In our house, chaos reigns. Rather than tame the crunched up cheerios on the floor, and the sea of toys and books that covers the living room floor, we seem to invite it. The colors or our walls certainly don't match the inviting, airy, calm homes you find on Pinterest and in home design magazines. Nope. Colorful walls for colorful people.
The 52 Project (an update)
Listening to a book on tape on another snowy, frigid day.
He won't take a nap any which way I encourage or try. But then there's a lot of this these days. Mid conversation, full snow suit pass out's.
He finally decided she's okay enough to keep, and gives her frequent hugs and "I wove you Wiwo." Occasionally accompanied by the snowy mitten hand to the face.
Trying to get his attention any which way, always.
If all else fails, get his attention by eating his toys. Works every. time.
If you've followed me over from my blogger blog, you may have noticed something missing. The 52 Project, a portrait a week of each of my children. I thought and thought about whether or not I wanted to continue doing them (and continue any personal/parenting blog posts on my new site as well.) The answer, after much deliberation, was yes. I like having these treasures to look back and see how far our children have come, how mch they've grown. But I don't always love them as a beautiful portrait, and those weeks, I wasn't excited about sharing them on the blog. So, I haven't stopped taking portraits of my kids, just relaxed a bit with posting so frequently. (I've been posting some over on Instagram while I got this new site up and running.) So while you will see some portraits of my kids from time to time, I will be more lenient about posting them. Keeping some portraits just for our family, and not feeling like I have to post one every week. Just sharing them with you when they are works I am proud of (and that I don't think my kids will hate me for sharing when they are teenagers). So here are a few of my favorites so far this year. You can expect the next installment.... sometime.
We Are Bakers
This post originally appeared on my blogger site in Sept. 2014.
We are bakers. The recipe on the bag of chocolate chips when the days are hard and we need a quick and trusted pick me up. Cracking open a new cookbook and jamming to the tunes of Stevie Wonder when the days are good and we're feeling adventurous. Filling bowls of berries under the warm summer sun, coming home to layer with fresh shortcakes and whipped cream and savoring as the sun sets on another summer day. Pulling the same berries from the freezer on a cold evening and dumping them into a buttery crust to relish by the fireside months later. He has been there, since the beginning, in a sling or on our hip until he got big enough to stand on tiptoes and steel fingers full of butter and sugar and sweet things and then ask for more.
The absence of buttery goodness in our house is a sure sign of something amiss. Like a puzzle whose pieces were all in their place, dumped out and now scrambled in a pile. Our family of three is now four and fitting the new puzzle pieces together takes time. Staring over the pieces, sifting through, until the "aha" moment when you find that one piece you were looking for.
And we've found one piece. At least for today. We found our time to bake, make, taste, and dance a little too. A new recipe at that, though Stevie will have to wait for fear he'll wake the sleeping babe. As my little boy sits on the counter, socks caked in flour, legs smeared with butter, mixing, mixing- my mind flashes forward. To years from now, a little girl sitting on the counter in just the same way, her brother away at school. Just as I flashed backwards the first time I put her in the wrap snuggled against my body. To a baby boy nearly three years ago, in that very same position, that very same wrap, and almost that very same face.
This is just a season in our lives. Just like the cookies we bake, it will be gone before I know it, and I'll stand there, wondering, where did it go?
It takes time to fit a good puzzle together. For now, we'll savor this one moment when this one piece of us fit perfectly into our day. And trust that we'll get there, find the rest of the pieces, fitting the intricacies of this new family together.
Eventually.
In the meantime, we'll share another cookie.
Above Freezing
It's been cold. I mean- really, really cold and snowing more feet than I can count. So when the temperature crept above freezing and the sun came out, we slipped into our snowpants, grabbed the beach toys and soaked it all up. (Because it certainly didn't last long. Today was back to below zero wind chill.) And despite what it may look like, we weren't putting the kids on an iceberg and pushing it out to sea. Though I thought of doing just that for myself, because the way I heard it, it actually might be warmer at the North Pole and is most definitely warmer in Alaska. Sunday though, Sunday gave us a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Welcome!
Welcome to the new Thread & Ladle website & blog! I'm so excited to share a new space with you!
When I started blogging in September 2012 I had no idea of where I was going. I just thought "I'd like to do that," and off I went with no real direction or goal. I've come to very much enjoy blogging, writing and photography as a creative outlet, but as life goes on my work as a knitwear designer is taking over much of my creative time. (Which is so very limited with a 3 year old and infant in tow!) I started feeling like I wanted a space that would better showcase my design work and have a lovelier aesthetic overall. Thus my new website.
If I'm being honest, I'm still not quite sure where I'm going. So while the knitting, crafts & food blogging will continue here, there will still be some parenting & personal blogging sprinkled in too. Because as I said, I've really come to love blogging for blogging sake, as well as all the comments and conversation from parents, grandparents, knitters, gardeners and DIY-ers alike. In that vein, some of my most favorite and popular posts from my old site will make there way over here to share with the new folks I'm sure I'll meet along the way. (My apologies if you've been following already and it's a repeat for you.)
Also new is my logo! Hurrah! I'll be updating all my patterns with the new logo and making a few formatting changes in order to keep things consistent between patterns. If you've already purchased a pattern it will automatically be updated in your Ravelry library. But don't worry- they are still 100% knit-able in the mean time.
But that's not it! Come join me in the new Thread & Ladle Ravelry Group! Pretty soon I'll be hosting my first ever KAL, prizes included!
I look forward to the same friendliness and community that I enjoyed on my old platform and hope you will too!