suppressed excitement

Today I stood at my classroom door giving hugs and wishes for a great summer. I turned in my grades and organized my cart. I still have some work to do in the building before I am officially done for the summer, but today was my last day with students.

I am very aware of my 'in-between-ness' tonight. Almost...done with school for the year, almost on summer "break", almost ready to start my last summer of grad school.

I have big dreams for summer days at the pool, the beach, the library, gardening, reading, sewing, walks, ice cream, play dates, the zoo, the Fredrick Meijer Gardens, a whole week spent at the cabin. But the reality may not be as 'dreamy' as my aspirations (though I am determined to cram ALL of those things into our days somehow). In one week, I will begin the commute to MSU. First, for a 2-week workshop that meets all day every day. It will be wildly fun, incredibly challenging, inspiring...and exhausting. And as soon as that class ends, the next 6-week session begins: Research. Only one class this summer...and I think...I like research. I certainly like the fact that this will be my very last class for this degree. But my excitement to be done (soon!!) is quite restrained. There is much to do before I sigh with relief or celebrate.

This weekend however, will be filled with busy fun. A mass of graduation open houses, a wedding, a graduation, and somehow in the midst of the busy-ness...I am mostly excited about family time. Kelly, Sean, and Chloe arrived tonight from Massachusetts! And on Saturday, Andrew, Lynn, Jaelyn, and Addison are coming from Ohio for a quick visit too. ALL my siblings and nieces and nephews in the same town. Too good for words. I'm trying to suppress my expectations about how much time I will get to spend enjoying their company...but I'm really hoping for a quite a lot.

We're hardly ever this spontaneous...

...but tomorrow, after Ryan's done working, we are driving NORTH.

We just decided this morning that this beautiful cabin weather should not be wasted over a long holiday weekend. "Treasure Island" just cannot sit empty.

So I'm drinking my coffee to get me through the loads of laundry and cleaning and packing that must happen tonight.

I still can't believe it. I feel just as excited as I did when I was a little girl on the eve of the cabin trip.

Even if it is 80 degrees, I'm sitting by this fire on Saturday morning. My soul has been missing that crackling sound.

freezer jam

My Grandmother Linda used to make the most wonderful breakfasts...Finnish coffee bread, a plate of sliced cheese, sausage, (eggs probably?)...but my favorite part: strawberry jam.

The taste of homemade strawberry freezer jam always brings back memories of her house and her presence. So many daily things do...beautiful gardens, irises, roses, dreams of the cabin, her Rose Chintz dishes stacked in my cupboard.

Once, about a year after she died, when I was in college, I made her strawberry freezer jam recipe and gave the little jars to family as gifts. I still remember the incredible pleasure of making it, smelling it, tasting it. But even though I've thought of making it millions of times, I've never tried it again. Early this spring, I vowed to myself (and even wrote it in my little journal/scrap book) that this year would be different....there would be strawberry jam in my freezer.

I don't have her exact recipe any more (hopefully someone does..Mom?)...so I tried one I found online (one that uses a lot less sugar than the traditional recipe). It's still pretty magical.


I made six little jars last week. I was hoping to build up a 'stash' for the winter...but we're already on our third jar. I could try to blame this on the girls...but it wouldn't be exactly truthful.
I've got more strawberries in the refrigerator waiting to be crushed.

spring rain

The warm sunny evenings have lured us outside just a little too late all week. The girls' bed times have been stretched a bit more than usual. And as a result, our mornings have been more whiny and emotional. But Maya's and Sophie's long hard naps always brighten them up for the evening full of swinging and digging and running around the yard...

And the cycle repeats.

But the warm grass, the swings, the sandbox, and the sidewalk chalk, the neighbors...we just can't resist. We've been spending our mornings outside too, playing in the yard, a long walk with the double stroller, meeting Ryan for a picnic lunch at a park.

We've also been planting this week...just little things here and there. Ryan built another little garden next to last summer's first attempt. We now have flourishing mint, green onions, oregano, chives, and cilantro, a new strawberry plant, tomatoes (beefsteak and cherry), cucumbers, and a bunch of little snow pea seedlings (that are now ready to be planted).

Last night, Ryan planted an apple tree in our side yard. I'm already daydreaming about home grown apples to eat fresh from the tree, to bake in pie and muffins... It's a pretty small tree now, but I can still dream, right?

The rain that came last night was perfectly timed for all our new plantings. And all day, it seemed right too. Misty and warm. We stayed inside most of the day, cleaning, and pretending, reading, and coloring and cutting and gluing.

And I ended the afternoon with some rare fun...playing string trio music with two wonderful musicians. Unfortunately our rehearsal room had no windows...but I could imagine the rain.

treasure hunting

For the first time in probably five years, Ryan and I visited an antique store.
Last weekend, we drove the girls in their pajamas to their Nana and Papa's house for a sleepover. On Saturday morning, Ryan and I woke up to the sun, had a quiet breakfast, and went to look for antiques. It was the perfect kind of date. I think I like morning dates better than evening ones now. We had so much fun talking, hunting for treasures, laughing, and dreaming.

These were a few of our finds...
The girls love their little chair. Sometimes it's hard to share...but they manage. Maybe someday we'll find it's match.Poker.


A perfect place to store all my spools of color.

my dollhouse

We brought my dollhouse home today. As I discovered all the tiny contents, a flood of memories of my quirky and very whimsical childhood came rushing back. My grandfather Ed (my dad's father) built this beautiful wooden dollhouse for me. And one Christmas, my brother Daniel spent hours gluing the wooden shingles to the roof. Some of the furniture was beautiful...but lots of the 'accessories' were my own creations...made out of paper and scotch tape, plastic pizza box stands, scraps of fabric, old candle holders, legos, broken tiles.
I trashed some of the really gross things... but I just had to set it all up..just right. It needed to be photographed this way before I tear it apart and clean all those layers of dust and spider webs.
That photo is of my friend, Arianne Strattan (now a Ford model) on the wall in that frame (made out of toothpicks). I remember thinking that she looked just like my dollhouse family's little girl (with blue eyes, long blond hair, and a pink dress).I can't believe how much time I spent meticulously making things for my little family. Apparently, I thought it very important that every member of the family should have their own tiny Bible. (I even gave one of them gold pages?!?) A custom violin case (made out of scotch tape and black construction paper),......a re-purposed spool of thread covered with a fabric scrap became an end table to hold my oil lamp. I made a miniature pink stenciled bedside table out of one of those round plastic stands that used to be (still are?) in pizza boxes for the little girl's room. A pink towel became carpet, strands of lace and paper scraps fill the windows. I spent hours decorating and redecorating... using anything I could find. I sewed tiny clothes for my people, pillows and blankets for their beds. I knew that I loved to make things as a child. But until I saw this stash...I had no idea.

I like remembering. I've been remembering a lot lately. In the past week, I've even thought of a few stories to tell Ryan that he's never heard! For some reason, the past has been more attainable in my memory files these days. And it makes me feel richer.

Now that they are awake from their naps (the doll house was sitting on the kitchen table when Maya and Sophie woke up), I can hardly keep the girls away from it. (I really want to clean it first!) I wish they knew their Great Grandpa who built such a delightful and sturdy dollhouse for his little granddaughter. I wish they could sit in his lap and laugh while he pretended to be confused about which were hands and which were feet. I wish they knew his quiet humor and his big twinkling brown eyes. And I wish I could thank him again for this gift that he is now giving to my children.

An emailed response from my last post.

It wouldn't fit in the comment box...




...but it deserved to be posted.

If I had these...

I think I would put them on everything. It could be dangerous...I don't know if I would know when to stop. I just love how they give everything a place and a name.

This is where Ryan's unique personality and my own have been woven together. His love of structure and pattern and predictability is usually at odds with my scattered, unpredictable intensity-for-too-many-things to maintain a lot of order. But labels are one of many things that bring us together. We both treasure the beauty and function of labels.

When we were newlyweds...moving for the first time (from Vermilion, OH back to MI) we had a lot of time to pack. We put everything (except large furniture) into matching plastic bins. No mismatched cardboard for us. We watched for sales and snatched up all the green bins in Sandusky and Vermilion. Ryan created four computer labels for each box with highly detailed lists of all the contents, stating where it should go, and exactly how much it weighed. The scale sat next to the desk, so each box could be weighed before being perfectly labeled on four sides.
It was delightful.

We never get to enjoy such silly pleasures any more. We just have too much stuff...and too little time. We may have lost a little of that enthusiasm too.

But fresh labels still provide a little rush.

May

Maybe it is just my (somewhat childish) excitement for school to soon be over, the promise of summer, the long hours of sunlight that stretch the days, the wind blowing through my kitchen's open window, all the little seedlings that are popping through the soil in their tiny pots on my deck, the birthdays of some of my very favorite people on earth, the spontaneous outdoor adventures on weeknights and weekends, the first picnics of the year, the first strawberry shortcake, waking up to the sun....

...for so many reasons, May is extra beautiful. Whether the days are cold or rainy, hot, or windy...it doesn't matter. May is still here. It is still spring. All those cold and gray early months of the year now seem distant and insignificant. A settling (and also giddy) kind of happiness about the world arrives in May.

I finally believe that summer will come.

Jjamppong (a.k.a. "Jam Bong Soup")

Seriously. It has been too long.

Maybe I'll just learn to make it myself.

my birthday girl

She's four and so grown up. All day I've been telling her stories about the day that she was born. "And were you so happy? Was I really cute?" she asks. She's looking over my shoulder right now, looking at the pictures I've posted..."is that when I was three?"

She's been very excited about her birthday, but a little bit nervous about being four. For weeks she's been asking questions about "when I'm four".....fishing for details, "but I'll still be me right? I'll still be a little girl? Like....just like this, right? Can I still wear the same clothes and stuff?"

We've been celebrating all weekend...visiting the Fredrick Meijer Gardens' Butterfly Exhibit, the John Ball Park Zoo, hot dogs from G & L, a visit to the beach, and lots of time with friends and cousins, Aunts and Uncles, Grandmas and Grandpas (thanks for the fun birthday party, Isaac and Will!)

Maya is becoming a prolific artist, drawing pictures of people (usually me), designing playgrounds, and working on her letters. There are layers of drawings on our fridge these days. Most of all, she loves to pretend. All day long, she's speaking in several different voices (my favorite is her semi-British accent), narrating some sort of tragedy to and with her imaginary characters. Her favorites are Laura and Mary (Ingalls), and Mikey (a mysterious friend from church that she seems to be fascinated with, but has never spoken to). Several times a day, she says "can we play baby Mikey? Pretend I was just born. Say: look it's a baby....we haven't named him yet...let's call him Mikey." She's asked if maybe Mikey could come over to play or spend the night. But whenever I ask about him, she insists that they've never spoken. She just knows his name because "the teacher says it all the time."

We just finished reading Little House on the Prairie a couple of nights ago (back when she was three), and tonight we start book 3, Farmer Boy. So it's time to go put my big four year old to bed.

thinking about sewing something to wear...

I love this idea.

This creative designer/blogger was inspired by this Anthropologie shirt
to make her own...out of a regular dress shirt.

I was already to try it when I realized that I just cleaned out our closets! I donated to Hope's Outlet all the shirts that would be candidates for such a project. Rrrr.

a few of my hopes for Spring Break...

• play outside
• go running
• build blanket forts in the living room
  
• pretend play ("Mikey", Laura and Mary, babies, orphans, doctor...)
  
• walks
• bike ride(s)
• zoo trip(s)
• lots of art projects and writing
• play dough
• read several chapters of Little House on the Prairie
• catching up on ironing
• organizing a drawer or two
• a play date with friends
• plant something
• finish reading Eat. Pray. Love.
• library trip
• a date with my Love
• get some sleep

So far, we've already filled the first weekend with Yorkshire Pudding, one long family bike ride followed by a shared vanilla milkshake, two church gatherings to remember/celebrate His death and resurrection, some very messy Easter egg decorating, three family birthdays (one party), one family Easter celebration, one quick and magical zoo trip, lots of clean/folded/put-away laundry, some swinging on our new swing set (built by Ryan and 'Papa'), running in the grass, reading, a long wandering car ride through the country while listening to Vivaldi (an unsuccessful attempt to induce post-Zoo naps), late night movies, a little too much coffee, a lot too much sugar, and not quite enough sleep (yet).

Sophia Marie Elise

She's turning two tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to my sweet, funny, talkative, spunky, determined, curious, climbing, energetic, delightful, thoughtful, loving Sophie.

Happy Birthday to my Love!

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves,

or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ~Victor Hugo

Ryan,
Thank you for convincing all three of your girls that we are loved completely and unconditionally. You bring me more happiness now than ever before...a richer, more substantial kind of happiness (that is sweeter through shared joys and pain). I love how intertwined our lives have become...how connected are our future hopes and present delights and fears (and of course, how dependent we are on one another for survival these days!)
You are so loved.
Happy 31st Birthday.

Sometimes when it's too quiet upstairs...

...and the girls are playing together, I get a little nervous.

This afternoon when I went up to check, it was completely silent. I didn't see them either. "What are you doing, girls?" I asked.

From behind Sophie's door I heard Maya say sweetly, "We're reading." And they were. Just sitting in the corner by the bookshelf looking at books together. This has been happening more and more lately, but it still feels a little magical every time.

Some happy news from our friend Rick...

You may have read my earlier post last fall about our good friend Rick's very aggressive cancer diagnosis. Over the last couple of months, a few tests have seemed to confirm that the chemo is working beyond all expectations. Rick's post today was just too exciting not to share...

"My CT Scan results are in. And they are great news! There is no direct evidence of cancer on the scans. One area that previously showed cancer is no longer picking up any evidence. The other area that previous showed cancer has shrunk for the 2nd scan in a row and is much less defined, meaning that it could be just inflammation or even scar tissue from the cancer dying. The radiologist did not feel confident enough to label it as cancer.

We are taking this as excellent news. Dr. Sipahi is fairly sure there is still cancer present, but it is very small and possibly only microscopic. And even better yet, it is NOT spreading. This marks about 6 months since my diagnosis and according to imaging tests, there is less evidence (possibly none) of cancer now than there was at diagnosis 6 months ago. We are cautiously optimistic about these results and are planning a small celebration soon. We're going up to Boyne Mountain the first week of March for a skiing weekend and to go to Avalanche Bay indoor waterpark as a whole family getaway..."

You can read more (or sign his carepage) here.

If you think of it, please continue to plead for Rick's healing and pray for encouragement and strength and love to surround Rick, Cindy, Lauren, and Carter.

So far in 2010...

....we've been enjoying a schedule that is slightly slower than the exhausting pace of last fall. I'm not taking any classes this semester, so my 9 hour work week is a pleasant change for our whole family. Hopefully when summer arrives I'll be ready for that Lansing commute again.

We've spent more time with friends and family, visiting Grandparents and hearing stories. We've even had a few quiet weekends at home, staying warm, playing hide-and-go-seek, reading books, doing puzzles, dancing around the living room, pretending, sipping 'tea' out of toy cups, making cake and tabouli in the pretend kitchen, and Ryan and I watching This American Life episodes during Sunday afternoon "nap-time" and foreign films on netflix at night on our laptop.

When Sophie is awake, life is exciting and exhausting and constantly surprising. Tonight, Ryan found the memory card for our camera precariously balancing on the toilet seat. Sophie had been potty training one of Maya's dolls and needed to snap a few photos for the baby book. Her vocabulary is expanding rapidly due to her assertive personality which requires her to articulate all day long what she needs and wants to do.... "I need dat." "Hode me momma." "I need juice!!" " I need meewk." "No, I do dat...I do it! ME!" And her new favorite phrase to yell in public if she wants freedom to run, "LET ME GO!" Unfortunately, she knows it's funny to all the strangers within hearing distance, so she smiles, repeating it louder and louder.

We've been eating lots of tabouli and hummus (Sophie's favorite food) when we need to remember how summer felt...or tasted. But we're also enjoying the warm winter roasts and stews and chili our slow cooker has provided.

And since I'm thinking about food...Ryan and I have found a new addiction to a bowl of Korean soup called Jam Bong at the Egg Roll House. I think about it...and kim chi..all the time.

A little too frequently lately, Ryan and I split a bowl of this warm and spicy, seafood-filled broth with perfect noodles while Maya practices her chop-stick skills on rice and chicken and vegetables (and Sophie spreads rice all over the floor). I think we were actually there twice last week (it couldn't have been three times??).





In other news, Sophie is sleeping in her converted "Big Girl Bed" these days. She is pretty proud to climb in all by herself just like Maya. And, though she doesn't really use it, she's very serious about her new ownership of a pillow.