Hi. How ya been?

I had a big party last weekend. I threw it for myself because I was so pleased about having patterns in Pretty Little Potholders and Pretty Little Patchwork. I called it Pretty Little Party--why miss out on the opportunity? It turned out just right. There were dancing and drinking pretty drinks and cupcakes and lilacs and bunches of fresh mint. We live a ways out from most people, so we don't entertain very often--it was nice to do it up right!

The spools (in a compote dish) were a gift from my friend Joe's mom. She gave them to me because she knew I would like them-- you know how it is with that sort of thing? The colors are so pretty, and it's so much easier to repurpose wooden spools than plastic ones. They make me happy.

Post party, the house is so clean I can't believe it. There has been no posting because I have been doing things like dusting the high shelves. I suppos I could have turned this into a cleaning blog, but um, that's just not my thing. It's probably somebody's thing though, right? Anyone down with the clean blogging scene?

We are officially chicken people. This is our first farm animal experiment. Previously all the animals in our household have been cats. The chicks are here with a job to do: in about five months they will lay eggs. (It would be unfair to say that the cats are not as useful. They may not produce food, but they manage to fulfill their roles as lap warmers and comic relief.)

The chicks are funny. The red one (a Rhode Island Red) is sweet and friendly, the black one (a Barred Rock) is a little stern, and the brown one with fluffy cheeks (an Ameraucana) is worried. I did not expect them to really have personalities, but they do. When they get big enough, we are going to tractor them around the yard. They can find delicious bugs that way.

I didn't think I would have chickens. I though I might have any one of a number of other farm-type animals, but not chickens. I think it's because my BFF is chicken phobic and I love her. But Elie was really down with the idea of chickens and they're a pretty practical animal to keep, so here we are. (Plus, said BFF lives halfway across the country.)

It's been a weekend of food for thought, much of it thanks to Lisa, our local food diva. She had chickens and demonstrated how not hard or weird it was, and she also posted links to all the local CSAs, which was so nice because I thought there was only one and it was sold out. I joined up and am now thrilled about the idea of my veggies arriving once a week in a box, not in the least because this means that I won't have to think about what to buy. It is lessening my domestic thought burden. Back to this weekend. So then to top that all off, my friend Joe got me into the sold out Ebertfest showing of Farmer John, which was just oh so good.

Also this weekend, a tiny bit of crafting for another tiny person. Bibs for baby showers. I swear, there are as many babies as bunnies this year!

I made another mama cat with the intention of making her as close to this mama cat as possible. They are a lot alike, but not the same, because faces come out difference every time. It's just the way it is

My mother came out to visit me last weekend, and she brought my aunt along with her. We had a very nice time doing nothing too terribly exciting. Their visit started out our visiting season, which is basically May through July this year, which is so nice because I was getting sick of March

The spring weather has inspired us to dig right into some house projects: I made simple white curtains for our bedroom to replace the broken roller shades, and Elie has taken a break from renovating the kitchen to dismantle the extra garage. Yup, we have an extra garage and it is huge, like 3 cars and a boat huge. Cars were obviously more important to the house's former owners than to us. We would rather have the land than the garage, and we've tried to sell it to other people who want a garage, but those deals have all fallen through.

So Elie is taking it apart, and we're going to scrap most of the metal and do lord knows what with the roof framing. The garage has a dirt floor, which smells very badly of motor oil and paint. We're going to till it up and plant things we won't eat, like buckwheat. The posts are cemented into the ground, so rather than dig them out, we're going to plant viney things like morning glories and beans to grow up the sides. We'll see how it goes--it's quite the project!

So it turns out that some of you are very knowledgeable about buttons! I think that the idea of the buttons being put there by some small hoarding child the best. It reminds me of something Beebs would do, so I think that's what I'll go with, just because it makes me happy.

As we've rebuilt the walls, we've thrown some random things into them. Catalogs, a cheap plastic toy, and in one we even put in a bit of a "time capsule". It was photos of us and the house and receipts and some random information all slipped inside a CD case I got free with some pharmaceuticals. "See, back in 2005, the drug companies gave people all sorts of things!"

Above we have the latest dose of washcloth evangelism. These went out to Elie's mom over the weekend. She taught me how to knit as a grown up. When I was little, my grandmother taught me, but I didn't have the patience. I'm so glad Helen helped me awaken my knitting fingers and put them to good use!

We found something interesting this weekend--buttons from under the floor. As part of our kitchen renovation, Elie had to pull up some floorboards that were badly worn and running the wrong way because they used to be part of some other room and not the kitchen. (Who knows where some of these walls used to be!) There was this pile of mostly shell buttons under the floorboards. It didn't look like they got there accidentally. I mean, it's not like one or two buttons rolled into a crack. This was a little pile directly on top of pine board sub-flooring and directly underneath maple boards. The maple is quite old, so I'm guessing the buttons are too, but who knows. Most of the buttons have threads in the holes, like they were just pulled from the card. Again, who knows. This old house has its share of mysteries.

Does anybody know of any traditions in which buttons are put in the floor? Google seems to be unfamiliar with this idea.

I just about always have a basket of laundry in some stage of the laundry process sitting my my room. This gets me because it's not like we do laundry by hand. A machine does all the work. We just have to put it away. But in order to put it away, we have to take time from other things in order to fold the laundry and pair the socks. This is mostly where I get slowed down.

I want to do a lot of things and none of them is folding laundry. If my room were pretty, I would probably make a bigger effort to keep it pristine (ok, tidy), but it still has the wallpaper and roller shades of the former inhabitants. On humid days it even smells like them. Yuck. Guess whose task it is to fix that? Mine, but I'm not really doing anything about it at the moment.

I want to do lots of things, but there isn't time for them all. Perhaps you know how that is? Currently I have a lot of big things that are in various stages of progress (a quilt, a sweater, a guest room, a kitchen, a bathroom), and I would really just like to have something that is completely done. I actually started two things yesterday, a little bag and kool-aid dyeing, thinking that they would be succinct little projects, but then I was missing a zipper for the bag and I forgot about the soaking for the yarn, so they ended up in the unfinished pile.

The kool-aid yarn will happen today. Beebs and I are really looking forward to it. The rest will all happen eventually, won't it? Baby steps?

Do you know why I love banana bread? It makes me feel homey and thrifty and it's done in one hour. The heart, of course, is for I love you.

I got a kitchen ceiling this weekend. Whoo-hoo! Right now it's just drywall screwed to joists, but already it is a million times brighter in there. Progress is good.

I had no part in making the pretty little cookie above. It's my daughter's creation. She made it at her friend's house, and it was the good idea of her friend's mom, my friend. All my child's cookie decorating is done at friends' houses. I always really like the idea, but i seldom get around to actually doing it. Maybe that's something we'll do when the kitchen is done and the kitchen is a place of beauty where I want to spend all my free time. I can see it now, March 2009--the Schwarz family decorates cookies in the kitchen! No miscellaneous ceiling crud fell in the icing!

Here's a short list of things I can't wait for in the new kitchen:

• a ceiling--got that!
• a floor that doesn't have a stamped-in mottled look that "hides the dirt", because if it hides the dirt, it never looks clean.
• lighting that does not match that of your average classroom
• white cabinets
• a pantry
• little baskets for potatoes and garlic and onions to go in the pantry
• a row of pegs for my aprons

Elie wants to paint the inside of the pantry the color green of jadeite glassware. I think that's a good idea.

We went to Jersey where our family lives for a week at Christmastime. It was an especially nice visit. This year both my mom and a dear old friend are relocating to the area where I grew up, where my dad and Elie's mom already live. That fact made it extra hard to leave and return to Illinois. It felt like all my people were just starting The Big Party but I had to go. It's easy to think of the great way that life could be if I lived there: there would be casual weekend lunches, and grandparents who could make it to school programs, and all those people who know the back story. And less stillness.

When Elie and I were getting ready to move out here & I was feeling apprehensive, my mother told me when her mother told her, which is that sometimes you have to get out from under your big family (Elie and I both have these) in order to let your little family grow. I think that's been very true for us, and we've grown bushels. I really do like the place I'm in now, our funny little routine, and our dear friends. It's a bona fide life. I like the stillness we have because that's when I get to do this and stitch a little that. It's a good home.

An speaking of homes, Elie did this to the kitchen today. Move over sketchy in-kitchen powder room with louvered doors, hello pantry.

Love you. Have a coffee by the beach for me!

mushroom in the terrarium

Elie is always digging up artifacts when he's planting. This bottle has a plastic top, so not so old. This other stuff is older. I so wish I had this ironstone pitcher unbroken.

Breakfast Sunday

pinkest air ever