Lovelihood

On windy-wet days, nothing beats running tops with little slots for sliding in my thumb and keeping the sleeves down to my knuckles. They're a helluva a lot better than new shoes that are probably laced too tight, are a smidge too small on the right foot, and make my toes go numb after a few miles.

I got it up my bonnet, and subsequently got The Boy all feverish with excitement too, that we'd make cookies today. An off-topic typo-ridden email thread at work the other day had gotten Girl Scout Samoas (or Caramel DeLites, as they're known in Texas and other unenlightened parts of the country) on my mind, so it was a replication of those cookies that I settled on. The recipe, of course, called for Kraft caramels, which wouldn't do at all for the dairy intolerant among us. So the first order of business was to make, essentially, vegan caramels. There are still at least a couple steps before our Samoas reach completion, but we've got some sweetly wrapped candies for the interim.

The bedroom's been painted and furnished for a while now, the only room, in fact, to have any color on the walls (discounting the wood-panelling on the children's level). But, in our usual style, the desire to decorate fizzled, and we left the walls and windows unadorned. Today, in a fit of crafty indecisiveness, and penned in by the freakish, coinflip weather, the kids and I wrestled amongst ourselves until quarter 'til naptime when I dragged our collective kiesters into the bedroom with the promise of a little "project." The flowers, previously adorning Bear's Houston walls, had been tossed into a baggie and unpacked here into the space under some shelves. And now they brighten up the room a little.

I'm not much for embroidery, but I've been taken in with this particular strain of it, sashiko. The thread tunneling through the fabric creates a pleasing texture and lends itself nicely to more graphic, repetitive designs. I actually finished this one months ago, planned for before our move back home, and then left to hang on the wall while I contemplated its final purpose. I'm thinking pillows now, because it's been a while since I added to our collection, and curling up on the couch with soft things has a very tangible appeal during winters that actually get cold.

The poor cat. Before the kids came along she was my go-to photographic muse. Now, if the kids are safely squared away in their tower, she might sit long enough to tolerate a single blurry, unleveled shot snapped in low light before slinking down to the basement where she might be left alone.

With that curtain finally (well, mostly) done, and before I get to the business of making a complementary shade for the other window in the room, it's time to tackle all the smaller projects on the ol' Teux Deux. "Make new strap" has been on there since we got the camera. I'd put it off in the usual, labor-over-the-logistics sort of way, before deciding to just make a glorified sleeve and permanently affix it to the default strap by way of a staff of parallel stitching. Method chosen, the only thing left (besides, y'know, actually making the thing) was fabric selection. Wool tweed, picked from the remnant bin for another as-of-yet unfulfilled purpose and that same curtain panel fabric seem to achieve that elusive feminine/masculine hybrid. Hermaphroditic, you might say.

The thing affixed on walls next to draperies to wind the curtain strings around is called a cleat. I've done a fairly exhaustive search, and they come in brass (not a huge fan of yellow metals in this household) and clear plastic (someone out there still believes that clear plastic makes for an innocuous, invisible, even, decor element — that person is wrong). A quick trip down the hardware store drawer pull aisle yielded this funky twig-shaped thing. But, caught up in the kitchy fervor of my find, I didn't stop to think that drawer pulls are usually screwed in from the reverse side, and I'm told that might not be the best way to attach something to an exterior door. So that's why, along the wall of eleven drawers, there is now a single one whose handle doesn't match. It's also why we're still on the prowl for a cleat that doesn't make us weep.