small hands

And a One and a Two:



The children slept in, so I was able to get up early and make a pot of coffee and complete this second apron.

I like the fabric:



And I think the first apron goes with the dish towels I got from K-Mart. I love dish towels.



I'm heading to the yard now, for lots of mowing and pruning and weeding.

Happy Weekend!!

I haven't received the apron book yet, but I made one this afternoon. Those are dogwood blossoms I think.

My first Japanese craft book purchase.

ETA:
ISBN 4579109724
Title: pari kara todoita epuron

I bought it from YesAsia, which is a godsend for those of us who do not read Japanese and therefore cannot utilize Amazon Japan. And it was less than half the price of the ebay auction price, and shipping is $3.99, not $11.40.

I come home and I cook dinner. Sometimes I take off my work clothes first, sometimes I’m too rushed and wound up to do so. Thus, an apron will come in handy. A drawer full of aprons will come in very handy.

There has recently been some excellent information about Japanese crafts books, initiated by this excellent woman.

And isn't this something? Dessert in felt. [Warning: the site plays music, click with caution.]

* * *

I signed my girl up for summer camp. She'll be at U.C. Berkeley for the first time, after four years of art camp. Lots of sports--6 a day and lunch in between. She is looking forward to it, to relaxing. I told her that when she was 2-1/2 I searched for the right pre-school, where she would be happy and safe and not bored. Now, when she's 9, I still search with the same criteria.

I was comparatively late for signing her up, since in years past the summer camps have filled up by the end of February. But the Bay Area economy (softening is the word?) is such that demand has softened as well.

My boy didn't want to have story time last night and when I insisted he said "I hate you" in that quiet, Finding Nemo kind of way. This launched me into a speech about how there are grown ups whose parents never, ever read to them, and how reading to him makes his brain grow and gets him ready for kindergarten. He leapt from the foot of the bed to the top to get under the blankets and snuggle up to me.

Okay, so here is my Recycled Monster, for Month of Softies.

He's made from a batik which I originally purchased, before my girl was born, to use as a festive table cloth. Festive huh? It has been used and laundered several times and now my girl has taken it for future use in one of her sewing projects.

His teeth and the whites of his eyes are from quilting scraps. The felt bits--well they're leftover from last month's MOS project.

He was photographed on the patio. He's a bit of a lounger, a bit of a slacker, not scary at all; it's the recycled batik in him.

There are some Sunday evenings when feel a pang of regret because I didn’t get something done that I resolved to get done before the weekend ended. For example I resolve to hunt down, wash and put away every one of my son’s socks. [This is a huge challenge. That boy takes off his shoes and socks in the car and I come upon his socks everywhere.] Or organize my closet. Or bag up all the clothes my daughter has outgrown and get them into the car for donation. Or just get one part of a project done which has been resisting completion. [I’ve been paper piecing on a New York Beauty pattern and I had to redo one small “sun” four or five times.]

This weekend I really wanted zucchini pineapple muffins. I used the same recipe for zucchini pineapple bread, just placed the batter in muffin tins and baked at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. They satisfied a craving I had had for about three weeks, unable to find the time to make them earlier.

I cooked and cleaned and gardened. The refrigerator is more empty and orderly because I cooked meals comprised of what was inside and threw out what was spoiled and useless. We have recently been told that we can put food in the green waste recycling, previously reserved for yard cuttings. It’s very exciting to recycle food and it makes me feel better about food that I was not able to cook before it went bad.

Super digression—> Charlie Trotter’s restaurant has no refrigerators. They use the food they get delivered on the same day and give the rest away. I wonder if Mr. Trotter, at home, uses a lemon that has been in the refrigerator for two weeks. Or whether he eats ice cream that has freezer fur on it. I ponder and I ponder what Mr. Trotter eats when he is not in his restaurant.

My son wanted McDonalds for dinner yesterday. Sunday dinner? Not on my watch!! I had defrosted a whole chicken and I knew they wouldn’t go for the whole roast chicken thing; I just knew. My girl wanted barbecue, but the sky looked like the picture above, and it was blowing. Not grill weather for me. So I made a Szechuan stir fried chicken* with scallions and peanuts, steamed rice and broccoli. Not exactly a four course French meal, but...

To make it more special, I cut a bouquet of flowers and lit candles and had my boy help me set the table. He had wanted to help me cook but he didn’t have a shirt on (which is very rare), so topless stir frying [with peanut oil no less–it gets super hot] was out of the question. We didn’t have the usual how was your day conversation, so we discussed pizza toppings, which led to a discussion of my pregnancy cravings. Of course they love to hear how it was when I was pregnant with each of them, during that unimaginable time when they weren’t alive.

* rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, ground ginger, corn starch marinade; the chicken breasts sliced in half and then cut in length-wise slices. I find that the pieces absorb more marinade this way and are more tender.

After dinner, as I was cleaning up the kitchen and the kids were playing together and not bickering, I blew out the candles and felt glad that our Sunday dinner had been so enjoyable.

Thank you for your feedback. You're all invited over for lemon bars.

I have an RSS feed now. The link is

http://smallhand.blogspot.com/rss/smallhand.xml

Yesterday, a thunderstorm blew in just as I was getting home from sneaking out early from work and picking up from herbs for this year's herb garden--organic no less. Sage, chives, Italian parsley, basil, more basil, thyme.

The children are playing soccer in the back yard right now. I hope they get good and worn out, straight into the tub and early to sleep.

We've been eating strawberries* all day and chili, which my son developed a craving for. He eats it at his preschool.

He caught a spider in his father's garage two weeks ago and has been keeping it in a clear yogurt container, providing it with leaves and insects. When he came home today, he discovered that it had gone onto the next world. He did not expect this, as I had done internet research at his request and learned that spiders live 24 to 30 months. He cried bitterly about the loss of his spider, which also triggered grief about the loss of a mealworm at some earlier time in his life. I offered him some cuddling and that seemed to staunch the flow.

*They are so good that they remind of the line from Sophies Choice: If you live a good life, like a saint, and then you die, this must be what they make for you to drink in Paradise.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I finished another quilt top. It was not one that is legitimately in the queue, so to speak, but I got started and it was so easy and fun, that one thing led to another. It got this momentum I tell you. And it's enormous. I like piecing. And it's so much easier than quilting. I promised myself that I was going to get down to business and finish quilting these bigger ones, and now there are four. And my parents' anniversary quilt to do.

My boy is now in the penalty box for kicking his sister. That is, he's sitting on the couch and reflecting on his actions, per my instructions. If I announce that it's a time out, I get hysterics. If I just make him sit quietly somewhere, there is less drama. My boy is like physics. If you exert pressure, he asserts equal and opposite pressure.

This thread refers to my blog and asks a series of questions:

In a moment of aimless Googling I found this little gem on someone's blog:

"This blog is NOT for anyone I work with or have ever worked with. If you happen to stumble upon it and you fit into either category, politely excuse yourself and do not return. Thank you."

If that's not guaranteed to get you searching the site for your own name, I don't know what is.

On a wider point, could someone remind me what the fucking point of blogs again is? I suppose if you live in a warzone or have two dicks it might make enlightening reading, but otherwise why do people do this? I doubt they used to photocopy their diary and hand it out to strangers before the Internet came along.

I find it interesting that “Baby Coelacanth” (hereinafter “BC”) was engaged in “aimless Googling” when BC stumbled upon my blog. I suppose that indicates that BC does not believe that the internet is reserved for serious information, that it also can serve as a forum for more trivial rhapsodies, such as enthusiasm for a new gardening tool.

Must I have two dicks in order to have the right to blog? BC probably believes that I should at least have one for my ideas to deserve a place on the hallowed internet. So it’s a good thing that I didn’t wait for either BC’s permission or to grow a penis before I started. [If I lived in a warzone, I don’t imagine that I would have a lot of time to blog.]

That aside, I often wonder why blog? What purpose does it serve to me? I enjoy it, I must admit. I enjoy reading about other people’s lives, hobbies, children, pets, etc. and assume that my life and ideas are interesting to others.

One blog that I admire immensely recently got a vicious comment which could easily have made the blogger pull up stakes and keep her fabulousness to herself. She hasn’t, thank goodness.

Of course, the anonymous internet makes a brave Achilles of some, their weapons being acidic comments.

I think there are some who object to the infiniteness of the internet, the fact that there is room for us all, no matter how many penises we have or do not have, whether we live in a war zone or not. BC appears to be one such person.

In its infiniteness, there is room enough for everyone.

I opened my birthday present this morning, Prada perfume, and sprayed it on my right arm. It smells so incredibly sexy that I’m having a difficult time concentrating on my work and the letters I need to write. The weather is beautiful, the wind is down. I am drinking French Roast coffee.

If you don’t like it, look away.

There are some good looking recipes in this book. I also got How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson from the library and intend to try the cupcake recipes in there.

Kill Bill Vol. 2: Yes, this one was very different than the first one. In the first one, there were flat out fights/brawls/battles, with lots of weapons and blood. In the second one, I was waiting for the violence a lot and then some crazy thing happened that was both violent and unexpected.

The message of Vol. 2 was that motherhood changes you. While that’s true, motherhood doesn’t necessarily change pathologies, like being an assassin/sociopath. It was fun to watch.

I’m jealous. It’s 87 degrees in Philadelphia and it’s only 65 degrees here. This wind is wearing me out, though I noticed that I am much more aware of wind and living next to the Pacific Ocean now that I have read the Master and Commander series by Patrick O’Brien. I appreciate the wind more now than I did before, but I’m getting a mite tired of it, especially because I drive across a bridge twice a day.

I finished Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. It was pretty good. A bit preachy, but not excessively so.

I also finished Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham. My experience was similar (I think) to what others have when they are in a book club. This is not a book I would have chosen to read, but it was well written. *Shrug*

This morning, I read this New York Times interview of Albert Maysles, a 78-year old filmmaker. My absolute favorite part was this:


Little-known fact: A thing that is a little strange about myself is that I personally sew name tags into every article of clothing I have, from underwear to socks to jackets and shirts. I use a sewing machine. When I was a kid, I was envious of other kids who went to camp, but my family couldn't afford it, and what I liked best about camp was you had labels sewn into all your clothes.

I love that.

I've been working in the yard today. The weather is sunny and in the low 60s.

The kids and I went up to Santa Rosa yesterday for D's kids' birthday party. It was a long, enjoyable day in the sun. I watched my little dude play soccer and it made me deeply happy. Another boy found a lizard and was showing it all around. After that my boy lured me into the trees with his hope of finding a lizard himself. I hoped otherwise.

My brother stopped by in the late afternoon and we talked about how this guy just might have some potential.

I think I'll have mustard greens and steamed rice for lunch. First I have to run a quick errand. That means I'll have to comb my hair and put on some earrings.

mabi asks:

i would be so grateful to learn how to approach gardening. i was a girl scout for 15 years (yes, 15) but i never vibed with dirt.

but nowadays i feel like it would be so cool to connect with nature and grow some vegetables. any thoughts?

I have blogged a little about my approach to gardening here.

When I was a kid, “yard work” was a miserable experience. It was supervised by my father, who set the tone for the experience (negative), and it was toil. We would spend all day in the yard, working with inadequate tools, trying to undo years of neglect and overgrowth, including overgrown bamboo.

One thing I find so interesting about the work I do now in my yard is how fast it goes. It takes so much less time to get things done than I expected it to, for two reasons. First, I have good tools. They are sharp when they need to be sharp and I have the right tool for the job (i.e., a long armed pruning saw, or newish lawn mower, two different sized rakes, a tool for weeding, a leaf blower, a lawn edger, etc.). Second, I work in the yard/garden pretty consistently, so there is not so much overgrowth that has to be addressed like one is hacking through a rain forest.

Dirt is also not my thing, so I wear gardening gloves, the kind that are puncture resistant (not from Smith and Hawken, though). They help prevent blisters as well. And I wear long sleeved shirts so I don’t get scratched by thorns or branches.

Stooping and kneeling also don’t work so well for me (and my back and knees), so I sit on a little kindergarten sized chair for working extensively on weeding in the border areas of the yard.

There is nothing democratic about my yard. I grow what I want, what pleases me. I dig up what I don’t like, what is not performing.

I am not presently a vegetable gardener. I would rather go to the farmers market and buy from those who know what they’re doing. This may change. I do like to grow herbs–sage, chives, basil, Italian parsley–and lemons. I would love to grow mustard greens and tomatoes.

But my passion is flowers. Roses (David Austins and the like) mostly, though I like peonies (better than they like me and the California climate). I don’t really obsess about them, but they preoccupy me in a very pleasant way: what’s blooming, how is this plant doing, oh look I can make a bouquet and put it in my bedroom or the entry hall or on the dining room table. I get inspired by gardening books and magazines, especially books about English gardens.

I like to listen to music while I garden, on a Walkman-like CD player and headphones. It’s interesting, how different the mental/emotional experience is if I’m listening to disco or blues or gospel music. I usually wear a zip hoodie (not from the Gap) to keep the CD player in my pocket and to keep warm.

And when I get tired of working in the yard, I stop immediately and rest, because I didn’t get to do that when I was a kid. I don’t garden in the hottest part of the day and I always have a cool drink near at hand.



Gardening is like a meditation for me, especially raking and sweeping. I really like to sweep, to get something clean and clear and because it helps me relax. Also, having the goddess of mercy statute in my back yard reminds me all the time of how lucky I am, how much there is to be grateful for.

I garden to create an oasis for me and my family and friends, a place of quiet and beauty.

ebonyblue asks how I have time to sew.

Well, I think of the time I have to sew as a consolation prize, so to speak, for the fact that I don't have my children all of the time. I share custody of them with their father, so some nights and weekends I have free time to sew.

[When I first had to share custody and watch them drive away it was terribly, terribly hard and I didn't know what to do with myself. My first impulse was to shop, which was more about getting out of the empty house and trying to fill the hole. It took about a year or two to get used to their absence and stop shopping, to calm down and chill out. I still miss them when I am not with them; I still feel an almost physical hunger for them. But I make the best of it.]

Also, my children are a bit older--5 and 9--so they are (somewhat) capable of entertaining themselves, at least for short periods of time. During those short periods, I can think about sewing or sew a little something. I make micro-progress on my projects and then one day they're done. And micro-progress goes well with multi-tasking, so that I do some housework and then sew a little, work in the garden, then sew a little.

My son will still want to sit on my lap when I sew, which makes it impossible to really do anything. So I'll cuddle him and watch some cartoon on the television in my study with him, then I make him sit in his little beach chair next to me and I will sew a seam or two.

Part of the process is just keeping my work area in sufficient order so I can work and get a sense of what I'm doing and where I am on a project. So I can hold my son and fold a few things and put them in the proper bin.

I can't sit in front of the television for long stretches without doing something else. It would be so handy to be a knitter, which I often think when I'm in an airport, but alas I am not. I channel surf like crazy and then put on a DVD and sew.

It helps that I have insomnia, so that on the Friday evening when I don't have them and I've nothing better to do, I sew until midnight or a bit later, knowing that I don't have to get up early the next morning and I will be able to sleep through the night.

Another component to finishing projects is having confidence that it will turn out well (or well enough--no perfectionism in crafting, just like no crying in baseball), rather than losing hope and sticking it in the back of the closet.

Finally, it's important for me to embrace my inner-dork and not worry how ridiculous I look when I answer the front door, still in my pajamas, hair all over the place, covered in thread and pieces of fabric. Or worry that I'm turning into a quilting little old lady, which is just a mean voice trying to get between me and my sewing.

My son's preschool has decided to take Spring Break this week. So my girl's SB was last week and their father's was the week before. Where is the love?

We are home together and having a fine time. He was very patient when I went into work, sitting incredibly still while I checked in with my secretary and typed up a few letters. Then we went to the post office and returned home.

We've played two very rousing games of baseball in the back yard--it's windy, but warm and dry enough. I've done laundry and straightened out my terminally disorganized closet. At some point we're going to pick up my girl from school.

This weekend I saw Kill Bill Volume 1. Um, no, I hadn't ever seen it before. It was amazing. Incredibly violent and bloody. But it is genius. I watched the bonus materials and got chills when I learned that the RZA had done the soundtrack. Chills I tell you.

Yay!



I got my Month of Softies project done. The theme for April is Recycled Monster.



I used this tutorial. Good old crafster comes through again.

This is a preview. I'll post better pictures if I can ever manage to take some decent ones.

I took the morning off from work to have breakfast and spend some time with FIRE. It was in some ways a mini-visit, but I'll take it.

Yesterday I took the day off to take care of my girl. I made a lined zippered pouch, following this tutorial. We avoided receiving three plastic bags during the day, thanks to my tote bag, including the occasion when I bought the zipper for the pouch, my first zipper purchase ever.

We made chocolate cupcakes from Cooks Illustrated. They weren't great. I am in search of a cupcake epiphany--a cupcake moment . With these, the chocolate cake was good--made with bittersweet chocolate, dutch-process cocoa and sour cream--but the buttercream was insubstantial. The recipe called for whipping the buttercream with my Kitchen Aid for 4 minutes on high, 6 minutes altogether. So it was fluffy, but the flavor wasn't there.

Onward.

I subscribed to Cooks Illustrated in January, after years of lusting after it and balking at the cost. But the price was going up to $24.95 a year (for 6 issues) so I jumped while it was $19.95.

I loved Motorcycle Diaries. Oh my heavens. South America? Beautiful. Gael Garcia Bernal? That boy's got charisma. It's a wonderful introduction to Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Yesterday was something else.

My girl is on Spring Break this week. Why? I don’t know why. Her father was on Spring Break last week, which would have made it easy peasy vis a vis child care. But no, it’s this week.

So we got up–the first work day of Daylight Savings Time–and rushed. We were all ready to leave the house at 7:15AM when I couldn’t find my keys. Lord help me, I had an 8:30AM hearing before Super Mean Judge. I was racing around the house, praying to God and all the saints, to please, please, please help me find my keys. Twenty precious (hellacious) minutes later I found them, on my desk, under a pile of fabric.

We dropped my boy off at preschool, running the whole way, and then drove at 85 miles per hour to court. My girl wanted to ask what the judge would do to me if I was late, but I couldn’t talk about it. My mouth was dry from terror.

We parked in the newly completed parking structure and ran to the courthouse. There were two enormous lines snaking out of the building because everyone has to go through a metal detector, except the lawyers and court staff who have badges. I have a badge, so I went to the front of the line and begged the security guys to let me daughter go through without waiting. I explained that I was late for a hearing with Judge Super Mean. They let her go and my excellent girl was wearing no metal.

We ran up the stairs and down the hall and walked into the court room just as the judge was calling my matter. I walked to the counsel table and my girl walked behind me. I turned because the court reporter raised her eyebrows and told my girl to sit down. I answered the judge’s questions, made a couple of remarks, and we were done.

He didn’t kill me.

We walked back out of the courtroom 90 seconds later.

My girl couldn’t believe it. All that driving and stressing and hurrying for 90 seconds of talking. It was such a quick appearance. There was so little to it.

We both experienced a post-adrenaline euphoria which made us float back out of the building. I treated her to a small hot chocolate and blueberry scone breakfast. I explained that a lot of time, after all that hurrying and stress, I stop off at the store and pick up something likes socks for my kids or household items. We went to the store and got socks and a few pairs of pants for the kids.

Then we went to the office, checked in, and then left and went to Jo-Ann fabric and Trader Joes. Once we got home, I dealt with some leftover garden cuttings and recycling and then we went for a walk to the hardware store to get two sets of keys made. One house key, one car key. They will be my emergency sets because that morning was hell.

We walked next to the DVD rental store and picked up Napoleon Dynamite, Catwoman, and the Motorcycle Diaries.

My kids have wanted to see Catwoman for months. We watched it together, though I had to write checks for bills while I watched it. It was so bad.

Napoleon Dynamite was terrific; hilarious in an excruciating way. I haven’t seen the Motorcycle Diaries yet, but I intend to see it tonight.

Recently, I checked this book out of the library, after hearing an interview of Roger Ebert on KQED radio. I have seen a lot of the movies in the book, but not all. So I checked a few out of the library and watched them last weekend. I can’t say I liked them.

The Lady Eve–starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. It’s supposed to be a slapstick comedy, about a woman who works a con with her father on cruise ships and a rich man, a brewery heir and snake afficionado, who meet on a ship and fall in love. It’s idiotic.

Broken Blossoms–starring Lillian Gish. This is a D.W. Griffith movie. He is the director of one of the most racist movies ever made, so I had my doubts about this movie. I decided to give it a whirl. It is terrible. Lillian Gish, who was 26 when the movie was made, is supposed to be a child. It’s melodramatic, racist, sentimental and utterly unbelievable. A waste of 89 minutes.

So now I’m pretty annoyed with Mr. Ebert, who liked this movie and didn’t like Napoleon Dynamite.

In the afternoon I made my tote bag and cleaned up the house. In the evening, after we picked my boy up, my children devolved into ceaseless bickering and tattling. I made pasta for dinner, using apple cured bacon from Trader Joes. It is so good.

Later I took a hot bath because my muscles were very, very sore from two days of yard work. When the children ran into the bathroom to tell on each other for petty transgressions, I asked them to have mercy on me and stop fighting.

Mariko inspired me with her totebag tutorial to make this today.

This is the lining.



I have had it with plastic shopping bags and I intend to carry this around as often as possible to avoid them.

* * *

I loved this essay.

It's a terrific morning. I woke up early, but not as early as I thought. I turned the clocks ahead, made some coffee and a bagel, and read the paper.

Then I went out to my yard for day two of the Spring Cleanup. It's going very well. It was me, John Lee Hooker, Al Green, and a mix CD, and my tools.

I am delighted with a new tool I picked up from Rockridge Longs yesterday.



It's sharp and smooth on one side, like a hoe, and has weed grabbing teeth on the other side. It is so boss!!

I was puttering around, thoroughly and completely happy, enjoying the privacy of my backyard--which was important since I was only wearing Nike slip ons, pajama bottoms and a law school sweat shirt--when a crew of workers arrived next door to do some yard work. Here I was humming to myself, butt in the air, crouching beneath some rose bushes, when I looked up and received a nod from one of the guys.

*Sigh*

I'm going to put on some more clothes and then go back out and finish the cleanup before the rain starts again.

My first bouquet of the Spring.

ETA:

The two dark pink roses in the middle are La Reine Victoria.
The small white rose on the bottom left is Glamis Castle.
The big pink, white, greenish one on the left is Eden, a climbing rose.
The three remaining pinkish, white ones are Madame Pierre Oger.

Thank you all for your birthday wishes!!

Thoughts on Turning 40:

First off, my heart is bursting with gratitude and joy.

I am a tremendously fortunate person.

I am very fortunate to have gotten this far and gotten this far without any major tragedies, any loss of close family members. I have two wonderful children. I am healthy, as are they. I have a wonderful education which has led to a rewarding profession and a good job.

As I was approaching the birthday, I couldn’t figure out a way to get my mind around it. It helps to celebrate it with friends and family. I asked people what I should think of 40, did they have any wisdom, and for the most part they didn’t. FIRE says your 40s are even better than your 30s.

Here’s the thing about my 30s: I am so grateful for all they gave me. Even the pain, which, relatively speaking, was not so terrible.

Anyway, I think the people I asked were at a loss for words because they feel the same as they were in their 20s or 30s. They’re the same younger person. Maybe they have more cares and responsibilities and more aches and pains, but 40 doesn’t close the door on very much. Military service maybe? Oh well. [I was talking to my son’s best buddy’s mother in the preschool parking lot. Her father, who is 94, is having heart trouble. She is 41 and trying to decide whether to have a second child. She can if she wants to. Her father was 53 when she was born.]

Having lived this long, there is so much that is miraculous to me. It's like the first time I ever went to a A's baseball game at the Oakland Coliseum. I had only ever seen an A's game on a small black and white television. As I walked through the breezeway, I saw the players in green and yellow uniforms and caps, playing on the lush green grass, and I gasped in wonder.

I feel like the same wonder all the time, at being a mother, or when I cook, or in my garden, at the miracle of DVDs or the internet.

My children are shocked when I regale them stories about what we didn't have when I was a kid, what no one had. And of course, having a 5 year old son and a 9 year old daughter, stepping on Spider Man toys, will keep you feeling young.

I wouldn't exactly say that 40 is the new 30, but 40 is excellent and I recommend it to everyone who hasn't reached it yet.