Tea and Toast

Toast Song, transcribed to the best of my ability

A cold Midwestern morning, gold and pink and orange dawn
Down to get the paper and put the coffee on.
The news is grey and dismal one could sit and weep almost
Except for pumpernickel transcending into toast.
Two thin slices turning golden, bread smell rising like a prayer
And then that lovely music of your feet upon the stair
In an old blue bathrobe, love is standing there.

The (?) man stands silent, love is more than he can say(?)
The sweet familiar pleasure to be alive today
And though the news is dismal, God has given us our bread
With butter and raspberries generously spread.
When I get old and nights are longer, long dark thoughts the whole night through
I’ll be glad for morning, calm and bright and new.
And toast a couple slices and sit and wait for you.

The song, to the tune of Schubert's Die Forelle, aired on A Prairie Home Companion on February 5, 2005. To listen, go here and click on the second segment.


The past while has been a bit rough, I'm rather worn down but hanging in there. It's bleak outside, dense fog this morning and no light whatsoever. Even auto-correct in photoshop can't hide the yellowness of poor florescent indoor lighting. So starts the season of finding creative ways to light our photos.

I've finished one slipper and started it's mate, though nothing to show, really. I'll be sneaking in a few rows in a moment now that the baby has finally gone for a nap. After a crummy start to the week, it was my aim to do better today. Blueberry tea, toast with jam, a piece of chocolate, and a cracked nut (the walnut, not me) helped get me on my way. An episode of House of Eliott while nursing the baby to sleep was also a nice escape into the 1920's British fashion world. I do like Beatrice's bobbed curls, and am tempted to cut my own hair. I won't be too hasty on that decision.

Cold feet

I bought Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool 8087 (Brown, or Chocolate depending on the site) this summer while in Michigan. For the past 3 years I've been pretty good about buying yarn with a project in mind - even if it's a vague project - but I bought this hank with no idea what I'd do with it. There are 478 yards to one hank, so I figured it'd be good for a small felting project or who knows what else.

The yarn is a little on the bulky side of worsted, but doubled and on smaller-than-US-10 needles and I should be able to get 4 sts/inch and make a nice thick pair of these slippers. If I'm being unreasonable in my math estimations, I'll go for something felted. Always have a Plan B. I usually have Plan C and D not too far from hand as well.

Changing with the season

The paper and clothespin bats have come down, but my son liked the hanging decorations so much he wanted to put up something else in their place. We spent the last few days gathering leaves and stringing them up.




I've started Anne's stocking for St. Nicholas day. My husband's family would do stockings and presents on that day and reserve Christmas for time with other family. The yarn is Mission Falls 1824 wool, in poppy. It might be discontinued, or maybe it was the dark olive that the other stockings are made with, but either way, eBay is wonderful for finding extra yarn for stockings for the new family members. I'll wait until next year to make baby #3's stocking. Though, I could make it now and wait to put on a name with duplicate stitching. The first 4 stockings (the older cat has a stocking, too) have the names knit into them, but it puckers slightly even with blocking so the newer stockings will have duplicate stitching. There's what's left of the leaves we scavenged for, and henny pincushion ready for the pins holding the mending pile.





It's surprising that things are still fairly green around here, but the chill and the wind are confirming it's finally autumn. In two weeks, we'll be landing in Michigan for a week's visit over the holiday. Jonah's hoping for snow.

Fall Color

I took the baby and went out for a while, first to the library to return materials and check out a few cookbooks for more kitchen inspiration. Found a Moosewood I hadn't looked through before, an Indian cuisine cookbook, and a diabetic friendly slow cooker cookbook (I have gestational diabetes, I had it with Anne but not with Jonah). Next stop was to a local nature sanctuary for some fresh air, to walk down to the pond and check out the (finally) changing leaves. There is still a lot of green, and the chipmunks are still having fun as if there is no winter lurking around the corner.

As for knitting, I catch a few rounds and rows here and there but nothing worth showing off yet. I'm developing ideas for baby #3's quilt, though nothing is solidified. Life is busy with the usual cooking, dishes, laundry... the repetitive rhythms are soothing and quieting as I'm not really up for much more than that now. I'm not too tired, my body's busy putting a little one together and that's taking it's own kind of energy and work. I don't feel a lot of morning sickness, but the smell of steaming collard greens is enough to turn anyone's stomach. I thought that I'd steam, puree, and freeze the greens I hadn't used in a soup last week, but PEW! I put a pumpkin pie in the oven to compensate for the bad odor. We're planning on carving pumpkins tonight (a week earlier than I hoped), because it's just not been cold enough to keep our pumpkins from going a bit soft. I'd hate to scrape out slightly rotten pumpkins, and I want the seeds for roasting.

It's cute, but it doesn't stay on for long

Everyone seems to be making this little hat (there's a link to it in a recent post), and it is too darn cute. Anne, my 9 month old, is sporting the 2 year size. It won't fit her long so I'm going to try it again with one needle size up and slightly thicker yarn, Jaeger Matchmaker merino DK in #864 Feather. She makes this hat wearing thing look effortless, but it took me about 30 shots of blurry hat tugging and throwing to get these two clear images. She is now eating bananas in reward for her effort.

For those who have commented, yes Anne's eye is fully open and the birthmarks are starting to fade. It will be a while until the swelling goes down, but once the hemangiomas have finished their life cycle we will start the corrective treatment. Until then, she is healthy and happy and we are glad that the blood vessel tumors have not grown into her brain or optical nerves. They are very close, even growing into her skull, but she is one very, very lucky girl. The birthmarks do not hurt or hinder her in any way, though the size and location of them gave us quite a scare for several months. Thank you to those who have been concerned, I try my best to update on what's going on with all this. I do get tired of explaining and consoling strangers each time I go out with her, but I don't mind it as much as the few children who are afraid or disgusted by her appearance (the children will let you know exactly what they think, and if there are any adults with the same feelings they've been gracious enough to hide it). I hardly notice the marks anymore, or maybe I'm just accustomed to them, and I do forget that not everyone knows what they are or can tell if she is or will be ok. She is, and that's really all that matters.

Something I Agree With

Be good to our earth.

My Moodiness Explained

It has finally cooled off, we took Anne for a walk near the Potomac. This has been the first hiking excursion since Glacier National Park in Montana this August. I hope we get more of these kinds of weekends in before I don't feel up to it. I've already had some morning sickness, though mild. Toast and jam seem to help, my empty plate with raspberry swirls (that's a Tori Amos song, isn't it?) shown above. Anne is happy to announce her new title, Big Sister, with the newest Van Oort due to arrive mid June of '08.

Little hats, tiles and stew

Finally, the last of the hot days. Yesterday was a record breaking 91 degrees. We're in the thick of a drought as well, and while the skies are grey I do not think we'll be seeing any good soaking rain for a while. There is still a mellow light coming in through the cloud cover, a bit bleak but it echoes my mood lately. I am taking advantage of the baby napping to knit up this little hat as quickly as I can. I'm at the decrease only section now. Yarn is Trekking 283 that I picked up in Montana this summer, needles are 3mm - a quarter mm larger than most of my US 2's.

The tiles are samples of sister-in-law, Ruth Lampi. She made these on her cross country pottery tour this summer and I think I've found a place to display them where we can enjoy them and the baby won't destroy them. Today is other sister-in-law, Jessica's birthday. We should really see the girls again soon, it seems like longer than it has been. (And we need our drill back). Speaking of family, I made the Van Galen stew recipe this weekend, definitely a favorite with this generation. I should email grandma and let her know it's V.G. stew season again.

Bats

My son helped cut the string and hold the tape down, and told me where the bats should go. Not bad for less than an hour's work. He's taken some of the bats into his own room, and he's very excited. Mind you, he's never had the thrill of finding that a bat has found it's way down from the attic and into the living quarters. Eeep!

Here's the link to the craft: Clothespin Bats from Martha Stewart.

Insisting upon Fall

The weather continues to be hot and humid, the air conditioner runs several times a day, and the windows are only opened in the night and that hardly helps in cooling things off. Ah, well. We can insist it is Fall anyway. I usually procrastinate on picking up the pumpkins until the last few weeks of the month, but not this year due to the drought and supposed pumpkin shortage.

Now that we're more or less moved in and unpacked to some livable degree, out came the Autumn decorations, the skeleton candles and pumpkin votives. The bats have come out as well, more will appear strung on black string today. They were a Martha Stewart craft from some years ago, black construction paper bat cut outs on black painted clothes pins, ready to perch throughout the house, even on the wireless router.

My husband doesn't get decorating, especially for holidays or seasons, and I can't convince him that curtains to cover the ugly blinds are a necessity. We have the curtains and rods from the old place, but we are missing our drill needed for the project. Trying to install them with screwdriver and willpower alone had very bad results. Again, ah, well. The ugly blinds will be covered eventually. Maybe by Christmas.

Web and Fog

Fog this morning, nearly zero visibility. The spiders have been decorating the rails, hardly one space goes without a web. Despite afternoons in the 80's it does feel like autumn is (reluctantly) settling in. The move is over and I am (slowly) unpacking and claiming this space, finding everything it's own new place and trying to live calmly in the chaos of boxes and all our stuff out of any order. The new game is to remember what box I put something in and then to actually find that box. Several times we've gone through all the boxes and not found the one we need. I swear they shuffle themselves at night.

I've found some time to knit a little, I may have photos shortly as the little hat is needed for the chilly mornings out to the bus stop.

Summer of Sock

Half a sock. Not half a pair, but half a sock. That's all I managed this summer. So much for churning out a half dozen pairs for Summer of Socks. Ah, well. I think I'm stuck in close-up photos lately. I'll need to experiment with some outdoor shots this fall. My husband says there's two kinds of people, ones that see details and pick things apart, and ones that see the whole picture and put things together. He is the later and I am the former. Some of the time I don't see any of the picture and get stuck with overwhelming anxiety. Nothing I do seems right and I feel completely off-track with myself. I'm at that point now. It doesn't help that the baby doesn't sleep well (day or night) and I'm so tired some days I don't know which end is up. This will pass and I'll get by.

Look, I really do knit! Bonus moving photos

The little mauve raglan is nearly done, just a few buttons to sew. The yarn is Elann Devon 787 Dusty Plum, US 2 needles. Basic raglan with picot sleeve hems. I worked to the bottom of the sleeve so the picot was last and kitchener stitched down. What a pain. I decided the collar and bottom hem would not have the same lovely treatment.




Top photo: view from the old place, our ground floor, tucked in the back with a cushy green fence snug apartment. Middle photo: view from the new place, top floor, vaulted ceiling, slightly rolling hills near the Blue Ridge outlook. Bottom photo: all that white and a peek at the extra vertical space. The psychological contrast between snug Hobbit hole den living to birds eye view and vertical space will be great. Some boxes of books have been moved over and we've been busy running for things like pantry shelving and child-proof cupboard latches. The furniture will be moved next weekend and I'll finish packing the kitchen, my son's room, and the miscellaneous odds and ends this week. The fun part is unpacking and making the new place home, I will be glad for that as I've been so overwhelmed with everything lately. Too much to do, too little time.

Big Red

Valerie was working on Elsie Vredenburg's Big Red of Holland, Michigan from the Lighthouse series of quilt patterns. She had a few other patterns in the series, but I only found this one in progress. I'll finish it and send it back to my father in law. The quilt is rather small, it will hang on a wall or door. My apartment is a total disaster with the impending move, so there will only be close up photos for another few days. We get the keys to the new place tomorrow, I'm a little hesitant about all the white walls (we'll now have more whiteness with the vaulted ceilings, but hurrah for more space), I'll just have to think white-washed, crisp Scandinavian snowy white and make the most of that.

Red, Orange, and Yellow

It's the first sunny day below 80 degrees in a long time, and while the leaves aren't changing yet, you'd think fall was on my mind. There's a lot on my mind lately, mostly that Anne just learned to crawl burn rubber yesterday. Man, she's quick. She's scooted, rolled, and scootched around for months but yesterday she just took off in a real crawl and the cats are terrified. This kiddo is something else. She doesn't sleep much (I probably can't get this post done while she naps for 15 minutes, and she wakes every hour at night for the last 3 months, so if you wonder why there is no knitting around here it's because I'm just too darn busy and TIRED). Anne also gave up baby food. Won't pass her lips anymore, so she eats what we do. We mostly eat very healthy foods especially with my cholesterol issues and looming diabetes. It's the salt habit I have a hard time letting go of until now, as I have a child who won't eat a thing unless it's from my plate and I hold her while we eat. I feel pregnant again! I really don't mind, I will miss these times when she is older. I may not get to read, knit, quilt or even use the restroom uninterrupted, but it's worth putting these things aside for a while to have a baby in the house again.

Also on my mind, I go in for my surgical consult next week. I've been trying to avoid it, but a routine ultrasound showed bad news this last time around. It's nothing major, tests found no sign of cancer last year. I lose one ovary, so having more children isn't out of the picture. My grandmother died of ovarian cancer, and that along with my mother in law's ordeal has left me a bit gloomy. I'm sure all is fine, but it's just one more thing, you know?

On the less gloomy side of things, shown are my daughter's favorite red crab, Trekking color 283 I picked up at Y'Arnings in Helena. Then there's our orange cat, Robert, a mother and baby pair of *amazing* growing octopuses - these are the first I've found that really expand to many times their original size, I even scored them off CVS's 90% off summer clearance for 23 cents. Amazing! I made a pumpkin bread two days ago and it's nearly gone, we've all been hungry for a little autumn.

The orange and yellow veined leaf is a Ruth Lampi original, made during her cross-country pottery tour this summer. Ruth is Martin's adopted sister, an artist in Philadelphia. Lastly, Anne in yellow wondering in amazement at the University of Wisconsin's Badger Ballad. Hmm, yellow and badgers? We're reading Harry Potter IV aloud to the older child, maybe the sorting hat would put her in Hufflepuff. If you want to be a badger and hear the song, come along with me.... We introduced Anne to the song the other night while watching Antiques Roadshow. I don't know how we made the connection, one minute we were watching the Keno twins and the next we were singing her the catchy tune. That's pretty normal for us, though.

Sweater Season, Almost

Ok, early morning may be the only practical time for sweaters in Virginia right now. It's 86 degrees out, but the start of school and the end of late sundowns makes you almost think autumn could be lurking around the corner somewhere. Anne willingly modeled her gansey for me, and it will fit perfectly for the upcoming months. Her hemangioma tumors are slowly going down and they aren't so bright magenta any longer. MRI scans show no signs of it in her spine. And yes, that is the cat trying to sneak into the photo. Again.

Here is my poor Birkenstock sandal, the hole getting progressively bigger, the cork ground down to nothing in the back. These are my favorite pair and I can't bear to think of the day where I am walking through the library or grocery store and lose a whole chunk of my foot gear like a shredded semitruck tire. I was on my way to the library, pondering if it were best to even go out in public with my holey Birks.





While at the library picking up books for my older son, I ran across Catwings. I've been meaning to pick up this book and the others in the series but I completely forgot with our busy summer. No one cared about my holey sandal, by the way.

Camping

Our trip to Glacier National Park was eventful yet restorative at the same time. Left Helena just before 9am on the 13th. The '87 Suburban over-heated just past Browning so we played MAD LIBS and read aloud a few chapters of Harry Potter II for an hour until the truck cooled down. Lots of smoke from wild fires until we got up in the mountains at the park.

The guys set up the camper, we ate dinner and went to Lake McDonald Lodge for an evening ranger program on night noises, and my boy braved the cold water at the lake - only ankle deep. Over night we were able to identify 2 owls and (luckily) no bears. Tuesday we went up Going to the Sun Road, hiked the trail at Logan Pass.

I worked a bit on a sock while riding in the truck, though I was more engaged with the view. Our last day there we hiked the trail by McDonald Falls, the guys went down to the water to throw rocks while I nursed the baby. We took the west route back to Helena after encountering a lot of construction to the east of Glacier. We stopped for lunch in Kalispell after ribbing Martin while we passed Martin City (cheap thrills, I know) and ogling at that Hungry Horse now has a stop light. The guys pointed out the Assembly of God camp as well, then the quilting store in Kalispell but they didn't let me stop in.

We were 7 miles from I-90 when 93 was closed due to the fires being too close to the road. After waiting an hour at the gas station, the road was reopened long enough for us to get through to the interstate. The photo doesn't show it, but the line of fire was glowing and quite close to the road and houses. Dinner in Deer Lodge at the A&W, the guys gave a quick tour of the town and their old houses. Back home in time to start laundry and get organized to repack for our trip home.

Our three week visit was very intense, it seemed all too short especially with the loss of Mama. It hit me again hard when I arrived home that I could no longer call her up any time I wanted and talk until the cell phone battery died. I want to fit in more here, but I'm now in the middle of moving (we're only moving a mile down the street) and the stress level has increased about 3 points. I have many wonderful things from Valerie to share, she had many amazing talents and interests but that warrants it's own post.

Valerie Fay Van Oort: August 21, 1951 - August 3, 2007

We are grieved that she is gone, but relieved that she is no longer suffering. First battle with breast cancer in 1998, the second in 2004. She fought it the last three years, hoping to be cured until the end. She waited to see her grown children one last time and then she left us. Martin, my husband, saw her at 11pm on Friday after flight delays and she passed at 11:59pm that night.

Martin, the kids, and I will be in Montana until the 20th. I think we are planning to get away for a bit after the last of the visiting relatives go back home. We'll dust off the camper and head up to Glacier National Park - if it's not on fire. Camping plans will be finalized soon. Knitting? I've started and ripped out the same sock three or four times in the past month. With all that's happened, knitting just isn't. I've just picked up the baby quilt Val was working on for Anne. My stitching is noticeably different from hers, one will see the work of two hands on it when it is completed.