sugar city journal

Carpe Diem

2012-01-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

A friend and I were laughing the other day about how it's kinda annoying to be bombarded so constantly with the message of "being present" whilst engaged in mothering young children. Sometimes I feel like my present-ness is precisely the problem (I'm thinking of an incident that occurred 52 minutes ago involving the 5 year old, a cookie, and a very long time-out). This article from the Huffington Post has been making the rounds and I thought it was spot-on. Kairos is a word and concept I hope to remember.

But that being said, I do appreciate the occasional gentle reminders I periodically encounter that help me to embrace the very worst moments within this time of my life (which to clarify, I am enjoying :) ). My cousin Emily sent me a copy of an adorable children's book, Oscar, which describes a bunch of bad and true things the author Amber Tayler's son did - like burying her jewels in the backyard during a game of pirate (so bad) and pouring milk in the grandma's purse (again, so bad). The book is told from the child's perspective and after describing the awful thing he's so innocently done, he follows up with statements like "I had to remind Mom to use her quiet voice" and "I had to remind mom we should love all of God's creatures." So cute and if you think about it very touching.*

What have been your worst parenting moments, a la Oscar? I never tire of hearing the naughty things little ones do.

*when the child is over the age of 7! :)

Dusting off the old brain

2012-01-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

Hey there! So I've been seized once again by the January desire to dust off my old brain, dull from the comfortable routines of carpooling and errand running and negotiating. I found a free online class that I am here committing to finish . The one I chose, about Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, is good for me because it doesn't involve reading tons of books (just 4 short-ish ones) but I foresee that it will push me out of my reading comfort zone and make me think a little (I can tell you that I would never normally pick up Uncle Tom's Cabin for some light reading). Here's the site if you are interested in seeing all the great free online classes that are available. The list keeps getting bigger and bigger.

So! If you, like me, need a little Huckleberry Finn in your life this winter, take the class too, and we can discuss. I'm hoping that as an adult reading these books by my own choice I might get a little more out of them than when I read them as a distracted note-writing high-schooler (although, come to think of it, constant distraction is still a main theme in my life - which I totally blame on this dude

and this lot, now)

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T08:51:00.000-08:00

Hey! I hope you had a great Christmas. We had a lovely time, and now it's time to take down Christmas here, do a bit of cleaning and get onto the New Year! But first I want to say that I have been thinking about how I have come to rely a great deal on your insights and advice as we've discussed parenting, books, home & hearth, etc. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit of yourself. I really feel like if I knew many of you in person we would be great friends (in addition to real-life friends who pop in here, of course). So thank you! This blog has kind of evolved into a tool for self-improvement for me and I appreciate your opinions, ideas and support so very much.

See you in the New Year. It will be a great one.
xo

Christmas Nativity

2011-12-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

I've only put out like 60% of our Christmas decorations this year, mainly because most of the time when I think about it, the garage seems like it would be too cold and at this point that ship has probably sailed. :) But we did manage to finally make our nativity movie yesterday, which is total chaos but so fun. Here's the link if you are interested (it's six minutes).

Have a great day!

Wabi Sabi: Christmas

2011-12-05T08:14:00.001-08:00

This December my goal is to worry a lot less about how Christmas looks, and more about how Christmas feels (I am so easily distracted by pretty). And if that means that I let my naked toddler eat the candy off the advent calendar bottom two rows on day 5, so be it.

Here's a great quote from Janene Baadsgaard:

"Like wishing for the fancy images in the women's magazines [or beautiful websites], we often look in all the wrong places for that elusive something that will finally make our life complete. If we make Jesus Christ our dearest friend, we don't have to search any longer. That first Christmas night long ago had a simple cast of characters - a mother, a father, a child. Yet there is nothing in the entire world that can surpass the mission of that tiny babe born on that holy night. Jesus triumphed over sin and death, and because of those gifts we can face anything that comes our way with faith and hope. A picture-perfect Christmas is a tinsel illusion. Coming to Christ creates a rich reality."

Isn't that lovely? Just the re-focus that I needed. I hope you have a great day. Merry Christmas!

Minding the Unruly: help from books

2011-11-19T09:03:00.000-08:00

I was reading Tricia's beautiful Home Made Happy blog the other day and she made reference to parenting wisdom gleaned from parent-characters in her favorite books. I thought, I can totally relate! Is it weird that much of how I try to parent comes from fiction? Do you do that too? Some of my fictional parent heroes:

-Mr. Penderwick: (the Penderwick books are my new favorites). Lots of room for those girls to be independent and free, and he gives them such intellectual riches in their conversations and home life. Sympathetic and funny, yet still a moral compass. And he's so funny (did you read the second book? Marianne Dashwood?)

-Marilla Cuthbert: (Anne of Green Gables) tough love, baby.

-Matthew Cuthbert: (Anne of Green Gables) tough love is great but sometimes you just really need to get your kid some puffed sleeves.

-Mrs. Comstock: (Girl of the Limberlost) She got off to a rough start but it's never too late to make changes. Usually the damage isn't too permanent, nothing that a few great lunch box meals can't fix.

-and of course, we can't even have this conversation without talking about Mrs. Ingalls. On this I will quote an email sent to me by my dear and brilliant friend Alexandra:

"I have developed a mothering ideal based loosely on doing whatever best fits the answer to the question: What would Ma Ingalls do? It falls short often because it is so hard to translate across the century of change, and maybe I just don't have all the data on the psychological health of the kids of that generation, but I tend to think that it was sort of a good thing that Ma was so wrapped up in keeping them all from starving to death, freezing to death or being torn apart by wild animals that she was not able to spend all her day in play with her kids. Probably good, too, that Laura had to help out to keep herself and her family alive. I loved those books as a little girl but when I reread them a few years ago I was struck by two things: 1) they are sort of boring and 2) the purpose of all they did was to survive.

The idea that you live to not die is so foreign to me. I know we cannot replicate that in our homes and it is silly to try to do so, but that doesn't stop me. I was going to end that sentence differently, but the truth got in the way. Ma and Pa were devoted to their kids and talked to them and taught them and spent all sorts of time (Pa didn't have a job, after all, he just hunted for food and then stored it) together. But they didn't dote on their kids. And I don't think they even worried about their feelings or emotions so much as their not-dying or their characters. And I think their characters benefitted from their parents not doing much more than trying to keep them alive and demanding that the kids do their part in ensuring family survival, too.

I think that we love our kids so much and want to give them all we had and more--all the things that went wrong for us or that our parents did wrong we want to do right. Those are natural impulses, but if we go too far with them I think we do ourselves and our kids a disservice. Life is tough sometimes. Other people live here, too, and their feelings and pursuits matter, too. If we are always sacrificing our everything for our kids, how will they learn that they are strong, independent people? How will they learn that the world does not stop for them, or revolve around them? Or, would we want our own kids to entirely drop their skills and interests to cater to their children's schedules and demands? Sometimes it helps to get out of the too-child-centered approach to the world to ask the question that way: would I want my own child to grow up and live like this (in this marriage, job, mothering pattern)?"

...it gets so hard because I don't mean that we shouldn't reach out and do all those hard things (sometimes boring things!) that are caught up in mothering kids. Or that it's okay to waste away the hours on facebook or some other indulgence while the kids stare at the tv. I guess I am just saying that moderation in all things is the wisest and truest sentence I have ever heard. If you find that you are basically always tending towards sacrificing your own needs for your kids or the other way around, you are probably doing something wrong. I think the line on what we need to feel healthy and rejuvenated and in balance is a little different for each person, and I think that we need to resist the temptation to compare our style to someone else's for verification..."

Great food for thought, Alexandra. What would Ma do is my new mantra.

Which book-parents inspire you?

Minding the Unruly: the trouble with homemade Christmas gifts

2011-11-12T22:44:00.000-08:00

I have a fantasy each Christmas of my children taking time to carefully consider each other's likes and craft sweet, thoughtful presents for one another.

This has unfortunately never quite played itself out well. Probably because I have been a smidge too hands-off in my role as adult over-seer. For instance, last Christmas my then-7 year old made a personalized sash (yes, that's what it is. see above photo) for her 4 year old sister. I'm so sorry to say that it was not received with delight.

This year, I'm going to try ONE MORE TIME to salvage this fantasy but I'm taking the bull by the horns: each child will choose something they can make in a batch for their siblings and that thing will be a cool thing they can choose off of a list of projects that I will assemble.

My ideas so far have mostly come from careful perusal of Design Mom's trove of DIY sibling christmas projects. I'm thinking especially of the bleach shirts, pocket hand-warmers, decoupage sketchbooks, and bubble bath. Also great could be jewelry boxes, jewelry, or frankly, cookies.

Ideas? Once more pinterest is a valuable tool for such research... I'd love to hear things that have worked well for you!

Things I've learned starting a school art program

2011-11-07T14:11:00.000-08:00

(Klimt inspired, gold paint and pastel)

Hi! So many things that make kids into happy adults are impossible to measure: people skills, grit, and I believe an appreciation for beauty and trust in their own ability to think creatively. Whatever we can do to nurture those things in children is time well spent, don't you think? We are in the third official year of the Parent Art Docent Program at our elementary school. I feel like I've learned a lot through trial and error in the last few years about getting something like this going, so I thought that I would write a little about my experience in the hope that it might save someone out there wanting to do a similar thing a few headaches. (Warning - it's super long and rambling).

First of all, in California, our state budget is in dire straits and our district has had to make huge cuts to survive the last couple of years. There is no money for art education (although we are still very fortunate to have a music teacher at our school), so four years ago I began volunteering in my son's second grade class each week teaching art history-based art lessons that I found in books or on museum websites. It was really fun and not as hard as I'd worried and everyone had a great time - me, the kids, the teacher - so at the end of the year I went in and talked to the principal about starting an official program where parents came in and taught art-history based lessons in as many classes as possible. She was on board and so I spent the summer putting together binders of lessons, mostly from museum websites, and powerpoint presentations for visuals to go with each lesson (all of our classes have LCD projectors that hook up to teacher laptops) that could be emailed to the teacher before the lesson was presented.

(animal mummy, before getting wrapped in gauze and decorated. clay)

The first official year was okay. We had a small but enthusiastic group of volunteers (the volunteers have been incredible. When I say "okay" that is in reference to my work figuring out the program, not to our volunteer docents) and at the end of the year we had a tiny little display of art in the school cafeteria. I hadn't done a great job of organizing the art during the year, so some of the art ended up not having names on it which I felt so badly about. We have since implemented a really obviously simple way to keep track of the art: we buy a bunch of poster board at the beginning of the year, and every student participating in the program gets a portfolio (poster board folded in half and stapled on the sides). All art made during the year gets put in the child's portfolio, and the portfolios stay IN THE CHILD'S CLASSROOM. Before the spring art show the kids choose their favorite piece to display, and at the end of the year the portfolios go home.

Another thing I learned: the binder lesson system I slaved over for the docents was totally unnecessary. Many of the volunteers discovered that they loved researching and finding their own lessons - which is so great! - so we ended up creating a school art docent blog, where we put pictures of finished pieces and links to lessons that we found online that worked with our supplies and classroom set-ups. There are zillions of amazing blogs out there that art teachers around the world maintain, which really have been our very best resource. A few favorites that always deliver: deep space sparkle, incredible art department, and art dish. Lately I've also been finding great ideas on pinterest.

Last year was much better. The program became clearer and simpler in its goals - mainly, to provide each class in the school with a parent art docent (hopefully regularly, but for sure at least once), and to have an art show at the end of the year to generate interest for the program and celebrate the students' work. We had 12 dedicated art docent volunteers who volunteered in classes all over the school and at the end-of-the-year art show, we had over 800 pieces of art displayed (and labeled!). We really struggled to determine the best way to display the art (to mat or not to mat?) but in the end we had such a small budget that we simply mounted the work by class on bulletin board walls lined with black paper. Simple and effective. Lots of families came, and the kids were so proud to show off their work. We recruited a string quartet from our local high school to play, and had free cookies and a donation jar. It was low-key but nice.

Speaking of budgets - another issue to work through is fundraising for supplies. We have a supply closet in the main office where we store our collective supplies, and in order to keep it sufficiently stocked we've partnered with restaurants, had a bake sale, sold t-shirts, and solicited donations. A couple of other great ideas: one of our docents last year came up with the idea of asking parents to "sponsor" lessons, which works well (she made a list of her lesson plans for the year, with the amount of money that it would cost for the class to complete each activity next to each lesson on her handout. For example: a lesson about Matisse, where the kids make collages with scissors and construction paper, costs only about $4 for a whole class. So it's fun for a parent to send in $4 and feel like they are facilitating a great experience for their kids, without it being crazy expensive). Every little bit adds up and helps! And second - a couple of weeks ago my friend Liz came up with the great idea of collecting leftover halloween candy, and making candy grab-bags to sell at school functions. I bet we can make over $100 this way over the next few months (for free!). Again, every little bit helps.

(inspired by Andy Goldsworthy)

(inspired by Monet's Magpie, watercolor and salt)

So there it is an a very long-winded nutshell. If your child's school doesn't have the resources to provide art, don't be afraid to jump in there and fill the need. You don't have to put a perfect program out there, just do your best, use parents in your community, and it will get better and better. Something is always better than nothing! It's been such a great experience, and every art lesson I teach inevitably ends up totally making my day. Not only that but I am so inspired by the other parents that work so hard to add their effort to our school's program. Amazing!

Are any of you involved in school art programs? And do you have any great ideas for me? (...ideas to somehow tie art into community service?)

Fall re-arrangement: art room

2011-10-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

My re-arranging/cleaning kick continued! One of the places I really needed to tackle was my tiny and very narrow art room. It's a funny little space, because it is technically part of our family room: (see it, all the way at the end of the room through the kinda disco wall cut-out?)

(my knitting is always casually draped over the couch like that :). Just kidding, I totally put it like that for the picture)

The art room has traditionally been a shocking mess, which is unfortunate since you can see a lot of it through the wall cut-out. Would you like to know just how messy? I will show you because I have no dignity. (Mom, if you are reading this shield your tender eyes. It is very terrible.)

Yup. There it is, folks. To actually get anything done I had to bring it out of the art room onto a different table. The irony.

As abused as the room is, I love having a spot for all of my random art and sewing stuff. And that big table at the end is so great for the kids (when there is room on it to work) - but in the six years we've lived here I never really felt like I had a good system to keep everything successfully contained and every time I cleaned it, the room just went back to looking like these photos after, like, a day.

(view from the art room into the family room. It is nice to be able to supervise things while standing over here)

But now: hopefully we are getting somewhere. Over the years we've bit by bit been adding sections of elfa shelving to the wall (the newest addition being the narrower shelf holding the small jars).

(my sketchbook actually fits on the desk part!)

I requisitioned some more baskets and jars for separating art supplies for the kids. (This will not stay this clean. In fact as I type this, I can see it, and it's messy again. But that's ok with me, it's easier to clean up now that I have places to put things back into).

I have my easel set up in the corner where I never have to take it down (these days it takes me several months to finish a painting. Carissa - there's a sneak peak for you! Not done yet but in progress!), and space for the dangerous stuff on a high shelf.

And I've finally moved my bulletin boards to a level where a baby can't toddle by and tear off a tasty paper treasure to chew on (this has been an ongoing problem for about four years. Only the baby changes.)

So, wish me luck to keep it clean. Any tips on containing all of your creativity? I've started a pinterest board on studio spaces that inspire me to be neater (and, hopefully more productive. Because pinterest totally increases productivity! :) ). Melissa, where do you keep all of your painting stuff, and your whirlwind 8 year-old-mad-sewists' materials??

Fall re-arrangement: entry way

2011-10-21T10:10:00.000-07:00

Lately in my internet moments I've been totally loving the charming and ever-so-helpful Little Green Notebook. I love Jenny's down to earth approach to decorating and how generous she is with her vast amount of home-dec. knowledge. Did you see her recent tour of the home of her college friend Emily? I loved it because (1) they did so much of it themselves gradually and on a budget and (2) because Emily pays attention to all the little nooks in her home and takes the care to arrange things beautifully. (And - she is an amazing sewer! She did most of her window treatments). Go check it out if you haven't seen it. It is such a friendly and warm house.

Seeing Emily's pretty rooms stimulated me to look at my home with fresh eyes. When you enter our house from the garage through the laundry room, we have an awkward little entry area. (I should have taken a before picture so you can truly understand how boring this wall was - a crooked picture hung here and this chair was piled with bags, things to be recycled and stray preschool papers). I gathered up some homeless frames from the garage and now I am so happy to walk into our house and see this little gallery.

(My mom sent me this little one below. It means that you should think of yourself third, after God and your fellow men. I love that simple recipe for happiness when I come in and out.)

Next up, radical clean-up of our art room...

Halloween (with the spooky filter on the iphone camera)

2011-10-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hello out there, friends! It's been a long time.

October is totally my most favorite month of the year. Where I live in California we have seasons but they are on the subtle side - and so the way you really feel "fall" approaching is through the halloween decorations that begin to pop up on lawns and houses around us.

(I especially love the ghost my girls made and taped on our door. Scary!)

I find Halloween decor to be somewhat of a slippery slope. Years ago I began with the classy natural approach: a bare grapevine wreath, candy corns in a jar on the counter, blown-out eggs painted with semi-spooky Martha Stewart designs.

But soon pine cones and pumpkins no longer satisfied my who-knew-they-were-so-bloodthirsty children so I bought a tombstone for the lawn. The next thing you know we have an upsidown (presumably being tortured?) skeleton hanging from the limbs of a sweet little tree in the front yard and I find myself participating in a dinnertime conversation with the husband and children wondering if perhaps it might not be a good idea to make a pretend fire beneath the dangling skeleton.

What?!

But really, it's hard to compete when you have this across the street from you:

and this:

Yes, those are zombie BABIES behind the dismembered bloody man.

My friend Liz has I think found the perfect middle ground. Check out her flock of paper bats, flying across her family room:

Spooky and yet not something that would be forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Happy October!

Made to Play - giveaway

2011-09-16T13:32:00.001-07:00

The winner is Sue!

** ** ** **

Hello out there! Happy Friday! My girls and I are going to watch "Anne of Green Gables" tonight and I have been excited about it all week but also kind of nervous. Will they love it as much as I did?! Will they cry when Matthew gives Anne her puffed sleeves? The suspense is killing me.

Anyhow, onto the business at hand: I have a fantastic giveaway - Roost Books sent me a copy of Joel Henriques' Made to Play. It is so great! This book is full of genius ideas for simple projects that kids love playing with. For instance, I spent a very exciting hour today with 3 cute and extremely irrational four year olds making animal finger puppets.

See? So much fun.

So leave a comment and I'll do the random number thing and post the winner next Wednesday. Have a great weekend!

minding the unruly: a mother's time (during summer)

2011-09-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

my mom and my 18 month old at Point Lobos

(Okay, ladies, I'm going out on a limb here - I don't normally post such personal things, but I'm really interested in your experiences on motherhood/time/balance...please don't be too critical of me for my honesty below.)

I recently read a quote on Courtney Kendrick's blog from writer and poet Emma Lou Thayne, about a phrase the writer often said to her children: "I love you with all my heart, but not all my time."

It made me stop and think. This summer, I have loved my children with all my heart, and also with pretty much all of my time. And consequently I have felt, to be brutally honest, a little out of balance, and to be even more honest (in the hopes that maybe there are others out there who might relate?), an undercurrent of irritation (gasp. I can't believe I just put that out there on the internet) with my children as we've flown through our summer, our days packed with swimming, play-dates, cleaning, cooking, blah blah blah. All day long we go because that's what kids do - and when I force my unruly lot to stop for a quiet hour or two I am usually still right there going- putting a little one down; squeezing in one more load of laundry, folding another batch of clothes or trying to speed-clean the car. And overall I feel a little brittle, strung too tightly; less able to appreciate those sweet moments of brilliance you can experience watching a child grow. All the while I am acutely aware of the fact that my children's smallness is day by day slipping away from me as they fight their way forward to independence and (another gasp!) toward junior high.

On one hand the pragmatist in me is not sure how I can agree with Emma Lou Thayne, at least not yet. If I don't give my family all my time right now, really, who would feed the baby? Who would make sure the 4 year-old learns good manners, or help the 7 and 10 year-olds learn to do their chores consistently? I want so much for them all to be hard workers. Who would keep the TV off, and make sure that everyone is fed, and fed healthfully? Who would make sure homework gets done and instruments practiced? Who would make sure we have fresh clothes to wear and a home that is clean(-ish)?

I've been so fortunate to be the main at-home shepherd for my little flock, and I'm exquisitely grateful for opportunity to do these things for my family. I love it and am satisfied by it, even on the hardest of days. But I also absolutely see the beauty of what Emma Lou Thayne said, and I wonder: is it the ages of my children that don't allow for personal time, or my parenting style? And, would I be a better mother (and, woman) if I was better at somehow carving out more time to continue developing parts of myself that I think are important, too? It's funny how many of us spend the formative years of our lives acquiring skills and talents, and then at some point when we become grown-ups, kind of stop. One example of this -- we've talked before about music lessons on this blog, and my mother worked very hard to make sure that I was shuttled to, and prepared for, my own years and years of piano lessons. I love to play but very rarely sit down to seriously practice now. It makes me feel like somewhat of a hypocrite that I diligently set the timer each day for my own children and yet don't require the same from myself, and although my mother never asks me about it, I wonder if I'm kind of mocking her efforts by my own failure to keep up what she worked so hard to help me learn. You could maybe apply that same reasoning to any of the talents or skills that we are trying to help our kids learn, and yet do not practice ourselves.

I have no answers here, but I'm really interested in having an honest, non-judgemental discussion about this topic with other women. How do you personally find internal balance as you mother young children in your own situation, whether working or at home? If you do manage to carve out time for yourself, how do you do it? I'm really interested in specifics. We all have so much to learn from each other. Enlightenment, please?

Quebec? Si!

2011-08-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

I was so lucky to go on a trip with my mom and sisters this July to Quebec. Quebec is really, really old, and very pretty. And, people speak french there. Because of the break-neck speed of our summer I didn't do a lick of research before hopping on the plane to go there - and I was totally taken aback (and delighted by!) the frenchi-ness of the city. All the french being spoken unleashed the motley barrage of high school french I have carefully tucked away in my little brain - but unfortunately not before I answered si a couple of times to some horrified shop-keepers. Ah, american me.

my pretty little sister

Minding the unruly: 8 year old party

2011-08-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

I was excited to throw my little-now-big 8 year-old a party this year, since last year we had to forego (it turns out you don't get a birthday party in our family if you cut all of your little sister's hair off). It was so fun and I was so, so proud of her for having a scissor-free year.

(a blind-folded birthday girl)

Elements of a successful party in our household include a very very loose theme (in this case, color), lots of balloons, games (bobbing for donuts - hands tied behind backs; button button who has the button; smashing dyed eggs filled with glitter; freeze dance); and candy. What kid doesn't love candy?

(my daughter is a cheater! look at those hands.)

a toast to the birthday girl! thanks for being such a delight, little one.

party poppers

2011-08-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

Just a tiny bit of summer left for us - hooray for school and more peace and quiet, but boo for homework and the return of running around after school! Anyone else have a love/hate relationship with summer vacation? :)

Our last(-ish) summer project is my daughter's birthday party this week. We made invitations inspired by these festive party poppers...

...out of toilet paper rolls, tissue paper, wrapping paper, glue, and string. These are pretty simply constructed and you probably don't need me to show you how we did ours but just in case, I will.

Cover one end with a little square of tissue paper glued down around the edges of the tube (I used hot glue)...

and then fill the tube with confetti and a skinny little invitation.

Before you glue tissue paper on the other end of the tube to seal it up, poke a little hole through the tissue, thread your string through, and tie a big knot (this will be the pull string, to open the popper).

Glue the tissue paper on the other end of the tube, with the string hanging down outside of the tube (I'm writing that because I totally glued one of the strings inside a tube by accident).

Once both ends are covered with glued-down tissue paper, cover the body of the tube with wrapping paper (or any interesting paper you may have laying around). Voila! This could also be a fun idea for Valentine's Day*

*if your little one had a very small class.

making an ugly lamp not so ugly

2011-07-16T10:41:00.000-07:00

All you need is a bag full of interesting buttons, an old ugly lamp and lots of hot glue. An easy, satisfying summer project.

There the button lamp is in situ. Do you like the dear head? It's actually an antique pub sign. Anyone for some game pie or Welsh rarebit? We love English pub food.

This is where the seven-year old sits every morning for her ritual piano practice. And I sit next to her, with a jar of bribery skittles. Helping her focus is my daily patience exercise. Do any of you have any music-lesson bribery ideas?

2011-07-05T15:53:00.001-07:00

...a quick follow-up to the photo keeping post - I just saw that snapfish is having a sale, 99 prints for 99 cents through July 8 (code JULYPENNY99). (!) That is one great deal and I am going to get some prints made.

ps: has anyone ever ordered prints from hipstamatic? I love my hipstamatic iphone app - my iphone is fast becoming my camera of default - but have yet to try printing pictures through them (it seems a tad expensive, but maybe worth it for a few favorites?)

summer dresses

2011-06-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

Sewing for summer: Heather Ross's flower girl dress, from Weekend Sewing. Love how flexible this pattern is, and how quickly it comes together. (Note: be sure and measure for chest size before you make this - the pattern runs small, but it's easy enough to add an inch to either side of the bodice pieces.)

Minding the Unruly: Photo Keeping

2011-06-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you are like me, but I have about a billion pictures in my iphoto library, and have not printed out pictures in about four years. (!) Periodically I think about this and can feel my heart rate go up and the panic begin to circulate through my system. What if the computer crashes? What if my iphoto starts eating itself? What if our house burns down? What if we lose the computer in the airport? Any number of scenarios could be insanely devastating.

S0 I've been trying to think through some systems that could potentially work for our family, and here are some of the ideas that I've come up with. I would so very much love to hear what other families are doing now that there are so many options (and so many pictures and videos being taken!)

My current (and future) systems:

-The blog book. One thing (actually the only thing) that I have done with success is to maintain our private family blog, where I try with regularity to upload photos and note down funny/meaningful stories. I've been making an annual book from this each Christmas through blurb, and the books are a big hit with the kids. But - the obvious drawback with a blurb book as your main photo album is that you can't readily pull out pictures to tape to school projects, bring to "guess who the baby is" contests (you know love that game :) ), etc. Also they are expensive, because ideally I would like a copy for each child, for every year, for them to take with them when they are all grown up and in their own homes. And so far I pretty much just buy one copy for us (and one for the grandparents) because I'm always trying to be frugal around Christmas and then forget to go back and get more copies at other points in the year. All that being said, I guess it is something. And as I was on the blurb site today, I came across this example, which I think is one of the prettiest family books I've ever seen. (I have no idea who this family is but I totally wanted to buy a copy of it. Is that creepy of me?)

-Old Fashioned Photo Albums. I should just bite the bullet and do this for our favorite pictures, right? Maybe try to print out pictures every few months and slide them in? Is it worth it to do that in this day and age?

-Plastic File Box. I thought about this about 4 months ago and bought the file box but have yet to put anything in it. But when I get around to it, I will take a manilla envelope and put a child's name, their grade, and then important school papers and some pictures from the year. That might be a simple enough back-up system that I could regularly do, right? One manilla envelope per child per school year.

-External Hard Drive. I will admit I haven't really taken the time to figure out what this is because it just sounds like a boring thing but my husband bought one last year and I think he backed up our pictures onto it (good job, Steve. You are awesome).

-putting all of those camera video clips onto cd's. Why haven't I done this yet? It would probably not take too long. And they are so fun to watch. This week I promise I'll do it!

Now, your systems - I'd love to hear! There must be other people who are literally kept up at night worrying about this!!

pick up your brush

2011-06-15T09:18:00.000-07:00

It is an indisputable fact that there are few things cuter in this world than chubby baby feet.

what's on the pantry door for this week

2011-06-13T13:35:00.001-07:00

What are you eating this week? Here's our menu. We have leeks coming out of our ears in our garden (hooray that we didn't kill them) so tonight we're having my 7 year old's favorite,

Potato Leek Soup

2 medium leeks, diced

1 small onion, diced

4 T butter

4-5 c. diced potatoes

4 T flour

6 c. chicken broth

1 c. heavy cream

salt to taste

Cook onions and leeks in butter for 2-3 minutes. Add flour slowly, then add the chicken broth. Salt to taste, and bring to a boil. Add potatoes. Cook 20 - 30 minutes, or until potatoes are tender. Add cream and serve with crunchy bread.

Yum.

Do you have any hearty vegetarian dishes that your kids love? We're trying to move more that direction and I'd love to find more winning (and filling) recipes to bookmark.

Also not dead yet in our garden, our mint box (see below). I LOVE having mint around because I LOVE this recipe for mint chocolate chip ice cream, which is my most favorite thing to make in the summer. Mint ice cream with real mint tastes totally different than store-mint chocolate chip ice cream (which I also happen to love) - but if you like the taste of mint leaves it's like a minty backyard party in your mouth.

Wabi Sabi

2011-06-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

Wabi Sabi is a lovely japanese concept that means, as far as I understand it, imperfect beauty. It seems that this is a fitting idea to describe the state of a household with young children. Or maybe that's a complete mis-application, but hey, it makes me feel better.

Nothing is ever quite finished... or if and when a room or surface is cleaned up, it quickly goes back to a state of messiness. I used to think about this as kind of that scientific theory that everything always slips towards the direction of chaos, which really frustrated me. It is much pleasanter instead to embrace the notion of wabi sabi and enjoy the signs of life that our imperfect beauty reflect, right?

hooray for teachers!

2011-06-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

I know I've mentioned this before, but I always struggle with finding perfect gifts for our beloved teachers at the end of the year. I seem to come back to flowers or gift cards to the bookstore, along with a sincere letter of appreciation. Nice but not fabulously wonderful.

What do you do? Any brilliant ideas I can file away for next year?

Summer fashion inspiration for the girls

2011-06-06T10:27:00.001-07:00

Oh my. This morning I am swooning, SWOONING over Dagmar Daley's gorgeous shifts from their summer line. My girls' flower girl dresses last summer were from this lovely little company, and the fabrics were so pretty: silky white cotton eyelet lined with the softest grey linen.

(Look at those little leggings with the tiny buttons at the ankles. They are 70% cotton and 30% wool. Gorgeous - they would last forever.)

linen apron

stripey dress

Furthermore I'm having a hard time convincing myself that my baby doesn't need an old-fashioned bathing suit for our trip to the beach next month.

fairy fun

2011-06-02T08:54:00.000-07:00

Our little friend Lolo just turned 5. She's my daughter's first and best friend.

We decided to have tea for her because we adore her.

We made her a cake

(the ubiquitous rainbow cake. I couldn't help myself! It was hard to cut, but fun)

here they are, the party girls. After this picture was taken they trotted off to play their favorite game, "Honey and Sweetie," which is basically pretend mother and daughter. I overheard them talking about bombs through the bushes, though, and when I asked them what exactly they were playing, my daughter sweetly replied that today they were playing "Honey and Sweetie, and the Dangers of Hell." Nice. Come over for some cake, and my daughter will play a game with you about hell.

Thankfully we had a gift for Lolo to make up for all the talk about you-know-where. We made a FAIRY TRAP from a stick & thread & hot glue (kind of like a dream catcher - put a dab of glue on your starting point, and then wind the thread back and forth, gluing a little as you go to secure the thread). The fairy trap is meant to be woven with flowers to lure unsuspecting flying folk into having a little nap on the wee hammock you've made for them.

(fairy trap in action)

We also made her a FAIRY ROOM out of a small box with clear sides that I found at Michael's. We filled it with a nest, bags of moss, glitter and sparkly string, and a bundle of pretty fabrics (see below, being mauled by the baby).

The point is to decorate the box, and then leave the top open at night so that maybe a fairy might pop in for a rest while you are asleep. You never know, right?

Sparkly play dough was also in order. Because play dough is awesome and with glitter even better.

Happy birthday, Lolo! We're sorry you learn swears when you come to play with us!

minding the unruly: summer vacation

2011-05-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

Today is the first day of summer vacation for us, which feels crazy as I am right now typing wearing a coat. I love summer vacation but am also filled with a tiny bit of dread, considering the many hours to fill with hopefully constructive and happy play. Here's a small list of easy, creative, and time-consuming (for the kids, not the mom) activities that I compiled for a recent Enrichment night at church. I would LOVE to hear other ideas, please please please!

-PLAY DOCTOR & MAKE CASTS. requires: 2(+) kids, 1 roll of toilet paper + 1 squirt bottle with water.

This was a consistent crowd pleaser with me and my siblings growing up - we spent hours casting each other's limbs. Bonus points for coming up with awesome stories about how the fake injuries occurred.

how: have your young doctor wrap a layer of toilet paper around the victim’s pretend broken limb, i.e., arm or leg. Then have the doctor squirt water on the toilet paper to make it stick. The more layers, the more time this game will take. I encourage very thick casts. Do this outside.

-SCRIBBLE ART. requires: 1 piece of paper, a few markers.

how: using a black or dark marker, make a crazy big scribble on a piece of paper. Then have your child color in the scribble using different colors. It will look like stained glass if they ever finish. (this is best for advanced color-ers – like ages 4+)

-MAKE A FAIRY GARDEN. requires: 1 patch of dirt, 1 stick.

how: explain to your child that there are fairies who fly around looking for nice places to sleep at night. Impress upon them the need to help make a spot just right for a fairy, and have them beautify the dirt patch for a potential fairy landing with grass, little weeds or flowers, etc.

-Along those same lines, you could introduce your kids to the british artist Andy Goldsworthy, and have them make their own art installation in your backyard with the things they find (and maybe some beans from you :) )

-LISTEN TO “Peter & the Wolf” (we like the David Bowie version. $9.99 on itunes. Totally worth it when you need a break but don’t want to turn on the TV)

-MAKE A MINI BOOK. requires: 1 piece of paper, a pencil.

how: instructions can be found here. We’ve used these in school projects, for Christmas cards, and during many a church meeting. Even if your kids aren’t old enough to do the folding themselves, they will have fun filling a little book with pictures or words to songs or whatever.

-MAKE A FIELD GUIDE TO THE BACKYARD (older kids) requires: paper, pencil, colored pencils, & a nature book or the internet to help identify leaves & plants.

How: send your kids out into the yard to collect specimens of your flora. Then have them draw, describe, and properly label them. Staple them together at top, or fold in half and staple on fold, for a simple book.

-MAKE SIMPLE PAPER DOLLS WITH FABRIC SCRAPS requires: 1 piece paper, some teensy scraps of fabric or colorful paper & a pen. Idea from Joel Henrique’s great upcoming book MADE TO PLAY, instructions can be found here.

-Work through the lessons in Sewing School, a fantastic guide to teaching little ones how to sew (I love, love, love this book! The instructions are super clear, and the projects are really fun).

-Have them brush up on their knowledge of current events by reading kid-appropriate news on Here There Everywhere, a great website edited by a mother and former producer of the Today Show.

-And finally, look for opportunities for your kids to serve in your community. Even little things like helping neighbors carry in groceries, secretly dropping off a little bouquet of flowers on someone's doorstep, or covertly make their sister's bed, hopefully help them to become better and happier little people, right?

-a few other great resources: made by joel, the crafty crow, deep space sparkle (great art projects)

2011-05-23T09:38:00.001-07:00

Dear Melissa,

Last Friday our contractor Jim finished up our kitchen. Hip hip hooray - it's been five months since our big leak and subsequent kitchen tear-out, but I am happy to report that it's been well worth the wait. I'm pleased with how everything came together and in the end, I kind of feel lucky to have had the leak even though at the time it was excruciating.

Let me take you on the grand tour...

(Do you like my Tolix knock-off stools? I bought them on overstock, $80 for the pair). It was too hard to justify getting the real thing once I saw these).

Our kitchen previously had standard brown wood cabinets. The white really brightens up the kitchen, and I love how our contractor shaped the bases. They kind of look like furniture to me.

After a friend gave me a heads-up, we paid a bit more to have a special finish put on the cabinets that makes the finish more durable (it's kind of like a coat of laminate). I'd recommend a process like this for anyone going with white. They are really easy to clean. My mom recommended to have the hinges put on the outsides so you can see the edges, and I'm glad we did - that's a detail that I totally would not thought of.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that white painted cabinetry is less expensive than wood (not that white isn't wood, but it is paint grade). With that difference, we were able to upgrade other things, like our faucet, sink, and fixtures (We ended up buying both the sink and the faucet from an online retailer, quality bath. Their customer service was fantastic - the sales representative on the phone took a lot of time making sure the faucet's neck was the right measurement for our sink, and everything came in the promised time frame carefully packaged. And they had the best prices, too). The faucet is by Rowe and is so much sturdier than what we previously had - I feel like it will last forever.

We chose soapstone for our countertop. I love how matte it is, and also the pretty veins that run through it. Anyone considering soapstone should know that while the surface of the stone is extremely impermeable, it is relatively soft and will get small scratches and knicks. I don't mind this at all; in fact it is one of the things that appeals to me about it (I want my suburban home to feel old). We've been told that most of the marks that will inevitably happen can mostly be sanded or oiled out. Another interesting thing about soapstone is that when it is installed, it's a light cement gray. You can either leave it like that, or give it a coat of mineral oil. We oiled ours (although I like the gray, too), and have been told that we should probably continue to oil it every couple of weeks for the first six months or so to maintain the matte black.

pick up your brush

2011-05-20T10:14:00.001-07:00

oil on canvas

minding the flock: aarg!

2011-05-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

That "aarg" is my very weak tiger roar because I just finished reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. The book is totally good. I really liked it, and ended up with a lot of respect for the author, Amy Chua, and think that her girls are lucky to have a mother who loves them so much, and who is so incredibly not-lazy. (And, she's really funny).

That being said, I don't think my goal in the end is to be a tiger mother. I think I'd rather be a cricket mother. What on earth do you mean, Lynne? you may be asking. I will try and explain and if you are not in it for the long haul, perhaps you should click away right now, because I have been thinking a lot about this and it will take me the long way around to explain. When I was growing up I loved listening to the crickets at night. I remember laying on a bed of itchy grass wearing my yellow terry-cloth shorts jumpsuit and light blue holly hobby polyester knee socks, feeling like the queen of the world hearing that vibrating chorus and watching the fireflies blink away while the stars popped out of the night sky. On those nights I had the feeling that all was possible: I might be a brilliant novelist, or an amazing artist, or...the dream most cherished of all...a mysterious and beautiful CIA agent, code name Samantha.

I kind of think that John Steinbeck was writing about times like this in East of Eden, when he talked about the "glory" (have you gotten to this part yet? It's on page 131 in my copy, and he says it better than I could explain):

"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then - the glory - so that a cricket song sweetens his years, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men."

What does this has to do with cricket mother? I think my point is kind of that I want my kids to have enough ROOM for spontaneous magic in their lives. Hard work is definitely part of the equation of opportunity - and hard work takes a lot of time (and to be practical if you've ever been around a seven year old trying to learn a stringed instrument or their times tables, a good deal of parental involvement or else it just won't happen, period) - but then I think you need to step back a little and just let them...be, you know? Like, let your child wander to the piano, figure out for an hour how to play "The Eye of the Tiger," and connect with the universe when he or she succeeds. Wasted time? I don't think so. That feeling of connection - the process of lighting up with yourself - those moments, like Steinbeck said, are what make life zingy and exciting - and then give you the momentum to propel yourself forward in your life, to engage with life. To watch your daughter head into the bathroom where she has discovered the acoustics to be amazing, and sing in a crazy falsetto voice all of the Christmas carols she knows and then emerge flushed with the conviction that she just loves to sing... we are not headed to Carnegie Hall, perhaps, or not even to the school talent show (a painful conversation), but an AWESOME afternoon.

Probably this doesn't quite make sense (I am on a lot of allergy medicine, after all, which doesn't seem to help my love of run-on sentences) - but long live crickets! And keep reading East of Eden - I can't wait to talk about why Cathy eats chalk.

Lynne

study a bit

2011-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

(this is a pretty book. the photos in this post are completely unrelated to the content of the post. this is called multi-tasking, of which I am a master.)

Dear Melissa,

Now that we have conquered Macbeth (anyone else out there want to weigh in on it? Last chance! I thought your post about the letter moment was really thought-provoking, and much deeper than my analysis, which was simply that Lady Macbeth was a complete sociopath, and you shouldn't kill people or else you will ruin your life) I think we should move on to our next book.

dum dum dum...

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck

I've started and I feel like it's the perfect book for me to read right now at the beginning of our hot California summer. I have read this book before, but I was only 19 and since then I completely forgot it, so I don't think it counts.

So far I love Steinbeck's portrait-like approach. Adam and Charles...beloved Samuel and Lee...and of course Cathy who is totally fascinating in her chalk-eating evilness. It makes me think that a good painting project to go along with this book would be a portrait of some kind. I'm really bad at painting people so I look forward to learning some new stuff.

(I wish I had a wall of family portraits like this)

(but most of all a room like this, covered in butterflies)

Love,

Lynne

wearing today...

2011-05-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

(Or, should I say, bonjour, Melissa with my adorable fake french accent?) I've been taking to heart the excellent advice received and have been wearing scarves a lot more. And, earrings, and sometimes even bracelets and necklaces. I am making progress and felt obliged to report.

Here I am, ho hum, just a normal Monday morning, fresh from the market where I am proud to report that I bought a few different varieties of fromage which I will probably stress eat by myself in the afternoons whilst the children do their homework, practice instruments, beg for play-dates, and fight.

Here are my shoes. They are my favorites (can you tell?), my Ugg clogs. I like that they have a little bit of a heel because I am short. I mean, petite. Yet they are comfy. I am still working on finding those perfect ballet flats that don't make my petite legs look stubby. (Does anyone else have that problem?)

Here is my post-market look, which means, without the sweater (I get cold there). Please pardon the skee-wompus photographs, they were taken by a four year old. Who encouraged me to model in my "fake book reading pose" for most of the pictures. I was very interested in that book with and without the sweater, can you tell?

Really you should go look at these great hair tutorials on Cup of Jo, they are fantastic. I love the three mini buns one the very most. Oh, but the messy bun one is great too.

Kisses,

Lynne

(sweater, Anthropologie, courtesy of my very chic sister Katie; shirt dress H&M; belt, Target; scarf, Banana Republic; leggings, Madewell)

2011-05-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

Would you like to see our dining room, post-leak?

(For those of you who are reading who don't know, we had a leak in the beginning of January from our kitchen, which ruined our floors, kitchen cabinets, drywall, and dining room bookcase. Slowly, slowly, slowly things have been put back together).

(Our previous built-in was brown, with large cabinets on the bottom. This time (and hopefully our last time!) we opted to go white, and have all the shelves be uniformly sized bookshelves.

Steve surprised me with this chandelier I've been looking at for years for Valentine's Day. So romantic.)

I love all things John Robshaw, but unfortunately all things John Robshaw are pretty much out of my budget because I plan on sending my children to college one day. So I applied the techniques explained in Lena Corwin's excellent book and made my own block print shade for the window. Can you see it? It is supposed to look a little bit like these gorgeous-maybe-one-day fabrics.

Grand total for my curtain project (I sewed together some old sheers that had been languishing in the back of my linen closet for a couple of years - and now that I look at the picture I maybe should have done a better job ironing them) - $4.95 for the small bottle of block printing ink. Success!

We're still finishing up the kitchen but hopefully in the next two weeks that will be done and I can use the kitchen sink and disposal again. What a luxury it will be to no longer spend long amounts of time fishing soggy cheerios out of cereal bowls before I can wash them!

xo,

Lynne

Lady Macbeth alone with a letter

2011-05-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Lynne:

The climax of Macbeth, for me, is act 1, scene V with Lady Macbeth "alone with a letter"--that cursed letter that will cause her ruin. It's still quite early on in the play. Some may feel that the climax doesn't come until later, when the murders are actually being committed. But for me, I feel the climax occurs right in this room in Macbeth's castle, in this cozy, intimate scene of Lady Macbeth reading this damning letter. This is the decisive moment. How she reacts to this will determine her fate. It seems that broad sweeping changes often occur in little quiet decisions, whose consequences become vast. Thus I see this letter as decisive, as it was for Bathsheba (whom you will recognize in these paintings, dear art historian sister-in-law Lynne.)

I think these Bathsheba paintings could easily have been of Lady Macbeth. The lack of clothing simply magnifies the starkness of her situation: she is completely denuded, detached form time and place, a human being in all her rawness exerting her force on the universe.

Rembrandt captures to perfection the look of forboding in Bathsheba's face: this small moment, this simple gesture will have monumental consequences and make her one of the femmes fatales par excellence. It's those hinge moments, upon which history turns, which are so monumental. The reading of the letter from Macbeth is one such hinge moment in this play.

Don't you find the second Bathsheba painting particularly stunning? We saw both of these paintings in our recent trip to Paris at the Louvre. The Willem Drost Bathsheba was hanging a few feet to the left of Rembrandt's painting. I think my husband (your brother) certainly liked it. I think that's what he's staring at so admiringly...

I look forward to hearing your insights on Macbeth.

Melissa

pick up your brush

2011-04-29T15:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

Your romantic getaway to Paris sounds enchanting, and you look devastatingly adorable in your thrifty dress! My husband would totally be into wearing a small bathing suit. I look forward to the summer months even more now. :)

Spring in California is beautiful. We've had lots of rain, so the hills around our house are green - layers of green in all different shades. I am soaking it all in, and have been painting quite a bit. I'm trying to savor all of the green before it turns gold. That's beautiful too, but being a Virginia gal, there's something about that color that I just can't get enough of.

Love,

Lynne

(painting for sale in my shop)

PS: Macbeth! Finish reading it by Monday, we will discuss!

the house of franglais

2011-04-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Lynne:

I've been thinking long and hard about your question of how you can be more French. I've recently returned from a wedding anniversary trip to Paris. (Do you like this lovely flat we rented?) It's true that French women have a certain je ne sais quoi that we American women seem to often lack.

Here are some of my observations that might help:

1. pink toilet paper: I've never seen this in America, and it's everywhere in France.
2. scarves: the French actually have two words to describe this; one is "un foulard" which is more of a dressy light, silky sort of scarf; the other is "une écharpe" which is the woolen variety worn in winter. I think a good collection of both types of scarves is a good start.
3. lettuce: French women are really always eating salad and drinking lots of water, sparkling or flat.
4. speedos: I think you should buy one for your man if you want to be really French. In fact, at many public pools, voluminous swimming trunks are not allowed. Tight fitting swimming attire for men is a must.
5. women often wear skirts or dresses, with lovely shoes, no running shoes or sweat pants. Do you like my 1960's thrift-store find?

2011-04-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

study a bit

2011-04-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

I hope you are having a lovely time with your house guests (give them a hug from me, please).

I finally found time last night to plunge into Macbeth. I opened up a window to hear the wind, wrapped myself in a big blanket, and read. It's awesome of course, and I can't believe how completely crazy Lady Macbeth is. And Macbeth, hello, flaky. I am thoroughly enjoying it and I am excited to hear your thoughts (and those of whoever else is reading.)

Love,

Lynne

ps - more pictures, anyone? the possibilities are endless, really...

Home Sweet Home: Tricia

2011-04-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Tricia's kitchen.

Tricia is an amazing woman. She homeschools her six children, raises all kinds of animals (including some really cute chickens), and fills her gorgeous home with books and creative activities. If you are lucky enough to be going, you can catch Tricia's presentation at BYU's Women's Conference on Gathering in the Kitchen: Healthy Eating and Happy Memories. Her blog, Our Home Made Happy, is consistently an inspiration to me as it is chock full of Tricia's great ideas and photographs. Go look.

When Tricia and her family moved in to their home, she painted the cabinets white herself.

Gorgeous and peaceful.

(plus I am madly in love with her tolix chairs)

She breaks her philosophy of using whites and neutrals down really well on her blog here...

more of Tricia's home to come!

pick up your brush

2011-04-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

(Natural Patchwork giveaway winner is...

VIOLET MUNDAY!

email me and I will ship it off to you!)

Dear Melissa,

I always, always struggle to come up with meaningful teacher presents for my kids' teachers. They work so darn hard and get paid so darn little that I feel like I really want to do something spectacular for them when their birthday or the holidays or the end of the year roll around. I don't know if this is that spectacular thing or not, but it's one of my efforts that has now become somewhat of a tradition for me: the book of portraits.

I always do it on the day I teach our little portrait lesson (the main thing we do is to diagram a face on the board so we can talk about human proportion. It is amazing how helpful it is for children to show them how eyes are actually in the middle of that face oval - and that ears are similarly half way down one's head.)

Then I make the teacher be our model. Can you tell that my daughter's teacher loves the Oakland A's? And wears TONS of eye make-up? (kidding about the last thing. this picture is my favorite of the bunch)

They always turn out great, I think. Isn't this one above so Modigliani? Very graceful. While the kids are drawing I creep around the room and ask them on the sly what they think is the most beautiful thing about the teacher. Then I write that thing under their drawing. It is so sweet, what they say. Second graders love, love, love their teachers.

Love,

Lynne

Minding the unruly

2011-04-14T14:02:00.001-07:00

Dear Melissa,

The other morning my husband walked by the bathroom door, where the seven year old and four year old were locked in together (they like to keep each other company while taking care of business). Steve overheard the following conversation:

7: ...no, that's wrong. try again.
4: ...but I don't know how to read
7: Just try again. You can do it! "Cloud." Spell, "cloud."
4: ...but I just need some toilet paper
7: not until you can spell the word correctly.
4: but the only word I can spell is my name
7: "Cloud" is simple. Do it.

I guess by the time we finally shuttle the four year old off to kindergarten, she will be well prepared with such a rigorous teacher at home. That's really what our public school system needs to shape those standards up - my daughter to come in and show them how it's done. Although her methods may or may not be legal. :)

(pictured are a pair of grey flannel matching blankets I recently made for those little sisters. they like all things in twin-form these days. how do you tie blankets without your fingers getting sore?)

Love,
Lynne

Natural Patchwork Giveaway!

2011-04-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

Trumpeter Books has kindly offered to do a giveaway for their newest title in the Make Good: Crafts + Life series, Natural Patchwork, by Suzuko Koseki. Japanese craft book loveliness in ENGLISH!! Brilliant. I am looking at the book as I type (well, actually I had to put it down because I can't do that many things at once) - and it is so pretty. The photographs, the 26 sweet projects... you will absolutely be inspired.

Anyway, leave a comment and the random number generator will choose a recipient next Monday.

Help!

2011-04-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

Lynne:

I've not been able to respond to your articulate (and hilarious) post regarding your desire to be more French. I've been obsessing about how to improve the look of our very orange rental kitchen/dining room. I've received permission to paint. I think that's a start to tone down the orangeness of it all. What color do you like (from samples 1-5)? Do you have any other ideas? I've thought perhaps an indoor/outdoor carpet under the dining room table. Any other suggestions? I'm desperate for your advice.

xoxo

Melissa

pick up your brush

2011-04-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

"cheerful as a cricket"

Grandma Moses, painting

Dear Melissa,

In doing a little research for an art class this morning, I came upon the obituary of artist Grandma Moses from the New York Times on the day of her passing back in 1961, and was completely charmed. Go read it, it doesn't take long and it will make you feel happy. I especially loved this quote from an unnamed German fan:

"There emanates from her paintings a light-hearted optimism; the world she shows us is beautiful and it is good. You feel at home in all these pictures, and you know their meaning. The unrest and the neurotic insecurity of the present day make us inclined to enjoy the simple and affirmative outlook of Grandma Moses."

Doesn't that just make you, to quote the obituary writer, cheerful as a cricket yourself? I think Grandma Moses had it all figured out.

"I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be."

house of franglais

2011-03-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

image anthropologie

Dear Melissa,

Can we talk wardrobe for a minute?

I think I told you my sad story, of being stopped twice in the last four months by strange men inquiring if I was a member of a certain religion. I don't want to specifically mention the religion because these comments were not taken by me as compliments on my personal appearance (let's just say I googled the religion after incident #1, and it described the typical female belonging to said religion as one who wears no make-up or jewelry, does not cut her hair, and usually wears long plain skirts or dresses). If this happens to you once, you could think, sure, I'm just at the grocery store and haven't really gotten ready today (except for that day I had), ha ha, it's kind of funny. Twice - this happening TWO TIMES makes you stop and think, perhaps time for a little look-see in the mirror and some re-evaluation.

So as I think about this - because, at the end of the day I do have some vanity - the bottom line is that really what I would like to look like when I leave the house each day is french, and kind of vaguely artistic. And cute. Can this be done? C'est possible? And can you help me since you speak french?

First, let's consider what I generally do during the day, because my new french look needs to be practical:

exercise sometimes if I have time/remember. Lately I have been frantically doing the jump-rope because I can break a sweat and be done in 15 minutes while Wren sits in her high-chair and stares at me. (perhaps on the days I forget to exercise, this is more french, because it seems like french women do not need to exercise to look beautiful.)

drink hot chocolate (this is french already because sometimes I use a very small mug).

a load or two of laundry

lots of tidying

often a visit to the school to do an art class; and if I'm lucky I might find a little time to paint while Wren naps and other children are otherwise gone or occupied. (TOTALLY french to engage in artistic activity!)

various shuttling around of children to lessons, etc. (Not so french, because I drive a japanese minivan.)

disciplining/shaping the characters of my progeny

grocery shopping (if I start substituting the word "marketing" for this, do you think that would be a step in the right direction?)

reading (alors, always in english, as I only speak very poor high school level french.)

chit-chatting (rarely in french. only if i happen to offer a friend perhaps a bit of fromage avec a cracker at my table)

So, any brilliant tips for me? Articles of clothing to acquire? I'm wondering if you (or anyone else) has found the perfect ballet flats, or the perfect little black pants, the perfect red lipstick, the perfect striped top, or the perfect accessories (because, although my male admirers would be surprised, I actually do enjoy wearing jewelry). What do you think is the ideal composition for a (frenchy) lady of style's wardrobe? And, how should one wear one's semi-long hair so that it looks semi-long on purpose rather than default?

Love,

Lynne

2011-03-29T06:55:00.000-07:00

Our next read: Macbeth. Due: April 30. Need: your deep thoughts and if you're feeling artistic, a sketch or painting of this mysterious and dark English classic.

Home Sweet Home: my childhood house

2011-03-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

I was looking through my photographs last night and came across this trove of pictures I took of the old house where I grew up. Would you care to join me for a ye olde stroll down memory lane (since this house has since burned - which is a story not nearly as dramatic as it sounds for those Sugar City Journal readers not-related to me, but not one I will tell right now)

(the barn. a very good hide out but watch out for spiders falling in your hair)

It was a lovely place to be raised, this great old house. Looking at these snapshots reminds me that it is good to take pictures of the places where you live. One day my kids will like seeing photographs of what was their backdrop - where they fought, where they discovered their favorite books, where they told secrets with their siblings - and match them with their memories.

I also love that as I look at these pictures I see my parents all over them: my mom's boudoir (I used to think the watercolor painting above the little chest of drawers was so racy!), the little stove my dad would make fires in on snow days, the notes sticking out of my mom's cookbooks...

minding the unruly

2011-03-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

The other day I got the chance to preview the galleys for fantastic Joel Henrique's upcoming book, Made to Play. They were awesome (he is a genius, by the way), and I can't wait to get my hands on the actual book. This was one of the ideas we played with immediately that couldn't be simpler: draw stick figures, cut fabric clothes, play. I would say that we got a good twenty minutes out of this activity, which is saying something for the four year old.

Speaking of which: my social little four year old has absolutely no desire to ever, ever, ever play by herself. When I put her in quiet time, she would rather stand by the door waiting for me to come get her (shouting, "is quiet time over yet?" every thirty seconds) than entertain herself. Consequently we do not do quiet time very much any more because all that yelling from her makes me feel grumpy.

This is in stark contrast to the seven year old, who very much like your seven year old, is kind of like a child MacGyver. She can find a baby wipe and a spaghetti noodle under the table in the kitchen and in seconds devise an exciting game that most likely has to do with greek mythology, romantic love, and looking at herself in the mirror (her three favorite things right now) and we won't see her for hours. If I'm really lucky the four year old might get assigned a small role in this game (say, as the spaghetti noodle holder in the corner), which starts out being a great thing but then usually ends up with the four year old yelling: "but I wanted to be the mom!" (reflecting a serious misunderstanding of the game, which infuriates her sister even more).

Oh well. Lots of love,

Lynne

pick up your brush

2011-03-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

clouds, oil on canvas, 8" x 8", 2011

available for sale in my shop; 100% of proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.

2011-03-17T18:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Melissa,

I'm very happy that you are blogging again. It's just not the same without you out there on the other end. I've really missed the fun of an ongoing shared project with you... I'm always motivated by your creativity and what you produce. You push me to think and try things that I otherwise wouldn't do or learn about, and I love that. It's so important to keep your inner life alive, don't you think?

Over the year I have thought a lot about letting the blog go as I've gotten busier with my family, or at points when the whole thing started to feel tired and overworked and stagnant. A fresh start feels good. For me, what I am constantly trying to figure out is balance - elusive, right? - and I feel like I can use this blog as a tool to help find it. I love the idea of sometimes painting, sometimes reading/discussing, and sometimes family life and things home-related (I do love a good home design blog). After reading your last post I foraged through my dusty garage and dug out my oil paints and supplies, and have been working on a few cloud pictures. I will show you when I finish. You are right, oil paints do smell so good.

The book...The Inferno - yipes! Daunting!! But in a good way. I think that has been on many a reading list I've been given in my life and I've only ever really read excerpts. I think it's poetry appreciation month or something coming up - (is Dante poetry? I have no idea but it seems like it is)... Speaking of poetry another author I'd like to spend some time with is Mary Oliver, or even revisit Shakespeare. How many pages is The Inferno? That might be the deciding factor for me. :) I will google. {More ideas, people?}

Love,
Lynne

(p.s., I re-opened my little shop, this time on etsy. It is kind of a random collection of this and that.)

new beginning

2011-03-15T02:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Lynne:

In a few days it will be my family's one-year anniversary of living in England. I feel like I'm finally starting to feel that old familiar urge to create. I've missed conspiring on projects with you. But I think we should have a new beginning--create a new sugar city, evolved into where we are in our current lives. It is so beautiful in England. I feel constantly inspired to pick up my brush and paint what I see. I know that the spring in California must be amazing. (I love your cherry blossom painting, by the way.) What if we made a painting correspondence? We could choose a theme, it could be one word, or a photo, or general idea, then we could each paint our own interpretation.

What would you like to do for our first project? I'm thinking clouds, sad, brooding, menacing clouds. Is that too melancholic for the spring? Maybe it would be befit the catastrophic events in Japan. What do you think?

Also, I'm constantly inspired by your mind. I love how you are constantly reading good books and sharing all your interesting insights. Perhaps we could continue with your goal to read more classics. What would be a good book to read next?

I've got some other ideas of posts about my effort to teach my kids French which has been on-going for about two years, as well as some of the challenges of raising children today. What do you envision for our new beginning?

I can't wait to hear from you...

Melissa

pick up your brush

2011-03-12T12:56:00.001-08:00

acrylic, 2010

study a bit

2011-03-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

mental note: be jane eyre.

(my Jane Eyre-ish watercolor tree)

After I finished reading W&P last month I felt like I needed a mental break. I picked up Jane Eyre, which I last read during a summer break between junior and senior year in high school. What I remembered: Mr. Rochester - hot, mysterious and rich. Jane - poor and plain, but beguiling with her sketchbook and witty conversation. Just like Sixteen Candles minus the grandma! Totally the best kind of story for a teenage girl to read. I remembered being really into how romantic it was, but feeling disappointed at the end that Edward got disfigured when his crazy wife torched the house. My 16-year old self felt it should have ended in a more outwardly happy way.

So anyway, reading it this time around was a whole different experience. I like to think that as a 34-year old I'm bringing a little more to the table (although that sometimes feels debatable). This time, while I still found the whole Rochester/Jane dynamic wildly romantic, I loved Jane. How did I miss her on that first read? There was this scene in Mr. Rochester's study where they were talking one night, and Jane says to him, basically, right is right, and wrong is wrong. You can dress something up however you like, but at the end of the day you can't change a lie into a true thing before God. I loved Jane's refusal to compromise on what she knew to be true, even at huge cost. Man! I hope I and my girls can be brave like that. I think if you believe in God, it clarifies a lot about life that otherwise gets murky. Jane had a lot of clarity. My chosen faith is mormonism, and I've spent a lot of time and prayer figuring out what I believe, because it's hard work to really live a religion. I hope I am moving towards clarity, too - trying to act on what I feel to be right even when it's hard (work in progress).

Another thing I found myself loving about Jane was her tidiness. Kind of a small detail, but I really liked how she was always ordering up her environment - whipping little Adele into shape, putting away all of her things neatly in her room even after the ruined wedding (!), establishing a proper schoolroom for the poor factory children in the village, fixing up the house for the cousins. I must admit that I felt very lacking because on a couple of days I chose to read more Jane Eyre over (gasp!) doing and putting away another load of laundry while my baby took her nap. The irony!

Ok, this is the last one - I also loved how studious Jane was. Drawing, or learning new languages, or tackling hard books. I personally distract quite easily. I mean, seriously, when was the last time I sat down to try and learn a new language? :) I've made mental notes to try and be more Jane-ish in this general area (not really to learn a new language, just to maybe read better books, etc., and spend less time frittering). Add it to the list.

(by the way, have you seen the trailer for this coming out next week?)

kitchen saga continues

2011-03-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

Look, my kitchen is finished!

Just kidding, that's actually a picture of a kitchen from Country Home Jul/Aug 2007 that I gave to my contractor. Isn't it pretty? We're hoping ours has some of the same elements by the time we are done: white cabinets, soapstone counters, and wood floors. It's a long process, though, and thank goodness for insurance, as much of a hassle it is to work with them.

Thanks for hanging around even though Melissa and I are barely posting right now. We actually have some ideas (I know, shocking!) to make the blog more reflective of what we do these days, since neither of us are really sewing so much anymore. Maybe in the next few weeks you'll see our new format...

War and Peace - done

2011-02-23T11:18:00.000-08:00

(*I apologize that there is no picture for this post. Our house is in shambles because of our leak and also because we just returned from a trip. The hedgehogs from previous War and Peace photos are nowhere to be found. Possibly gone forever.)

So, I finally finished War and Peace, and I loved it. In fact the week I finished, I wandered around in a War and Peace haze, consumed by thoughts of Natasha, Andrei, and Pierre (after spending 1400 pages with my fictional friends, I became very attached. Even to old wrinkly angry Prince Bolkonsky). I found that everything I encountered somehow seemed to relate back to an idea or scene from the book. There is so much to think about with this beast of a novel and I don't want to write anything that would spoil it for anyone who is considering reading it (maybe we can discuss in the comments, Sophie and Christen and anyone else who finished? I'm really curious to hear your takes on some specific things).

But generally speaking, I loved how Tolstoy wrote these characters, and how good he was at describing human character in its entirety, particularly weaknesses, and with such honesty and gentleness (very instructive for those of us who are kind of idiots most of the time).

I also loved how spiritual the book was - particularly I loved Pierre's re-birth, so to speak. And that those characters who were most admirable in the book (to me) were the ones who asked themselves hard questions and found answers to those questions through a belief in something bigger and more beautiful than their own intellect - namely, the existence of God and His involvement in their lives.

Sigh, to all of it, and that it is finished.

What next? Any suggestions? I've always been completely intimidated by The Brothers Karamazov...

Jennie's apron tutorial

2011-02-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

I have such a treat for you today! Our friend Jennie is generously sharing directions for making the cutest little apron I've ever seen. (I'm thinking about a garden birthday party this summer for my daughter structured entirely around these...) Enjoy, and then be sure to hop over for a look at Jennie and Allyson's blog. These ladies are amazing!

I created this apron for my 3 year old. She always rushes to help anytime we enter the kitchen. I wanted to give her something inspiring to wear while creating culinary masterpieces (or just hanging around).

T h e P a t t e r n:

The measurements I used will fit a 3 or 4 year old. For other sizes, use the formulas below (refer to diagram above):

1) From collarbone to collarbone, add 1 1/4" for seams

2) neckline to waist, add 1 1/4"

3) 1/2 of waist, add 1 1/4"

4) waist to knee, add 1 1/4"

5) 1.5 times measurement (3), add 1 1/4"

6) approximately 2 times measurement (1)

7) 28" plus measurement (6)

I often prefer to sew reversible clothing. It's more versatile and has a more finished look, not to mention all the hair I don't have to pull out as I try to make my hems look decent. The wonderful thing about sewing for children is how little fabric you need, so adding another layer isn't necessarily cost prohibitive.

I chose two main fabrics for each side of the apron, a contrasting fabric for the ties, waistband, ruffle, and pocket edging, and another contrasting fabric for the pocket. It was fun finding fabrics that all worked together so well.

Start by cutting out all the pattern pieces. If you have one, this is the perfect project in which to use a rotary cutter and mat, as most of the pieces have straight edges or are long strips.

1) P o c k e t s :

1. Pin one pocket and pocket edging, right sides together, and stitch. Press seam.

2. Pin second pocket to first, right sides together, and stitch.

3. Press seam.

4. Turn pocket right side out and press.

5. Turn pocket edging down about 1/4" and press.

6. Turn down pocket edging once more, making sure that it falls below the seam on the opposite side. Press.

7. "Stitch in the ditch" (right on the seam) on the front of the pocket.

8. The back will look like this. Make sure you caught the entire reverse side of the pocket in your hem. Pick out and restitch if necessary.

9. Using a basting stitch, sew about 3/4" from the top of the pocket (make sure to back stitch at the beginning of the seam, but not the end). Pull on the loose thread to evenly gather the top of your pocket until it forms a pleasing looking horseshoe-like shape.

10. Using a normal length stitch, sew two parallel seams over top of this one.

2) A p r o n S k i r t :

1. Position and pin the pocket to the apron skirt off-center, as pictured below.

2. Top stitch close to the edge (about 1/8").

3. Using a basting stitch, sew along the top of the skirt.

4. Gather evenly until it is the same length as the waistband.

5. Pin skirt and waistband, right sides together, and stitch.

6. Press seam.

3) A p r o n T o p :

1. Pin apron top to waistband, right sides together, and stitch.

2. Press seam.

3. So this is what you'll have - one side of your apron, no ties at the waist or the neck. Now repeat all the previous steps to assemble the reverse side of the apron.

4. Pin the two finished pieces, right sides together, and stitch according to the diagram. Make sure you don't stitch all the way to the edge of the apron top or to the edge of the waistband so you have room to insert the ties. Turn entire apron right side out and press.

5. Turn down the top edges of the apron top about 1/4" and press.

4) W a i s t a n d N e c k T i e s :

1. Pin two waist tie pieces together and stitch both long edges and one of the short edges. Clip corners. Turn the tube you've created inside out and press. Repeat with the other two waist tie pieces.

2. Insert the raw edge of the waist ties into the slots you left unstitched, making sure they are even with the waistband, and secure with pins.

3. Pin the two neck tie pieces together and stitch on one side.

4. Turn right side out and press.

5. Using a basting stitch, stitch along the raw edge of the middle 18", or formula (6). Evenly gather so that it is the same length as the curve of the apron top.

6. Pin the gathered neck tie in-between the two turned down edges of the apron top. Err on the side of too many pins!

7. Now you have a portion of unpinned neck tie on either side of the apron top. It has one seam on the top (at this point on the inside of the neck tie) and raw edges on the bottom and side. Turn this unpinned portion wrong side out so that the seam is now visible. Stitch the raw edges of the neck tie to within about 3 inches of the apron top. You are left with a tube, wrong side out, and a small opening next to the apron top through which you can turn the tube right side out. Do this and then press the tube. The small opening will be completely closed with top stitching in the final step.

8. You're almost done!! Top stitch around the entire apron.

9. Top stitch along one edge of the neck tie. Stitching along the edge of the waist ties is optional.

If you want to add anything to the pocket or apron skirt as I did, paint (or appliqué) it on prior to sewing any pieces together. Sit back and watch your daughter romp about in her new apron.

Chinese mother

2011-02-04T13:32:00.000-08:00

Did you read the recent "Chinese mother" articles in the Wall Street Journal? One article praised strictness, saying that children need to be pushed and guided in their activities in order to develop new abilities. Learning to play the violin, for example, is really hard and unpleasant in the beginning. But once the child can play the Bach double, he probably secretly enjoys playing and certainly feels a sense of accomplishment which then increases self-esteem. The author stated that kids need to be pushed passed that hump of difficulty. After reading the first article my husband and I thought, yes, that's it, our kids need to develop more discipline. We shall be Chinese mother and Chinese father. So we tried it for many days. Can I just tell you, it was not fun. The tiger parent approached provoked tears, crumpling to the ground, stomping away and slamming of doors.

This article criticized the tiger mother, saying a more relaxed approach to parenthood is healthier.

What kind of parent are you? Are you Chinese mother?

baby sweater

2011-02-04T10:56:00.000-08:00

I think every newborn needs a hand-knit, imperfect sweater, don't you?

(I used the baby sweater pattern in More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts - and it was simple to follow, which was lovely. Dare I say easier to make than Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket? (for me, at least) )

I have a fishy feeling about you

2011-01-31T15:27:00.000-08:00

I love Valentine's Day! Mainly because I love candy (I'm like Will Ferrell in Elf). I try to think of cute valentine's day card ideas that go along with the kind of candy that I most feel like eating at the grocery store. This year: swedish fish.

The kids covered some paper in watercolor, on which I then printed

"I have a fishy feeling about you."

(This is a good, non-committal valentine's day message, which is a definite requirement when a ten year old boy is in any way involved.)

Cut the paper into little card sizes, then the kids stuck them in envelopes

and filled them with candy.

Delicious.

2011-01-27T08:47:00.000-08:00

Do you remember all of the things your parents put on your walls, growing up? I can remember pretty much exactly what was on our living room walls, in the kitchen, my room, and even in the study bathroom (an old print of Mary Cassatt's Girl in a Straw Hat, green frame). I really care about what I put on our home's walls, so that our kids are surrounded by thoughtful beauty and images of things that are meaningful to us as a family. As soon as we have downstairs walls again (eight weeks to go!) I'll hang this picture of the Oakland LDS Temple I recently painted, a building that has personal meaning for us as a symbol of our religion and of the good people we hope to become through it.

What are your favorite pictures in your houses now? What did you love on your walls when you were little (besides Scott Baio? :) )

War and Peace part 2

2011-01-25T21:04:00.000-08:00

I must admit that War and Peace is not coming along as fast as I had hoped.

Part of this is due to the surprise remodeling event of our kitchen and dining room (which is going to take a really long time to fix, I have now accepted). But more of it is because I lost the book under the couch for awhile. It happens. Especially around here. A lot.

Anyway, I found it and I just have to say: (*spoiler alert, if you are not already past page 300) Pierre! Seriously? I mean, come on. You had to know that it was a really bad idea to marry a girl who you didn't even really propose to, who you knew was as dumb as a doornail, who you also kind of knew was getting it on with her brother. I thought it was funny when Pierre did the bear thing with the policeman, but now I am seriously wondering about this guy.

Prince Andrey: will you reconcile with your wife with her fuzzy lip?! Right now he is rushing into the house as she is in the throes of childbirth. I have a bad feeling about what is probably about to happen. But way to go Princess Marya, to not agree to marry the creepy brother. You could teach Pierre a thing or two (perhaps I have that to look forward to in the next 1000 pages? hopefully!). ...

Is anyone out there still reading? And what are you thinking?

Winter Landscapes

2011-01-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

We don't get snow in our part of California, but I love looking at winter landscapes in January. Two favorites are Monet's Magpie, and John Henry Twachtman's american take, Winter Harmony (above). (Isn't this painting so peaceful? It totally reminds me of that muffled silence you feel walking in the woods in the snow. Beautiful.)

On this note we did a fun lesson in my son's class last Friday - the ubiquitous winter birch tree watercolor lesson. There are many variations of this concept online and I went with Patty's version (I think she is so creative, and her lessons always seem to work out really well).

Isn't this fourth grade landscape (below) spectacular? The second graders produced equally lovely paintings. Throwing salt on wet watercolor work was especially exciting for the kids (and me). This would be super easy for any parent to do at home, as well.

(By the way, I totally recommend using liquid watercolors rather than the cheap-o ones in the pan. The colors are so much more vivid and the kids' paintings come out beautifully every single time. It is well worth the trouble to track them down if you do any amount of art with your kids at all. Here's where we get ours, and keep in mind that a little goes a looong way. I use them pretty much weekly in classes of 30 kids and am only half way through each container of color. That's a lot of paintings! :) )

mom brain

2011-01-14T03:16:00.000-08:00

I think I hear a comment almost daily from one of my playground mom friends about her frustration about forgetting things. Or it might be me making this comment. Sometimes I feel like my brain has become a slosh pit. I try to read, memorize new words, spend my few seconds of free time doing productive activities (like reading War and Peace; thank you Lynne for persuading me to take on this wordy hecatomb!) But to no avail, the slosh pit, gets sloshier, the details of yesterday fade and fade and fade until last week remains a blur. After watching this amazing 60 minutes episode I thought, something must be done. I cannot go on like this any longer. My brain needs help. Thus my new year's resolution to write in my little sketchbook/journal every day this year. One short little blurb or one little sketch to sum up each day. Hopefully this will help me give form to my days and nights, delineate details that might otherwise fade into oblivion.

...while I was reading last week

2011-01-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

...we had a MAJOR water issue in our kitchen, which has translated into the tearing out of our hardwood floors and bookcase in the dining room, and who knows what to come in the next few days in our poor little kitchen. So this week amidst the chaos of industrial-strength fans, books on every spare surface, and the awful smell of mildew, I am dreaming of peaceful and uncluttered kitchens.

Sigh. This picture is so beautiful to me.

(I sadly have no idea where it is from, I just found it in a google kitchen photo gallery. I wish I could credit it appropriately.)

(these two pictures from Sunset magazine)

What elements do you think are most important in kitchens? I like open shelves where you can display your favorite dishes and pretty bottles, and farmhouse sinks. Floors are tricky, I think. I love wood, but especially after seeing what water in the wrong place can do, I wonder if that is still my kitchen dream. What do you think is beautiful and timeless (and not over the top expensive, like reclaimed brick?)

War and Peace part 1

2011-01-07T10:56:00.000-08:00

(awesome photoshopping courtesy of Melissa)

How is your reading coming along, small faithful group of War and Peace readers? I have to say that I am (unexpectedly) thoroughly entertained so far. I only just finished part one, and my observation is that Tolstoy is a master of describing social awkwardness. As one who is prone to be occasionally socially awkward myself, I find these passages not only instructive but also funny.

Also, don't you love (SPOILER ALERT) how Pierre tied a bear to the back of a police officer and threw him in the river?! What's up with that? That seems like really an excessive degree of drunken revelry going on there. Good thing he's a count now, hopefully that will sober him up a little bit to his duties as a responsible citizen. I love Pierre.

Thoughts? Feelings? Criticism?

beautiful

2011-01-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

Design Mom posted the most beautiful photographs by artist Don Freeman the other day, which led me to his site. These pictures make me feel collect-y. In a good way.

Blue Willow

2011-01-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

"Blue Willow" is an animated short film made by New Zealand filmaker Veialu Aila-Unsworth, based on the old chinese fairy tale of Blue Willow. See the beautiful trailer here... and please tell me if you have any idea how I can see the whole film.

Doesn't it look lovely?

I found it when researching for an art lesson about blue willow ware, which was incidentally really fun to do in fourth grade last week. Go here for the original lesson, and if you'd like a link to the slideshow used to present the story to the kids, go here.

Read with me...January book

2011-01-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

I love starting out fresh. Last January I decided not to make any resolutions but vaguely proclaimed my intent to be more wholesome in my lifestyle. This was a nice idea but the only concrete thing I had to show for it at the end of 2010 was the production/consumption of lots of loaves of homemade bread. Fragrant and delicious, yes, but this year I admit I want to achieve something more dramatic and less caloric. So I decided that each month I'm going to tackle a classic book that's always intimidated me. Want to join? How exciting would it be to look back this December and have read twelve amazing, hard books?! I think that would be something to write home about.

my January book is...

(see below. look, I even summarized for you the wikipedia article about it, if you are like me and knew NOTHING about this book. You might want to click on it to make it bigger if you want to read it)

(is there a good way to discuss a book in a blog? I would love to have some kind of discussion at the end of the month, if any one else out there wants to be moral support for me and participate. Ideas? I've never seen a book group on a blog before. I must investigate but if you know how to do it, please share)

Christmas Eve Wrap Up

2010-12-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

...food for the reindeer

Nativity

2010-12-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

Our favorite holiday tradition!

Click here to see the whole thing.

Merry Christmas!

presents for school friends

2010-12-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

Ah, finally, finally Christmas break is here! On our schedule now is a whole lot of nothing. And treat making and eating. And Christmas movie watching, and some present wrapping.

The seven year old is in chipmunk world right now. I think most of the time on the school playground is spent screaming, "chipmunk!" followed by lots of scurrying. I could go into more detail here but I'd rather not disturb you with the extent of her imaginary world, so I'll just leave it with this little necklace that she made for her friends. Papier Valise is a great source for tiny and interesting charms, and we like to string them on long pieces of embroidery floss that can be put over small heads without having to worry about being tied or untied, or latched or unlatched. (She is only seven, after all. :) )

Books, Books, Books

2010-12-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

This morning Melissa and I were brainstorming about books for boys (we love books for Christmas). Our boys are 10 (or almost); who love adventure and silly humor. Sometimes it's just a little hard to push them out of the Captain Underpants rut :). Here are some of the books she recommended - many of the authors were new to me. Any other ideas?

the Horrible Histories series

And while we are on the topic of books, have you seen these editions of classic children's books that Anthropologie is now selling? Gorgeous.

Fake Sleepover Birthday Party

2010-12-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

This was probably the easiest birthday party we've done, and it was ever so fun.

a donut cake

girls in pajamas, stories on a big bed of blankets in front of the fireplace

painted fingernails

truth or dare

(the four year-old version, where truth=what do you want for christmas and dare=pretend to be a chicken, etc. :) )

freeze dance (eternal favorite party game in our house)

then...(a brilliant idea, which I can't take credit for. Thank you genius Jennie!)

the four year-olds toilet-papered our bushes. Which really capped the whole experience off on just the right note.

p.s.: about ten minutes before the party started, I remembered that Cookie had done a very adorable fake-slumber party story a couple of years ago. I wish I had thought of it earlier, drat. Maybe I'll use some of their cute ideas in August for an 8 year-old birthday party - I especially love the eye mask guessing game. (I'm scanning them in below, since I can no longer link to them. Sorry for the torn edges.)

ah, purl, you are so beautiful

2010-12-09T17:18:00.000-08:00

images from the Purl Bee: Giant Granny Square, Easy Baby Blanket, and Pixie Dust Blanket

Those geniuses at Purl Soho! Don't these pictures take your breath away? Now all I want for Christmas is yarn. And maybe a little time. :)

Almost Four: Party Time

2010-12-03T00:15:00.000-08:00

To continue with the discussion of the four year old's birthday - Saturday morning we're having a pretend-slumber party for her (the deepest dream of her young heart). As far as I'm concerned, any activity where you can wear your pajamas = awesome. And if you can incorporate donut eating, even better.

Since the party numbers are few it took no time at all to deliver the edible invitations.

Details on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

hand-made doll for a four year old

2010-11-28T22:38:00.000-08:00

Since watching the magical slideshow of Kiki and Coco in Paris this summer I have been obsessed with making a doll for my three-now-four year old's birthday.

Now we too can have idyllic adventures, charming doll in hand as she does adorable things like jump on the couch, get her haircut, and (I'm most excited about this one -) sleep.

I must concede that it might not totally be the same, seeing that we are not in Paris but rather suburban California, nor am I a professional photographer with a fabulous eye for adorableness (although I do have a very adorable 4 year old subject. :) )

Also, I need to convince the child that this doll is better than the hand-me-down Barbie (with a chewed-off hand thank you very much family dog) she currently favors.

I guess you just can't force love.

Good luck, Daisy.

(To see where Coco's gorgeous doll was made - shown in the link at the beginning of the post - look at Jess Brown's beautiful blog. Unbelievable.)

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sweep the house clean,

hang fresh curtains

in the windows

put on a new dress

and come with me!

The elm is scattering

its little loaves

of sweet smells

from a white sky!

Who shall hear of us

in the time to come?

Let him say there was

a burst of fragrance

from black branches.

William Carlos Williams - Love Song

Paul Klee Landscape

2010-11-22T08:52:00.000-08:00

We did Paul Klee in my daughter's second grade class this week - it was really fun. Here was my lesson plan, in conjunction with this slideshow that I've shared on slideshare (note: I have about an hour to teach the lesson, and I aim for our discussion/slide part to last for about 5 minutes, so it's not super in-depth. Also the kids are seven. :) If you were doing this with older kids, you could add more detail, etc. to the discussion.)

Paul Klee & the Color Wheel: slide discussion

-Understanding color is important as an artist. If you learn the language of color, you can use it to convey a feeling, provoke emotion, highlight certain details, or even to give your picture a temperature.

-Three colors - called primary colors - are the basis for the color wheel. These three colors can be mixed together (along with black and white) to create pretty much any color you can think of. RED, YELLOW, BLUE. (If there are kids in the class who happen to have shirts on that are R, Y or B, it's kind of fun to have them come & stand in front of the class).

-When you put opposite colors against each other, it makes the other color POP (complementary colors. Again, you can call kids up based on the colors of their shirts to demonstrate - for instance, put a kid wearing an orange shirt back to back with a kid wearing a purple shirt)

-Warm colors are red, yellow, orange; Cool are blue, green, violet. Warm colors feel like they are moving forward, while cool colors tend to make things look further away. (Have the kids close their eyes and think of the coldest place they can think of - and then have them describe the colors they see in this place; likewise with a hot place. These kids were talking about how your lips turn blue when you get cold, and how volcanos spit out red fire.)

-An artist who loved color was the great Paul Klee (1879 - 1940), a swiss artist who painted in the 1900’s. He used color as a language, to create a sense of place in his pictures (the Tunisian watercolors) or of temperature (The Nile painting - the blue and white squares tell the story of a cool river - we know it's water looking at it, even though we don't see the shape of an ocean or stream). We can guess how he felt about what he painted by studying the colors he used.

Project:

materials: small piece of watercolor paper (about 4" x 6"); Red, Yellow, Blue and Gold liquid watercolors (you just need a TINY amount of this kind of paint. We passed out little cups, with about a tablespoon of paint in each, and put one cup on each child's desk, with a paintbrush in it. The kids shared the colors with the kids sitting around them. Note that the paintbrushes stay with the paint, not with the child, as the cups move around so the colors don't get muddled), brushes (small are best); little cups or bowls to hold the paint

1. Pass out paper, & have kids write name, teacher, and grade on the back. Then have them draw a grid. (Note: in the interest of time, you may want to guide the kids to make about six lines total. Lots of lines make a more detailed painting - which is awesome - but it will take longer to finish). No one needs to worry about their lines being perfectly straight or even - imperfect is best with this project.

2. Creative thinking: have the kids take a second before they start painting to think about what they want to say with their art. Do they want to make a picture of a hot place? Or of someplace cold? Or of a place that's both of those things? Or make a picture that feels happy, or serious? Do they want to add any shapes like Klee did (look at the Tunisian paintings to see the domed roofs, or the volcanos...). If they want, they can create a horizon line to separate the earth from the sky...

3. Let the kids go to town painting. Guide them to try and use different colors in every square so they play around with mixing the colors right on their paper. The liquid watercolors are so vivid that it's really interesting to see what you get when you layer them on top of each other.

Holiday Fair, and sad realization

2010-11-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

In classic Lynne-style, I volunteered (along with many others) to make a bunch of little crafts for the school to sell at their Holiday Shop this year. No problem, I thought. You'd like 20 from each crafter? Why, it will be a pleasure to plan on bringing 40! I like making things, and the right kind of craft can sometimes, if you happen to find yourself completely alone, take mere moments to assemble. That was back in August, when I had all the time in the world - a baby who took looong naps, and school days which hadn't filled themselves up. Now however December is almost upon me, with a myriad of other really big projects also on my plate - and so I found myself wandering the aisles of Michael's, panic surging through my veins.

I happened upon a little packet of blank bookmarks right next to the pretty Martha Stewart stickers, and the quick-craft lightbulb clicked on in my head. Bookmarks + stickers= easy and perfect!

It was only as I was driving away from the store that I realized:

I have become the out-of-touch mother who thinks that kids want to buy a bookmark at a holiday gift fair.

I'll have to remember not to put my name on them. I'll tell my kids I brought the candy cane reindeers. :)

Quicky A-Line Skirts

2010-11-17T00:12:00.000-08:00

My seven year old is growing too fast. She is like a very cute and emotional weed. So I made her some skirts this week, because I happen to be a firm believer that kids need to wear clothes that cover their bums. Here's a quick run-down of my very unprofessional hack-save-as-much-time-as-possible technique:

1. Measure around the hips. I couldn't find my tape measure so I used a ribbon.

2. Choose your fabric. Skirts require surprisingly little - for my daughter's skirts, I used half a yard. (By the way, the fabric: Heather Ross's Far Far Away II that I've been hording, and some Echino dots. I think a heavier weight of fabric works best with this kind of skirt). Fold your piece lengthwise in half, and then in half again (visualize when you fold in half the first time that you are making the back of the skirt (on the bottom), and the front of the skirt (the top) - and then for that second fold, you'll be folding the whole thing right down the middle. Sorry, is that really confusing? It's kind of late as I write this). Using the same idea, fold your ribbon in half and then in half again, and put the edge of it on the top of the fabric, lined up with that middle fold. Mark the end of the ribbon (or, probably in your case, a tape measure) with chalk. The ribbon represents the waist, and on the right side of the fabric is the fold (see picture below).

3. Take a yardstick, and line it up perpendicularly from the end of the waist. Determine the angle you would like for the A-line. Totally up to you how much you want it to flare it out. Also determine how long you want the skirt to be. Mark accordingly with chalk, and cut through all four layers of the fabric on the sides. Round the bottom.

4. Unfold the fabric. It should look like this:

5. Sew the side seams. If you have an extra two minutes, you can zig zag the edges to neaten the inside - I didn't here, and it made the threading of the elastic a little bit more difficult.

6. Hem the bottom (my quick trick on these skirts: zig zag as close to the raw edge as possible, then flip the hem under just once and stitch with a straight stitch).

7. For the waist, fold over the edge twice to make a neat casing (like a tunnel) for your elastic, and sew, leaving a small space open to thread the elastic into. Because of the a-line of the skirt, it will seem a little bunchy when you fold it over, but persevere! Once you thread the elastic in to the skirt the waist will all be bunchy. On purpose.

8. Measure your daughter's waist with your elastic. You want the elastic to actually hold the skirt on so don't make it too long that it just slips off.

9. Once you've determined the right length for the elastic, use a safety pin to thread it through the casing. Stitch the elastic in place (I kind of like to make the front of the skirt flatter, with most of the elastic gathers in the back), and voila, all done. If you are not interrupted by a sad baby, mad that she wasn't allowed to eat buttons from the button jar, you may even finish this in less than thirty minutes.

Anthology

2010-11-15T09:58:00.000-08:00

Do you know about Anthology? I bought a subscription a couple of months ago when I heard about it, and happily found the first issue in my mailbox Saturday. Every page (literally. even the scant ads were beautiful) was a pleasure to read, and the photography was gorgeous. I hope lots of people buy this magazine because I would be SO SAD if they stop publishing this!

(I loved the illustrations that went with their article on making a cutting garden)

internet fun

2010-11-10T11:40:00.000-08:00

Hi friends! This week I am having a blast, as my parents are visiting. We've been zipping around with the kids to lessons, making my mom's christmas cards, and of course the most important way of being busy - doing lots of sitting with hot chocolate and good conversation. I'm so glad they are here.

I've been showing my mom some of my favorite links, and thought I'd post a handful:

Heather Ross's brilliantly written mouse story (seems ever so appropriate given a recent unpleasant incident at our house with a toaster. Ahem.)

Dream trip with doll

I love Design Mom - this interview, "The Beautiful Design of Motherhood"

My mom had never seen The Purl Bee! This project has her name written all over it.

My son could watch this every five minutes and still laugh. (OK, me too - I love Bear Grylls.)

How easy it is to download free fonts onto your computer

Is anyone else addicted to this Sunday night show? Inspector Lewis is our favorite. Wait, I take that back, maybe Wallander. And seriously, how can you not feel giddy listening to Alan Cumming's scottish accent?

What are you reading this month?

2010-11-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

...only 18 days until Harry Potter comes out in the theater - which means it's time to re-read The Deathly Hallows (what a fun task!)

...just finishing Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Excellent, rich book. So great, especially if you love all things England & Tudors. Might make you hungry for baked mushrooms in cream.

...dying to get More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson. I am still the world's worst knitter, but it doesn't stop me from enthusiastically starting (and subsequently abandoning) a new knitting project about every other week.

...did you know that you can take free college classes online (not for credit, but for personal benefit) from lots and lots of universities? I just finished a great one from my alma mater BYU (here's the link to the list of their free classes) - and here is a link that will take you to a list of other universities' classes, including Tufts, Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT. So awesome!! I think I'm going to start this one next. The best part of course is that there are no grades and no deadlines - it's all for the pure pleasure of learning. I love it.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

This year we have in our house an Indian Princess (with a baby in a papoose), convict, and the Indian Princess's pet cat, Gumdrop. (And a baby with a panda bear hat, not pictured because she was eating breakfast. Go Giants!)

Philately

2010-10-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

My nine year old boy is a cub scout. He's working his way through the bear book right now, and I love watching him find new things to be interested in.

Like stamps!

He discovered that you can earn a belt loop (very exciting to have tons of little metal belt loops packed onto those cub scout belts) doing this. I decided to be generous and donate some of the stamps I randomly happen to have to the cause.

When he was trying to figure out where to put the stamps, I remembered this great picture from Martha Stewart Kids that I had torn out years ago (sigh. How many other great projects did I not tear out? Come back, Martha Stewart Kids! Is it wrong to miss a magazine so deeply?)

(And while I'm scanning old MS Kids pictures, look at how sweet this little album is -

And this!

And - are you kidding me?! Have you seen this sweetest dress ever?)

Oh my, I'm getting distracted.

Back to business: does anyone want to swap post-cards with us, to trade some stamps? Email me - it could be fun, right?

Water lilies

2010-10-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

This last Friday in my daughter's class we made water lily pictures, inspired by Monet's.

We used water color pastels, which are so kid-friendly: I had the kids fill their whole page with color (the more complex their color combinations, the better), and then with water and a brush, turn it into a wash.

After the pictures dried a little (they were really wet!) they layered in lily pads, and flowers.

I thought their pictures were dazzling. I know we see Monet's paintings everywhere, all the time, and I think that over-exposure sometimes dulls me to how brilliant his painting was. I was looking at some of his water lily paintings (he made over 250 of them) - and they took my breath away, the range of color and feeling. I love the more abstract ones.

Go look, if you haven't seen them in awhile.