Change

Hi there.

It's me again. There has been a change of plan. Wordpress was not working for me....I was baffled and frustrated.

So, I turned to TypePad. And while I am still a wee bit baffled I am not frustrated because I feel I am making progress.

I am at the point now where I feel like I can safely say that I will not be posting from this site any longer.

Feel free to visit me in my new venue - http://sheepish.typepad.com. I would love that.

Karen

This moment

Photo-ing along with Soulemama this week.
Wishing you all a happy weekend.

Who said?

This coming from a sentimental mama tonite....

Who said that these lovelies could grow up so quickly, and right under this mama's nose?

I remember all three of them so clearly.  As if it was yesterday that they were freshly on the outside.

And the future seemed unnecessary to think of in relation to them and me.

These are my girls.  And I am their lucky mama.

Oh my heart.

On admitting defeat

I know, I am supposed to be gone from this space.  But, wow, I am having a hard time figuring out the new one.  I just can't seem to get it to do what I want.  So, here I am....still, and a little sheepishly.
And it seems that although I should be sewing and felting and sewing some more to get ready for the Farmer's Market, all I can muster is knitting and reading - two very lovely past-times.  So I am going with it.
I am knitting Idlewood with the idea that it may be ready by fall.  As the pictures show, I am knitting both inside and out - I love that about this season.
And with my Hazel we are steadily reading our way through the Little House on the Prairie series.
An inadvertent Yarn-along post it seems to be today.

Full circle

I am feeling the pull to all things outdoors....I have found a way to make our tiny garden bigger.  In a few weeks, our useless driveway will be ripped up, and raised beds laid in it's place.  "Bloom where you are planted" has become my mantra.

I am moving from this space and starting new under the name LittleWool (Blogger and it's changes have become too much for me so I can be found at Wordpress - though not yet - I am a slow learner).

Also under the name LittleWool, I will be selling my craft at the Ottawa Farmer's Market come September.

I have never been someone that writing has come to easily. I am more of a one liner kind of gal. My biggest problem in university was not getting to class, it was meeting the word count requirement that was imposed - I always felt like I made my point in at least 100 words less than was recommended. In my new space I hope to return to what I intended my blog to be - nice pictures, simple words.

So, I am returning to my roots (heehee) in many more ways than one.
Hopefully you will join me in my new digs...no pun intended.

The education of me

"It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are."
*Wendell Berry

For a few years now I have been hearing and reading about Kale chips and how awesome they were. And I was skeptical - acutally more to the truth I was a non-believer. That changed this week. I love them. They are delicious. I ate pretty much a whole head of kale in one morning. Yay!

Also, who knew that bean plants were self-pollinating. I didn't. Now I do. A very cool thing to learn.

And finally, not so much as something learned, but something remembered...."Take it on the Run" by REO Speedwagon is a totally well-crafted song that I will always love. Like I said, I may forget some of the time, but somehow it always makes its way back.

Hope you are enjoying your Sunday.

For what it's worth

Isn't it funny and reassuring that the course of a day can be brought back on the rails by some seemingly negligible event?
My day was brought back in line many thanks to Old Crow Medicine Show....specifically Wagonwheel.

A Monday Giveaway

Many thanks to Julie over at This Cosy Life for organizing a nice intro to the week in the form of Meltdown Mondays.
Hop on over for a chance to win this Mama and baby sheep....handsewn by me.

A breath

Finding myself with a sizeable amount of uninterrupted alone time, the list writing began in earnest.
And then a breath.
Followed by lots of sewing, reading and whatever.
For the first time ever I think, I followed through with what I wanted to do without giving in to the inner voice that was telling me what I ought to be doing.
One long exhale.

Today....

was a cup of coffee in the afternoon kind of day.

Rituals

It's these little rituals that I love most about my life. The hope that springs eternal with the coming of warmer days. The planting of too many seeds for our impossibly small garden. The cycle that is our nature table and how closely it mirrors the outdoor world. Dinnertimes that find all of us together, recounting our day apart.
Yes. When I take the time to notice, I realize that all I need is right here.

Pants

Sometimes the universe speaks to me loud and clear.


In retrospect, the messages were cryptic and gentle in the beginning. Like my sister-in-law getting set to sew up some pants for her littlest based on Soulemama's pattern in The Creative Family. And me getting the spring itch to purge which led me to my bulging fabric stash. How did my sweet little collection escape its neat and tidy dresser and become an unruly mess???



Things moved on to loud and clear with the realization that my littlest is leaping and bounding in an upward direction. And she needed new pants. And it wasn't a pay week. And it is getting harder and harder to find second hand pants for 6 year olds.
Enter universe.



Based loosely on a pattern from "Making Children's Clothes" by Emma Hardy, my vision of pants for my girl came true....in one evening. Despite the naysayer that came in the form of sewing machine needles that insisted on breaking.
I love when things are so clear cut - no pun intended.
Yay pants.

For the moment

Celebrating a weekend of laundry drying on the line, yards worked and sun in the kitchen.
Hope yours was a good one.

A tree

This is one of my favorite trees in our neighborhood. It is a corkscrew willow and it grows in the sand at our local beach. I like to imagine it and other members of its family growing alongside various Hawthorns - joining forces to protect something very secret. And if I was a bird, this would be my nesting tree of choice.
And as a human, it's mere presence makes me smile and fires my imagination.

Beachcombing

We've been heading to the beach the past couple of weeks. Lessons are being learned about erosion....supplies are being found in the form of beach glass and driftwood. I am reminded how soothing the sound of waves is...how it manages to penetrate and cover all but the noisiest of city sounds. And how if I close my eyes I can believe I am somewhere else.
I am also left wondering how people can care so little about this space. How they so carelessly leave their garbage behind for the water to swallow up or someone else (like my 6 year old!) to pick up and dispose of.
Maybe I start to think about these kinds of things too much. I don't know.

Coming out

Slowly but surely we are emerging from the cloud of sick that has taken hold of our house (there is a strong knocking on wood as I put this out there). The toadstool family is spending more and more time out of doors. And yellow is present.
This winter girl is ready - Mrs. Thaw, do your thing.

Some days are like that

Yes, yesterday was one of those days. No reason to believe that it would be different from any others.
Until the witching hour of midnight anyway...when a fever took hold of the littlest one...making this mama believe that her little girls' heart would burst from her chest in millions of tiny little girl pieces. This mama who doesn't take trips to the hospital lightly. Or trips to anywhere that traditional medicine lives for that matter.
But my mama bear instincts were telling that this time a trip was not only necessary, but urgent.
So we went. And we waited. And we listened to the crying and reprimanding of others who waited too. With fear in our hearts and lack of sleep clouding our ability to see clearly.
Then the verdict - pneumonia was the culprit. Antibiotics the remedy. Big big doses into a little girl. Even when all symptoms are gone.
And a reminder reminded. That we are lucky to have this available to us. That doctors and nurses do their job well...and sometimes for days on end without break. Helping those who need it - sometimes without thank you.
So, thank you.
And now we sleep. And rebuild with probiotics.

Note to self

Right before getting into bed is perhaps not the best time to start wrestling the duvet back into it's clean cover!

Time

As is the case with many, weekends in my world are a blur. Occasionally we find ourselves with some free time on our hands....for me, this weekend held enough free minutes to allow for the completion of a project that I have had rolling around in my head for awhile. As is also the case with many, there are always way more ideas out there that I want to try...many more sources of inspiration. Today, it feels good to have marked an easy weekend by creating something that I love.
And Monday morning is much easier to take when it feels like a weekend was had.

Sunday March 4, 2012

Today, with the sound of guitar swirling around the house, all my thoughts are brought home.
To this man, and our life and our family and the promise of spring.

This moment

Happy Friday!

Silence

There are not nearly enough opportunities in my week for me to experience well and true silence. I think this may be why I enjoy a good snowfall. The snow acts as a kind of dimmer switch, and dulls all the grating city noise that I am surrounded by.
This feels continually out of my reach as something I can easily change. Yet I feel it at my very core - my life is busy, I crave some silence.

Making my day.

More sun shining in....but not melting any of the newly fallen snow...and the fact that King Winter saw fit to answer a certain birthday wish of mine.


This girl and her patented process of making "Doodle cuts". And for those who aren't familiar, "Doodlecutting" is where you cut something out of paper and make it into something else.


A homeschool lesson plan that has duped me into thinking that I may sometimes know what I am doing.
Have a great day.

The day and the week.

My birthday, a day that this year held a little bit of dread, came to pass. And, after Pumpkin spice scones with coffee for breakfast I was relieved to find that I was still here. And, because I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about myself throughout the year, my birthday always seems to turn into a weeklong affair, with treats spread out along the way.
Many assure me that it is a well kept secret that the 40's are the best years....I will go with that.

This moment

Me

Anyone know where I could learn how to use a horse to plough a field?
I would like to know how to do that.

Part 4 about Me

My path has never been clear to me. The only thing that I feel I was ever certain about was that I wanted to be a Mama. And so I am - with all that I have. Now as my girls are growing up (with one picking universities) I find myself on unsure footing about what lies in store for me in this next phase.

Part 3

I subscribe to the mode of thinking where if something comes into the house, something has to leave.
Not always successfully however.

S.A.M - Part two

The first trees I will plant in my one-day orchard will be Damson Plums.
(Dreamer meet Planner).

Something about Me

Shortly after my birthday last year I felt it start...a small ember in the pit of my stomach....not exactly a sense of dread but more of a "you better start wrapping your head around this" sort of feeling. I would say that I mostly forgot about it until January of this year. Then the "thinking" began in earnest.
So, I have six days left before I turn 40. I thought I would like to post for the next week about Me...things about me.

Point 1 - I am a difficult mix of a Dreamer caught up in the body of a Planner.

Wow.

Let me just say that this was quite possibly the last thing I expected to see when I turned around. It is afterall a wee bit creepy.

But, the grin it brought out lasted throughout the evening.....

This moment

Yellow

Wow, the inspiration for this post could not be more clear. What a beautiful day - although the wind is still wintery, the sun is kind of sunny!
Yes, I know. Spring is a ways off, but one can't argue with these pictures!
Yellow is where its at.


I couldn't resist.


A WIP for a friends' little one who we are waiting to make her appearance.


My kitchen - the one space in my house that REALLY lets me know when the sun is on it's way around!

To be

I am loving the perks that come along with living for now....not for what may or may not happen down the line.
All my life I have been a planner. Somehow the "forces that be" are granting me just that chance - To be.

Down to the wire

As a mama, I am usually prone to lamenting the passing of time in relation to my girls and their nasty habit of growing up.
Now, as I am on a crash course with "middle age" I find myself looking at myself. And while I have moments of lamenting the passing of time and it's effect on me, mostly I have found a sense of peace with the whole thing. I am happy with where things stand and how I have spent my living of the first 40 years.
But truth be told, I figured that somehow this wouldn't happen to me.
Lordy, Lordy.

kPod revisited

Here I am, almost at the one year anniversary of making it into this century...the day I got my iPod, affectionately referred to as kPod. And if I had any misguided misgivings about making the leap from tangible records, tapes and cd's they have vanished into the ether.
So, I thought I would, at this almost anniversary, post an update as to the music I have added to my collection. Here are the latest additions to my collection that has grown to almost two hundred over the past year. Check them out!

Walk off the Earth - "Somebody that I used to know". This catchy little number was brought to my attention by my eldest.

The New Pornographers - "Crash Years". Again, catchy and played regularly on CBC.

Whitehorse - "I'm On Fire". A cover of the great Bruce Springsteen song.

Irish Descendants - "Rattlin' Bog". Thanks Nana and Grandpa for introducing this one to Hazel. It always manages to shake things up a bit.

I really am smitten with the idea that I can buy one or two songs at a time from the many artists out there.

A lament

It's a sad day when the Christmas baking is all gone and one has to resort once again to chocolate chips for dessert!

A little help

I am starting out my week remembering how the addition of "So Lonely" by The Police helped things along in the kitchen this weekend...who knew it was such a great cooking song? Also a great pairing with Moroccan White Bean Stew....and a nice dose of red wine.

A happy home

Somewhere along the way I stopped making the time to create things for our home. My focus shifted to making things to sell. Luckily when I sat down and thought about this upcoming year and the changes I would like to make, I realized that I was missing this very simple thing....I love making things for our home. So I have made it part of my thought process and planning to include time for me and this place we call home.