cold, cold, cold

I can’t believe it’s december.  No, I can.  Life is so surprising and then really not at all. 

The days have been busy and they last forever.  It’s like this and that.  Everything and then nothing. Moments of full fledged joy bursting from within and then despair, our spirits dragging behind.  

Perseverance and gumption.

Almost daily we go for a walk in Priest Point Park.  Dog parks are scarce in this town and this is the new meeting place. Hank is bananas for a romp in the woods.  He gallops like a horse up and down the trail and deep belly laughs fly over my shoulder from Sawyer on my back.  He pretty much thinks Hank is the funniest guy around. Hank is his Tig Notaro.  A little kiss behind the ear? Forget it. Cackling like he's never heard a better joke. 

Once while we were walking in the woods we ran into a dog Hank used to play with at the dog park across from our old house. They hadn't met for a couple of years and I swear they remembered each other.  They frolicked up a storm and were, what I perceived to be as, smiling.

This week I braved our weekly grocery shop alone with baby. Something I’ve only done a handful of times and it’s always a little hairy. He melts down, I get flustered, accidentally go when I’m hungry, or decide not to get a cart and wind up looking like a total nut. This week, I put him in the kids seat in the cart and gave him a carrot to gnaw on.  He was so content. Sure, I got distracted and poured out a few extra pounds of sunflower seeds, but we did it.  I was triumphant and felt like clapping and laughing. Plus the citrus is making its debut and that is worthy of applause.

Mclane Nature Trail

Fading Flowers

Darkness is creeping quick onto the days. Everyone is talking about it and I'm that jerk that secretly likes it.  Maybe it comes with being rooted in the Northwest. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm so happy when the sun is out and the feeling is glowy. Sure, I dream of drifting on a sandy cloud with a river running thru and a sunhat the size of a pizza. But I think there is a fulfillment for me to having dark times. If it's not a need, at least I feel at home in it. The short days to crawl back into bed, walk thru dark damp woods, forlorn music, grey, muted colors. I've been told my clothes are washed in clay. I guess this is why hot pink sweaters and turquoise socks have snuck into my closet lately and why Dean puts this record on. They force the light in. I need that force sometimes; superficial or not. Getting stuck in the dark is no place to be.

 I can't get enough of the fading flowers. They peer thru the dim light; a nod to summer, a bow to winter.

Halloween happened. We carved pumpkins after Sawyer went to sleep. We weren't going to because of being lazy but a hacked up kitty face quickly found it's way on our porch. It was a quick and dirty job; the two of us carving simultaneously on a big pumpkin head, unstoppable laughter. We didn't win any carving contests but a dim and toothy glow, unintentionally frightful, greeted the deluge of treaters tromping up to our house.

Typical Halloween sky.  Typical baby pumpkin.

Inspiration // Deflation

Nothing to make you reflect on your life more than writing a short bio.  I am applying for a scholarship to take a little printmaking class and the only requirement is a "short bio".  Doesn't matter who you are, they just want to keep a record of everyone who has applied. Sounds easy. But I sat there for too long wondering what to include, what to leave out. Makes you feel glad you took some chances when you were young and wished you'd taken a few extra spirited leaps.  I start very dryly with "Lauren Holman was born on Bainbridge Island WA in the Spring of 1984" followed by "In 2008 she graduated from Evergreen". It's standard to skip your entire childhood but it feels like a pretty big fast forward. Is our adult life all that counts?
          
"She liked skipping rocks at the beach as a youngster and going to bed with sand in her hair. Preschool was enjoyed immensely.  Holman especially liked the Water Station where you wrung water out of sponges and also the Hammer Station where you pound nails into a rounds of wood, safety goggles tightly secured. The following twelve years were approached with great skepticism.  Adolescence was spent listening to The Cure, pretending not to worry about boys and focusing really hard on being different and sad."

I admit, I don't actually know how to skip rocks. Every few years I try again, and rarely, in a moment of magic, one small disk of compressed matter skims across the water.

I already feel settled here in Olympia. In the first few weeks I spent every spare moment unpacking and making home. Now we are establishing routine and lolling around the the town, and also the floor. I've been distracted, as I often am in life, wanting to read engaging pieces like this article , "A neighborhood garbage man explains Egypt" and listen to this addicting podcast, Serial.  (Seriously, this new podcast is riveting.  I know I'm always blabbing about podcasts but if you want to be on the edge of your seat, and slightly disturbed, this is the one.)

Jill came for a visit and that was a great distraction.  We ate rice cakes and peanut butter. I was instantly transported to age seventeen, listening to Rocky Racoon in her white Pontiac. Probably eating rice cakes with peanut butter on our paper delivery route at 3 in the morning.

Watching this short video on handwork reminds me of why I'm trying to do what I'm doing.  And always, Ira Glass on taste.  Good for a push.

Lately we've been watching a little Roseanne.  Roseanne came out in 1984.  This was the year I was born.  And it's still good.  Dan and Roseanne are TV relationship role models.  Thanks to my brother for keeping up with modern times he suggested transparent.  We gobbled it up in only a few nights. A good break from the 80's.

One more thing.  Kids keeping it real.  Makes you feel pretty silly and fake as a grown up. Pretending to like things and feel a certain way.  Kids are so honest. Why do we lose that? I mean, I know why. But seriously, why?

Afternoon tea with pink ladies, billy-bobs, old brown sweatpants and Dean.  Green tea and fancy cakes. This little critter crashed the party. Happily so.

Angled Autumn Light

In a whirlwind we moved.  We were little tornados whizzing by snatching things up and twirling them around hoping they made it into a box, into a truck, into a house, onto a shelf.  Not caring much if they don't because we have plenty. Always too much.  All the little odds and ends you scrape up when you move.  Things you think you might need some day.  A pile of zip ties, a few hooks that screw into wood, tiny pieces of wood I will paint miniature paintings on someday.  Some things made it here, a lot did not. I notice that every time I put an item in the giveaway box I felt a deep sense of relief. Every dish that breaks is a blessing.  One less thing.

If there's anything to make you feel crazy it is to move. There's the physical toll and the mental exhaustion. To piece together all your belongings and mementos and put them in boxes and try to keep track of it all and then shove it all into your mind. Your tired mind. The little fragments that bring up all the  memories, some good some bad some sad.  Processing items, processing thoughts. Pick up the baby and be present. Ask for help and try to tell people what to do. Which you aren't very good at. Little life learnings along the way.  Why not.  No time for showers, no time for proper eating, sleeping is for babies. Or not. It all felt impossible at the time but you can't admit that. You trudge forward.

And now, somehow, with heaps of help, we've landed. And it feels SO GOOD. To unpack, to sit down for a second. We haven't unpacked most of our boxes in over a year. We are at a place we know we can stay at for a minute (or millions of minutes) and I didn't know how much I would enjoy that feeling.  Our house is smaller now and that is easier to handle.

We live in a neighborhood with next door neighbors. A funny thing we saw this morning was our neighbor, Rex, a gruff guy, out at dawn wrapped up entirely in a blanket.  He was holding his little kitten and sitting on his lawn art, a cement mushroom.

I've been buying a lot of bananas. Keep forgetting we already have some.  Maybe I actually just want to make banana bread.  I usually do. 

I also made granola.  Makes the house smell welcoming and familiar. I ate it by the handful probably spilling a lot because it was too good for careful eating. It's stuff for wild animals. I cannot get over this recipe. There has never been a better granola.  I'm sure of it.  If you do not like granola now you will.  If you do like granola, your love will grow deep.

New shirt sewn with the help of my ma.  Pants I never take off.  Blanket in the grass.

A bourbony, plum concoction with a sprig of thyme. Not my creation only my consumption. Another blanket in the grass. A picnic at August Farm.

I wore a dress and we felt fancy for a minute.  I was challenged to socialize with a babe squirreling around on my hip.  There were some (ok many) abandoned and dead-ended conversations, but it was all so worth it.  For the potato donuts alone. For the dappled light and laughing friends. The wood smoke and heirloom tomatoes.  The apricot fool and the fields of flowers. And then we came home.  Home.  I think by now we are pros at making a house a home.  Quickly things fall into place and routines get made.  Plus it's fall, a popular season for good reason. 

ODDFELLOWS & CO.

Humans; Eating, Not Eating.

Joining along with this thing again.  

Making plum jam for a crostata. Think I may need to have real Italian bones to get the recipe down. I will keep trying though.

Making calendula-eucalyptus gardeners soap.  Sold here.  Feels good to be back back at it.

Dad's bread. Perfect, always.

He delivers in the flour bags.  Genius.

Make your own kitchen in an apple orchard.

Garden haul.

Weekly menu planning.

Mostly we eat tacos.

My tea from debris.

End of summer garden flowers.