Where we finally get down to the resolutions

1 - Listen to way more Blondie.
2 - 2014 New Year's party at the mini-farm.
3 - Perfect either my Baked Alaska or Bananas Foster. Or waffles. Or all of the above.
4 - Get a haircut. In NYC.
5 - Send more postcards. By which I mean, any postcards.
6 - When in doubt about what to knit, go back to socks.
7 - Serious girlfriend time, every month. 
8 - Read 20 books (not including what I listen to on CD).
9 - Grow more flowers.
10 - Plant more asparagus.
11 - Make resolutions all year long.
12 - Secure my own oxygen mask before helping others.
13 - "Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." - Lao Tzu

What I Learned This Year, a half-ass and merely partial list

:: It's always worth it to go to Knit Night :: That TV show Revenge is super addictive (I blame it on being a Scorpio) :: New year's superstitions - don't take anything out of the house on New Year's Day, or do any washing or pay bills, lest money and loved ones be washed away in the coming year :: Myers Briggs will get scientists talking about things they would never talk about otherwise (the power of metrics) :: I'm capable of knitting a whole, complicated sweater that I will actually wear :: I love Nora Ephron :: Planning meals three months ahead is actually kind of nice :: I need to make NYC trips just happen :: In start-up biotech, 80 souls is too many for 1.25 HR people :: Sometimes forgiveness just arrives, without any effort from me :: Two small turkeys for Thanksgiving is worth considering :: I love growing artichokes :: Plant way more asparagus crowns than you think you'll need :: Permaculture is a form of faith :: Moby Dick is not as fun to read as Tolstoy, for me at least :: How to make apple cider caramels :: 

Check in

Things on the list morph. There hasn't been any white bolognese, and there may not be, but there was homemade chicken pot pie, and there were potato latkes and Croque Monsieur made with waffles. Cooking has been the best part of break, and if anyone ever tells you that people do not change, I offer that statement coming from me as proof they do. Tom makes the coffee most mornings, drip rather than the moka pot, but the eggnog used in place of milk has the same indulgent feel and it's amazing how long the one container of it lasts. I did get around to the apple cider caramels, and my stubborn determination to get Baked Alaskas from Trader Joe's in Bellingham didn't abate even when I saw that they were pepto bismol pink and not actually intended to be baked. We are stocked with snacks for a New Year's Eve spent in a fortress, and I keep thinking maybe it's time to pull out a trillion piece puzzle and cover the dining table with pieces, pop a few in whenever we pass by. I'm fine with eating on the couch, laps covered in handknit blankets.

I've been ignoring performance reviews, and I think that's fine, since my laundry is halfway done and I've cleaned out some shelves in the pantry and dropped off the dry cleaning and along with it those pants I've been meaning forever to get hemmed. No Goodwill runs yet, but maybe tomorrow. Maybe. Or not. When does Downton Abbey start again?

12 Days of Christmas Break

There are three lists going. One is dry cleaner, Goodwill run, things like that. The second is manicures and movies in the middle of the day, and the other is a set of things that cover both somehow, like the time spent yesterday weeding beds and laying down a covering of straw for the winter. I kept stopping to watch the swans and geese land in the field that's become a pond, while Tom just put his head down and worked through until after twilight, when it was almost too dark to put away the tools in the greenhouse.

I'm always determined to make the most of what time I have at home. Some of that means having time to enjoy it, a magazine on the couch with endless cups of tea and enough done to stave off the feeling that there is something else that is more important, just waiting. That's how you get writing time. By staving off, carving out, setting aside and sitting down. Tom sleeps later than I do, so there is that quiet time when I take Emmy out, make my tea, read, type. It's Christmas Eve, but what I wanted to do was make a list of all the performance reviews I've received, check who is still missing, start a plan for reading them all over break. Done, the load of it lightens. There's only one thing left to finish knitting for Christmas and then I can start all over again with the planning. A baby sweater, a scarf for Tom, who I didn't realize wanted one. Today we each start out on our treks to visit family for the holidays, taking turns coming back home for the dog, and won't be back together until the 26th. Then it's a long stretch of days that feel like a gift to this house. Cleaning out the pantry so that we know when we got that can of tomatoes, or jar of jam. Floors washed, bathroom scrubbed. There are curtains bought a year ago that still haven't gone up, and the furnace filter needs changing. We need those things done for January and February, short days when all you want is rest and ease. How nice to come home to a simple meal, something quick, easy clean up afterwards, no chores beyond subsistence.

To do the week before and the week after Christmas and a lot of other weeks too

In Myers-Briggs training today, we talked about (among other things) the difference between people with the J (Judging) preference and people with the P (Perceiving) preference. To illustrate the difference between the two, a group of Js were asked to complete an exercise where they described what they would do on an all expenses paid trip to some sunny beachy locale. Then the Ps were asked to do that same thing. The Js had everything planned down to the minute, logistics sorted and a budget established. The Ps just kinda started a list of stuff to maybe do, and then quickly decided to hire someone to plan the trip for them. Our facilitator talked about how Js have a checklist and love to complete things, and Ps are the people you know who actually lose their to-do lists. Hello, me. Later in the afternoon, a participant from an earlier session came in to the room where a new group was meeting. The facilitator asked him if he was looking for something. Yes, I left my task list here. MBTI in action. 

I write to do lists everywhere, in memos in my mail program at work, on an old to-do list pad I pinched from Grandma Lois' house, in texts sent to my own email, in a journal, in my datebook. It's completely ridiculous. It's been two weeks since Sarah brought in the cookie dough I bought from the fundraiser for her daughter's school and I still haven't remembered to bring it home. I keep leaving the wrapping paper for this year's employee gifts at work, even though I'm determined to cut it up into the right size pieces at home to minimize my long hours at work this week. I manage anyway. The things you really have to do will not let you forget them, and the last two weeks of the work year are crisis mode and that's ok. A new year starts soon. 

In the mean time there are apple cider caramels to make, a Christmas package to send to NYC, and a lot of episodes of Revenge to watch. I'd like to make that good white bolognese for dinner while I'm home on break, and get the paperwhites going, and there is Moby Dick to finish and if I get bored I can always clear out my spare room some more and do a Goodwill run. I want to make good coffee in my little moka pot in the morning over break and make some kind of crisp and eat it for breakfast instead of dessert and get enough done in the morning to not feel at all one bit guilty about sitting on the couch for a long time later in the day, maybe with a stack of magazines. Will there be time to make mix CDs and write letters? That's always the hope. 

Next year I can knit myself a sweater, pay off my car, get new gutters put on the house, clean out my paid-off car, clean out my files at work, start year two of my five year diary, plant sugar snap peas and follow Elizabeth Warren's advice to save 20% of my income. Also, more girlfriend time, please. 

Holiday Letter 2012

This was the year that I got mildly hooked on that series I found on Netflix instant, about the neurosurgeon who has a super fancy practice with lots of gadgets and mysterious cases, who sees his dead ex-wife's ghost and sometimes works at the free clinic and sometimes goes rock climbing without his shirt on. Tom calls that series "Touched By an Angel" but he still stays on the couch while I watch it.

This was the year that I gave up on skirts and wore jeans to work every day instead, but became known for my advanced use of scarves and bought a few more blazers. It was the year I thought Maybe this is the year I should start using under eye cream, or moisturize every morning, but instead it was the year when maybe it could be said that I paid a tiny bit more attention to my hair. Most of the times I thought about getting a manicure, I realized there was something else I wanted to do more instead, and this was not the year I got any better at doing them myself. This was the year my feet suffered from lack of pedicures, but benefited from a few less wearings of uncomfortable high heels. This was the year when it became clear to me how uncomfortable my uncomfortable shoes actually were.

I cried over work a few more times than I should have this year. I got a little tougher, too, I think. Even so, this was the year I made peace with anyone who might have been called a nemesis and this was the year when the most unlikely characters became my supporters. This was the year more than one tough customer called me wise or told me I was the best HR person they had ever worked with and it was the year I realized I might need to be more forceful about showing that I believed I was, too.

What happens at Knit Night stays at Knit Night, so let's just say this was the year I found Knit Night and got back to socks and made almost all of the Christmas presents I intended to. I made room for yoga and gave in to acupuncture and carpooling and menu planning and totally failed at taking up running again. Cameras got dusty and so did the blog and there wasn't much to say any time anyone asked me how the writing was going. There were fewer unexplored boxes in my spare room and more meals cooked by me in the kitchen. Probably the same amount of dishes washed though, thanks to Tom.

It was the year of Moby-Dick and Myers Briggs, the driest dries and the rainiest rains. It was a year of every day Emmylou, pets and trips outside and meds at 10 and Where's your toy? It was a year of wanting more than anything to be home, where there was everything I needed, and more than that too. In the end, overall, it was a year of progress.

How things are different

:: The Lucky D, back in Edison ::

My New York trip has been so good. It seems a small miracle to me that I can tell the difference between the twins now, not that they look so different, but their personalities are usually capable of giving them away. After dinner one night when everyone had pajamas on and had eaten up their spaghetti and meatballs, Thomas backed his little butt into my lap as I sat cross legged on the floor working on the pirate ship I bought them for their early Christmas present. I still don't have the kind of rank that would allow me to keep Max from running after his mom as she heads down to the basement to put clothes in the dryer, but if she's in the room, sometimes I can get shoes on the twin that she isn't currently dressing. I'm allowed to make toaster waffles and serve them cut up in little pieces with peanut butter and maple syrup, and I am allowed to spoon yogurt into mouths in order to hasten the school preparations. This is good progress.

Today is my last day and then it's home.

I lost my keys the other day. Not for like, 15 minutes. For hours. Several hours, on a weekday morning, after I had showered for work, gotten dressed, made my tea, just as I was ready to leave for work. I kept wondering when this was going to make me cry, but I just couldn't even believe it, at least not enough to be upset. It seemed perfect, in a certain way, after all this thinking I've been doing about how I have too many things. I found them, eventually, dropped on the floor in a pile of things.

At some point, my writing on this blog took a certain turn, I think, took on this melancholy tone which was always there occasionally but not always. Lately it feels like the melancholy tone is always, and I'm not sure I'm so into that. So when I think about writing here, I just kind of get stopped.

I've started going to knit night on Tuesday nights, and I love that so much it makes me want to write. The irony of that is that the thing that makes knit night so good is that it's exactly what makes it the kind of thing that no one should be writing about. It's private and self-contained in this Edison way that casts a spell I don't want to break. I will say that it's been a surprise to realize, by knitting with other people, just how deep a knitter I've turned out to be. One of the things I love about knitting, like photography or dressage, is that the ratio of what you know to what you don't know doesn't change as you learn more. That is, you just learn how much more there is to learn, so it's easy to always feel like a beginner. I suppose all the things I like best are like this, including writing. It's humbling, and hopeful.

Some Things That Have Been Taken Care Of, Others That Haven't

Late summer's best peaches, peridot pedicure, family portraits with film, long, winding drive up into the mountains, lawn time with girlfriends, tacos for dinner last night, 70s music during Apples to Apples, coffee at the Wake N Bakery, Stalking the Wild Asparagus from the Friends of the Library book sale in Maple Falls, chocolate croissant for breakfast, macarons after fried chicken dinner tonight.

Soon: sorting things for a yard sale, grocery shopping at the co-op I call home, last of the sun tea, dusting, filing, a late afternoon nap, a good book before bed and a weeks worth of clean laundry.

The Rest

There's time for one last coat of summer nailpolish, one summer pedicure. The artichokes are flowering,  but it's going to take the loppers to get them off the plants and into the house for a vase. I don't know if there will be a fall crop of kale or not, though I did plant one. There are late raspberries and tiny strawberries and big blackberries and the little salad patch I planted in the old bathtub seems practically indestructible, no matter how many times I go out and haphazardly chop off a chunk of them at the roots. We will probably get another half dozen small tomatoes, and maybe some summer squash, though the little pattypans don't look like the UFO shape I've come to expect from them. Always, always there is sorrel.

I bought a new bathing suit that I haven't even tried on yet, and I haven't had nearly enough french pastry lately. My summer vacation was at home, a notebook filled with summer things to be done, house projects and iced coffee experiments. I loved both the checking off of items, and the having things left. July went on with more of the to-dos taken care of, more rolled into August, late afternoon naps, Moonrise Kingdom in the theater just a few weekends ago, and tomorrow, finally, summer nailpolish.

1,000

Jessica, from her visit last week

This afternoon, my CEO stood in the hallway outside his office and shouted "It's 2:09! What are you all still doing here!?" We're on Summer Hours these days, closing the office at 2:00 on Fridays, for sunshine and shenanigans. If I had known beforehand that employees would use the time to hang out together, biking to a tap room in Kenmore or the brewery in Woodinville, I would have used that as part of my argument for Summer Hours, camaraderie and team building and all that. I lingered until 3, myself, then got in the car to go pick up the film I dropped off earlier in the week and hadn't had time to pick up. The last summer book of the year is in my car's CD player, which kept the traffic from seeming like anything at all. On the way to the camera shop, I drove by a Baskin Robbins, and a nail place and thought Yes. Instead, I took my computer and the CD with the negative scans and drove down to Third Place Books and read every single title in the psychology section. Then I read every single title in the used audiobook section, where I was rewarding with a $12 copy of Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. One of my all time favorite books, which I have never listened to on audio. There's something specifically delicious about having an entire book read to you. 

Afterwards, I sat in the Honey Bear Bakery with an iced mocha and uploaded all the photos, trying to think about how describe how happy I was that a few turned out well, about the little frenzy of trying to decide which to post. There was a kid about 11 with glasses at a big table near mine, backpack and notebooks everywhere. I only noticed him after his little sister, probably 7 or 8, poured her soda out on his head. No parents in sight. It was painful to watch, you could see that there was part of him that wanted to laugh, but a bigger part that was embarrassed to the point of humiliation, and hurt. He wandered away from her, looking for someone, and she hopped from one skinny leg to the other, cackling nervously, half pleased with herself, half ready for the trouble she knew was coming. An old man pushed a cart by, suddenly shouting the lyrics to a nursery song from right behind me, making me jump, making the girls behind the counter jump and eye him warily, clearly wondering if someone was going to have to ask him to leave. He was fine, passed by and said something to the woman at the information booth laugh, not at him, but with him. I was happy. A bakery in a book store, the whole afternoon my own. 

We're at a thousand now. Took us some time to get here, more than 6 years. Six pretty good ones. xo

It can't be over!

Thomas and Max enjoying the murals in Times Square on a Subway Adventure

I am not ready for summer to end. I am not ready for the boy's first day of school, the leaves changing or my 39th birthday.

The summer has flown by so quickly. We've had construction underway on the screened in porch in Vermont, so I have spent more weekends than usual in the city with the boys. We've had subway adventures, trips to foreign playgrounds, playdates, movie dates, and hijinx galor.

And, it goes without saying, I got to thoroughly experience the Olympics.

But I have missed the woods around the house, roasting marshmallows in the firepit, the sounds of the peepers echoing over the pond.

And great jeebus, I had forgotten how HOT the city is in the summer!

This weekend we head to the Hamptons for a weekend at the beach with some friends, then Labor Day in Vermont and then... school begins!

Not ready, not ready, not ready.

Dry Skies

It's supposed to be dry here this time of year, the 29th and 30th the least likely days of the year for rain. This weekend it was just what we hoped for, today a summer day too hot for weeding, perfect for naps with the windows open and coffee and crumpet breakfast eaten sitting on the front porch and occasionally the Olympics. I harvested shelling peas and salad greens and a sweet onion and best of all, artichokes, which were steamed for lunch. I planted basil and kale, and ripped out all the weeds that were threatening to swallow the six little feathery asparagus plants. Thistles, so many thistles. I realized how badly we need to sort out the compost area, and cut pieces of blue yarn so that I could measure out where we might put raised beds for next year, and sat in the shade writing a letter, and everything felt lazy and easy, in spite of all that got done.

Things to Plant Next Year

Chamomile. Pattypan squash. More artichokes, I'm crazy about the idea of having artichokes. More asparagus, since I will feel fortunate and unworthy if the sad job I did of it this year results in even two measly spears worth eating. I'm still not ready for cauliflower, or cabbage, though one of my favorite memories from my first year up here was that night I drove through the fields near LaConner, those big heads of cabbage glowing like grounded moons. Last year flowers didn't seem worth bothering with, but this year they seem like the best - no worries about whether a slug's mouth has been there first, no big deal about bugs, really, and no question about when to harvest. The big red poppies Tom planted this year - we could not possibly have too many. More of them. More of things to cut, and keep in jars around the house, with the mint and lavender that grow so well here and smell so good.

How do you know when an artichoke is ready? I searched the internet for that today, then stood out in the back of the field looking at them, spiny leaves slightly parted from the core of the vegetable - is it too late? Some looked so small, there was no question, but there was one guy who I was tempted to bring in. One tomato came with me to the kitchen, still orangey, but if I remember right it was an heirloom variety that wasn't really supposed to get all the way red. The last one had a little spot of rot before I had grown brave enough to pluck it from the vine, but I was undeterred, sliced off that little spot and ate it last thing before bed on Saturday night, a fresh square of local mozzarella between my fingers, a leaf of basil picked off one of the plants that sits in the kitchen window. I held that little treat in my hand over the sink, drizzled balsamic vinegar over it, over my fingers, popped it in my mouth and said goodnight.

Vacation Postcard

I listened to the Mariner's game all the way home from the airport, sipping a chocolate milkshake from Dick's. When I came up over the little rise before the Starbird Road exit, the whole valley appeared before me flooded with color. It had rained all and off nearly all day, and the payoff was the way the clouds created a canvas for the sunset, the whole sky saturated. 

It was appropriate that the first day of summer vacation involved three hours of driving, and a good cheeseburger in a sack for dinner, but I don't intend to go south out of the valley again until it's all over next Tuesday and I'm back to work. The Mariners won in the eleventh inning, by one run, and I stayed up too late but it was okay because Emmy needed to go out anyway, and for the next ten days, that's really all that matters.

No cherries for the humans at the mini-farm this year. Doesn't look like the birds really got any either, though. I don't know what happened exactly, there were so many blossoms in the spring, then fewer little cherries, then what few there were just fell to the ground half-heartedly, meager little pale fruits. There's an answer to it, but this isn't the year for me to figure it out. 

The best garden things I've done this year are the bathtub greens garden and the pea trellis. Both are flourishing in a way that the sad little radishes and dormant squash seeds have not. One lesson I did learn from last year was to actually harvest things, as opposed to gazing at them, paralyzed by wonder that anything actually grew. This is how you end up with a lot of bolted plants! Just another reminder to  always use the good stuff. 

Friday evening, we spent the evening outside, weeding and setting up a new bed for pea starts. It was good that we did, since that was the last of the nice weather for the weekend. All weekend it drizzled and the house felt cluttered and crowded. It was Sunday evening before I felt inspired to do anything to remedy that. The day had been spent at the Lucky Dumpster, eating scones and lemon curd with Jess, wandering up to Tweets with our mugs, where James slipped behind the espresso machine and made my latte and Jessica's tea. There was music at Tweets and Jess and David both clowned around in time to it, outdancing each other, David stirring it up with a broom, Jessica doing high frog kicks. I wished I had a video camera. 

Most of gardening is this. The dandelions have all gone to seed already, but there is still creeping buttercup and catchweed bedstraw, vetch, broadleaf dock, horsetail and thistles. Everything tells you a little about what is wrong with the soil, and we chip away at the problem with soil from the compost pile that Tom manages, or the big bags of Harvest Supreme I keep coming home with. The pea vines are doing okay though, and helping the soil as they do. The raspberries are completely out of our control and the onions seem to be flourishing. The artichokes have finally starting to grow and now there are two tiny asparagus stems instead of just one.   

Tom says we can go to the Bellingham farmer's market tomorrow, but I can see that he is thinking about the starts that still need to be transplanted, and the piles of mail around the house that build up over the course of the week, not to mention the fact that there is still no riding lawnmower for the little less than an acre of grass that surrounds the house. I just want to wear sandals and get some breakfast from one of the food stands and maybe one of those mushroom growing kits, but maybe it's a coveralls kind of day instead. 

Everything but the roses

Nearly everything has bloomed in the yard now, the crocus, the daffodils, the tulips, the jasmine, vibernum, snapdragons, all the fruit trees, wisteria, daisies. The peony hasn't bloomed, but I don't expect it to this year, since it was just transplanted last year. First year roots, second year shoots, IIthird year flowers. My radishes are growing and there are microgreens in the old bathtub and peas climbing up the lopsided trellis I put together one night before Sunday music at the Longhorn. The onions and garlic look happy, though the asparagus is, so far, just one lone feathery stalk, smaller than a pencil. 

I feel wilted myself, three days sick with some strange thing that shows up mostly in a kind of light-headedness and exhaustion. Bonus sore throat and headache, but no other symptoms, really. It leaves me feeling confused, like something that I already can't remember just happened and has slipped away from me already. My whole life is throat coat tea, juice of carrots and greens, beans and rice just for something solid to eat, plain except for some shreds of kale, a little salt and pepper. 

There is reading, though, Wrecker by Summer Wood now, and before that Growing a Farmer by Kurt Timmermeister, a book I had to put down for a while out of annoyance over some thing or another, which I can't remember any more. In the end, I was happy to have read it, kept telling everyone what I learned about raw milk as a result. Wrecker is just a pleasure, no complaints, the kind of book you get through before you're even better. Halfway through already and still sore-throated and spacey, it looks like I'll do just that. 

At the Les Schwab in Ballard, there's probably always someone on an iPad. Up here in the valley, I'm the only one with technology more sophisticated than a pair of suspenders or a hearing aid. A couple of guys sit at a table chewing the fat, nothing but a coffee cup between them. I eavesdrop, of course, because they're talking about farming, who has standing water in their fields all winter and what that means. Who's trying to plant corn, but doesn't really grow corn that good. Another guy in the lobby is in the market for a new mower, needs the 500 series, something about the differential, so the guy at the counter introduces him to an old timer who turns out to be the owner of a shop. The owner cracks a joke about Oh well they got em down there to the Lowe's and all the guys in the lobby chuckle. There's something ok about going to the place where the farmers and farm equipment guys take their cars.