royal buffet: new menu
March 28, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 7 Comments
we updated the shop all week . . . take a peek.
if only i could live in a messy house, then i would be able to make everything i ever wanted to make. it’s hard to sew when there are golden grahams underfoot, though. and jude wielding tacky glue, well, that just makes it sticky, tricky. when i was maybe 11 or 12 i used to smart off to my mom that when i was an adult i was going to have a maid named karen (which happens to be . . . my mother’s name). if we sell enough things on etsy i could get a maid named karen and then i could just do the fun things, like eat crackers in a spur-of-the-moment living room fort, and make things from paper and fabric all day while karen did the sweeping and the folding and the scraping of toothpaste from the bathroom sink.
you might need a change of scenery
March 27, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 9 Comments
we have been busy making things for the shop this week, staying up late making good things and thinking about staying up late making good things has gotten in the way of any inspired blogging, at least for me. there are only so many minutes available. lola sleeps, the boys use cafeteria trays and eat whatever i put on the trays as the food is immediately more appetizing when compartmentalized in such a way. who knew?
the other night annie and i ran off into the darkness leaving all but lola with the menfolk. it was much needed for me, to leave and not have anything that had to be done. lola shops well, watched as we rummaged (”i feel like a bulldozer,” annie says, shoving many a hideous dress and tapered pant towards the back of the bin), and came home the proud owner of a very raggedy ann pair of bloomers (as you can see above, worn with the ever-so-cute shoes made by devona and given to lola by kristen). we went to the dollar-a-pound goodwill and were astonished to not find any accidentally shrunken wool sweaters (which is what we went in search of and are usually abundant) and to find lots of good clothes that were too good for cutting at all (hurrah!). i love the way they wheel the bins onto a scale and measure it while everyone stands around anticipating the unanticipated dollar amount. there’s a long pause as the scale looks for the number, although not as long as the pause on the biggest loser.
ernie’s parents come to town this weekend and i have been told that ernie and scott will be installing the central vacuum that i got for christmas . . . in 2006. more cheering here. we currently suck crumbs and clips from the floor using a very powerful shop-vac, for which i am very thankful, even though it weighs as much as i do and has eaten many a lego and jude’s apron. yes.
the sun and blue are calling, only so many minutes, after all.
not way over in a bucket seat
March 19, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 1 Comment
we’ve been borrowing big daddy’s car this week because pearl decides to turn herself off at the worst times possible. “make no left turns!” ernie warns as we take off, fingers crossed atop the steering wheel. this is hard to do, dizzying at the very least.
i didn’t know we were borrowing the long-distance road trip car, the one with the hood that goes out for a mile, blue that meets the horizon with a shiny glint on the hood ornament. inside there are poufy leather seats, a handicap parking pass, and funny sunglasses. i feel like i’m driving a monster truck.
wearing it ’til the night comes
March 18, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 3 Comments
yesterday, green and shamrocked, gray overhead, we celebrated ernie’s birthday, a young and handsome twenty eight years old. we baked cake, cooked really fun and slightly scary things, spent the day in and out of the door of the dishwasher, ate too many sweets, and brushed our teeth with new toothpaste that is not flavored like orange bubble gum. we made these truffles and i will admit to spending today at home doing little but eating bon-bons and reading sad poetry. we need to clean the house, i promised to do so, the kids in the yard, lola asleep, i with more coffee and the sliced away cake batting her eyelashes at me from the counter.
i’ve been tired, falling asleep too early, the night escaping me, swallowed whole by a baby stretched out beside me, knowing when i leave her there to rest. once i’m there, the still of the house lulling dreamward, i can’t get away and out of it. i don’t know how ernie makes it through his twenty eight years of days on four hours or so of sleep a night, working and listening and thinking late into the darkness, sleeping for a moment, and then getting up to work more.
oh, lola, you want cake, you think you do. and, yes, henry is wearing a speedo so as not to be pinched for lack of green.
scream of a hawk
March 14, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 5 Comments
if you don’t get a copy of a toast catalog in the mail already, order one and when it comes your mailbox will smell peculiarly wonderful and your day may have a little more crusty bread, linen things, twilight.
toasty
pulling smooth rocks from the creek
walking sticks, left behind
daffodils, long stemmed, on the dresser
brown soap
dead trees and that wind slipping through them
reading outside
inability to stop eating apples
walking up the mountain and not knowing when to turn back
rosy cheeks
muddy cuffs
moss in a bag, a bucket, a pocket
the dream of forest dwelling
not-so-toasty
orange chucks
squabbling in the dirt
panting mountain bikers
hikers with umbrellas
skittles and the high that follows
starbucks, twice
no place or money-pile for a proper tipi
put on your evening dress
March 10, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | 4 Comments
several good things have happened in the last few days. enough loveliness and i’ll not be blinded by the things that get me down, right? first of all, deliciously, annie and chris and marsh came for dinner saturday night and we made pasta (long linguine noodles and horrible looking (my fault entirely) raviolis that were too good to be true) and meatball yumminess (who knew they could be so good?) and ate way too much with abandon. this must be done again, weekly we wish, although we will pay for it in the purchase of new pants to fit over our pasta swollen bodies.
next, i pruned the neighbors’ honeysuckle and mystery fast-growing prickle-vine that is growing over our fence and curling and twisting itself over our clothesline and while we clipped the washing machine washed and then we hung the clothes in a breeze with new clothespins, lola on a blanket in the grass, blinking and reflecting with her eyes, the sky all blue, pulled in a bow overhead.
and next, the change in the time that confused us at first and nearly made us late for church (i did miss that violin at the beginning) has made for the nice surprise of it being time for ernie to come home from work when i’m thinking it’s much too early, the sun in streaks spilling honey colored pools on the floors here, there.
and last, but, perhaps, most smilingly, my apron from the swap came in the mail and i gave a mildly awkward scream of delight when i opened it. thank you, kelly, you do a lovely thing to an apron! how you knew that my mixer is red and my appliances are golden, i do not know. perfect swapping, hooray!
cheer up, charlie
March 7, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
days of rain, days without, the mud inviting and exasperating all at once. jude brings daffodils from the yard, “all of them mom,” picked close to the tops, not much stem for water and jar. today they make mess after mess in the house, annoyed with each other as they mess-make. i’m tired and want to be alone for a few minutes, not many, just a few. ernie’s trip to colder places ends today and all of us who have melted because we’ve missed him will be glad of it. he only left yesterday morning! espresso pots, mobile envy and making, tiny house attempting, and a healthy dose of a movie we’ve not watched in a long time seems to help in bringing back those smiles i used to know, those grins of sunshine.
when i snapped the peony
March 4, 2008 | Filed Under ordinary | Leave a Comment
thunderstorms brewing beyond the trees, the city, somewhere and beyond in bursts of hot air, the claps of fast electric light shooting vibrations through space and sky. a good day for bread. yesterday it was sunny and breezy, jude throwing his clothes in the grass and running around all white and pale in the sun, henry in costume using that mouth of his to make those sound effects that boys make best. we had a picnic on our laughable deck, lola squinting at us from a blanket, kicking her feet crazy. the pears weren’t ripe, crunchy and barely sweet, disappointing.
although my ear was aching all day yesterday (?), i cleaned out the sunporch most thoroughly (the boys staying outdoors for hours on end allowing for this kind of endeavor), the space so nice that it’s depressing to have it full of junk that needs a better place. no more! a new desk comes soon, new to us, a desk that will hold the serger, the sewing machine, and all baskets of paper and scissors and glue and wire and glitter and tape. the concrete floor is cold under foot and scout’s gallops echo when he races westward. hooray!