Vroom! Vroom!

Back before I discovered my husband has obsessive/compulsive leaf sucker disease I intended to write about cars, guns, cats and pirates.   Since that time, we were ... cursed (no more leaf sucking) ... blessed (no more leaf sucking) with weather that looked like this.

Jeez....it's only October!

The dropping temperatures and white swirly stuff flipped a switch in my little brain and activated the finish Myra's quilt ...  finish it NOW lobe of my brain.  I had no choice but to listen to that voice in my head and get down to business.  Are you finished? you say.  Where are the photos? you say.  No. I say and I don't want to show you yet, I say.  I'm close, but there will be no photos until the top is finished and ready for quilting.  Soon, though.  Soon.  I hope.  In the meantime I intend to talk about cars, guns, cats and pirates.

A few days ago Pierce and I spent some time together while Leslie took a feverish, fluish Myra to the doctor.  There was only a brief moment of panic in his eyes as he saw the door close behind his mother, which I quickly squashed by grabbing a little toy car, pushing it along the floor and saying, "vroom, vroom" with a look of excitement in my eyes. 

He never stops moving

Sadly, that's the extent of my knowledge of how to play with boys.  Okay, not boys per se but little boys.....uh, small boys .....  um...........grandsons.    Anyway........I am the mother of two girls.  I have never developed the highly specialized skill of making noises.  Okay, that's not exactly true.  I know how to whine, cajole, and make mad mother noises, but I am a dismal failure at the noises cars make when they're being

Pierce knows how to make a gun noise....

pushed on the bedroom floor, or what a plastic pirate guy says or what that dragon you're swooping down to attack plastic pirate guy sounds like.  I'm not very good at sword play either.  I tend to be more worried about collateral damage.  I am sorta good at the gun cocking sound and pretty darn good at the gun shooting sound.  BANG! I say with a really loud voice.  But that's about it. 

So, when Pierce and I spent that time alone a few days ago there was alot of BANG! BANG!  VROOM!  VROOM!  in between lessons from Pierce on how to turn on the siren for the car and how to attack a cat. 

Cat wrangling is also a very important skill to develop.

He didn't seem to care that I only said BANG! when I shot the car or the cat with his gun (I did know how to cock it---so there!), or that I couldn't even come close to remembering what a pirate says.  I'm pretty sure it's not just where's my parrot? And when a dragon came swooping down to attack the pirate ship, he didn't even seem surprised when my dragon sound was"eeeeeeeeeee, roar, eeeee,  roar".  He just grabbed his sword and protected his little plastic pirate guy.◦

Vroom! Vroom!

A Man Obsessed

I intended to write a post tonight about my time yesterday with Pierce.  I turned on the computer, made a nice cup of tea, grabbed the camera so I could download my photos and then I saw this.  Yes, he is sucking up the leaves from the driveway.  I believe no other commentary is necessary other than--------

he missed one.

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A Man Obsessed

Myra's Quilt

I wish I could remember when I started Myra's quilt.  I know it was soon after she was born and I know she is now four years old.  I know it has taken me way, way too long to get to the point I am now and I know it will take way, way too long to get to the point when I can actually give it to her.

 

When Myra was little and not the big girl she is now, who does not use booster seats any more because big girls don't sit in booster seats, she and I sang Itsy Bitsy Spider.

And we played Pat-A-Cake, always marking it with an M and putting it in the oven for Myra and me

which was immediately followed by Myra sticking her feet up so we could play This Little Piggy Went To Market with her toes.

And because Myra is fearless and tumbles down alot and is rarely without a bandaid, Jack and Jill seemed appropriate.

The block that laid on the table all summer long, taunting me, wishing I would take the mere 15 minutes needed to finish it, was this, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  Last night I granted the wish and finished it.

Now all that's left is to decide which fabric to use for the framing, the blocks in between, the borders, put it all together and quilt it. 

Just a few small details.

I pulled out some fabric I had in my stash but I think I see a trip to the fabric store in my future. If anybody has any thoughts and/or suggestions about colors/design/fabric ...  please, feel free to share them with me.

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Myra's Quilt

Letting Go

While the folks here at home slid on ice-covered roads and shivered with single-digit lows, Abby and I were in Lincoln and Omaha surrounding ourselves with the soft sounds of taffeta, chiffon and satin which glowed in shades of white and ivory. Yes, we were shopping for a bridal gown. A perfect bridal gown. THE bridal gown.


There are an amazing number of bridal shops in business these days and there are literally hundreds of different styles and fabrics.  There are gowns in satin, chiffon, silk, or taffeta.  Gowns with huge puffy skirts, gowns with flowing skirts and gowns to make you look like a mermaid. There are gowns that lace up or button or zip.   Some are covered in beads or lace and some have absolutely none. There are gowns so heavy you'd need a weight-training program to wear them and gowns light and flowy.

The plan was to visit bridal shops on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.   Shopping for the dress you will wear on your perfect day brings forth thoughts of romance, feelings of love, and excitement about the future which will soon be your present. That's what the bridal magazines would have you believe anyway. I think we both thought it would be a relaxing, bonding, laughter-filled process broken up with lunch, snacks, and visiting, culminating in the discovery of the perfect gown. It was bonding, there was laughter and we did have lunch and snacks.  What the bridal magazines don't tell you though, is that in reality, bridal gown shopping is hard work.

It was two days of trying on anywhere between 30 to 40 gowns. I honestly lost track.  Over and over, out of the dressing room she would come, critically standing in front of the mirror to answer the all-important question "is THIS the one?" I knew Abby was wearing out near the end of day one, in store number three, when, as we were trying to decide which gowns she wanted to try on, she looked at me with that wiped out look in her eyes and said "would you please push the dresses along the rack for me."  Before we'd started shopping on Friday morning I didn’t believe it would be possible that she wouldn’t find a dress before Sunday.  Saturday morning when we were in our fourth dress shop and the perfect dress was yet to be found, even though I wasn’t sure how much more dress shopping either of our bodies could survive, more dress shopping on Sunday seemed a real possibility.


And then, at approximately 10:43 a.m., on Saturday morning, in a dress shop in Omaha, just as I was thinking to myself, “I guess I’m tougher than I thought…seeing her in wedding gowns hasn’t made me feel like crying”, out she walked in THE ONE.  She looked gorgeous. She glowed. There were “ahhhhhhhhhhs” from other brides-to-be and their mothers. And it turns out I’m not so tough. There was hugging and some tears.


I know I won’t be tough when the move to Ecuador comes. That’s when this letting go process that I both look forward to and dread will become achingly real. I know over the next few months there will be lots of
hugging and lots of tears. My heart will be bursting with joy for Abby and breaking into pieces all at the same time. I survived the letting go process with Leslie but practice does not make it any easier. I am not very good at this letting go thing. It should be easier to let go when your daughters have grown into loving, caring, intelligent, independent and open-minded women. It should be easier when they are both braver than I have ever been and are willing to break out of their comfort zone to experience new things and explore new ideas. It should be easier when they have chosen partners that I am happy and proud to call my son; men who I trust to care for my most precious possession. It should be easier because I have loved watching them evolve into successful women who have begun to build their own wonderful lives. It should be easy because I wouldn’t want it any other way. But it wasn't easy to let Leslie go and it's not any easier now as the time comes for me to finally let Abby go. One moment I think how exciting it will be for her to live in Ecuador with the man she loves, to experience another culture, to become fluent in Spanish, to find all those awesome bugs, to follow through and actually do something alot of us would be afraid to do.  And the next moment I want to grab onto her with both arms, dig my heels in and scream “don’t go!” And if I do scream out "don't go!" as she's heading to the plane, I know she will smile at me and tell me she loves me and not to worry. 

It will be okay.◦

Letting Go

Portland Endings ... Harvest Beginnings

We had our first really hard frost this week which means the end to garden growth but the beginning to garden harvesting.  I would be just as happy if all our produce came from the grocery store.  I'm not saying I don't enjoy the fresh produce, I just don't enjoy it enough to put forth the work.  Dean, on the other hand, seems to love the back-breaking dirt preparation, seed/seedling planting, weeding (not that he does much of that), and the all-important harvesting.  That's what's been going on this weekend.  Yesterday he pulled some of the 5,281 onions he planted, chopped them all up while wearing his specially purchased onion-fume-preventing goggles, and made some kind of pickled onion thing.  Our house now reeks of onions.

note the steam in the goggles

This morning just as I had taken the first sip of my coffee and was sitting down to read the paper  I found out Dean would "probably need help digging the potatoes before it rains."  I left my steaming coffee on the table, put on my dad's old army coat, my earband and snow boots, tromped out, and with my freezing fingers, in a wind chill of 25 degrees, plucked potatoes forked up from some of the 798 hills of potatoes Dean had planted and placed them gently in a box. 

Today he has been making green tomato chutney from the 16,275 tomatoes he has picked from his plants.  During a break in the chutney action I slipped in and mixed up a batch of sourdough bread which is now rising peacefully on the counter.   I wonder how many times I'll have to punch it down until there's another opportunity to slip in so I can form the loaves.

So......since it's a cold, rainy, gloomy day and my husband has taken over the kitchen it seems a good time to finish up with our trip to Portland.

On Friday we took a scenic drive.   I don't think this was part of the "scenic tour" but we were almost as impressed with  this cabbage field as we were with the many waterfalls we saw along the way. 

Scenic Drive--Click for slideshow

We ended our drive at the Bonneville Dam just as a barge was preparing to go through the locks.  I spoke to an older (even older than me) gentleman standing next to me as we were watching and he said he'd lived in the area his whole life and had never seen the locks in action so we were pretty dang lucky.  Once the process had completed, we checked out the fish ladders. 

Locks and Fish Ladders--click for slideshow

Saturday we were downtown again checking out the arts and crafts market and walking through Chinatown.  It turned out that it was also "Operation Overcoat" day and there was a long line of homeless people snaking its way down and around a couple of blocks waiting to get into a large fenced off area with tables of free clothing and food.  It was an up-close and personal reminder of how lucky I am. But seeing this in front of a school on one of our walks made me feel hopeful and happy.

As I've been writing this, the smell of onion in our house has now been replaced by vinegar fumes.  My eyelids are sweating, my eyes are watering and my nose is pinched.  I managed to sneak in and form my bread loaves although they're probably going to taste like vinegar.  I might be forced to open doors and windows to clear the air.  With the stiff breeze I see outside it probably wouldn't take long.  And even if the temperature inside drops down to 55 or so Dean should be used to it since that's my preferred sleeping temperature these days and can only be obtained by sleeping with a window open year-round.  I have noticed that the past few mornings there have been miscellaneous bits of clothing thrown across his side of the bed which he must grab during the night .....shirts, bathrobe...., apparently to increase his warmth.  I can't yet bring myself to switch from the summer bedspread to the comforter so today I added a blanket.  He should be toasty now.

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Portland Endings ... Harvest Beginnings

Updated Post--From the serene to the ridiculous

It turns out that it wasn't clear that the Arboretum and Japanese garden photos were actually a slideshow which could be viewed once you clicked on the photo.  Instead of a quick "fix" to make it more obvious, I quickly royally screwed up the whole post and have spent an embarrassingly large amount of time getting it back to something similar to what it once was.  And now....for anyone who is interested, you may now click on the above referenced photos and enjoy the slideshow.  Hopefully my next post of the final two days of our trip will go more smoothly. 

This morning I woke up and tried to blog yesterday's adventures before Dean got up but I couldn't get the photos to cooperate. About the time Dean was up, dressed and ready to go, my frustration level had reached the point of slamming down the top of the laptop and giving up.  In my frustrated state I reverted back to my normal state of needing to know "what the plan for the day is."   There was a Portland adventure today and I will tell you about it, maybe tomorrow, but right  now it's late afternoon, I am sitting on "our" front porch with a belly full of bagel, cheese, apple, and the all-important fruit of the vine.  I have music playing on the laptop, licorice to my left, and a glass of wine to the right.  And even though today's exploration was fun and unique, slowing down, relaxing and realising I don't always need "a plan" is the best part.  And honestly, now that I've just gone for my third glass of wine I might not be in any shape to do anything else anyway.  So....on to yesterday's Portland experiences and impressions.

On our walk "home" from purchasing our mouth-watering pastry to the freshly brewed coffee waiting for us, we saw this little guy running across the fence holding something as big as his own head in his mouth.  I'm not sure what it is but it looked to me like a hearty breakfast.

  You might need to click on all the photos to see more detail.

Our day's adventures began by missing the turn for the Japanese Gardens which turned out to be a great screw-up since we kept seeing trails off to the side of the road, finally parked and started "hiking." When we stumbled upon a visitor center we discovered we were in the Washington Park Arboretum.

Arboretum--Click for slide show

We hiked for 2 1/2 hours through the trees to a mansion with a view of Portland.

Finally, we found our way to the beautiful Japanese garden.    

Japanese Garden--Click for slideshow

From the peace and tranquility of the garden we soon found ourselves in the art walk which included anything from sorta, somewhat, kinda, "real" art to unique, weird, crazy, really?, no way, "art". We walked down and back up between ten to 12 blocks of folks set up on both sides of the street exhibiting their creations. If I thought I'd seen an inordinate amount of people with dreadlocks in "our" neighborhood, it was nothing compared to the percentage of people walking around with dreads in this Thursday night art walk. I saw the full gamet from beautiful, (one guy had them to his knees), multi-colored, tied up, free-flowing, to dreadlocks that looked like a bird was probably raising its young in it. I was impressed--both with the good and the bad. There were performance artists or "musicians" every half block. We saw a skinny guy walking around in his tidy whities and an underwear t-shirt (you know, the kind with skinny straps) and I guess because he had glitter on his face and some kind of design on his "clothing" he could be considered a "performance artist." There was a guy riding a bike, dressed up like the devil, with "music" blaring out of his boom box. We weren't sure but it appeared that people just showed up, found their spot on the sidewalk, set out their "art" and hung out. There was interesting art, pretty good art, really ugly art, why would anybody buy this?! art, and just junk. There was a 15-second moment as we were walking past one group of "artists" that made me feel I was in Woodstock. Think back to all the newsreels, movies, videos you've seen of the event---or maybe even your own experience---and you'll know what we walked through. It was quite the experience. I wish I could share photos with you but my camera battery died during the Japanese garden tour. The highlight of Dean's art walk seemed to be reminding me that "we could have taken a photo of ____ if the camera was still working." Like I needed to be reminded. I only hope some of them will show up at the arts and crafts market we plan to go to Saturday so I can redeem myself. I'm not holding out alot of hope, though.

One impression from each of us of Portland so far-----

Me: Dreadlocks everywhere. I love them.

Dean: Finds himself checking out every old Volvo he sees which makes him wish he could resurrect our '81Volvo wagon

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Updated Post--From the serene to the ridiculous