early morning

It's early. Sunrise is still a little ways off, and I am sipping a cup of tea at the kitchen table, enjoying some quiet.

I have lost a lot of free time: time for yoga, time for knitting, time for reading long beautiful novels. But this is one kind of time that I have gained: very quiet time, alone, with a warm cup of tea and a cat beside me. There is a little warm spot on my neck where a baby was recently curled, and I am looking forward to sunrise, when she really wakes up, and I will pick her up and bring her to look again at the Christmas tree, and she will be delighted, all over again.

It is very peaceful.

If I had worries, they would fill this space.

Instead, I look at my list of to-do's, and notice that one of them says, "relax." I decide to do that one.

I sip my tea, poke about in my knitting basket a bit, and hear a little voice waking up down the hallway. Another morning, just beginning.

holiday fantasies

This is me every year at the holidays: longing for more.

(Acutally, right after this photo was taken, I gorged myself on pie... but let's don't disrupt the theme I've got going here).

Every year I bemoan the too-few hours in the day, as I wish I had more time to decorate the house, bake treats, make gifts, send greetings... and every year I get to do some of it, and at least savor the fantasy of all the other fun things I meant to do.

This year, I'm starting to realize that my holiday crafting and nesting will consist of little more than the savored fantasy. My first Christmas as a full-time working mama with a little baby at home...

Don't get me wrong, I am very excited about the first Christmas with the Little Pea. I can't wait to sing carols with her and snuggle together by the fire on Christmas morning, give her her very first Christmas present, and watch her be spoiled to death by our family. In fact, as I write this I'm getting even more excited about it!

But this will be the first Christmas in a long time - maybe since I was the Little Pea's age - that my family members won't be getting gifts made by me. I am trying like heck to finish a pair of socks that I started last April, and I have every intention of making a gift for the Little Pea, but I think that's going to be the sum of it. *sigh* So sad!

But all the same, I want you to know that even though I probably won't send you a hand-made card this year, I am thinking of you. Imagine that we got together and baked cookies on a cold, blustery December afternoon and drank spiced cider and danced around to goofy Christmas music. I am savoring the memories of many blustery December afternoons making little gifts with friends, and the evenings squirreled away in a coffee shop somewhere on December 23rd trying like heck to finish a way-too-ambitious gift in time.

I hope you get to make some of those memories this year! I'll try not to drool (better go eat some of that pie).

thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

In honor of my favorite holiday, I wanted to share this poem with you.

Wild Geese
by Wendell Berry

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

I hope that you enjoy a feast of gratitude today.

starting fresh

Time to cultivate this feeling again.

It always feels so good to put a tough time behind me and start anew.

October is usually my favorite month, because of the wonderful weather, the colors, the crisp air and the chance to wear sweaters and scarves again. Our anniversary is in October, and the annual family camping trip.

But I've been anticipating October all year with some trepidation, because this year it was the month that I went back to work.

And it went pretty well, it really did. The Little Pea seems to be adjusting well, and HWWLLB is doing great as a stay-at-home-dad. Everything was in great shape at work when I got back there, and I seem to be getting back into the swing of things fairly well. But oh my goodness, the time.

I'll always think of this October as the month that I ran to get everywhere. Once I started back at work I didn't cook a meal, do a load of laundry that wasn't baby clothes, write a blog post (as you may have noticed) or go anywhere other than work and our house (and the family camping trip - I've almost recovered from that). I did eat three meals a day, sleep decently, enjoy time with the Little Pea and meet the deadlines I had to hit at work (just barely). HWWLLB and I even spent a little quality time together on our anniversary. But I have never tried so hard to keep it together - and I did keep it together - at such an incredibly bare-bones level. Holy moly. Is this the rest of my life?

I hope not.

Keeping it together is better than not, for sure, and I know that there are going to be times when I just can't keep it together anymore and just fall apart. But I need some free time back. This weekend I decided to help that along by clearing away some mental clutter and finishing a few projects that have been lying around.

Saturday I pulled out a stack of almost-finished knitted things that had been languishing for months. I sewed on buttons, sewed in tags, blocked and finished and put them away in the drawers (or gift bags) where they belong. Now Little Pea has a couple of spanky new sweaters to wear - just in time for some cool damp weather - and believe it or not, the sloth is almost done! I've finally finished all the knitting, and this weekend I pieced it together and felted it. I still have some finishing work to do, including some fancy needle-felting, but it's almost there! I can't wait to show it to you.

That was Saturday. Sunday is going to be the day for tidying. Our house is definitely showing the battle scars of the past month, and in particular my little areas are just atrocious. There isn't one more bare surface available for piling things on, and it's gnawing at my sanity. So today is the day to deconstruct piles, pay bills, recycle junk, do laundry, take things to the dry cleaner, and tie up all the other itty-bitty loose ends that have turned into such a snarl in my space. The perfect activity for a gray, rainy November Sunday (particularly if some knitting works its way into all that).

Nothing like a fresh start to another month - let this one be just a little less hectic than the last. Just a little?

twilight

Twilight is so beautiful. The light and fading golden color make it my favorite time of day.



Last night I was trying to capture the way these flowers were glowing, reflecting the last of the waning light in our front yard as the day turned to evening.

This is also the twilight of my maternity leave - the last few days at home with Little Pea, with nothing to do but play and take care of her. As with the end of the day, this seems to be the sweetest time I have ever known. Everything seems golden, more beautiful and poignant than I have ever seen it.

Of course, nothing is changing. I will still be her mama, and we'll still take walks together and play with toys and nurse quietly (and sometimes noisily) in the rocking chair. I'll still squeeze in a row or two of knitting here and there whenever I can. But of course, I'll be shoe-horning all this wonder and beauty into the fragmented bits of time before and after work. And I have a feeling that these too-fast golden hours are going to fly by all the more quickly now.

This week Little Pea and I took our last trip together to the Wednesday afternoon farmer's market. We bought veggies and bread, and visited with our downtown friends and farmers. I found myself really strolling, walking slower than normal to just soak up as much of it as I could. I pushed the idea of time from my mind altogether and just enjoyed the moments as we had them. It felt so good to take things in more completely - the smiles of the people there, the thoughts and ideas shared in conversations with friends, the simple colors and shapes of the vegetables.

Being in the moment, letting go of a hurry to a goal or destination, is a lesson that the Little Pea teaches me over and over. I am so grateful for the chance to practice, every day, that this time at home with her has given me. I hope I can cultivate it in my hurry-hurry work life as well - even when I want to hurry home to her.

a long weekend

Over the weekend my dad turned sixty.



We celebrated with a long weekend in the Outer Banks. It was the Little Pea's first trip (except for a night at her grandparents' house when she was very small), and her first time visiting the ocean. We were happy to discover that she is a very good traveler.

Traveling with a little baby turned out to be fairly relaxing. We took things slowly, and spent a good amount of time relaxing while she napped or nursed. And goodness, did we eat. My goal was to totally overdo it on seafood -- I definitely succeeded. But I wouldn't mind another plate of flounder for lunch today.

We saw lots of birds, and a pond full of turtles at Pea Island Wildlife Refuge. We counted 18 painted turtles and two big snappers. Among birds, we saw cormorants, osprey, ibis, lots of egrets, and a Roseate Spoonbill! They really don't belong this far north, so it was quite a treat.



It felt so good to be washed by the ocean. Salt water is so rejeuvenating.

fleeting naptime

my accomplishment for the week: a Hansigurumi seahorse, with a tube of beads inside to make a rattle

Thursday morning I found myself sitting in the bathroom with the door cracked open, trying to simultaneously listen for baby sounds and muffle my own sounds because She Who Will Not Nap was taking a nap, and while I love the open floor plan of our tiny house, every sound in the house can be heard from every other part of the house. I was on hold in customer-service hell, waiting to talk to someone at the IRS about the hideous letter they sent me.

As the cat came in to join me and, what they hey, stop into his litterbox while he's in the neighborhood, I realized that crouching in the bathroom with the phone was no way to spend the precious few moments of naptime that I have been granted. After hearing the polite-yet-threatening recorded message one more time, I hung up. Take that, IRS! (I will call you later).

Instead I got up, fixed myself lunch, listened to the news, visited a couple of friends' blogs, and started to write this blog pos-- uh-oh. She's up again.

[many hours later]

Naptime is sanity time, time to eat, perform personal hygeine related tasks and maybe, just maybe, get something done. As my to-do list stretches into the horizon, the naptimes seem to be dwindling to ever-tinier proportions. Why won't this baby take her nap?? Lately daytime naps are just a fantasy, and the ones that do happen don't last much longer than it takes me to fix my lunch (but not eat it).

[uh... two days later]

Ugh! I'm not getting anything done, productive or otherwise. Two rows of knitting. Five minutes of listening to the news. A few more minutes on hold with the IRS. Nothing is getting completed anymore. Help!! I've tried every trick in the book. How do you bribe a 3-month-old baby into taking a nap?


seahorse rattles do not work as bribes