So You Think You Can Dance!!! I am so obsessed with this show. Man I wish I could do ANYTHING like these guys. Just amazing. I will have to be content to live vicariously through them while I eat my ice cream.
Beach Paradise
September 17, 2009
So. Relaxed. Can’t do laundry.
We were put up at this fancy hotel right on the beach. And bizarrely, I was the only spouse who came. Poor Bear and his colleagues got beautiful ocean views, but they were scheduled from sunup to sundown and didn’t even get their feet wet, so all these fancy hotel rooms just sat empty for two days. I meanwhile, got to walk down the hotel’s staircase and on to the sand where a beach attendant brought me a chair and umbrella.
I’m not really a sun worshiper, but I’m also not stupid. Who could resist this?
I spent most of the two days alone, but I was totally down for that. I did a lot of reading, a little shopping, and a whole lot of gallery walking. Laguna is like the art capitol of the West coast, and you can’t spit without hitting a canvas. There’s even art in the sidewalks and fences.
I also ate like a pig. It was such a rare treat to be able to eat whatever I wanted without a single consideration for another person…I ended up taking all these pictures of my food as one of the best parts of the trip.
Lousy picture I know, but I had about ten minutes of time with my guy, I didn’t get to be picky.
Atti had a party at Grandmas and now we’re both trying to return to real life. A lot easier said than done.
2009 Year of Pleasures #36
September 15, 2009
Today and tomorrow Bear is trapped in a big work conference in Laguna Beach where he has to sit in lectures and eat rubbery chicken while they all make stale nursing home jokes.
I, meanwhile, will be here. Or maybe poolside, or maybe just in my hotel room bed, reading an honest to goodness book.
Atti will get to spend a couple more days with Grandma and she promises him that she won’t feed him gross stuff like the hummus his mom tries to make him eat.
The past two weeks have been a couple hard ones. Multiple doctors visits, driving all over the county, a suddenly tantruming toddler, Bear at work until 7 or 8. When Bear reminded me that this was the week of the conference, and everything suddenly fell into place to free me up enough to get away, I broke down in tears.
One of my favorite people is studying in Laguna right now, so I might get to meet up with a beloved old friend, wander through galleries, sun myself on the beach…but I might just be too intoxicated with the quiet of an empty hotel room to ever bring myself to leave.
You guys? Two days! Alone! Can you even imagine the thrill?
Finished again!
September 11, 2009
I’ve been on a finishing roll, and I finally managed to finish a simple project I’ve been dragging around since 2001. Way back then we went on my dream vacation to Rome. In November even, so I got to wander around my dream city when it was rainy and crisp and glorious. We stayed in this little hotel right on the edge of an enormous park and scoured the city looking for all the artwork I had learned about in my Western Civ classes. Bear still teases me about my obsessive fixation with Bernini.
While strolling through one piazza or another, we came across a few booths with artists selling their work and snapped up this lovely little watercolor.
I love this piece, but the only problem is that it is such an odd size I could *not* find a frame for it. I looked at getting it custom framed but it’s just so very expensive and we have never been in a position where I could make that a high priority, so it’s been sitting, carefully, in the bottom of my work in progress drawer, only getting out when it was time to put it in a box and move to the next house where it went back in it’s drawer.
Whenever I’m at a thrift store, I always scout through the frames, hoping I’ll find something that just happens to be right. When I was up in Utah I found something that still isn’t perfect, but is close enough. It’s a few inches too long, and I wish it was just a little bit taller, but I’ll deal with the extra white space if it means I get to actually look at it instead of just squirrel it away.
It was a light blond wood, so I gave it a good sanding and painted it with Folk Arts enamel paints. This worked great! You get a good hard cure so it’s WAY stronger than acrylics, but you can save yourself the trouble of busting out the spray paint.
This hangs in my studio just above my ironing board, and I’m wondering how long it will be before I burn something because I’m too busy staring at it. It was those two tiny people walking through the arch that really captured my imagination, and it brings back such sweet memories of walking through an ancient city hand in hand with my love.
Finished!
September 10, 2009
Phew! All summer long with needles flying, breaking all proper crosstitching procedure by dragging this all over the place with me, including outdoors (Scandalous! The dirt! The mess!), hours and hours of Battlestar Galactica and Burn Notice later, I’ve got all the stitching done.
I spent Tuesday night embroidering Atti’s name on the wool cuff and then sewed it all together yesterday. I can see all kinds of nagging little imperfections that hurt my feelings after all the time I spent on this, but I’m just going to close my eyes and plug my ears and sing myself a little song. La la la la, it came out right, la la la la, all is well….
From far enough away it really does look like it came out right.
I think that by pursuing this project so singlemindedly all summer, I’ve shot any chance at finishing most of my crafty goals for the year. It’s a chronic failing of mine – I always shoot too high – but at least it keeps me motivated.
Once June rolled around and I realized with a start that the year was half over…saying that still makes me want to sit down and catch my breath…I had to look critically at what I wanted to accomplish, and especially what I wanted to accomplish for our family celebrations this year. Atti didn’t have a stocking for his first Christmas, and I really didn’t beat myself up about that too much, what with the almost dying and the hospital stay that kind of commandeered 2008 away from me, but I just couldn’t allow it to happen again.
I’m almost glad I didn’t push too hard for it last year. This year gave me the chance to do it right and make an heirloom quality stocking for him instead of just slapping something together because I felt guilty. But it’s also been such an immense joy to watch Atticus emerge from babyhood into a great little member of our team. The Rookie is now a utility player, and it just seems symbolic that his stocking is ready to join ours now that he’s old enough to grasp what it all means.
Separation Anxiety
September 3, 2009
I’m sitting here typing this in the house all by myself. It’s so quiet I’m having trouble being productive. I have had two back to back all day marathons of doctors appointments*, so Atticus spent last night up at Grandma’s and then ended up getting stuck there when my Sister in Law started showing signs of going into labor. Bear ran up to take baby duty over, Grandma and Grandpa divvied up daughter/grandbaby responsibilities, and the whole family is holding their breath waiting for this little girl to make her way into the world.
*more on that another day.
When Atti was born and in the hospital without me, the hardest part was the intense loneliness I felt. People often tried to comfort me by reminding me that I shouldn’t miss him too much since he wouldn’t have been here yet anyway, but that did me no good. If I had managed to stay pregnant longer he might not have been *here* but he was still with me. Being at home while he was at the hospital was just agony. There were times when I felt that separation so keenly it felt like a death.
Prior to my week away last month, the longest I’ve been away from him was a measly 16 hours. Once. An anniversary dinner and hotel stay and then right back to baby as soon as we woke up the next morning. Because of his disability we have 8 hours of nursing care allotted to us every month and I’ve never ever used it. Not because I’m some ridiculous martyr, but because those first few months of distance made such an impression on me that I can’t help but be greedy for him. I want to drink him. I feel a literal, physical pull on my heart when I’m away from him.
Atti has developed a few new behaviors as a result of our time apart. After talking to me on the phone every night, now he freaks out if the phone rings and I don’t let him talk on it. Which of course is just him listening to the other person while he licks the phone and breaths heavily. The receptionist at the dentist office didn’t seem to enjoy that too much.
He’s also gotten so much more motivated to be wherever I am. During the morning I usually set him in the middle of our main living room, on that red circle rug that is so ubiquitous in the photos I take of him, and let him roll around and work on crawling and play with his toys while I spend some time connecting with my online world. He’s developed into a really good independent player, so I usually had as much time as I wanted. Now I have twenty minute bursts while he inchworms his way from the carpet to my feet and slaps the base of my chair until I pick him up. After a few minutes of songs and snuggles I put him back down on the carpet and he starts the journey all over again. He’s getting to be pretty darn quick.
At therapy we’ve been making fantastic strides towards his walking skills. He spends a lot of time in a gate trainer, which is basically a high tech version of those walkers that people had to stop using in the 80’s after one too many babies took a tumble. He sits in a seat that supports his weight and then steps with his legs to make the contraption move on the wheels. He wasn’t doing much with the gate trainer prior to the trip, content to let his therapist move his legs for him. Now I’ll sit five feet in front of him and offer him kisses, and he marshals all the concentration available to him to make those feet move and get to his momma.
I wonder sometimes. If we get to have another kid, will I be so connected to them? Is this the magic of motherhood? Or did something happen in those first few days, standing there in my hospital gown, looking at him in his isolette, me fighting for life to get back to him, him fighting for life to get back to me. I remember standing there feeling this *intense* spiritual connection to him. Like, so intense it almost had mass, kind of connection. I felt like what we had been through together united us, physically, chemically.
I certainly hope I don’t have to go through such a gauntlet again, but today, it was totally worth it.
Here’s a little something to help all the sap go down a little easier.
2009 Year of Pleasures #34
September 1, 2009
I took the quickest picture ever before tearing into this package of fabric because I couldn’t resist the wrapping. It’s just simple as can be, but when the fabric I order online is usually wrapped in plastic bags, I found myself touched by the hand tied little bow. It’s very nearly a brown paper package tied up in string!
This great service came from this store. I’ve loved every exchange I’ve had with them.
2009 Year of Pleasures #33
August 25, 2009
This picture blows the lid off of any pretense I may have cultivated that I actually maintain basic levels of personal hygiene, but I just couldn’t resist. Three day unwashed hair or not.
Atti is such a fun and happy little guy, he’s the world’s easiest kid to entertain. Boop his nose and he’ll laugh for days. We’re always inventing one goofy game or another that we forget about by the next day, but this game seems to have staying power.
I tilt my head way back like I’m going to sneeze, and then as I bring it forward I say “Loooooooooooooooove…” and then he brings his head forward to meet mine as I say “Bump!” and then we both roll around with the giggles.
“Love Bump!” “Love Bump!” All I have to do now is say the words and he’ll still collapse with laughter. Plus, I think this is a good trick to have in my pocket when he gets so big he doesn’t want to cover my face in slobbery kisses.
2009 Year of Pleasures #32
August 18, 2009
As much fun as last week was, I’m thrilled to be home goofing around with these little characters.