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.

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!

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.

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.

What a Difference a Month Makes

This year has been a funny year for gardening. The winter was brutal and so some perennials died back a bit. We also had a super cool spring and so we got started a bit late on planting the veg.

Just a bit over a month ago, this is what our newly planted vegetable garden looked like:
 

And as of a few days ago, after a serious weeding, it looked like this:

There are teeny tomatoes on all of the tomato plants.  Tiny cucumbers are growing. I have already made one small lunch batch of pesto from backyard basil and have used dill in a salad made with farmer's market potatoes.  It's so great to be able to walk out to the backyard at dinner time to "shop" for ingredients we need.

Gardening is like magic.  I mean, it's hard work, I guess.  But after such a miserable winter, it's hard to believe that all of this green and growing and bounty will return.  And that it grows like weeds on top of that?  It makes me feel lucky and it makes me feel proud that we have been working this ground for seven years now, creating a bed that supports all of this life and food production.

As proof of that. . . as I was weeding the whole garden on Sunday, I thought, "Why don't we use gardening cloth to keep these weeds down?"  But once I was done weeding and could see the darkness and loamy-ness of the soil, I thought, "We worked hard to make that soil so rich and pretty.  I'm not covering that up."  I am a silly and vain gardener as it turns out.

Plus, new for 2014! Dan has made me three trellises for container gardening: 

 

Our veg plot is so small, that it's hard to give up space to large trailing plants like watermelon or winter squash.  So, this year, I'm growing those and summer squash in containers with the hopes of growing them vertically and training a number of them up on to the trellises.  It's just a side bonus that they will also cover up our boring gray garage for a few months.

I definitely got a late start on these, but squash grow so quickly that I'm not worried.  And those containers are jam-packed with organic potting soil and manure.  By next month, I expect them to all be two to three feet up the trellises. And I have dreams of late summer watermelon and winter squash dotting the trellis in tiny support hammocks.

Fingers crossed.

Late to the Fair

So, I think everyone has already seen Benjamin Ames and his teeny 4 y.o. singing "Tonight You Belong to Me".  Apparently it was on the news and the video went "viral."  But I saw it for the first time today, and so I'm posting it.  Maybe not for you.  Maybe just for me so that I know it will be safe and sound in my archive, and I will be able to re-find it a year or two from now when I need a cheer up or a little free parenting advice.  It's lovely.



You might have just noticed that I snuck in the possibility of needing a little free parenting advice.  Yah, I'm late to the fair with Benjamin Ames. . . but also with being a mom to some wee person.  No longer.  D and I have started the process to adopt. So, in truth, motherhood will take a little bit longer. This isn't a swift process.  But we're so excited to have started on the journey.

I can't imagine that I will talk about the actual process here a lot.  In large part because it won't just be mine and D's journey.  It will be the journey of the generous birth family who walks the line with us.  And their story isn't my story to tell.  We will have a small private life together that would be wrong to reveal.

But I won't likely be able to keep my hope and joy and love and excitement to myself.  And so this video.  Mr. Ames.  Thank you for showing a sweet way of taking the anxiety out of something scary.  Fireworks--literally things that go bump in the night--get the smack down from singing with Dad.  This will be a solution in our house, and I can't wait.

Eureka

            

 

We got a little beach/reading/napping time on the other side of the bay from Eureka.  The plant in the background behind was making red wood mulch.  It was hard not to be disturbed by that after being haunted all day in the Giant Redwood groves.

We stayed at the Victorian Eagle Inn.  It was completely lovely--great bed, great room, totally lovely hostess when we arrived, a small Irish pub on the 1st floor--but come on. . . totally haunted, right?  That's what "Victorian" means.

Avenue of Giants

Second day of coastal driving between Fort Bragg and Eureka and had to veer inland to the Avenue of Giants.  There was nothing outside of San Francisco--occasional towns, but no fast food joints or touristy anything.  Just nature and parks and sketchy little towns.  But as soon as we started to get close to Giant Redwood territory, the wood carvings and Americana and tourist traps started popping up alongside the road. 

All of these little bears were on the porch of the Peg House--probably amazing in-season, but sad a ghost-empty when we arrived. We bought a snack and some stickers and got back on the road as quickly as possible.

 

Even off the coast, the roads were still just as dangerously steep, narrow and wind-y. Just beyond this sign, the road completely doubled back on itself.

 Was totally sucked in by this roadside attraction.  The "One Log House."  It's essentially a narrow trailer made of the trunk of a Giant Redwood.  It's terrible to think of logging those beauties, but they also grow so thick and straight that they almost seem made for cutting down.

 

 

This bear was easily eleven feet tall--all carved out of one piece of wood.

 Just the very start of it. . .Teeny tiny itty bitty Redwoods.

 BIGFOOT!!! (and right by the side of the road, too.  He's gotta be more careful.)

 We learned quickly that we needed to put a person or vehicle next to the trees to be able to judge their size.  We pulled over, overwhelmed by driving through their massiveness.  They come up really quickly.  One minute, you're driving by regular old trees and the next, your in these groves filled with monsters.  I have not been as aware of feeling awe as I was there. . .

 Plus the nerd girl in me totally expected to see Luke and some Stormtroopers speed past and/or see a brachiosauraus crossing the road off in the distance.

 Seriously?

 The moss on the trees was a brilliant green, of course.

 We stopped to see the "Founder's Tree".  Dan sat in front of it and said, "This is huge.  do you think we will see trees bigger than this?" (*spoiler alert. . . yup.)