The Homesteady

Do you like to be surprised?

Four years ago, my brother and sister and I sneakily planned a surprise anniversary party for our parents to celebrate their 30th year of marriage. We roped my aunt into taking them out for dinner, and while they were gone we got the party ready. We set up a popcorn bar and decorated their backyard, and my parents' friends and extended family arrived – some even drove six hours to be there!

Long story short, we partied the night away and everyone had a really good time. It was so worth the secret-keeping. My parents loved it too – even though afterward my mom made me promise never to throw them a surprise party again! And I don't blame her. Surprises aren't my favorite either – I much prefer being in the know about what's going on.

I can't wait to figure out if Miles is a pro-surprise person or not – whether we could spring one of those Disney surprises on him when he's older, where we tell him where we're going in the car on the way to the airport, or he'd prefer to plan the whole trip with us. (Either way, I'm happy.)

I'm curious: Do you like to be surprised?

Here & there

A few weeks ago we had a spring solstice egg hunt in the backyard with our dear friends Katy and Allan and their two little girls. Miles took his cues from the ladies, watching them rush around our rainy backyard, reaching for the bright plastic eggs. He wandered cautiously away from the porch, selected two eggs to put into his pink basket, and considered himself done. 

The next day Katy asked me how I was liking being a mother, 17 months in. We were sitting in the backyard while Miles napped inside, having moved our chairs into the sun and stretched the invisible connection between baby monitor and camera as far as it would go. "It's good," I said, describing how it had taken this many months to recognize myself in this role; the relief of seeing my "old" self again. Of finally feeling natural calling myself a mom. "There are some days I still feel like a babysitter," I said. "Like, when are the real grownups getting home?" I thought more about my answer later, and felt like I'd left some things out. Like the heart-aching bliss that pierces through our most difficult days (and nights). The ever-shifting struggles of toddler-hood are very real, and my life is very, very good. There are more challenges now, and there is more gratitude now. 

(In keeping with everyone's food restrictions, the gluten-free, dairy-free, no-bake recipe for these chocolate nest cookies. The M&M eggs do contain dairy, though, so we filled a few with jelly beans.)

 

Links for your Friday

There's a new menstruation emoji

Why it took us so long to believe Lorena Bobbitt

On decriminalizing black hair

There is probably a drag queen to thank for your favorite makeup tips

8 things you might not know your library card can do

Starting a feminist club at an all-boys Catholic school

I'm adding Like A Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science & Culture of Pregnancy to my reading list [affiliate link]

Praise Satan, there are new episodes of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix!

How to raise a child without imposing gender (NYT)

Archaeologists found a trove of Maya artifacts dating back 1,000 years (and did a six-hour purification ritual with a Maya priest prior to entering the cave system)

New Mexico has become the newest state to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day

More news about the "Downton Abbey" movie thank god

5 reasons all children should learn how to sew

A woman found a braid of Charlotte Brontë's hair inside a ring

What do we do now that will be considered unthinkable in 50 years?

A salt dough bunny garland

"Where is our Easter box?" I called to Kristie from the basement, facing the shelves where our holiday decorations rest divided into separate cardboard boxes.

"We don't have one," she answered from the kitchen (leaning, I imagine, a little more closely to the open basement door).

We don't have one? I wondered. 

It was true. No springtime decorations were waiting for us at the foot of the basement stairs. We had a wreath, once, but it didn't fare well in our terrible storage system.

So: A garland. A cookie cutter. Dough made from the pantry.

I followed a salt dough recipe I found on Pinterest, and used a rabbit-shaped cookie cutter from a different cardboard box in the basement. I pierced each cut-out twice (a meat thermometer worked well – sorry, buns) and left them out overnight to dry before baking them at a low temp for awhile the next day.

I dipped the end of string into candle wax to help strengthen its point before threading the bunnies on one by one.

I love them. These seven, plus a few vintage finds, are making it a little springier around here.

Currently

Reading: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver [affiliate link]. I quite like it. Not so much the trick she's doing with the last sentence of a chapter also being the title of the next chapter, but rather because I love her writing. It's so rich. I re-read The Poisonwood Bible [affiliate link] every few years. 

Listening to: My regular favorite podcasts have felt, suddenly, far too violent and upsetting to listen to. My therapist said it's because my mind is preoccupied with Miles, who is in such a vulnerable stage of his life, and that my aversion to topics I once couldn't get enough of is probably only temporary. So true crime is off the table, at least for the next little while. Instead I'm listening to This American Life and Radiolab in the car, and '80s pop on Pandora at work.

Making: The entirety of my creative energy is being taken up now by one big, challenging, lovely knitting project. I'm one-third finished, and I'll share it here soon but I can't now because it's a gift for a dear friend and I want it to remain a surprise.

Watching: All the "Schitt's Creek" we can get our hands on. The original "Charmed." Godzilla (1998), which you are probably not surprised to learn really does not hold up well. The new season of "Queer Eye," of course, but only one episode every few days to make it last longer. 

Planning: To sit on some couches at Ikea this weekend. I'm fancying this one and this one (although I'm feeling a bit skeptical about only one armrest!). Other than that, to be outside as much as we can bear! Happily, the picture above is a few weeks old, and the backyard is no longer covered in snow. We've made it a habit to turn Miles out for a quick postprandial frolic in the yard before bedtime each night, giving him space to craft his own uninterrupted outdoors play. I try to stay out of it while he selects a stick to clutch while marching around, to see how far he can get up the steps of his slide without my help (which, obviously, he gets in spades when wanted). "He's figuring it out," Kristie whispers to me and we watch our child negotiate his way through wildhood. We fold our arms and speculate on which new little behaviors are borrowed from his peers at daycare, and he calls to the neighbor's dog, leashed in the next yard. The fresh air is doing us all good. 

Solange's new album

Solange released a new album today called When I Get Home. Everyone in my office today is streaming it on Spotify, and I'm listening too and thinking back to the night Miles was born. My sister played A Seat at the Table for me in the delivery room on a little speaker, and it made me feel safe and strong and calm while I pushed our son into the world. (And I'm glad a creative, powerful black female artist was the first music he heard.) Listening to that album and now her new music smoothes some of the sharper edges of my memories of childbirth. It's an emotional balm.

Now that she has a new album out, I said to Kristie, "Looks like we need to have another baby!"

"Hmm," she replied, "let's wait for the next album."

If you're a parent, did you have a birthing playlist? What's on it, or what do you imagine you'd listen to?

Gender-free toddler clothes v.1

The clothing Miles wears comes from thrift stores, hand-me-downs from neighbors across the street (whose son is a few months older than ours), or the sales racks at fast fashion stores whose doorways we guiltily, greedily darken. Sometimes I am emboldened to make something for him to wear. Regardless of the source, when I have the opportunity to choose I do nag myself to try and select clothes for him that might be difficult to interpret as belonging to one gender or another. Lately he's been mistaken for a girl when we're out, which I suppose could be counted as a credit toward this effort ("Maya?" another mother mishears when I tell her his name. "She's beautiful!"), or perhaps to my furious unwillingness to yet consider cutting his hair. It's not perfect or maybe even great, but it is an effort; I think often about how we/Americans praise and empower parents for dressing their daughters in "boys'" clothing, but we don't do the same when our sons wear dresses or skirts. (Were Miles a girl, I know I'd bedeck her in dresses and skirts. And I don't, since – as far as we know – he's not. Am I not part of the complication here?)

Well. My experience was that it was much easier to find a wider range of gender-free choices when he could fit into smaller clothes. (Do you think that's for parents who decide to wait until birth to learn their baby's sex?) Now that he's larger, it's like a schism has opened between the pink/sparkly/ruched and the blue/construction-themed/sturdy clothing that is made in his size. I've started quietly pinning options that couldn't really be shoehorned into either camp, and I'd like to share them with you in a new series. I'd like it also if you could please tip a cap in my direction when you find something that might belong on a future iteration of this list!

Striped tee, Nordstrom Rack / Knit bauble sweater, H&M
Bunny booties, Hanna Andersson / So Much Fun tee, Nordstrom Rack
Knit set, H&M / Heart leggings, Old Navy

Oh, and be aware – all of these are affiliate links.

The distance between home and home

Thank you Lexington Law Firm for sponsoring this post. A high service partner and consumer advocate that will help you fight for the credit you deserve!

It's time!

Kristie and I have resolved that 2019 will bring us closer to a new home – to a house that we own, walls that we don't share, a quiet street where Miles can grow and play. 

Our "whys" are many. Most of all, recently, I've wanted more physical space outdoors. Just a little more distance between our front door and the road. Room for planting flowers and a vegetable garden. Maybe for adding a chicken or three. More room to be loud, to park our cars safely, to leave our windows open in summer without inviting in the neighbors' experimental music. 

(Really, it's not our thing.)

I daydream about walls we can paint (or knock down) without needing permission. A quieter neighborhood with nice sidewalks and trees out front. Room for the record player to come out again. Built-in bookshelves. A fireplace, if we're lucky. At a minimum: Privacy and safety and peace. I love our future home so much already. 

I've written before about our path out of debt, which Kristie and I are still on. We each carry student loans, compounded by the cost of starting our family (which, for the record, I would spend a thousand more times to get our son. But gosh, it was a lot of money.) There's lots of work to be done on our finances before we're ready to buy a house. 

So this is where it starts.

After Miles goes to bed, Kristie and I take seats across from each other at the kitchen table and plot our family's future.

Our financial wellness checklist includes saving a down payment, getting out of debt, and improving our credit so that we can hopefully qualify for a home mortgage. 

Along with working extra hard on side hustles and cutting down our spending, tools like Lexington Law Firm are critical to address the third in that list. I don't want to be one of the millions of Americans who are denied home loans because of credit report errors (that usually take months to fix).

It's everyone's right to know and understand their credit report, and it's so important to be educated so you can advocate effectively for those errors getting repaired. Lexington Law Firm is one of the most respected names in credit repair and relies on new technology to have your back through the repair process (including an app that puts crucial information literally into their clients' hands).

The best thing we've done so far in this process is to talk openly about where we are, and to ask for help when we need it. I'm married to a person who likes to do her homework and research before we work with anyone, so I love that Lexington Law Firm is a Consumer Credit Protection Act compliant organization, which means they're regulated extensively. Along with finding a certified public accountant (CPA) to help guide our family, reliable professionals like Lexington Law Firm are going to be really helpful over the next several months while we get our ducks in a row, and then into our own pond.

How to knit elbow patches

I can't remember the day I bought this sweater. It was probably something I added to an armful of clothes on my way to the register at H&M, thinking it would be a good staple.

I do remember where and when I've worn it: absentmindedly pulling it on during late nights at the office, squinting more closely at my screen. On a plane to Paris, where I washed it in our apartment's machine (which, in my memory, took about six hours to complete a cycle). Over baggy t-shirts, as my newborn and I navigated nursing while the sun rose. 

I was sad when the elbows finally started to wear thin (particularly the left one; I like to lean it on my desk at work). Really, it couldn't have cost more than $25 originally, and probably about that to buy a newer version, but I feel sentimental about this sweater! I am attempting to knit one that could replace it, but...we'll see. I was inspired by this book [affiliate link] and this Instagram post to knit elbow patches in the meantime. I wrote out what I did, so you can use it as a pattern too if you'd like.

The yarn was from my stash; I believe it's a light worsted. I did the following on size US 6 straight needles:

Cast on 9 stitches.

1. P across
2. K across, knitting twice into the first and last stitches
3. Purl all

Repeat rows 2 and 3 until you have 17 stitches, ending with right side facing.

1. K across, slipping the 1st stitch
2. Purl across, slipping the 1st stitch
3. K across, knitting twice into the first and last stitches
4. Purl across, slipping the 1st stitch
5. K across, slipping the 1st stitch
6. Rep. rows 4 and 5 until work measures 4.5" from cast-on edge, ending with wrong side facing
7. Ssk, K until 2 sts remain, K2tog
8. Purl across
9. Knit across
10. Purl across
11. Ssk, K until 2 sts remain, K2tog
12. Purl across
13. Rep. rows 11 and 12 until 9 sts remain
14. Bind off in pattern

Repeat for second elbow patch.

I used contrasting embroidery thread and a darning needle to stitch each patch on, after having Kristie model the sweater so I could safety-pin the patches in place. I'm glad this sweater can keep joining me on more adventures. My elbows feel warmer already.

Here & there

The past two weeks have been a blur of weathering daycare colds, ordering new carseats, missing my sewing space, arriving too early to therapy appointments, donating bags (and bags) of clothing as a result of KonMari-ing, doubting my work on a Rowan pattern for a cardigan, making tiny pancakes the size of silver dollars, listening to this podcast, chasing after a newly-confident walker, braiding my hair now it's long enough again, making plans and then canceling them when it snows. Missing work because of illness or lack of sleep (after one particularly difficult night). Trudging along as brightly as we can through what feels like the longest month of the year.

Links for your Friday

"Next time you're in a public space or around a lot of people, set the timer on your watch or phone to 10 minutes. During that time think a kind thought about everyone you see."

Zero-waste gift ideas

Did you send out holiday cards last year? (Apparently us millennials are keeping the tradition alive)

You can now rent the Snoo crib for $4 a night

Tiny cinnamon rolls

I ordered these reusable face cloths [affiliate link] and have been liking them very much

A list of technology, ranked ("sewing machine" comes before "guillotine" and after "irrigation")

How Victorian maids kept fancy dresses clean

If Stephen King wrote copy for L.L. Bean

I'd like to point you to a favorite blog of mine: Meet the Wildes

A small, striped sweater

Slowly, my mind has started to shift. If I'm already sewing or knitting our own clothes, I wondered, why not do it with fibers made close to our home? I posted in local Facebook groups, did internet searches, called around. The timing of Katy's Christmas gift for me, a copy of Mending Matters [affiliate link], couldn't have been better. My head is swirling with ideas and inspiration –– thrifting eco-friendly fabrics, dyeing with locally harvested plants, weaving and spinning and mending my own clothes with my own hands.

(My favorite part of all of this? How easy it feels. Like leaning into the pull of gravity. Also new: the gentle realization that one needn't do everything all at once to be good at this, or good in general. A little bit at a time is still good. Almost every morning, I place my spent coffee grounds in the compost bucket. On the days I don't, it doesn't cancel out the rest.)

So. Finding fabric made nearby has been a challenge, but local yarn abounds; we're lucky for that. Thanks to my search, I saved lots of Etsy shops and nearby farms that produce yarn for future projects. But in the meantime, it's the most sustainable choice for my budget to knit through what I already have –– including a worsted multi from Stonehedge Fibers, via Knit New Haven, via my Aunt Carol. I bumped the patiently waiting knitting projects on my list to make room for one small, striped sweater. I used the worsted multi, and then (after misreading grams for yards and thinking I had enough, oops) had to go to a chain store and get a small skein of cotton-acrylic to finish it.

But wait!

I bound off too tightly, and the neck wouldn't fit over my son's (admittedly, a little larger than average) head. I almost gave in, and wondered, disappointedly, who I should gift it to. But I love this yarn, and I put work into this sweater, and I'm proud of it. I think it's lovely. So I brought it to our local yarn store, Webs, for drop-in help. And in just a few minutes, a kind and patient teacher named Susan had taught me how to unpick what I'd done, and instructed me on how to do it better, again. And better it is. I put it on Miles for a day trip to my parents' house, and myself wore a sweater I'd made. I settled in to rock him to sleep for a nap (no rules when we travel) and thought about the fibers I'd woven together that were wrapped around both our bodies, which were wrapped around each other. 

(In almost no time, both of us were too warm to be comfortable, so he napped in my arms in his undershirt, and me in my long sleeves. But I still like thinking about it.)

This is the free pattern I used, if you're curious. I liked it very much.