I'm hearing my calling

I've never heard a calling before. I have stumbled through life following whatever path opens up next. I was smart in school. I seemed to be pretty good at writing, so I pursued that. People told me I was good at it and I enjoyed the praise and as a result, I made it all the way to dropping out of a PhD in Creative Writing. I am grateful for all of those experiences and to have gotten to study a creative discipline that made me think about the world and my place in it. But if I'm really honest, my heart wasn't really in it. Not really. Not the very core of me. I loved the places I got to live and the people I got to spend time with and the life I got to lead (more or less) and writing was the currency I had to use to do all of that. When I started getting myself into locations I was no longer enjoying (Hey there, Kalamazoo), my willingness to keep up with the writing work dwindled. I've been wandering aimlessly ever since. Which when I think about it, that means I have been without direction for about 18 years. 18 years. I'm enormously lucky to have a husband and now a kid who give my life structure and purpose, but it's strange being aware that I don't much care deeply about what I'm doing with my life besides loving the people that are in it. But suddenly, I'm feeling this magnetic pull toward willows. Willows? I want to grow them and harvest them and dry them and make things out of them. Baskets, fedges, structures, bird feeders. And I want to do it responsibly with as low a carbon footprint as possible and with as much respect to biodiversity as I can. Have I ever woven a single thing out of willow? No. Have I ever even woven a basket of any kind? No. But I don't know how to describe this feeling I'm having, exactly. I love willows. I love the way the plants grow, their long delicate branches that disguise real toughness and usefulness. I love the care they take and the coppicing that produces those long slender branches from a trunk/stool that expands and grows more gnarly with time. I love the knocking sound of their branches when they're green and then the clack of them when they're fully dry. And the process is so slow. Once I plant willows this Spring, it will be 9 months (if I'm really really lucky) before I get a small harvest to play with. But then that harvest will have to dry for 3-6 months to be fully dry and useable. By which time, I will have to have built a system for wetting the willows--in a soaking bath or steaming or both. It will likely be 2+ years before I have a large enough harvest to make a series of baskets and really dig in to learning the art. But during that time, I will also be able to grow my willow collection exponentially. I'll start with 65 and my plan is to at least double the size of the willow bed each year. Y1: 50 Y2: 150 Y3: 450 Y4: 1350 Y5:4,050 By year 5, if the plants grow well, the willow plants should be producing about 20 rods a stool, for close to 81,000 rods. Wow. And by year 5, I might be good enough at weaving to offer classes in it at the farm. Or to install fedges for people in their own gardens. Or to give tours of my willow growing operation (which I hope involves some real bona fide permaculture techniques--including terracing and swales and ducks). I don't know. All I know is that I hear it. For the first time, at 46, I feel deeply interested and invested in a thing. And it feels exciting, but also really comforting.

Ketchup

After writing my last catch up to 2017, I discovered that I had drafted a "Ketchup" for 2016. . . it's all about Archer, so I'm including it here. Truth be told, I'm not convinced anyone reads this. This is more my journal than anyone else's literature, so I kind of don't worry about doing stuff like this. But if you are out there reading this, thanks so much for your continued patience and indulgence: 2016: So, this is me catching up. It's going to be word heavy, because a lot has happened. Have I already mentioned that I left my job of 11 years? I loved that job. Felt defined by that job. . . until I didn't. Until it became a thing I dragged myself to every day. Until it became a a thing I actually feared, like spiders or heights. Such a deeply unsettled place, filled with other scared and sad people. How does a thing turn like that? When I took sick leave, I couldn't read books or look at magazines or watch TV. I couldn't bear other people's news. I'd been drowning in other people's emotions for years. So, very very strange. But I changed my life utterly. Jobless and supported by my husband, I became the mother to the world's best baby. Loads of mothers think their babies are the best, but that's a subjective declaration based on the blindness of maternal love. But that is not the case in this instance. Here are the facts and you decide: 1. This baby stops frickin' traffic (No lie. This happened in Pittsburgh this past Spring. A lady pulled over on a busy street to scream at us about how she almost had an accident while staring at our beautiful baby. I swear. She did. I am not making this up). 2. He has had a full head of dark hair since birth that has never fallen out. (*whispering because it seems unfair to get to say this out loud: And when he was born, that dark hair had gold tips. . . like he'd just come back to the mainland after surfing in Hawaii for a month). 3. He started sleeping through the night at 2 months old. 7pm to 6am. Crazy. 4. Before he understood what emotions were all about, he rarely cried. He cried only if hungry or sitting in a poo diaper. He's more complicated now at 1.5 years old. But still, a very happy kiddo the vast majority of the time. 5. He was adopted and so came along with a whole other family to tag on to ours and we love them. Being a mom feels lucky. To get to stay with him at home feels like a gift. But to also get along so well with his birth family is a fucking miracle. I thank my lucky stars daily. 6. He's funny. 7. He's brave. 8. He'll eat almost anything put in front of him. 9. He's never had "stranger danger" and is sweet and gentle with everyone he meets. 10. He calls me "Mimi" or sometimes "Meemo" (god, I love Meemo.) 11. He loves dogs. All dogs. Every dog. And barks at everyone he sees. 2017 Update: He no longer calls me "Meemo" *sigh. But he does call me "Mama" which I love to no end.

Catch up

It's been 2.5 years since I wrote here. My last post was correct. 2015 was when we finally got to meet our son. We were matched with a family that chose us just a few weeks later and by March, we had Archer Stewart Phillips--the most perfect, easiest, most beautiful baby in the history of babies (this is a completely objective opinion, obviously. . . all kidding aside, he WAS sleeping through the night at a mere 2 months old and he was born with a full head of beautiful brown, gold-tipped hair that never fell out, so. . . ). We're still pals with his birth family and we see them a few times a year. But with the addition of Archer, everything in our lives changed. We had a new team member with new needs. Our social lives changed. The pull home to Cincinnati to a simpler life and the chance to be closer to family (cousins!) and the family farm got more urgent. So, we sold our little Cicero bungalow and moved all our stuff, our bebeh, and our wee dog to Cincinnati. A short stint in my folks' house in Hyde Park and then we found the perfect Money Pit in Northside. So, now we're on Pullan Avenue in a stretch of lovely old (1800's old. for real.) brick Victorian homes. There are coffee houses, small Mom&Pop restaurants, two (TWO!!) record stores, a public library, breweries/music venues, a public swimming pool and splash pad, and more playgrounds than you could shake a stick at within a 6 block radius of our house. And the neighborhood is lousy with 2 year olds. It would be hard for the house-situation to be better. At some point, I will write a whole post just about the house. . . because there are stories there for the sharing. But, while everything is not easy 100% of the time and we miss our chosen family back in Chicago, life is a little gentler here and we feel lucky and we feel like we're home. So, that's the catch up for anyone still out there reading blogs. I will feel free to just pick up like I never left off.

Make A Joyous Sound

We've been super lucky lately.  The holidays were great.  Christmas in Cincinnati with family and old friends and lots of little ones to taunt and snuggle and read to. And then the lead up to New Years back in Cicero with Scott in for a long visit. Getting to watch how happy Dan was with his twin in town was amazing. Then a bunch of good friends in our house who braved the cold to come to our homemade tomato soup and cheese sammie New Years party. Super special few weeks.

It also feels like we've seen loads of great live music lately at Fitzgerald's and the Hideout.  Dan and Scott playing together. Dan and Ziegenhagen and Liesl at the Hideout.  And last night we saw a bunch of country sets at the Hideout rounded out by Nora O'Connor. And then the show slid into a deejayed dance party--Dan and I shaking it and being silly together.

I feel happy. I feel surrounded by love. I feel good at loving other people. And I feel lucky lucky lucky.

I also think this is the year when we will meet our baby. 2015 and our family will grow a bit. It's exciting and terrifying and wonderful.

Lights

Morton Arboretum's Illumination show is totally worth it. If you didn't make it this year, you should plan to go next year. 

Pretty lights and a few special interactive bits (hug a tree, sing to a tree), plus enough big fire drums along the trail to keep you from freezing.  Our favorite bit was probably the light show on the hill that was choreographed to classical pieces. 

Magical.

Hiking on the 1st Day of the Year

         

         

 

Turns out the best thing to do on the first day of the new year is take a chilly walk on the prairie. Extra nice that Scott was in town for the family walk. 

We were cold, but happy.

New Years Day 2015

What a lovely year 2014 turned out to be. I mean that on a very micro-just-in-my-life-quieting-and-becoming-settled-and-smoothing-into-a-small-loving-thing sort of way. Important to clarify because the much larger world was frightening and disappointing in so many ways this year. But my tiny isolated world was rich with family and friends and the kindness of strangers and creativity and reading and becoming still and better at being a friend and maybe even a better human.

I blogged infrequently, and this is often a place where I try to slow down and think things through with words. But this past year, I spent a lot more time quietly thinking inside and alone in my noggin.  That was important and good and helpful.

But now it's New Year's Day. . . maybe my favorite day of the year.  I can't help but take stock of the previous year and dream big dreams for the coming year. I throw clutter away. I organize things. I cook savory cold winter meals and try to remember that simple is often better than complicated. I am terrible at that last one. (for example: for New Year's Eve, I planned a "simple" grilled cheese and tomato soup dinner for a small group of friends. That's a meal that usually takes me about 12 minutes to get on the table for me and Dan.  But I couldn't just open a can of Campbell's tomato soup for people I love. 3 hours of soup making, another 2 of bread making and sandwich item prepping. Crazy. . . but it was delicious.  Sometimes, though, friends just need a cup of tea and cinnamon toast because they're there for your company and listening and warmth, not to be impressed by your cooking prowess. Important to remember. . . ).

So, here's what I want (all within my power to get) from 2015:

1. A baby. I think this will be the year that a teeny-tiny lands in our laps. I can't wait to meet them. . . but I also can't wait to meet the dad that I know Dan will be. It's hard to imagine even more love in my life, but I so want my heart to grow in that way.

2. To be really present for the people in my life. To listen and support my giant family--both the biological and the chosen.

3. To grow a small creative business. If it grows in the future? Super. But for now, I just want to get over my nervousness about failing and just use the act of throwing myself in to learn new things. Exciting.

4. To learn how to make croissant dough and then translate that into morning buns like the ones we ate a few years ago at Tartine's in San Francisco. It may seem like a small goal compared to the other things in this list, but that trip on the west coast bloomed something in me and Dan. We flew home more in love and together than ever before. The feeling has lasted and grown and it makes me want to create a tangible edible piece of that magic at home to celebrate that.

5. To continue on my road of remembering who I am and what I am capable of--which means writing and being wildly creative and learning ukulele and not setting limits on myself based on fear. I can do anything I put my mind to. . . you can, too. Join me in this.

So, for today, I'm just going to relax and be contemplative and enjoy the quiet of the house. The brothers Phillips are here, listening to music and being quiet.  LP is curled up nearby. There's actual sun slanting through the windows and glinting off the Christmas tree in a winter in which the rare amount of sunlight in Chicago can be tallied by the hour rather than by the day. It feels lovely and filled with luck and happiness.

Happy New Year!

OBX

Riding the ferry to Ocracoke right now and I can't believe how different this year is from last. Mostly because I'm so happy. There's no panic, no hidden panic. There's just big deep breaths and smiling smiling smiling.

If you are crushingly sad or worried in a way that closes you up inside, please get help or take a break or practice yoga or something.  The world is a spectacular joy-filled place. I promise.

Okay, I look a little crazy eyed there. But that's a lie. That smile is a genuine sane smile . :)

New Pillows on Fivetrees

Hey Folks! My darling husband bought me a digital drawing pad for my last birthday and it's come in super handy this year of creating.  Hot off the presses are these new pillows that I designed/drew, had printed on fabric and then sewed into cute little plush items for the nursery or kiddo's bedroom.

Posted in the fivetrees shop just today. . . . Hope you like them!

And with an impending vacation on the horizon, I suspect more animal head designs or scaled down ornament sized pieces will be on their way before the holidays are upon us!

Summer is winding down

Despite the cool weather this summer, it's been a pretty great year for the garden--loads of tomatoes, beans, cukes, nasturtiums, chard, swiftly growing basil, zucchini, squash, and plenty of fresh herbs.  And beyond the weather, it was nice to have the time to really tend to the garden.  I stuff an awful lot of food growth in to a teeny tiny space and so weeding and trimming and staking regularly makes a huge difference in yield and overall garden prettiness.

Spending time gardening is curative and restive--both things that, frankly, I needed quite a bit of.  It makes a small sustainable peace within me. The joy of stewarding the land (even such a small plot). The connection to my family and my family's history of gardening and farming. The pleasure of--for a few short months--eating food that tastes deeply like food and that I know is chemical free and sustainably grown. The pride that comes from feeding that food to my friends and family. Gardening can truly fix what ails you.

There was a moment while picking beans in July and throwing them into my rubber trug, that they made this sound--a little hollow thump and roll--that I suddenly remembered so clearly hearing as a child when helping out on the farm. It was a moment that made me nostalgic and glad. It's a pleasing sound and I felt lucky in that moment to have heard it and remembered for a moment weeding and picking in the garden in the bottomlands with Mom and Dad and Rich and Grandma and Grandpa Stewart.

And so, a wonderful summer, and somehow it's already coming to a close. This may be the best summer I have ever had. I suspect that Dan might say the same. But the hyacinth beans are blooming and the cicada are grinding long and loud during our front porch Scrabble games and butternut squash are beginning to show up at the farmer's market--all sure signs that things are winding down.

 

In honor of the close of summer coming, I thought I would borrow from Pip from Meet Me at Mike's, a fun way to take stock of what is happening right at this very moment. . .
Making : Animal head pillows, hoping they turn out.
Cooking : Just found a recipe for California Roll Nachos.  Yes, please.
Drinking : Iced Tea, by day.  Gin and Tonics by night.
Reading: I don't think I want to admit to what I am currently reading, but David Mitchell's new book is on its way to the house.
Wanting: More core strength.  My new thing is not worry about thinner, only stronger.
Looking: at all my favorite blogs as I do every weekend.  a great mix of design and farming/cooking sites. One of my faves is Whole Larder Love--farming, hunting, gathering in the Down Under.
Playing: Scrabble with Dan, but also trying to learn ukulele
Deciding: What to do with my life.  How at 40 can I not know what I want to be when I grow up?
Wishing: I could have all the dogs
Enjoying: Dan's and LP's company.
Waiting: For a match with a birth mother.  I am ever so ready to mother somebody.
Liking: Lots of cool kid's stuff on pinterest. While we wait, I am planning.
Wondering: where I will be this time next year
Loving: Dan, LP, everyone, life, being creative, reading, being settled and centered
Pondering: How to make a cloth totem pole and beautiful tailored wool clothes for dolls
Considering: inviting people over while Dan is out of town--pretty late notice, though.
Watching: whatever I want. Dan goes to Hopscotch later this week.
Hoping: that I will continue to be happy and well
Marvelling: At what a difference a year makes.
Needing: Cool weather again so that I can start cooking fall food.
Smelling: So sad. . . I don't really have a sense of smell
Wearing: A new Boden tunic--far too often
Following: Steve Mulcahy on facebook. He cracks me up.
Noticing: the signs of the impending end of summer.
Knowing: that soon turning forty-one-derful will be lovely
Thinking: about what big project to knit next.  Need a trip project.
Admiring: This Naterade cartoon. being good too each other is sooooo important.
Sorting: through critters for posting on etsy.
Buying: A small boost to my fall wardrobe from Boden.
Getting: ready for our fall vacation to the Outer Banks.
Bookmarking: Library books.  having a library card and using it has been amazing.
Disliking: Ebola. . . there should be a much harsher word for this, but is this freaking anyone else out?
Opening: An Amazon box soon filled with books for our late September vacation
Giggling: at old Frank Sidebottom videos.  So joyful and weird.
Feeling: Lucky
Snacking: On cherry tomatoes. They're coming out our eyeballs.
Coveting: Moleskin Livescribe Notebooks, check it.
Wishing: That I get to go to MFK for my birthday dinner.
Helping: Hopefully, my friend Piper with her new teeny boy when her man returns to work
Hearing: Dan practicing in the basement.

You should try this.  It's fun.  Thanks, Pip!

LP in late day sun

I was playing with sir fluffy pants late in the day, sun slanting low over the garage. I was being blinded as I was throwing him the toy, and while usually not great light to photograph directly into, I snapped blind shots of LP running around anyway.

I got a lot of bit of nose and toy, washed out back paws leaping out the frame, black and white blur against larger blurs.  But then I got this picture:

 LP and I have become close friends this summer, maybe closer than we have been for the eleven years we've known each other.  He's with me pretty much all the time and it's hard not to drop everything and cuddle, scratch, or wrestle with him. Dogs are pretty much the best thing in the world--along with husbands and gardens and family and friends and good food--and LP is easily in the top 2%.

I also got this picture, which I had to share.  It's just his butt, but the way the sun is lighting it up. . . it hardly looks real.  Am I wrong?

Seriously. It's lit like an aerial shot of the Swiss Alps.

Fancy Party Notes

So, Dan and I braved Chicago Magazine's Best of Chicago 2014 party at the Chop Shop in Wicker Park. I figured it would either be my worst nightmare (because I get skittish in crowds of strangers) or loads of fun.  Turns out, it was both.

 

In the circles we run in, I think Dan and I are cool-ish.  He's a great musician with a voice like an angel and can code stuff. I am creative and can make just about anything with my hands to cuddle on or to eat with joy. We're both nice and smart and decent in most conversations. People like knowing us.

But in a crowd of gorgeous gastropub hotties, swinging socialites, and gingham summer suit dandies. . . we don't exactly stand out or attract interest. So, we were, as a couple, an island.  The good news is that I love our island and Dan is really cute and funny and we were a little fun-having rock in the stream of fancy fancy fancies.

The open bar and the free eats didn't hurt either.

Three stand-outs from the evening were--surprise, surprise--food-related: 

1. We kept seeing another couple that looked similar to us, wandering around together looking sweet and nice and a bit out of place.  We vowed to say Hi to them at some point and finally cornered them on a couch in the "Emirates Airlines VIP Lounge" (seriously?  If you know me, just from the name of that room, you know how out of place I was. . . ).  He was there representing Little Goat Diner--a diner we will now go to because the couple was so nice to us (Ryan and Georgia?) and so earnest about how great the place is.

But the whole time we were talking to these sweet sweet young people, an Emirates airlines commercial was looped on a giant screen behind their heads--a woman taking a shower in-flight, people dripping in money eating gourmet meals and mingling at the free standing bar in the center of the plane.  And at the terminus of the flight in Dubai? Attending polo matches.  Um. . . totally surreal.

2. Honey-glazed donuts from Endgrain.  Holy crap. Those donuts were a life-changing experience. I have a huge chip on my shoulder about donuts--always whining that the best donuts in the world are made by Busken's in Cincinnati and isn't it shameful that Chicago, as big as it is, can't make a donut at least as good as the donuts from my hometown. Well Endgrain, dear sweet Endgrain, has stepped up with the most ridiculously unbearadelicious donut I've ever eaten.

Honey glazed, but then in the center is this thin layer of an incredibly light slightly sour cream--a bit like cheese cake--and it's texture matches so perfectly with the texture of the donut that at first bite, I knew something magical was happening, but I couldn't tell there was a cream involved.  I HATE filled donuts.  Hate them. With a white hot blinding passion of hate.  But these were heaven.



Dearest Endgrain, we will be visiting you.  But we will call ahead to make sure my new donut boyfriend is in stock before we come. (in the picture above, I think my beau is the blurry one in the background. . . )

3. The Chop Shop sliders?  What?  Shut up.  We'll be back to eat you, too, and to try out your charcuterie buddies.  You reminded us just the tiniest bit of a fancied up Olympic Provisions in Portland--high praise indeed. 



So, all in all, a successful evening was had.  And we were home by 9:08 PM and asleep by 9:30. Sexy. sexy. sexy.

Dan will always be on my Best of Chicago list.

fivetrees additions

New softies making their way to the fivetrees etsy shop this weekend and probably into next week.  I'm working on a new project--a simple sweet project to be revealed soon--but in the meantime, I need to get completed work into the shop.

Yesterday, I did a little photoshoot out in the garden. The air is so crisp and clear and downright autumnal this summer (good and bad. . . like summer never even happened), that it has been really nice to take photos outdoors.

So, the weather cooperated, but my helper kept sneaking into the photos:

He sneaks in all nonchalant, slowly filling the viewfinder. He doesn't make eye contact and makes it all look like it's not intentional.  And when I laugh and tell him to get out, he looks at me with surprise as if to say, "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there!"

Oh, L.P., you're simultaneously the best and the worst.

new cute things

I've been on a making frenzy.  In part, because we're in the adoption process and I want to make a million cute things for our future niblet.

But also, I just have loads of ideas and, maybe for the first time, am really creating from this place of joy and light.

When I started making things, it was because I was miserable at my job and making cute animals and creatures cheered me up. But now that job is a thing of the past and I have a part time gig and all of this time to think and imagine and make things. Except for those blissful unaware summers of my (or anyone's) young childhood, I don't think I've ever been happier.

Here's what happy makes:

These fellas are all being slowly added to the fivetrees shop. . . with more on the way!

Thank you, Chicago Magazine

Somehow my Etsy shop, fivetrees, has made it into this year's Chicago Magazine Best of Chicago 2014 list. Crazy.

And flattering and so lovely.  I've had a year, to be sure, and I've made some big scary decisions, and so that this big happy unexpected honor has come along right now in the midst of all my other new happiness?  It's a generous and overwhelming gift.  (Total honesty? There was a night just recently when I was so excited I couldn't sleep)

So, thanks, Chicago Magazine!

And here's a link to the proof online...

Thanks, July

The summer seems to be rushing past and I wish that would stop.  But July has nevertheless been great.

Dan's been singing at Open Mic Nights at Fitzgerald's every Tuesday night.

We had our traditional July 4th backyard barbecue with Jess and Jett and a lovely addition of Tim and Lexi. The fireworks in our neighborhood are always crazy.  No reason to go anywhere to see fireworks, because our neighbors have all bought professional grade rockets.

We're officially online at the agency for birth moms to read our profile and consider us as possible parents for their babies AND we're officially certified by the State of Illinois to be a foster care family.

We've hung out with friends and each other and played Scrabble on the front porch and eaten good food and went to a Chirp Radio First Time and celebrated a few birthdays.

I saw this crazy enormous cicada on our fence post.  Before I used a flash on it, I thought it was a frog.

Dan and I saw Ted Leo and Aimee Mann perform at Millennium Park--which also means riding the train holding hands and lazing in the grass together and watching the sun set behind the Michigan Avenue skyline.

And the garden is doing really well.  I've canned 13 jars of dilly beans (beans and dill heads both from the back yard).  Tomatoes are beginning to ripen and we've been eating them with lunch and dinner. The squash plants haven't gotten quite as big I was hoping by this point, but I have been working hard on them--fertilizing and now spraying them with an anti-powdery mildew organic concoction--which feels good and satisfying.

I'm most excited about this teeny tiny watermelon.  When it's a bit bigger it will get a tiny sling to sit in and support it while it grows.

Life is slow and lovely. I'm working, but also living and taking big, deep, long, satisfying breaths and I feel lucky lucky lucky.