In which I give away the secret to growing tasty sweet tomatoes...

In the spring I planted 40 square feet of vegetables in out back acre. We have been swimming in tomatoes, squash, white corn, watermelon and onions. Still there are little watermelons on the vines (which may never amount to much now the cold seems set) the pumpkins are ripe and hardening on the vine, and our butter nut squash have my mouth watering just looking at them all smooth and skin-peach colored

.

The problem is the TOMATOES.

Not a problem perhaps just so many.  I had planted a lot with the intention of canning and using them for sauces. Three weeks ago I spent hours and hours processing a big pail of them only to finally get out at the end about three cups of tomato for canning. It was so disheartening. 

When I talked with friends about it they kept telling me: don't skin them just throw them in the sauce and puree the skins down.  Well... I have found that too is a faulty plan  for a couple of reasons:

1: My Uncle Tom who is the most wise and thoughtful person I know on this planet has been growing tomatoes as a farmer for over half a century and has a reputation both locally and further afield for raising the most delicious and sweet tomatoes.  His advice is to water starve your tomatoes if you want them sweet.  Our tomatoes are exceptionally sweet because I followed Uncle Tom's advice and hardly ever water them. They look like they are dying (they aren't- tomatoes are like weeds) but we have mountains of gorgeous red sweet tomatoes with  firm skins (another sign of water stressed tomatoes). 

2: Salt or sugar in sauces causes tomato skins to harden and become little strips of tomato leather over the heating time. Not nice. And salt or sugar are kinda necessary for preserving food. That's why your tin tomatoes always come skinned.

So thoroughly disheartened and  now completely incapable of standing for several hours let alone canning anything I spoke to my Auntie (Uncle Tom's wife) about what she does with theirs and she (being very practical) said:

 "I just bag them and throw them in the freezer we pull them out and wizz them into soup all winter long!"

Duh!

So that's what I did. We pulled a bag out the other day for M. to make curry with and...  Voila! It works beautifully. The skins are "wizzable" or  (because I am removing the stalk before bagging) you can squeeze the tomato out of it's skin after defrosting which is MUCH faster than peeling them fresh. It also has the added benefit that if you need something thicker than a tomato puree you can strain the defrosted skinned tomatoes and a huge amount of their water gets separated leaving behind a much thicker paste great for ragu.

So here are my trade secrets:

Water starve your tomatoes- only water them when they start to wilt. (Also works with Watermelon BTW- stop watering them for a week before harvest and they will be super super sweet).

And freeze the blighters!

xx Jo

The sharpest crafting implement

So recently (before the crippling back took over my life) we went to our local fair where we were delighted to discover that there is an annual wool and fiber festival. It was so amazing. I could hardly manage to restrain myself from blowing an entire months rent on wool. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, it was truly drool worthy.  Additionally I was reminded of my plan to learn tatting by a lovely woman selling beautiful filigree shuttles silver plated.

Tatting.

Ohhhhh tatting how I love you!

I've had these books for awhile, I can't remember where I got them only that they came with me from the UK. Learn to Tat by Connie Ellison and Tatted Jewelry by Lyn Morton.  Learn to Tat comes with a instructional DVD which I have to admit to not using as of yet, probably I should have as I absolutely had to access online video tutorials to  get it all to work properly. I have this feeling that it is one of those skills best learned sitting at the foot of your grandmother!!

And then I visited Pintrest (oh man- just look up tatted jewelry!!!) and some other blogs etc. There are some beautiful designs at Le Blog de Frivole. 

Its brilliant when laying in bed and I read that traditionally it was a craft taught to people recovering from illnesses. It is so suiting I find the whole situation slightly embarrassing.

So now my head is spinning with ideas and designs. It is sparing me the absolute soul destroying level of boredom I could be hunkering under.

However Tatting shuttles are the sharpest craft implements I have ever had the misfortune of partially laying on in bed!! They have a horrific little sharp point on one end which is entirely useful and practical until you loose it!

Yike!

As an aside Autumn has set in here in an amazing way with breezes, crispy mornings and rain showers.
I don't remember ever having rain before the end of September when I was growing up in Mariposa. We are closer to the coast here but it has still taken me by surprise and it is so cold in our house. 

My poor little homeschoolers are working in scarves and hats and mittens!

Last week the thermometer was recording overnight lows of 34 F and it felt it. Today the rain is falling in earnest so it is a little warmer.  In the UK there is a quiet battle of  hardiness and pride in how late into the year one can last before turning on the heating... well its not yet October and we are having morning fires.  Guess that means I loose.

Isn't it beautiful? Almost worth waking up with frostbite!

xx Jo

Good news. Bad news.

Good news:  My bedroom walls and ceiling are very well painted.

Bad news: I know this because I have spent the last 7 days staring at them from my position in bed.

Good news: I've finally taught myself how to do Tatting and it is so much fun! (More on that later!)

Bad news: Doing any sort of craft flat on your back is a little tricky and involves your fingers going numb every few minutes.

Good news: I've found my girls are exceptionally willing to be  helpful around the house.

Bad news: I've found M. is really bad at grocery shopping so our repertoire of meals consists almost entirely of  thing a college boy might eat.

Good news: We have Prime membership so I've been able  to watch unlimited Jane Austen adaptations from my supine position.

Bad news: We've reached our data limit. Boo Hoo!!

Anyhoooo... because of all this back stuff... grrrr... I am feeling very very sorry for myself.  So do please excuse me a little whine and a few spelling errors.

xxJo

The place I'm at when I should be doing something else...

Soooooo....  You know I've been busy. With lots of things.

I have the ABC's of busy...

-------------------
A is for Apples

 in the orchard- more than I can keep up with cooking, canning, feeding to my children, our neighbor's cows or the deer.

B is for Bird-sitting

 our chickens when they are out of their pen in order that the nasty bobcat that ate one doesn't get anymore!

C is for Canning

because I planted too much veg, inherited too many fruit trees and generally got too ambitious when ordering peaches via our friends at Live Power Community Farm with our CSA (Community Sustained Agriculture... its a mouthful to say and eat) box.

--------------------------------

The alphabet goes on and on and on (like Gone With the Wind but with no war, elegant dresses or Rhet Butler ... just lots of me looking flustered and throwing tantrums about someone messing up the quilt draped artistically over the back of the couch AGAIN!!!!!) finally ending in:

------------------------------

Z is for Zombie*

...sometimes... sort of... not really...

but M. sometimes acts like one.  He has been really really busy too and starts talking about going to bed the moment the children are up the stairs to go to sleep at 9 p.m. Naturally my instinct is to rebel and go to bed at 3 a.m. so I'm kinda a zombie too some mornings. 

*no photos of "Z" for the protection of the innocent

------------------------

  but the letter that has been consuming my time and mental space is S.

-----------------------

S is for Sweet Little Wood

and Shop!  I am officially set up in a beautiful shop called Gin'Gillie's Vintage Home Collective in Gyserville California!

---------------------------

When we left England we had some idea of opening a vintage/handmade sales space of some kind but we were uncertain of what exactly we wanted to do and more importantly where! I have a space on Etsy but in order to make it work you need a large-ish shop and really you have to push yourself to be proactive in order to keep your listings popping up because there are so (I cannot stress this enough) SOOOOOOOOO many sellers on Etsy. 

So the reasons Etsy is not really for me are that I am: 

1: too lazy. 

2: too annoyed/terrified by the postal system in the USA. 

3: to lazy

So this is what I enjoy doing. I find stuff. Old busted (sometimes) not really loved stuff. I take it home buff it up and show it I love it and then put it where someone else might pick it up and decide they love it too. Then I spend time with my family and make stuff I love with my hands... while the kids do homeschool... while I wait for the twelve jars in my canning pot to get to the right temperature... while I sit and wait for yet another interminable visit to the orthodontist to end...  while I inwardly gripe that M. has gone to bed at 9:01 and I'm not anything like tired yet.  Then I put that handmade stuff where someone else might pick it up and decide they love it too.

The long and short of it all is that when I should be watering watermelons that are taking over the back acre, keeping my little chickies from going stir-crazy in their pen, or sleeping with my husband at 11 o'clock.:  I can often be seen thinking about, designing, creating, washing, dusting, stitching, drawing or daydreaming about  Sweet Little Wood, my sweet little space that I can play with and make my own.

x(yz)  Jo

P.S. if you have never seen a tiny little baby watermelon...

 they are the cutest darn things ever!!

P.P.S. Does anyone know if apples are bad for cows?!?!

Sorry about the postmove hangover...

We have been computerless for some time. Our third computer in two years in fact. How are we managing to kill them so quickly?!?  Fortunately because they are so new when they break its all been under warranty.

If I had a computer over the last few months this is what I might have talked about:

 12 Ducks: cute when ducklings, messy when ducklings and getting messier as they get older, stinky, nightmare to pluck. Now sat in my deep freeze waiting roasting. NEVER EVER AGAIN!!! (hear that Matt... NEVER!)

25 Chickens: cute when chicks but not to be ordered by post as you have the horror of opening your box of chicks to find a load of dead ones, and they can drown in shallow water dishes... again not a nice surprise to come home to. Now a total of 17 chicks. 2 are Cornish giants, they will also join the ducks in my deep freeze- for now they are called "Chickzilla" and "Jabba-the-Chick" because they are huge and ugly compared to the other chicks.

Vegetable beds: do get someone with a tractor to till a 50 foot square area. Do get it tilled before the ground has hardened into a form of steel disguised as dirt. If for some reason the plow doesn't break up portions of the steel-soil do get your husband to wield the pick axe to break it up because you are likely to injure yourself. Do check for bindweed in the areas you want to plant: no amount of weeding is getting rid of that crap.

Weather: just because you are in California does not mean the weather and temperature will be perfect in the summer. June has been cold in our house, cold enough for jumpers and slippers and wrapping up in blankets. And now rain- lots and lots of rain. So that crackling/springing noise is the sound of all the weeds in my garden (which I only recently beat back in preparation for fire season) worming their way into the soil and springing up with glee.

So... Hello. Sorry for the long absence. Next time a proper post with pictures.

xx Jo

Yarn along and Pack up... again.

I know how tedious this must be getting to hear that we are packing boxes... AGAIN.

Think how it feels for us though! 

 I am truly and sincerely hoping to just settle after this.

 Our little yellow farmhouse in the country is a rental but I have every intention of not thinking or dreaming or wishing for anything different for a LONG LONG LONG time.  This will be our third move (fourth home) in 9 months. For a person who likes to nestle in, get to know the inside-out of a place, learn the little signs of the changing seasons, know where the warmest shaft of sunshine lands, find the best patch of blackberries and anticipate the harvest: the last 9 months have been a slow cruel kind of torture.

This packing job is a breeze though. We have some furniture (mostly bought at the awesome Lytton Salvation Army ) and the bulk of our possessions, already here, came in five suitcases and will leave the same way and I've been doing new home shopping in the last two days and have more than quadrupled the things we had with us. However it does mean I now have crockery (goodwill) glasses and mugs (goodwill/Khols/Target) and some pots and pans (family/friends/goodwill/Target) and can actually prepare food for my family in the new place.

 

Matt believes he can read my stress levels by how much knitting I get to do. I am happy to report that the crochet hook (a useful and fun tool but not my preferred modus-operandi) has been tucked away and the knitting needles are out again! I finished the tissue box cover, which was a lot of fun to design but I would change some things next time.

 

The base I did as a granny-rectangle (is there such a thing?!?) because it takes up less yarn and I only had one left-over ball of grey and just the dregs of mustard and aqua. That was great but I should have gone through only one loop on the round when I turned up the side of the box, and again at the top, which would have made it more willing to conform to the shape of the sides of the box.  By the time I realized my mistake (and being essentially very lazy) I couldn't be bothered to undo all the stitching and redo it again.

Delphine is almost done. She needs some buttons and a silk ribbon. So I'm holding off sharing till she is there. The fit is truly spectacular even though I had quite a few "Hang on this looks minute and is never ever going to be my size" moments before and during blocking.
 

I've made quite a lot of headway into Paloma  using Rowan wool cotton in Ship Shape. It is a delicious soft wool but I think it may be too heavy for the pattern. I bought the wool with help from the knitting ladies at John Lewis before I left the UK but sadly they were not entirely correct. I have since found that there is a great conversion chart UK-USA yarn weights on Wikipeadia and indeed: my beautiful Ship Shape wool cotton is too heavy. However before anyone starts to wonder that a tension square didn't notify me earlier of the issue I would like to remind you of the afore mentioned fact that I am essentially very lazy... and heartily sorry for it. So I'm in two minds. Do I carry on and hope for the best or pull it out save my beautiful and delicious Ship Shape for another day?

  

Jo xx

Just click your heels together three times...

When we saw it on Craigslist we fell in love.

When we walked through its rooms we felt at home.

When we learned we were going to get to live there we danced for joy.
 

 

 Its a little yellow farmhouse out on a country road. It sits on enough land for our vegetable patch and some chickens. Perhaps a porker if our landlord is willing. 
In one week time its our home God willing.
 

Jo xx

Yarn Along and nesting

 

Between rental hunting, homeschooling resettling and just the crazy hurley-burly of building a household routine from scratch all my creativity is being crammed into tiny little bursts of crochet. And all these tiny little bursts of crochet are making tiny little items of homeliness to dot around the 'not quite home' like space we are living in at the moment. So already down are coffee mattes (made out of the leftover Rowan yarn from Delphine), a short runner and a little doily which looks lovely under a gorgeous blue vintage hobnail jug I found at an antiques market in the gorgeous little town of Healdsburg where Matt works.

 

At the moment I am creating a crochet box cover to fit a tissue box.  Instead of there being a hole for the tissue to pop out of I'm covering the box bottom and sides so the top can be cut off and the box makes a handy  *pretty*  holder for tape/calculators/glue sticks/erasers etc that tend to wander homeless around our schooling space. Next in line for a cover is a small coffee can for a pen holder also for the girl's homeschool desk.


I'm almost there with Delphine. She is at the point of blocking but I haven't had an iron or a suitable place to block since before we left the UK. So she sits in a corner of the cupboard languishing for want of blocking. I've also started Paloma in a slow/haven't got the focus/haven't got the time/ haven't got the mental energy for a lace pattern sort of way. So she mostly sits in my knitting bag languishing for want of focus perhaps another yarn along she will make an appearance in all her gorgeous teal coloured yumminess.

Also... did you see those little people by the hobnail jug... Really. So delicious. They are my little souvenir from Paris. There were whole cityscapes for sale (v. v. expensively) but these little folks with their sweet little dog looked very Parisian to me. Maybe sat by the Seine admiring the view of the Eiffel Tower.

X Jo

Two weeks

 

There has been a dream like quality to the time since we landed in San Fransisco and traveled to our new temporary home in Northern California; so two weeks has felt like four months.

 

I read once (I can't remember which book but it was a psychology for laymen book) that when you are actively doing something different to your normal routine your brain registers time as moving more slowly because it is laying in more experiential memories than if you were experiencing the same-old-same-old thing. Thus time goes faster as we get older and become less curious and less adventurous...  So i suspect this year will feel like one looooong golden dream for me before January 2014 arrives. I have no objections to actively trying to make it so.

 

We have been very blessed in this 5000 mile journey. Besides Matt getting a job so quickly, the greencard taking 6 months less than expected and our house selling for the right price almost immediately: we have been given through pure generosity and love a place to stay for as long as we need it.  I cannot express how much this has meant to Matt and I but in reality it has been possibly the greatest blessing of all our maneuvering between countries.

 

So I am making a little temporary niche in the home of one of my mothers best friends. It has been a great joy to get to know her husband who is the most amazing glove to her hand and to simply feel the gift of friendship.

 

I will eventually try to get some sort of routine back in order but for the time being the girls and I are doing small amounts of homeschooling with a few books off amazon, multiple trips to our local library and exploring within our reach. Matt works (as always) with a lot of cheerful enthusiasm finding his feet in his new job about an hour away from 'home'. And so starts our long golden dream.

 

x Jo

A peaceful new year to you

 

Quiet peaceful times spent together with my children are among my greatest joys.

In a suddenly and suprisingly quiet house we spent the dawning of a new year feeding our beings with comfort, creativity and faith together.



Morning- headed home from the airport

Noon- warming our tired bodies and minds

Night- exercising creativity
 



Knitting for fidgets

Researchers recon that people who are fidgety tend to be slimmer than people who aren't.  I am the proof that that doesn't work for everyone.
 

I didn't used to be "delightfully Rubenesque" as one acquaintance described me (thanks Nat, that gave me nooooo end of confidence!). M. is convinced that I could model for Lely's Venus which sits in his favorite room (wonder why) in the British Museum ; not having recently seen myself crouching at my bath I can neither deny or approve of his assessment.

 

I also didn't used to be fidgety. I don't find it difficult to sit peacefully or to relax but I do have difficulty having empty hands. I sometimes fill the gap between my fingers with sketching, especially when I'm supposed to be looking attentive in meetings. **blush**

 

  Knitting however is perfect. I can do it while sitting as a passenger or watching a DVD; I do it in the cinema and sometimes (awkwardly) in the bath. I will pick it up while waiting for the kettle to boil or talking on the phone. I got an indignant huff from K. as I knitted during a card game (she won btw).  M. never gets impatient when I say "Hang on- just finishing this row", never ever suggests that I could be more gainfully employing my time and is happy for me to lounge across him with my knitting in hand in the evening while he reads aloud to me. I think its because it's almost always a jumper for him on my needles.

Earlier this week I finished another jumper for M.  This one is in Rowan's gorgeously soft and luxurious (machine washable) Cashsoft in Thunder. The pattern is from the book Warm Knits, Cool Gifts which is full of stylish practical knits and the authors include loads of information about adjusting patterns to fit your needs. So for Matt's Polo I shortened the sleeves (he doesn't like rolled up sleeves) and broadened the chest to suit him.

It was nearly 8 inches longer & wider because M. decided (while it was still damp and blocking) to try it on. I went... mental.  The poor man apologised in a tiny terrified voice. It felt like that moment where Galadriel is tempted by the ring.  Combine that with my "Rubenesque" (thanks Nat) figure and it makes me feel...

Not Good.

Jo x
 

 

Todays the day

Sanity escapes me as our belongings are
 rifled and settled into paper, boxes and bubble wrap.

Model of a charmless town.

 

We live in a town which on the surface looks like quite a lovely, woodsy sort of place full of niches to explore and what appears to be a community.  It has a nice population size of about 10,000.  People can be seen cycling, jogging and walking on the many many many paths that riddle dozens of parks and woodlands. There is an area with a man made series of streams and ponds and the whole town is surrounded on three sides by woodlands then fields.


Before we lived here (and M. just travelled here to work) M. called it Teletubbie Land because of the manufactured pond and hills that form the heart of the town. Really that should have given us ample warning about the real nature of the place we decided to move to- however temporarily. Now M. just calls it Unfriendly.

It has a smallish chain supermarket, a Dominoes Pizza, Subway, several hairdressers/beauticians, estate agents and a corner store which also hosts the Post office. There are a few cafes which cater to the lunch time needs of white collar workers.

If you were to wander through this town the first clue comes in the fact that Teletubbie Land falls in the middle of an area which consumes half the town and is just office blocks, headquarters and car parks (which you can see lit up all night long from inside). Next you will see the huge building project which is an enormous (for British standards) shopping center. Another clue comes when you realize that you practically have to accost people on the street to have your "hello", "good afternoon" or smile returned by the numerous cycling/jogging/walking people you pass.

 Next you realize none of the woodlands are managed- even the ones owned by the forestry commission have almost no undergrowth due to over crowding and lack of good husbandry. You cross only the occasional dog walker in the woodlands and when you look around only the squirrels appear to be thriving in this nature riddled countryside.
If you were to wander slightly further into the fields you would see... nothing. They are not grazed, or plowed or ostensibly used for any purpose whatsoever. 
That's not to say it has no charms or benefits at all: we see a lot of deer, practically daily, and there is apparently a LOT of hedgehogs as this autumn I've seen at least 4x more than I've ever seen in the rest of my 15 years living in England.

But how is it that a town perched in such a brilliant location with an abundance of resources and possibilities can remain so very charmless?
I believe it has a lot to do with the town's history and is a symptom of our times and follies.

When we tell people where we live the universal reply is "Oh yes- we always liked to go shopping there." The story is this: Whiteley's one claim to fame was an outlet center which drew shoppers and was poorly managed. The outlets were demolished in 2011ish and over the last year a new shopping center has been growing in its place with a lot of signs announcing its opening in the Spring of 2013.

I recently overheard a woman looking at the building works telling her son who was about 4 years old. "I'm so excited! I'm going to go [to the shopping center] every Saturday once it opens!" when the boy asked the obvious "Why?" the woman said with great conviction "Because that's what you do for FUN on Saturdays!"
An acquaintance told me "Oh we are so excited we can't wait for the shopping center to open this spring!"

We were astonished when we learned from a farmer at an agricultural show that a few decades ago Whiteley was a large Dexter cattle farm which has since been developed into the ghastly waiting room it is now. There are no chickens in the yards, no chimneys smoking from roofs and no farmers markets in the area. Sadly I believe we temporarily live in a community whose purpose and ethos is based on convenience and consumerism which is wholly dependant on nonrenewable sources of energy and lacks the simple human interactions which make a place a home.

What will we be left with in 50 years if this is the world we are grooming for our children?

xx Jo



Yarn along and Here we go again...

At present it is a daily struggle not to hyperventilate or allow my head to explode.  I'm not too worried about the head-explosion because the mess will just blend in with the carpets but I am a bit of a whiner when I pass out and get a bruise.

This is our living room as of this morning:

 

M. has gotten a job in California and is headed out tomorrow for his medical and to hammer out the details of starting dates etc (breath, breath, breath) and he will- God willing- be moving all our life across the ocean sometime around the end of December. I will follow with the children mid January (breath in, and out, breath, breath, breath).

 

Knitting at the moment is doubly important to me. I use it as a kind of  meditation: I'm not a fast knitter. When I sit and knit with my mother-in-law she has basically been knitting like a machine and has finished her project within a week and I am gently click clicking away on my project month after month. It means that I am forever growing my projects until I get bored and start another one. So I don't finish nearly as many as I start but I'm sure it keeps my blood pressure down and my brains off the carpet.
 

 

Growing on my needles at present is Delphine in a lovely golden-mustard coloured Rowan yarn. I own the book French Girl Knits which I ordered off Amazon on the weight of Delphine alone. In all honesty there are only three patterns in it I would wear so it was a bit of a wasted purchase but I adored  Delphine and Paloma so much I kept the book.
The yarn is Rowan Pima cotton DK in Dijon. Its so beautifully soft and has a lovely drape you don't always get from 100% cotton yarns. Delphine works up really fast. I had 10 cm on the needles (its knitted in the round) after just two days of picking it up when I had the chance. As lace patterns go it is super duper easy- a 4 row repeat with rows 2 and 4 being the same. The only hitch really was figuring out what the UK equivalent of 'Sportweight' yarn is which the lovely and very knowledgeable ladies in the knitting department of John Lewis were able to help with.

So here is me- going onward with my wonderful and terrifying adventure. Knitting in one hand and packing tape in the other.

Xx Jo
 

Smells Funny Round Here...

Our move has been accomplished with some tears and many many many funny moments

Settling into a rental property is ... odd. 

First there is the smell: not Bad as such- it just smells weird like someone else's space.

Then there is the furniture: (this house came furnished) we are the proud renters of a lovely comfy pair of recliner couches. They are gorgeous really. Brown leather, soft and supportive... BUT... the recliners are electric! Whose stupid idea was it to put electricity in a COUCH?!? So not only are you tempted to sit all day but you aren't even required to twitch a muscle to recline back into a comfy slobby slouch or even a sweet sleepily flat repose! I can feel my muscles withering.

Third is the carpets: Im not a really fussy person, I would be happy to live in a shack with logs to sit on (so long as I wasn't asked to be Cold) but the carpets in this house are eye sizzlingly loud. You could fry eggs on my skull after looking at these carpets for 60 seconds.

So there are a few safe ways to view the following photo: look from just the corner of your eye, construct a pin-hole camera, or (for the brave) look quickly before averting your gaze.

I am sorry.

Jo x

Hairy lipbalm and other treasures

Yeah so... still here. Saturday we move and the following Friday we complete.

I forgot over the last 5 years what a pain it is to pack an entire home! I also forgot not to hoard stuff... like: 

does a person need 200 balls of wool?

and wouldn't it be far better to chose a sewing project before buying fabric!

oh yeah and btw: you don't need any more pretty notebooks!

Please don't mistake me I don't intend to give up any of those items (besides the token few to make M. feel better) but I must try to remember!

Today was the day we dismantled the girl's bunk beds which are three high. The bottom bunk sits only millimeters off the floor and has (unbeknownst to me) been collecting an interesting array of curiosities, rather like the song the Ompa-loompas sing for Varruca Salt but this one is about K. and E.:

A hairy lipbalm no one wants, 

a smallish piece of croissant.

Lego bricks and playdough blocks,

tiny gears scavenged from clocks.

A bookmark and a doll's arm

a long forgotten bracelet charm.
These disgusting curiosities
have my children left for me.
X Jo

Hold on Tight

Wow. Things are going fast now. Too fast for me to feel comfortable or settled. I am a careful, planned out sort of introvert. I like to know what I'm doing today, tomorrow and next month. House moving is not compatible with my natural tendencies. I have a struggle with Matthew 6 vs. 33. I remind myself daily to relax, just breath and God will look after us all one way or the other.

Still I waver between packing everything, panicking its not going to go through and fretting over where we are going to move to.  We've had so many car boot sales they all know us there now and complete strangers ask how the sale is going and when we leave.

 M has grand plans that we could camp through to the beginning of August.... Ahem. I could see it working only if the rain decides to grace some other country side. At the moment it seems like a ludicrous idea full of potholes but I would do it, if it meant sleeping next to M every night rather than living 100 miles away with his folks while he rooms down here.

So our home is a quarter packed, a quarter sold, a quarter mess and a quarter chaos. If I don't post for a little while either I've moved house and we are broadband-less or a towering pile of boxes finally toppled over and squashed me.

X Jo

Easter Monday To-Do List and BIG Plans

tea, iron, sew, tea, chocolate, knit, tea, cook, draw and did I mention tea?

That's it pretty much. Its been fairly manic around here so I'm looking forward to a day of pleasure; except for that big iron in the top-left which is not my favorite chore but when your husband decides the wardrobe and drawers must be malfunctioning... needs must.

The knitting is a jumper I'm making for E. The pattern is from the March 2011 copy of Lets Knit (not a magazine I usually buy but the pattern is sooooo delicious!).  It has lovely little knots (the photo isn't as clear as I would have liked) which give the fabric a beautiful texture and grain. And the yarn really is quite special. It is Sirdar Crofter DK in Granary 57. It knits up with a beautiful fair-isle style finish which looks more clear on smaller items than this. I've had so many people comment on it as I knit! I'm thrilled with the finish- a light summer weight with a lovely stitch definition. I will try to remember to post a final picture when I finish.

 I've let the cat out of the bag properly on Facebook now so I guess I can safely say that our plans are to move to the USA.  M has a greencard application pending which we have to wait for the next step. Our house is under offer and on the verge of exchange of contracts. So we are going to move a lot closer to M's work until we are within a couple months of emigrating, then we will (thanks to the very generous and gracious kindness of my in laws) live with M's parents until we have a set moving date.  At present it looks to be early 2013 God willing.

I can't wait. Literally cannot wait. I want to be able to go down the road and knock on a door and find myself a home where I know I will be welcome and loved. Where there is no tension or fear of judgement. I want to be able to talk about my family and loved ones with other people who know and love them too. I've missed so many years of being with them all I know going home now will be very different and nothing will bring my Mom or brother back but I can make the most of those moments I have left with the rest of the people I hold dear. This year can't go quickly enough for me.

X Jo

Sunshine, Friendship and Cake

There are some weeks when all the most wonderful things come together. They are unusual in their beauty and pleasure. Time passes slowly as every minute is filled with fellowship and the bliss of being with great friends. This last week has been so brilliantly memorable I expect it will take us a while to wear out the warm glow left behind.

So monday through friday went like this:

cooking, sunshine, cooking, cooking, sunshine, sleep

sunshine, reading, friends, sunshine, walk, play, icecream, sunshine, games, sleep.

sunshine, beach, picnic, sunshine, beach, rollerblades, sushine, park, ribs, games, sleep.

 

 sunshine, pancakes, gifts, Longleat, picnic, sunshine, play, fun, animals, Alice's tea, games, sleep.

sunshine, park, sunshine, goodbye, misssing, sleep.

X Jo