cloth.paper.string

orange. black.

Spicy black bean soup punctuated with carrots.  Pumpkin glow in chilly night.  Wrappers of junky bits snuck from the treat bowl.

May there have been a good mix of trickery and treat - and orange and black - in your day.

home :: environment

To me home is outside as much as it is inside.  We decided to make our home in this part of the world due, in many respects, to the natural environment.  But lately I've been feeling disconnected from the natural wonder around me as the myriad of home improvement projects currently underway have relegated my wanderings away from the homestead to hardware stores and home improvement meccas.

This weekend we played a little hooky and spent the day hiking and picnic-ing at a nearby state park.  So much a reminder that nature truly nurtures.  And that our little family needs to spend more playful time together as three, which not-so coincidently is the little one's new favorite word.  Three.

The day was also a reminder that, like the seeds on wispy tendrils pushing their way from a pod, the season is fleeting.  Thankfully we're nearing the end of the current round of house projects.  More to come on that soon.   

home :: afternoon sun

When the days are shorter, the sun shines directly onto the back of our home in the mid afternoon.  On lazy days we find ourselves settling in to the swatches of brightness, creeping every so slowly across the floor following the warmth offered by the sunlight.  Following the cat's lead as closely as she'll allow.

And closer, scratches and all.

home :: roots

While there have been a number of communities and at least twice as many houses that I've made home over the last decade, there are a few things that have remained constant.  One in particular is a pair of jade plants.  Propagated from stubby little clippings off a strong specimen in Albuquerque, these plants have grown and grown.  Depending on where they've spent their days in relation to the sun and the drafty windows that also seem to be constant in my homes, they have displayed times of pallid legginess as well as rich dark robustness.  They been hacked up by our cat, knocked about by the lively tail of our dog, nipped by frost, bumped about in the back of a u-haul over countless miles, toppled in their pots, and snipped at so that they would multiply on the windowsills of friends and family.  Resilient they are.

Our dining room window is currently home to one of the pair.  Nestled amongst the decorative randomness that comes with whisking things out of a toddler's reach as the toddler is able to reach, this succulent is pleased.  I've heard that jades are symbols of prosperity.  I look at the vibrance of these succulents and am reminded that even though it doesn't always seem so, there is much richness in my days. 

home :: work

The recent days of rain have hampered all exterior home improvement projects.  Our house is a sight to see, and I think the neighbors are starting to get nervous.  The front of the house is festooned with four colors of window trim if you count primer-white.  We're aiming for two colors ultimately, but so far only one has escaped the confines of the paint can and reached its destination.  On the roof we currently have two colors of shingles.  The roofers were driven away mid-project by rains and winds whipping off the lake, leaving this scene on the roof outside our bedroom window:

The pitchfork lies waiting to help rip through the many layers of shingles of the old roof, exposing even more colors.  Red, brown, gray.  As soon as the sky becomes less gray...

And if home-work wasn't crazy-making enough, work-work is finding its way home this week. 

It's actually good to finally knock some of those lingering things off of the to do list while in my jammies, but I'd much rather be knitting while watching the most recent netflix lineup with my sweet.

Oy.  This hasn't been an easy month to challenge myself to reflect on home.  But then again, there hasn't been much more than home stuff going on, so maybe this exercise is just what was needed to keep me from vanishing altogether from the little slice of sanity called cloth.paper.string.

home :: rocking

Afternoon sun in the living room, warming the seat of a special chair.  A wooden rocker from my great-grandfather's Maine farmstead; passed down to him, to my mother, to me.  The chair came to my home the week after our daughter was born, in the back of the car driven by my parents from Massachusetts to Minnesota.  A chair brought as a gift to honor the first of the next generation.  So that she could be rocked just as those before her. 

I like to imagine the number of days this chair has been graced by the sun in this manner, with the light filtering through the woven seat.  The number of times a distant relative fell asleep in the arms of a loved one while rocking in this chair; the number of times the said loved one fell asleep as well. 

As I rock my wee one in this chair the slight creak at each end of the rocking cycle is familiar to me, it is soothing.  In some ways this is home.

home :: recent visitors

Last month the little one and her dad started attending a story-craft-adventure time at a nearby nature center.  I so love happening upon the creations that they bring home from the craft table.  I imagine these bits will be the first of a long trail of kid craft that will come from her hands and her heart and her imagination.  This little creature is, of course, a fawn nestled in a bed a leaves in the forest.  She's warm.  She's safe.  She's sleeping.  Her mama is out foraging, but will be home soon. 

If the little one's first bit of cratiness survives the curiosity of our cat, I'm sure that I'll tuck it away, holding it as a sweet reminder of the autumn when she started saying her name as well as that of some of the animals that live in the nearby forests and fields.

home :: lead paint

The house we're making our home has seen many, many years and has seemingly worn as many colors.  The exterior trim alone shows layer upon layer of brown, beige, red, blue and even turquoise.  One small part of the great exterior renovation that we're aiming to finish up before the snow flies is the repainting of the outside of the front porch.  Sounds easy enough, but there are hours and hours of work ahead -- scraping, sanding, reglazing windows, puttying holes, priming and finally, painting.  The dirty work is falling on my sweet's shoulders as we're certain that amongst those layers is lead paint and increased lead exposure for me and the nursing babe isn't a good idea.  I'll step up the ladder when its time for glazing and painting.

With snow in the forecast tonight, I'm suddenly wishing we had been better worker bees this summer instead of being the crickets we were, flitting and playing through the forests and lakes and streams and beaches.  Yes, yes, there will be plenty of warm dry days ahead, perfect for painting; but, of course, these too are the days that will be perfect for playing.  Oh old house, do you really have to be so high maintenance all the time? 

so much better than a chain letter

I'm continually reminded of why I love this community of crafty bloggers.  Today I happened upon an invitation to receive a handmade gift from Siri Anne Marie (oops!!) at Life in Yonder.  The hitch?  Pledge to give a gift of handmade goodness to three others who will make the same pledge.  So, to quote, "I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."  Who's in?

home :: in season

Each week, for the last seventeen weeks, our sun porch has served as a little hub for food that is organic, local, fresh and community-supported.  Every Friday a dozen or so boxes of just-picked vegetables and fruits have been carried to our home by our CSA farmer and stacked on the porch for members in the area to collect.  Each week a selection of the farm's bounty.  Each week a great variety of amazingly fresh local food.  Each week a sampling of exactly that which is in season. 

Just one week remains.  I know that as I sweep the porch after the last box is picked up next week, I'll also have to sweep away the great denial I have about the growing season really coming to an end.  And about the trucked-thousands-of-miles lifeless selection of 'fresh' vegetables that will grace my plate in the months ahead.  And about the very long winter that is right around the corner.