The Floating Dreams

Let's pretend

2011-08-29T19:39:00.005+01:00

Let us pretend that today is Sunday, because with my husband working everyday I struggle to remember what day of the week it is. Last week on seeing our milkman my first thought was "But I canceled the Thursday delivery", followed by "Maybe it's Saturday. Can't be Saturday, feels more like Wednesday. However he doesn't deliver on Wednesday... Tuesday? Could it really be only Tuesday" It was Tuesday, tomorrow will be another and I need to remember to put the empty milk bottles out.

Getting the milk delivered was one of our better ideas to "simplify" our lives. We consume a lot of milk and one member of the family is particularly prone to meltdowns if there is no milk available in the morning to have with her breakfast cereal. This way we never run out, don't have to walk to the shops just to get a bottle of milk after we already did a lot of walking or to call my husband to pick one up on the way home from work. To tell you the truth the best part of it for me is that these glass milk bottles remind me of my childhood and I love opening them by squashing the foil top.

Anyway, back to the quote for the last week - it has to be this optimistic "I can overcome anything"-attitude song from the Russian cartoon, because I was singing it a lot in my head in the past few days.

Кручу педали, кручу

Кручу, кручу, кручу педали кручу
С горы, с горы, с горы как птица лечу,
Спешу, спешу, спешу, спешу налегке
На встречу радуге-дуге

Припев:
Пусть, пусть дорога вдаль бежит
Грусть пусть на сердце не лежит
Мне все на свете по плечу
И с песней этой качу по свету,
Качу качу куда хочу.

Терпи, терпи, терпи когда тяжело,
Скрипи, скрипи ты подо мною, седло.
Не смей, не смей, не смей на миг ослабеть
Умей себя преодолеть

Припев.

Лечу, лечу, лечу не знаю куда.
Хочу, хочу, чтоб это было всегда
Сильней, сильней, сильней лишь зубы сомкну,
Но я назад не поверну.

Припев.

Quotable Sunday

2011-08-21T20:46:00.000+01:00

In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet.

In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
— Alan Paton (Cry, the Beloved Country)

..

2011-08-14T21:34:00.001+01:00

Back to work

2011-08-13T21:36:00.002+01:00

My husband went back to work on Wednesday. He worked today (Saturday), will be working tomorrow and the next two-three weekends (both Saturdays and Sundays). He may get one or two Wednesdays off instead. During the normal workdays he’ll be leaving home at 7am; if we are lucky, he’ll be back by 7:30pm, but anything between 8 and 10 is more likely. Getting through every day is relatively easy. The hard part is how little time the four of us get to spend together.

More Yarn

2011-08-13T19:56:00.004+01:00

Few days after I wrote about my attempts to use up the yarn that I already have in my stash I received a swap package from Stagasaurus and as usual among many goodies it contained some yarn - four balls of Patons UK Mirage DK cotton and bamboo blend.

Luckily for my stash-busting plans I knew exactly what to make out of it - few days earlier I started to knit a simple summer top for my daughter, but the pattern didn't work well with the yarn I was using and I was happy to re-cast.

Stagasaurus was kind enough to include a book and a drawstring embroidered bag for my daughter.

Don't you think that it is beautiful? However, wait until you see the one she made for me.

The message on it made me want to hide away in my studio space and create something special.

This is the third "February" swap we did together and I'm very eager to do another one next year as I keep on smiling for days after receiving a package from this talented and creative woman.

Anyway, back to the yarn stash. Few more days passed and my father-in-law arrived with a ball of gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn from Nurturing Fibres. Poor man! He got it on the recommendation of my sister-in-law and felt a bit embarrassed of giving me such an unworthy present as he struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that someone may love a small ball of wool, so I had to do a lot of knitting in front of him to help him understand that it was a perfect present as my thanks didn't seem to convey the message.

What should I make out of it? I'm tempted to knit Citron shawlette, but am worried that it will be a very small one as there are only 330 meters of yarn. Of course if it is too small I can always give it to my daughter, who loves orange shades and was asking for a shawl of her own for ages, but I would rather make something for myself. Any knitters out there, who have any recommendations?

First Bike

2011-08-09T09:09:00.000+01:00

Stripeless

2011-08-09T09:03:00.002+01:00

Stripe lost his black stripe, so now his name doesn't make any sense to people, who never met him previously.

Useless jobs

2011-08-07T19:59:00.000+01:00

"If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren't for that dreadful magic staff, you'd never know how much time you were wasting."
Norton Juster "The Phantom Tollbooth"

Rolled over

2011-08-02T21:37:00.003+01:00

Max rolled over today from his back to the tummy. He doesn't seem to have much clue about how to do it the other way, though I'm sure he'll figure it out soon enough. Better start baby-proofing the house.

Pottery

2011-08-01T11:45:00.002+01:00

My husband has very fond childhood memories of being taken to the pottery lessons. Hence when faced with the dilemma of how to entertain our daughter on the weekends it was one of the activities that he looked into and found a local woman, who offers pottery lessons at her studio.

Trunkless Elephant by my husband

They went there few times now and brought home these creations. There are more items that are still being fired or waiting to be glazed. I’m so much looking forward to seeing their other creations.

Tea Set by Katya

Do not worry

2011-07-31T20:25:00.002+01:00

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The Bible. Matthew 6:34
--
This quote popped into my head at the start of this week as the most fitting advice that finally made sense. Whenever I heard it previously there was always “but” in my mind; there isn’t now. I’m not attempting to analyze why and how it makes sense, I’m just glad that it does.

I wonder if kids laugh more often than adults, because they rarely worry about tomorrow and are instead enjoying the present. Would I get more pleasure from my life if all of today’s beauty, love and majesty were more present in my thoughts? Would I laugh and smile more? Would the feelings of love and gratitude infuse my mind leaving no space for worrisome and negative thoughts? Would concentrating on the problems and tasks of today allow me to accomplish more in the long run? I’m going to practice smiling and loving and holding today dear and trusting that I am and will be in the correct space, true state and on the right journey.

Home (almost) alone

2011-07-31T11:06:00.000+01:00

As of 2 hours ago Max and I are at home by ourselves, because the other two members of the family and my father-in-law left in a car heading towards Wales. They are planning to spend one week riding the old trains, exploring the ancient castles, walking the nature trails and eating good food. I’m slightly jealous, but decided that I’ll get a more restful and enjoyable holiday by staying at home.

Working hard

2011-07-24T20:04:00.000+01:00

Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said, “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Now...if you trust in yourself...”
“Yes?”
“...and believe in your dreams...”
“Yes?”
“...and follow your star...” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“...you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Goodbye."
Terry Pratchett "The Wee Free Men"

Using up

2011-07-23T13:12:00.004+01:00

When I started knitting I used to find yarn at the charity shops (op-shops)and on sales and almost anything looked good enough. With a bit more experience I became pickier and also more aware of the gorgeous yarns available nowadays. Oh the temptation! I can almost hear them whispering: "Look at my amazing colour changes", "Feel how soft and light I am", "Imagine how warm I'll keep you in winter".

Alas we somehow managed to accumulate the ridiculous amount of stuff in the last five years and I feel that a lot of time is taken up by sorting, re-sorting, tiding away and shifting items from one place to another. Even my book collection and craft stash are starting to be the source of stress instead of pleasure.

Pretty twisted cuff - pattern by Cat Wong, button from Dottery Pottery

Therefore, as part of greater decluttering undertaking, I'm on the mission to use up whatever craft supplies I have. All of these items were made from Noro Silk Garden Sock and Noro Kureyon Sock yarn left-over from the Chameleon blanket. I still have about 60 grams of Noro Kureyon Sock left over and I plan to turn it into sev[en]circle necklace by Kirsten Johnstone.

The Mysteries of Age

2011-07-21T06:44:00.001+01:00

Katya: “Let’s play something! Pretend I’m a girl and my name is Isabella and I am seven. And pretend that you are my mummy and your name is Grace and you are eighty-eight."

***

Katya: “Are you a teenager?”
I: “No”
Katya: “Is Clive a teenager?”
I: “No”
K.: “Is M (older boy from kindergarten) a teenager?”
I: “No”
K.: “Is baba (grandma) a teenager?”
I: “No”
K: “Am I a teenager?”
I: “No”
K: “But when am I going to be a teenager? I want to be a teenager!”

No news is...

2011-07-13T23:01:00.001+01:00

This year seems to be out to prove the accuracy of the “No news is a good news” saying. It started with the natural disasters and there were plenty of bad news since. Granted there were lots of good news so far as well, mostly of the “new baby” variety, however last few months were stressful due to various changes in our lives and I’m feeling more and more nostalgic about the previous unexciting, nothing-is-happening, everyday-is-ordinary-day year.

Today’s news is that I doN’T have thyroid cancer. This in itself is great news, but it came with the weeks of tension and worry. While she was here, my mum noticed a lump on my neck. My thyroid gland was slightly enlarged for years and I had blood tests done previously to check that it is functioning correctly. I wasn’t too concerned (most of the time, though occasional fearful thought would flutter through my mind), but made the earliest possible appointment to see our GP. In England one has to be registered with a GP/GP clinic and can’t see just any one. The one, we are registered with, is very oversubscribed so the earliest appointment was 1.5 weeks away. During it I was told to book a blood test and a referral was sent to the hospital for the ultrasound. Another week until I could see a nurse to get the blood tests done. They came back normal and I started getting a bit more worried. Another two and a half weeks wait for the ultrasound. Finally on Friday morning I went to the hospital hoping to hear that everything was fine and I had nothing to worry about; instead the doctor, after performing the ultrasound, told me that she had to do fine needle aspiration biopsy and since I had Max with me I had the option of giving him to the nurse to hold or coming back some other day. I didn’t want to wait even longer, so Max went to the nurse, the doctor performed the biopsy and told me that she’ll recommend the referral to thyroid specialist as my GP won’t have a clue of what the results mean.

What’s the first word that comes to your mind when you hear biopsy? Right. I walked home in total shock, trying not to burst into tears. At home I read a lot about thyroid cancer, cried a bit, went to pick up my daughter, made dinner constantly wondering what are the chances that I have cancer and hoping that I don’t. Probably thinking the same way as everyone does “I’m too young… I have two young children… One of them is not even 3-months old… etc… it can’t be cancer” I’m grateful that my husband is a positive, caring, loving person and talking to him puts me into more optimistic and peaceful state of mind. I altered my search parameters to something along the line of “neck lump without cancer” and all of the sudden the search results were creating a more positive picture of the possible outcomes of the tests. Both kids came down with a cold that evening, which was very helpful as it gave me something else to concentrate on.

On Tuesday I got a phone call from the GP to organize the appointment to discuss the results (they don’t call if the results are normal) – the earliest appointment Monday 7pm. I called back the next day to see if it was possible to see the doctor earlier as it was hard not to fret and imagine all sorts of unpleasant scenarios, and while the receptionist couldn’t tell me what the results meant (not being medically trained), she reassured me that if it was something serious they would see me the same or next day. So another week of waiting only to find out that the ultrasound doctor was right and my GP couldn’t interpret the results even with the help of a Google search. He requested an urgent referral to a specialist (urgent == to be seen within two weeks) and printed out the results for me. I knew that thanks to my previous work in IT I would be much better at finding out information using Google than he was, so more research was done that evening. It looked like I didn’t have cancer, though there was possibility that the test results could be inconclusive (I couldn’t tell for sure with all the various similar looking medical terms). The hospital called next day – they had available appointment in one weeks time on Wednesday. And today I went to the hospital, waited for extra 40 minutes trying to stay calm and got seen ahead of some other people, because Max was getting unhappy, and FINALLY found out for sure that there weren’t any cancerous cells and I had nothing to worry about. I was happy, relieved, grateful. I didn’t realise the full strength of the emotions until I noticed myself shaking after leaving the hospital.

If you want to find me I’ll be hiding under a nice woollen blanket trying to process all the emotions I went through in the last few weeks. Please, (for now) don’t bring any news with you.

3(+)-months update

2011-07-10T19:26:00.006+01:00

On Monday I took Max to the doctors for the second set of the immunisations and since we were already there asked the health visitor to weight him - 6.72 kg. Since I don't have any concerns about his development or questions for the health visitors I never go to the "baby clinic" for the recommended monthly checks as at least one of the kids is likely to pick up some virus there as hilariously illustrated with crappy pictures by another mum. Why would anyone think it is a good idea to do checks of healthy children (and pregnant women) at the GPs full of sick people?

Last Thursday Max laughed for the first time. I find the baby laughter totally adorable, uplifting and infections, so I was trying to get him to laugh again without much success.

He likes books! Well, he stops fussing when I read "Ten little fingers and ten little toes" to him. I am a big fan of Helen Oxenbury's illustrations and was very glad to finally have a good excuse to buy this one.

He can hold objects and tries to grab them with very mixed success.

He still haven't figured out how to suck on his thumb :-(.

He is already teething.

He sleeps very little during the day - usually under 3.5 hours, but sometimes, like today, it can be as little as 2. I think he needs more sleep, but so far he didn't have much chance to establish good sleeping patterns during the day due to the school-run being at the times when he appears to be most likely to sleep well. Only two more days until summer school holidays - I'm really looking forward to them.

Noticing

2011-07-10T19:18:00.002+01:00

A knitted indigo dress, and her hair like fast water at night spilling one shoulder; he said, 'That doesn't really surprise us, Miss Wong.'
Surprise, he thought. She puts her hand on the bar, she leans back on the stool, hip moving in knitted blue, and with each movement, I am amazed, surprised, bewildered.
Samuel R. Delany Babel-17
--
I loved "Babel-17" by Samuel R. Delany. I would've loved it anyway, however the mention of a knitted dress worn by the main heroine made me like this book just a tiny bit more. Are there any insignificant details in the books that make them more special to you, while other people wouldn't even notice them?

Mobile for son

2011-06-26T10:21:00.003+01:00

I had some plain felted balls left-over from the winter experiments in felting, so my daughter and I decided to turn them into fish by wet-felting some colour onto them and adding organza tails.

I also had few shells from the bag of broken jewelery I bought years ago at a charity shop. Quick trip to the hardware shop to get the last ingredient that we needed (wooden dowel rod) and the fish mobile was created to hang above the changing mat.

Now I need to make a bird mobile for my daughter - the room she is moving into doesn't have much space, therefore I'll have to come up with something small, yet interesting.

So hungry

2011-06-17T21:43:00.001+01:00

On Wednesday by 3pm I felt ravenous. While snacking on nuts and such I was musing that even breastfeeding can’t explain feeling so hungry. An hour later, while preparing dinner, I suddenly realised that I didn’t have lunch that day. It’s not that I didn’t have time for lunch, but somehow my mind was so preoccupied with meeting the needs of my kids in the timely manner to minimize the crying and screaming that I forgot about having lunch myself. This isn’t something that I thought would ever happen to me as I like eating. On the upside I had a shower on that day by 10am. Showering was on my “To Do” list for that day, eating lunch wasn’t. – maybe that is the reason it got forgotten and I should start adding it to the list, at least I’ll have something else to cross off at the end of the day.

Mouse for daughter

2011-06-17T05:58:00.002+01:00

I made a mouse for my daughter, exactly the same as I made for my sister, because Katya adores her aunt and wants to be like her in everything.

Staying in UK

2011-06-12T09:10:00.004+01:00

Malander had an idea and was trying to work it out, but it would take him time. Sometimes people never saw things clearly until it was too late and they no longer had the strength to start again. Or else they forgot their idea along the way and didn't even realise that they forgotten.
Trove Jansson The Summer Book

--
Due to my husband's work commitments will be staying in UK for another 2.5-3 years. In the last few months (years?) I was trying to imagine how our lives would be on coming back to Australia. I guess now it is time to look at my life here and find that idea, which will make it more interesting, challenging, satisfying.

New in the kitchen

2011-06-12T09:01:00.002+01:00

I lived without the microwave for about four years and didn’t miss it at all. However, at the moment the time difference between heating up my lunch by pressing few buttons on a microwave and actually having to stir it on a stove could mean the difference between having lunch at a reasonable time of the day or not.

I’m also planning to dye some white yarn that my mum left to me on her departure back to Australia and having a microwave will speed up the process.

Smile

2011-06-03T06:24:00.002+01:00

It is incredibly hard to resist smiling back when a baby smiles at one. Therefore I hope that whenever you see this post, whatever your mood is (and maybe specially if it isn't so great) you'll smile, because many believe that smiling is good for your health and well-being.

Still can crochet

2011-05-28T19:56:00.004+01:00

I discovered that I am able to crochet while breastfeeding and holding my sleeping son, which allowed me to finish the border around Chameleon Blanket.

This is probably the most time consuming crochet project I ever attempted. Details are on Ravelry

Seven weeks!?

2011-05-25T18:05:00.005+01:00

On Wednesday I couldn’t remember how many weeks old Max was, so maybe it is time for an update before all the details disappear from my memory.

In the first two weeks I would occasionally forget for a minute or two that I have two children, while at the same time feeling that Max fitted so well into our family making the life without him seem like a distant memory. (At times I wonder if I truly remember how life before kids feels like – is it really possible that I was able to sleep in until 10? Or stay up all night to finish reading a good book? Eat a bowl of ice-cream and an orange for dinner? Travel to a different country for a week with a tiny backpack? Go out on any night of the week at the spur of the moment? Think myself super-busy when I could choose how to spend huge chunks of time?)

Anyway, back to life with two kids. Unsurprisingly I found parenting a newborn much easier the second time around, though at times I still wish they would come with a precise user manual. First time was hard as both of us had close to zero experience of taking care of a child and had no-one around to help out; not only the learning curve was the steepest I have ever experienced in my personal or work life, but we also figured out a lot of things by trial and error. The great advantage was that we were able to find the parenting style that suited us without having to sift through the overloading input from others. Nevertheless the first weeks of Katya’s life were hard, truly hard work made worse by the greyness of the English winter. Inside my mind the days and nights of those weeks turned into the never-ending exhausting dusk. Looking back I can tell that I was very close to sliding into the postnatal depression. This time around there was hardly a cloudy day since Max was born making it easier to get out, to stay cheerful, to enjoy life.

Of course the easiness of the taking care of a tiny baby is offset by having to find time, energy and wisdom to meet the needs of the older child and my mum was (and is for another two weeks) a great help with Katya, who is experiencing so many conflicting emotions towards her little brother and us, her parents, and is slowly adjusting to the changes that his arrival brought into her life. She is very eager to interact with him, to hold him, to play with him. In the first few weeks she would in turn get frustrated at his unresponsiveness and overexcited about tiny things like him holding her finger. Luckily he is changing so fast and the longer he is able to stay awake and happy the more positive moments they are able to have together. He loves her singing and stares and coos at the painting she did, which is hanging next to the nappy changing mat. She is eager to show him the world and cheers any new thing that he learns to do.

Max is growing so fast. At the six-weeks check-up he was 5 kgs and 61 cm, which puts him into 98th percentile for length. He has outgrown many of the 0-3 months cloths. He tries to put his fingers/fists into his mouth. He knocks over and bats at toys. He loves tummy-time. He looks at the world in fascination, instead of being irritated by bright light. He smiles and his smiles make our world a much more joyful place.

Random

2011-04-22T14:56:00.004+01:00

I love spring, but I feel restless: I want to move, change my life, travel, discover new places, try something new. Feeling restless and taking care of a newborn doesn’t make for a great combination.

I used to laugh that my parents moved to a different side of the country from their families, I moved to a different side of the world from them and so my children will have to move to a different planet to keep up the tradition. Suddenly with all the talk about the private space flights and the new interest in the developing of the space technologies I’m starting to wonder if travelling (and living) beyond Earth will be a possibility for my children. And if they do move far away would I, who would happily run away from home to join the Starfleet if it existed, be able to understand and accept?

Speaking of Star Trek – forget about transporting to a surfaces of the different planets, wouldn’t it be cooler if you could beam a fresh clean nappy onto your newborn in the middle of the night? “Beam it on, Scotty”

On Wednesday morning the nappies seemed to fit just right, by Wednesday evening they were leaking and looked a bit small. Of course I just bought two packs on Tuesday morning, so now we have one pack of newborn size one nappies left over.

In the last few months my daughter started to preface her future dreams with “When we move to Australia and have a big house…” I suspect this is due to the combination of our friend going back to Sydney, my talk of homesickness for Australia and spending online time researching the property prices in Melbourne. So far we have
“When we move to Australia and have a big house, can we plant palm trees at the front?”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house with a big backyard; we can have 4, no 5, chickens”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house with a big backyard; we can plant an apple seed and see what will happen”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house with lots of big trees we can build a tree-house” (there is one in the local neighbourhood not too far from us, which must be the envy of all local kids.)
“When we move to Australia and have a big house, baby and I will be able to sleep in one room, so the baby doesn’t get scared at night”
“When we move to Australia and have a big house, we should also have some rabbits, so we can brush them and spin yarn from their hair” (She wanted to try spinning yarn out of our hair, but I had to tell her that we’ll need sheep fleece or angora rabbits hair. At least there is no talk of keeping sheep as yet)
Between her dreams and mine the definition of the perfect home is becoming very precise. In reality if we ever move back, based on the current property prices in Australia, we’ll be lucky to buy a shoebox.

Ironically eight months previously she was adamant that she doesn’t want to live anywhere else in the world as this is our home and we belong here.

My hood full

2011-04-17T19:50:00.002+01:00

Eskimo Lullaby

It's my fat baby
I feel in my hood,
Oh, how heavy he is!

When I turn my head
He smiles at me, my baby,
Hidden in my hood,
Oh, how heavy he is!

How pretty he is when he smiles
With his two teeth, like a little walrus!
Oh I like my baby heavy
And my hood full!

From "A Spider Bought a Bicycle" collection of poems selected by Michael Rosen

I forgot

2011-04-16T20:22:00.001+01:00

I forgot how much I like the newborn smell and the softness of their skin and hair; how tiny and fragile looking the newborn babies are, and yet sturdy and full of life; how ugly they look and yet how easy it is to see the beauty in them and fall in love.

I haven’t forgotten how precious and fast fleeting the moments with them are, how quickly they grow and change – I have a walking talking example to remind me. And so while there are still two other adults in the household and plenty of peaceful slow-paced moments I allow myself to choose to lie next to my son during his awake and aware moments and stare at his face and constantly moving arms and legs, knowing full-well that no matter how much I look very little of the precious details of the way he looks today will be left in my memory.

He is here

2011-04-07T20:17:00.002+01:00

Maximilian - Maxim - Максим - Max

Happy Mothering Day

2011-04-03T09:59:00.002+01:00

Happy Mothering Sunday

Spring & Summer Wardrobe

2011-04-02T18:59:00.004+01:00

Sewed items were made by me; knitted ones by my mum; socks are the newborn size ones, which were intended for the baby - he may loose few more to the doll before he is even born.

10 days until the due date

2011-03-31T20:18:00.001+01:00

Pelmeni

2011-03-31T13:48:00.002+01:00

Yesterday a very good friend came over and all of us made (and afterward ate) pelmeni. Katya decided to "teach" us how to make all sorts of alternative shapes.

Finishing

2011-03-26T19:55:00.003Z

Two weeks left until the due date, so I'm trying to finish few things before all the free time is eaten up by taking care of a newborn.

Last night I finished knitting my first item with the armholes and look it fits!

Pattern: Milo by Georgie Hallam
Yarn: Rowan RYC Cashcotton DK
Details on Ravelry

And today I attached the final layer of hair to my first Waldorf limbed doll. Now I just need to make some cloths (preferably of the cute variety) for her as my daughter strictly highlighted that she wants a doll with LOTS of cloths.

While attaching the hair I kept on thinking that it was very similar in colour to my sister's and when my husband saw the finished doll his first words were "Now we can pretend that you sister is still here". How I wish that she was here instead of on the other side of the planet.

It's like a holiday, but better

2011-03-19T06:52:00.003Z

My mum arrived on Tuesday the previous week, the renovations finished on Friday and this week felt like a very chilled out holiday. Last few days I felt more relaxed than during most of the holidays I had since I became a mother – it is so nice to know that I have an option of sitting on the couch all day doing nothing. I suspect if I choose that option I would be bored in the space of 10 minutes, so with all the extra free time available to me I’m trying to finish few crochet and knitting projects and make a Waldorf-style doll for my daughter for the birth of the baby. To me having time to make things is even more precious and more energizing than having time to laze about.

I don’t seem to be able to resist the urge of making toys despite knowing that I’ll get frustrated by fiddly sewing bits. At the moment my daughter doesn’t even play with the dolls, but maybe it will change when there is a baby in the house, otherwise I'll have to play with that doll myself.

To practice making heads I finally got around to replacing a head for the doll I made two years ago. The original head had two newbie mistakes: the neck wasn’t thick enough resulting in ugly folds on the face and the head was also too long. This one has a proper neck, but is still slightly too long.

I did few more practice heads before making the big one for the 16 inch doll and now I have to make the decision on which body pattern to use from the ones in the Maricristin Sealey's book "Making Waldorf Dolls".

These are the two of the best heads together with the big one.

P.S. The photos of the new new bathrooms can be found on Flickr, but I think only the people, who saw the original bathrooms in the last few weeks, will appreciate the improvements to their full extent. I regret not taking the pre-renovation photos, though at the time it felt embarrassing to photograph something so ugly and falling apart.

Light-switch cord

2011-03-05T18:37:00.003Z

This is the cord from the top bathroom, which one is supposed to pull to turn on the light. (English bathroom are often strange: separate taps for cold & hot water, carpets, pull-cords. The most impractical one I saw was at B&B - not only it had carpet on the floor, but also wallpaper on the walls.) Anyway, the cord broke off last Sunday. Therefore for one week we had to use a little torch. Its blueish light made me feel like I'm in a teenage horror flick or a cheap sci-fi movie. Luckily the renovations of the main bathroom are now finished. It is such a pleasure to walk into a bathroom and use it without worrying about something coming off in one’s hands; without discovering afterwards that something else sprouted a leak and the water is dripping off the ceiling onto the recently painted walls or our beautiful bookshelf; without spending ages trying to get the toilet to flash. Tomorrow I’m planning to have a long soak in the bathtub, as I believe that lazing in a bath for a silly period of time should be one of the privileges of being pregnant.

P.S. And yes, now we have a normal light switch and mixer water tap.

...

2011-02-27T19:47:00.003Z

…what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.

…so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.
Norton Juster "The Phantom Tollbooth"

Bathrooms

2011-02-21T20:58:00.002Z

The bathroom renovations are going to start tomorrow. Not the best timing, but we can’t put it off any longer as we can only use the sink in the main bathroom – everything else is leaking/broken/about to disintegrate. The builder thinks that both bathrooms will be done by mid March. Fingers-crossed that there aren’t going to be any unexpected delays.

On Thursday it dawned on me that planning to wash baby cloths during the bathroom renovations is probably not such a brilliant idea and not wanting to leave it until the last minute I did silly number of laundry loads during the weekend. On the upside we all have plenty of clean cloths, bedding, etc and now I know that we don’t need to buy any baby cloths for at least first three months. Now I just need to figure out what we do need to buy. We aren’t exactly in denial that there are only seven weeks left until the due date, but somehow too busy with everything else to spend a lot of time thinking and preparing ourselves for labour/newborn. Maybe it is just how it is with the second (and subsequent) kids.

My mum is coming in two weeks time and before we put up the inflatable bed for her I decided to use the only big enough available floor space to block the shawl I finished knitting on the 1st of September (!). While blocking it I remembered why I procrastinated for so long – it is huge and there was hardly enough space and not enough pins to do the blocking properly. However, it is so soft and warm and the colours of Rowan Kidsilk Spray are lovely. I didn’t get around to taking any photos of it after blocking (weekend was gloomy and grey), but today I couldn’t resist snapping a quick shot of my own little matchstick girl or maybe babushka in training – love her miserable facial expression specially put on for the photo.

Jazzing up the window

2011-02-06T19:55:00.003Z

A person in a rented apartment must be able to lean out of his window and scrape off the masonry within arm's reach. And he must be allowed to take a long brush and paint everything outside within arm's reach, so that it will be visible from afar to everyone in the street that someone lives there who is different from the imprisoned, enslaved, standardised man who lives next door.
Hundertwasser Window Dictatorship and Window Right

One day I'll build my own little house or a studio and it will have grass roof, plenty of plants, odd shaped windows, curved benches and mosaic inserts, but for now I'm just changing the decorations attached to the kitchen window. Few weeks ago we took down the snowflakes and to add some colour to our greyish view my daughter and I made three stars from the kite paper.

Katya choose her favourite colours (red, yellow & orange) to make a star with some help from me and this detail tutorial. I made the other two and there are still three more variations that we can try making.

To the Barrier

2011-02-03T20:30:00.003Z

On Sunday morning a nostalgic South African, a jet-lagged Australian, a pregnant woman and a four-year-old decided to go to the Thames Barrier. Despite forgetting to bring any of the three maps we made it there and afterwards took a short stroll along the Green Chain Walk.

My husband visited the Barrier at the age of 10 with his dad, so he got a bit nostalgic and during our coffee break at the visitors’ information center he reminiscenced about the good old times.

The four-year-old just wanted to go down the long slide over and over again, but after some diplomatic negotiations we were able to move to something I really wanted to do – walk the walk.

The sky was blue, the sun was out for the first time in many days and it was lovely to walk along the path surrounded by tall trees. Since Katya started attending Steiner/Waldorf kindergarten 4 days a week at the beginning of this year we don't go to the parks as often as we used to and looking at the houses, cars and asphalt roads all the time makes one yearn for the views full of trees, grasses and flowers.

I would’ve loved to stop in many places to allow us to enjoy the beautiful details of our surroundings, but since the sunset was quickly approaching we had to hurry up a bit (as much as one can hurry with a 4 year old and a pregnant woman). As the name suggests, the Green Chain Walk goes through the green areas (parks, woodlands, meadows, etc) in the South-East of London and from the short stretch we managed to do it looks like one can learn a lot about local history, geography and nature, so I really want to do the rest of it this year.

There are few more photos on Flckr.

Frosty Sunday

2011-01-29T16:13:00.003Z

Since the other two fish seem to be doing well and aren't showing any symptoms of being sick, we decided to get a new companion for them.

This is Frosty Sunday, as in ice-cream sunday. He is settling in well, despite being slightly smaller than the others and at first being very cautious of Stripe.

Too much?

2011-01-27T21:05:00.003Z

Yesterday, to celebrate the Australia Day, we baked some ANZAC biscuits. It looks like there is enough to last until my sister arrives here on Saturday night, but just in case there isn't I ordered some extra groceries for her one week stay:
- chocolate spread
- two types of ice-cream (I was tempted to get three, but wasn't sure if they will all fit into our freezer)
- Jaffa Cakes
- ingredients for a cheesecake
- maple syrup for crepes, pancakes or waffles (or maybe all of the above)
- ingredients for chai mix

Oh, and one of the fridge shelves is full of jelly. Katya spotted a multi-coloured jelly in a cafe, so of course we had to make some using four different flavours/colours (Last time I made jelly was about three years ago, so I underestimated with how much we'll end up).

And I'm tempted to make some type of sweet buns. And if I can find tapioca before my sister's arrival, I certainly will be making tapioca pudding (Lovely recipe, though I usually replace the sugar and one cup of milk with sweetened condensed milk. I had a craving for tapioca pudding for weeks now, but none of the local supermarkets seem to stock it this winter).

My sister has a sweet tooth, but do you think I'm going a bit over the top? (Did I mention she is only here for one week?)

Taking the lid off

2011-01-23T19:22:00.002Z

If you study is going to be fruitful, let it be because you use the information as a set of tools to take the lid off your own creativity.
James Walters "Crochet Workshop"

Sewing

2011-01-18T20:52:00.003Z

I thought I’ll do a sewing post, since I occasionally brave my trepidation of trying something new and actually use my sewing machine.

One Saturday afternoon, way back in November, I managed to sew two little items. I’m still marveling at that achievement, since it usually takes me at least 30 minutes to get the tension on my machine right and mostly the correct tension is achieved by weird magical combination of the frustration and turning the dials at random to the settings, which I’m sure I tried before without any success.

This pillowcase for my daughter was made from the fabric sent to me by barmyowlscoo following very detailed directions of the Sewing 101: zippered throw pillow tutorial. My daughter loves it to the point where the first day she took the pillow everywhere with her.

I also made myself a new wallet to replace the one stolen back in May. I followed the Noodlehead's Gathered Clutch Tutorial, but reduced the size.

In December I finally got around to making a long promised bean bag for my daughter from the fabric she choose (trust me, I wouldn't choose fake fur, specially in pink, bright orange or red colours). Afterwards all my clothes and the craft room were covered in bright fluff, but the excitement on my daughter’s face on opening her Christmas present made it all worth it. The instructions, I found online, were for both child & adult sized bean bag chairs and I was tempted to make an adult size one, but am glad that I didn’t as the bedrooms in our house are so small that even a child-sized one will be taking a big chunk of the floor space (at the moment it is ~~getting in a way~~ being put to a good use downstairs in the living room)

I also made a matching lion pillowcase – the initial plan was to knit both the front & the back, but I didn’t have enough fluffy yarn for the back and therefore the knitted back panel is now used as lining for the birds’ nest. My husband thought that a square lion is hilarious and went into a fit of laughing on seeing the finished item for the first time. My daughter thought it odd and not very likable - I guess one can't always be successful.

Making pillowcases is super easy even for a total sewing beginner like myself. So one evening in the midst of being sick, instead of sleeping, I made another one to give to a friend, who was staying with us at Christmas. This is the worst wobbliest sewing I’ve done in a very long time, but I thought that (a) it is better to give a wobbly present than no presents at all and (b) he loves fish and is sentimental enough about my daughter to appreciate her drawing of our three goldfish (She told me that the fourth orange blob, in the top left corner, is a penguin).

And finally this year I made two knot dolls – one for our baby & one for the friend’s. She is due in four weeks and I was (and am and will be) shamelessly using her to explain/demonstrate to Katya what will be happening to my body and later to our lives.

BTW I didn’t get around to making the Christmas stockings, so we did the same thing as last year – used airplane socks instead. Luckily I have many of these – various traveling friends give them to me thinking I’ll find a good use for them. Anyone knows if they are suitable for making sock monkeys?

Parting

2011-01-16T13:59:00.003Z

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
Kahlil Gibran "The Prophet"

--
Last year I made two new wonderful friends. They are interesting, fun, kind, creative, beautiful and inspirational women. Their friendship made me feel more positive about life in general and improved my confidence in myself that was shaken by some unpleasant interactions.

One of them, who is currently holidaying in Australia, sent me email this week to let me know that she got her dream job in Sydney. I'm so happy for her - not only she will be going home to her own country where she can raise her daughter surrounded by family, friends and warm, easy-going people; but she also going to do something that she loves.

However, it will be very hard to say yet another good bye.

(Photos are from last year's trip to Melbourne)

Two trimesters down, one to go

2011-01-10T20:30:00.004Z

On Friday night, Husband: "Oh my, you are so big and there are still four months to go. Imagine how huge you'll be!"
I: "Only three more months" (and I really don't want to think about how much bigger my tummy will grow)

P.S. I should add that his comment and the look of total incredulity made me laugh, though I probably would've had a different reaction if it was coming from someone else.

...

2011-01-09T20:17:00.002Z

It is necessary to be somewhat underemployed if you want to do something significant.
James Watson

(Non New Year's) Resolutions

2011-01-06T20:56:00.004Z

Did you make any new year’s resolutions? I’ve opted not to make any new ones, since I have plenty made throughout 2010 that still need to be implemented.

Firstly, books. We have lots of books, which isn’t a problem in itself since I love books. Few months back we were chatting about potentially moving into the countryside and I asked my husband if he would prefer to live in a small town or a village. His reply was “If we live in a village, the closest library could be miles away, therefore a small town would be better for us”. Since most people usually think about proximity of supermarkets, hospitals, school and such I queried him on his choice. His reply was sweet, amusing and very accurate: “I thought about what makes you happy and the only thing I could come up with was frequent visits to the library”. Hence, the books aren’t the problem in themselves, but the combination of all the unread books and my current reading speed means that I have plenty of reading material in my own house to keep me occupied for years. Once I came to accept this realization, I decided that I have to read at least three books that I already own before I can buy another one or borrow one from the library.

In the same vein, I probably should have some resolutions about my craft stash, craft interests or my Ravelry queue. However, recently I was relatively good at using whatever I have on hand, seem to manage to keep Ravelry queue at around 300 items and feel like learning a new skills or a new craft allows me to gain a better understanding of other ones (the more I learn the more I notice how everything is connected to everything else); therefore I’ll just keep on learning and making and loving it. I may aim to get through Crochet Workshop by James Walters and Knitter’s Handbook by Montse Stanley, to improve both my crochet and knitting skills.

I keep on dreaming about learning more about photography as I still use my DSLR as point-and-shoot camera instead of exploring all the possibilities it has to offer, but I have no plan or even remotest idea of how best to start myself on this learning journey. Anyone has any advice?

One area of life I want to concentrate on in the next few months is meal planning. We eat reasonably well, but lately the meal preparation was ad-hoc and last minute, which makes me feel stressed and also occasionally results in buying food items that go off before we get a chance to use them. My plan is to designate a meal type to each day of the week (roast on Sunday, soup on Monday, etc), write down 2-3 meals of each type and once a week figure out the meal plan for the coming week. Hopefully that way we won’t waste food and I’ll avoid getting stressed about what will be on our table for dinner that day.

Few years back I came across a blog-post by a creative coach, who instead of making new year’s resolutions choose one word to describe what she wants the year to be, and this year this post by Kate of Foxs Lane reminded me of it. Looking back we had the year of travel (2008), the year of visitors (2009), the year of existing (2010). It feels like all we did last year was get through one day at the time. Although there were some life-changing decisions made during it, which may explain why everything else pails into insignificance. After spending about 9 months in the adoption process: getting in touch with our local adoption social service, having interview with them, attending training; and finally in May arriving to the point when we could request the Home Study, we faced the reality of how long it is likely to take to get through all the bureaucratic hoop jumping first in UK and then in Russia before we are likely to welcome a child into our family (at least another 2 years) and after that we would have to stay in UK for another 3 to be able to send update reports back to Russia. And being as homesick as I am for Australia and all the other things happening in the extended family, I couldn’t commit myself to 5, 6, 7 or maybe even more years of staying here. There were also other reasons, which all added up to making the decision not to go ahead with the international adoption the right one. And yet it is profoundly difficult to accept the right decision, when it feels so wrong, selfish and shortsighted. Another hard decision was made few months afterwards when we committed ourselves to staying in UK for further two years.

The arrival of 2011 feels sudden, but also highly welcome. I don’t want to choose any emotional, high-reaching or profound words for it, thus I want it to be a year of walking. I love walking, I used to walk for hours just because I could. There are so many wonderful walks around London and UK and some of them, like Thames Path, I wanted to do for years.

Recently I bought good walking shoes that are described as “classic walking boot for extensive walking and moderate trekking”, so if I don’t do any interesting walks this year I’ll feel a bit like one of those people, who buys a huge 4-wheel-drive just to drive their kids 500 meters to school and never takes it off-road. Maybe I can convince my sister to do a walk or two with me, when she is here in early February, though slow walking with a pregnant woman could be not her exact idea of tourist fun.

As you can see I don’t really need any additional fresh resolutions, but I’ll love to hear which ones you’ve made?

...

2011-01-02T20:27:00.000Z

There is no interest in realising the possible, but it is exceedingly interesting to perform the impossible
Sergei Diaghilev

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T12:25:00.003Z

Happy New Year to you.
I hope this year will bring you health, happiness, fun adventures, lots of laughter, love and realisation of your dreams.

New Year 1982

(The socks on my feet were knitted by my mum. Maybe I'll go cast on the socks I was planning to knit for months).

This year's favourite Christmas song

2010-12-26T20:45:00.004Z

I haven't posted any quotes in the last two weeks, because I don't have anything appropriate to this moment of my life - I have many I wrote down years ago, but somehow none of them seem right. I used to read 2-3 books concurrently and to slow down my reading jot down the bits I liked; now I usually struggle to get through one book for a long time and avoid the ones with the complicated plot or too many characters.

However, today I have a musical one. I was tired of hearing “Jingle Bells” over and over again from my daughter, who learned it at the kindergarten, therefore got us Ella Fitzgerald’s “Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas” CD and fall totally in love with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – you’ll probably be able to tell why I feel sentimental about it if you listen to the words.

Stocking Fillers

2010-12-24T08:36:00.003Z

Back in Russia, when I was a child, we didn’t celebrate Christmas (it being a religious holiday and religion, while not exactly prohibited, being strongly discouraged and mostly not mentioned), instead we celebrated, in a very similar fashion, New Year. I don’t remember us getting gifts such as toys (though we probably did), however each child always got a bag of sweets, which contained chocolates, various types of lollies, zefir and one or sometimes even TWO mandarins. Zefir is similar to marshmallow, but bigger, softer and fluffier on the inside and crustier on the outside. Both zefir and mandarin were a special treat – as average simple family in a small town we were unlikely to be able to find either one (but especially mandarins) in the shops at any other time than before New Year.

This year I got a packet of zefir from a Russia shop. The ones in my childhood were always white and not covered in shaved coconut, however Katya and I shared one yesterday and it tasted and smelled exactly like I remember. The smell of zefir and mandarins is the smell of winter celebrations to me. I’m slowly accepting my husband’s Christmas traditions and starting to mix them with my own New Year’s ones, so this year each stocking will contain a pink zefir and a mandarin.

Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones. I hope there is lots of laughter and joy in your house, plenty of food on your table, many wonderful people around it and some present for everyone under the tree.

Dancing to fun music

2010-12-23T19:36:00.005Z

Katya and I spent five days mostly in bed or on the couch due to the horrible flu. Today in the morning, when we felt significantly better and had some energy, I couldn’t resist giving Katya one of the items that was supposed to go into her stocking – Dan Zanes and Friends’ CD Family Dance. It turned out to be great for dancing and jumping around and being totally silly. Who can resist being silly to the “All around the kitchen”? Here is the video of it from their YouTube channel:

(BTW did you notice the orange dress in the video? I definitely need to learn to sew so I can make one like that for myself as I totally love it.)

And according to Dan Zanes & Friends website they are coming to London in February – maybe we can go and see them live and be silly in public.

I want to ramble on about music for kids, cloth for boys and sewing, but I better go and see if I can make five stockings in the next 32 hours.

First fatality

2010-12-13T20:57:00.000Z

We had our first fatality – Ozzie the Goldfish died last night. I shed one or two tears for the poor thing in private. Never thought I’ll get attached to a goldfish, but surprisingly they all have their own unique personalities and one can get to know them pretty well (and get attached) while watching and taking care of them everyday. Katya didn’t seem too perturbed, but when we went swimming pretended to be a dead fish by floating on her back without moving and demanded stories about the dead fish. She loves stories - everything has to be turned into a story – “tell me a story” is her most common demand. I wish I was a better storyteller.

Knitting socks will have to wait

2010-12-08T19:27:00.005Z

Did I say I'm going to attempt to knit a pair of socks for myself? I think they'll have to wait until after Christmas as my plan to make only one handmade present snowballed and now I'm making two time-consuming ones for Katya and few tiny ones for various people. Oh, I also promised to make FIVE Christmas stockings.

Before the snowballing effect took place, I made another crochet flower brooch out of leftover Noro Kureyon Sock (here the ones I made back in summer)

Ironically as soon as I managed to use up most of it I found a gorgeous blanket pattern and ordered more Kureyon Sock yarn in different colourways, so there could be many more flower brooches in the future.

I managed to crochet two snowflakes before loosing interest and finding the paper ones we made last year to decorate the kitchen window.

And to keep my child's legs warm I knitted a pair of legwarmers from the yarn I bought online for my husband's hat. He is happy with blue one, but wants an yellower orange - I have a pretty good idea of the colour he'll like, but can't find it anywhere.

Katya, who sometimes refuses to wear COTTON knitted-looking dresses, because they are scratchy!!!, actually loves the legwarmers and wears them inside and outside everyday. However, she requested a green and yellow pair, because now it is her favourite colour combination. So maybe I'll never get around to knitting my pair of socks.

I wonder how other multi-crafters choose their next project and if they ever end up making anything for themselves or just keep on producing items for their family and friends.

Teaching & learning

2010-12-05T20:48:00.003Z

--
One thing has remained with me above all - how little I did as a person, and how much came about through the children in my care, and through their efforts. The more I learned to know them, the more I realised that they were constantly teaching me. They were not encumbered by the heavy baggage of material knowledge that adults possess. They seemed to have resources that were fresh, inspired, and full of star wisdom. My best moments were those in which I was truly open to what the children had to teach me. For that, I am deeply grateful. From "School as a Journey" by Torin M. Finser

It snowed

2010-11-30T22:30:00.002Z

It snowed last night and all day today and is still snowing.

We left our tracks on the white snow blanket, while singing silly songs about it.

Made a snow-penguin (it had to be a PENGUIN) :-)

And created a story about the birds lost in the snow.

B2

2010-11-30T21:05:00.004Z

Katya (at about age three) "I want a sister, a brother and a baby"

Well, she is getting a brother in April.

Finished knitted hat

2010-11-28T08:37:00.005Z

Unlike people in some other parts of England, we don’t yet have snow on the ground, but everything was covered in frost in the morning. I love frost – it looks beautiful and magic, but doesn’t disrupt things like snow and ice do.

Same as previous two years we aren’t exactly prepared for the cold winter. However I recently finished knitting a hat for myself, which should keep my ears warm. I finished it despite making silly mistakes (extremely silly ones, which made me shake my head in disbelief when I discovered them), having to frog and restart, knowing that I can crochet a reasonable hat much faster and wanting to give up. It fits. It looks good. My husband, who usually looks slightly amused and at the same time worried about my sanity whenever I display my latest crafting project to him, likes it and wants me to knit him a hat!

It felt extremely uplifting to make something. The success proved to me that there is some progress in my acquisition of the knitting skills and hopefully it will push me into tackling other harder projects. I may attempt knitting a pair of socks for myself. I have to say that getting rid of the TV was a great help. It appears that I’m unable to concentrate enough on knitting while watching crime shows, but listening to CraftLit is perfect – my knitting progresses at reasonable pace without mistakes and I get to listen to good books.

Introductions

2010-11-23T21:05:00.004Z

Please allow me to introduce to you

Ozzie

Milly

and Stripe

Katya named the first two and got stuck on the name for the last one, so I suggested Stripe. Yes, I know, my name suggestion wasn't very imaginative. I like the names she gave the fish and am glad that she didn't come up with the silly ones like the ones she is creating for the baby (the most memorable so far was Ballooney).

I never thought that watching fish can be so addictive, relaxing, funny and energizing. We are spending silly amounts of time sitting in front of the aquarium, but it is such a pleasure to be able to stay still for a bit.

***

2010-11-21T19:15:00.003Z

It must have been an endless
breathing in: between
the wish to know and the need to praise
there was no seam.
from the poem "Butterfly" by Margaret Atwood

Bye-bye TV

2010-11-17T08:32:00.002Z

Good bye TV

Welcome aquarium

If everything goes to plan we'll get some goldfish this weekend.

Autumn Holiday

2010-10-16T06:22:00.006+01:00

The summer went by really quickly and we haven’t traveled anywhere or did anything worth mentioning. And as the days started growing colder and shorter we decided to have a break and to explore English countryside. The initial plan to visit the New Forest fell through, as we couldn’t find accommodation due to some event taken place in the area. A brief discussion established that I mostly wanted to see open fields (after years of living in London, surrounded by houses in all directions, I was starting to develop a mild case of claustrophobia), my husband wouldn’t mind visiting a castle, Katya wanted to go on the old train or visit a farm and none of us wanted to go very far. There are not that many castles in the South East England and soon we had our new destination - Bodiam Castle.

Katya was so impressed by the castle (I think it may be the first real one she saw) that she produced this drawing of it and castles are now added to her list of the most fascinating things, which includes trains, birds (specially penguins, ducks & chickens) and dinosaurs.

The great advantage of Bodiam was that to get there we could travel part of the way by Kent & East Sussex railway and so another requirement was satisfied. I was joking for the last few months that we should set ourselves a mission to visit all the old railways in England and at Tenterden station we found a tourist brochure, which list them, so our railway mission could become more than a joke.

The next day we visited two other National Trust properties: Sissinghurst Castle and Bateman’s, home of Rudyard Kipling. If you know about my addiction to the printed word you’ll probably also know that I’m unable to resist visiting the places where writes & poets lived, worked and created.

It was cold, grey and drizzly day; Katya was getting tired of looking at the old houses and somehow we agreed to drive towards the sea and ended up in Hastings. I discovered that my child loves the sea, her face lights up when she sees it, she wants to run around and play and laugh.

The sight of the grey clouds and the waves, the feel of the wind and the rain on my skin brought back memories of my family ending up on the beach in all sorts of weather in the first few years after we arrived to Australia. And in some way I like being at the beach more and feel more connected to the sea on the grey days full of movement and empty of people.

In the best tradition of my family we bought some fish & chips to eat sitting on the ground scanning the horizons for the clouds threatening stronger rain.

On the last day we drove to Rye just because there is another one close to Melbourne, in which I holidayed few times with my parents, and I love visiting English towns that gave their names to the Australian ones. The highlights of the day there were seeing another castle and eating at the Mermaid Inn, which proudly boasts about being rebuild in 1420.

As usual there are more photos are on Flickr.

In Oz until 10th

2010-03-19T05:20:00.001Z

Wealth

2010-03-07T21:30:00.000Z

The problem is that wealth ceases to move freely when all things are counted and priced. It may accumulate in great heaps, but fewer and fewer people can afford to enjoy it.
Lewis Hyde “The Gift”

Labels and haircut

2010-03-04T15:44:00.005Z

Last night I missed a step while walking downstairs and ended up on the floor in a lot of pain. I feel pretty silly about spraining my ankle in my own house and frustrated at the limited ability to move around. As the result today we are spending most of the time on the couch and on the floor: reading books, making puzzles, watching TV and sending strange emails and SMSs to my husband (my daughter seems to be at the stage of the total fascination with the letters and the various form of communication, which also includes making and sending birthday cards). In reply my husband sent me a link to this article about another study into how mothers’ working choices affect the childrens’ weight. Does it seem to say that thoughtful parenting, healthy eating and physically active lifestyle are the keys to raising a healthy/happy/etc child? I feel that most studies like this one (or at least the way they are reported in the media) raise a lot of questions without providing interesting or helpful answers. Maybe I would feel differently if the news reports included graphs and numbers.

While trying to find (unsuccessfully) the actual numbers to see how significant the differences were I stumbled on this article. How many of us think of ourselves in terms of the job titles? How many of the mothers would label themselves a janitor and a psychologist? Maybe I should add a hairdresser to the list of my titles. 10-points to Rachael for spotting that my daughter has a new haircut. Few weeks ago I got frustrated at the tangled mess that her hair was becoming and timidly trimmed a bit off. The success of doing it myself spurred me to try cutting her hair even shorter yesterday and after watching this video on youtube we ended up with this (I obviously need more practice and better scissors).

Spring

2010-02-28T21:36:00.002Z

Thaw
Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.
Edward Thomas

--
The snowdrops were photographed in Brighton more than two weeks ago. There are signs of spring all around, but the winter's cold and rain don't seem to want to pass. I long for the spring and all it brings: the warmth, the blue skies, the sunlight, the promise of new discoveries and accomplishments, the lifting of the soul, the renewal.

Knitting in the round

2010-02-24T21:00:00.003Z

I was looking after my friend’s son on Saturday, so spent most of the Sunday feeling that it was the first day of the weekend, which may explain why I totally forgot to write the usual post with a quote. Ironically enough on Monday my husband stayed home due to a bad cold and I managed to complete a number of the boring household tasks only to end up with a splitting headache by the end of the day. The only cure for which was to go to bed early preventing me again from blogging or crafting.

Anyhow on Saturday I was very glad to discover that I can now knit (albeit very simple things) and look after two toddlers. I too clearly remember the time just two years ago when I needed extremely quiet and peaceful environment to manage knitting few stitches without getting horribly confused or knitting them a wrong way, which meant that knitting was reserved for evenings and progressed dreadfully slowly.

The two balls knitted from leftover Noro Kureyon Sock following the pattern from Itty-Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson are my small addition to a hat requested by a very good friend.

The hat (pattern by Ginny) was so easy to knit and will hopefully help me break my fear of attempting to knit wearable items. I’m so much dreaming of knitting socks for myself as my feet keep on getting too cold every time I go outside this winter.

Unlucky for my sock-knitting plans upon seeing the little hat my daughter requested I’ll knit her one (multi-coloured, orange and red and yellow) and when we looked on Ravelry to find the perfect pattern, she also requested another hat, a toy and a vest. And wait, she also wants four knitted balls, not three as requested previously. Hopefully I have enough Noro Kureyon Sock yarn left, as most of it was used up in knitting a long rainbow snake.

I'm glad my daughter likes it despite the fishy face, which is result of me improvising instead of following a pattern, .

My husband also wants a beanie hat – light brown with orange and blue stripes, but thankfully is happy to wait. So maybe, just maybe, by next winter we’ll all have hand-knitted hats and socks to keep us extra warm.

Crafting in 2009 and now

2010-02-17T21:18:00.002Z

I finished more items in 2009, than I did in 2008, but only because I added some of my drawings to the final count.

1. Necklace for Stagasaurus (c365/134), 2. Necklace for Sister-in-Law (c365/135), 3. Finished (c365/145), 4. Matreshka border, 5. Jellyfish (c365/147), 6. Small stamps (c365/149), 7. Pan Chang Knot necklace, 8. Drying handdyed fabric (c365/154), 9. Apple pin cushion (c365/155), 10. (c365/156), 11. Doily (c365/158), 12. Square pincushion (c365/159), 13. New bag (c365/162), 14. New flower stamps (c365/163), 15. Yellow & purple (c365/164), 16. Head scarf (c365/167), 17. Another head scarf, 18. Finished Picnic Blanket (c365/171), 19. Strawberry skirt, 20. One more doily done (c365/175)

1. And aother one (c365/177), 2. Dyeing (c365/178), 3. It's starting to click (c365/179), 4. I am here (c365/180), 5. Day-dreaming (c365/183), 6. Dream book (c365/184), 7. Hexagons (c365/185), 8. Almost finished (c365/186), 9. Added a handle (c365/196), 10. Basket (c365/202), 11. Ready to gift (c365/204), 12. No more veg! (c365/208), 13. Autumn heart (c365/209), 14. Tiny mouse (c365/214), 15. Flower brooches (c365/217), 16. Quickly finished (c365/223), 17. Jingle Bells (c365/231), 18. Grey & Yellow (c365/232), 19. Airplane Octopus (c365/234), 20. Last item made in 2009 (c365/235)

I wonder how productive I'll be this year as so far I only have three completed items. Having a larger final number of projects completed isn’t the goal in itself, but in a small way it is a good enough indication of how well I avoided getting into the negative and self-critical attitude, which prevents me from finding time to do what I enjoy. So far this year I was having lots of fun partially by breaking my resolutions. I can’t really say that I made a New Year’s resolution not to learn any new forms of craft, but I thought it would be a good idea to concentrate on improving my existing skills. I haven’t lasted long. I found a book on papier-mache at the charity shop and took it as a sign to try making something simple. Luckily my husband can get newspapers for free from his office at the end of each day, so I didn’t have to break my second resolution to avoid buying new supplies unless I use up something I already have.

I also finally tried needle-felting, which I was yearning to do for the last couple of years. Amusingly enough when I just discovered online crafting community, I felt like everyone was trying out some sort of felting, while now every second crafter seems to be re-discovering or trying for the first time spinning. I’m glad that spinning sparks no interest in me whatsoever. I may be tempted to dye some yarn though.

The artists of being alive

2010-02-14T22:20:00.002Z

And yet, I know artists whose medium is Life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel, or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased Life. They see and don't have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.
"The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" by Frederick Franck

Drawing

2010-02-07T21:01:00.002Z

If - as I hope - the how-to tricks with ellipses don't work for you either, there is no other way of drawing a sparrow or an eagle than to draw it ad infinitum, until the bushes on our paper are fuller of birds than any bushes ever were, and you know sparrow and eagle inside out, having been them yourself.
"The Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation" by Frederick Franck

Beloved

2010-02-06T21:57:00.002Z

I was recently taking a long bath, partially because I like to, but mostly because we no longer had any working showers in the house. And the realisation of my own uniqueness suddenly hit me. Let’s see how many Russian women, who lived in Australia and are now living in UK and are married to South African and love painting, drawing & crafting do you know? But this awareness of my exceptionality went beyond all these and other random attributes I may be able to list about myself. I used to say that we are all unique, but this was different. For the first time I marvelled at how beautiful, precious and special I am. Not because of how I look or what I do or don’t do, but just because I am. And how I feel about myself or my current place in life at any given point in time doesn’t change the fact of my uniqueness.

I’m afraid that by this point you are rolling your eyes in the amusement or the incredulity at my self-centeredness. But do you know what the logical conclusion of that realisation is? I can’t do anything, but believe that each one of you is unique in a very beautiful and precious way. And I hope that instead of raising an objection to my momentary ability to treasure you and myself, you can smile and celebrate yourself as you are at this moment in time.

Discovering the world: swimming

2010-02-03T21:46:00.000Z

Begin it now

2010-01-31T11:10:00.001Z

This is the quote that my sister-in-law shared with me in Cape Town:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back… Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come this way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
Goethe.

Is there something you want to begin today? I want to re-start drawing daily, because it is one of the most enjoyable things that I can imagine doing. Since I struggle to find time to do things that are purely for myself, I may have to be a bit more accepting about the amount and the type of drawing that gets done everyday. Today it was the face painting.

Discovering the world: using a knife

2010-01-21T22:26:00.002Z

She can now cut cucumber and butter all by herself.

The only problem is that she doesn't seem to be interested in eating anything, but the food made by herself.

I’m back (yet again)

2010-01-18T20:47:00.003Z

I took this photo of the snow and a robin planning to wish you all Merry Christmas, only to discover on trying to upload it that our Internet router died completely. And then we went to Cape Town at the exact time when I needed to escape the multiple levels of confusion, stress and self-doubt, in which I was slowly wrapping my everyday life. And there, having time to sit still without thoughts of n0t-done housework and ever-growing ToDo lists nagging at the back of my mind; I achieved some sort of clarity and found some answers. They were scattered like little gemstones through watching the children play joyfully and freely, the sincere warmth of family and friends, slow evening conversations and accidental book choices. Ah, I discovered that looking through my sister-in-law’s books is a dangerous activity for someone who already has too many dreams and interests. I finally got to read up on permaculture and now want to attempt to grow a bit more than just carrots.

Carrots - August 2009

After glancing through a book on cob building I’m dreaming of building a small round house for my studio one day. And do I really need the desire to try out Papier Mache for the first time in my life when I’m already struggling to figure out how to find time to practice crochet, knitting, drawing, sewing?

And then we were back to London covered in snow and grey clouds and somehow this time the subdued colours of my surroundings didn’t trigger the feelings of dejection and gloom, but made me feel at home. And yet, in Cape Town from the first breath of warm air I felt sharply homesick for Australia.

Eucalyptus leaves in Cape Town

Home is where the heart is. Sometimes it feels like my heart is shattering into ever smaller and smaller fragments, but I also know it is getting filled by being able to observe the beauty of so many different places and various people.

And eventually the Internet was fixed and I am back here. But I have a chest infection and am on antibiotics for a week, which are making me feel very weak and worse than the infection did on its own. I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions regarding regular blogging, so no promises about the next time I’ll write.

...

2009-12-20T21:21:00.000Z

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
Kahlil Gibran The Prophet

Decorating for Christmas

2009-12-19T08:23:00.004Z

Yesterday after making the snowmen, we decided to decorate the living room in time for today’s Christmas party. I thought Katya’s favourite part will be gluing glitter, but trying to draw circles using a compass for a first time was much more fascinating. And while she still can’t really draw a circle on her own, now I know how to occupy her if I need some time to myself.

The other day my friend caught me trying to explain to Katya what the parallelogram is and she thought I was totally insane. But my family is full of geeks, so it seems to me so natural that my daughter is fascinated by various shapes and wants to know what they are all called. I should actually remind myself the Russian names for the three-dimensional shapes. Maybe our household needs a comprehensive picture dictionary – I used to love looking through one when I was a child.

And I was very happy to use some of the strange sparkly paper I have.

At the moment the decorations look more suitable for a birthday party, but hopefully the guests will bring some tinsel strands to add the right amount of sparkling Christmas goodness to our bunting lines. The bunting above is from Driftwood and below from I'm a Ginger Monkey.

Perfect morning

2009-12-18T08:34:00.002Z

Making snowmen

followed by hot chocolate

all before 8:30 am

Writer

2009-12-17T22:12:00.002Z

Катя нажимала кнопочки на старой, выключенной Blackburry. Вдруг остановилась и задумалась.
«О чем думаешь?»,-спросила я
«Как дальше писать сказку»

Katya was pressing buttons on old, switched off Blackburry. Suddenly she stopped, looking thoughtful.
“What are you thinking about?” asked I.
“What to write next in a fairytale”

BTW the scarf, which she is wearing, is part of the Christmas present we received from Driftwood in return for Australian Quilting magazine.

First snow

2009-12-16T20:45:00.002Z

The guests left today as promised. And we had our first snow of the year. Not very much as you can see from this photo, but we managed to make a tiny, about 4 cm tall, snowman in the park - sadly I didn't have my camera with me.

Christmas traditions

2009-12-13T21:42:00.003Z

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

--
Recently one of my friends, who doesn’t like the commercial side of Christmas, asked me about our Christmas traditions. I laughed and if you read my blog for awhile you’d laugh as well. Is buying a present for one’s husband on Christmas Eve a tradition? If it is, I broke it this year by getting his present back in November.

Despite of feeling that I personally don’t have any Christmas traditions (while my husband has plenty) or maybe because of my perceived lack of commonality between my own and my husband’s traditions, I managed to write her a very long email. And writing that email was the perfect step towards my decision to attempt to spend next year exploring celebrations from our (and maybe even other) cultures, in the attempt to figure out what really works for our little family.

This year our Christmas celebrations are turning out to be somewhat ad-hoc and slightly strange. The tiny plastic Christmas tree, given to us by our friends few years back, is standing in my daughter’s bedroom on her request, which we were happy to oblige due to the lack of good place for it downstairs. The Christmas lights are hanging in our bedroom, because this is the only place truly off-limits to our toddler visitor, who I don’t trust (potentially wrongly) not to try to pull them down. Together with my daughter I started decorating the house. I’m hoping to involve her into writing Christmas cards, baking and wrapping presents.

She learned two Russian New Year songs about Fir tree and now sings them randomly and whenever she sees anything remotely resembling a Fir tree. At the moment she is trying to master signing Jingle Bells by constantly asking to listen to it online.

I thought it would be fun to hear the jingle sounds during Christmas, but since we don't have any horses or reindeer I hanged some bells on our front door tied with the round brocade knot and the cross knots. According to ”Chinese Knots for Beaded Jewellery” the round pattern of the round brocade knot denotes good fortune, so it felt appropriate to have it next to the entrance to our house. I even bought the Christmas wreath to hang on the outside of the door.

I don’t want Christmas to be about getting large amount of presents and toys, but rather keep it as a celebration of our family and friendships, of our differences and similarities, of the gratitude for having food on our table, the roof over our heads, the skills and drive to make our surroundings and our life beautiful, of our joy for life.

Sucker for punishment?

2009-12-13T19:57:00.001Z

Visitors left on Thursday late evening and came back today with the promise to move out on Wednesday. Fingers-crossed. I find it very hard to share a house with another parent, who has a different parental style to me and makes parental decisions with which I don’t always agree.

Ironically, I looked after my friend’s son few times previously and was surprised to discover that looking after two toddlers isn’t that much harder than looking after one. I guess having two kids in the house is the best possible preparatory experience all of us can have for a time when we’ll decide to add more children to our family, even though I suspect it’s still pretty different from actually having to parent two kids 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The cake for belated birthday celebrations

2009-12-06T17:00:00.003Z

...but cakes have such a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good. However, I suppose I shall just have to trust to Providence and be careful to put in the flour.
L. M. Montgomery "Anne of Green Gables"
--
The birthday girl requested a chocolate cake with multi-coloured sprinkles. At first I thought I'll make flourless chocolate cake, but the process of melting the chocolate bars sounded too laborious. Just for a moment I considered buying one. And eventually made Chocolate Zucchini Cake. I'm so glad that it turned out tasting delicious and very moist. The birthday girl helped to decorate it - leaving a toddler with a box of sprinkles without supervision isn't a very good idea.

What's that noise?

2009-12-02T21:21:00.001Z

A friend and her almost three-year old son needed somewhere to stay for one week and our house was the only sensible option. With them they brought some of his plastic button pushing, light flashing, music making, battery-operated toys. And since my daughter doesn’t have any she loved playing with his today. At some point there were three of them singing three different equally horrible tunes all at ones. I have “A is for apple. D is for Dog” stuck in my head together with that unnatural extremely happy, over-enthusiastic voice that only battery-operated toys for babies and toddlers seem to have. That voice all on its own makes me feel irritable, stressed and grumpy. I think I’ll listen to some peaceful classical music before going to bed tonight. I'll need a totally different state of mind for getting through tomorrow.

...

2009-11-29T21:17:00.002Z

But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born - a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun, that pour down the rain, and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on.
Thomas Paine "The Age of Reason"

Discovering the world: finger knitting

2009-11-27T20:40:00.001Z

I thought this was a crafty blog?

2009-11-24T20:42:00.002Z

I guess I was wrong, as the last entry that has something handmade in it was at the end of July. Wasn’t July like yesterday? No? Give me a second while I’ll try to figure out what months it is now. Ah, yes – November. I guess I should be happy that it isn’t yet December, but probably should start stressing about all the Christmas presents that need to be made. Though maybe need is the wrong word to use. “You don’t need X, you just want it” my husband keeps on telling our daughter, who screams about needing the tiniest things in the tone of voice that implies that her life depends on them.

Anyway, here are most of the items made since the end of July (there are more details on Ravelry):

The set of fruit & veg I made for a friend's daughter's first birthday present.

The only vegetable & fruit I managed to crochet for my daughter before I got extremely bored with making fruit & veg.

An autumn heart for my husband. (pattern: MyGurumi Pop-Heart)

A mouse for my "mad scientist" sister from this pattern.

Looks like crochet is my comfort craft – when everything else fails I can still crochet.

Quotable Sunday

2009-11-22T20:16:00.002Z

I see the moon, the moon sees me
Under the shade of the old oak tree.
Please let the light that shines on me
Shine on the one I love.
English nursery rhyme
--

My husband left today for New York. I choose to stay at home this time as the traveling to a different time zone is not very conductive to finding one's daily rhythm. It worked out to be a very good decision as both my daughter and I are sick and would be unlikely to be allowed on any international flight, specially with her coughing non-stop.

I wanted to attempt to take a photo of the moon, but sadly (or luckily for my unskilled in the night-time photography self) there is no moon tonight despite the sky being clear of clouds. So here is a random autumn photo instead.

The year of visitors

2009-11-21T18:53:00.002Z

While the last year was the year of travel, this one turned out to be the year of visitors. I experienced so much joy chatting to people I love, sharing daily tasks with them and having some adult company during the day. New comers to London also remind me how magical this city is, how much there is to see and to do here. After five years many sites, customs, events that appeared amazing became familiar and marching through my daily life I forget to notice the beauty and wonder that surrounds me.

Royal Observatory, Greenwich Park

I always find it fascinating which small details various people notice. The latest visitor to London was surprised at how tame the birds and the squirrels are, so when we went to the local park I couldn’t resist taking some photos for her.

However there is a slight drawback to constant flow of guests. In between welcoming and saying farewell I swiftly lost my daily rhythm. And I rely on it to carry me through the days as much as most toddlers do. Without it I feel lost, dejected and unenthusiastic. It is so easy to spend my evenings in front of TV. Yet it’s exactly the wrong thing to do, so I’m slowly working towards re-establishing my routines. This week I serendipitously stumbled across Are So Happy blog, whose author is currently writing a series of posts on daily rhythm. She also posts a quote with a photo every Sunday – maybe it is time for me to resurrect my “quote of the week” posts under a new name. See you tomorrow with a quote.

Discovering the world: inventing skis

2009-10-25T20:25:00.003Z

Where to take a tourist in London?

2009-10-15T22:17:00.003+01:00

My sister is here for a two-week visit, which I know will feel all too short.

And where do you think we took her on her first day in London?

To the closest farm.

Oxford and bookbinding

2009-10-06T20:17:00.005+01:00

A bit more than a week ago I accompanied my mum to Oxford. Like any dutiful tourist I attempted to take photos of the beautiful buildings, only to realise yet again that I much more prefer to photograph small things – like leaves, cobble stones, flowers. And there were plenty of beautiful multi-coloured leaves around. What? Autumn? In my own little la-la universe it is still middle of July.

Yet the other day I wrote a list of… well, I can’t describe them in any other way, but New Year resolutions. Is one more likely to accomplish the desired goals if they are set at the beginning of October instead of January?

I’ve been to Oxford twice before so for me the highlight of our visit was “An Artful Craft: Fine and Historic Bookbindings from the Broxbourne Library and other collections” exhibition at Bodleian Library. The mastery and the variety of skills that went into creating the books on display were astonishing. I’m sure I was forgetting to breath and had a slightly mad glint in my eyes. I only wish another crafter, who just started learning about bookbinding and already created some gorgeous notebooks, could also see the exhibition. And she just started her own blog, so if you have few seconds head over to Lemony Leaves and welcome her to blogosphere.

Russian honey cake

2009-10-04T17:13:00.003+01:00

I'm not sure why I decided it will be fun to try to bake a proper cake for the first time in my life with a help of a toddler.

I ended up feeling rather stressed, the kitchen was covered in flour, but the 15 Layer Russian Honey Cake turned out OK (even though ours has only 8 layers).

A Russian food blogger calls a very similar cake "younger simpler brother of the traditional honey cake", but after reading her traditional recipe (in Russian) I doubt I'll find enough courage to try making it. Yet, it is my favourite cake, so maybe...

Lighter, cleaner, better

2009-09-21T21:20:00.002+01:00

I think I discovered a cure for my bookoholism – painting a bookshelf was very time consuming and an oil-based paint gave me mild headaches and left me feeling slightly nauseous. But the pleasure of putting all our books up in the nice single rows somehow dulls the memory of the hours spent painting. The sight of the white bookshelf and the multi-colourfull & multi-sized books makes me smile. I am one of those people, who gets the desire to stroke the books when I pass by them.

We are acting like the downstairs renovations are finished, but there are still few little things to get done, like painting the skirting behind the refrigerator and making curtains.

I’ve uploaded some photos of the ground floor prior to renovations to Flickr, in case you want to see the changes for yourself.

Painting

2009-08-20T19:45:00.003+01:00

Everynight after we put Katya to bed, we paint. Two coats of primer/undercoat and two coats of final paint on the ceiling, the walls, the skirting, the bookshelves. There is also sanding, masking and vacuum cleaning. So far only the ceiling in one room is completely done, as we can do only one coat per night. Therefore we'll have to continue next week and maybe the week after. But this weekend we are off to Birmingham for Festival of Quilts. It will be wonderful not to breath in the paint fumes for at least one night.

Random quote

2009-08-16T22:37:00.002+01:00

22:37 - Tired after a busy day and almost three hours of painting, so a random quote from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran :
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

Not always an angelic child

2009-08-15T20:22:00.004+01:00

Today I went out by myself for few hours (first time in weeks, not counting the rushed morning trips to the supermarket) and it was great to slowly choose few books in the library, to look at fabrics for curtains & pillowcases and to lunch with a friend. I returned home to find the exhausted husband staring at the sky and the trees outside; the toddler sleeping after a long tantrum and her room looking like this.

She is usually very well behaved in public, so people often get the wrong impression that she is a perfect angelic baby; who never screams, throws things, stubbornly refuses to do whatever is asked of her, but peacefully plays on her own for hours with cute little dolls.

Actually it annoys me at times when people comment to me or even tell her what a "good" girl she is, while meaning that she meets their expectations of good girl behaviour at that point in time. I probably wouldn't mind so much if their comments mentioned something specific, which they found likeable, but the general sweeping "good girl" label really bugs me. And the assumption that she likes playing with dolls and our house is full of pink stuff is pretty funny to me as she always runs to the boys' clothes section in the shops (well, they have Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob The Builder and Robots) and keeps on asking for the construction toys. I can't remember the last time she played with a doll, though she does play with little people characters from Lego and PlanCity. Her favourite pastimes at the moment are building insane staircases out of Lego Duplo (with some help from parents), drawing weird patterns on her body (maybe I should hide all the pens) and gluing stickers.

She is usually subdued at the playgrounds, but take her to a museum, big supermarket or hardware store and she will joyfully run around in circles. She has lots of opinions and definite knowledge on what she likes and doesn’t. Sometimes it feels like she talks non-stop, though it usually takes a while before she talks to the new people. She is just a normal toddler, with her own oddites, good and bad habits, loud and quiet moments, joyful singing and inconsolable (at least to her at the time) tantrums.

Goofy

2009-08-13T20:48:00.002+01:00

(Photo from 29 July 2007)

My husband and I were recently chatting about Star Trek and suddenly I realised that one of the reasons he loves me is because I can be extremely goofy at times. And I love that I feel safe to be extremely silly around him. There is no judgement or embarrassment afterwards, just a lot of laughter.

Back when we just started dating I requested quicksand, waffles and apple crumble. Eventually I got a waffle maker via my work (thanks to an award point system) and learned to make crumbles myself. I’m still waiting for a trip to a place that has quick sand. However today our living room has this:

I’m a hopeless book addict and now I finally have enough shelves for all of my books. I’m so much looking forward to pulling them out of the boxes and choosing a place for each one of them. Should I sort them alphabetically? By topic? Size? Or colour?