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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

this and that

before

after


busy preparing for valentine's day as i will be off to london all of next week. it is my first trip of any real length and distance away from my family - and i am struggling with mixed emotions. (daydreaming about a bath that lasts longer than 7 minutes, but also wishing i could share the sights and sounds of london with d and our girls...) our last trip there was with a 6 week old e. seems like a lifetime ago.

clearing off the kitchen table, and clearing my mind of travel worries, with the latest issue of american craft magazine. i gave myself a subscription for my birthday upon reading an article on its restyling by former dwell founding editor andrew wagner and i have loved both issues received so far. beautiful articles on heath ceramics and lenore tawney. (did i tell you we found a loom in the trash? must figure out how to work it...)

happy tuesday!

ack - just realised it is wednesday not tuesday! things will likely be quiet here for the next week or so. will try to check in from london... in the meantime, any not-to-be-missed suggestions? (i have all my favorite museums on my list, as well as, liberty, orla kiely, and the conran shop...)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

overcast overhead

it is raining.

downtown drive
new :: old

i had to drive downtown for meeting to determine if funding was going to be fulfilled for another grant we just received for our neighbourhood school. looks like all will go ahead. (whew!) and as an added bonus i got to spend the afternoon looking up. (i love downtown l.a.!)

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

glass half full

shinzi shadow

a lovely long weekend.

the gift of a decadent trip on my own to the opera. {five hours in length but not a moment too long}

sharing in the joy of a boy turning 5. {a perfect party in the park.}

witnessing my girl meeting a long-time love of my ownat my neice's 8th birthday party. {e wants to go skating again next weekend!}

rereading all of your kind and thoughtful comments. thank you so much. while my gramma will be missed - her memory lives on...

happy "monday".

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Edith Louisa

three.generations

my mom called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that my grandmother had passed away in her sleep on tuesday evening. she had fallen ill this past summer, and was never able to fully recuperate. i feel so blessed that d, the girls and i had a visit with her last month on our way to the island. it was brief. i could feel how she was failing. so frail. we didn't take our annual group picture. the one above was taken a year and a half ago. i want to remember her like this.

she had a hard life. her mother died when she was two or three years old. her father didn't know what to do with a little girl on a farm and sent her off to live with relatives in "the city". she returned to rural manitoba and married a cattle farmer with whom she had four children. and then her husband died and she moved away from the farm again - to raise her two sons and two daughters in "the city". they grew up. and she bought a small hobby farm just outside of town where she lived with her two youngest children and raised shetland ponies and sheep. i have vague recollections of riding a ski doo, petting the sheep, and gazing at the large porcelain cow that sat high on a shelf in the corner of her living room. when that became too much, she returned to "the city". to the little yellow house of my memories.

i have vivid and fond memories of her little yellow house in brandon with the fish pond in the back yard. i remember my brother and i falling asleep in her big bed while my parents were out for the evening. i remember eating kentucky fried chicken at her kitchen table. i remember finding an old brownie camera that she let me play with. and i remember her knitting while we listened to old disney records on her turntable. she moved from my hometown in manitoba to british columbia when i was still a young girl. but we would drive to see her every summer. she survived breast cancer, a bad second marriage, and bone cancer. the latter came around the same time i moved to los angeles, and i was generously given a leave so i could go stay with her and help care for her as she struggled to overcome the burden of her chemotherapy. they had wanted to remove her leg. but she wanted to fight. she loved to walk. every day. and couldn't imagine having that taken away. she won that fight. and i won too. an amazing week of stories and time. and advice that true love was more important than anything else. and of course knitting.

my mom was able to spend the last few weeks with her. so fortunate. she told me that as she went in and out of consciousness she would often be completely unaware of her surroundings, and her hands would often be busily knitting the air in front of her while her mind carried her to other times and places. on her final day - she picked up the project she could only see and turned to my mom and said - "It's finished."

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

i am canadian

and in love with rick mercer.

(don't worry honey... petite gourmand beat me to him.)

thanks petite for the tip!

Monday, January 14, 2008

cuts

blur

I have been trying to get the girls to stand still long enough to photograph the matching nightgowns I made them for Christmas. My mom always had a new nightgown waiting for me under the tree Christmas eve, and it is a tradition I am trying to keep up. They are of the softest Moda flannel with pink rick-rack, and oh so cozy.{Little better look at them here.}

I did get them to sit still long enough to cut their hair last night. An inch of K's and three off E's. I have been trying to do this on my own, in an effort to be more frugal. I do think I am getting better, but wonder if anyone has a good set of haircutting instructions out there? I am so lucky they both have curly hair! {Do I remember correctly that there was a guide to children's haircuts in Martha Stewart Kids way back when...)

Happy Monday!

update: the nightgowns were based on Burda 9766 - and haircutting tips are in the MS Kids Spring 2002 issue {thanks Sarah!}

Saturday, January 12, 2008

rolling along

out the window on our last day of driving...
home.

homeward

south

rolling (I5)

it has been a busy week. two shows that have been on the books for a long time opened. bittersweet.

preparing to travel to london for this.

soaking in the socal sunshine. hope you are having a lovely weekend.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

renewed love affair

with Louise Bourgeois

artwork_images_164_128616_louise-bourgeois
from Ode A L'oubli (Ode to Forgetting)2004, Fabric and colour lithograph book
image from Marlborough Fine Art


how i would love to see this "in the flesh"

inspired to print on linen...

Monday, January 07, 2008

new year

the scarf i made my sister-in-law

new scarf for my sister-in-law

new banner and reading list for the blog

new outlook


live the way i want to live. here and now. {not dreaming we are elsewhere.} bring the life i want here. we are here. now.

think about the future. make a plan.

live 2008 consciously. seeing. thinking. breathing.




ok. perhaps a pretty hefty resolution. but you know what i mean.

(all that and stand up straighter.)

Sunday, January 06, 2008

our little house in the big woods

ours

a dream come true. i am trying to recall how my mom put it in her holiday letter - something to the effect that this will be a place for us to connect with nature, each other, and ourselves. a place where we will {try our best to} live without plastic and television. where we will revel in the beauty of it all and breath deeply.

{more photos here.}

we are back to our little house in the big city. busy with laundry and preparing for a return to school and work tomorrow. grateful our drive home was without incident. (thanks for all your good wishes!)

breath deep!

Friday, January 04, 2008

note from the road

we are safe and sound and on the final stretch home.
winter driving has been tough. but so worth the journey.

snow on the 5

in our forest


so much to share. more soon!

happy new year xo