steph.sicore.org

Posted by Steph at 11:24 AM | Comments (9)

April 28, 2006

Spring Sprang

Spring covered up what stood bare months before. Under a moonlit sky, dark circles drape the lawn and driveway like velvet blankets, shadows under the unfurled crepe myrtle and ornamental plum. I whack my head in the night’s shade on a low branch that is heavy with young foliage, and walk out, cursing, to my car.

Layer upon layer, Spring spackles up the landscape where Winter fails to slough. Years pass. The prickly pear cactus has budded and bloomed into an agglomeration of ovals, a colony. Little green pup ears stand atop careworn gray sections, each pup is topped with a flaming yellow flower.

There is some serious primping going on.

Night sounds have multiplied. The mockingbird’s soliloquy rambles like a long ribbon across the tapestry of night music, over the tiny drone of crickets and the clicking of bats. Sometimes the Chuck Will’s Widows interrupt the peace with their harrowing calls, hammering from cavernous throats. White Wing dove keep cooing after hours, still love-drunk.

Day sounds too, they have bustled out of bounds. It’s a denser panorama, a flourishing of things everywhere: the chortling of swallows and Purple Martins, hissing wrens, bossy jays. After a rain, the Cardinal leads the symphony with its intense love song. Focused, the calls are sculpted, intricate and metered like gingerbread on a Victorian cottage. And while most female birds silently acknowledge their mate’s serendades, the female cardinal responds clearly, without upstaging her man.

While she broods, I watch the male gently stuff her mouth with little morsels. I wonder if it’s appealing to her, what he’s brought to the table. Does she even care? Before Chas was born, I requested sushi and beer to be delivered bedside after his arrival. Instead, we shared a bag of cold Egg McMuffins. I guess we get whatever’s available in the wild, or at 5am in the hospital.

…You know, he still could have filled that order later that evening, or the next day, damnit. But I never got the damned dinner I asked for. And that’s where I differ from the cardinal…
….I totally forgot where I was going with this.

Posted by Steph at 11:48 PM | Comments (2)

April 21, 2006

Over the Weather

I watched the kid's sunhats bob and spin in the Twinner this morning as I pushed them up and down the neighborhood hills. Left and right, the wildflowers! Everywhere, embroidering the landscape with color. Like butterflies, we stopped at every honeysuckle to sample the sugar; Ford wouldn't let a single vine pass unplucked. Australian cowdogs bounded to greet us, licking sunscreen off our hands, as we walked under the arching necks of blooming yuccas, a mature hedge that bordered their yard.

We spent another day at home, but mostly outdoors: pruning trees, training vines, repotting, chasing black bear caterpillars across pavement. In the middle of the day, we watched the storm pass in green darkness, spraying a horizontal rain and dropping hail between the boards of our patio the size of small grapes. Then the sky opened like a vault, and I got a wild hair to drive the kids down to the lake, where I waded into the water with a hand cultivator and a pickle jar, collecting aquatic plants.
I thought it would make the betta happy.

But we survived the last day of the flu: grimacing with every cough that blew my way; washing, washing, washing; spicy seafood soup with lemongrass and mushrooms from the Thai restaurant down the road; iced tea in mason jars with fresh spearmint; bundling up into the down comforter to watch Godzilla movies with Ford in blue twilight. His hair is thicker, no longer baby-like. I'm finding it difficult to snuggle with him, he has grown lean and long.

I laid there, in the rain, remembering cocooning like this in the Airstream. With Ford I would snuggle up in the same comforter, womblike and warm, under the air-conditioning's permafrost. We'd lay there, wrapped in down and encircled with window: we'd curl up and watch the water crash on the rugged Kennebunkport coastline, or tractors plow by, or passersby swoon at our silver bullet bling.

I ran through the neighborhood again, backtracking alone. This time, to the stopwatch. I started out pounding but eventually glided, like I was pedalling up and down the hills. I have retrained my upper body to assist, my legs to reach higher. My eyes followed the powerlines, where birds were busy preening in peace: cardinals, mourning doves, Whitewing doves, Scrub jays, cowbirds. Above them swooped chimney swifts, and the whole lot of them were in song. A four-foot cedar stump jumped out at me from the bushes, black and damp. I never noticed it this morning, but I imagine it was bone dry and pale, then. But that's the bunny in the magician's hat, why I stayed to watch the show and left my gym bag in the car, only two inches further out the driveway.

Posted by Steph at 02:05 AM

April 04, 2006

While My Battery Was Dead

I just got a new battery for my Powerbook. Damon stood in line for service while Ford played a video game. I stood over Chas while he stood bouncing on one of the black ball-shaped seats at the kiddie table.

Friday morning we took a hike along the creek. We chased a young bullfrog, who teased us along a stretch of cattails at the bank before disappearing into some brown muck. Ford was so eager to catch him, standing there with his little plastic red bucket. Chas only wanted to shout and jump into the water. We had to retreat into the woods to keep everyone safe.

I stopped to inspect the mustang grapes, and Chas disappeared. I felt my heart in my thighs ten seconds later, when he reappeared uphill about thirty yards; he had found a loop and had come round to surprise us. Mind you, we were walking along a twenty-foot precipice that overlooked the creek.

Chas is a bushwhacker, both on and off the trail. We put him point blank, while Ford trailed behind, scouting for honeysuckle. He managed to find four blossoms, and gingerly dissect them for the four drops of nectar among them.

On saturday, we biked along the lake. Though the landscape is vibrant and the wildflowers are in bloom, people were the life force along the lake, running, canoeing, parading, strolling. Winding through the trees, we trailered the boys and their havoc, like a small zoo train with a cage of crackhead chimpanzees. I wore a constant smile; for one thing, I wasn't the one hauling the trailer, and for another: it really does sound cute. Despite the mayhem, I like robust, vibrant kids and my kids are anything but reserved.

Some jocks were playing kayak polo under the MoPac bridge, the ball barely clearing the beams beneath me as we rode over them. A Pug meetup and show along the waterfront, one was wearing a pink tutu. A birthday party for a resident goose. The swallows are back. Wisteria and Chinaberry blossoms made the air heady and seductive. I am in love with Austin.

Dinner with friends Saturday night at a neighborhood dig, margherita pizza under the oaks with good wine while the kids scrambled on the lawn and playground. A two-man blues band played in an alcove on the patio. Sunday morning completely disoriented me. The blazing heat, with the loss of an hour, drove me straight into summer. Jogging through our barely-rural neighborhood, grasshoppers zirred past me across the blacktop. The only thing to ground me in April was the fresh, green terrain, littered with half dollar-sized white flowers; everyone's yard looked like a driving range. Wooly bear caterpillars marched across the road, and a brown tarantula stood paralyzed as I passed it on the curb.

Posted by Steph at 06:11 AM | Comments (2)

March 31, 2006

Happy chartreuse puffs have appeared among the evergreens here. Oaks and mesquite are leafing out in between cedars. They look hopeful now, but won't take long to mature. The little, tender green leaves shine in the sun, denying that they are part of the dense, gnarly, scrubby chaparral.

I take ginger steps along the riparian trail behind the gym. After yoga, it's good to be outside breathing fresh air, untainted by foot odor and old sweat. The cedar I walk on cuts the grime like a blade, cleansing me. It reminds me of the barn in the morning, fresh shavings cascading out of my wheelbarrow and onto the floor of the stall. In a split second I dodge after noticing a hanging inchworm. My feet reach high over little mounds where squirrels have dug into the mulch, I plod faster. Five shiny, tall brown mushrooms have erupted overnight. The basidiocarps are covered in a cheesy white film, like little newborn babies. I dodge another caterpillar. The creek is flowing steady, after a good rain. Wrens are on alert, surely happy with all the worms. One darts across the path just before me, and disappears into the shadows.

When I have finished my stretching routine on the mat, upstairs in the gym, I look down on my white shirt to notice an aberration: a bright green inchworm with a shiny black head is trying to navigate across my belly. Without thinking, I take my shirt and slingshot it across the room, towards the Cybex machines. Old habits die hard; at least I didn't squash it.

It's midnight. I nearly fell asleep at nine but Damon arrived at the bedside with a Coke float. It was delicious, like the ones we sipped in the middle of summer twenty-odd years ago. I remember laughing, in between foamy sips, while watching John MacEnroe chew out the referee during Wimbledon against Jimmy Connors. I was glad for Wimbledon, during siesta time in Beaumont, when the sun shone too hot at midafternoon to hunt for lizards or ride bikes.

A sure sign of the season, a few loony White Wing doves are cooing outside the window. At midnight.

Posted by Steph at 12:28 PM | Comments (3)

March 28, 2006

The Litter on the Lawn

Posted by Steph at 05:09 AM | Comments (6)

February 27, 2006

doggerel bantering in the clover

I think my days have compressed. We joined a gym nearby, where a friend of mine teaches yoga, and I've found myself going there in the evenings on a daily basis. This, in itself, is a good thing. But it cuts into my writing time. Fortunately, however, we still find time to paint.

We rode down to the lake today. There were hints that March winds were about to blow, that it was on the horizon. I brought a crinkly nylon kite and let Ford have his first go at flying solo. But his eyes were reddish, and snot dangled from his nose, quivering in the breeze. I didn't have kleenex, so my shirt sufficed. Dogs galloped in arcs around us, hollow barks ran through the canyon. I discovered that my children have become afraid of dogs since we sent ours to grandma. Ford cried when a yellow lab pup jumped up and licked him, bumping Ford's lip and making it bleed. Then there was bloody drool dangling in the breeze, suspended, as Chas shrieked like an alarmed chimpanzee.


Clover is everywhere. The sweet smell reminds me of baseball and bee stings, afternoons napping in the sunny infirmary with a swollen hand resting on my chest.

Posted by Steph at 11:50 AM | Comments (2)

February 13, 2006

Surreal

I return to the exhibit on impulse, after viewing the installation of Eva Hess' drawings. I know the corridors by heart: the oak floors creak in the east wing, but enough to surprise me every time; I am always arrested in front of the Ernst frottages, three paces north and an immediate left lead to the painting of the pipe, Leger on the diagonal wall across the room. This time, there is something different (after all, things usually change after ten years). An alcove off the Surrealism exhibit with its own security guard outside.

It's like walking into a jazzy vacuum chamber. A dark room, painted blue the color of Chas' eyes, the sky on a full moon. It is a wonder-room filled with tribal masks, katchinas, headdresses and totems. In the center, a sculpture of a human being, with pins radiating from all surfaces. The opposite wall, above my head, hangs a charming sculpture of a man riding a whale, the two of them casting animated shadows on the wall. It is a collection, tribal and oceanic, curious and natural. Things collected by the Surreallists. I stand in this dark room, awestruck, wondering why this feels like home.

In a corner I notice Dominique De Menil's provincial desk, filled with ephemera: keys, marbles, blue butterflies, feathers, coins, seashells, buttons. "For the children who visited her home." It's a Darwinian duplicate of my dad's roll-top desk. I stand in front of the desk for a good five minutes, examining treasure. Wealthy couples circulate in camel coats and leather shoes, fresh out of the box. The men are distinguished and chiselled, the women have long, glossy hair and everyone smells of ambigously scented soaps. They speak softly of travels to Fiji, and smile at certain masks. They feel at home, too.

I exit the museum onto the wide open expanse of green lawn and sunshine. Down the block, behind a rambling old white oak tree, the boys run circles around Damon. As he waves at me from the void between branches, Chas stumbles onto the grass. Ford is laughing, calling me. I take the children into my charge and urge Damon to go see for himself. We are playing gallery tennis, allowing the kids to be kids while we struggle to be grownups.

Posted by Steph at 06:05 AM | Comments (4)

February 07, 2006

34

The car feels strong and bottom-heavy, it keeps going when I feel the need to pedal faster. It's disorienting driving a car after cycling for several hours.

We contour the gilded canyon bowls at sunset, travelling north. Long shadows like blue fingers hug the hills. A dip in the ridge reveals downtown on the right. Deer tracks jog up the limestone bluffs, Yaupon berries are still red, cast in a mini-explosion along the bottom of the bluff. In traffic at an intersection I notice a pair of cowgirl boots with silk flowers inside, roadside bouquet. I think this is very Austin and wonder whether this is a resting place.

At the restaurant, I struggle to wipe chocolate buttercream icing off my pink merino sweater; small brown crumbs sit high on the wooly pile. In the middle of an anecdote I forget what I am talking about as I watch Chas lick the remains of a large block of sweet cream butter off his fingers. While wiping his right hand, the left dumps a cupful of toothpicks onto the floor. Ford asks me where the chef has managed to catch a baby squid. He demonstrates how the squid consumes food, I notice how dirty his hands are as he puppeteers the cooked squid's tentacles, directing invisible food in towards the squid's mouth. "I don't like shrimp anymore," he declares, while Chas pours ice water on my lap.

It is dark. Focused hypnotically, I migrate home beside fellow lights. we are travelling synchronously, automatically, snaking our way through the black canyon. Rut is over, I am seeing no more deer at night, a relief.

At home, I park the car, and carry a package of diapers under one arm along the moonlit driveway. It is a half moon, and I could play badminton on the lawn. The birdbath sparkles as I pass. You can hear the night in it's crackling quiet, with a band of coyotes wailing a mile away. Orion has bookmarked the sky, and it's especially bright, even as I approach the yellow incandescent halo of our home.

Posted by Steph at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)

February on Town Lake

We leave the playground, and I weave along the lake, trailering the boys. In this warm winter weather, Austin has molted and begun to grow again in little green patches along the water. The rest of the landscape is still dormant, less agressive than the shoots. Clusters of Elephant Ears brazenly crowd along the bank, submerged and waving in the breeze.

The wind awakens me, and my rhythm intensifies while growing efficient. My muscles remember well; I biked for many years before children. I love the way my quadriceps begin to feel warm. I don’t feel this way when I run. My neck burns. I am smiling.

I pass under Riverside drive, and pause to watch reflections dance uninhibited on the bridge’s belly, winding up the concrete posts like white fishnet. Sliders anchor the river, basking in the sun, and we count them. I notice a canoe, motionless, with a fisher aboard, waiting.

It’s a dry day, and chrushed granite crunches as joggers pass us under the bridge. One woman smiles at the trailer, and I follow her eyes to find Chas’ sleeping head on Ford’s shoulder. I return to meditate on the coke bottle water, crystalline turquise jade with a fuzzy rockbottom, brimming with rippling silvery fry.

Barton Springs feeds the creek, the creek feeds the river.The dedicated swimmers, all three of them, are lumbering the length of the pool, their slow, regular paddle lulls me.One is wearing a wetsuit . The elm trees lining the pool are tipped with new leaves, on the pecans, empty shell cases gape at the sky on bare branches, so that we don’t forget that Fall ever happened. But it did, and so did Winter.

Posted by Steph at 09:19 PM | Comments (2)

February 03, 2006

Spring?

Brushing my teeth before the window, I noticed how hazy the horizon looked. Yesterday was so clear and sunny! And today, it looks as if we are covered in a thin veil of smoke. I had to stop brushing so I could look more closely. Squinting beyong the Live oaks, a patch of smoke caught my eye, lifting up between our lot and the one next door.
I spit into the sink and wipe my face.
"Damon, is this smoke?!"

He came into the room for a peek out the window, his toothpaste-breath blowing over the top of my head.
"Well, it looks like it. Wait..."

And we both realized what it was simultaneously: clouds of juniper pollen releasing into the wind.

I guess this means it's Spring already?

Posted by Steph at 10:44 AM | Comments (1)

January 24, 2006

Living in Austin with Children

On a Japanese prayer wall, one anonymous child wrote:

Posted by Steph at 07:28 AM | Comments (3)

It rained. It rained all day, beginning with bright flashes at midnight and ending with a shroud of mist on Sunday. This afternoon, two days after the relieving episode, the grass is still moist. Is our burn ban over? Hopefully not; this morning Ford and Chas followed me outside to the garden, where they leaned over to watch me burn the raffia and summer grass that decorated the rim of Bird's fishbowl. Quickly, the straw crackled into embers, and died into crumbly strings that we blew into the rosemary, which was still dewey. Before lunch, we had bought a new betta; the new one is named Angie and he is a vigorous red. Funny, I never thought to photograph the morning.

Ford got a new bike on Sunday. Electric blue, like mine, it inspired him to go very fast. We took him to the veloway, where we could ride and skate beside him for three and a half miles. Around the third quarter, his energy began to wane, and after Ford's excessive whining, Damon reluctantly carried the squat little bike the rest of the way, while I taxied him in the bike trailer. We continued to loop for another half hour, during which I thought about my own famous fallouts. Like the time I showed up for team practice on the first day, claiming I was an intermediate rider, and spent the rest of the evening correcting myself on an overly large, very young thoroughbred who felt like a Ferrari on wet pavement. Although I didn't quit, I did nearly shit in my pants and I definitely didn't make Intermediate.

Yesterday, we took the boys to the Children's Museum, where I found this:

With the grasses outside, glorious from Fall but wet from the rain, I thought we'd make a bunch of these for a wall parade. It didn't happen today, so we'll try doing this tomorrow. It may even be a good idea to use them for Christmas tree ornaments next year? I want a whole herd of them...

Posted by Steph at 06:56 AM | Comments (0)

January 21, 2006

Wee Hour Banter: Remembering to See

Writing is hard, but joy comes easily these days. I am rehashing my way through The Artist’s Way* again after a 6 year hiatus, and digging new roots in fertile soil. I’ve been drifting about for a while, tendrils outstretched, and feel ready now to grow down instead of laterally; the plant is strong but the roots are weak.

I’ve put my mind to naming the sources of joy and I’ve found that it comes from being aware of my footsteps and playing a lot. There may be events unfolding around me, but they may as well not be there when I am engaged. Being aware, I’ve found over the years, is what has given me fullness and sanity. Oddly, I ran across a passage in week 2 of The Artists Way that refers to this same phenomenon: Julia Cameron, in describing how her grandmother “made do” with the circumstances her husband left her (financial instability and a wild ride on the waves of success and failure), remarked about her mother’s capacity to be very much in the now, a reporter of life around her. Not focusing on regrets or fearing the future, she was able to immerse herself in experience, a great way to cope and remain sane.
"Attention is the act of connection," says Julia. "My grandmother knew what a painful life had taught her: success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of laying attention."

How do other people stay sane? Here are a few obvious secrets:
I watched a documentary last night on a female stunt pilot, who enjoyed the way flying dangerously required so much focus that everything else slipped out of her periphery. Surely a big wave surfer feels the same way, risking his life each wave as he directs every neuron to the dynamic matter and energy thundering around him. I imagine a surgeon feels a similar zen, perhaps a more cerebral, fine-motor adaptation of the same principal, or a writer, for that matter (although, as Robert Cormier once said, “The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.”).

Another way I find sanity: watching my enthusiasm of the outdoors trickle down to my kids, watching them web together information on the world around them, making connections that, in turn, connect them to earth. When I am outside appreciating the world around me, it’s infectous; I can’t help sharing it with the kids, with others. It hasn’t taken many brainstorming sessions to discover purpose behind this. I want others to see. I want others to experience and feel joy in his or her footsteps, trying to banish regrets and ignore to-do lists, even if for five mintes at a time. Little bursts of sanity provide hours of empowerment.

I think of other writers who have fostered this capacity for seeing: Annie Dillard, when she wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Anne Lammott and Operating Instructions, Rachel Carson, and the late Provensens, who wrote my favorite picture book as a child: Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm. There are others, but these are favorites. What are yours? Have you seen much lately? Assuming that, like me, you feel periodic insanity, what centers you and makes you sane?

*Other Artist's Way bloggers have been inspired by Kat's Paws. I guess I can consider myself one if I just said "others."

Posted by Steph at 11:17 PM | Comments (1)

January 16, 2006

Saturday

Posted by Steph at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2006

Basquiat

We took the kids to see the Basquiat exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Ford validated my anticipation, eagerly counting recurring symbols and remarking that "he uses crayons!" I knew the portfolio would captivate Ford, with the cartoony anatomy and cars and expressive style. But I didn't realize how much it would synchronize with Ford's interests. And I enjoyed it, too! Even if I couldn't really stop and breathe much throughout the show. Our tour was characteristically whirlwinded; we bounced around the gallery, cross-referencing to find the ties that bind the work, punctuated with requests to go to the bathroom, get a drink, go home, no stay, go to Austin. Chas, for his part, snoozed in the stroller.

Posted by Steph at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2005

Friday

Posted by Steph at 06:01 PM | Comments (3)

December 02, 2005

Congress and Sixth

On the walk to dinner, oak boughs bounce with Christmas lights to the sound of rush hour traffic. Lights, everywhere, confuse us all along the way, awakening us: sodium, mercury, halogen, fluorescent, neon. The dark silhouettes of two live oaks frame the facade of ArtHouse like a shadowbox, their branches alive with a congregation of grackles, cackling and cracking.

Posted by Steph at 05:52 AM | Comments (2)

November 09, 2005

The Garden: November Specimens

Posted by Steph at 03:15 AM | Comments (2)

November 01, 2005

Fall, finally

The morning was crisp and the breeze tickled the Juniper Cedar boughs, and berries littered the patio before we swept and painted:

Later, while Chas napped, Ford and I sat down at the foot of the flower bed and tended the plants. I drilled him on the names of each plant and he was, not surprisingly, correct most of the time. He showed me where the Christmas cactus is growing new leaves, I told him that people used to make paper with the papyrus plant.

Damon buzzed and whirred in the garage, building his amp as fast as possible before the rain came. And soon, it came. Gusts of cold air lifted the new Fall foliage and tiny drops ushered a long rainfall. Ford and I watched as Damon scrambled his welder back into the garage, shouting expletives into the bustling front.

Posted by Steph at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2005

He had me at "Kelp Forest," Fun in the Garden, Hold the Sprinkles

We have a wonderful wool rug in our living room. We bought it in May about three hours before our renters signed a year contract on our home in McKinney, and I somehow believe that it was because of the rug. Being inviting and cozy, it softened our concrete floors and probably made an otherwise cold and cloudy Spring day a little warmer.

There were 3 designs we were deciding among when Damon sold me on the one now own. He told me that it looked like a kelp forest, and with those two words I was sold. He literally had me at "kelp forest." And every time I catch myself staring at the rug, I get warm fuzzies thinking about happy creatures like sea lions sea otters and encrusting bryozoans. And sometimes ice cream and bubble gum. Because they're made with carageenan. Which is made of kelp. You know.

Anyway, this rug is very special to me and I decided it's time to make a napping quilt in it honor, for the cooler month or two ahead. I've been on the fence about joining the Modern Quilt-Along but I figured I could do a me-version of the Redwork pattern in turquoise and dark olive. Maybe take a little creative license and use variegated and hand-painted solids with hand-painted floss? Maybe a little trapunto?

We explored another nursery in town today: The Natural Gardener. It blew me away, I think it is an attraction on many levels. The prices are fair, they have a tremendous variety, endorse organic gardening, have an abundant and helpful staff, numerous display gardens and a few barn animals. I could and will take the kids there on a weekday and kill an hour easily. And maybe a coupla twenties. Easily.

For the kids garden I selected:
Lamb's Ear
Texas Rock Rose
Pineapple Sage
Texas Fall Aster
Purple Oxalis
some feathery-purple-flowered perennial that attracts throngs of Viceroy butterflies that I can't remember the name of and I'm too tired to go outside and look on the plant tag to find out what it's called
Round-leaf eucalyptus
and Damon's pick:
Squid Agave.
(They were out of Pony Foot and I dutifully denied myself the Smoke Plant, but I'll be back for both soon enough)

We had terrible cupcake cravings today and I didn't fight the urge to bake two dozen vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. Magnolia Bakery recipe. The frosting became a pale pink and Damon insisted I forego the sprinkles (which I will never forgive him for; he believes that sprinkles ruin cupcakes but I will fight this argument to the grave--who WOULDN'T?!). The icing called for one entire bag of confectioner's sugar. That's right. Ultimately, they tasted like Krispy Kreme donuts with the same pleasurable guilt. One can only eat perhaps, well, one. So I boxed them up immediately and marked them "BARBEQUE" for tomorrow's potluck at Damon's colleague's home. Why bother taking a photograph when you can imagine what they look like, without the sprinkles.

Posted by Steph at 01:56 AM | Comments (4)

October 21, 2005

Why?

Every family should have a village to help it grow. Every single one, yours and mine.

Posted by Steph at 09:52 AM | Comments (2)

October 01, 2005

Fall, cont'd.

Posted by Steph at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

September 30, 2005

Fall

Austin awoke and fell back to sleep again tonight under the clouds; it was invigorating. It was the first noticeable cold front of the season. Please do not notice that I was taking this picture while driving.

Ford has a new piece of jewelry, the hydroxide molecule ring. Actually, it's a small keyring with, oh, I don't know, some sort of ball attached to it. Something like that. And I wasn't driving when I took this picture, I was at a stoplight. Anyway, he removed it from a little chotchkie that Damon brought home, put it on his finger, and asked me what kind of molecule it looked like. Ford is into molecular models, atomic models, skeletal models. I can thank Bill Nye. Thank you, Bill Nye! You rock! Except when Ford is bouncing off the furniture at 4pm, when I am so very tired in the afternoon, proclaiming (no, shouting) that he is an electron. But it was very cute when he dissected his birthday balloons into protons and neutrons. Of course, the whole bunch of them was the nucleus. Thank you, Bill Nye!

The last of the Gayfeather is in bloom, but most has gone to seed and left to drape the new stars:...

the grasses.

The Muscadines are ripe,

and the Beautyberries are shouting.

Posted by Steph at 09:23 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2005

Katrina-Rita Donations of the Handmade Variety

Every night the past three days, as I've read Reeve Lindbergh's book (beautifully illustrated by Jill McElmurry) entitled Our Nest, I've reflected on our health and good fortune to have each other and a home to return to each day, when we are tired and weary.
I don't know if this blog entry will reach many people, but if you read this and have three to five hours of free time this month, I have found a wonderful way to share some skill and love with the evacuees and their children, who have very little "nest" to speak of. It's a project called The Linus Connection and the mission is to "provide a handmade security blanket to every child who is in a crisis or at-risk situation in Central Texas." If we are able to meet the basic needs of the evacuees, I think this would be a loving addition to the effort to help mend lives and offer warmth.

Austin's News 8 featured this initiative a while back. To describe one benefit of the mission, founder Stephanie Sabatini offers:
"What we’re trying to do is provide security. This is something handmade that the kids know that people in the community are thinking about them, hoping for them and hoping that their lives get better perhaps than they have in the past."

I love this bug jar block quilt. A six year-old friend of ours received one of these himself, as a gift. It's adorable, just like this one:

Posted by Steph at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2005

Waste

Inexpensive is good. Cheap is better. But at what cost? Photojournalist Michael Wolf has documented the flipside to the euphoria of cheap and returned my thoughts towards weekend garage sale shopping and the recycling of consumer goods.

Posted by Steph at 10:50 PM | Comments (2)

July 17, 2005

SuperNaturalism

Once again, I was squandering away a perfectly good hour of sleep when I stumbled, falling completely in love with the designer Josef Frank, by the kitschy beauty of his supernatural textiles on display at Stockholm's Svenskt Tenn. I was ready to pack a few days worth of clothes with my toothbrush and board the next flight to Stockholm before realizing that:
a. not only was he, to my disappointment, already dead, but that
b. my youngest child was sitting up in the bed, screaming for me to pick him up.
His designs seduced me as Feodor Rojankovsky's illustrations first did, when I was a very young girl, in the pages of John Langstaff's Frog Went A Courtin' and Over in the Meadow.

Posted by Steph at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

Better than Andre the Giant

Even if the the plan backfired and these stickers became a commodity, I still think the You Are Beautiful campaign is a lovely thing.

.

Posted by Steph at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2005

...

Every evening for the past week we have been going down to the lake to play. The breeze coming off the lake is cooled by the water, so much that it almost feels like Fall as the sun sets, but the heat rising from the sunbaked asphalt dries our suits by the time we reach the car on our way home.
On the curb sits a five foot-high pile of empty fireworks cartons, colorful and littered with tall exclamatories and hazard signs. The head of a black cat, on one box, hisses at us; he is the hero atop the technicolor caricature of a trashpile, much like the head of a lion in a taxidermist shop.

Posted by Steph at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2005

Wanting

I've been browsing some wonderful little paintings by Amy Ruppel, another bird/egg aficionado. These are so buttery! I want to touch one--I believe they have a layer of wax embedded in them somehow? I'm hoping to hear back from Amy on her technique. FUN!

How cool!
Amy sent me this in her response (thanks, Amy!):
I use beeswax, indeed. I cover a piece of wood with wax I've colored with pigment, then collage on top paper birds and shapes I created digitally, then layer clear beeswax over that... then I sometimes (most of the time) draw back into the wax, and fill the lines with oil paint, then wipe the excess away. A quick pass with the propane torch, and it's set in for eternity. Have you taken an encuastic painting class? it's so much fun, and very rewarding. It's such a forgiving medium, full of happy accidents!

Posted by Steph at 06:52 AM | Comments (0)