love forever

On Walks in the Woods and Nerding Out

It was recently my birthday, and really, all I wanted to do was to escape back to the warm open arms of my hometown and decompress. I'd been going non-stop for weeks, running around like a nut and frankly, the most luxurious thing I could think of was wide stretches of lazy time. 
Mission totally accomplished. We ate good food, watched movies, read, went to sleep early...it was glorious.
On my last day home, my mom and I took a walking tour through the woods with the Greenwich Tree Conservancy, a group she does a lot of work with. I'm not sure how much I've mentioned this, but my mother recently became a Master Gardener (go mom!). A lot of her studies so far have involved identifying local Connecticut trees and bushes. She volunteers at a local arboretum as something best described as "tree detective".



So here I was in the woods with my mother and a dozen other tree nerds, who identify Tulip Poplar trees and witch Hazel flowers with the same excitement that others watch a football game. I know a whole lot of nothing about trees but I still felt like I was with my people. Because when it comes down to it, nerds are nerds. I love people who get excited about the minutia of things because I get it down to my very core.



I love seeing my mom so into trees because it's the same way I get into japanese craft books now or how I got into post-modern Feminist art in college or how I get into episodes of Buffy always. When I'm in it, I'm in it all the way.



Lately, I have been completely needing the woods too. It seems to be something that calls everyone in my family at somne time as they age. My aunts and uncles and grandparents just keep moving further North, further into the remote pockets of New England, like some strange ancestral howl is calling for them to do so. And it's happening to me too. Slowly but surely...










Note: I wrote this before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast. I'm stuck on the west coast right now, at my dad's house in Arizona, in 85 degree weather and under sunny skies. I hope the woods of Connecticut didn't take too much of a hit yesterday and that everyone on the east coast is safe, sound and sleeps peacefully tonight.

A Week in Instagram

--lunch with Mom at Terrain in Westport- red velvet cupcake baking- exploring my mom's garden-rabbit sightings-loving on our new cat Bruce le Bruce-lots of neon-- what's your instagram week like?

Bookkeeping

It's been a while since I've talked books but this week was a busy one in Appliqué Your Way-land and I wanted to post some updates:

One, I finally re-linked both of my books on the blog. One day, they just disappeared like "poof" and it seriously took me this long to put them back up. And by me I mean Mr. Loveforever, who is way more tech savvy than I.

Two, my super-talented little brother Jesse is trying to raise money to produce his second record on Pledge Music (like Kickastarter but for musicians) and, if you so desire, you can donate by buying an autographed copy of my book plus a kit to make these woodland creature ornaments above. My mom contributed this project to the book and we made the kits together. It's a real family affair folks!

Three, you can enter to win a copy of my book over at the Clay, Wood and Cotton blog. All you have to tell them is what your favorite summer read was. Easy as pie.

Moving Day

So, like I said in my last post, I was in New Hampshire at Squam Art Workshops last week and I will totally talk about all it's awesome-ness but before I get to that, I have to talk about getting there.

A few days before I helped my mom, aunts and various other family members do the final clean out of my grandparent's house. My grandmother passed away two years ago and the house was getting to be too much for my grandfather to handle. So on September 11th (odd that this day will take on a new significance for our family now), we packed, swept, tossed, and scrubbed away the last traces of my grandparents on the house they have lived in for over 60 years. The house that every single one of their daughters returned to live in with their kids at some point in their life.

As a writer, my family has always graciously provided me with endless tragi-comic stories and this time was no different. One of my aunts, a militant recycler, set up no less than six different trash bags for us to throw out the various bits we found in the backs of drawers and closets. My grandfather went on for at least ten minutes about how he "just couldn't understand why no one at the estate sale a day earlier hadn't wanted to buy a perfectly good artificial Christmas tree." and "what's wrong with people today?"
We all seem to have as many bad memories of the old house as we have good ones. But they are ours, and at the end, the house is just a place. Without my grandmother standing at her post, the clothesline, the family gathered playing cards or my grandfather hogging the crossword puzzles, it's just an empty house. In a few months, a new person will own it. They will probably rip out the carpets and break down walls and who could blame them? I would do that too.

A few days later, at my aunt Bean's log cabin in New Hampshire and my grandfather's current home, he showed me around his new room. All the important things: his photos, his old books, a favorite chair, had been neatly arranged. He was so proud to show me how carefully it had all been decorated. Honeslty, it looked like a much better version of the room he shared with my grandmother. All the memories, none of the mis-matched furniture or time-worn rugs. That big old house is gone but we are all still together. Even when we don't want to be, we are stuck together, we are a family.

 

Our Little Corner of the World

 

This weekend, my mom and Aunt Bean descended upon our new home like two very active fairy godmothers and helped us unpack the kitchen, buy lots of stuff at IKEA and most exciting, set up our new garden! They are both expert gardeners so it was a real treat!

First things first, we pruned the very pretty Rose of Sharon tree that hangs over my neighbors yard into ours. The branches were hanging so low that our tiny yard was basically cut in half. Good thing my mom is a junior tree warden (no, I'm not kidding)! She is an expert pruner and quickly achieved the perfect balance of just enough tree to frame our kitchen window but not so much that we can't use the yard!

Then we did lots and lots of container planting! We now have pots of herbs and lettuce plus lots of flowers, succulents and ferns. The herbs have changed my life- we've been making agua fresca with mint, lemon and cucumbers all week to battle the heat.

The next part is my favorite and something I can't wait to dig into: decorating! My goal is to make the little yard into a little french-y paradise with bistro chairs, striped linens (like this scene, below, at Terrain) and some sort of hanging luminaries or chandelier.

Too bad these chairs cost a fortune! Anyone know of a cheaper alternative?

I'll have more pictures soon as things start to shape up!