changing seasons

Can you feel it in your neck of the woods - the season is changing? I can feel it around here. Maybe it's because daylight savings was last weekend and the light is with us longer in the evenings. The temperature is starting to thaw. I find myself tugging off my mittens on my daily walks to and from work.

The snow is still well over a foot deep in the backyard, but it's melty and crusty around the edges. It's slowly dissolving and rich brown earth is starting to appear at the edges of all the drifts and piles. I can see the raspberry canes spiking up through the drifts. Soon maybe some buds will appear on the little maple tree we planted in the backyard two years ago.

The changing season makes me think about our adoption. We receive updates every month and have been getting "hits" and inquires over our profile. Well over a dozen birthmothers have asked for a copy of our profile book, but we are still waiting. I wonder if maybe one of the birthmothers who is looking at our profile - "our birthmother" - is still early in her pregnancy and is wondering what she will do. Maybe she looked at our profile and then tucked it away somewhere as she sorts through things in her heart. It is as hard on her (maybe harder) than it is on us. I think about her every day and hope she is taking care of herself and the little one she is carrying.

I look at my frozen garden, mostly hidden beneath the snow, and I tell myself "Next year when the raspberries blossom our baby will be here" or "next fall when the maple burns red we will be celebrating that we have made a connection with a birthmother." And I will remember the berries and the red leaves on the maple and how they helped me count the days of this wait.

Patiently waiting (well . . . waiting)

Jillian

oh my stars

Well, it's practically the middle of March so I freely admit to "self-medicating" myself with color, color, color. The color yellow, specifically - and it's funny how my creative cravings seem to be cyclical because I was doing the same thing this time last year.

The pattern for the quilt I'm working on can be found here. I like it so far because I haven't had to cut special diamond pieces with a template - it's just squares - my favorite. I'm going to stick with variations of squares as long as possible . . . make a thorough study of it. (And also I have cut out a lot of extra 3" squares for all of the other quilts I've been making, so I need to use them up. ) I'm thinking of putting this star on a field of yellow fabric . . . let's just go bright.

The elephant has returned. This is going to be a little pillow for my niece. My sewing machine is currently tucked away in the closet, but I need to pull it out and start sewing things together.

Hope March is treating you kindly.

XOXO

Jillian

heart warming

The weekend can't be almost over - I haven't checked one thing off of my "to do" list. Instead I've been napping and playing around with fabric both days - not organizing all our paperwork for our taxes and not cleaning the bathrooms like I had planned.

There has been some baking and cooking. The soup is a recipe I've posted before, still just as good as I remembered it to be and the cheesy garlic biscuits can be found here. They are best hot out of the oven when the cheese is still melted inside of them. Easy. Yummy. Addicting.

The book I'm reading has been keeping my interest so far. The Hangman's Daughter, by Oliver Potzsch. It's fun to knock about in the 17th century with the characters. The plot revolves around a hangman and a midwife - so I'm learning a lot about 17th century medical lore and herbs - which makes me think about my garden. As I write this I can see out the window to the back garden, which is covered by two feet of snow, at least.

It's gonna be awhile before I get out there. 

big snow

The house across the street had sweeps of snow - like sculpted meringue on a pie - on its roof all weekend long. I would look out at the puffs of smoke from the chimney tops in our neighborhood and see the blowing snow and just be happy that I was tucked inside with my knitting and my stack of books from the library.

 We braved the roads this weekend to visit family on both days and as a result found Monday morning a bit hard to handle. Below zero again and I had to put gas in my car. (Dear Winter : We have all had enough of you.)

I'm in a bit of a creative doldrums around here - so I hope things liven up. I need to find a quote or a poem or a scrap of fabric or yarn that will perk me up and pull me back into the swing of things. Ever felt this way? Well, I'm on the lookout for some inspiration - I'm sure I won't have to look for long before something swells my heart. Maybe I'll just take a "stroll" through my blog roll.

handspun

Here we go: this is what I've been pulling off my spinning wheel this week. I'm excited to knit this into a pair of warm socks. Hope your week is going well. We have a few colorways here. We will be making more soon!

Jillian

valentine's weekend

It's been a weekend of baking and spinning. Having Valentine's Day on Friday was great - we didn't have to try to squeeze it into a busy work week. We didn't even try to go out for dinner around here, instead we stayed in, made the meal ourselves and avoided the general chaos of this most romantic of holidays. We watched the new Carrie movie on Friday night and then last night we watched the new Romeo and Juliet movie with that actress from True Grit - so I guess there was the general theme of love gone terribly wrong this weekend - but it still felt romantic and fun to us.

Back to the baking and spinning. I got the sugar cookie recipe here. I thought I had some heart-shaped cookie cutters in the cupboard, but didn't so I had to improvise with circles, elephants and diamond shapes. I love the rhubarb jelly sandwich version of these cookies.  Heart-shaped cookies would have been good, but circles get the job done.

Speaking of circles, I've pulled out the spinning wheel along with some very colorful fiber. A few pairs of my hand-spun socks have bit the dust this winter - they just finally wore out.  It's time for a few new pairs. I'm spinning single-ply, fingering weight yarn - a bit heavy on the spin for durability. My last pair of socks didn't hold up very well and I think it was because the yarn wasn't spun tightly enough. We'll just have to see how it goes. I'm looking forward to sharing some hand-spun sock yarn with you soon.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

sleepy time

Ahh . . . I was so happy for the weekend when it came around. Garrett and I had a busy week last week. We volunteered to watch our cousin's little girl while they went off on an all inclusive trip to Cabo. Four days. One three year old. Sub-zero weather and daycare drop-offs and pick-ups. Meal time, bath time, story time and that blissful time when the dear little one is sleeping (hopefully) and you get to fall onto the sofa next to your husband and just relax.

I'm sick again, though - a head cold sinus thing that just makes me feel and look rather gross. I've gone through two boxes of tissues and almost one roll of toilet paper over the course of the weekend. Sorry for over-sharing, but that box of "Sleepytime" tea has become my best friend. Garrett brought me home the jumbo box and I like to steep my tea with honey, lots of honey. I want to become the "Sleepytime" bear. I want the crackling fire, the comfy chair and the night cap. I want to be snug in my little bear den as the winter winds howl outside, healing from the inside out.

But tomorrow is Monday and my PTO is dwindling, so I'll have to do the best I can to heal up and then brave the work week along with everyone else. This has been a long winter. My dad was saying something along the lines of we've had 40 mornings below zero here in Minnesota. That sounds about right to me. I really dislike walking to my office in this cold.

We rearranged the living room. We finished off the family room in the basement, and put the tv down there. That created space for another bookshelf. I feel so happy with all of my books and pictures around me. I finished a great book this weekend. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. It was wonderful . . . think Romeo and Juliet set against an 80's soundtrack. Funny and heartwarming. I made Garrett listen as I explained the entire plot to him and why I loved it so much. ha. I read it for my April book club.

That's a pot of my restorative chicken noodle soup on the stove. I begged my mother to bring me one of her farm-grown chickens so that I could use it to make this soup. We've got to get healthy around here.

I hope all of you bears are cozy on this chilly February night. Snuggle in and sleep tight.

XOXO
Jillian