hollyhock & friends

15 May

So, we’ve got the chickens, the ducks, the dogs, the cat, the little garden, the ridiculous internet and phone connectivity, the well, the propane tank, the septic tank, the precipitous road, the mud-caked boots, the canning jars, the whippoorwill, the woodpecker, the deer, the turkey, the bear, the skunks, the forest…but none of those things really said to me, You truly are a country girl now.  I’ve always just felt like a pretender.

Until now.

Because now there grows a hollyhock out back by the hen house and the apple tree.

I was walking back there, completely zoned out, as usual, doing some other something, and there it was!  My own hollyhock!  And it was like

you’re a country girl oh yes you are.

Whatcha doin?

I’ve been writing!  And editing!  And setting up another blog!  And refinishing furniture!

My Ninja Sewing Master is having her very own art camp this summer, and I’m going to help a bit.  She is quite talented, my master–the kind of person who reallyreally needs to blog so that she can pass along her ideas to the world, but she’s too busy living and working out her ideas, and just being.  Opposite of shallow.

Did you know I collect friends?  I do.  They’re like little pieces of beautiful sea glass, each shining and exquisite.  There’s the dainty one in her yellow farmhouse who keeps classic tv shows playing in the background and who sews and creates.  Then the bubbly strawberry blonde who is the most tactile person I know, and who encourages kids to spread out and get dirty and live.  Oh, and the sage in her tranquil abode, who is either in the garden or in the kitchen–growing unusual heirloom plants and then coaxing them into meals fit for kings.  And then the wee Brazilian who rarely stops moving, and then only to sleep, and who is cursed with a bleeding heart–a genuine love and concern for every creature on this planet, and is constantly trying to meet every need from every person she knows, and I think she remembers 1000 birthdays.  And my dear artist friend who is a mermaid-spends more time underwater than above it, and who I’m sure at this moment is feeling the pull of Greece and her favorite swimming hole.  And of course the loud one who lives next door and who may or may not be related to me, and who will always be the yin to my yang, and if you know anything about yins and yangs, then you know that means I need her, because I would not be who I am without her.

Friends–people–are beautiful, no?

Blahblah.

Bye.

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Wishin, Summer

08 May

In my dreams I could give away one of these pups on my blog every year.

{Electra “Daisy” via here}

{Electra “Tree of Life” via here}

{Electra “Gypsy” via here}

{Electra Navajo via here}

Which do you think is awesomest?

Forget about the basket; you can get baskets for any of them.  Don’t focus on the basket.

And the winner would also get a scarf to tie round her neck and blow in the wind.

And a six-pack of soda to peddle over to a friend’s house to sip on her back steps in the very late afternoon sun while her husband gives the babies a bath.

And they would laugh together, this winner and her friend, and sweat a little in the humidity and gaze out at the old water tower just beyond the weedy lot behind her house.  And for a few minutes the babies would quit fussing in the background and all they’d hear was the sound of happy splashing bathwater, and dinner plates clinking in the distance, and a dog barking down the street.

And one friend would think that nothing, absolutely nothing, can mimic the glow of the sun, and the other friend–well, she’d just think how reassuring it is to have a friend.

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What Do You Do With Middle Schoolers During the Summer?

07 May

And that’s not a rhetorical question.

Please tell me.  What do you do with middle schoolers during the summer?  Because all I know is what I don’t want to happen this Summer, which is all-day movie or gaming marathons.  Or bickering, bickering, bickering with his sister.  Zeke will be thirteen in June.  That’s a few years too young to get hired anywhere.  But a few years too old to look cute doing nothing.

We’ve read What Ever Happened to Penny Candy this year, which I had hoped would revolutionize the kids’ attitude toward money.  And now we’re reading Common Sense Business For Kids, which I hoped would spark a bit of entrepreneurship.  But no.  They still want to do nothing and get paid for it.  I’m like, Dude (and Dudette), c’mon, we just talked about this; that’s socialism. I asked Zeke to brainstorm and come up with a list of things he could do this summer to earn some cash.

1.  Build rockets.

2. Build rockets for other people.

3. Teach other people how to build rockets.

4.  Be a traveling rocket-building teacher within our neighborhood.

So, I guess he’s just going to have to mow lawns.  Or what do you suggest?

I made this document this morning for him, but he doesn’t know it yet.

There’s a little spot for him to write “Zeke’s” at the top, and draw a picture–which will no doubt be of a rocket.  And a line for an address, estimate amount, and phone number.

If, perchance, you have a socialist middle schooler who needs a job, and you too are desperate, by all means…use the wee form. { Get it here:  lawn mowing template}

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Free Apron Sewing Pattern

28 Apr

I thought it would be nice to make a cafe apron, vintage style.

{I wanted to hold something kitchen-ish in the pic, but I didn’t know what to hold.  A bowl?  A skillet?  Food?  How should I know?  I spend as little time in the kitchen as possible.  But now I look like grrrr! here i come with me shpooon!}

To make the apron you will need: a yard of fabric (cut to one 36″ x 19.25″ rectangle, and three 36″ x 2.5″ strips)

A pack of bias tape:

And a pizza pan, mixing bowl, and large cup or glass.

Use the pizza pan to round out the bottom two corners of the rectangle.

Then use the cup or bowl to round out the top two corners.

Then place the center of the inverted bowl on the center of the top of the rectangle and trace around it.

Trim off corners and center.

For two of the strips: iron the long edges in toward wrong side of fabric .25″, then in again to create hem.  Then iron one short end on each of the two strips over .25″ then .25″ again to hem.  (You will have one end on each of the two strips with a raw, unhemmed edge.)  For the last, third, strip, measure around the top “bowl” semicircle of your large rectangle.  Whatever this measurement is, add.5″ to it and then cut the third strip to that number.

For the shorter strip, iron long edges in just once, .25″, and both short edges in once, .25″ to hem.

Starting on one side of the center semicircle, sew the bias tape around the rectangle, ending on the other side of the semicircle.

Now place the right side raw edge of one of the longer strips under the right edge of the semicircle, like so:

And then do so with the left:

Sew each strap in place.

Next fold in half the last, shorter, third strip.

Pin folded strip over edge of semicircle like: {You’ll have to kind of scrunch up the strap a bit.}

Pin in place.

Then pin the other end in place.

Then pin the entire strip over semicircle.

Edgestitch along all four sides of strip to secure and finish.

Done.

Now go cook something or hold a big spoon.

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barre

26 Apr

Her room gets the last ten minutes or so of direct sunlight in the day.

And her ballet barre the last of the last.

She was away tonight, and I was home doing laundry and I saw her old small shoes there, illuminated.

And I was just thinking she’s really beautiful, and I’ll never ever stop worrying about them, will I?

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upcycled yardstick

19 Apr

I wanted to try some of the frenchknotness I saw here.

Of course mine is lame compared, but I had fun.

Oh, and if you need to organize some embroidery thread–oh, oh, sorry….floss–I recommend drilling big holes into an old ruler or yardstick and then dangling your thr floss through the holes.

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lovely mess

18 Apr

It rained and petals came off.

What a lovely mess.

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a vintage day

17 Apr

So.

Messing around with some photos.

My five-year-old niece likes my umbrella, I guess, because she said, “Oh, I like that.  And soon it’s my birthday.  And I like that.”

Here it is normal.

And then with an action called “Bloom” that I can’t find with Google right now:

And then with “Vintagey Look“:

And here’s an old mirror, normal:

And then with a “Victorian” action applied:

Hmmm.  Well, at any rate, slightly fun to play around with.

My poor niece.  She has a major allergy thing going on because Knoxville is, quite literally, a bowl of pollen right now.  Her ears are clogged up and she can’t hear very well.

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shadows

15 Apr

I’m listening tonight to Mat Kearney’s Learning To Love Again and Taylor Swift’s Hey Stephen.  Stuff like that where nobody is yelling at me and it’s like riding in a truck in late Summer with the window down and you’re the passenger so you get to look at everything and not concentrate on staying between the lines and you and the person you’re with don’t have to talk to enjoy each others company and you only pass about one car every four or five miles and the sun is going down and you’re so happy that you’re a little bit sad.  And you don’t know why.

But it’s something like Matthew Henry’s words Earth is made bitter to us, that heaven may be made dear.

Always this bitter shadow.  No, not a shadow!  The good itself must be the shadow!

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face…(1 Corinthians 13:12)

When you reach the peak of all that this world has to offer–those fleeting moments that are individual and once, and the only place to go from there is away to someplace unearthly, and there is bliss and then that wonder This is a shadow of what?

WHAT?  Show me what!

There is no imagining a place where those beautiful moments are no longer just moments and time is just a word forgotten and we can’t have hearts because they would arrest with joy and explode in overcapacity.

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Of 7-Eleven Weenies and Such

15 Apr

I suppose all of us are different types of shoppers.  I am probably what you would call a strange sucker?  I’m definitely not an impulse buyer.  My kids are always wanting those annoying dangling items in the middle of the store aisles that have nothing to do with anything, or the stupid endcap items that have nothing to do with anything, or the teeny weird items at the register that have nothing to do with anything, and I’m like When have I ever bought those?  Hush. And I like me a list.  Or else I forget why I have entered the store and I find myself standing in front of the assortment of teas and just admiring the various artwork on the labels.  It’s very sad how distracted I get.  A lot of times, when I drive down our long horribly bumpy road to the “main” (that is, paved) thoroughfare, I have to sit for several moments to remember which way I’m supposed to be turning and where it is I’m going.   And I put the milk in the pantry a lot and it curdles.  Stuff like that.  So, yes, a list is a must.  But what really gets me in trouble is that I tend to personify things.  For instance: Say I am getting a can of pears.  All of the cans of pears on the shelf are perfect, except two cans are bashed in.  I have to buy those two cans.  Because, and I understand how utterly moronic this is, I feel sorry for them.  For the cans of pears.  When we went to look at puppies five years ago, I picked out the one that looked like a sad turd of a pup because I just knew that nobody else would ever ever pick her.  She’s still a sad turd of a dog, but I love her so much.  Sometimes I’ll buy a shirt or something because it’s ugly and I want it to know that it too is loved and worth wearing.  It takes every ounce of strength in me to not buy those nasty shriveled convenience store hot dogs that have been rolling on their roller things all day.  I don’t think I’d ever be able to actually eat them, but when I walk past them I want to just cry because it’s like nobody loves them, and I want to take them all home with me, but if I started bringing convenience store weenies home I would be in big trouble and have to go to counseling.

So anyhow, on Thursday I went to an estate sale and, well, it happened again.

I saw this nativity set and I was like Don’t do it, Shannon!  Be strong!  Do not personify objects!

But then someone tripped over it and knocked it over.

And the poor wise man with his gone face.

And the angel looked like she was saying, “Help…me.”

And the donkey’s leg.

And the sheep’s leg.

You’re safe now, old plastic Christmas figurines.

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