The Gamble Life

jewelry and cotton fleece

I've been doing some beading.  I love these three ceramic beads (the large green, teal, blue ones) and finally found the perfect other beads to put with them (after having them for years and years).

All these beads actually came from Michaels if you can believe it.  They are all glass or metal.  So pretty--I can't wait to dress up and wear this set somewhere.

And these are just some of the necklaces I made over our visit to Austin...a few other necklaces were made and given away already.

I'm enjoying doing something other than knitting with my hands, although I'm doing lots of that too.  Beading is much faster though...I can make a necklace in an evening.  And if I don't like it taking it apart and starting over is easier and less traumatic than taking apart a knitted item.  And, frankly, I put less pressure on myself to do a really good job beading since it isn't something I've spent the last 21 years doing, like knitting is.

Oh, I also have to update up on the cotton fleece blanket from Garnet Hill.  I bought the cotton one because I didn't want to give my honey a cozy plastic blanket even though in years past I have extolled the virtues of polyestor fleece and we own plenty of it.  I am avoiding plastic for one thing, and for another I had seen a little girls dress made out of cotton fleece and it was so amazingly soft.  So is this blanket.  Wow.  Polyestor fleece cannot even compare to cotton fleece.  If you are in the market for a new blanket I urge you to save up the extra money (it isn't that much, but it is more) and go for the cotton.  You'll be so glad you did.

Happy Birthday Chris!

It was my husband's birthday yesterday, and we had a great family celebration at home.  Gus of course completely loved it.  When you're five all you want is to be older so every birthday is a thrill for him.  In fact, I'm not sure how many of Chris' candles he blew out and how many Gus blew out.

He asked for chocolate cake with chocolate icing and I wanted to make sure I got it right.  I picked this recipe, and oh my god is it good.  And that is even with the many mistakes I made!  I read the ingredient list, but failed to note quantities so when I'm mixing up everything at home and it started calling for things like 1 1/2 CUPS of cocoa powder or 1 POUND of chocolate I got a little worried.  Basically I used up everything I had and I guess it was enough.  I also used 9" pans because I don't have 10" pans and ended up with some cake on the bottom of my oven. 

This is maybe the first cake that I like the cake part as much as or maybe more than the icing part.  It is so moist and delicious.  The icing is amazing too--sort of like a spreadable chocolate bar.  The cake was a great success, even with all my errors.

Gus make this pencil cup for Chris' present, from tissue paper, glue and glitter.  Pretty good!

One of Chris' presents from me was this blanket...cotton fleece.  And I am in love.  I usually get far too hot at night and end up sleeping with just the sheet or nothing, but this blanket is perfect.  And so ridiculously soft.  Wow.  I'm so glad I got it for him.  And glad it wasn't his only present or he might question my motives.

As I've gotten older birthdays are not quite as exciting as they used to be.  I don't know about Chris, but I thought this birthday celebration was pretty good.  We still have our birthday date to go on (gotta line up that babysitter), but we had fun celebrating with our little family here and I appreciated how lucky I am to have Chris in my life.

"Ber"

Literacy...isn't it great?  We were talking about bears and why they don't live in the woods around our house.  

It's been an exciting year academically.  Gus can now sound out tons of words and is learning about the "magic" e and other more complicated sounds (th, ch, sh).  And as you can see he is working hard on writing and can sound out the words he wants to write too.  One day he wrote completely on his own in a little notebook that he'd be given "strting of gusis notbok".  So cool.

Chris and I love to read and Gus loves books too.  I am thrilled that language, reading, and writing are going to be part of his life because I know that books and words can bring so much that is good into your life.  They give you a view far beyond your own life, let you travel from your home, develop empathy and knowledge, expose you to things you won't find in your own family.  Books can also cheer you up when you are sad, comfort you when you are hurt, distract you when you have too much to think about, make you laugh. Books can teach (they taught me how to knit and continue to inspire me in all different creative ways).  Books make sure you are never alone.  And what parent doesn't want that for their child? 

Sleep

Before I get any comments about the dangers of putting him down to sleep on his tummy, please not that this kid rolls onto his tummy on his own even if I put him flat on his back.  The pillows are all around him to keep him from rolling off the bed during his nap...they aren't a nighttime thing.  He does sleep with a lovey in his hand and near his face though.  He's a strong baby and at almost nine months old I'm not worried about his lovey at all.

And frankly, these things (being on his tummy and his lovey) help him sleep a lot better and that is a very good thing.  I don't know why it is so hard for some babies to sleep.  I have one friend really struggling right now.  She is so sleep-deprived; her baby is up all night long!  Why?  No one knows.  I have friends whose babies started sleeping 10 or more hours overnight all on their own.  How?  I don't know!

There is nothing so lovely as your child deep in sleep, is there? 

Now I just have to work on going to bed when I should so that I get enough sleep.  But I want to stay up and knit!  When I was younger (and sometimes still today) I would stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning reading, just unable to stop until I finished the book.  The next day is so painful, though, especially with kids to take care of.  I just can't let myself do that anymore.

Review: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you grew up staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live (the early SNL) like I did, then you probably like Steve Martin. This was a great book in which he recounts how he became a stand-up comedian. It was a lot of hard work...I guess that's part of the job of a comedian, to make it look easy. This is an easy read, but really interesting. It isn't personal in the sense that he doesn't talk overly much about his relationships except as they pertain to his development as a comedian, but it is personal in the sense that it gives the reader a backstage view.

It must have been so much fun to have been at his early shows, right before he got so famous. The book makes me want to get out and see more comedy shows.


View all my reviews.

Snow Days

We flipped our week and weekend ... five days of at home and only two of at school.  Gus and Abe and I had a good time (Chris went to work every day--makes you wonder about the school and these "snow days" doesn't it?).  We made dozens of snowballs and threw them everywhere (trees and the side of the car were favorite places to hit).  We walked through lots of snow and enjoyed the satisfying crunch (sound and feel) under our feet.  Actually, the way fresh snow feels when you walk on it is one of my all-time favorite things about snow.  We made a little snow man.  We played with our neighbors.  We watched the squirrels brush snow off our porch railing with their fluffy tails. 

And we did lots of fun indoor snow-day activities too.  We made a birthday present for Chris.  We made some bouncy balls in a kit sent by surprise from my mom.  We played games.  We watched the inauguration!  We baked a Martin Luther King cake.  Oh, and we ate it too.  And then, we brought a little bit of Little House in the Big Woods into our little house:

We just used sugar because I certainly don't know how to tap a maple tree, even if I could find a maple tree ready to be tapped and also because we don't have any maple syrup in the house.  It was fun, even if we did toss the "candy" after a few bites.

Please ignore the dirty stove, cleaning didn't really factor into our snow days.  I find that my attitude really determines how days like these will go.  If I'm frustrated because I am not going to get done the list of things I had planned on then no one ends up having fun.  If I think what cool activity can we do today that we couldn't do another day, then that activity is often just exactly what we all needed.  Then we can go do separate activities for awhile and I will get some of my to do list done.  Not that the to do list is the be-all and end-all ... but for me getting something tangible accomplished makes me feel much better about my day.  Definitely that lack of tangible product day to day is the hardest part of full-time mothering for me.

This also leads to my main source of guilt though.  I'm enjoying so much staying at home with Gus and Abe, but I'm not contributing financially and all that responsibility is put on Chris.  So when I'm not the "perfect" homemaker I feel guilty.  If the house isn't clean (a serious weak area for me; I hate cleaning), if I buy dinner instead of cooking it, if I shop for something unnecessary and spend too much money; I start to feel like a drag instead of a supporter. 

I value what I'm doing.  It isn't that I don't think parenting is extremely important.  And I work very hard at trying to be the best parent that I can, and that means spending real time doing things with my kids, not just running some pristine house, still I have that "modern" woman's disease:  why can't I do it all?

Ironically when I had my law practice, in Austin, adding the work into my day of parenting freed me from feeling guilty.  I hired a housekeeper, I got more exercise, I loved working.  Things weren't perfect and I had lots of help from my parents and my parents-in-law, but I think grandkids and grandparents who get to spend lots of time together are lucky so I certainly didn't feel guilty about that!  Abe is too young for me to want to go out and find work just for the sake of finding work.  And in Durham I don't know who would help me take care of him...but I want to think more about how to recreate that feeling and efficiency from when I was working now, while I'm not.

SNOW!

Christmas Morning

Okay, I know that Christmas is so last year, but I am just getting around to going through my December pictures and these are too cute to resist.  These are all from the stocking opening which is a very important part of the day for me.  We keep that just the immediate family, we stay in our pj's (very important), and we try to make sure everyone gets things they really want and are excited about getting.  Also, I made all our stockings (just got Abe's done in the nick of time!).  They are not quite as capacious or flexible as I would like and I may knit stocking for us one day, but for now these felt ones work and are pretty.

I swear, this kid has the reach of an adult.  He's determined and I think he might be part stretchy!

Can you stand the cuteness?

Even I got in front of the camera...showing off my fancy new iPod.

Speaking of, if you've not yet found CraftLit you should definitely check it out.  Heather is a former high school English teacher and spinner/knitter/crafter who talks a little about the latest in her crafting world followed by a book!  It's great--you listen to someone read a classic book and you get Heather to make sure you understand what you're listening to.  I think she started in 2006 and I've just found her so I'm currently catching up.  It helps that she starts with one of my favorite books of all time:  Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen).  Check it out, I think you'll like it.

Scenes from Austin.

Gus working very hard fixing the trailer.  He helped jack it up and carried his tools underneath and everything.  If I remember correctly his Grandpa helped him turn in an invoice and get paid for his work as well.  Gus adores working with his Grandpa.  I hear things like this all the time "Me and Grandpa can fix that.  Grandpa will have the tools we need.  Me and Grandpa, we like junk."

Spending some quality early-morning time together.

My original playgroup got together for a Christmas party.  We started with six four month olds and now we have seventeen kids and one on the way!

I think it's clear that the icing was the most important part of the cookie decorating activity!

And one of the very best things about our visits to Austin:  playing in the backyard of my parents' house!

This was such a nice visit; I think we all enjoyed the extended break from our regular routines, and we all were happy to get back to our regular routines also! 

A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Journeys Across America

A Little House Traveler: Writings from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Journeys Across America by Laura Ingalls Wilder

rating: 4 of 5 stars

\I've long been fascinated with Laura Ingalls Wilder and all her books. I'm just finishing up another round of immersing myself in them. They still hold all the appeal for me that they ever did, maybe even more now that my life is more complicated than ever.

I know I'm romanticizing pioneer times and her life but I'm very attracted to the self-reliant, the frugality (opposites attract, right?), the waste not-want not attitude, the outdoors, the fewer choices.

A Little House Traveler prints two journals she kept as an adult, one when they moved from De Smet to Missouri (where they settled), and one when they returned to De Smet forty years later for a visit and prints the letters she mailed Manly when she visited their daughter in San Francisco in 1915.

It was fun for me to read and it reminded me that while I have a certain longing for things as they were ... or I think I do anyway, there are also things I wouldn't change at all. When you moved states a hundred years ago you never knew if you'd see your family again. When Laura visited San Francisco she went for three months because she knew she'd never go again. Living apart from our families the past year and a half has been difficult, mostly because of our children, but we still see them (here and there) several times a year. We can fly or drive and either way is actually pretty fast. Even though I complain a lot about traveling, I'm pretty lucky it's as easy as it is!

View all my reviews.