finger thumb

frost and axes

The whole world was glazed with frost this morning. It was so ridiculously beautiful that even though I was still groggy from the 'awake at night with the sick kids hangover' I still managed to pull on some boots and a coat, abandon Hubs to deal with the little people's breakfast on his own, and stumble outside to take some pictures.

 And I'm so glad that I did. I know these are not the most amazing pictures of frost in the world. A quick google search will surely turn up better, but there is so much pleasure for me in taking the pictures, that the final image almost doesn't matter.

Just the action of looking through the lens, the way it focuses you down on one tiny object, or single leaf is such a great process. Especially for a Type A freak like me, who is just so busy hurrying and accomplishing her way through life that she sometimes forgets to stop and be amazed by something as simple as frost. 

Note the poor little fly, frozen so beautifully to this cattail. 

Frost turns the whole world into jewelry.

I could take pictures of these things all day.

Its hard to believe that they are not from another planet sometimes.

It was such a gorgeous time, just before the sun came up over the valley to melt it all away. I finally went inside when my hands were too cold to press the shutter button. And it was lovely to step back into the warmth of a room filled with the smell of oatmeal and messy bed head and wriggly little bodies all finished their breakfast and in a hurry to get on with their day too. (I don't think I'm the only Type A person who lives here)

And now on to axes. The Little Dude has requested one for his hallowe'en costume (more on that tomorrow of course) so that he can go "CHOP!" as he puts it. So during nap, Hubs went out to the garage and performed his magic with wood and saws and made the most beautiful little axe. Which he made the crucial mistake of presenting to the Little Dude the moment he woke up from the aforementioned nap. Somedays L.D. hops out of bed with a smile and somedays he does not. And today was a NOT day. He was surly. And cranky. And constantly on the verge of tears. And severely in need of a cuddle and a snack. And not at all impressed with the axe. The axe got completely rejected, and it is very unlikely that he will carry it tomorrow night as part of his costume. (We should have just left it laying around, so that L.D. could discover it on his own, and think it was his idea. Then we might have had a chance.) Ah, toddlers. 

Luckily, we now have two children, and one's loss is the other's gain. The Baby could not have been more pleased with the axe had he whittled it out of a block of wood with his own three teeth.  One of the cutest things about his current state of baby physicality is his tendency to brandish things.

If he is excited or pleased about anything, from asparagus to socks, it gets hoisted aloft and waved around with glee.

Which is particularly cute when that thing is a small axe. Oh the trees he will fell!

One of the particularly funny aspects of this photo is the sea of plastic crap he is surrounded by. I do hate the plastic, and yet, it encroaches upon us like vermin. 

A terribly blurry picture, but it still has such a great sense to it, you can just feel his joy in the axe. At least someone likes it. 

Oh, and I'm making the Baby a hat to wear when we go trick or treating tomorrow. Ten bucks says that it will suffer the same fate as the axe, in that I'll bet he won't wear it. Who knows, maybe L.D. will take a shine to it. Though I'm probably not that lucky. 

Happy Hallowe'en preparations to all of you.

update

Sorry for being M.I.A. yesterday. Its been busy around here, but I thought I'd keep you in the loop on our current complications.

The Little Dude is sick again.

He's had this lingering cold for more than two weeks, and it's threatened to turn into croup again twice. I wake up at around 2:00 am and can hear that his cough is taking a turn into the weird croup-y bark and then hubs and I launch out of bed (or rather stumble groggliy. Really, its a combination of the two, but how do you launch and stumble at the same time. Lumble? Staunch? It is what it is.) and get L.D. all wrapped up in his warmest combination of stuff we can find in the dark, I put on my ridiculous (but very warm) full length Value Village mink, Hubs helps us drag our little tub chair out onto the porch and the Little Dude and I get all wrapped up in a blanket and sit outside in the cold dry air and wait for it to have its magic effect on his croup. And despite the fact that its cold and I'm exhausted, its really a rather nice time. We sit for anywhere from a half an hour to forty-five minutes and talk. About the moon, and the stars and hot rods and whether that is a truck or a car coming down the road and where that ambulence siren is going, and how long it will be till we see a red car. 

Last night as we sat there he said, "Do you want to know what I'm thinkin'?" Well, of course I did, and he said something along the lines of "I don't see Jupiter, so I think we have to build a Jupiter. We will build it out of wood, and use a saw and paint it green and then we will put it up into the sky. And then we will see it." 

So after 40 minutes outside he was still coughing a lot, but the cough sounded better. So we went inside and he was all piss and vinegar and wanted to go upstairs and play. I talked him into a story instead, and we read a story in his room with a flash light. Then I tried to stay awake while trying to get him to fall asleep. Not so easy. He kept pestering me for another story and I was so groggy I was talking gibberish. Fortunately he did not seem to mind. 

Anyhow, after several more wake-ups we finally got up for the day. By the grace of God the Baby did not wake up at all during the night (despite his brother's alternate wailing and coughing on the other side of his wall). But it was a rough morning. I felt like death warmed over and the Little Dude looked very ill. Peakey, as they say. I made a doctors appointment and the upshot is he may have pneumonia. Maybe. We're not sure. We have a couple of medications and if they don't help him by late tomorrow we have to take him to the emergency for x-rays. 

Despite it all, he's in as good a mood as you can be when you're coughing all the time. We got some new art supplies recently, and he's all over the pencil crayons these days, so we're keeping him amused. And since my Mother-in-Law is here we have an extra set of hands, which is great. 

I'll keep you posted.

links and things

I almost never do this, but today I am bringing you some links to interesting things I found on the internet. As I mentioned before, my we have company this week and it is pretty much a constant whirl of (fun)activity. Lots going on, shopping, (I'll have a thrifting post for you later this week), outings etc. but on the downside, not very much time for me to get some stuff done. I have a few sewing deadlines coming up, so that's what I'm going to try and use my little bit of free time for tonight. 

And so, I take the lazy way out and bring you links.

Lodekka. I think that this is the best idea ever. A woman from Portland who took and old double decker bus and turned it into a vintage shop. GENIUS.  

And in the 'sad but beautiful' category, the winner is: 100 Abandoned Houses

Closet Visit is a very lovely concept that will make you want to spend more time with your clothing. 

Rae. I want to knit this. 

The Pioneer Woman. This is quite an enjoyable blog. Though there is much less calico than I imagined from the title. 

Dear Me: Celebrity Letters to their younger selves. My favourite line is from Gillian Anderson "follow your dreams, not your boyfriends." 

Hope you have a lovely day.

creativ festival

I went the the Creativ Festival this weekend in Toronto (and no, I don't know why there is no 'e', either). Its a giant convention centre room filled to the brim with booths from quilt stores and fabric shops and yarn makers and pattern drafters. As one of the members of my quilt guild put it, "Its a giant room full of goodness that makes the money fly out of your pockets" I'll say. 

Anyhow I won't make this a long post about booths and vendors and fabric you could buy, but there were two things that seemed blog worthy and ironically neither of them had anything at all to do with fabric. There was more beading and jewelry and fashion stuff this year, and these were two that seemed to stand out among the rest.

First of all, check out this necklace. You see a LOT of beading and beaded things at these sort of events and it all looks rather tired after a point. But this necklace blew my MIND. The beads are made of dyed tigers eye, which is how you get that gorgeous sheen. But I just adore the crazy colours. Normally I'm all blacks and greys, and I love my earth tones and semi-precious stone jewelry like the liberal quasi-neo-hippie that I am, but this is just so different from all the rest and I think its smashing. I didn't shell out for it on the spot, because frankly I set myself a cash budget at these sort of events and once its gone, its gone. And it was gone by the time I saw this. But she is on etsy, so maybe this will be a Christmas present for me. (though I couldn't find her shop, but I'll update that when I locate her)

This is the lady who made it, Jackie Halstead, jewelry maker extraordinaire.  

It was pretty busy in there. And I took these pictures quite quickly since its not really an atmosphere that encourages lingering, but it kills me how that lady in the background appears to be giving me the stink-eye.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, material-wise was this booth of wooden stuff made by a duo known as The Woodlot.

I was severly tempted by these earings as well, but as I mentioned before I'd already used up all my cash on imported sashiko thread, quilt fabric and hard to find sewing notions. (I now have a magnetized bobbin holder and I don't know how I've lived without this long).

These are the two pairs I would've chosen from if I'd had any money left. This seller is on etsy too, so I supposed I could go get a pair when my bank account has recovered. 

here we go again

Does this look familiar?

Yep, sitting in the emergency room next to my poor husband with his hands bandaged over dried blood. 

(Warning, if you can't handle the sight of blood or wounds, this post is not for you. Come back tomorrow.) I knew something was up right away when I heard his voice on the phone in the middle of the afternoon. He NEVER calls me from work, so I knew it had to be an emergency. Luckily for us, his mom is visiting this week (Oma, from yesterday's post) so she was able to stay with the boys while I drove him to the emergency. And also, luckily the emergency was not busy at all and we were in and out in just over and hour. 

But most luckily of all, the wound was not too bad. He was cutting some sheet metal with a sharp, spinning, disc-y sort of tool (don't ask me) and the blade caught and kicked back and knocked his hand against the freshly cut metal edge. Very sharp. Cut through his safety gloves. But happily, not through a tendon or any major vessels. Bled like a stuck pig, and hurt like crazy I'm sure, but this will not be another surgery with a big, long, recovery time. Thank the Lord. 

Um, is it weird that while I sat and watched him be stitched up I got quilt ideas from this weird green cloth with the little window? It was compelling and interesting and oddly beautiful. Would it totally defeat the purpose to make quilts with little cut out windows in them. Hm. 

As the doctor was stitching away, and I was asking him questions about the needle and thread he used, Hubs said jokingly "My wife is an embroiderer, so you'd better do a good job."

 And I think he did. 

So today we are grateful that we live in a country where this was not a big deal. We went and got it fixed quickly and for free. The doctors were nice and my husband can't loose his job just because he had some bad luck. He'll recover and be fine and we won't starve in the process. I love Canada.

visit

I was surprised by a set of new faces on the fridge the other day. One of the things I love about my husband is that he can make something from nothing. These little square orange magnets on the fridge have been there forever. I think they were off-cuts from a job that Hubs had once. The Little Dude had a sticker book that had a lot of 'white space' left over in between the stickers, and he used a big black sharpie marker to draw our family and then cut them out and stuck them to the magnets.

Simple, cute, and recognizable. You can see the Little Dude knows who everyone is. 

And since Hubs made these on Friday, we've added another face. (Up on the right hand side there, next to the Little Dude) Oma is here to visit! That'd be Hub's mom, out here for the week from B.C. So I'll try to keep up with the blogging every day, but while she's here there's food to eat and thrifting to be done and crafting to discuss every evening (which is usually when I blog) so the posts might be a little shorter than usual. Just bear with me, and in no time I'll be right back to big picture jammed, run-on-sentence filled posts as per usual. 

surplus

So remember my pumpkin problem from last year? Waaaay too many pumpkins to use and I had to keep searching for more recipes to use them up. Well, we did not plant any this year, though one did accidently grow from a discarded seed in the compost pile, so now we have a nice small manageable amount of pumpkins.

Perfect. I'll make a pie, a cheesecake, some muffins and be done with it. 

But wait: here's this year's gardening surplus problem. 

Tomatoes. Specifically GREEN tomatoes. 

Hubs was worried about frost, so he harvested everything and pulled up all the plants. And now their my problem. 

Because really, how often can you eat fried green tomatoes. And what else can you do with them.

And again, I say, thank you internets, because a quick search, though it did not yield tons of options, did at least provide me with a good handful. Today I finally got around to doing something about it, and decided to start with a simple sounding Green Tomato Cake.  Ta-Daaaa! Used up four cups of diced green tomatoes, and was a roaring success. Hubs calls it his new favourite cake. L.D. calls it "Tomato Pie Cake". I call it good. Though really, how could anything made with 2 whole cups of sugar taste bad?

I tweaked the recipe a bit by using half white and half whole wheat flour (because with all that sugar, who can taste the flour, might as well have some whole grains in there), used 1 cup white sugar and one cup brown sugar and put in a whole lot more spices. Like cloves, ginger, coriander and cardamom. And it was good. The top was all crunchy and lovely from the sugar. Sort of like a brownie texture. And you can still see the green tomato bits.

And it smelled AMAZING while it baked. And it didn't taste weird and tomato-y at all. I'll make this again, but next time I'm going to at least halve the sugar and see what happens. I didn't want to mess with it today, as I wasn't sure if the sugar did something important to the tomatoes. I'll try it again next week, just to compare, and then maybe rewrite the recipe to share here, if its good. 

And here's something to make you smile. Its the drawer in the kitchen where we keep the bibs, napkins, etc. The Little Dude was chattering away over at that end of the kitchen while I was washing up, and I finally looked over to see him emptying this drawer. He was sure that a train he was looking for was in here. "Fine," I told him, "You can pull all that stuff out, but you have to put it all back in when you are done looking." 

So he did. We've got to work on that. 

some stuff I bought awhile ago, but forgot to tell you about

Like I said the other day, there's a lot of stuff going on around here, and I've got a bit of a backlog of things to post about. I thrifted some stuff a couple of weeks ago and never got around to putting it up here. I really like photographing and posting all my thrift purchases. Its like another level of collecting. Also, its the whole 'show and tell' thing that I've always enjoyed doing. And on a practical level it makes me wash and fold and put everything away, instead of just leaving it in bags in the corner of my studio.   Oh vintage bedsheets, I feel like you never let me down. I realize that for those of you who did not go to art school or don't sew, it seems like a weird thing to buy. But I just love them. I love the never ending variety of them. How I'll think I've seen it all, and then there will be this lovely floral pattern. And really, its such a specific set of items. Bedsheets. From the last 30-40 years. Mostly floral or striped. And yet the possibility of variety in that small subset can be quite amazing. I really like this yellow one. The shot above is of it drying on my line.

And this is a close-up taken inside. I love the way the whiskery black detail around the blue floral centres really takes it up a notch. 

This one is actually a curtain. And it was thrifted for me by a really nice lady who works at my local fabric shop. She knows I'm into this kind of thing because she's seen my sewing, and she volunteers at a small thrift shop, so she picks things up when she thinks they'd be up my alley. And so far, she's totally getting it right. 

Isn't that nice, the mix of floral and faux lace. Reminds me a bit of the Amy Butler, Love collection. 

But this is the one that really blew my mind. Gorgeous. I could look at this for a really, really long time. Sadly it is just one, twin sized fitted sheet, because I would love to make a whole cloth quilt out of it. The pattern is so great I don't even want to cut it. 

This is a not-very-good close-up. But you get the drift. Awesomeness. 

And then, somehow I felt compelled to buy this. You probably know by now that I'm not so into Disney. I have some issues. I hate the over-gendered-ness of everything they do, and the ubiquitous marketing sucks. 

Also, the casual racial stereotyping is not something I'm a big fan of either. Though this is vintage, so hopefully that's not still the attitude. 

But this image really brought me back. The awkward and not-so-slickness of this drawing seems so old fashioned compared to their current stuff. And I did grow up with Disney, and have a few fond memories from before I knew more about marketing and all that stuff. Back when I could look at an image like this and just think "I'd really like a hat like that someday." instead of "curse you giant multinational company who is trying to own a part of my child's mental real estate." 

I don't usually buy records, but they were on sale for a DIME at my local thrift, and I saw a fun pattern recently for making boxes out of the record covers. Anyhow, it was obviously a Disney theme day for me. The Disneyland Boys Choir. Who knew!

Love the quality of this illustration. 

Though how come Germany gets two song selections and Holland gets none? Hmph. That seems like an oversight to me. 

And this is not thrifted, but is left over from my own childhood, as you can see by the proprietary labeling. I'm a little bit torn about sharing this stuff with the Little Dude though. I've really come to resent how Disney tries to get their fingers into every kid's experience of childhood, yet at the same time I have good memories of the songs and movies from when I was a little girl. But once a child sees that yellowy-orange Winnie the Pooh, is the E.H. Shepard version gone forever? Or am I just being a Kid's Lit snob?

This makes me think we really need to thrift ourselves a record player. Because I love Doris Day. 

This is the picture off the back cover, and I love it because its so... odd. What exactly is that expression supposed to convey. That she's annoyed with the guy at the sound board? That someone was trying to direct her, and she was all like "Hey, the album cover is going to say "Doris Day", so let me make my own choices, ok?" Or is she just planning he lunch order from the studio commissary. Either way, I feel like its an odd choice and the kind of thing that would never get printed for a singer today. It'd be much more glamourous and flattering. I like how candid this feels. 

And this is just great as an example from the period. As with many images of couples of the time, the woman looks deliriously happy, and the man looks interchangeable. 

And I had to bring this little guy home. All toys were on sale for half price and he was in a 50 cent bag with a pink bunny. So really, he cost 12 and a half cents. Totally worth it. 

fort reno and some bon mots

The fort is still a work in progress. Which is great as far as a father-son activity goes, because really at this age, process is so much more important than product. Hubs says to the Little Dude, "Hey, after breakfast, how 'bout we go outside and work on The Fort." And the Little Dude happily packs back his oatmeal, allows himself to be dressed in the suitable amount of layers for the weather and off they go, across the back yard with a wagon full of tools. This fort has progressed from a mere raised floor, to something that has walls of a sort, and inexplicably, a steering wheel. And now, to accommodate the encroaching wintery weather, we bring you, a roof! Yeah, I'm not so on board with the plastic covering, and would have preferred real shingles, but this is Hubs territory and as he noted, I don't exactly welcome advice from him when it comes to my quilting and stuff. Also, we're pretty much just making this from scrap, as a proper fort should be, so we use what's at hand. And as Hubs also pointed out, no one will be chewing on the roof. So fair enough. 

And as I said, process is where its at with a three year old, and he was just happy to be outside, banging with a hammer and making stuff with his dad. 

But I'll tell you when he was REALLY happy, was when I came out with a plate full of cookies, hot out of the oven. You should have seen the look on his face. There is a particular, glowing, full face smile that small children get when in the presence of fresh baked goods. It is a wonder to behold, and the reason why its so tempting to buy their love with food. 'Cause boy, does that ever work!The cookies one of my favourite recipes, Martha Stewart's Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies. They ring all of my bells. And all of the Little Dude's too. (Sorry about the fuzzy picture. It would have been in focus, but I had The Baby strapped to the front of me in his carrier, and he was all craning his head around to see what was going on and kept bumping my camera hand.) Turns out this seat by the fort's steering wheel is the perfect place from which to distribute cookies.

Which went amazingly fast. There were one-and-a-half for each of us, and they were gone in a matter of minutes. And who am I kidding, the Little Dude totally had two all to himself. And it was only a half an hour until lunch time. Hm, bit of bad planning there, but totally worth it.

Because its lovely to sit outside on a cool fall day, in a fort that your built yourself eating warm-out-of-the-oven cookies with your favourite people in the world. 

And this is unrelated, except that it is also about my kid being cute, but he told me the most hilarious thing today. I was web surfing and there was some random picture of a cat in the sidebar of the blog I was reading, and the Little Dude pipes up. "I want that cat!"

"oh really," I reply, not really paying much attention. And then he launched into the most awesome little story; the kind that makes me sad I don't have constant video surveillance in my home. I wrote down as much as I could of what he said, but missed a bunch, but what I did manage to get is all straight out of his mouth. And it goes a little somethin' like this:

"I lost a cat this morning. Her name was "Happiness Cat". She was always happy when I teased he and flopped her on the floor. But then she ran away and I said "Don't go Happiness Cat!". But she went away to find food for the winter. And she found it, and it was a really good meal."

All I can say is that if we ever do get a cat, it most definitely will be called "Happiness Cat".

tooth number three

That Baby is teething again! His front top tooth on the left hand side is coming in as we speak. He officially cut it last Thursday, but it is still not fully 'in' if you know what I mean. I tried to get a picture, but he was having none of it. The only way to really see it is if you lay him on his back and tickle like crazy. Then when he laughs really hard, you can get a glimpse. But otherwise he's very close lipped if you try to get in close and have a look.
I took a bunch of pictures anyhow, even though the new tooth is not visible in any of them. You can see the bottom teeth quite well though. 

I've been trying to take more pictures of him that have a variety of expressions. One tends to be biased towards the big cute smile, but there are so many other great/funny expressions that are equally memorable (and equally difficult to capture). I don't know if you've ever sat and just watched the expressions play over a baby's face, but really, they move like water, so quick and so changeful. I swear babies have more face muscles than adults. Ok, that's probably not physiologically possible, but maybe their face muscles are more flexible. As we get older our expressions solidify into a variety of socially defined sets and we loose that looseness and variability in our expressions. At least, that's my hunch.

Here's another good one: This is his mid-babble face. And he occasionally makes this 'grumpy old man' face where he scrunches his bottom lip up in sort of a reverse pout, probably because his tooth is bugging him. I have yet to capture it well in a picture though. Very fast, but very funny. 

Another thing you many notice in these photos is The Baby's snazzy new necklace.
Its an amber teething necklace.

Which isn't a necklace for chewing on (though he would gladly chew on it if I let him) but rather a necklace to wear when going through teething. Apparently amber (which is made of fossilized tree resin, and is not a stone) contains a natural analgesic, which when worn against the skin, warms up and goes into the body and helps reduce the teething pain. Or something like that. More info here. As with many of these sort of things, its hard to say if it works or not, but really, any excuse for necklaces on a baby is fine in my books. And I love Amber. Its my second favourite semi-precious, after Carnelian.

But don't just slap any amber necklace on your baby if you are going to try this. As you can see in the photo above, this one is knotted between each bead, so if it does break, only one bead would go rolling away (or probably get ingested more likely). Also, the clasp is designed to break if enough pressure is put on it, so that the baby won't choke if it gets caught. And of course, he doesn't wear it around his neck at night. I just wraps it twice around his ankle under his sleeper, so it is still in contact with his skin. And no, I'm not getting any sort of kick back or freebie from the company that I bought this from. I just always saw these necklaces on the cute little hippie babies in Montreal, and wanted to try it out for myself. 

Anyhow, despite the teething his is still his same old, really active happy self. Just with a bit more chewing than usual.  Oh, and also, he actually even grinds his teeth a little! Which freaks me out, I hope it doesn't become a habit. Most likely its just the novelty of feeling his teeth touch each other, but its very odd to hear that sound coming from him. You know the one I mean, that gravely little grinding noise. Quite loud given that he only has three teeth.