Getting Ready…

Spring? Are you here? Oh…hello!

Every morning I wake up expecting (hoping) to be greeted by a chilly white landscape. Glittering snow, a biting wind…

Instead, I have this:

And C is filling his weekends doing this:

No, this ain’t New England. I feel like I’ve missed out on something huge. Winter was half the year in southern VT…it was something I could count on, a force that tested me and fostered a deep respect for the circle game of the seasons. All the warm months were spent in preparation of it’s coming, and all the cold months in making plans for the season of sowing, swimming and wet, sticky summer air and how to make the most of it. I know the Boy misses the Snow As Playground…he built his first snowman, his first igloo and put on his first pair of skis all during our last winter there. And now I struggle to fill our days with adventure in a seemingly unchanging climate. Wow, it is so ridiculously easy to romanticize, eh? I wasn’t the one changing a flat tire at 4am on the way to work in -20F. I shoveled when I wanted to. I spun yarn by the woodstove. I pulled my Boy on a sled. We ate snowflakes. C had to muck around in it, work in it, unfreeze equipment constantly and slide around on black ice. He has zero romantic attachments to the “real” winter experience.

So, anyway, yeah…we’re apparently ready to start some seeds now and I’m having a difficult time getting into the mood.

Feeling homesick.

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Where I’m At

The boys are baking brown bread.

I’m staring at this:

…and I know it’s not everything. Four moves in one year has dispersed much of my paperwork throughout countless hastily packed boxes. I tried my best to keep it all accessible, but there were times when it just was not the priority. I’m sure in a few months (she says hopefully) when we really truly really unpack our things again, I will find a pile or two of receipts I could have written off, but oh, well. It’s not as if the government gives a fig if I short-change myself.

I should just get on it, get it over with and move on.

But I’m just so easily distracted.

There are things to finish and photograph and list and make and do and and worry about and there is a small person gleefully licking batter off a spatula to my left, the sun peeking through the clouds to my right…all signs pointing to the fact that there are better things to do with my day than sigh heavily at this stack of papers.

I will shrug it off to go play for a while, but I will dwell on the fact that there are pieces of paper hiding out amongst the rest of our things in boxes. Like our dishes. Those receipts are hanging out with the dishes and I want to unpack them. I miss the sound of them, the weight of them and the comfort in simply knowing where they are. You can replace “dishes” with any number of things one has in their home that makes it cozy and undeniably theirs.

This time next year, I will be taking my neat files out of the filing cabinet, where they have been sitting in the same place for many months, quietly accepting deposits. Everything will be right where I need it. I will be home.

I don’t have much to complain about then, do I?

Wool calls.

Managed it…

…through the haze of my fever-y evening: an update (of the Etsy variety).

I would really love NOT to be sick. I’m not very good at it. I’m a grumping, miserable patient, especially when C is gone doing the last bit of clean-out of the farmhouse and I’m left to keep the little guy entertained or at least prevent him from abusing his house-siblings. He was very easy-going, however, when he got in touch with his feminine side and dressed up as a Queen in his playsilks:

And yes, that’s a dragon costume hanging up behind him, and yes, I wish it fit me.

atomhearteve put some funny ideas in my head, and now I am pining for redwoods and California granite.

WINTER HAS GONE ON LONG ENOUGH, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
Although, there is an 8-year-old who’s really excited about teaching me to ski today. I’m anticipating some hilarious moments.

In less than two weeks, a renter will be moving into the farmhouse. OUR house. The place where my son went from little blob of baby jelly to walking, talking, thinking small person, the place where I started my business, learned how to can veggies and make jam, the place where we buried my furry best friend…I don’t know if I can handle this. It seemed like we needed, more than anything else, to get out of there. Townshend was a very lonely town for me…Crispin always gone and no neighbors on the same page or even reading the same book as I…driving, always driving to go somewhere else, anywhere else. And now I miss everything about it, the great old barn and my gigantic studio with lime green walls…even the slate floor that broke every time we walked across it and the traffic and the lumpy bumpy backyard. Especially now that we are living with another family (who are awesome, btw), I miss quiet mornings, just the three of us. It only ever happened on the weekends, but I ache for those mornings. I know I felt so trapped there, but it’s hard to remember that right now. I just wish I knew if we’ve made the right decision. I wish I felt confident that things are going to be better for us because we’ve made this decision. I wish I wasn’t up at 1AM typing this through a sea of tears, but I cannot seem to let myself come to a place of acceptance. What’s done is done and there is no going back, so somehow I need to find a way to shelve this and think about the Spring and fixing up the cabin…get excited about it all somehow. There are seeds to order and fresh snow in the morning. So many things to look forward to in the coming months if I can just let this go. 

Happier things in the morning.
I have photos to share of the goods that went West for Stitches.

My boy said "I love you SO much" today. Then he said, "Mama, you’re hugging me too hard." 
Goodness.