Uncommon Grace

Equilibrium

I know I promised to post on Monday. And I didn't. And then I was really going to post yesterday, and it didn't happen either. But I'm here today! And we've been busy and happy!

After three lovely days with Daddy home last week, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a Waldorf parenting and homeschooling conference organized by the lovely Rahima Baldwin Dancy. It was worth every minute, and I came away so inspired and excited and full -- both with ideas and in my soul.

However, that made for a very late night on Sunday. And a sleepy day on Monday, reconnecting with my babies and trying to reestablish our rhythm.

Last week my serger finally died. I mean, it really died. So I've been looking into other options ... at this point, I've been so spoiled to have had a serger that going without was not a realistic option, especially not with doll commissions in my future. So I researched, asked around, priced, priced again, knew I couldn't afford what I really wanted, wished, looked for used ... and yesterday, amazingly, a local dealer had just had a trade-in only hours before I called. So we spent the afternoon at the shop trying it out, making sure that everything was in working order, etc., and, with the help of my mama, I came home with my very own Baby Lock! It's about 4 or 5 years old, but has never been used. The person who owned it finally decided, after years of non-use, to trade it in for a vacuum cleaner. I cannot believe how fortunate this was for me, because it's the machine I really wanted, and I would never have been able to afford it -- or any Baby Lock -- right now. But this was an incredible deal, and my mom was so generous to help me with it. I'm very blessed, I know.

Monday night was our annual pumpkin carving "party" with my dear, dear friend Rebecca. We've been carving pumpkins together every year for 8 years now, and have never missed, even when we (briefly) lived many hours away.

We have an annual tradition of having pasta and salad for dinner on pumpkin carving night. The photos throughout this post are from that lovely evening.

And tonight is Halloween! You'll pardon me for waiting to share costume pictures or even hints until tomorrow, won't you?!

Handmade for Us

My friend Gina made this diaper cover for James recently. It's a felted sweater that she cut up and sewed together on her machine.

We use only wool covers with our diapers -- I felt like if I was going to "go for it" with cloth, I should go all the way; and then there's that whole thing about wool being my favorite thing. And we have many that we just love. But despite being a knitter and crafty mama and wool-lover, I have never made my own.

Well, I think this little cover here has converted me.

PS: My husband is on fall break this week and we have family time to enjoy -- and I have Halloween costumes to finish -- so I'll be taking the rest of the week off. I'll be back in this space on Monday. Have a fantastic fall weekend!

A Special Day

Today is a very special anniversary for me. One year ago today, my camera came to me! Wow! I feel like I've learned so much as a photographer since then ... and have only scratched the surface of what I want to learn about making beautiful photos.

Here's the very first photo taken with my Canon:

And a favorite from the same day:

And the very first photo I ever uploaded to flickr:

Without flickr, I would not have met many of you. Or learned a lot of things about the kind of pictures I want to take. Or the craft projects I want to try. And without the bloggy world, I would not have been inspired to save and save for my camera. What a lot of growth in my real life has come from this amazing community of all of you!

My weekend in photos

Friday: An evening out with two friends. Wonderful, and just what I needed!

Saturday: Pumpkin patch with my husband and wee ones. Perfect weather, perfect day! Later, some sewing and movie watching with another friend.

Sunday: Woke up to snow. Cozy day at home with those I love most.

I hope your weekend was just as sweet!

More photos of my weekend on flickr.

Pleasing the Crowd

I try to serve healthful, satisfying breakfasts around here. This can be a tall order, for sure, especially with one child with food allergies (dairy, eggs, and soy), and another who doesn't really like oatmeal or porridge. What? I know.

Sometimes I like to whip up a fruit crisp. I should remember this a little more often, because it's a crowd-pleaser.

Today, it was a pear crisp. So easy. I didn't even peel the pears first. It ended up being like stewed pears with streusel topping. Yum. I found some photos from late August, when I made a peach-apple crisp, with equally delicious results.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe.

Grace's Crowd-Pleasing Breakfast Fruit Crisp

serves about 4

3-4 cups fruit, sliced and peeled, if necessary (whatever you have on hand: apples, pears, peaches, berries, or any combination)

4-6 Tbsp coconut oil (or butter), melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp blackstrap molasses
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1/2-3/4 tsp cinnamon or a spice blend (like this)

Heat oven to 350F. Put sliced fruit in a pie plate or other shallow baking dish. If you're using mostly apples, add a bit of water or fruit juice (1/4 cup or so). Combine the melted coconut oil, sugar, molasses, oats, flour, and cinnamon until it forms crumbs. Sprinkle over fruit. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Let me know if you try it! Edited: This makes a crumb topping that is not very sweet. I hate really, really sweet crumb toppings. Add more sugar & molasses if desired.

Have a great weekend! I hope you all have something fun planned -- I do! I'm off tonight for an evening with friends.

Sharing the Love

OK, I'll admit, I almost forgot: I am doing that pay-it-forward exchange thingie. I was the fourth to comment on Sarah's post, but since one of the people before me didn't have a blog, I was the "alternate," if you will.

So the deal is, I will send a handmade something to the first three of you to comment on this post and who commit to do the same from your own site. Here's the explanation, which I'm quoting from Sarah, who is quoting it from Anne-Marie, who might also be quoting it from someone... "I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog." So, be quick! And you'll get a little something from me. Sometime. ;)

Suddenly it seems like I have a lot of creating on my horizon ... goodies for three of you, a swap with a certain friend, dolls that some of you have commissioned from me (really? I'm still pinching myself), Halloween costumes, a sweater for Elisabeth, a hat for my husband, and various and sundry holiday gifts. Oh, and in between all of that, a bit of this:

Wow! How does a person fill up her plate so quickly? Not that I'm complaining. These are the things that feed me. And a lot of it is made possible by all of you. Thank you, thank you. For your support and great kindness. I'm getting all sappy about blogging now, so I better stop.

You'll have to excuse these photos. I was spending way too much time messing around with action shots for this post.

PS: If you haven't yet, check out Alicia's shop which opened today. Beautiful, beautiful things!

Cozy & Sleepy

I am still a bit sleepy from staying up too late working on projects, visiting with friends, and so forth, for the last week. I almost didn't post today, but then I thought, we really can't have that. So here are some photos of coziness from around our home.

I love sleeping wee ones. Especially sleeping wee ones who are all snuggled up together.

A favorite spot in our living room. I could have "styled" this photo first, admittedly, but I also appreciate the realness of it. This is what my children's toys look like at the end of the day. A bit picked up, but not perfect. The cord from our new-to-us (via my mother-in-law) lamp kind of sticking out, not situated yet. Just a sweet spot in a family's life. I love it.

I'm a bit slower on my autumn decorations this year than usual. But they are slowly making appearances here and there.

Fun, Quick, Easy, Cute

So, here's the sweater I knitted up for James on Wednesday/Thursday, when I was procrastinating on making Graham. (By the way, I am so flattered and humbled by your response to him. Thank you.) The sweater is the "Like Father, Like Sons" sweater from The Yarn Girls' Guide to Kid Knits, which was my first actual knitting book (I got it a few years ago), although this is the first thing I've made from it.

The yarn is a double strand of Ironstone Yarns Harmony, and it's on size 17 needles, so when I say it knit up quickly, I am not exaggerating! It's bulky and thick and oh-so-warm. A perfect outside sweater.

When I first put it on James (last night), he wailed "Owie" over and over. But today he's seemed to like it, which is good since he's probably going to be wearing it a lot.

The Big Reveal

OK, the suspense is over. I finished my big project in time! And here he is:

Oh, yes, it's another doll. I didn't really allow myself as much time as I would have liked on this one, but I am totally thrilled with him. He's a 4th birthday gift for my dear friend Gina's youngest son, a very special family and little boy to us.

What amazes me about the dollmaking process is how much personality the doll develops as it's being created. As I was working on this one, it occurred to me that his name should be Graham -- not a name I would normally even think about, but it just seemed to be his. Because he seemed to be such a unique little person to me.

I'm pretty excited with how firm he is -- he's a very solid little fellow, and his arms have a "posable" quality about them. I made the arms a little differently this time, and I am much happier with them.

The other thing I was so excited about was the fact that this doll was made entirely using materials from my stash. It was so exciting to be able to sit down and make something from start to finish with things I had on hand, from the wool yarn for his hair and sweater, the corduroy and fabric trim on his pants and crown, to the wool felt for his shoes and crown. So, my stash is growing! Yay!

Anyway, it was a little hard for me to relinquish Graham today, but seeing the birthday boy dressing and undressing him, changing his diapers (thanks for that pattern, Angela!), and just generally enjoying him made it all better.

Oh, and we had our first few snowflakes this evening! 

Things I have learned in the last day

1. Caffeine is not necessarily a good thing 100% of the time.

2. Despite my gratitude for having even a little space of my own (not having to schlepp things back and forth to the dining room table every time I craft), one table does not a craft room make.

3. Knitting an entire sweater in one day can be a relaxing distraction from a deadline, but it can also just be procrastination.

4. Staying indoors for more than 24 hours may result in Mama's use of her angry voice.

5. There are way too many beautiful and creative blogs out there. Stop it, you all!

6. Cheese-less pizza is actually, surprisingly, pretty good. Especially when brought home as a surprise by my husband at 10pm after his gig at our favorite local pizza-and-music place. Which happens to be just a few doors down from our favorite local coffee-wine-and-music place.

Someone New

Someone new joined my life in late August:

The aurora 430!

I hesitated to post this -- even though I knew all of you would be some of its more enthusiastic supporters -- because this was a very expensive purchase for me and I don't want to seem like a person who normally spends a lot of money on things. Does that sound weird? I just don't want to be too braggy, I guess. But this was a carefully considered, actually agonizingly considered, purchase. That I tried about 80 times first. Finally, we decided that we were ready to go for it. I had really outgrown my other machine, and my husband and I agreed that it would be better for me to have a machine that I can grow into now.

So, I have been wanting to sew all the time. But I haven't done very much since getting it -- I was laying in bed, in a lot of pain, for so much of September. Now I'm on deadline with a sewing project, and do you know what I did last night? I knitted James a sweater. Well, most of a sweater. It still needs sleeves. I'll certainly be sharing it with all of you on Tuesday. Monday is for sharing my on-deadline sewing project.

Tomorrow? Tomorrow, I think I'll just post a photo or two. And I am going to try, try, try to stay off the computer for the rest of today. Because I really must finish this project!

Dancer in the House

Elisabeth's been hoping to try a dance class for a while, and this fall we signed her up for a ballet/jazz/tap combination class. It may come as a surprise, but despite Elisabeth's intense personality, she is also fairly shy. Her teacher, quite the diva in her own right, came up to me after the first class (last week) and said, "Very serious, this one. (Gesturing to Elisabeth.) Fabulous!"

For Elisabeth, I'd say that the dance experience is mostly about the accessories (ballet shoes and tap shoes? great!). It's very sweet to see her taking her class so seriously and being so thoughtful about it, though.

Eat Better, Eat Together

October is Eat Better, Eat Together month, and with that in mind, as well as Stefani's Season of Soups, I thought maybe I'd share some food that our family enjoys together this month. (Not every day, but you know, sometimes.)

Along with chillier nights, I have definitely noticed that October has brought a shift in what we want to eat for dinner: cozier meals definitely have newfound appeal. Last night we made this easy, quick, and earthy Orecchiette with Sausage and Roasted Peppers followed with this deliciously simple Rustic Apple Tart.

A lot of my "go-to" recipes come from Everyday Food ... I subscribed beginning with the first issue, and though I let it lapse in the last year, I have tons of them on hand to look through. Although I really love the idea of slow food, and consider myself to be a proponent of the slow movement, sometimes these quick (and pretty nutritious) recipes are just what we need around here. I try to stick to recipes that are from the month (or at least the season) that we're currently in, hoping to use a lot of in-season and seasonal ingredients.

We also made some yummy, nutritious autumn cookies yesterday. The pureed raisins are great for my girl who is not so into raisins normally. We had these as an afternoon snack yesterday and for breakfast today ... yum! The recipe is from Martha Stewart Baby, Fall 2001. I couldn't find it on the website, so here it is:

1 thirty-ounce can pumpkin puree
1 cup raisins
1/4 cup boiling water
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (despite our dairy allergy, James and I seem to tolerate butter pretty well on occasion, which is good since I try not to overdo it with soy)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses (I always use blackstrap for added nutrition)
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (freshly ground is best)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose (or whole wheat pastry, in my world) flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
2 1/2 cups rolled oats

1. Line a strainer with a double layer of cheesecloth; set it over a bowl. Place the pumpkin puree in the strainer; wrap the cheesecloth around the puree. Weigh down the puree with a small can of soup or something with a similar weight; let puree drain for about 30 minutes. (I skipped this step. Does anyone know if it's really necessary?)

2. Preheat the oven to 350F. In a food processor, puree the raisins with the boiling water until no large pieces remain, about 1 minute. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed for 2 minutes. Add the molasses, and mix to combine, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs; beat for 1 minute. Add the pureed raisin mixture and the drained pumpkin puree, and mix to combine.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, flour, baking soda, wheat germ, and oats; stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the batter int he mixer bowl, and mix to combine.

4. Spoon the batter onto untreated baking sheets, making the cookies about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Use the back of a spoon dipped in water to press the cookies down slightly. Bake cookies until set and browning, 12 to 14 minutes (more like 15-16 in my oven). Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining batter. Store the baked cookies in an airtight container; they will stay soft for up to 1 week.

You'll have to excuse this next blurry shot -- we were in such a hurry to gobble these up that this is the only one I got. And now they're all gone!

I promise to share some soup recipes and one for our favorite chili, too!

Michaelmas

As you know, I am very inspired by the Waldorf tradition of celebrating the festivals of the year. Sara posted recently about Michaelmas (Sept. 29) being a difficult one to fully understand/embrace. I feel that way, too, to a certain extent. In some ways, it feels so very distant from our present-day lives.

There are all sorts of little bits that make up the tradition of Michaelmas. It's named for the archangel Michael, and there is also an association with St George, the patron saint of England (and famous dragon-slayer). But the essence of the festival is the harvest. We stand on the threshold from summer to autumn, we rejoice in the bounty of the harvest. We strengthen and fortify ourselves for the journey to winter.

But celebrating this with very young children can feel a bit esoteric. So, we follow the traditions set by those before us. We bake a loaf of dragon bread. We make dragon soup. We have a new candle to burn at dinner time from here until it burns out (hopefully right around advent), giving us light as we begin to enter the darker days of autumn and winter. We enjoy the season's last blackberries. And we play a lot of knight, dragon, and princess games.

Like most of the festivals of the year -- whether you celebrate the "Waldorfy" ones or not, and no matter what your approach -- with such young children, they are really celebrations of hearth and home, of the cycle of the year, its inhalation and exhalation, and of our ways of relating together as family.

{If you're curious about celebrating some of these traditional holidays with your family, but don't know where to start, I cannot recommend the book Mrs. Sharp's Traditions more highly. For those of you concerned by certain aspects of Waldorf education and anthroposophy, the philosophy that it draws from, Mrs. Sharp's Traditions, which is not a Waldorf book, offers a lot of the background for and traditions surrounding the celebration of these festivals without the anthroposophical influence. All Year Round would be my second recommendation. It does, however, come from an anthroposophical perspective. These two books are probably my most indispensable and form the basis of, or inspiration for, many of our family's seasonal and holiday traditions.}

Busy, busy

Thank you all for sticking with me through the Encyclopedia of Me! I'm so, so glad that I finished it! I have lots of stuff to share and update, but today we are off to spend the day with a friend, so I'll share my goodies next week. For now, I thought I'd leave you with a bit of autumn decorating that's been happening here. And there's more to come ... there's so much wonderful inspiration out there! I can't wait to dive in!

W, X, Y, and Z

W

...is for wool. One of my absolute favorite things ever! It's warm in the winter, cool in the summer, water resistant, antibacterial, and just plain beautiful!

...is for wood. The material of which about 50% of our children's toys are made. (The other 50% being fibers of one kind or another.) I have been grateful, in light of the toy recalls of late, that we don't have plastic toys in our home. It has certainly saved me the headache of looking through our toys for recalled ones.

...is for wrinkle. I defy anyone to find one article of my clothing that is not comepletely wrinkled. I have, well, never ironed my own clothes. I have ironed my husband's shirts a few times. I have ironed a dress of Elisabeth's about twice. I do not iron.

X

...is for x-tra large. I'm a big girl!

...is for "xoxo." If you have corresponded much with me via e-mail, you will probably have noticed that this is my preferred method for signing my notes to people I've known for more than a week or two. You all get a lot of kisses and hugs from me!

Y

...is for yarn. Since I'm pretty much a collector, horder, packrat, stasher, what-have-you, I definitely blend my love of wool and collecting to building a yarn stash. Here is some Manos del Uruguay that I got last year to make my husband a hat. I'm going to make it this year, I promise!

...is for year. We are about 6 weeks or so into my husband's new school year. I am surprised every year by how challenging this transition is for all of us. This year, with him being at a new school, it's even a little harder than usual. It really takes us a good couple of months to get back into the rhythm of having him gone during the week. I know this may sound a little strange, but I actually prefer it when he's working. Three long months of having him around all day is great -- I love being with him -- but it also makes us take that time more for granted than I'd like, and we often enter the fall wishing we'd taken advantage of his home time better. So, although we've been struggling to find our rhythm again this fall, especially with my kidney stone ordeal, things are gradually beginning to fall into a routine, and the children and I are are settling into our days a bit better.

Z

...is for zoo. Elisabeth's favorite family outing. She is so into animals. After The Queen, my other aspiration as a child was to grow up to be an anthropologist, so the zoo, for me, is a bit on the ho-hum side since that's not really where my interests lie. But I'm trying a lot harder now that I have this child who is so captivated by animals.

...is for zero. The number of serious boyfriends I'd had before my husband, the number of kidney stones I now have (yay!), the number of times a week I've been exercising lately (hmm...), and probably a lot of other things that I've never tried or done!

...is for Zzzzz, what I want to do now that I'm done with the Encyclopedia of Me. Actually, I'm really glad I stuck with it! But now I'm looking forward to "regular" posting.