. I was thrilled when Emily and Molly invited me to be a participant for April, and was glad to have a really good excuse to pick up my camera and document my day for myself. I’ll tell you it hasn’t been easy, and some days I reject everything I shoot or can’t come up with anything to write, and decide to post nothing. But I’m there at least 3 days a week for the rest of this month, and really habit isn’t about creating something spectacular, it’s just about creating something. Often what seems ordinary, when viewed alongside all those other moments in the lives of all those other women, becomes extraordinary.

April 8

I’m not a runner. I’ve always said that for as long as I can remember. In elementary school P.E., we ran laps around the huge field behind the school. Four laps equaled one mile, and I never could do it without stopping and walking. A mile seemed like such a huge distance back then and going around four times took forever. Of course now when I see the field, I’m shocked at how small it looks. Ah, perspective. My Dad used to be a runner. I remember going to races, and watching for him to cross the finish line. His knees eventually gave out and he quit running for good. It’s hilly around here, and all the downhills were too much for him. When my Dad moved on to cycling for good as his sport of choice, I mentally X’d myself out of the running category. My Dad also has some structural issues with his knees, structural issues I’ve inherited, structural issues I exacerbated when I hiked 18 miles in one day on horse trails while on a backpacking trip in Montana. What I learned from that trip: Never ever hike on horse trails. Horses move their feet in a straight line, humans do not. You will eventually recover from the trauma, but your knees never will.

So like I was saying, I’m not a runner. Yet, I’ve started running. Last Spring my bookclub read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. I wasn’t all that interested in a book about running, but I love a good non-fiction book and am game for anything. I was kind of shocked by how much I enjoyed it. It’s not the best writing, nor the best story, but there were interesting parts all throughout the book. Suddenly I wanted to run. Me run? But, I’m not a runner. The thing about the book though, is that it makes you think you can be a runner and more importantly it makes you want to be a runner. Anyone can be a runner. Suddenly your whole mindset has shifted, and all it took was reading a book you weren’t all that interested in to begin with.

Only one other book has made me think about myself in an entirely different way, and want to do something I never thought was possible – Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin. Originally I read this book because Naomi Wolf mentioned in Misconceptions that Ina May knew all sorts of cures for morning sickness. My mother had nine months of morning sickness in both her pregnancies, and I feared that would be my lot as well when the time came. There wasn’t much in Spiritual Midwifery about these cures, but I did find a book full of amazing stories of women giving birth without pain medication, enjoying it, and being transformed by it. I was blown away. None of these stories matched anything I had heard about childbirth, and suddenly I knew I wanted to be one of these women, that I was going to be one of these women. The more I read, the more I realized any woman could be like these women. Three years, then six years later, it happened. It was like as soon as I made that decision, that was who I was, and I made sure in every possible way I could control that I was one of these women. It was like there wasn’t an alternative in my brain anymore, and somehow it got that way in an instant simply by storytelling.

Running might be harder than childbirth (those damn knees!), but I’m doing it. I’m going slow and gradually progressing over the next two month from not running period to running 3 miles. On May 5th, I’m running in a 5k race in Austin with my girlfriends and I’m looking forward to it almost more than anything else I’ve done in my life. After that who knows, but I do know I’m a runner and there will be more running.

After the weekend workshop, I sewed on the dress a lot (when I wasn’t pouring over the Alabama Chanin website trying to keep every moment of the workshop alive). I completed 3 of the 8 panels before I had to put it down for a little while. When I chose my workshop project, I picked the dress I loved the most (the 8 panel corset dress), the fabric that caught my eye (peacock, a dark teal color), the stencil (Anna’s garden) and applique (negative reverse) that made my heart ache, and the paint (gray) and thread color (black) that worked best with the fabric. All of these ingredients were exactly what I wanted, but they were not the easiest with which to work. The gray paint is almost the same shade as the peacock fabric, making it hard to see the shapes at night, when most of my stitching time happens. The negative reverse applique requires more attention, as you are stitching on an invisible line an 1/8 of an inch inside the shape. Finally when every shape on the panel is stitched, you still have to cut away most of the top layer fabric, a 3-4 hour process during which I was always terrified of accidentally cutting a hole in the bottom layer. So, it wasn’t that surprising I needed a break from this dress despite my love for it.

At some point in the late Spring, I started to think about an October wedding in LA, and what I was going to wear to that wedding. A local outpost of my favorite department store had finally opened after years and years of planning and I knew I could find a dress there, but then I saw the obvious – the dress I should wear was the one I was making completely by hand. So Operation Finish-the-Dress began, and I spent every free moment during the Summer sitting down and stitching the remaining 5 panels, the brightest lamps set up next to the sofa to illuminate the fabric at night.

I didn’t keep track of how many hours went into this dress. The larger back panels took about 20 hours apiece from start to finish, and the smaller front panels took about 15. Then I had to sew everything together, fell the seams, and bind the neck and armholes (Oh Cretan stitch how much do I love thee? Let me count the ways). If I had to guess, this dress took 140 hours. Maybe more. I even managed a completed dress with a couple weeks to spare, giving me time to go to my favorite department store and find the perfect shoes and undergarments. It was at this point while in the dressing room, I realized the straps were too long. I didn’t want to rip out the binding I had just spent hours on, so with the flight to California quickly approaching, I decided to fold some of the strap over itself at the shoulder and stitch it down. I figured this could be a temporary fix to get me through the wedding, and I could do a better job later on. No matter what I told myself, fixing the straps this way seemed wrong and I felt like I was letting my dress down.

In my life, I have been a perfectionist about many things. I’ve also learned to let go, knowing good enough is often the better choice over the unattainable perfection. Being a mother and having children has led me over and over again to the good enough path whether I wanted to be there or not. Yet every time I make an Alabama Chanin garment, I want perfection. They are just so beautiful, it seems a shame for them to be anything less than perfect. Yet they are made completely by hand and, of course, can never be perfect. Some stitches will be longer or shorter than others, a painted area of the stencil will have a smudged line instead of a crisp line, one panel will be cut a little skinnier or wider than its twin, and  – my worst fear come true- an accidental hole will be made in the fabric with scissors. Often when I’m engaged in something that takes a lot of time, I think about Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. Most people know about one of the basic premises of the book, that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. Gladwell uses The Beatles and Bill Gates as two of the supporting case studies in his 10,000 hours theory. If I wanted to become an expert at stitching Alabama Chanin style, I would have to make somewhere between 70-100 garments, a number that will not happen in my lifetime no matter how much I love making and wearing them. I am never going to achieve perfection with these pieces and that is okay. In fact, it’s more than okay, and often what is most beautiful to me is the part that is flawed. The temporary fix to the straps is going to be the permanent fix, as the dress is done and I want to move on.

Today I’m waiting for UPS to deliver the newest Alabama Chanin book (which to my sorrow now seems will arrive tomorrow), and dreaming about my next project. I have two weddings to go to later this year, and I don’t want to end my tradition of wearing Alabama Chanin. After these weddings, I may be a little closer to my 10,000 hours, but sewing by hand isn’t about becoming an expert. It’s about stitching and making and learning about myself in the process. The finished garment is really just a bonus.

Birthdays always get me thinking about my children and their births, but I today I’ve thought more about how I have grown up kids now. While Agnes’s last two years were a little rough mostly due to her big personality, lately I haven’t seen a lot of those toddler years in her. As much as I miss having little babies and mourn the fact I won’t have any more, I kind of like life with grown up kids better.

I guess the kids aren’t the only ones who change around here.

*Mama made birthday outfit details: Oliver + S hopscotch skirt in Liberty of London tana lawn with matching applique shirt

So, today. The last day of Winter break. First thing in the morning, we went to the household hazardous waste disposal, and got rid of the old paint we cleared out of the new organized laundry room, and used compact fluorescent light bulbs (which I have a hate hate relationship with). I made it to Zumba and we were able to exchange a pair of ballet slippers for Agnes with no problem. In the afternoon we skipped nap/rest time, and went ice skating with my mom. It was Agnes’s first time on skates. I about died from cuteness when the tiny pair of rental skates were placed on the counter for her. Watching her skate holding my hand was so much fun, and somehow we didn’t fall once. At first, I wasn’t so sure about myself. The last time I skated was 17 or 18 years ago, and it didn’t come back to me immediately. After a few runs around the rink on my own, I felt like I got my ice feet back. Ely even skated with me holding my hand for about 5 minutes before he took off to weave in and out of the crowd and practice his hockey skating moves. Maybe ice skating will be a new family tradition, though it will probably take a bottle or two of cider to convince Will to get out on the ice.

Tomorrow it’s back to our normal life of school, work, and activities, and I’m happy we ended our break on such a good note. Life as a family just keeps getting better and better around here.

So far, so good. I have a big pot of black eyed peas simmering on the stove, we spent most of the day hanging out with friends, and the children just went to their grandparents’ house to spend the night.

This morning I woke up and thought it was the middle of the night. I didn’t feel tired, but I was sure it was 4am and had no idea how I was going to get back to sleep. I looked at the clock. It was 6:30am. For two weeks now, I haven’t had to set an alarm and I think I’ve finally caught up on all the lost sleep from the past 4 months. When I saw those numbers on the clock, I felt like I could tackle the new year, and the return to school/work/activity schedule which awaits us in a couple of days.

The end of November and most of December was busy and hard. My bedroom was torn up, as a new wood floor was put in. I painted every wall and piece of trim in the bedroom 4 times (it took that much good quality paint and primer to completely cover the old nastiness). A huge photography project was tied up, though it felt like it would never end. And of course there were all the typical end of the year parties and gifts and decorating and food preparation, most of which falls into my lap. Waking up this morning in my beautiful, light and bright bedroom, feeling well rested was an unexpected gift.

A very happy beginning.

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s also happy birthday to me. Inspired by this lady, I’ve been taking 35 photos throughout today in honor of my 35th birthday. I took the first one while lying in bed willing myself to get up, and the others have followed every 27 minutes thereafter. It’s been a great, full – grateful – day. There are still 6 untaken images, and I’m looking forward to seeing the whole series completed.

Some violin days are hard. We’re tired, there is homework to do, it’s late, and we don’t want to practice. Some lessons are hard – we have to leave our comfort zone and do things that feel unnatural, like playing with piano accompaniment or keeping our eyes on the bow instead of watching our fingers make the different notes on the strings. Some days the fussy younger sister who loves to act up during violin lessons has to come along. Sometimes there are tears, broken strings, and cracked bridges.

Some violin days are perfect, like today. On Monday, Ely’s teacher put out a call for students to perform for the class on Friday. He came home and told me he was going to play his violin. I was a little shocked he was that enthusiastic, but said okay immediately. We practiced him tightening the hair on his bow, which is still a little difficult for 6 year old fingers to manage. We practiced Ely putting is neck rest on his violin, which has been tricky ever since he upgraded to a fourth size violin from an eighth size a couple of months ago. We practiced him walking out in front of his class, bowing before starting his piece, moving his feet to playing position, setting his fingers on his bow in the correct grip, moving his violin to his shoulder, playing his piece Lightly Row (with eyes on the bow!), then taking a final bow once it was over. I was a nervous wreck about sending the violin on the bus, but I had to trust Ely would take care of his instrument. I wanted to be there, but my car broke down the day before and wasn’t fixed yet. I realized it was good for him to do this on his own, and that I didn’t need to observe every little step like I usually do in the Suzuki method.

The main reason Ely was able to play for his class today is that he has played in front of others and on stage from the beginning. Besides the monthly play-ins, there are two recitals a year, and his first ever recital took place mere weeks after he started his lessons. Ely knew no notes and did not yet know how to bow, but he did walk out on stage, take a bow, put his violin into the proper position under his chin, and show how he could hold it in place with the strength of his neck and shoulders for 30 seconds. The other parents, students, and teachers clapped as loudly for him as they did for the older and more accomplished students who played in his same recital group. Today just wasn’t a big deal for him at all, and I will never forget that.

Even if Ely decides next year that he hates violin and wants to quit, our years playing will not have been a waste. I’ve seen my son grow and change, try new things, and become more confident. I don’t think he could have traveled along this path without Suzuki violin. I hope he keeps playing though. Violin is something we do together – just the two of us – and I know as he gets older there will be fewer and fewer special things we do together. I don’t want to give those moments up for a long time.

Habit: July 7, 2010

The best thing about violin is time alone together. Just mother and son.