wanderCRAFT

Collage

2013-04-29T20:38:00.001-04:00

One of my 35 before 35 goals was to fill a journal up with collages. I'm on my way.

For me, collage is just a way to unwind and play around. I try not to think about it too hard. Yet, it's a fun puzzle - cutting out pieces and moving them around until they start to feel right. Eventually I say good enough, turn the page and start the next one. It's a low pressure way to play around with style, techniques and composition. And believe me, that experimentation leads to pages that are disasters and that I would never post on the internet!

Katie Licht is a collage artist who inspires me. She is an illustrator, a graphic designer and a Midwesterner too. I bought two of her art journal packs and they are really affordable and great collage starters. She also recently made her own zine which is super fun! She includes tips to get you started with making your own book of fun, vintage inspired collages. She didn't pay me to say this or nothing. Just someone whose work I recommend checking out if this is your thing.

Unbound

2013-04-21T19:53:00.003-04:00

One of the best weekends I had last year was camping with a group of friends on Lake Michigan. Despite growing up in Michigan, I had never heard of Nordhouse Dunes before the trip. It's a wonderful place to spend time. Our first night, we walked down to the beach in the darkness, then laid down in the sand to look up at the starriest sky. A few of us swam under the stars. It was early September and very cold so I was sick the next day, but it was worth it. The morning we left, I stole down to the beach for a few photos and a few moments to myself.

This winter I became bound up in a lot of stress that I'm still working to unwind. I've been taking an art class and a mindfulness meditation class, and reconnecting with photography, painting and collage. I've slowly been working on finding more time to be outside, particularly out side of the city. These are the things that help me feel whole.

Tonight, I found the artist Rebecca Shapiro while looking for encaustic artists online. She produced a series for TedX Portland and in her talk, she discusses our desire for freedom and using creative expression to work through the "beliefs and behaviors that keep us bound and from enjoying movement and momentum in our lives."

I like her expression "enjoying movement and momentum in our lives." These photographs remind me of a moment when I was unbound, so I'm thinking a lot about how to create more of those moments in the weeks and months to come.

The In-Between Season

2013-04-16T20:53:00.000-04:00

This long, dark winter is extending into spring.

January 2013, Higgins Lake

It's still quite chilly most days but today there was green grass in the park. Soon enough the treetops will be green too and it'll be time to go back to the beach and to enjoy the sun.

Early September 2013, Lake Michigan

My Night with Eleanor

2013-02-16T14:57:00.002-05:00

We celebrated my grandma's 86th birthday on Tuesday. My friend Elizabeth writes some really funny posts about her grandma. My grandma is also the kind of person who is hilarious without realizing she's being hilarious. I wanted to remember some of the conversations we had the other night so I thought I'd share.

It's important to know first that she's a devout Catholic, and there was big news in the Catholic world this week when the Pope resigned. Just as importantly, she loves celebrities, reads Vanity Fair, and really enjoys bargain shopping at the grocery store or Target.

When we have conversations, she has the best punchlines. Sometimes, her stories make her laugh and other times she's being dead serious, which makes what she says all the more comical because you never know what you're going to get with her.

Before Dinner

Me: I made you Gwyneth Paltrow's chicken recipe for dinner.
Grandma: Oh yeah. What? Do you have a book of recipes by celebrities?
Me: No, she has a website and puts her recipes on the internet.
Grandma: Oh, I knew that. I knew she was in to cooking.

During Dinner

My mom: Did you ever think you'd live until you were 86?
Grandma: No. [Pause] But I'll be ready to go when I'm 87.
My mom: Why 87? What do you need to do in the next year before you're ready?
Grandma: There's stuff I need to read.
Me: What do you need to read about?
Grandma: The Pope. Did you know he had an artificial heart?

Opening her Presents
[Grandma opens a birthday card]
Me: That is from me and Matt.
Grandma: Oh, Kroger!
My mom: That is a gift card worth $20.
Grandma to me: Oh, twenty dollars! You must be doing very well! [Dead serious]

After Dinner

To finish off the evening, we watched My Week with Marilyn together. I'd been planning to watch this movie with her for over six months. I thought she'd really enjoy it since Marilyn Monroe is her favorite celebrity.

- Beginning of the movie -
Grandma: That's not Marilyn Monroe.
Me: No, it's not. It's a movie about Marilyn Monroe.
Grandma: Oh. When is Marilyn Monroe coming on?

She spent the movie telling me she already read the story in Vanity Fair.

- End of the movie -
Me: What did you think of the movie?
Grandma: Corny. I mean, she was silly like that but I liked watching her movies.
Me: How would you rate it? On a scale of one to ten?
Grandma: A one. [We all laugh. She turns to our neighbor's son and wife who are staying with my parents.] Did you ever see the one where she went skinny dippin'?
Neighbor's son and wife: [Shocked face] Uh, no. I don't think I saw that one.

So, maybe I should have just rented Some Like It Hot. She was expecting Marilyn and got Michelle Williams. Although, she did ask me if I knew about Michelle's history with Heath Ledger, of course.

I really doubt I'll be so up on current events if I make it to 86. I am grateful that the Pope resigning is giving her a reason to live through another year. And don't worry. She's been talking about not expecting to live this long for decades. It's part of her schtick.

Keeping the mood up

2013-02-06T00:57:00.001-05:00

This brought me some happiness in January. Getting the record player out of the basement. Cleaning out the horribly cluttered shelves in the dining room and filling it with speakers and records and cookbooks. Getting these prints on the walls and setting up the little calendar a friend bought me at Renegade Chicago in December.

There was the moment I finally figured out how to put the new needle on correctly and spin the record at the right speed (33, btw). Marvin Gaye's voice shot through the crackle of the speakers and filled up our downstairs. I squealed. And danced. And sang. Matt came back in from a walk the moment Side A finished, so he missed the magic of that first record playing in our home. But, we had a ton of fun later listening to his Zappa album while we thoroughly cleaned the downstairs.

I told Matt, this is how I was raised to clean up. Saturday morning, put a record on and everyone gets to work. In the summer, throw the windows open and let the breeze blow in. Sing "know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" with your mom and get the dusting done.

A couple years ago someone posted a link to this video of Jason Schwartzman in a record shop. It's kind of silly and very hipsterlicious* as he sits on the floors and describes all the records he's going to buy but (spoiler alert) at the end he says, "For some reason I want the house to have a positive, fun, loving feeling [...] you're trying to keep it up, trying to keep the mood up."

That last line always stuck with me.

And now I have a record player to keep the mood up.

*The spell check suggests 'oversuspicious'. Fits, I think.

35 by 35

2013-01-11T01:06:00.002-05:00

Rather than resolutions this New Year, I wrote a list of 35 things I want to do before I turn 35 in late August. Writing down these intentions was all inspired by my brave and adventurous friend Sarah, whose list of 100 New Things To Do in 2012 allowed me to go along on adventures I probably wouldn't have done on my own, like going to roller derby and drag queen bingo and riding the highest roller coaster at Cedar Point (it was terrifying, dizzying and exhilarating). Her list includes 100 things to do, but she aims to complete 52 - one for every week of the year. Very sensible. She allows time and space for the spontaneous, but also challenges herself to do some things that are out of her comfort zone.

My list doesn't match hers in terms of its level of adventure, but mine includes a lot of things to do that have been knocking around my brain for the last year or longer. It feels good to have them out of my head and out into this space. It'll feel even better to have done what I've wanted to do and clear some space in my head for new wishes before the end of the year. I've lived with my list for a week, have tweaked several things along the way, but now I'm ready to take this on:

See movies at 3 theaters I’ve never been to: ~~the DIA, the Old Redford,~~ and the Ford Drive-In
~~Grab coffee at the Motor City JavaHouse~~
Blog 50 photos I took on the Polaroid or Yashica cameras
Shoot and print a roll of double exposures with Matt
Shoot and print a roll of underwater photos
Fill an art journal with collages
Hike 100 trail miles
Attend the Quaker meeting in Detroit
Visit Port Austin
~~Go to the Monster Truck Rally at Ford Field~~
~~Workout at a trampoline gym~~
Hike in New Hampshire to celebrate my defense/graduation
Bike in Ontario
Finish 5 encaustic collages
Finish 8 craft projects I have started or planned
Learn to use my new serger
Buy something at John King Books
Finally go to the Detroit Soup
Finish decorating the bedroom
Hang our art and prints
Own a KitchenAid mixer
Practice yoga or meditation every day for a month
Tour the Rouge factory and ~~visit the Henry Ford Museum again~~
Buy a last minute weekend flight and travel to a random city
Leave or find some art for Free Art Fridays
Scan my grandpa’s photos with my mom
Drive around Grosse Isle
~~Visit the National Museum of the American Indian in DC~~
~~Watch Marilyn with my grandma~~
Give my promised 20 hours at the Earthworks garden
Order 2 photos books and get into a Project Life habit
Buy new house plants and keep them alive
Spend 48 hours with no screen time
Plant berry bushes in the garden
Listen to all of the records I bought

My friend Elizabeth also has a list and I can't wait to help her complete a couple of her fun things. Doing this with friends makes it all the more fun. In fact, we already worked out a trampoline gym together this week!

Before I made this list, I did a lot of reflection on what I wanted out of 2013. I enrolled in Elise's I Choose e-course through Big Picture Classes, which got me thinking about the power of 30 day goals versus year long term goals. I'll be breaking some of these goals down monthly. I also enjoyed getting inspired by Andrea's 52 Lists.

The list was also influenced by my choice of the word 'Grow' for my One Little Word in 2013. This is my fourth year of choosing a word to focus on for the year. My past words have been Move, Stretch and Make. In 2012, I would not have driven to Illinois to take an encaustics and photography class without the word 'Make' guiding me. Indulging myself in a weekend of learning a new art practice was a highlight of my year.

There are a lot of intentions behind my choice of 'Grow', but the initial reason was to push me to reconnect with green and growing places beyond our little garden. (I blogged so sparsely in 2012 that I never shared our garden photos. I'll have to do that soon, along with some Polaroid and medium format photos I shot on my birthday.) Since we moved to Detroit in 2010, it's been hard to get out into the woods. In Boston, the woods and trails were right down the street. Since this is my time and place for restoration, I'll be finding ways to make hiking a priority in 2013.

My instagram @wandercraft is set to private, but I'm happy to have you join me while I walk in the woods. I'm already tracking my trail miles with the hashtag #100trailmiles. Three miles down and 97 miles to look forward to in 2013.

If you have your own list or One Little Word, I'd love to read it.

P.S. Thanks to the list, I also hung some pictures tonight and set up my record player. Now..to figure out how to put the new needle on and work the thing!

The View this Fall

2012-10-22T00:37:00.004-04:00

This fall, my creative time is pretty much reduced to taking pictures on my android photo and editing them in Instagram (@wandercraft). It provides about 5 minutes of creative time a day, which is better than nothing. Right now, I'm appreciate it both for the limited editing choices and for a chance to think a bit more about composition in my photos. I also like saving up little snippets of life, that I plan to get printed up into a book at the end of the year. It's become a way to feel like I'm scrapbooking, without the clutter or the time commitment.

Most importantly, it gives me a chance to stop a little here and there to take note, whether I'm out seeing something new or close to home seeing the things I see every day, but just a little bit differently.

The canned food rainbow display is by Detroit artist and activist Kate Draughdrill, exhibited at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (not be to confused with the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit).

Yesterday I had a morning out with my dad, thanks to Heavner Canoe and Kayak rental.

Despite the chilly and drizzly weather this fall, it's been nice to slow down here and there and enjoy some time at home, which you could read more about in this awesome book a neighbor of mine designed and edited (if you're so inclined).

All Kinda Perfect

2012-08-28T07:30:00.000-04:00

For my 34th birthday, I wanted to head way up north on a trip that was long overdue to see one of my favorite people. We've been back in Michigan for over two years and I had not been to the Upper Peninsula in that time, which I realize means I hadn't really been home until now.

Right as we moved in to our new home, I bought an old plastic Polaroid camera at a neighbor's estate sale for a couple dollars. It just sat on a bookshelf all this time begging me to see if it actually worked. I finally caved in to the price ($24 for 8 exposures!) and bought a pack of Impossible Project film for this road trip. It was a rainy day on the way home and we had a long day of driving ahead, but since it was my birthday we stopped off at Pictured Rocks for a few shots from the tourist lookout.

When we drove back into Munising, I realized I had left my cell phone on top of the car. We circled back and we didn't find the cell phone but I ran over for another photo.

Then we got back in the car to continue south. This really special place is along Route 2.

And here, you might see the very faint bend of a 5 mile long bridge on the horizon. When we first crossed over, I saw a man with long jet black hair when we were still a few cars back in line. I turned to Matt and said, "Oh my, that's the same man who used to take my bridge fare in high school!"

"Yeah, he took my money in February. He's (so and so's) cousin. He's a really nice guy."

Later over beers, I told my friends who live three hours further northwest this story and they said the same thing, "I love that guy."

I love that bridge and what is on the other side. It means adventure. It means hold on, I'm almost there.

I took more shots in digital this weekend that I'll share. As well as some in medium format B&W and color film, assuming the Yashica I snagged the other week, while visiting another favorite person in another part of the state that I claim as home, works.

So yeah, I juggled three cameras and many hours in and out of the car on a rainy day, soaking in some beauty on my 34th birthday. It was all kinda perfect.

Natural Detroit:: DIY Urban Garden Tour

2012-06-17T00:32:00.002-04:00

One of my closest friends came to spend the night. She came in the fall, and we had our first Detroit weekend together. Luckily she enjoyed it enough to come back. Last time, we made a fire in our fire pit in the backyard, biked with the dog along the river, and scored some 'real deal' tacos in Southwest Detroit from a taco truck that were so good I've looked for it on every drive I've made down Vernor ever since.

We were both exhausted from challenging weeks so we were happy to spend Friday just hanging out, catching up, drinking Oberon and eating pizza and cannoli so good that someone may have exclaimed "holy shit!" after the first bite. We made a fire in the backyard again, inviting our new next door neighbor to join the conversation.

In the morning, we slept in a little then went out to get coffee and something to eat. I had no plan in mind and thought about biking or walking somewhere but eventually I decided we should just jump in the car. We made our way over to Honest John's for unlimited refills and a cheap, well-prepared diner breakfast in a bar environment. After paying the $13 bill, we got back in the car with a plan to drive over to check out an urban farm on the east side that I've wanted to see. I met the farmer last fall during an Urban Agriculture tour that was part of the Policy Link Equity Summit, after reading about her farm online. Recently, I saw her featured in the pilot episode of a new PBS show called Food Forward about people transforming the food system.

My friend lives and keeps a prolific garden in Marquette which is in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Her garden feeds her, her husband and countless other visitors all winter despite the more challenging northern growing climate.

Before we got on I-94 to head east, we saw the North Cass Community Garden and decided to stop. I've driven by this spot many times and it's a head turner. The sign on the iron gate says the garden has been funded by a variety of heavy hitting foundations and businesses in the area.

We walked among impressive raised beds and snapped photos so we could remember the good ideas gardeners had implemented.

Wine and beer bottles put to use as a slow watering mechanism.

And a compost rotation system. The signs told you whether you could throw your food scraps on the pile to be composted and when a box of compost was ready for use.

Garden whimsy? This fella was beautifying one person's raised bed. I named him Mr. Sexy Eyes.My husband and I, along with neighbors, are participating in a new community garden in our neighborhood where we're growing vegetables in four 4'x4' raised beds. In addition to planting, watering and weeding, I spent a good deal of time the last month online and in stores figuring out how I want to trellis my tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and melons. This garden gave me a lot of options to consider, although I'm still planning on trying this cattle fencing option. Luckily the metro Detroit area has several farm supply stores to choose from. Actually, the city of Detroit now has its own farm supply store to support the growing number of gardens and farms within the city limits, including supplying our garden's dirt and compost.

One of my wild ideas is a starting u-pick berry farm in the city. The raspberry bush I planted last year in our little backyard is not getting enough sun and only dreams of producing fruit like this one.

Another excellent idea we saw (not pictured) was making a hoop frame out of PVC piping, like this, to cover your raised bed.

After a thorough self-tour, we walked back to the car. This apartment building down the street is also in on the action with its own raised beds.

We got on I-94 and headed up to the Van Dyke exit. My heart went up into my throat when I realized this farm we were looking for was right across the street from the cemetery Matt's grandpa (and my grandpa by way of marriage and love) is buried. He was a gardener too, and one my favorite memories of him was his delight in serving us a meal of centered on thick slices of green and red summer tomato from his backyard.

After driving around the block which dead ends at Detroit City Airport, we found the spot. The eastside of Detroit has been the most deeply affected by disinvestment, white flight, and neighborhood destabilization and it's common to see one well-kept home next to a series of vacant lots or even a shell of a house burned out down to its foundation.

A midst a scene of economic devastation I'll never quiet get used to, Mrs. Edith Floyd's Growing Joy Community Garden is a friendly spot.

We weren't sure planting had been done throughout the garden yet or if other lots being farmed were on another street but one corner of the community garden was overflowing with impressive beds of lettuces.

When I met Mrs. Floyd in the fall, I asked her about water. We struggled with water last year in our previous garden and ended up hauling containers from a distance more often than not. She said she ran a hose from her house, and sometimes the firemen offered to help out. I hoped that she didn't have to cut back on her planting because water prices have gone up significantly this year. I noticed she had a clever water catchment structure in one corner of the garden. I felt so glad to be out seeing other people's solutions to urban gardening obstacles. Mrs. Floyd is known for owning a tractor, and I heard from a garden in a different part of the city that she's offering plowing services.

Across the street was my favorite sight of the day. I have a sweet spot for bee and honey photography.

On our way up to Growing Joy, I noticed we passed Georgia Street so after we left Mt. Olivet, we drove about a mile down Van Dyke to add an unexpected third stop to our self-led DIY Detroit garden tour. The Georgia Street Community Collective is now a nonprofit founded and led by Detroit urban agriculture activist Mark Covington since starting the Georgia Street Community Garden when we lost his job and began cleaning up a vacant lot across from his childhood home. His work has even caught the attention of the White House.

The signs they have made are incredibly charming. The garden and Collective has a youth participation and education mission. What a great way to connect kids to the plants growing by showing them the foods that will be available to them as the season progresses. To the left of the garden plot is a small orchard.

When I came home and read more about Georgia Street, I learned that they've transformed a vacant building into a community center where kids can do homework and access computers. They also have built a child-friendly space with a playground which we did not see during our stop.

I guess this just means I'll have to go back later in the season to see what else is growing.

MAKE: Encaustic and photos

2012-05-18T13:27:00.000-04:00

I've been playing around a new medium - encaustic paints. Encaustic paints are a combination of beeswax and damar resin. Since sometime last year I have been slowing reading up on them and ordering or finding supplies to make my own paint. I love all things bees (minus the stings) so this art form really interested me. You can buy the pre-made and tinted paints from a company or on Etsy but I seem to always take the messy route and wanted to make my own. Plus, it's cheaper.The thing about encaustics is that there is a little bit of danger involved because the fumes can be harmful, and making the paints and using them involves applying the right amount of heat as you lay on and fuse layers of the paints. People use an iron, a heat gun or even a small blow torch. In order to make the paint, I scourged thrift stores for a mini crockpot (which ended up not providing enough heat) and an antique iron without holes on the heat plate to use for fusing layers of the paint (which turned out to be too hot - you can see how the iron melted parts of the photo I mounted in my first piece above). Proper ventilation is really important and kind of a problem for me because we don't have normal windows that would allow me to put in a ventilation fan. After the crockpot failed me, I used the stovetop to melt the wax and even though I used the overhead fan, I think the fumes did bother my lungs a bit for the next week.I also ordered Claudine Hellmuth's DVD on beeswax collage on ebay. She doesn't use the damar resin, just the beeswax, so it technically isn't encaustic but her DVD has some really interesting techniques for layering the wax with photos, craft papers, tissue paper, pen and ink, and oil paint sticks. The bottom piece is a collage I made for Matt. One of his favorite movies is Life Aquatic. Captain Zazzou was pursing a shark but the sentiment is the same. Plus, octopi are beloved by Detroit Red Wings fans. He took the photo at the Detroit Institute of Arts which we both moved. The sea diver and octopus are actually these amazing theatrical puppets made in 1903 by Walter E. Deaves.I really loved the process of making these blocks, so I searched out an art class in encaustics and was really lucky and surprised to find a weekend workshop in the Chicago area with an encaustic artist Sarah Rehmer that was specifically about working with photographs and encaustics. I'm hoping to a learn a bit more about process and how to pursue this art safely. We're making a few pieces over the weekend so I'll share the results when I return.

Eight Vancouver Views

2012-05-14T22:47:00.000-04:00

During most of the time we were in Vancouver last week, Matt handled the "real" camera. I was happy with my Instax (I'll post the instants once I washi them into my little trip journal). When I did take over the manual camera for awhile, this is what I saw.

I'll be back soon with a few more details. It was a pretty laid back week but we did some worthwhile tourist-ing.

A very pink walk in the park

2012-04-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning it was my turn to walk the dog. I grabbed the camera because the park has been this magical spring dreamland the last couple weeks. The park is particularly dreamy before the city gets around to cutting the grass. It reminds me of my favorite books as a child where bunnies frolicked with little girls in fields filled with dandelions and long grass. As I was looking through the lens, the bleeding hearts and the pink dripping from the trees and covering the sidewalks like a wedding procession was so sugary sweet that it is almost too much. Mother nature has her bold way of announcing the renewal of life with each trip we take around the sun.

While I shot photos, across the expressway in Greektown a church full of people celebrated Orthodox Easter, singing hymns about Jesus rising from the dead while the trees and flowers did the same.

There are quite a few days living in the city that I bemoan how I never feel like driving out to go to a nature area, even though hiking in the woods is about my favorite thing to do. But on other days I just look up and down and around and it's enough.

Winter Walk

2012-02-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

I've been missing winter. I was telling a Southerner last week that it didn't feel right to me as a Northerner to go through winter without experiencing a proper, bone chilling deep freeze. Then I told him about the winter when they shut down the university for a couple weeks and the roads were like snow tunnels, and the winter when a dog in Matt's town ran over the frozen Straits of Mackinac and was found on the Island.

Blizzards of years past raced through my mind and I remembered them with fondness.

I didn't even tell him about the annual Kalamazoo or Boston blizzards when we stocked up on supplies and didn't leave the house for days (gladly), or the winter overnight hiking trip I took up to Carter Notch in New Hampshire and helped carry buckets of water from the frozen lake up to the cabin for dinner, or the winter trip we took to Quebec City and saw snow piled so high we couldn't see 2-story houses as we drove by. That was the trip where we drove out to visit some sled dogs, and then through a turn of events, we adopted this girl a few months later.

This weekend, we all drove North. Matt went to play in a hockey tournament on a frozen lake. The weather hasn't been cold enough for the Straits to freeze over this year, which is where they have held the event in years past. I took the dog and retreated for a couple days to wrap my head around a heap of dissertation data I need to present on and write about soon.

Saturday we woke up to 5 fresh inches. The dog spent as much time as possible wriggling in snow piles and we took long walks on the frozen lake. We shared the lake with ice fishermen, snowmobiles, and pickup trucks. I think we were the only ladies around. Out on that lake, I thought about everyone I know who is escaping to palm trees right now or wanting to escape. I get it. That January week we spent in Puerto Rico several years ago is a fond memory too. I thought about how harsh winter can be and even lonely, but on quiet weekends when the snow and ice is sparkling, the muted landscape and cold air slows me just enough that I take a deep breath and realize I am still very much alive.

Make in 2012

2012-01-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

For the last couple years I've chosen one little word to guide me through the year. When New Year's rolled around this year I tried to remember my word for 2011 and I couldn't remember! So, my word clearly didn't stick with me - guiding me through my every move in 2011. I had to look back at my blog posts to remember if I'd even chosen a word in 2011. But, I did indeed choose a word last January: stretch.

Immediately, I recognized that 2011 was about stretching myself. Mainly professionally, but also personally as I adapted to the ups and downs of life here and to the new adventures this place had in store for me. In the winter I stretched myself to become a better skate skier. Then, I stretched myself into a new summer routine that revolved around gardening and soccer. Biking through the city became comfortable and by fall I started to bike commute regularly. What stretched me the most was just letting go and trying on a new routines. For the first time in years, I spent a whole year taking very few photographs. I did minimal little scrapbooking or blogging. I did a fair amount of knitting but didn't keep close track of my projects. I cooked new recipes a bit less (although I did make homemade ricotta for the first time). I just tried to let go of the expectations around all that. With long hours at work, sometimes letting go was all I was capable of doing but it was also nice to just move through the weeks at the pace in which they came.

In 2010, my word was move and choosing that word actually had a big impact on my year so I know how powerful this practice can be. That January I wrote, "It's time to get a move on. To move on. To move my body more. To get moving. To finish what I started. To feel motivated. To reorganize. To literally move. Find a new place to live. To move on to a new phase. We don't know if it'll be 5 miles away or 1000 miles away, but we both feel the need to start anew this year. Wipe off the dust. Pare down our possessions. Feel a little lighter. Find a new adventure." And if I accomplished one thing in 2010 it was to find a new adventure. The move from Massachusetts to Michigan burned up most of that year. I spent the spring filling up an art journal while trying to decide whether to move, then the summer moving and the fall settling in. In the early winter I ran my first 5k.

In January I want to feel lighter and ready to make progress. I feel the need to pare down possessions and make new plans for new adventures. That's what I've been doing this first week of January 2012. Tidying up corners of our house. Finishing some projects that I didn't finish in 2011 so I can move on to new projects. Making lists and plans in my head and on paper.

So, in that vein, my word for 2012 is make. I let a few words roll around in my head for a few days and make is the one that stuck. Last year I let go of a lot of my crafting as I worked long hours at work, on a dissertation and on building a life here. Stretching myself in those directions was really good. But this year I want to I set aside more time to make things just for my own pleasure - to push my creativity deeper and in new directions. Now that I'm settled, it's time for venturing.

"Pleasure and action make the hours seem short." William Shakespeare.

2011-11-23T12:39:00.001-05:00

We call her...

Kaia
Puppers
Pupper Pup
Kaia Girl
Muffin
Kaia Muffin
Muffin Girl
Miss K
Miss Kaia
Muchacha
Huntress
Monster
Beast
Beastie

Matt and I often joke about how funny it is to us that we keep this beast in our house and take her for walks around the neighborhood on a string. Like we're keeping a wild animal captive and promonading her for our own pleasure.

She surely would run away if we let her off the leash, as huskies are known to do and as she did before we learned better. In her early years we tempted fate a few times, hopeful that we could somehow train her to come back to us despite her genetics. She'd take off on wild chases through the brambles and we'd have to trampse through the woods hoping she'd come back to us after she ran her heart out.

When she was still quite young, I spent a month working with her on coming back when called. She made good progress so when I took her for a hike in the woods, I let her off leash and gave her treats for staying by my side. She complied for about five minutes, then realized she could go ahead without me, full speed down the trail. I stood on a hill in the darkening woods and watched black flashes of fur run circles around me in the distance until I couldn't see or hear her anymore. I called Matt and asked him to drive down to look for her with me. I imagined hanging lost puppy posters around town and admonished myself for being such a bad dog owner. After about 45 minutes, she wandered slowly back to me, totally spent, and we went home.

After that, we settled for dog parks. One was very large and surrounded by water on three sides. After a disappearing act there, I found her curled up in the salt marsh. Another time Matt caught her by the tail after she and he jumped two fences. On her last adventure, she chased rabbits for an hour and a half on a lovely spring morning while we chased her. After that, we finally gave in to the leash. There are days when she's tracking the scent of a rabbit and I wish I could let her go for a chase. She would be so happy. But, we like our beast and intend to keep her.

With some dogs, they stick to you like glue. This one has a wild heart. And for that, I'm thankful.

Inside/Outside November

2011-11-06T18:41:00.001-05:00

I spent the afternoon playing around with TTV. For my first try, I got blurry photos but I think maybe I like it that way.

Scandinavian Travel, In Retrospect

2011-10-29T14:50:00.004-04:00

I started writing this when I looked at the calendar and it had been a month since my husband and I spent our last day in Norway. Now, another month has passed. We returned to a very fast paced fall where the weeks have slipped by, faster each one. I think of our trip a few times a week though and the shifts I've experienced in my thinking as a result of traveling.

*****
This vacation to Scandinavia was a dream, but on that last day in Norway, we were by the fish market after hours of walking around town on a drizzly day, almost aimlessly in a daze, and we watched on as a two year old melted down on the street, crying and dropping onto his knees next to his mother. I said to Matt, "I think I know how he feels. 'Get me out of this fishy town!'"

Norway was actually beautiful, as expected, and we were so lucky to be there visiting. But much like the Pacific Northwest, it was rainy and overcast and chilly, even in August. I was hungry, tired, wet and cold. We'd been walking, sometimes in the rain, all day, every day for eight days. Food was terribly expensive in Sweden and Norway so I was fueled on a backpack full of granola bars and trail mix from home, baguettes and fruit from the grocery store, and usually one small but square restaurant meal a day. Matt gets by just fine without eating much. I, most definitely, do not.

Yesterday I ran across this Moth Story Slam (we're a little obsessed) by Gail Simmons of Top Chef fame where she talks about planning her honeymoon in Vietnam and the lengths she went to eat a particular dish at a particular restaurant and when the restaurant was closed, multiple times, she melted down on the steps of the restaurant to the point where her husband had to pick her up off the steps and carry her into a cab. I haven't lost it on vacation quite that badly, but let's just say when I saw that little boy on the ground crying and I heard Gail's story, I could relate.

She talks about taking advantage of every experience, needing it all, making lists and researching and planning to have the very best experience. This was our 10th anniversary trip. Our first time visiting Europe. An ripe occasion for overdoing it.

Yet, I have learned, a little, over the years to temper my intense need to fit it all in. It's a requirement for a sane marriage. On our honeymoon we stayed in 4 hotels in 3 cities in 2 countries in 7 days. Since then, I've slowly learned to take a red pen to my well-researched vacation plan. Fewer hotels. Fewer destinations. Fewer plans.

For this vacation, I spent a month in all out research mode, but once the (two) hotels were booked, I'd read a few guidebooks from the library and about 50 websites, I really tried to let it go. A couple month before we left, I had second thoughts and considered adding a day in Denmark, taking an overnight train to Copenhagen for Stockholm. Who knew if we were every going back to Scandinavia? When I asked my good friend who has traveled in Europe a few times (and is an editor by the way) she wisely advised me to forget about it. The important thing is just being there, not to see everything.

We still over did it a little. We started in Stockholm and bought the 5-day Stockholm card which allowed entry into 80 of the city's museums. The temptation to see it all was enabled by practically open access. We went to art museums, Nordic museums, a music museum, an architecture museum, and even Skansen, an amazing historic open air museum much like Detroit's Greenfield Village that had a small zoo with black bears, moose, wolverines, and a lone grey wolf that was hiding from the crowds. We rented bikes on our last day in Stockholm and biked all over town, stopping at a few more museums on the way, thoroughly exhausting ourselves.We even squeezed in one museum 30 minutes before closing time, speeding through all 3 floors of exhibits like lunatics.

We fit a lot into those 4 days, and yes, in one my hungrier moments, I may have had a bit of a meltdown outside a restaurant after discussing whether it was worth the expense to splurge on a meal of traditional Swedish meatballs or salmon. Definitely not my finest performance while traveling. In the end, we shared a small plate of salmon and ate every bit of free bread and cracker board we could.

******
After Stockholm, we flew to Bergen, Norway. The main objective for visiting Stockholm was to see great design and in Norway, it was to see the fjords. I'd done my research, of course, but I didn't buy a tour ahead of time, in an attempt to not over plan and to go with the flow.

In Bergen, we spent our first day walking all over town looking at train, boat and bus schedules, trying to see if we could manage to save money by arranging the tour ourselves. We couldn't. Around dinner time, we gave in and booked a guided walking fjord tour for my birthday - by far the moment of true extravagance in our journey. It was and likely will be the most expensive train ride, walk, and boat ride of our lives. In a stroke of luck, no one else booked our tour that day so we had a lovely British guide all to ourselves who brought us tea, biscuits and apples and pointed out all the best sights and made sure we tried the local brown goat cheese, which tasted like pungent caramel. I was not hungry at all that day.

*****
Looking back, my favorite memories are the ones where we just took everything in and talked about how it was different from home. We talked a lot about how Scandinavians incorporated American culture into their culture, or how we wished Americans would incorporate Scandinavian social values into our culture.

One evening in Stockholm, the museums were closing and it was too expensive pay for a long leisurely dinner at a restaurant so we picked a line on the subway and took the train out as far as we could go. This was Matt's brilliant idea for slowing us down. We could sit and still sight see.

He got out his MP3 player and we listened to Bon Iver and Tallest Man on Earth. Very appropriate choice while surrounded by tall blonde Swedes. We watched Stockholm fade and the suburbs approach. Bicycle commuters rode in the same direction on the paved path between the expressway and the foggy evergreen woods. Flat after flat zoomed by and we talked about how the housing in Sweden seemed much more equitable from the outside than housing in the States. If there were slums or even rundown buildings, we never saw them. We remembered our conversation with the young Moroccan man in a bike shop who told us every Swede has a dream of having a summer home in the archipelago. I imagined people living in their flat during the week and heading to the sea for weekends and holiday, blissed out from the midnight sun and bits of smoked salmon.

Although it was on my list, we never made it out on the archipelago to see the Swedish dreamland. Instead spent that day biking around Stockholm, and saw things we otherwise wouldn't have seen. The world championship mini golf tournament and Swedish kids having field day in the park. We biked along the watery edges of the city's many islands, passed by commuters bike home.

When we came home, I started biking to work and around town more often and it's been freeing to experience my city this way. Souvenirs were expensive (actually everything was expensive) and so for most of the trip Matt's only souvenir was a free pencil he picked up at the architecture museum. Instead, we picked up impressions of a different way of living. Now that we are home we have been weaving those impressions into our daily life here.

I am much more thankful for our little garden planted on an unused plot of land, because in Stockholm people wait many years for the opportunity to buy a garden allotment. A limited number of plots were created after WWI for growing potatoes and now these private gardens are the only spots in which to grow your own food in a city of flats.

I'm even more aware (if it's possible) of our twisted national conversations about 'class warfare' and the super wealthy, understanding even more deeply now how our policy choices as a nation actually do create the crushing poverty in my city and that we could, we really could, collectively choose to take better care of each other. The man in the bike shop told me when they think as a society of what do about an alcoholic man out of work, they ask themselves, "What is the best thing for all us?" Keeping the person housed, clothed and fed so he does not commit crimes of hunger or desperation is their first priority. Sweden has more multinational corporations operating there than any other country in the world so their social policy does not seem to be hindering business development any.

I'm also more thankful for our music and how it's embraced all over the world. In a moment of homesickness, I sang along to Beyonce in a 7-11 in Norway. I came home more thankful for how people strike up little conversations with me around town (Scandinavians were a pretty tight lipped bunch). Over the past couple months, my routine has been pretty much the same as before, but I live in this place a little differently now. Overall, I was surprised by how much was new to us there. How many times a day we said to each other, "Look at that!" How many times we compared there to here. We did what we set out to do - we saw some stuff and then we came home and saw home differently too.

This was our Friday night

2011-09-25T22:58:00.002-04:00

Matt and I have been rolling this concept around for awhile, to each pick our favorite shot of the week. We've been thinking it could be an interesting challenge and a new way to see the year ahead of us. Some of what we see in a given week is the same, but we see it differently. Other days and even weeks take us in completely different directions. He's taking photographs more than me lately but I miss the camera. We've talked about starting a new site for this little project, but until that happens, I'll post here.

mje/spe 001

Our friend Andy Kem's design work can be found here.

Summer in the City

2011-08-10T21:21:00.005-04:00

A kind friend popped by last week to say, 'hey, post again, will you?' I got swept up in a beautiful summer and disappeared for a few months.We moved here a year ago in August, just in time to catch the remaining summer nights where the air was still hot and muggy air at 10pm and live music echoed off the buildings from the amphitheater by the river. We couldn't wait for our first full summer in this city. So, when summer came, we just soaked it all in. It was hard time to leave when the weekends came so as much as we could, we stayed close to home. Oh, how great this city is in the summer.

Here are the highlights:

Checking out movie sets. Matt took this one and it's a favorite.

Taking nieces and their parents around town to candy stores, playgrounds, museums, parks, and art installation.

Soccer. I wanted to move here anyway, but soccer league was a top 5 draw. The season ended Saturday and without a doubt, the biggest thrills of the summer were out on the field. We struggled. But then we bonded. And in the end, we figured out how to play a pretty decent game of soccer together.

Knitting. So much knitting, brought on by neighbors who are voracious with the needs and the birth of so many babies. I couldn't keep up! But I sure did try! This was a happy little baby sweater for the newest kid on our block.

And of course the actual welcoming of the babies! I'm not sure why 90% of babies born to my close friends and family are girls, but it was a summer of even more girls! One of my oldest friends had sweet little girl and I was happily here for the whole journey, even a couple lovely pre- and post-baby photo sessions.

Eating lots of Katie's Cannoli. When you come to Detroit, head to Supino's in Eastern Market and get cannoli. Really, do it! Buy more than you think you want.

Rooftop parties. Somehow we got invited to two rooftop parties this year. And I thought this kind of thing only happened in New York.

The weather. So hot. So muggy. Five straight weeks of it. And now I'm not quite sure what to think of the very slight chill in the evening air.

Canada! We finally got our passports and went over to Windsor to have dinner for our 10th anniversary. We drove around, were in awe of a new dose of culture (aka Vietnamese restaurants) and drove up the river and saw the soccer fields on Belle Isle from another country. We then made a beer run at the Beer Store. Beer bought in Canada truly tastes much better and bonus, comes out on a conveyor belt! We kept it casual and ate at a place with brown vinyl ambiance, made up for by pretty amazing haddock and chips. A couple weeks later we also went to a family reunion deep in the farm fields of southeastern Ontario. We'll be doing a lot more exploring in Ontario over the next year.

Shopping at the market on Saturdays. And now Tuesdays as well!

Biking with the dog, down the trail and along the river. She runs hard and then likes to take breaks in the grass.

Recycling. At the coolest recycling center I can imagine. Again, hot muggy days with funk music bouncing off the walls. Bee branding is a theme in Detroit. Bee themed grocery story. Bee themed hardware store. Bee themed recycling center.

And finally a little garden patch. We got a late start, threw some seedlings and seeds in the ground in late June, well after the other raised beds were thigh high. But, our crop is catching up and we should have a decent haul by the end of August or September.

There's more of course. Summer concerts. Little neighborhood projects to ward off graffiti and weeds. Quick trips up north. This weekend, I'm headed west, to walk on the Lake Michigan beach without shoes, catch a sunset on the big lake and get my fill in the blueberry fields while I can.

Fall has always been my favorite season, but right now, it's really hard to imagine that the changing leaves will be as magical as this season has been.

Right now, I am...

2011-04-04T23:01:00.001-04:00

Right now, I am...

loving our new vintage bedroom furniture from my new favorite store Second Chance Design in Holland, Michigan. Our "new" dresser was made the year our home was built so it's perfect. I bought paint samples for the walls tonight, so we'll settle on a color this week and get to work on putting our bedroom together. We've been married for 10 years and have been using my high school bedroom set that whole time. Definitely was time for our own furniture.

helping my sister-in-law set up a blog so she can tell the story of her sweet little family. So excited to read her stories.

wanting to start running again or to start swimming laps. I also want to reverse my two week backslide on drinking soda (pop) at lunch.

looking forward to playing soccer this summer. There is an Futbol League in the city where residents represent their neighborhoods. The possibility of playing soccer again was among the top five things I considered when we were deciding between city and suburbs. I need to get my cardio going so I can keep up.

waiting to nail down our vacation dates this summer. We have a destination in mind.

enjoying time at home and in the city. Matt told his family this weekend that he's having a serious love affair with this city. I have to agree. Life here is a roller coaster at times, but it feels just right. There's something powerful about connecting to a place that's shaped your family history.

looking forward to a lunch date and seeing The Color Purple with my mom this weekend.

feeling grateful that Matt just told me that control + z will undo. I just deleted this post accidentally. And I’m feeling grateful for this knitter who generously and expertly looked at photos of my messed up sweater-in-progress and gave me amazing direction to get back on track.

hoping this will be an easy week and I'll get a lot done with minimal stress.

booking tickets to go meet my newest niece and to spend some chill time with my brother and sister-in-law. Looking forward to more time jumping on the trampoline and maybe even some camping if it isn't too hot in Texas that weekend.

reading a couple books by Brene Brown. If you would have asked me if I was a person who felt a lot of shame, I would likely have said no. But something in me clicked after listening to her TED talk. First I totally got her as a researcher, so that drew me in. But I, along with many others, realized she's really got her finger on something critical to wellness and what she calls "wholehearted living". I decided it was worth the effort to spend some time living with and thinking through my relationship with shame and self-compassion. I also have been turning to Thich Nhat Hanh's You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment. Some of his meditation practices can be found here.

thinking spring. Rain and warmer temps are here.

Typographic Detroit

2011-03-18T20:02:00.000-04:00

I had the good fortune to go on a day-long tour of Detroit neighborhood history the other week, and then I took my husband on part of the tour route, followed up the two of us taking his parents along for a ride as well. While my father-in-law drove, I captured a some photos to share here.

One of my favorite aspects of Detroit is the amazing typography and signage. In other cities signs like these went to the junk yard years ago, or the buildings were painted over or demolished. There's also a strong tradition of painting signage on the sides of brick buildings that continues today. I'm certainly not the only one to appreciate the vintage and creative typography that threads through the city. Someone even set up a Facebook fan page for detroit urban typography. There is a good collection of Detroit signage on flickr too.

In addition to the beautiful vintage signs, you'll also occasionally run across funny little nonsensical signs like this one.

End of Winter Distraction

2011-03-14T22:46:00.001-04:00

I've been working my way through the end of winter and the overwhelming local, national, and international news with...

1 - A little knitting.

A ruby red and pink swirl hat for a baby I want to finally meet soon.And a couple mitered squares for a blanket my knitting group is working on. I found this yarn on sale and used a gift certificate I got for Christmas. The colors are my favorites, all in one! Luckily I have a couple more skeins to hoard or use up soon. I can't decide which.2 - A little scrapbooking.All the bits and pieces for this page came from an awesome craft supply swap I attended at the Blue House in Ann Arbor. It's a really cool art and crafts space that I discovered after connecting online to a local crafter in the aftermath of this annoying post on Etsy's blog in January. (I read this post on my phone while I was driving along the main drag through downtown, in the passenger's seat, thinking about how much I love it here. I love you Etsy but I don't love Detroit bashing by rubberneckers who don't check their facts. They're at the top of my pet peeves list. I think my comment went something like "last gasp my ass".) Anyhow, I turned a negative into a positive, and hope to make it back to the Blue House sometime this year to take a class. It takes a lot of energy to drive outside of 8 Mile these days, but I'll make it back to Ann Arbor eventually for a little craft escape.I've also been getting ready to jump into a Project Life album and have been gathering supplies for a photo mounting project. More on that soon.3 - A little break here and there. I even squeezed in a couple beach walks when I went to Florida for work. I added 'try kite surfing' to that bucket list on that trip! Walks. Naps. Spending time with family and friends. Space to reflect and process thoughts. Time to shop for and cook some good food. All are necessary for sanity in these troubling times. I am praying for peace and renewal as we approach spring.P.S. Jen is auctioning a Noro hand knitted scarf for Red Cross Japan relief fund. Great idea. Check it out.

Desperately Seeking Lazy Lounging

2011-02-19T08:00:00.009-05:00

I am off on a trip soon. A work trip. An escape is very much needed, although I wish this trip was with my sweetie and involved not a drip of work. A true vacation it is not.

A word of warning from a dark place - if you ever get the wild notion that completing a PhD is something you want, please keep in mind that it may usurp vacation in your life for a few years. Both because of budget and time constraints. Taking time off from paid work means - hey, even more work!

Brilliant idea, genius.

Which reminds me, I saw someone in my PhD cohort walking around campus in a complete stupor on the day we turned in our comprehensive exams. He told me, "I just didn't know what to do with myself, so I just walked around for a few hours." I'll never forget the blank look on his face. His mental capacities completely drained. Like academia had sucked out his brain rather than increased its capacity.

I identified my workaholic tendencies in college. In fact I delayed pursing a PhD for some years because I knew I needed to find the key to balance first. I've gotten better at it as I moved from my early 20s to my late 20s to my early 30s. Most weeks I find good chunks of time to relax, and I know enough about myself now to see the warning signs once I'm headed down the road to stupor. Lack of sleep. Working on a Friday night. Worrying all week there is not enough time to relax over the weekend.

Yesterday evening I spontaneously started writing a Bucket List. I've never had any impulse to do this and even find the term "bucket list" to be a little annoying in its clunkiness, but the listmaking started instantaneously. Work overload induced, must reclaim power over fun in my life, big dream listmaking. This was all top of mind. Whatever came to me, I wrote down, in order of appearance in my reduced capacity brain.

Get an invitation to an event at the White House
Be a vendor at a craft show
Sell over 200 items on Etsy
Take a two week backpacking trip
Bike across Europe
Grow a big garden
Raise a child
Visit Asia, South America and Africa
Go on a trek in the mountains in New Zealand
Camp in Alaska
Camp on the deck of a ferry through the Inside Passage
Learn to play the guitar (again and much better)
Learn to speak Spanish
Take a weekend trip with my mom, involving her red convertible, lake visits and good food
Go to a weekend or weeklong craft retreat
Get a photography lesson from a professional
Sell some of my photographs
Finish my PhD
Take a weeklong trip with Big City Mountaineers again

Ambitious right? I start right off with working so hard the President will invite me over for a visit? Mind you, this all started off after watching a White House meeting on the outdoors on YouTube. Somehow between policy making and the Secretary of the Interior, I got the itch to write down my dreams to travel more. The ambition continues pretty far down the list. Bike across Europe? Do I really want to do that?

It wasn't really until #14 that I hit on something that wasn't a gigantic undertaking. Something that was possible, and sounded, well, just perfectly pleasant and lovely. (Not to discount raising a child as a perfectly pleasant and lovely undertaking but is admittedly a project more time consuming than visiting 3 corners of the globe).

I guess this is the problem with writing a Bucket List when you are overworked. It's too ambitious. But that's kind of the point of a Bucket List, right?

Maybe the remedy to overworking is just write an anti-Bucket List. It would say something like, I intend to be a lazy lounger who bathes in relaxation and takes on only the responsibilities necessary for my continued existence and pleasure. That sounds better.

Well, anyway, just a week of a lazy existence would be welcome. Instead, for now, I'll be spending some time on that pesky number 18. The dream I pursued, the one I insist on finishing so I can cross it off my list and move on to others, and the one that, at the moment, is keeping me from a solid week of relaxation with my sweetie.

Which brings me to #20 on my bucket list, which is actually #1.

Spend a minimum of one week every year with my sweetie. Wherever it is in the world, it doesn't matter, as long as it's together, away, and doesn't involve a drip of work.

Got any ideas for an awesome relaxing week away for a cash strapped but airline points rich couple? Due to a year of overwork, I don't think this is the year for biking across a continent or trekking across mountains, but any suggestions that involve copious amounts of lazy lounging in a beautiful place would be welcome.

Warriors of Winter

2011-02-08T01:33:00.002-05:00

Would you hate me if I said I didn't want winter to go? That I want more of it. That I love sunlit reflections on ice. Paws and fur on snow. Sparkles under my feet. I want more time for skiing in forests. More time for skating on ponds.

After the week of the big snowfall, I wanted more of this magic. Friday afternoon, in a rather spur of the moment decision that I too often do not get to make as an adult, I headed north. I've made this trip many times before, traveling dark roads on a Friday night to spend the weekend with someone who knows me to the core. Years ago I drove this direction many times to see the young guy who would become my husband. A five hour drive was easy when I had someone worthwhile waiting for me on the other end of the trip. Haven't made the drive by myself in much longer than I can remember. Ten years? Fifteen years? It felt like a homecoming keep my own company while making this journey. In the winter, a stillness overcomes me as I drive north. It's a meditation.

I listened to Joni Mitchell on the way, and my ear tuned in while she sang:

Now the warriors of winter they give a cold triumphant shout

And all that stays is dying, all that lives is getting out

See the geese in chevron flight

Flappin' and a-racin' on before the snow

They got the urge for going and they've got the wings so they can go

Most creatures try to escape this cold season, but with every passing year, I look forward to it more and don't want it to end.

The draw north this weekend was time with an old friend, a lot more paws on the snow, and a warm fire in the lodge afterward.

Late that Friday night, I met her at a little spot on a black river where one summer I flipped out of a canoe and for a moment thought I might not make it back to the surface. She was a teenager with super human strength and pulled me out of that river. I remember the moment vividly when the canoe lifted off the surface of the water, and she was standing there to save me, arms lifted high with a canoe over her head.

Today she still has super human strength. Fearless, with the determination to do what most people do not consider doing. No sled for her. She set her feet into skis and strapped her waist to a couple of long legged dogs barely out of puppyhood who wanted nothing more than to run fast into the woods. Those two dogs and the power of her own will and strength pulled her forward.

A few miles later, and a minute ahead of the competition, these three crossed the finish line.

They ran the course Saturday and Sunday mornings, and placed first both times. It was their first competitive run. It's exhilarating, this snow and fur and strength of will.

The weekend drew to a close so I headed south. I stopped on the way to strap some skis on my own feet and propel myself through the woods for a bit. The snow was falling between the pines. As I stopped a few times to catch my breath, I took in the wonder of it all.

I made it back home to my husband and my dog before sunset. We immediately went to the park to tromp and pull through the snow once more.

Archive of Knitting UFOs

2011-01-30T13:20:00.003-05:00

In knitter speak, UFO is an unfinished object. Let's just say I have a knack for them. I've been making a little extra effort lately to finish up some long overdue projects but I don't have total confidence yet, given my track record.

Cases in point:

2005:: I was really in love with this fluffy sweater in my first knitting pattern book. I boldly struck out to knit myself a sweater. I think I even went so far as to buy this yarn on ebay. I know it was out of production and it took some effort to find it. Once I got about a third of the way done, I became afraid that the sweater was going to be too small or that I wasn't going to have enough yarn or that it was just too fluffy, so I gave up. Now that I look at it again, it might be okay. Ah, maybe. It is so soft and fluffy. It's been off my to-do list for over five years but now I'm having second thoughts.

2007:: I decided to knit the Juliet sweater right to specifications. Same yarn, same color as the pattern. I had plenty of extra yarn so no fears about running out. Little room for error. But, the lace pattern was hard for me and I spent an awful lot of time on this. The printed out pattern was crumpled, ripped, and taped back together. Now it seems I've lost the pattern and I have no trace of it in my email or computer files. I took the sweater to knitting group one night recently and wasted the entire time trying to see if I could figure out the lace repeat. Then I spent a couple more nights at home doing the same. I finally realized, just last week, that I could quit being such a cheapskate and spring the $6.50 for the the pattern again so I can finish this already. It would take less than a two or three nights to do so.

2008:: I knitted these lovely spa socks in organic cotton for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Ambitiously, I told my sister-in-law I was planning to knit her a pair too. Then, surprise surprise, after some procrastination, I lost the pattern. Definitely a theme running here. Even moreso, it was an obscure pattern in a magazine that I bought on ebay. Wow, I really do repeat myself. This Christmas I thought I could redeem myself so I started scouring Ravelry for a suitable pattern replacement. Turns out it's hard to find sock patterns for worsted weight cotton. But, then miracle of miracles, I went to buy this book for a project my knitting group is planning, and it had the perfect pattern replacement. I started knitting the socks at the same time I started knitting my husband a hat. The hat required the same needles for the bind off so I took the sock off the needles right when I got to the gusset (the hard part). Bad move. I haven't put the socks back on the needles yet. I will. Really, I will. Lesson here: don't believe me when I say I'm going to knit you something for a holiday. Or just prepared to wait a few years.

2011:: Despite all these perfectly suitable projects that I should be knitting, I got ahead of myself and cast on for this sweater. It was 10 degrees out and I was really cold. It was a desperate move. I'm knitting it out of yarn I bought back in 2005 to knit my husband a sweater. Soon after I started the sweater for him, I realized he didn't actually wear big itchy, chunky sweaters. It was a nice gesture, but totally wasted effort and yarn. The first several inches of that long lost sweater project are now sitting on my end table in the living room waiting to be frogged so I'll have enough yarn for a sweater for myself. And yes, clearly my sister-in-law deserves those long ago promised socks but I seriously must finish this project before the snow melts and I lose the pattern. Cotton ankle socks will be just perfect for the spring, right?

And that, my friends, is my knitting life. I could say I'm going to stop these habits and maturely work on one project at a time. But who would I be kidding? It's clearly not my style.