Agony

No wonder I was feeling crabby the other day. You would be too if you were secretly gestating the UTI from which I am currently suffering. Ahhh, the misery. I woke up kind of sick yesterday morning, and by lunch I was really feeling it. My midwife said she'd call in a prescription if I promised to go to my local Labcorp and give a sample. Hard to say which part was more agonizing: suffering through this infection, or suffering through the inhumane treatment at the lab. So now I am chock-full of antibiotics but still feeling kind of flu-y and tired. With no appetite. Figures. The Bacteria-Ravaged Body Diet is the only one I've ever been good at.

I think the crappiest part about being kinda sick is how mentally I am at my most ambitious when my body is ailing. I create lofty aspirations because I know that I have a dynamite excuse for not doing them. For example, right now I am thinking about how I would really love to be cleaning the kitchen floor and folding all the laundry or sewing up new orders, but - alas - I am sick and achy and couldn't possibly withstand the exertion. I can convince myself that if I were not sick and achy the house would shine like a new diamond and my latent craft projects would be nearly complete.

Clearly, I should have been diagnosed with dementia as well.

Grumps

Feeling grumpy. I love that word. It sounds just exactly like what it means. Onomatopoeia.

Think I need to get out of the house for a bit, before the sun's vicious rays singe off my top layer of skin. This weather's getting to me. A very, very inconvenient truth.

On a more adorable note:

The Scoop

I guess I must be about to ovulate, because I can't think of anything else that would account for my recent burst of domesticity, an urge so strong it has me just short of propping Pete's feet up on an ottoman, scotch-on-the-rocks in hand, when he returns from work.

Some time last week I borrowed The Perfect Scoop by David Leboviz from our local library. I've mentioned ice-cream making before, but I am a bit suspect of new recipes, especially ones that call for things like Jello and pudding mix. David's recipes are fantastic and inspired by his life in Paris, and it wasn't until I read the back cover that I realized that this was the same David whose blog I just love and have been reading for the last 2 months. Cyber-world and real world collide once again.


Saturday I whipped up a bit of Strawberry-Rhubarb Sorbet and then yesterday concocted Toasted Coconut Ice Cream. Both were so good I wanted to hit the container face-first. It made me a little sad to eat the coconut one because my dear, dear friend Bo just loves coconut and I wish he'd been there to share it with us instead of all the way across the country. He would have flipped. Today I've made some strawberry sorbet for our new neighbors.



Pete even got into the action and whipped us up some DIY pizzas for last night's dinner.



I made this little tablecloth for our kitchen table. I love the ruffle but forgot how tricky they can be to make...my thread kept breaking. To be honest, I probably would have rather bought one, but I looked and looked with no success. Why is it so difficult to find a decent-looking tablecloth out there? They all look like they should be on some banquet table at the Sheraton.



Today Andrew and I were returning from our early-morning jaunt to Trader Joe's and I suddenly became obsessed with the sensation of entering our house and having it smell clean. Like, really, really clean. And cool. It's about 100 degrees here today and I just ached for that feeling I used to have when we'd go to the beach and be tired and hot and then walk into our hotel room which would be almost icy and smell so sanitized.

This could also be due to the fact that I was raised in the Church of Bleach, a cult in which my mother and sister are still active followers. Nothing in our house was clean until it had been doused with Clorox. Today I returned to the fold. I scrubbed our kitchen to within an inch of its life and when I was done, I actually stepped outside on our porch for about three minutes and then walked in the front door to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Heavenly.

Art vs Craft Throwdown

It finally dawned on me this morning while walking through my home that I spend so much time flaunting my craft projects that I have never even mentioned that I'm surrounded by other artists in my life. My mother is a painter and my husband is too, and here I've never really even given them the props they deserve. Shame on me. But it's my blog and I'll dwell on myself if I want to.


by my mother, hanging in our living room



Pete did this one while I was in Paris a few years ago.



Another one by my mother, hanging in our hallway



I really love this one. She did it for our half-bath, of all places.

I've been thinking more and more about craft and art. Growing up, my mother appeared to have drawn a very dark, thick line between the two. Although much may have been lost in translation to my young mind, I gleaned from her the opinion that craft was the purvey of those who crocheted padding on coat hangers and decorated light bulbs as Santa Claus. Art, on the other hand (a camp into which she has two feet firmly planted) was something all together different. It involved a particular vision, a specific subset of skills....it had value just because it is, not because it has a practical function.

As someone who loves to create, this stigma against crafts left me feeling confused. I didn't think (and still don't) that I am blessed with the gift of being a fine artist. I can't draw or sculpt or paint... When I visit art museums I gaze upon the works with the same wonder that I feel when I see a spaceship launch or an Olympic athlete perform - the ability to do those things completely eludes me. But I still had this very strong desire to create beautiful (often functional) things, so where did that leave me? I often felt inwardly ashamed of my passion for craft - like I was playing for the intramural team because I couldn't make the Fine Art Varsity team. (**For the record, I must add that I received nothing but adoration and encouragement from my mother in any creative endeavor, blah, blah...not blamin' anything on Mom.)

I secretly have held onto those childhood prejudices until very, very recently. Being a part of an online craft community has literally changed my life, and I become very emotional even writing about it. For the first time I feel that my craft is art. It may never hang in a museum or be auctioned by Christie's, but I am proud of what I create and it makes my home a richer place. Moreover, I now see the crafts of others and experience that "museum" feeling - I am in awe, moved by the expression of their talents. The work that other fine crafters produce has somehow liberated me, validated my own creations, set me free.

This American Life

In yet another hefty leap onto a bandwagon that nearly passed me by, I have to tell you that I cannot listen to enough episodes of This American Life. I love them all. I love Ira Glass. I love listening to any of the tales: from the inside of Chicago's Golden Apple Diner to those family legends that, retold to generation after generation, morphed into an all together fabulous story. Most of all I love that it is on the radio (even though, ironically, I listen to it on the internet). I know, I know, rumor has it you can find it on Showtime, but I just want to listen. What's the frequency, Ira?

I listened to the "Special Ed"-themed show today while performing a minor overhaul of my studio space. This was not an Extreme Makeover. It was more of a Slap-a-Little-Lipstick-On Makeover. A few weeks ago I found out that our local Pier 1 Outlet was going out of business and not only was clearing out everything on the shelves, they were clearing out the shelves themselves! So for $30 I got 2 pretty incredible display cabinets to stack my stuhf in. You know, my fabric stuhf, my notion stuhf, my crafty stuhf. And of course, the amount of stuff you have automatically and obligingly expands in direct proportion to the space you've allotted to store it. Even though I don't feel like I have alot more room now, I do think things are more organized and accessible. In the deepest, most obscure recesses of my being I lust for a type of neurotic organization, although precious few examples of my secret desire can be identified in my life.


p.s. I have been crocheting little cakes like some kind of crazy crafter-baker on crack, and I will post them soon. Norma Lynn wrote me the sweetest little note after my last post. Gotta love her.

Chores

One of my favorite blogs is I Hate Laundry, which I was attracted to initially because of its title. I don't think it's appropriate to say that I hate laundry. Perhaps it's more appropriate to say that I loathe it. I've tried all sorts of things to get me to relish (or at least tolerate) the experience: a new washer (nope), a Martha-would-be-proud makeover of our laundry room (nope), a menagerie of detergents and dryer sheets (nope).

I hate doing laundry. But here's a caveat: I love to iron my pillowcases. And I do. Everytime I wash them, with lavender-scented spray. I'm often a little embarrassed to admit that I do this, less others would assume that my household is, in any other even little way, subject to maintenance of this extravagance.


Ironically, I hate to iron just about anything else (except dinner napkins) and I literally cannot recall the last time any item of my clothing was kissed with an iron's fiery weight, but ironing my pillowcases and slipping into sleep upon slick, smooth pillows is a little bit heavenly.

Now for some wrinkles I am really into:

Big Love

Please don't hate me because I have a husband who will willingly clean out the refrigerator, unprodded, with only minimal eye-rolling when he turns one of the shelves upside down and sees that the jar of lemon curd hangs on tightly, like a DQ Blizzard, because someone didn't wipe up the sweet tea that leaked throughout the fridge. Ages ago.

Sloth

I am just totally useless today. I did manage to run to Trader Joe's and come home to make mango sorbet, which is truly one of the most magnificent creations to come out of my kitchen in a long time. But my house is dirty and I have cloths to make, and my mojo is gone on both fronts. I was sick last week and then Pete has been sick all this week and the house feels like it's come down with something too. I feel like I need to go around the rooms opening windows and waving a smudge stick and ringing a bell.

I finally got a big order of little cloths out to The Red Hen in Carrboro. I couldn't believe how long it took for me to finish them, but I was really pleased with how they turned out. The business is growing, slowly but surely.




Tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the "restructuring" of Pete's work at that awful agency. When I think back about that time I still get sick to my stomach, but I am also so, so grateful. What seemed like the worst-case scenario (new baby, single income, strange city) really made us reach out and grab opportunities which have been nothing short of miraculous. Case in point: If Pete had not decided to leave his job, I wouldn't have started working at the birth center. And the birth center's lovely little store wouldn't have asked me to make baby cloths. And then I wouldn't have decided to see who else was interested in my little cloths. And, of course, I wouldn't today have my sweet little business.

I think that Pete and I are going to celebrate all that we have done and become in the last year. Our wedding anniversary is lovely because it marks the day we made our vows. But May 18th is so meaningful because that's when those vows were tested, when we had the choice to fall apart or to meet our lives head-on, as partners.