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things i love...secrets. mary's standby secret? "candy." whenever I ask her to tell me a secret, that's the one I always get. Today she added, "please" in the next breath.
what does Mary love? ravioli for lunch, spilling down the shirt her mommy made for her last week.
what else do I love? a jaw line. which appears to be missing from this angle....hmph.
I've lost my posting mojo lately. But I have a good explanation. In fact, it was good to finally have an explanation for the lack of creativity, lack of energy, lack of 'getupandgo', lack of emotional stability. I have a very important work in progress going on....I'm pregnant!
I'm just at the very beginning stages, only about two months along, I'm guessing. I still have yet to find a doctor to get that official due date. But I'm guessing early April. I have had the best luck with doctors for Emma and Mary's births. I'm hoping I'll find another wonderful doctor here, as well. I've had each of my daughter's born in a different state, Emma-Illinois, Mary-Wisconsin, now this baby will be a Maryland babe. I hope I don't have to cover any more of the country after this. It would be nice to have the same doctor twice, you know!
So, how am I feeling? Medium. Some days, I don't even feel pregnant. I'm full of energy, in a great mood. Other days, I can barely get the energy to make myself and the girls a bowl of cereal. Ahhh, the first trimester. This has definitely been an emotional pregnancy. Before I found out I was pregnant, I was about ready to sign myself up for counselling! And I'm sure Dan was ready to sign me up for it, too. I can't count how many times I heard him desperately say, "I just don't know where all this is coming from!?" as I cried about some drama that I was sure was effecting the stability of our lives. Anway, I've settled down now...settled down into tiredness coupled with pure excitement over another life growing inside me.
In the meantime, I've been sticking to easy, no brainer sewing projects with fulfilling results--CURTAINS! I've gone a little curtain crazy, I suppose. It started with emma's room when Angela of Colorfool, graciously offered me some of her vintage fabric and sheets for the project. She showed me her stash, and let me PICK what I wanted!! She sent so much, I've been able to stretch it into two projects:
First some curtains for Emma's room. Brown and white gingham with Angela's fabric border at the bottom:
A cubby in the living room--more of angela's fabric and some binding at the bottom:
And a kitchen window...now orange and white gingham.
Mary's room is next....it's amazing what a little color in your windows can do for the soul.
A little flashback art project this week with the girls. I remember painting rocks when we were younger, and even remember a few handpainted rock doorstops scattered around our house.
Last week the girls and I traipsed down to the stream for some large smooth rocks that would be good for a little painting. Many more rocks came home in our basket, but they were secretly weeded out...
We finally got around to scrubbing the rocks off and painting them early this week.
It's funny doing art projects with children. Oftentimes, I go into them with big, glorious plans for how the finished project should look. And what is usually being dreamed up in my mind is something far too complicated and controlled for a carefree two and four-year old. This project reminded me that it's just fun to create. to paint. to doodle. to have no plan. no required outcome. no step by step instructions. the process--from wading into a cold stream to pick the perfect rocks, to swirling colors of paint in a dish and realizing they just turn grey on the brush, to arranging the rocks in a row on the porch--is far more important than the finished product.
(love the big, crusty cut on her knee...she's been maintaing these all summer)
And you know what else is important? 
Putting on a pair of pink stripey socks, your sister's too big riding boots, and clicking around the house all morning long.
Things have been very quiet lately on this blog haven't they? The end of summer has felt very busy around here. I'm also getting ready for my mother-in-law's visit later this week. The piles of laundry are ridiculous. really, they are. But we're working on it. 
I got my first batch of buttons and pendants back from my work with the workshop program at the community college. There is definitely a learning curve involved--finding new clay, new glazes, new kiln...So this batch turned out a little differently from my past work. I'm still pleased with some of it, but I did have to put a disappointingly large pile of things (almost all my owl buttons. boo!) in the "seconds bowl". I'm not sure what I'll do with them. For now they are serving as currency for Mary and Emma's 'grocery store'.
The clay this time was a little bit redder and lighter so everything has a different feel, at least to me.
This was the first time I worked with some imprints on my buttons and pendants. This set has a blue green wash of color over the print. They look extrememly shiny in this picture. Some of that is the sun, but they are a little glassy.
And a few pendants came out nicely, too. They remind me of robin's eggs--the blue color flecked with specks of brown. 
These and others will be up in my etsy shop sometime this week. As always, if you are on my mailing list, you'll get the heads up first.
Off to change that laundry.....we're making progress, we're making progress.....
Emma had another riding lesson this morning. She's been taking lessons sporadically this summer from my cousin. It is the perfect opportunity for Emma to get a taste of riding from a cousin with whom she's enamored. (I know so, after a lengthy love letter emma wrote to her this morning before the lesson). I knew this week's lesson would be a little better than the others because yesterday Emma told me that she was going to walk and trot by herself without anyone walking her.
That's how Emma operates. Everything proceeds on her own time, at her own pace. Like swimming. I couldn't get her to wade past her waist at the beginning of the summer and now she's doing cannonballs off the diving board without any flotation devices. But each step was her decision. She rarely responds to any prodding by her mother or father.
So this week, she rode most of the lesson alone. At least that was the report. I was asked to leave her by herself at lessons this week. "Mommy, could you do some errands while I ride this time?" So Mary and I left and wandered aimlessly around the grocery store--milk, some yogurt, cream cheese...obviously we didn't make it past the dairy case.
We got back in time for me to catch a quick shot of my 'rider', riding all by herself, with no one leading her and heading back to the barn to un-tack, brush the horses and hand out much earned carrots to a lot of soft noses standing around the barn.
Thanks Lia, for a wonderful morning lesson. Thanks Vanity, for being such an old softie that you do exactly what you're told and let a four year-old think she's in complete control.
I realized the other day that had never shared my birthday present from Dan...he sent me away for the afternoon, sans children, with a little cash in my pocket to hit some local antique shops in Havre de Grace. It is a little town at mouth of the Susquehanna River on the Chesapeake Bay with antique and vintage shops around every corner. I cherished every moment of wandering at my own pace, lingering way too long looking at old postcards, or unfolding vintage aprons, no children to fuss over, no rush to get home to make dinner, as he promised dinner out when I returned. It was a perfect little present. And of course, I returned home with a few things.
orange polka dot canisters with wooden lids. stamped 'west germany'. I haven't been able to find any information about these anywhere. I've googled, ebay searched, no luck. So, I'll just cherish my little two that are sitting on my counter.
Thank you, Dan for a wonderful (much needed) afternoon to myself....
If you don't get the reference in my title, you're missing out on a fantastic read-aloud with your children. I highly recommend checking it out of your library this week. It's one of the Emma and Mary's favorites.
So, this pottery smock obviously isn't Jennifer Turkington's, but it is mine! I get covered in glaze and muddy clay when I work, so an apron of some sort has been on the brain for awhile. When I was working at the college a few weeks ago, I saw a school-issue royal blue smock hanging on the back of the door. Not much exciting about it, except for the wonderful pattern. So I swiped it for the day, traced it, modified a bit, and then made it a little more me.
It is made out of a gigantic thrifted linen tablecloth I found here. with two pockets in the front, cotton tape ties at the sides, and bias tape (which I'm slightly obsessed with at the moment).
By the way, I have yet to find the 'sweet spots' for taking pictures in our new place...and I'm especially horrible at taking the mirror shots. we won't talk about how many it took to get this pathetic shot.
It's been one of those days. I started this post this morning amidst of cloud of chaos surrounding me. I was desperately trying to get some quiet time to drink my coffee and whip up a few words, but interruptions were the theme of the morning. One of those mornings with too much laundry, too many dishes in the sink, too much dog hair swirling around the hardwood floors, too many toddler catfights going on in other room.
Lately, I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with the inside of the house. Maybe because we've been hiding out inside with the air conditioning all week. We've been here since April, so really I should be more patient. But the call of warm weather and swimming pools, gardens and bicycles has kept most of our attention on the out of doors.
But as I look around our place I see little corners where things have been shoved until later "dealing with", rooms that don't have curtains or pictures on the walls, toys that are beginning to overpopulate....And I'm getting really antsy to make the place more comfortable. 'Soft' is a word that comes to mind. I'd love some color on the walls besides white, but that will have to wait. That's Dan's department, but he's focused on lawn-mowing and garden-weeding....
So I'm left to work on the things that I can change....curtains, some children's artwork hung here and there, maybe a throw rug, or some fresh flowers. So many of my favorite pictures and paintings are still hanging in our old house in Wisconsin, mingled with most of our furniture, attempting to make the place look a little lived in while strangers wander through the halls deciding if it will be the perfect new home for them.
So to start, we headed out this afternoon looking for my favorite kind of curtains--twin flat sheets that can easily be stitched up into curtains, but nothing caught my eye. Chaos still ensued--hissy fits over riding in the shopping cart, a lost flip-flop, and a potty training toddler not making it to the potty in time (we were in the stall, just didn't make it on the toilet)--but I guess these moments of pull-your-hair-out-if-my-husband-only-knew-the-fixes-I-get-in-everday- are all part of being a mother. I don't always take them in stride at the moment, but I know they're all part of the package. And I opened the package and I love what's inside, all of it.
Phew. I feel better all ready.
Meanwhile, a wonderful package arrived for me yesterday from the lovely Claudia. 
She sent me a sweet package as part of Sally's vintage button swap. The buttons and perfect little box they came in would have been enough, but she also included, some fantastic horse fabric, a beautiful little bag for fall and an oil cloth zipper pouch for my pottery tools. Claudia, if you'd peeked inside my pottery notebook, you'd see one of my last notes is a list of things I need. One thing on my list is something to hold my tools. It's perfect. Just what I was looking for.
And lastly my work in progress for this week. 
Seeing all these wonderful appliqued tees and onesies from Blair, and Sally and Stephanie these past few weeks has inspired me to try a few more myself. This time it will be horses. Everything around here is all about horses now that Emma has started taking riding lessons. So horses it is. One for each of them. A nice peaceful, naptime, Friday afternoon project while I wait for a storm to roll through and wipe away the heat.
More vintage button swap pictures: mine and theirs
More works in progress: here
recipe for a nest: dry pine needles, grass, dog hair, flowers from the trumpet vine, twine, and a good reference book (see below)
