Photos by Piper

Sometimes, when I give her my phone to fiddle with, just so I can get through the check-out line at Target or drive the last five minutes home without having her in complete and total meltdown mode, she boots up the camera. She really likes the shutter sound it makes when it takes a picture. Every time I flip through my pictures stored on the phone, I find 15 new ones of a patch of floor, or the view out the car windows as seen from her perch in the back. I get photos of her car-seat buckles, my chin, or her dad's shoulder. Some of them I delete immediately (who wants 17 photos of the carpeting in the play area at the mall?) but some I keep. They seem like tiny windows into her world, a glimpse of her view of things. I get to notice what she notices, for a change. Here are a couple she took while I was wandering around a dreaded Wal-Mart Supercenter, trying to explain to a friend which vegetable oil would be best for making a cake:

They are, at least, interesting, which is more than I can say for some of the photos I take.

"I'm just going to drink my latte"

This is what happens when I leave my caramel-apple latte sitting around at the playground while I'm desperately trying to get a non-blurry photo of her face:

"Mmm! This is good latte. Mommy's latte is very tasty."

And, no, it wasn't decaf. It was, however, a very long afternoon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing a very happy, safe, and food-filled Thanksgiving to my U.S. readers. And, for that matter, a very happy, safe, and food-filled Thursday to all my non-U.S. readers.

I will be eating my weight in pie. Hey, I earned it, since I spent all of yesterday baking. I made the following:

Orange-cranberry-oat scones
Apple Pie
Pecan Pie
Pear Pie With Asiago-Rosemary Crust

Plus these awesome little cookies that are like sugar-butter thumbprints with a candycane & cream cheese mixture dolloped into the center. I finally packed them into Tupperware and made my brother hide them in the garage because I ate so many. It's pretty cold out there, they'll keep. And I won't get a bellyache.

And tomorrow? The glory that is turkey quesadillas.

Eating Pretzels on the Steps of Henry Ford's Boyhood Home

We went to Greenfield Village on Sunday with my dad. It was way fun. Except for the part where Piper jumped into a giant puddle of horse pee. That part was gross.

RGR Giveaway: Gingerbread Skirt

Marissa of Rae Gun Ramblings is hosting a bunch of awesome giveaways, including one for this adorable skirt.


Pretty darn cute. Visit the above link to enter.

P.S. I would've posted a picture, so you could all see the super-cuteness of that skirt, but my parents, for some ridiculous reason, have nothing but Internet Explorer on their computers, and it sucks so bad that after ten minutes of trying I had no picture, my post eaten twice, and felt like PUNCHING THE WHOLE WORLD IN THE FACE. But I did try, because I love you.

Cleanliness is Next to Dadliness

My parents like it when I visit.

Not only do I bring the Sacred Grandchild, Best Baby Ever, Smartest Child In The Universe with me, but I cook.

And cook. And cook.

I cook big lunches and dinners and freeze the leftovers for my mom to take for lunch, or for everyone to defrost and eat on nights when nobody feels like cooking. When I leave, their spare freezer in the basement is full of stacks of neatly-labled Tupperware containers. I make a lot of food, and it's usually pretty healthy and whole-food focused. I use whole-grain flours, fresh vegetables, good meats, and as little fat and cheese as I can get by with. They all eat it and they love it.

My parents remodeled their kitchen a few years ago, and turned it from a cramped, dark horrorshow into a bright, airy space with TONS of cupboards and counter space. There is also a six-burner gas range...and my dad.

My dad does the dishes and cleans the kitchen. It is his chore around the house, his "thing" that he does, and he likes it that way.

Which means that I can come into a sparkling kitchen every evening, make honey-basalmic glazed chicken and pecan pie for dessert (or cheddar-potato soup, or tortilla soup, or turkey chilli, or pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing), and not have to clean up afterward.

Sure, I tidy up as I go, like any good cook (or houseguest) should, but when I'm done eating, the mountain of pots, pans, and plates is not my problem. Someone else will deal with and actually prefers to do it himself.

It's fabulous.

The Brass Hussy GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Oh, man, look at this jewelry!

I know someone who would love this squirrel-and-acorn necklace (I mean, besides me):


Winner gets a $30 gift certificate to The Brass Hussy's shop. Visit the link below to enter.

The Brass Hussy GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Grosgrain: Modern Blitz Designs Guest Giveaway

Another great giveaway, especially at this time of year! Free custom custom card design...wowza.

This is a great opportunity if you are like me - I always have all these terrific ideas for holiday cards, all this creative stuff just swirling around in my brain, but utterly fail when it comes to time, patience, and knowledge to make them a reality.

Visit the link below to check out the giveaway.

Modern Blitz Designs Custom Card GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Grosgrain: The Handmade Dress Patterns Guest Giveaway

Grosgrain is featuring a very generous giveaway from The Handmade Dress: one each of Samantha's dress patterns.

These are so cute, and pretty much exactly the sort of thing I love to dress my little girl in. Go check out the giveaway at the link below, and then browse Samantha's shop. You won't be sorry.

The Handmade Dress Patterns GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Stuff Under Twenty Giveaway: Silver Ring

I loooooove rings. Big ones, little ones, chunky ones, dainty ones. But rarely do I fall in love with a ring as hard and fast as I have just fallen for the one they're giving away over at Stuff Under Twenty.




Go check out the giveaway and comment to win. You have until tormorrow night, so hurry! Also go check out the beautiful items made by the sponsor, Sea Babe. This "Crisp Morning Air" necklace is now at the tippy-top of my wishlist.

Friday Fashion: Little Feet

I love Livie and Luca shoes. I have not yet bought a pair for Piper, but that has not stopped me from obsessing about them. I daydream about buying her these in every size:


Ahhhhh! Couldn't you just have a heart attack from all the cute?! These are pretty good, too:


And would get a lot of use, considering that half her wardrobe is purple.

However, at $47 a pair, for something that she would scuff in two seconds flat, these will have to remain on my wishlist, for now at least.

I'm Sure This Will Be Less Funny the Older She Gets

Well, I missed a day, didn't I? I'll just have to post twice in one day to make up for it.

We had a lovely 4-day visit on the other side of the state, but I'm not sure if I'll be doing the Grand Tour like that again. Piper sort of freaked out about all the new places and lack of home comforts. Spending four days repeating every possible variation of "No," "Stop that," "Be quiet," "Stop touching that," or "Be quiet" wore me out. I'd never particularly thought of our house as kid-proofed, but after spending four days in places with crowds, quiet rooms, breakable items, tons of knick-knacks, steep stairs, sharp things sitting on the edges of counters, and zero toys, I truly appreciate how nice it is to be able to turn my kid loose somewhere and not worry.

Even here at my parents' house it's difficult - although my mom claims not to like clutter, there are magazines and yarn and crochet hooks and scissors and stacks of books and reams of paper and electronics sitting all over every surface. My brother is staying at the house while he prepares to buy a house of his own, so all his electronics and art supplies and leather-working tools and welding stuff and four cats are crammed in here too. They have an entertainment center whose glass door seems to exert a magnetic pull on my two-year-old and behind its magnetic spring closure exists a tower of things with intriguing buttons and knobs.

Piper stuffed a scarf into the VCR on our second night here. She came up to me and repeated "Is it stuck? Did you get it stuck? Is it stuck in there?" and pointed at the stereo cabinet. My dad and I both realized what had happened and looked at each other. My mom had crocheted her a kid-sized scarf complete with fringe, and she'd stuffed it into the tape slot on their VCR. I was concerned, but not enough to prevent me from hooting with laughter as my dad struggled to remove it. He was laughing too, as a worried-looking Piper repeated "Is it stuck? Grandpa get it not stuck?" while he gingerly extracted the threads.

Fortunately, my parents adore Piper and think that pretty much anything she does is amazing. She rarely manages to irreparably damage anything, and after raising three of the most destructive and devious children known to mankind, one semi-well-behaved toddler is a breeze.

For example: when we were 13 and 16, a disagreement between my brother and myself turned into an all-out brawl, during which he slammed me bodily into a wall. Drywall wasn't really meant to withstand the force of teenage fisticuffs, so there was a pretty big hole. We managed to hide it from them for about six months, and even then they only found out because that wall covered an old chimney and bats started getting inside the house.

Then there were the mad-scientist experiments conducted by my brother involving frogs and electricity; the time I drove one of our cars into the ditch and got back out without mentioning it to anyone; and my sister, the human spider monkey, climbing to the top of the cupboards and throwing dishes down.

We broke things, we experimented, we made applejack (fermented cider) in the basement. We nailed things to the floor and pilfered tools and drank from their open wine bottles and replaced it with water (like they wouldn't notice). Sometimes, as exasperated as I get with my own kid now, I have to laugh, because when I ask her why she did something she gives me the classic "I don't know, it just seemed like the thing to do" look. I remember giving my parents that look many, many times, and having absolutely no explanation for the incredibly dumb or dangerous thing I had just done. Now I find myself on the other side of that look, the beginning of a lifetime's-worth of asking "Why did you do that?! What is wrong with you?!"

Of course, I'm sure my parents are just cackling with glee at all this. They've been using the "I hope you grow up and have a kid JUST LIKE YOU" threat for years.

Rootless

It's so odd to come back and visit a place where I once lived. I told my husband once that as much as I love seeing all our old friends, I find it difficult and a little unnerving to come back and hang around Kalamazoo.

"When I'm here, I like to see everyone and hang out and go to all our old favorite spots...but then I want to go down the street and home to my bed and curl up under a blanket and wake up in our little apartment and walk across the back yard to go get fresh bagels for breakfast. But I can't do any of that, because it's not our apartment anymore, and we got rid of that blanket two moves ago, and tonight we're going to be crashing on someone's sofa bed because we don't live here anymore. We're in this place that is so familiar, this town we once loved and called home, but we have nowhere to go. It makes me feel so rootless and unconnected, like I could just fly off the spinning planet."

He laughed and called me silly, until a few years ago when we came back for a wintertime visit and found ourselves driving down our old street in the dark a few weeks before Christmas, looking at all the ramshackle Victorian houses with their crooked strings of lights. There was a light on in the apartment that we had once lived in and loved so well, and we knew the radiators would be gurgling away, making the place toasty warm.

"Okay, you're right," he said as we slowly cruised past our old building. "I want to just pull into our driveway and go home, but I can't. It feels like I ought to be able to just park in our old spot and go right upstairs. But I can't. Our stuff isn't there; it's 3,000 miles away, in California. That sad little fake tree you used to put up isn't up there, or those pine candles you got that smelled like toilet cleaner. Our super-comfy bed with the sad old comforter isn't there, either, even though my body wants to go upstairs and tumble into it. Even though I almost just pulled into the driveway out of habit, we don't live here anymore. It still feels like home here but it's not home. Oh, I don't like this at all."

But there's nothing to be done about it, is there? I'd love to win the lottery and buy our old apartment building and turn it back into the gorgeous pre-war duplex it once was. I'd love to live in our old neighborhood, close to our friends and right in the middle of a vibrant and diverse community. But those things wouldn't change us back into the people we were then, or give us back the life we used to have here. We're different, the town is different, some of our friends have moved away and those that remain also have very different lives from what used to be.

I know all this, but every time I'm here I am filled with longing, because I think it is the last place that truly felt like home.

Books on the Wall, II

Part of a failed attempt to make our house look cool like in Ready-Made Magazine.

Stumbling Down Memory Lane

We've already been visiting here in Michigan for a week. It seems like barely any time has passed, yet also like we boarded that plane a long time ago. Either way, we've been having a blast. I met up with my friends who live in the area, and since most of them have kids Piper's age, she's had more playmates in the last six days than in the last six months. I am doing pretty well, I think, given that my social skills are sorta rusty. Months of regularly interacting with only one other adult human will do that to you.

Today we made the two-hour drive over to Kalamazoo, on the west side of the state, which is where my husband and I both went to college. It's a fun, funky college town and I had forgotten how much I love it here.

I met some friends downtown for lunch and as we walked back to our cars and took in the autumn scenery, we all realized just how much time we'd spent in the bars along W. Michigan Ave.

"Maybe it's better that Piper isn't old enough to care about getting my personal tour of this town," I remarked. "Becuase 85% of it would be places I got drunk."

Ahh, college.