As I write this I am telling one twin to get off the table and explaining to my 6 year old that he cannot have any Hallowe'en treats until after lunch while also getting after my 14 year old to just get dressed already so I can take him to drama class once we finish eating. The other twin is sitting on the floor shredding flyers, but you know what? He's quiet so I'm just going to let that go.
yes dear I understand you're hungry, you have to have lunch first, I have already answered this question and I said no. End of discussion.
There is a mom who is a home schooler and she attends the same swimming lessons (a program for us home ed types that is discounted and awesome). She has a few kids and is currently pregnant with another. Her hair is done nicely, she is always dressed smartly and her kids are very well behaved. She is rocking a bikini with her adorable baby bump.
I am so not this mother.
Pretty sure that's the shirt you wore to bed last night, when I said get dressed I meant change all of your clothes. Underwear too. And those socks have gaping holes in them, throw them out.
I'm the mother who is only wearing jeans because it's not acceptable to wear your pj pants everywhere and my "good" yoga pants had to be tossed out after getting a hole in them. I'm the mother who keeps her hair short because it's just easier to deal with. I'm the mother who got on her bathing suit and realized she has forgotten to shave her legs. Again.
Dude, chips are treats too. I said after lunch. Stop it.
My house is a disaster. My furniture looks like it has been through a war. I haven't had a good night's sleep in years. My weight fluctuates month to month and I am in desperate need of a haircut. Just last night I said to my husband "We should have an open house party over Christmas since you're going to be off for a few days" and he answered "Where? Here? Are you crazy?"
yeah I know the twins are on the table, but I'm right here with them and they are happily colouring. It's ok. No really, it's ok. DO NOT TOUCH THEM SO HELP ME IF YOU MAKE THEM CRY I WILL LOSE IT.
I never thought I'd be the type of parent to make all the meals from scratch. I think about it from time to time, how nice it would be if all our meals were homemade. Then I look at the reality of my life and pop more toaster waffles in and call the kids for breakfast. Or more realistically, I get my eldest to pop in those waffles while I drink coffee until the world comes into focus. I figure that my husband, who can magically make an awesome meal come out of our kitchen after I've tossed up my hands and said "we've got nothing!", makes up for the meal thing. And I occasionally bake bread. Never mind that by "occasionally" I mean once or twice a year. Maybe.
hey! Do not throw the pencils! DO NOT THROW THE PENCILS! Ugh, ok drawing time over
But as much as I admire those other moms who seem to have it all together, I love the chaos of our life. As much as I want sleep, I wouldn't trade my late night snuggle sessions and babbling whispers with my toddlers for anything. Yes, they fuss and fight and argue with one another, but they support, love and help one another more often than they fight. Yes I get frustrated, but only because I know they are capable of so much and it is hard to see them not living up to their best.
I'm glad you liked the fries, but you really need to stop talking and go brush your teeth or you're going to be late. Kids! Shoes and coats on, we gotta go!
It is chaos. But it's OUR chaos.
SHOES! COAT! NOW! What?
....
I love you too.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Molly
I wrote this post the day my Molly passed, and wasn't quite able to hit "post". I told myself that it was because I wanted to scan some old pics in, but really? It was because I wasn't quite ready to share it. I'm ready now. Still no old photos scanned though. Maybe one day I'll share her kitten face, but for now, that's mine.
I had hoped I had a few more years, maybe forever, before I'd have to write this post. But as it so often does, the end came too fast and as much as I thought I'd be ready...I wasn't.
I said goodbye to my best friend today.
In the fall 1997 I was exploring adulthood. I had recently moved into my first apartment with my first serious boyfriend. I was on my way home from work when I saw her in the display at the pet shop in the mall. This tiny silver bit of fluff. I called my boyfriend (from a pay phone! Ah, the simple pre-cell phone days) and told him he had to meet me at the mall, I was going to buy this cat and wanted a drive home. We had discussed getting a cat but figured we'd wait a bit. The moment I saw her I knew she was my cat and I wasn't going to wait around!
My boyfriend chose her sibling, a black male he named Spencer, and for $30 they were ours. They were a funny little pair, always under foot and being silly. They were lovely.
Six months later my relationship fell apart and one night I came home to find my (now ex) boyfriend had moved out while I was at work and took Spencer with him. I found Molly running around the apartment mewling, looking for her sibling. She didn't eat for 3 days and took to sleeping on my chest. Several months later my ex came by to see me and she sniffed at him and you could see the recognition dawn. She hissed and swatted him, then retreated under a chair growling and yowling. I agreed with her, and sent him on his way.
It wasn't until my husband came along that she warmed up to another man. Even when we lived with a couple male roommates she didn't want much to do with them, but she warmed to Phil almost instantly. She knew a good one when she saw one.
When she was about a year old we moved into a bachelor apartment in an old house, and discovered mice in our first week there. We also discovered that Molly was full on terrified of mice. Even toys of mice she would yelp and run away from. When my eldest got a hamster she refused to go into his room until after it had passed on. Mice were not her thing. Plastic lizards, however, were her most favourite toys ever. She also had a real love for Eeyore's tail, which she constantly swiped off of my stuffed Eeyore toy.
When she was two we moved into an apartment with two friends, and we had gotten another cat named Tabitha and my dear friend J had a cat named PC. For some reason, though none of the cats had ever gone into heat before, the three of them started cycling like mad and making us crazy. Appointments for spaying were made. Before Molly's appointment we noticed she had suddenly lost a bunch of weight and then I discovered a lump in her throat. The vet decided to go ahead and prep her for her spaying, but once she was under anesthetic they would do exploratory surgery on her throat to see if it was something they could fix. If yes, they'd go ahead with surgery. If not, they'd call me to come and say good bye. I spent all day worried and waiting for the phone to ring, and when it finally did the vet asked me "Do you do cross stitch?" Apparently the little ribbon and string fanatic had gotten into my sewing stuff and ate a bit of embroidery floss...that was attached to a dull tipped needle. The needle lodged in her throat, the equivalent of a butter knife lodged in a person's throat. A round of antibiotics and some baby food and fancy feast (soft foods!) and she was good as new, and we had a great story to tell.
She handled moves and life changes pretty well. When my friend and roommate J had her son she was sort of indifferent to him until he got mobile, and then it was a lot of getting out of reach. And she would get jealous whenever I took too many pictures of him, she would start posing nearby so I could snap a few of her too.
She loved to sit on the back of couch, and would often chew on the hair of unsuspecting visitors who smelled particularly good.
When we moved in with Phil and Cam it was a bit of a shock for her...she had gone from living with just me for a while, then almost on her own in the apartment as I spent much of my time with Phil. She quickly understood that while Cam was young, he was old enough that she could smack him if he bugged her too much, but nothing with claws (until he was older, and then only that one time he tried to trap her on his bed). He learned quickly how to pet her properly and she learned that little kids love to give cats treats and don't get tired of waving cat toys about. A friendship formed.
During my pregnancy with Grace she was super clingy, she knew I was changing in some way. When Grace arrived she was initially unsure of what to make of her but then became close to her as well. When Gabriel and the twins came along she was skilled at patience and tolerance, and exactly what was acceptable to deter small fingers from poking into eyes and ears. My kids all know the meaning of the word "gentle" and what happens when you're not.
She spent most of her life sleeping on or near my feet, despite that I'm a kicker in my sleep. The last few months however she took over my daughter's pillows, since Grace was willing to scoot down and not pester her while she slept, which must have been easier on her tired bones.
I used to say that Molly was immortal, she must be since she was so old and yet showed no signs of aging. Still tiny and kittenish, she was active and full of personality.
Then one day we noticed she had one white whisker amongst her greys. That was the first sign. Then came more hours of sleep and a general slowing down. She no longer put up with rougher handling. Her "cranky old lady" days had arrived. By summer's end we noticed she was getting quite skinny and we took more care in making sure that the other cat, 6 year old Ginny, wasn't stealing her food before she could eat her fill.
Finally, this past weekend I noticed her breathing had gotten laboured. She was breathing with her mouth open, and her long slow breaths were accompanied by sucking in of her abdomen, all really bad signs in cats. I took my friend to the vet this afternoon and the vet confirmed...with her advanced age Molly's condition was a fatal one, and leaving her to suffer to the end would not be the kind thing to do. Her lungs were fluid filled, she was only going to get worse.
I held her while they administered a sedative to calm her down and she hissed and spat and nipped, showing her spunky side one last time. Then she curled up with her head in my hand and rested.
The rest of the process was peaceful. I whispered words of love and goodbye, and many thanks to her. This cat and I grew up together, she was with me through hard times and joyous times, through all the important milestones. We were kittens in the world, figuring it all out and finding our way. We found home and increased our family. We matured and settled in.
She was loved and gave love in return.
I am not sure how I'll manage to have a good long soak in the tub without her watching from the edge, dipping her tail in and playing with the bubbles. I think I'll miss those times with her the most. The quiet, just her and I time. My husband bought me a memorial tattoo, I have my baby girl forever on my foot, but it isn't the same. (the photo below is the one we used for the tattoo)
Molly, September 16, 1997-September 24, 2013
I will miss her every day.
I had hoped I had a few more years, maybe forever, before I'd have to write this post. But as it so often does, the end came too fast and as much as I thought I'd be ready...I wasn't.
I said goodbye to my best friend today.
In the fall 1997 I was exploring adulthood. I had recently moved into my first apartment with my first serious boyfriend. I was on my way home from work when I saw her in the display at the pet shop in the mall. This tiny silver bit of fluff. I called my boyfriend (from a pay phone! Ah, the simple pre-cell phone days) and told him he had to meet me at the mall, I was going to buy this cat and wanted a drive home. We had discussed getting a cat but figured we'd wait a bit. The moment I saw her I knew she was my cat and I wasn't going to wait around!
My boyfriend chose her sibling, a black male he named Spencer, and for $30 they were ours. They were a funny little pair, always under foot and being silly. They were lovely.
Six months later my relationship fell apart and one night I came home to find my (now ex) boyfriend had moved out while I was at work and took Spencer with him. I found Molly running around the apartment mewling, looking for her sibling. She didn't eat for 3 days and took to sleeping on my chest. Several months later my ex came by to see me and she sniffed at him and you could see the recognition dawn. She hissed and swatted him, then retreated under a chair growling and yowling. I agreed with her, and sent him on his way.
It wasn't until my husband came along that she warmed up to another man. Even when we lived with a couple male roommates she didn't want much to do with them, but she warmed to Phil almost instantly. She knew a good one when she saw one.
When she was about a year old we moved into a bachelor apartment in an old house, and discovered mice in our first week there. We also discovered that Molly was full on terrified of mice. Even toys of mice she would yelp and run away from. When my eldest got a hamster she refused to go into his room until after it had passed on. Mice were not her thing. Plastic lizards, however, were her most favourite toys ever. She also had a real love for Eeyore's tail, which she constantly swiped off of my stuffed Eeyore toy.
When she was two we moved into an apartment with two friends, and we had gotten another cat named Tabitha and my dear friend J had a cat named PC. For some reason, though none of the cats had ever gone into heat before, the three of them started cycling like mad and making us crazy. Appointments for spaying were made. Before Molly's appointment we noticed she had suddenly lost a bunch of weight and then I discovered a lump in her throat. The vet decided to go ahead and prep her for her spaying, but once she was under anesthetic they would do exploratory surgery on her throat to see if it was something they could fix. If yes, they'd go ahead with surgery. If not, they'd call me to come and say good bye. I spent all day worried and waiting for the phone to ring, and when it finally did the vet asked me "Do you do cross stitch?" Apparently the little ribbon and string fanatic had gotten into my sewing stuff and ate a bit of embroidery floss...that was attached to a dull tipped needle. The needle lodged in her throat, the equivalent of a butter knife lodged in a person's throat. A round of antibiotics and some baby food and fancy feast (soft foods!) and she was good as new, and we had a great story to tell.
She handled moves and life changes pretty well. When my friend and roommate J had her son she was sort of indifferent to him until he got mobile, and then it was a lot of getting out of reach. And she would get jealous whenever I took too many pictures of him, she would start posing nearby so I could snap a few of her too.
She loved to sit on the back of couch, and would often chew on the hair of unsuspecting visitors who smelled particularly good.
When we moved in with Phil and Cam it was a bit of a shock for her...she had gone from living with just me for a while, then almost on her own in the apartment as I spent much of my time with Phil. She quickly understood that while Cam was young, he was old enough that she could smack him if he bugged her too much, but nothing with claws (until he was older, and then only that one time he tried to trap her on his bed). He learned quickly how to pet her properly and she learned that little kids love to give cats treats and don't get tired of waving cat toys about. A friendship formed.
During my pregnancy with Grace she was super clingy, she knew I was changing in some way. When Grace arrived she was initially unsure of what to make of her but then became close to her as well. When Gabriel and the twins came along she was skilled at patience and tolerance, and exactly what was acceptable to deter small fingers from poking into eyes and ears. My kids all know the meaning of the word "gentle" and what happens when you're not.
She spent most of her life sleeping on or near my feet, despite that I'm a kicker in my sleep. The last few months however she took over my daughter's pillows, since Grace was willing to scoot down and not pester her while she slept, which must have been easier on her tired bones.
I used to say that Molly was immortal, she must be since she was so old and yet showed no signs of aging. Still tiny and kittenish, she was active and full of personality.
Then one day we noticed she had one white whisker amongst her greys. That was the first sign. Then came more hours of sleep and a general slowing down. She no longer put up with rougher handling. Her "cranky old lady" days had arrived. By summer's end we noticed she was getting quite skinny and we took more care in making sure that the other cat, 6 year old Ginny, wasn't stealing her food before she could eat her fill.
Finally, this past weekend I noticed her breathing had gotten laboured. She was breathing with her mouth open, and her long slow breaths were accompanied by sucking in of her abdomen, all really bad signs in cats. I took my friend to the vet this afternoon and the vet confirmed...with her advanced age Molly's condition was a fatal one, and leaving her to suffer to the end would not be the kind thing to do. Her lungs were fluid filled, she was only going to get worse.
I held her while they administered a sedative to calm her down and she hissed and spat and nipped, showing her spunky side one last time. Then she curled up with her head in my hand and rested.
The rest of the process was peaceful. I whispered words of love and goodbye, and many thanks to her. This cat and I grew up together, she was with me through hard times and joyous times, through all the important milestones. We were kittens in the world, figuring it all out and finding our way. We found home and increased our family. We matured and settled in.
She was loved and gave love in return.
I am not sure how I'll manage to have a good long soak in the tub without her watching from the edge, dipping her tail in and playing with the bubbles. I think I'll miss those times with her the most. The quiet, just her and I time. My husband bought me a memorial tattoo, I have my baby girl forever on my foot, but it isn't the same. (the photo below is the one we used for the tattoo)
Molly, September 16, 1997-September 24, 2013
I will miss her every day.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Glitter Makes Everything Better
My dear friend and dancing mentor (and fibre artist extraordinaire, for which I love her as well), Elinor, headed on a vacation not long ago to see her family. A great lover of trips to the airport, I offered to drive her to her flight and also to pick her up. We joked that we, my dance wife Bonnie and I, would greet her with signs and she said she had never been greeted with signs before and so the plan was set.
Originally Bonnie and I planned on getting either white or colourful bristol board to decorate with welcome home messages. And maybe sparkle it up with glitter. The dollar store had other plans...with school about to start the white bristol board was sold out and a new plan hatched.
We bought black bristol board, glitter, felt flowers and decals. We got back to my place and set up in the back yard
We started painting the letters on with Mod Podge, and just covered it in glitter
Grace wanted to help out so Bonnie set her to coating the felt flowers with glitter spray
We tried to contain the excess glitter so it could be reused
But it wasn't easy, especially when you miss the bucket
When we were done our hands were covered
As well as everything else.
My backyard looked like Fairies had come by and thrown one hell of a party
But the end result was perfect
And the look on Elinor's face (which I cannot believe I did not get a picture of!) made it all worth it.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Itchy
I have always had the sort of relationship with blogging where I get the urge to post, I map out posts in my head, I plan several posts ahead, I plan series of posts, I have even on occasion done stuff because I knew it would make blog fodder. Not everything would make the blog, but I liked to create posts in my head. I used to take pics just for the blog. Twitter sort of took over that element...my iphone is full of pics I took simply because I wanted to tweet them. I missed blogging though.
When I created this blog I had every intention to blog more often. I even had a great post ready to go about our first week back into the school year. Then stuff happened and I had a different blog post completely done that I could never quite bring myself to post. So that was deleted. And the blog stalled out.
But the last few days I've been...itchy. Itchy to be creative in a way that wasn't knitting, wasn't spinning. I made a new dance bra and thought maybe that was where it was coming from. But that didn't satisfy it. I thought maybe I should haul out my sewing machine and work on stuff there. But that didn't feel right. Finally I pulled out Wreck this Journal and my new one Finish This Book and worked on those for a bit. While I was sketching I realized...I wanted to write. It's been forever since I have properly written.
So I decided to give this blogging thing another go.
Back in September when I was all set to have a great school year and blog about it we were hit damn hard with a family medical emergency. I won't go into details, because that person is intensely private about their life. It did rock me, changed my perspective on what is important and the changes it has brought for my family have been positive as we all heal. The family member who was ill is doing great now, better every day and we are grateful. Blessed.
That set us back in our school year, and since it has felt like every time we get going with our school year we hit a set back. My depression hit me like a truck early in the new year, which made it really hard to get motivated. The twins make getting to school work difficult since they became busy toddlers. As a result we have not accomplished most of what I wanted done this year. But the best part of home schooling is that we can roll with those punches and continue our year on our own schedule and according to my children's needs. They're ahead in some things, behind in others, and we still have goals we need to reach. We will get there, I am sure of it. I'm much better now (better living through chemistry!) and I feel good about where we are and what we need to do.
I joined the executive board the Nova Scotia Home Educators Association, as first chair (go big or go home, lol) and that has proved to be an interesting challenge. I am not sure if I will continue, as there are elements that need to be in place for me to do so, but I would love to see the organization find its feet again. It could be such a great support for the home schooling community, and it has been flailing over the last year or so. I may be a little too optimistic on that front, but we shall see.
I mentioned in a previous post meeting Raina the Halifax Mermaid at World Ocean Day last year. I decided to hire her for Grace's birthday party in March and it was an amazing experience. She and her little sister swam as mermaids with the kids for an hour in the pool, we had cameras and underwater cameras and the kids had a great time. Worth every penny and then some. Cannot recommend hiring a mermaid enough.
A few weeks later my dear friend and fellow knitter and dance teacher had a birthday and hired Raina. This time we sat and drank wine and hung out with a mermaid while dressed in under-the-sea themed outfits. I may have drank too much wine. But we had a blast.
In between there I attended a workshop with Yasmina Ramzy and it was amazing. She is an incredible woman with an incredible history and I learned a lot from her. I also got to bond with my dance family.
And I took a tarot class! Which was really fun and I am enjoying getting to know the cards and learning how to read them. I got a beautiful set of mermaid tarot cards, they are gorgeous.
I've been dancing and knitting and spinning and hanging out with good friends.
The kids are great, they are winding down their activities for the year and we are coming up on year-end recitals, plays and reviews. Cam is in Air Cadets and it has been such a positive experience for him. Grace is finishing her last year in ballet/jazz/tap and looking forward to performing in the recital and then getting to cut her hair. She and Gabriel plan to do circus school as their extra next year. Gabriel has been involved in gymnastics through the rec centre and got to do a course called "All Sorts of Sports" where he gets to try out different things. One week was skateboarding, and he loved it. We may be breaking our "no extras over summer" rule and enroll him in a week long half-day camp in skateboarding. Cam will be away for two weeks in July for cadet camp so if we can plan it to correspond with that and Grace may enroll as well, it would be lovely for all of them.
Things are good on the home front and promise to continue to get better. If we could just pull a lottery win...lol
When I created this blog I had every intention to blog more often. I even had a great post ready to go about our first week back into the school year. Then stuff happened and I had a different blog post completely done that I could never quite bring myself to post. So that was deleted. And the blog stalled out.
But the last few days I've been...itchy. Itchy to be creative in a way that wasn't knitting, wasn't spinning. I made a new dance bra and thought maybe that was where it was coming from. But that didn't satisfy it. I thought maybe I should haul out my sewing machine and work on stuff there. But that didn't feel right. Finally I pulled out Wreck this Journal and my new one Finish This Book and worked on those for a bit. While I was sketching I realized...I wanted to write. It's been forever since I have properly written.
So I decided to give this blogging thing another go.
Back in September when I was all set to have a great school year and blog about it we were hit damn hard with a family medical emergency. I won't go into details, because that person is intensely private about their life. It did rock me, changed my perspective on what is important and the changes it has brought for my family have been positive as we all heal. The family member who was ill is doing great now, better every day and we are grateful. Blessed.
That set us back in our school year, and since it has felt like every time we get going with our school year we hit a set back. My depression hit me like a truck early in the new year, which made it really hard to get motivated. The twins make getting to school work difficult since they became busy toddlers. As a result we have not accomplished most of what I wanted done this year. But the best part of home schooling is that we can roll with those punches and continue our year on our own schedule and according to my children's needs. They're ahead in some things, behind in others, and we still have goals we need to reach. We will get there, I am sure of it. I'm much better now (better living through chemistry!) and I feel good about where we are and what we need to do.
I joined the executive board the Nova Scotia Home Educators Association, as first chair (go big or go home, lol) and that has proved to be an interesting challenge. I am not sure if I will continue, as there are elements that need to be in place for me to do so, but I would love to see the organization find its feet again. It could be such a great support for the home schooling community, and it has been flailing over the last year or so. I may be a little too optimistic on that front, but we shall see.
I mentioned in a previous post meeting Raina the Halifax Mermaid at World Ocean Day last year. I decided to hire her for Grace's birthday party in March and it was an amazing experience. She and her little sister swam as mermaids with the kids for an hour in the pool, we had cameras and underwater cameras and the kids had a great time. Worth every penny and then some. Cannot recommend hiring a mermaid enough.
A few weeks later my dear friend and fellow knitter and dance teacher had a birthday and hired Raina. This time we sat and drank wine and hung out with a mermaid while dressed in under-the-sea themed outfits. I may have drank too much wine. But we had a blast.
In between there I attended a workshop with Yasmina Ramzy and it was amazing. She is an incredible woman with an incredible history and I learned a lot from her. I also got to bond with my dance family.
And I took a tarot class! Which was really fun and I am enjoying getting to know the cards and learning how to read them. I got a beautiful set of mermaid tarot cards, they are gorgeous.
I've been dancing and knitting and spinning and hanging out with good friends.
The kids are great, they are winding down their activities for the year and we are coming up on year-end recitals, plays and reviews. Cam is in Air Cadets and it has been such a positive experience for him. Grace is finishing her last year in ballet/jazz/tap and looking forward to performing in the recital and then getting to cut her hair. She and Gabriel plan to do circus school as their extra next year. Gabriel has been involved in gymnastics through the rec centre and got to do a course called "All Sorts of Sports" where he gets to try out different things. One week was skateboarding, and he loved it. We may be breaking our "no extras over summer" rule and enroll him in a week long half-day camp in skateboarding. Cam will be away for two weeks in July for cadet camp so if we can plan it to correspond with that and Grace may enroll as well, it would be lovely for all of them.
Things are good on the home front and promise to continue to get better. If we could just pull a lottery win...lol
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The Towel
Years and years ago when my relationship with my husband was fairly new, he suprised me one Friday evening with a present. We had been going out long enough that I was there every weekend, but were not yet at the point where my apartment had become just my cat's apartment and a place where I stored my couch. We were exclusive, but not "forever" serious yet.
It was in a pretty gift bag and he seemed pretty pleased with himself. I was pretty pleased to be getting a gift. I opened it up and found....
a towel.
A blue beach towel to be exact.
I was a little confused initially, and must have looked it, because he said "It's for here."
Then I understood. Being a new(ish) girlfriend I had tried not to complain too much about the towel situation, but it was a bit of a problem. He was a single dad and they didn't have a lot of towels, they hadn't needed them, it was just the two of them. The towels they did have were small ones, I liked to be able to wrap my towels right around my body. His were what I'd have called "hair towels", suitable for wrapping turban style around my head to dry my hair, but not for a good post-shower wrap up.
This new towel was big enough to wrap around me. And it was designated "mine", for my use when I stayed the night.
It seems like a small thing, this towel, but looking back the gesture was huge. Phil wasn't just giving me a towel, he was saying "I want you here, I want you to be happy and comfortable and have the things you need while you're here."
It marked a turning point for us...before too much longer I was there several nights during the week as well as weekends. I started bringing my laundry over (including some of my large bath towels) since I was never home long enough to do laundry...and that led to just leaving my clothes there since it was "easier". Before too long we made the decision to just have me move in...there was no sense in me paying rent for my cat. We combined our two households worth of stuff (linens and all), had those big Forever and Ever talks...
Blink your eyes, and it's 9 years and 5 kids later.
Phil's given me many gifts over the years, but only a handful with heartfelt sentiment as powerful as that towel had.
It was an indicator of how sweet and thoughtful he was. That he would think of my needs and do what he could to make sure I was happy. He still does that today. He works hard to provide the necessities as well as the creature comforts for his family.
I'm a very lucky woman. I have the towel to prove it.
It was in a pretty gift bag and he seemed pretty pleased with himself. I was pretty pleased to be getting a gift. I opened it up and found....
a towel.
A blue beach towel to be exact.
I was a little confused initially, and must have looked it, because he said "It's for here."
Then I understood. Being a new(ish) girlfriend I had tried not to complain too much about the towel situation, but it was a bit of a problem. He was a single dad and they didn't have a lot of towels, they hadn't needed them, it was just the two of them. The towels they did have were small ones, I liked to be able to wrap my towels right around my body. His were what I'd have called "hair towels", suitable for wrapping turban style around my head to dry my hair, but not for a good post-shower wrap up.
This new towel was big enough to wrap around me. And it was designated "mine", for my use when I stayed the night.
It seems like a small thing, this towel, but looking back the gesture was huge. Phil wasn't just giving me a towel, he was saying "I want you here, I want you to be happy and comfortable and have the things you need while you're here."
It marked a turning point for us...before too much longer I was there several nights during the week as well as weekends. I started bringing my laundry over (including some of my large bath towels) since I was never home long enough to do laundry...and that led to just leaving my clothes there since it was "easier". Before too long we made the decision to just have me move in...there was no sense in me paying rent for my cat. We combined our two households worth of stuff (linens and all), had those big Forever and Ever talks...
Blink your eyes, and it's 9 years and 5 kids later.
Phil's given me many gifts over the years, but only a handful with heartfelt sentiment as powerful as that towel had.
It was an indicator of how sweet and thoughtful he was. That he would think of my needs and do what he could to make sure I was happy. He still does that today. He works hard to provide the necessities as well as the creature comforts for his family.
I'm a very lucky woman. I have the towel to prove it.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Spinning!
A while back I showed off my new wheel, who I have since named "Ashley", but I never did show you what she can do.
The first yarns off my new wheel
The fibre is superwash merino from Yarn Pirate, in the colourway "Culture Club". I split it into 3 equal(ish) parts and spun 3 bobbins up and then started the 3-ply. I ended up with 2 skeins of 3 ply totally 236yards and about 58 yards of 2 ply. It's really soft and lovely.
Because the bobbins on the Ashford are smallish they fill up quickly. I like spinning on it, so for my next project I spun the singles on Ashley and did the plying on Charlotte.
Which resulted in this yumminess
349 yards of merino. The fibre for this was a gift from a friend and it's so pretty. I think this would make really great mittens.
One of the groups I participate in on Ravelry did a swap that coincided with the Tour de Fleece, which is a challenge for spinners to spin every day the Tour de France rides. The swap we did paired spinners with those who don't spin, and the spinners spin up 8oz of fibre into yarn to send to their non-spinner, and in return they get 8oz of fibre. Plus goodies. It's a good swap.
For my partner I asked local artist and belly dancer extraordinaire Uberwench to make something special. I told her I was aiming to spun 4oz of a semi-solid and 4oz of a multi coloured and then ply them together. I told her my partner's colour preferences and sent her off to her dye pots.
This is what she came up with
So pretty...and soft too, a lovely superwash merino.
I spun up the singles on Ashley, resulting in this loveliness
I got busy plying on Charlotte, and the resulting yarns are just amazing
As is typical with my spinning I had way more of one ply than I did of the other, so I divided the leftover multi and got about 189 yards. The 2 colours plied together yielded a whopping 945 yards. Depending on what she knits with it, she could end up up with some pretty subtle striping effect. I love this yarn, it was really hard to send off. But my swap recipient loves it too, and I have been assured that I can get more if I really really want it.
I also started spinning a 16oz lot of a bamboo/merino I bought years ago from The Unique Sheep on Charlotte. I love both wheels, and I am trying to get more spinning time in.
Which is good, because we've just added a fibre-bearing animal to our house hold. Not a sheep though, because even I can admit that would be crazy.
Meet Beatrix MacPoufybottom
She's a 5 month old black english angora. She's super soft and very loveable. I cannot wait to spin her fibre.
Look at those ears though!
No really, look at them!
Awesome.
The first yarns off my new wheel
The fibre is superwash merino from Yarn Pirate, in the colourway "Culture Club". I split it into 3 equal(ish) parts and spun 3 bobbins up and then started the 3-ply. I ended up with 2 skeins of 3 ply totally 236yards and about 58 yards of 2 ply. It's really soft and lovely.
Because the bobbins on the Ashford are smallish they fill up quickly. I like spinning on it, so for my next project I spun the singles on Ashley and did the plying on Charlotte.
Which resulted in this yumminess
349 yards of merino. The fibre for this was a gift from a friend and it's so pretty. I think this would make really great mittens.
One of the groups I participate in on Ravelry did a swap that coincided with the Tour de Fleece, which is a challenge for spinners to spin every day the Tour de France rides. The swap we did paired spinners with those who don't spin, and the spinners spin up 8oz of fibre into yarn to send to their non-spinner, and in return they get 8oz of fibre. Plus goodies. It's a good swap.
For my partner I asked local artist and belly dancer extraordinaire Uberwench to make something special. I told her I was aiming to spun 4oz of a semi-solid and 4oz of a multi coloured and then ply them together. I told her my partner's colour preferences and sent her off to her dye pots.
This is what she came up with
So pretty...and soft too, a lovely superwash merino.
I spun up the singles on Ashley, resulting in this loveliness
I got busy plying on Charlotte, and the resulting yarns are just amazing
As is typical with my spinning I had way more of one ply than I did of the other, so I divided the leftover multi and got about 189 yards. The 2 colours plied together yielded a whopping 945 yards. Depending on what she knits with it, she could end up up with some pretty subtle striping effect. I love this yarn, it was really hard to send off. But my swap recipient loves it too, and I have been assured that I can get more if I really really want it.
I also started spinning a 16oz lot of a bamboo/merino I bought years ago from The Unique Sheep on Charlotte. I love both wheels, and I am trying to get more spinning time in.
Which is good, because we've just added a fibre-bearing animal to our house hold. Not a sheep though, because even I can admit that would be crazy.
Meet Beatrix MacPoufybottom
She's a 5 month old black english angora. She's super soft and very loveable. I cannot wait to spin her fibre.
Look at those ears though!
No really, look at them!
Awesome.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Deep Fried Deliciousness
Lately the urge to attempt new and exciting things in the kitchen has become overwhelming. I got it in my head that I wanted to try my hand at home made donuts.
A quick google brought me some recipes and I read their reviews to see which one I wanted to try. I wanted something uncomplicated, with clear directions. I looked up info on frying, since I don't have a deep fryer I wanted to be sure I could do this safely.
Side note: since doing this Phil has suggested that we get a little deep fryer so I can make these without all the temperature fussing. Which sounds like a good solid theory. But...way back when I lived with a very good friend and she owned a little deep fryer and I became flat out addicted to making fries. Cutting up potatoes with the skins on, frying them until they are crispy as all get out and liberally dosing them with salt, using three-cheese ranch salad dressing for dip....omg so good.
Yeah. I do not need that kind of temptation again. One of the good things about doing it stove top is that it is kind of a pain in the ass, once in a while thing to do. If I have an easy-peasy deep fryer to work with then that could get dangerous to my waistline damn quick.
Anyway...I consulted with a friend who owns a cafe and makes incredibly good baked goods, and while she hasn't done much with this sort of baked good, she did warn me against making sure my temp didn't dip too low. If the temp is too low then the donuts would absorb too much of the oil and taste funny. Make sure I had a good thermometer.
Armed with that advice I tried my hand at making these beaver-tail style donuts
. The recipe was really easy to follow, and getting to punch down the dough after it rose was a lot of fun
Then you pull off bits of dough and roll them out flat. Usually beaver-tails are quite big, I wanted something smaller and more manageable.
Tip: very carefully lay them into the oil. Dropping causes splashing which causes burns on your fingertips
I thought I had a good thermometer but it turned out that while the one I had was awesome, it didn't go as high as I thought. I did my best to keep an eye on the temp by guessing where it was above the highest temps, but I was concerned about not letting the temp go to high (not wanting to have a kitchen fire. Again). As a result, I think I low-balled it and as a result there was a little bit of weirdness to the taste.
They were still really good. Most of them I coated in cinnamon sugar
They were very well recieved, the whole family enjoyed them.
The last bit I made up a bit of garlic butter to smear over them and topped that with shredded cheese
Those ones were awesome and I'm glad I only made a few of them since it would be super easy to over-indulge in those.
I'm looking forward to trying them again, next time I'll be able to monitor temp better since I bought a new thermometer that clips onto the side of the pot and goes up as high as I need it to.
For my next attempt I used this cake donut recipe. The dough has to be refridgerated for an hour before being fried up, so I mixed it before I went to dance class with the intention of frying it up just before watching the latest episode of True Blood with some knitters. I'm still not entirely what happened, but I suspect that I didn't have enough oil so the temp rose too quickly. The dough I dropped in immediately burned and the oil began to smoke, so the pot was immediately covered and removed from heat (then put outside because it stank).
I gave it another go, being very careful to use enough oil and monitor temp
This dough is rolled out and cut into circles. I used a little biscuit cutter since I was really just making donut holes (do they count as "holes" if you never made the donut part?)
The dough went from flat disks to puffy in the oil. They were then transferred to a pie plate with coffee filters on it to get the excess oil off. Popped them into a baggie with cinnamon sugar to coat them and ta da!
They were so good! The kids loved them! I loved them!
I plan on doing them again, but this time I'll make full sized donuts. The problem with these little bite-sized bits of goodness is that you can eat way more of them then you intended to.
My next kitchen adventures will be scones and then croissants. If you never hear about that again, you can assume it went horribly wrong.
A quick google brought me some recipes and I read their reviews to see which one I wanted to try. I wanted something uncomplicated, with clear directions. I looked up info on frying, since I don't have a deep fryer I wanted to be sure I could do this safely.
Side note: since doing this Phil has suggested that we get a little deep fryer so I can make these without all the temperature fussing. Which sounds like a good solid theory. But...way back when I lived with a very good friend and she owned a little deep fryer and I became flat out addicted to making fries. Cutting up potatoes with the skins on, frying them until they are crispy as all get out and liberally dosing them with salt, using three-cheese ranch salad dressing for dip....omg so good.
Yeah. I do not need that kind of temptation again. One of the good things about doing it stove top is that it is kind of a pain in the ass, once in a while thing to do. If I have an easy-peasy deep fryer to work with then that could get dangerous to my waistline damn quick.
Anyway...I consulted with a friend who owns a cafe and makes incredibly good baked goods, and while she hasn't done much with this sort of baked good, she did warn me against making sure my temp didn't dip too low. If the temp is too low then the donuts would absorb too much of the oil and taste funny. Make sure I had a good thermometer.
Armed with that advice I tried my hand at making these beaver-tail style donuts
. The recipe was really easy to follow, and getting to punch down the dough after it rose was a lot of fun
Then you pull off bits of dough and roll them out flat. Usually beaver-tails are quite big, I wanted something smaller and more manageable.
Tip: very carefully lay them into the oil. Dropping causes splashing which causes burns on your fingertips
I thought I had a good thermometer but it turned out that while the one I had was awesome, it didn't go as high as I thought. I did my best to keep an eye on the temp by guessing where it was above the highest temps, but I was concerned about not letting the temp go to high (not wanting to have a kitchen fire. Again). As a result, I think I low-balled it and as a result there was a little bit of weirdness to the taste.
They were still really good. Most of them I coated in cinnamon sugar
They were very well recieved, the whole family enjoyed them.
The last bit I made up a bit of garlic butter to smear over them and topped that with shredded cheese
Those ones were awesome and I'm glad I only made a few of them since it would be super easy to over-indulge in those.
I'm looking forward to trying them again, next time I'll be able to monitor temp better since I bought a new thermometer that clips onto the side of the pot and goes up as high as I need it to.
For my next attempt I used this cake donut recipe. The dough has to be refridgerated for an hour before being fried up, so I mixed it before I went to dance class with the intention of frying it up just before watching the latest episode of True Blood with some knitters. I'm still not entirely what happened, but I suspect that I didn't have enough oil so the temp rose too quickly. The dough I dropped in immediately burned and the oil began to smoke, so the pot was immediately covered and removed from heat (then put outside because it stank).
I gave it another go, being very careful to use enough oil and monitor temp
This dough is rolled out and cut into circles. I used a little biscuit cutter since I was really just making donut holes (do they count as "holes" if you never made the donut part?)
The dough went from flat disks to puffy in the oil. They were then transferred to a pie plate with coffee filters on it to get the excess oil off. Popped them into a baggie with cinnamon sugar to coat them and ta da!
They were so good! The kids loved them! I loved them!
I plan on doing them again, but this time I'll make full sized donuts. The problem with these little bite-sized bits of goodness is that you can eat way more of them then you intended to.
My next kitchen adventures will be scones and then croissants. If you never hear about that again, you can assume it went horribly wrong.
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