Year of the Book Update...

Since we are nearly one third of the way through the year already, and since I introduced my 'Year of the Book' project here, it seems appropriate to give you an update.  In short, I am cooking!  So far, this has been way too much fun, and I have had no trouble meeting the most important goal, which was to make at least one new type of book each month.  I have learned a tremendous amount, (mostly the hard way) and the way my other crafting knowledge carries over is wonderful.  I wish I could say my stack of papers looks discernibly smaller...but I can't.  Surprisingly, small books just don't use all that much paper.  Please note that I have made at least some progress on seven of my eleven goals. 

I had planned to take a 2-day workshop at the Pacific Northwest Art School on Whidbey Island this month towards my goal of making a "Proper Book" but the class was canceled for lack of interest.  This rather surprises me as interest in the book arts seem to be growing recently.  The quantity of books about bookmaking which I have justified the purchase of, is ample evidence of this I would think.

One of my March books was a Starbucks cup used as the container for a small book of ATC (Artist Trading Cards, some of which used Starbucks stickers.  I noted that my daughter had come into an large supply of them and thought I would show you how she used them to cover boxes. 

This was a cigar box, but she used various boxes and various combinations of stickers.

At any rate, just so you know, my Year of the Book is going splendidly.  If you haven't visited that blog yet, or recently, please do - the link is to your right.

March Madness

Whimsy has no place in my Mother’s life.  The fact that it has a very large place in mine is something that she has never come to terms with.  She is, above all things, a practical person.  For example, ask her what she thinks about birthdays…”Well, it’s just another day, really.”

As you can imagine, this has caused some strain in our relationship at times, but more  often just a great gap of understanding – like when I am trying to explain to her what I love about Terry Pratchett, or why I paid good money for a pair of earrings with a clay carrot on one ear and a peapod on the other.

But every spring, when the forsythias are in bloom, I think of something she did about 45 years ago when I was away at college.  And that usually leads me to thinking about something she did on my 16^th birthday.  And that makes me wonder if there was a pocket of impracticality, of whimsy, hidden somewhere deep inside.  Let me explain…

One of the first shrubs to burst into bloom here in the Pacific Northwest is the forsythia.  If there is one blooming, you can’t miss it – glorious yellow.  Not the loveliest shrub in general and very often pruned into a disaster, but glorious yellow branches that promise spring regardless of the temperature at the moment.  Smart folk cut long graceful branches as soon as you can see the bud and with just a day or two sitting in warm water you have brought spring into the house.

Now while the forsythia is coming into bud in Washington, snow still covers the ground in Montana.  So in my freshman year at Missoula, when I received an oddly shaped care package from home, I was amazed to find a carefully wrapped bunch of forsythia branches atop the batch of homemade cookies.  Two days later my dreary little dorm room had a burst of sunshine that brought tears to my eyes every time I walked into the room.  The only other time I was really homesick at school was when I got the measles.

The second memory is of sitting on the couch in the living room opening my 16^th birthday gift from my Mom.  Please note, no party, no family gathering, nothing special much except good wishes.  Mom prefaced the gift with a sort of mumbled statement about being a woman now and this was something every woman should have.  It was a lovely, if inexpensive, set of black lace underwear.  I am still shocked when I think of it.  I am pretty certain my mother herself never owned a matching set of black lace underwear and I can’t imagine her thinking a 16 year old had any need of such a thing.

I have been eternally grateful for those two lapses of practicality, or whimsy, or whatever you want to call it.  I treasure them each spring.  Now that I think of it, my birthday is in March, about when the forsythias bloom.  Perhaps there is something to that Mad as a March Hare business – for my Mother at least.

Lucky Me

I am lucky to have the kind of friends who want me to be happy, even if that means doing rather foolish things because they know it will please me.  Like the year I kept complaining about not having a set of antlers (well, my family in Montana have more than they know what to do with!) and a good friend went against all the accepted garage sale rules and appeared at the doorstep of an advertised sale one day early to beg them to sell her a pair of antlers. They did, and it was a wonderful birthday surprise from the group of friend I lovingly refer to as The Old Bags.

They now hang happily in my studio.

Another friend feeds my anglomania by bring me a lovely bunch of cowslips every spring.  This year she brought me a small plastic bag with both cowslips and the sweet pale yellow primroses.  It may not sound all that special, but I happen to know she smuggled starts of both of them home from England...so these are genuine English blossoms...and that matters to me.

Last years cowslips, in the empty Penhaligon bottle I saved from the 1986 trip to England.

We'll talk about the rubber ducky at a later date.

Sunshine

We have had a week of spring weather...sunshine, clouds, sprinkles, then sunshine again.  Exactly what I wanted.  I knew how much I loved looking up into a tree in full bloom in the sunshine.  I knew how much I loved seeing raindrops on the daffodils.  I forgot that, for me, Spring means sinus headaches.  All that sunshine, clouds, sprinkles, then sunshine again gives me sinus headaches. 

These pictures were taken March 23rd.  This is what Spring is like in the Pacific Northwest.

Deep in the overgrown, blackberry tangled woods,
the sun shines on a wild cherry.

It's worth a sinus headache, any day!

Rant for Spring

I love living in the Pacific Northwest and I can’t imagine living anywhere else…except, of course, anywhere in England.  Everything I need to make me happy is within one hour from Seattle: ocean, mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, museums, concerts, major retailers, festivals, fresh seafood, farmers markets, gorgeous gardens…an endless list really.  And if I get the occasional yearning for plains or wheatland, it’s still only an hour away.  I love lichen and moss and I don’t need to tan.

Way up at the top of the list of things I love about the Pacific Northwest is Spring.  Coming from a childhood in Montana, I knew the joy of endless sunshiny summers and amazing white winters.  I had no idea what Spring could be.

I know that in most parts of the US March is not considered a Spring month, it starts properly in April (between the April Showers) and continues in May (with the May flowers).  In Seattle, we have early camellias and rhodys blooming at the end of February with the early spring bulbs at their feet.  We have forsythia – pure sunshine.  By March the plums have begun to blossom – clouds of pink and white since they bloom before the leaves come out. And from there it is a continuous riot of blossoms through to May.

The apple tree in my Mother's backyard...in bloom...in the sunshine.

And through all this amazing bloom, there is sunshine, soft showers, fluffy white clouds and then more showers.  Sure, there is the occasional week of grey skies, but in between are the weeks when you look out your kitchen window and see the sun reflecting off the raindrops on the six foot tall rhody in full bloom.  And you just smile, a really big, warm, happy smile.

But not this year.  There hasn’t been a combined three hours of sunshine in the last month, and there is nothing on the forecast but more of the same.  I swear, I rarely complain about the weather, but this year – I have had it!  Everything is late because of the bitterly cold February and early March, fine, I can deal with that.  But all the trees are starting to bloom, the bulbs are up and blooming – none of this is any good without sunshine.  What good will it do to have sunshine in April?  It will be too late!

Location, Location, Location

These are the magic words for real estate agents everywhere.  It appears they may be equally so for those in marketing and sales.  On our recent trip to Portland we stayed near Portland Meadows, the horse racing track.  Now I am not a gambler, but in my early twenties I spent a fair amount of time at Longacres (which preceeded Emerald Downs) and it never felt like a particularly masculine sports venue.  Certainly not compared to football stadiums or hockey rinks.  Good grief, even Queen Elizabeth goes to the races.

Portland meadows backs up to a mid-sized shopping area and I jotted down the names of the businesses located there:

            Baxter Auto Parts

            Fisherman’s Marine & Outdoor

            Dick’s Sporting Goods

            Lowe’s Hardware

            West Marine

Exercise Equipment NW

La Z boy

Burrito House

Could you find a more masculine group of businesses?  All it was missing was a steak house.  What I am wondering, is whether the stores get their business as the men are on the way to the track (while they still have money in their pockets) or coming home from the track (if they have been successful). 

“Honey, I have to run to the hardware store and then pick up a new air filter for the car.  I’ll be gone a couple of hours.”  Right….

A Weekend Away

It says something very nice about the relationship I have with my daughter that we can take a week-end out of town in which pretty much everything went pear-shaped…and we still had a lovely time.

For my birthday, we were going to drive down to Portland for an antique paper show – postcards, stamps, and other ephemera.  We hadn’t gone down for one of the Portland shows for quite a few years, so when we planned it in early February it seemed like a good idea.  The entire lead-up became stressful because of the  unusual end-of-February cold snap which brought snow in fits and starts for three days from here down to Portland.  After haunting the weather and DOT sites during that period, we finally decided to just do it.

There were no disasters or accidents…but….there were slushy roads, an obnoxious refrigerator hums in our hotel room, bloody noses (more than one), two really bad meals, a toothache, and temperatures that stayed around 20 degrees day and night.  The paper show was in an old armory building with incredibly inadequate heating, filthy rest rooms, and seating that gave my daughter a back ache and really pained my poor old arthritic hips.  We even managed to get lost in South Tacoma on our way home.

I’ll admit we did have one nice meal of take-away Chinese, the hotel had enough pillows, and we lucked into a great craft shop in Centralia called Cindy’s Simple Stuff. It’s a delightful little shop with lots of variety for any of the paper arts and lots of ribbon at killer prices.  If you are in the area…do not miss it. http://cindyssimplestuff.blogspot.com/

One rather wonderful thing happened on the trip, one of those things that makes you realize your child has really, finally, become an adult.  After 35 plus years of  traveling together, for the very first time, she got out of bed before I did on Sunday morning and started packing things up.  I just laid there in bed watching in amazement.  It was wonderful!  And hopefully it wasn’t just because she was in a hurry to get home.