Tiny humans with tiny dogs.

Little Lakes Valley, California. November 2014.

After knitting the bunny for my friend’s baby shower it became obvious to me that I had embarked on a knitted stuffed animal journey. This elephant, also for a pregnant friend, is the second animal I attempted.

I learned a lot from doing the process twice since the arms, legs, and body are all the same as the bunny. I think I mastered the french knot for the elephant’s eyes, which is more than I can say for my first attempt, since the bunny’s eyes started to unravel the minute he was unwrapped from his gift bag.

I love these parts of the learning process. It’s fun to see minor accomplishments. It’s even fun to see the mistakes and quirks of a first try. Maybe one day I will compare these first pieces with some down the road and be really amazed at how much I’ve improved. I look forward to that!

Pattern: Little Cotton Rabbits

More Info: Ravelry

I found this bunny pattern three days before a baby shower. I already had a gift planned but I was so excited by this bunny that I decided to make it despite having no experience with this type of knitting pattern. I am so glad I did! I completely fell in love with knitting after making this little rabbit.

I have always enjoyed knitting a few things here and there. Mostly around Christmas time. But I just felt like someone who knew how to knit. Now I sort of feel like a knitter. It’s the best.

Making things with my hands is my favorite thing to do. I always get so excited about the holidays because of all the opportunities to make gifts and decorations while watching movies and drinking hot chocolate. I think I have always known that I am happiest when doing those things, but it recently became clear that I like this combination of activities way too much to limit it to one season of the year.

I have been knitting in my free time this past month and I think I am hooked! I attempted some projects I never thought I would be able to do and am excited by how much progress I have made. I don’t know how anyone ever knit anything before youtube existed …yes I do; they used books. As much as I love books, videos are just soooo much easier to understand. How-to videos of tricky stitches have turned seemingly impossible projects (socks! stuffed animals! felted baby shoes!) into totally doable ones.

I am happy to say that I have had a few opportunities to make gifts for expecting mothers recently. Pregnant friends have always seemed to be a good motivator for making things that I have never attempted before. So friends, you keep having babies and I will keep knitting.

Will post some pictures of the recent finished projects next (except for the secret ones)!

I like that it looks like my camera was wearing rose colored glasses when I took these. Always full of surprises, dear film. 

Reminds me of this:

“It is late at night, and someone across the way is playing ‘La Vie En Rose’. It is the French way of saying, 'I am looking at the world through rose colored glasses,’ and it says everything I feel. […] I have learned how to live…how to be in the world and of the world…and not just to stand aside and watch.” - Sabrina (one of my very favorites)

There is no greater bliss than swimming multiple times a day and taking only outdoor showers the entire week of family summer vacation.

“The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.” - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Ocean Isle, NC 2014

(2012 here & here)

Married four years yesterday. This fourth year means we have been married longer than we dated. In some ways it felt like we dated forever. We became adults together. I like that I did not know myself before we were us because you got to see me figure it out. And I got to witness you grow too. Some advice I heard before we were married was to wait until our thirties to do such a serious and life altering thing because our brains wouldn’t be fully developed until the age of twenty four and that would give us some time to decide what our full-grown brained selves really wanted out of life. Being nearly twenty four now, and you nearly twenty six, I can see that they were right about our brains and about not knowing ourselves at the ages of nineteen and twenty one, but they were wrong also because instead of doing all that difficult business of Getting to Know Ourselves alone we got to do it together, which is about the most wonderful thought I can conjure up in my almost fully developed brain. 

Oceanside Pier. March 2014.

An unexpected outcome from a roll of film. One of life’s most simple pleasures. The kind that turn a day around.

“I think I already understand about life: pretty good, some problems.” - Sam Lamott at age seven
From Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott 

Joshua Tree. 

The desert is another world. Made me feel tiny like the ocean does. We want to go back soon to watch the sky erupt with stars from our tents. And maybe to climb boulders if we are feeling very adventurous. 

Rain makes us miss the east. 

Some film from last month.

Beach bonfire in January. Tower 30, Carlsbad State Beach.

Good things lately:

Early mornings with Meryl in the yard. Seeing pink sky and purple mountains. 
Nighttime grilling on the patio. Just for the two of us. Just for the heck of it.
Laying on blankets in the sun. With books. Leaving windows and doors open.
Saturday morning girl breakfast with coffee cake and so much bacon.
Audiobooks. While washing dishes.
Anticipating a friend becoming a mother in ONE MONTH. 
Thrifting. Finding an old canon ae-1 for $3 that may or may not be functional.
Working from home with a snuggly dog and extra coffee.
Getting packages in the mail from my mom.
Walking around the harbor.

So much to be thankful for when I stop to think.

Our home is my favorite place to be. It changes a little bit everyday. I am one of those people who rearranges furniture and belongings so much that it confuses the other people who live here and everyone who comes to visit regularly. Meryl doesn’t seem to mind. There is a constant balance of desiring change and feeling satisfied with the way things are in my life. The furniture rearranging is just the way that struggle manifests itself sometimes. There is something to be said though, I think, for the art of rearranging things in order for them to feel new instead of constantly buying new things to replace the old. So for now our bed is in our sunroom. 

I have that feeling of being giddy off breezy backyard sunshine, cooking fancy dinners at home, picking wildflowers for the table, and listening to dancey music. Cooking a rich, indulgent, fancy mac and cheese dinner tonight. Will be consumed with prosecco. 

We adopted Meryl a week and a half ago. Feels like longer. Feels like she has always been here. She has the loosest, fluffiest neck skin and all four paws are dipped in white. Home is Wherever I’m With You seems to be her philosophy on life, which is both extremely endearing and life changing since it means we will need to dedicate a lot of time and patience to teach her how to be alright by herself sometimes. But she’s smart and she’s the sweetest, snuggliest girl and she learned how to lay down on Wednesday which makes us both proud and confident.
More photos here.

These days are warm and require red pants and sweater tanks. Our backyard cactus sprouted a huge flower on its top. It feels so much like we skipped winter that part of me longs for snow and hot chocolate and knitting while another part of me feels like it is more appropriate to just jump right into the long days of swimming and eating watermelon and sewing airy tank tops. I cannot choose for myself which of these I want. So I think it is a good thing that the weather is not up to me but is rather something to which I adjust and accept. 

We are looking forward to a lot of things this year. Projects, trips, changes, challenges. I made a discovery recently which has been completely life changing. Audiobooks! Of course I knew they existed but sort of turned my nose up at them or just ignored them altogether. But for a person who loves books and also loves doing things with her hands…they are a gift from heaven. I think it is safe to say that if you need me I will be in my house sewing, washing dishes, knitting, folding laundry, planting wildflower seeds, cooking, or drawing - while a stranger’s voice reads a book of my choosing aloud to me. What a great invention. 

A walk around the neighborhood. Good for what ails you.

A good long visit to our one of our most beloved cities. Snow came on our last day. It made it even harder to leave. 

- another photo of my parents in love. they are the best.
- more asheville.