wanderCRAFT

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.

The Power of a Landscape

2011-01-21T23:40:00.002-05:00

This place has this crazy ability to completely surprise me. To make me do double takes and to scratch my head in total wonder. Truly. I think it's reorganizing my whole view of the landscape and my place in it.

I see this view of Canada almost everyday. What's amazing about it is that I'm standing in the good ole' U.S.of A. but I'm looking across this slow moving river at another country. It's close enough that I could swim for it, but I'm sure that border patrol would nab me halfway across. I do fantasize about it though.

Other than inspiring my imagination to go a little too far, Canada's shore provides, on an average day, a less-than-inspiring view of some houses, a few factories and an ugly casino, which after dark shines these Gotham-like search lights across the sky that just accentuate its garishness. Kind of like in Back to the Future 2 when Biff screws up1985.

But this particular evening while I was rushing to my car to head for a yoga class, I stopped and did that double take thing. I thanked my lucky life because I had my camera on me for a change.

For those moments, the mother of sky and water transformed this scarred urban landscape into a place of total wonder. The river was just barely frozen over. Just enough to wash the surface with a watercolor reflection of the clouds above and all those lights on its shore.

A few weeks before I'd listened to Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk on nurturing creativity where she talks about how we need to think again about creativity as not something you own, but as a gift that passes through you. She talked about a poet, Ruth Stone, who said that she would "feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape and she said it was like a thunderous train of air" and at that moment the only thing to do was to run like hell to find some paper so that she could collect it before it disappeared. I felt the same way this night when I pulled my camera out of my bag in an excited rush.

When I got home I ran inside and told my husband I couldn't believe the shots I got. Was I really the one to capture these? How incredibly lucky that I was there at that moment, paying attention, and ready to set my camera down and open the shutter. Capturing these images was a gift to me. They transformed my entire perspective on this place that I see almost daily. Now I see a place where nature - water, sky and light - holds enough power of me over me to make me stop and change my plans.

I never made it to that yoga class.

Wool on Ice

2011-01-13T20:23:00.000-05:00

Matt loves snug hats and anything linear. Turn a Square hat was just the hat to knit for him. The pattern by Jared Flood is free and well written. I used some leftover black Patton's wool and Malabrigo merino worsted in olive (I think). The two give a nice textural contrast between regular wool and super soft wool. If you knit this, make sure you learn how to do jogless stripes first. I skipped that, and the stripes are a little messy (not shown). But, he's a dude. He doesn't mind.

Natural Detroit:: 1

2011-01-10T23:09:00.007-05:00

The New Year gets you thinking, you know. Since moving to Detroit, I haven't been feeling quite like me. And, honestly as a result, this blog hasn't been feeling quite like me. I've been busy so I didn't have much time or energy to figure out what was a little off. Then the other week while couch ridden from a long drawn out cold, I stumbled across this lovely blog called Resurrection Fern and I realized clear as the sky what was missing from this space.

I settled on the name wanderCRAFT because while posting to my first blog (which I started over six years ago - gak!), I gravitated towards crafts, nature, and things I stumbled on when I'm out wandering or traveling. That combination felt like me. Since moving to Detroit, I haven't felt the same inspiration to photograph and it made blogging not quite as fun. The spark was gone. I was okay with the lapsed inspiration as we settled in, but as three months turned to four then five, this gap kept nagging at me more.

After stepping back, I finally owned up to what I think was holding me back. I'm not inspired to photograph abandoned factories and derelict urban scenes but I admit they abound. Others are capturing that side of this place very well and I'm fascinated by what they see through the lens, but it's not my muse. My calling is to find nature again, even in this very urban place. That's what makes me feel whole. In Boston it was pretty easy to escape to the woods or the ocean or even the mountains, but here I'm going to have to try a little harder to seek out new places. Finding my connection to nature here is part of this place feeling like home.

Sunday I was still sniffling and coughing from this terribly drawn out cold but I insisted we take off for an hour to a park not too far outside of the city. You see, this weekend we were scheduled to drive several hours up north for what I'm sure was a wonderful celebration of one of my closest friend's parents' 40th wedding anniversary. Compared to where we're living, they live in the wilderness. Stars. Woods. A river that does not have a casino on its shores. My heart broke at not having the energy or health to get away.

Sunday, before the sun made its departure for the evening, this walk was the best remedy. When we stepped out onto frozen Lake St. Claire, I felt a little bit like Maria when she stepped out onto the mountaintop.

I need to find more and soak it in. My one little word for 2011 is 'stretch' and part of my challenge is to stretch my boundaries. Over the last five months I've managed to cocoon myself into this little comfy nook and routine in the city where I don't often stray. I really love it here. But I need to get out too.

Here's to finding myself outside in 2011. Stretching myself up to the wide open sky.

Waiting for the Wedding Album

2011-01-03T18:24:00.001-05:00

A friend requested that I make her a photo album for her wedding photos. I was honored to be asked, but also nervous to take on such an important task. I love making small scrapbooks and photo journals but have never taken a class in bookbinding, nor tried my hand at making an album worthy to hold wedding photos for a lifetime. She had plans to print some photos into a book, but wanted some photos to be displayed in a handmade album because it would be more meaningful.

Mirroring the slow food movement, this was my slow craft project for the year. I spent at least 3 months collecting supplies, reading about techniques, and thinking through design aspects. What colors should I use? What size should the page sizes be? What binding technique should I choose? How do I make it special and personalized? Do I have the skill to pull this off? I learned a lot in the process of slowing down and letting this project unfold creatively at its own pace. It tested my patience at times, but it was worth it.

You may recognize the tree on the front cover.

Even before this project was presented to me, I felt the urge to dig deeper creatively. To push myself to do work that required more time and skill. There's definitely a time for crafting quickly, and certainly there are times when life only allows for quick projects. But there's also a lot to be said for digging deeper and creating something of quality that is worthy of investing extra time in so that it has a chance of lasting

I intend for 2011 to be the year of quality over quantity. To process over producing. To find deeper wells of creativity in me. I'm not sure where the urge will take me, but I'm looking forward to the journey.

p.s. If you decide to try your hand at bookbinding, I really recommend using linen thread, not cotton or polyester, and investing in an awl (not just using a paper piercer meant for scrapbooking). It'll save you some time and heartache. There's always PaperSource for supplies, but locally owned and operated Hollander's is a great choice too. The cardstock I used was Opal Stardust 105lb from Bluedot Paper Shop, which has a beautiful sheen and a really sturdy thickness too. Youtube is a good source of tutorials on Japanese stab binding, and of course browsing online through flickr and etsy for inspiration is a great idea too.

Last Minute Christmas Card

2010-12-24T13:44:00.001-05:00

Like every year, I had big plans for crafting Christmas cards. I even bought the cards, and had a concept but didn't pull it together in time. Instead, Matt and I put a last minute digi card together using Photoshop and Picasa. First, I made a photo collage in Picasa, size 5x7. Then I downloaded this free Christmas card from Becky Higgins.

In Photoshop, I made a 12x12 page, so this can do double duty as a digital scrapbook page. My first! Then I wrote some short month-by-month journaling, inspired by Angie Lucas. Next Matt helped me out with adding some color and the snowflakes with the brush tool. Flatten, and done.

It still bums me out a little to not send something through the mail, but whatevs. It went out by email in the nick of time. I am going to get this printed and slide it into a scrapbook too.

This year was such a whirlwind that I really appreciated looking back and reflecting on where we'd been and what we'd done. My one little word this year was "move". And move we did. At the end of the year, it's kind of like, what did we do besides move? But it turns out, we did some stuff.

Someone asked me in jest the other week if I live charmed life or something and I happily owned up to it. Yes, my life is totally charmed. It's because I have a lot of good support. I don't take the credit. There are so many people who share so much with me, and all I can go is try and try and try to repay the favor.

I am so grateful for this beautiful mess of a life we lead. Even for the crazy, mixed up times we manage to get through. Wishing you many beautiful moments during the week ahead.

The ying and yang of winter

2010-12-21T23:54:00.001-05:00

Two photos of two completely different winter windows. One cold and one cozy. I am shivering right now as I write this and I'm not so happy about it. But, there are some really good things about the cold. It can be simply magical on a frosty bright blue sky day. It also makes me seek out the cozy.

Makes me want to grab some hot cocoa, my slippers, a good book, and a blanket. Hoping that you find some happiness in a cozy little corner of the world this holiday season!

6 Ways to Entertain Nieces

2010-12-12T15:34:00.002-05:00

One more special little niece entered the world about a week ago and so I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an aunt. I have five beautiful little girls in my life who bring me tons of joy. A few months ago, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's follow-up book to Eat, Love, Pray. It's called Committed, and it's largely about deciding to marry after a long period of ambivalence. She also writes about the Auntie Brigade, a group of childless women who have enough reserves of energy and time to dote on their nieces and nephews, as well as to be roving aunties to the world. When I read it, I was like, "Hey, that's totally me!"

Over the past ten years, I've had so many special aunt and niece moments, and I can't help but think that some of them never would have happened if I'd been encumbered by children of my own. Recently, for one day during the Thanksgiving weekend, Matt and I went into full gear aunt and uncle mode and spent a full day doting on our three nieces. It was an awesome day.

For those aunties and uncles looking for ways to connect with their nieces and nephews during the holidays, here are the ideas we came up with.

1. Give a music lesson. Beating out rhythms is always great fun. If you don't have practice drum pads, use pots and pans and be prepared to cover your ears. It's even more fun first thing in the morning when everyone is still in their pj's. It totally rocks to have a cool uncle who bangs on drums.

2. Give knitting lessons. Or crocheting, cross stitch or sewing lessons, depending on your hobby of choice. The girls and I have been building up to knitting lessons for over a year. They see me knit at holiday gatherings and have always been curious. Last Christmas they sat on my lap and tried a few stitches with me. This year the two oldest told their mom they wanted to learn to knit at Thanksgiving, so before they came, I picked up some chunky 10.5 knitting needles and yarn.

The lessons went well and they spent a good part of the day knitting. Of course, they needed a lot of technical assistance along the way. The traditional rhyme used to teach kids to knit is, "In through the door, around to the back, peek through the window and off jumps jack". We found that this method had them asking me again and again, "But where's the window!". So instead came up with our own rhyme. "Go down the hole, chase the rabbit behind and through the middle, catch the rabbit, pull it out of the hole. And off jumps jack (rabbit)". Before they left, the oldest said to me, "This is the first year I haven't wanted anything big for Christmas. I just want yarn." We will see if this is just a fade, but either way, for the rest of their lives the girls can now say, "My aunt taught me to knit".

3. Playground Photo Shoot. It was very cold Thanksgiving weekend, but giving the girls time to run around outside was still very necessary for everyone's sanity. We tried to take holiday card photos outside, but it was just too cold so I got one good candid shot instead. Photographing the girls has been a favorite auntie activity over the years.

4. Make a time lapse movie. This was Uncle Matt's big activity for the day, aside from the music lessons. He showed them a couple examples online and then got out the tripod. The girls came up with some ideas, and then they got to work. They took 30 photos for this movie, which required lot of patience for the girls! They did great though and I can see them trying this again during their next visit.

5. Have a night at the museum. Our amazing local art museum has an adult and kid-friendly Friday Night Live event every week with music and special events. Matt and I took the girls for a 'just us' night out on the town.

We started out making finger puppets. The museum staff had a great idea to cut the fingers off of cheap work gloves and then have felt, pipe cleaners, feathers, yarn, fabric, markers and googley eyes on hand.

We got some candid feedback from the girls though that glue sticks are "THE WORST GLUE IN THE WORLD!" for making finger puppets. We had to make some emergency repairs after we got home that night.

After the finger puppets, we almost called it a night. It'd been a very very full day. Still, the girls wanted to move on to the next activity. We headed over to the Africa room, where they had sketching stations set up for the kids. The docent walked us around so the girls could decide what they wanted to draw. They were given a drawing pencil and a gum eraser, and then went right to work. Oh my, they melt my heart.

We had the docent all to ourselves for the first 10 minutes, so he kindly offered to sketch a picture of the birthday girl. I've never seen her sit so still.

After a half an hour of very serious sketching, we headed out. Unfortunately, we missed the music so Matt asked them what they wanted to sing on the way home. The little one yelled, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!" Yep, these are totally our kind of girls. Pretty sure they learned that one thanks to our Beatles Rock Band contribution to last year's Christmas.

When we got home from the museum, it was straight to bed, after some quick finger puppet repairs.

6. Watercolor paper for snowflakes. The next morning I woke up with a little girl in my face, "Aunt Sara, when are we going to do our project?" I had promised the little one that I'd do a special project with her since the older two spent a lot of time with me learning to knit.

Quickly, before the parents had to load the three girls into the minivan for the next family gathering, I got out some big pieces of drawing paper and some watercolor paints. She worked her magic with water and paint, and then went home with a few sheets of lovely paper to make snowflakes from. The transition from harvest to winter was underway!

I have to say, even though it's not something you hear very often, that I love being a childless auntie. We should celebrate them more.

New Etsy Endeavor

2010-12-03T14:54:00.003-05:00

In high school I went on a massive hunt for vintage ties. I was really into crazy quilts at the time and I wanted to make one. Well, it's 15 years later and that hasn't happened. Now that we have a house of our own, I decided to take mercy on my parents and rescue the ties from my mom's sewing closet. It's time they go to fine folks who will love and appreciate them.

Matt and I decided to collaborate and open an etsy shop together devoted solely to vintage ties. He was the creative genius behind the name - Tic Tac Tie - and the banner.

I've learned a few things from my first etsy shop. One lesson is that running a shop is easier if the pricing and shipping details are consistent. So, all the ties are $8. Shipping is free in the U.S. We'll be adding new ties every week to keep the shop fresh.

It is a pretty stunning collection. I'm still in love with tie fabric and design. There's such a wide variety of styles and color. I'm definitely going to enjoy listing these in the shop as much as I hope others enjoy wearing them!

2010-12-01T00:44:00.000-05:00

I'm participating in a swap over at The Dares, and the other week a lovely green envelope arrived from Alaska filled with TTV and Polaroid transparencies, stickers, and cards made from Tina's amazing photos. I'm a big fan. You'll love her photographs and layouts. The other pages will be posted over at The Dares website in the next week or two, so check that out. Totally an honor to participate.

The first page that came to me was a little meditation on why I think people bother to scrapbook. Bits of love, pressed down in photos, colors and words that send a message to the future that you were here and you paid attention to the details. I've said it before...I feel like I'm creating a visual love letter every time I scrapbook about my friends or family.

I wanted to keep using her photographs so I kept going with a second page. A little poem about my day spilled onto the page.

I do miss art journaling and have been thinking about it more lately. Somewhere in our move, my art journal disappeared, probably into a box that's still in the basement waiting to be unpacked. Now that the skies are grey and we're forced indoors more than I'd wish, it's time to find it again. These pages will surely make their way in.

Have you art journaled or scrapbooked lately? Or done something else creative with photographs, colors or words. Leave me a link in the comments if you have. I'd love to see what you've been up to.

Reflection

2010-11-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

{One photo. No words. I'll let go of the chatter for a bit, and let your mind fill in the story.}

An Autumn Week in the Life

2010-11-16T22:43:00.000-05:00

In the spring I participated in the Week in the Life project. You can see a few of my pages here and here. I knew then that I wanted my mini book for 2010 to include a week in the spring when we were in Boston and a week in the fall when I expected we would be elsewhere. When October rolled around, I luckily remembered my plan but had to really remind myself to pick a week to document before the year was up. Two weeks ago ended up being the week.

My life is so full right now and moving at an incredible pace. It was harder to find space in the day for the camera, especially during the weekdays when I sit behind a desk during the good light hours. But somehow I managed to take at least a few photos each day. Now, as I look back through them, I'm struck by the incredible amount of activity I managed to fit into those non-office hours.

Internally, I never feel like I fit enough in. It's this thing I have. Call it ambition. Or an appetite for living. Or just plain foolishness. I don't know. One of my occasional mantras is a line from the Indigo Girls song Get Out The Map... "Why do we hurdle ourselves through every inch of time and space? I must say around some corner I can sense a resting place." It pops into my head from time to time, especially when I'm hurdling too much.

The photographic evidence suggests I fit in plenty, even when I feel like I've been napping a lot more than usual. With family and friends nearby to fill up my spare time, I've been recognizing the very fullness of my life lately. I've also been recognizing that I need stretches to sit or to lay down and nap. For this reason, knitting has re-entered my routine because I can sit and accomplish something on the couch.

I'm sure I'm not the only one hurdling myself through time and space. Here's just a slice of what kept me busy one week this fall.

Saturday:: An afternoon of napping followed by an epic 4-mile walk to get hockey tickets for an evening's game. And another walk to take the train to the game.

Sunday:: Visiting Matt's family for their Sunday routine. The evening back home included trick or treaters and prepping the bathroom for a coat of paint that was applied around 10pm (just squeezing in that one last activity before the weekend was over).

Monday:: A quick dinner of pierogies while cleaning up for a few visiting neighborhood knitters.

Tuesday:: A birthday dinner and a concert with and for my mom, who also has also fallen for one of my favorite bands. There was also a little side conversation at the concert with a friend from way back and his wife.

Wednesday-Friday:: The rest of the weekdays disappeared into a swirl of migraine, taking it a bit more slowly, dog walking, chasing fat squirrels up trees, and adding another layer of lime green paint to the bathroom. Monday night I framed and hung that photo that my grandpa took. Thursday night I went for a run, of sorts, since I'm trying to prep for a 5k in December, again with friends from way back.

Saturday:: Matt drove me to the airport and saw me off for a week away. I slept for 2/3rds of the flight, and then woke to manage an hour of work and a little knitting before landing. I packed four different knitting projects, as if I could somehow invent the time to finish three projects and start a new one. I did finish one and came close on a second.

I spent the next few days blissfully reuniting with my newly two year old niece.

She goes goes goes too. Her approach to life is pretty much to jump when she wants to jump (and when her adults let her). The second she's done jumping, she runs, or swings, or reads a book, or dresses up, or talks to her family, or plays with her friends, or listens to music, or paints with watercolor, or savors a popsicle.

Two year olds are great at hurdling themselves through time and space, followed by a nice long nap. Maybe it's just a stage I never outgrew.

Pixie Hat for the Girl

2010-11-14T21:41:00.002-05:00

I've been knitting a lot this month, after a long hiatus. I've been traveling a lot, and it seems that knitting on a plane or in a car is the best place for me to make some good progress. I also recently joined a new knitting group and I got a great suggestion from the organizer to try out this pattern for the Vintage Pixie Hat in the book Vintage Knits for Modern Babies. It's an awesome pattern and I can see myself knitting this one again and again.

A little one in my life got it for her birthday. She wore it for about 10 seconds and then threw it on the floor. But no matter, giving hand knits is really fun and the 10 seconds of cuteness made the hours knitting totally worth it.

If you're looking for handmade gift idea for the holidays, this is a great option. It's a good pattern for beginners and a quick knit for experienced knitters. You'll have to buy the book but it's a good one, filled with other great patterns so you can keep on giving. I followed suggestions for a couple modifications, which you can find here.

A flight and a road trip

2010-11-07T16:31:00.000-05:00

After moving back to Michigan and working my tail off for several months, I was aching to get out of town for awhile. My standard daydream included a road trip and climbing mountains in the fall.

At the end of October, I finally got my chance. I started the week by flying to Boston to put my dissertation proposal hearing behind me. Dropping back into my home of 6 years for less than 48 hours was dizzying. Four months can really change your perspective on a place. I had to quickly reorient myself to the world of public transportation, triple deckers stacked as far as the eye could see, and thousands of 20-something students with lattes in hand, all of which seemed so strange after adjusting to life in Detroit where cars and single families rein. I stayed with a friend whose house was perched high up on a hill (also strange). Their guest room allowed me to wake up to the sun rising over Bunker Hill, which was pretty spectacular again to these Midwestern eyes.

During my short visit, I took a cab, rode a bus, grabbed a latte (I'm normally a coffee girl but I was feeling caught up in the excitement of it all), took the commuter rail, and then a shuttle to the university. After I took care of business and quickly caught up with as many people as I could in such a short visit, I was back on a flight back home. Home. As in back to the flatlands.

I was overdue for a couple days off with no work and a friend's wedding was the perfect opportunity. The morning after Boston, we jumped in the car and headed an entirely new direction. South for the wedding in Charlotte. In the last 6 years while living in the Northeast, I'd been to the south a few times but never by way of car and definitely never through Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. Just as going back to bustling Boston seemed strange, going on a classic midwestern road trip to North Carolina also seemed exotic.

Our route took us through the back roads of Ohio for a few hours, which was all so quaint and delightful after years of New England scenery. Driving behind tractors and past winterized ice cream shops named "Twist and Shout" was a lot more exciting to me than it probably should have been. "Oh look, a field full of pumpkins!" "Oh look, Mrs. Johnson sells greeting cards out of her garage!" "Oh, look, an Amish woman in a horse drawn buggy with a baby in a car seat bouncing along on the front seat!"

After a couple hours of trying and trying to put some miles behind us, we couldn't resist anymore and took a sharp right turn into the parking lot of an antique mall. I have no idea what town it was in, but it was a little piece of vintage heaven.

Being the wander lover that I am, this little globe came home with me, along with a 50 states board game. Matt also scored a vintage children's Noble and Cooley drum. I wanted to take it all home.

I'm still thinking about the left-behind U.S. Presidents wood burning kit and the 'Travel the U.S.' coloring book from the 1930's.

After the slow drive through Ohio which allowed us to make it almost all the way through Amy Sedaris' "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence" on audio book, we called it quits for the day in Charleston, West Virginia. We planned to camp on the way down, but the early nightfall and 30 degree temperatures talked us down from that ledge. Instead we got a hotel room in town and tried to find a dinner spot for a picky peskitarian in a town full of steak joints. We ordered the asparagus tempura sushi and were amused when it arrived fully deep-fried.

We'd arrived. We were were in the South. The New South. Where there is deep-fried sushi and Rogue beer.

For over a year, my 'just finish your dissertation proposal already' incentive was that I would go on a big hike after the ordeal was done and passed. Probably laying on a beach would have been a more sensible reward, but for reasons I can't pinpoint, I prefer to take the more demanding way through life.

Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia was not too far off our route to Charlotte, so we headed west. The state park was not only near the highest peak in Virginia, it also connected to the Appalachian Trail and had wild ponies. Matt was really keen to pet a wild pony. But then he was disappointed when we were instructed in rather explicit language not to mess with them. They are wild after all.

I didn't really expect to actually see wild ponies. I assumed they'd all be hiding, like most wildlife. But to our surprise, we'd walked no more than 5 minutes when we ran into a few right on our path.

They had no intention to move out of the way, so we decided to chose another route and got ourselves a bit lost for awhile. It was a pretty spectacular kind of lost where you're out in the open with 180' views of the Blue Ridge holding on to the last of their fall leaves.

Eventually we found our way back to the trail and hiked up to Rhododendron Gap and a little bit past it.

We sat for a spell and looked up to see a guy taking a piss off the top of a peak, which was both amusing and repulsive. Maybe that's been his daydream. Or maybe he just had no manners. Hard to tell.

Leaving the Whites behind in New Hampshire was on the hardest parts of leaving New England, so being back up high again was a thrill. I love the Midwest but I'll be leaving as often as possible to escape to the mountains. This stretch of the AT would be the perfect beginner backpacking trip and a great camping spot. Huge views. Open skies. Some decent climbing to keep it interesting but flat stretches too. I wanted to keep going all the way to Maine.

The wild ponies made it a great spot. I will admit they scared me a little, but then on our way out, a fearless little girl was walking up to them and petting their manes. Matt gave in, against all warnings, and pet a wild pony. It was definitely a highlight of the road trip. I'm not one to break rules, but I reached in for a little pat before we headed back to the car.

We left the mountains, reluctantly, and got back on the road. We crossed over into North Carolina and passed tobacco drying shacks on the way. We stopped in a small town, and walked into a pizza joint where everyone in the place turned around to stare at us northerners. The pizza was terrible.

A few hour later we arrived in Charlotte, the shiny new "Queen City". It's truly the New South, with financial centers Uptown, design boutiques, fish taco joints, and organic farmer's markets. It's really lovely there.

Saturday morning we bopped around town to check out the South End and the NoDa arts district. Ironically, we chatted a bit with a guy in a furniture store who was quite enamored with the fact that we lived in Detroit. He said he was fascinated with urban decay. Driving through the shiny streets of Charlotte, urban decay seemed about 670 miles behind us.

It got Matt and I thinking and talking quite a bit about where Detroit is headed. Sure, we want to see our city transformed, to "rise from the ashes" as its motto hopes for, but hopefully it'll find its own path to regeneration so that whatever fascinates people about Detroit's industrial past won't be transformed beyond recognition. Mainly I think we hope for people to feel safe, to have the means to raise their families, and for more green resting spots in the midst of the hardness of the city. Like every good road trip, it had us thinking about home in a new way.

In the afternoon we headed to the park for the wedding, which took place under this beautiful willow on a little island. As all good weddings, it was the perfect reflection of them as a couple. It was also a very etsy.com decorated wedding, which made it all the more lovely. We celebrated, enjoyed a big Southern brunch Sunday morning, and then got back in the car to complete our journey. After a week of traveling, it felt really refreshing be back home.