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  • Monday Miscellany

    It is great to have G home and things seem to be working out well even though there were all kinds of things, mostly little things, about having someone else living with us that I had not thoroughly considered. Still I think it is a success even though I am now the only female in a house with four males (two feline). And to think I thought it was my house.

     

    The big 55" television was a good idea despite the fact that G's initial reaction, when he came home and the TV was not yet installed, was that he didn't need it or want it.  Since it has been installed he has been thrilled with the picture and the sound, and for once the younger people are asking him to turn the volume up rather than the other way around.

     

    I underestimated the full entertainment value of a television installation.  I thought having the installation after G came home would be a pain and I was disappointed that I couldn't schedule it sooner.  Instead, I couldn't lure him away and he was fascinated by everything even though he admitted he didn't understand most of it.  The Geek squad was also very accommodating and solicitous with him and took time to answer all his questions.

     

    Now that I have a big TV, getting time to watch my shows is proving difficult.  G and R have remarkably similar taste in television and can spend hours with CNN, BBC, HGTV or NatGeo.  I can tolerate any of these channels for an hour or two here and there, but after that I am start plucking the gray hairs out of my head and muttering to myself. Luckily I can walk away, or I might soon be completely hairless.  Tuesday night, the day the new set was installed I was crawling around in the dark in the back of the living room trying to hook up the older small tv to a cable outlet so I could watch The Good Wife in a corner in the dark. 

     

    I can't find the battery charger for my camera or the spare battery although I know exactly where I put them.  I know the box I put them in; I don't know where I put the box.  I can only assume it will turn up eventually.  

     

    I actually got all my Christmas shopping done.  Wrapping is a completely different story.

     

     

     

     

  • Winter is icumen in

    Picture 31 And spring has arrived in my mailbox, courtesy of Stella McCartney via Bergdorf Goodman.

     

    Pre-ordered, with an expected January delivery, I thought it would brighten my winter spirits.  And here it is ready for me to jet away to warm climes for the holidays, although it would work for a holiday party as well.  In reality I shall probably display it on my sewing room wall while I dream of spring, both sartorially and physically.

     

    The cut is simple.  It is true I could have made if except that I could not, in all likelihood, have found this fabric, and I bought this dress for the fabric more than anything else, or perhaps for the perfect combination of cut and fabric.

     

    I can say however, that the shape skims the body and looks slimmer on me than on the model even though she is far far slimmer than I.  Or perhaps I am just deceiving myself.  But then I am all for a bit of self deception on occasion, it is the perfect armament against the vagaries of life.  

     

    Oh and it is longer as well, hitting just above the knee on my 5'9" frame.

     

    photo courtesy of Bergdorf Goodman.

  • Thursday morning

    I haven't found a new groove yet, not that everything is rushed or panicked, just not quite settled.  This morning, however, the house is quiet and I am the only one awake. I always enjoy these silent mornings. When G was away the mornings were my best time; nights were the worst.  But even before, before G would wake when I would wake, and wake me frequently during the night, I would rise first and enjoy the quiet time in the house, time where I could sit and reflect and let my thoughts wander, where life seemed slower and calmer whether I was engaged in some chore or activity or just staring out at the Hudson River letting my mind rest and wander. 

     

    Even as I sit and write this however, I can see myself starting to itch with busy-ness, with that culturally inbred idea that it is time to get busy.  "The early bird catches the worm", "Time is money", these shiboleths still haunt me even as I realize that true as they may be, they are not always relevant to life or even necessarily desirable maxims on which to shape one's days.  "Slow and steady wins the race" or "take time to smell the daisies" come to mind, reminding me that sometimes what is important can be lost in the rush.   In my lifetime alone everyday life has grown seemingly exponentially faster, more rushed, more busy, more accomplished.  I am not convinced that we are better for it.

     

    And here I am writing a post that is completely different from the post I intended to write and my time has flown.  G is up and restless following what was apparently a restless night, and Moisés and Sam have somehow managed to knock a painting off a wall.  The day has officially begun and I must go.

     

     

  • Home Again, Home Again

    G is home.

     

    All looks promising.

     

    I am exhausted.

     

    I shall return when I can coherently write longer sentences.

  • Monday

    I'm back online and putting my life, or at least my house, back together again.  It seems like my house is part of who I am so I am feeling like this is as much my life as it is just the place I live.   A few things seem obvious now.

     

    I was crazy to decide to switch the sewing room and master bedroom at the same time as I am putting in new floors and redoing the two bedrooms at the other end of the house.  It was twice as much work, or more like three times as much work.  Now pretty much everything we own is piled up in the living room, dining room, and family rooms and it is not a pretty sight.  

     

    At the same time, I still feel that even though every muscle in my body aches, that this was the best time to do all of this because there are no distractions and no one's life except my own is upended by all the chaos.  G has a limited tolerance for chaos, although a higher tolerance than I for everyday mess, so it is good that he is not here.  And given past experience, I also know that if I didn't do it now it would never get done.  I felt suffocated under the weight of too many things left  undone, and this overwhelming urge to do and finish has been very therapeutic. If I was having trouble sleeping when G first went to the hospital and rehab, I am not having that problem now.  I fall into bed exhausted and I awake eager to face another day.

     

    I have too much stuff and some of it has to go, including books, fabric, and yarn.  I believe in having a stash, and in having materials at hand to foment creativity.  But there is too much.  G was not the only one clinging to the past.  And as I have a renewed appreciation for the tenuousness of life, I also realize that I don't want to be faced with having to move this much stuff ever again, that stuff is a burden, and much of it needs to be let go.  Neither G nor I are minimalists, we both tend to collect things we love or that inspire us, and there will always be a wealth of things in our lives.  This too is part of who we are.  We both bristle at being told that we should save less (don't even bother telling me what I don't need) but we have both also realized that we need less. Balance must be found.   I will still be sorting through my things when G returns at the end of the week; we will tackle his closet and his collections together when he returns. 

     

    Oddly, in the midst of all this chaos I am strangely happy and happy with my home, happier than I have been in a long time.  I am eager for G to come home and I hope he likes the changes I have made, but I won't be devastated if he doesn't.  I have done what I had to do to make the house easier for him, and also what I had to do to make the house better for me, and I had put that later part, the "better for me" part aside for far too long.  This house was his long before I was added to the mix and although it has become more ours over the years, it was never a place we created together, a place without its own history, a history more his than mine, and often a reminder of failed expectations and dreams lost.  I admit that I have banished much of the furnishings that dated from that time before me, that harkened back to life with that first family, and that the new furnishings reflect my taste, although I have tried to keep his preferences in mind at every step along the path.  Perhaps it is about time.

     

    I realize that I may not be in this house forever and yet now I am happy here again and could happily stay here for a long time.  This space, that felt like a prison not all that long ago, now feels filled with promise and I hope it will continue to feel this way.  I hope that G's homecoming will be filled with promise as well, that the changes I have made are good, and that he will see the hope and love behind the changes, not just the loss.  And when it becomes time to go, and this will happen because the world is a tenuous place, it will be sad and but also easier because of all the work I have already done.  I realize that we were both trapped by changes that were happening faster than we could adapt to them, and trapped by the weight of memory and expectation.  The weight of our collective past was tying us down both spiritually and physically.    I hope that we are coming to a place where some of that burden has been lifted, and we can shake out the remaining cobwebs and just enjoy what live has to offer.

  • Radio Silence

    Today I have started dismantling the sewing room/office in preparation for moving it and creating a new bedroom/office and separate sewing/fiber room.  As soon as I post this the computer will be taken down for the duration.  Neither room will be finished over the weekend but I do hope to have the computer and my network back up by Monday sometime.

     

    In fact I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  Since moving the books, I have made no further progress with the future caretaker's room and there are still bookcases to be dismantled and my fabric and yarn stash to be moved.  Moved where I don't yet know, but there should be available space created in the reconfiguring of various closets and purging of unused things.  Luckily I do clean out my closets periodically.  The last time G's closet was emptied was 25 years ago, just before we were married.  It is a task I still dread.

     

    Overall though, I am happy with what I am accomplishing.  It is probably more than was absolutely necessary, but the opportunity was here, and I have been too long tied to unfinished projects around the house to settle for put things off again.  I have put my own needs and desires second for far to long as well. I am creating a functional space for G, but also a space for me. As exhausting and daunting as the task may seem at times, I am as happy to be doing things for myself as I am to be ready to welcome my sweetie home.  Hopefully by the time I am reconnected to the world wide web, the heavy work will be done, and I will be able to relax and slow down.  I don't plan to have the new fiber room all together before G comes home, just to have enough order in our space that I can finish up in bits and pieces and still enjoy our time together.

     

     

  • A change in attitude, with chairs

    Life was so different two months ago.  Looking back now, my thoughts at that time seem strange and foreign to me even though I know that of course they were not strange, just different.  The change is not necessarily bad.

     

    On that particular weekend, the one in my thoughts now, G and I went to an exhibition of hand-crafted furniture by the Hudson Valley Furniture Makers.  It was a small show, just the right size, and we were impressed by the quality of the work.  Of course we were pulled to the aesthetic of some craftspeople more than others, and there were two in particular with whom we were determined to follow up.

     

    Picture 26 One of these was Rob Hare, and his dining chairs in particular captured our imaginations.  We had been looking for new dining chairs, off and on, for the past six years, ever since we had taken a spur of the moment detour to Prosperity South Carolina where we wandered into a store called Dixie Heart Pine and left as the proud owners of a new dining table.  

     

    We liked these chairs and we both found them comfortable and aesthetically appealing.  I liked the wood and hoped they would work as a bridge between the modern and traditional aspects of our dining room.  G, who tends to be drawn to glass and steel, was attracted to the wrought steel supports.  We both hoped they would work with our table and we spoke with Mr. Hare about potentially buying some chairs early next year. I was imagining myself in a house filled with beautifully made, hand crafted furniture.

     

    But then, as you know, life changed.  A week later G took a fall that seemed to begin a downward spiral. Two weeks after that he was in the hospital and I was faced with changing everything in our lives.

     

    By the time he we discussed the future and G's needs if he was to come home I realized that I needed to radically change the way we lived in our current house.  I needed furniture and I needed it right away.  I needed chairs that were not too low (our old chairs) and I needed at least one sturdy dining chair with arms.  I thought about those fine chairs briefly, but I realized that I couldn't really wait for a set of chairs to be made, and that fine custom made chairs, when I was contemplating a life with a spouse who had trouble getting around, with caregivers in the house, were out of the question both financially and practically.  I needed something that would work with the house, that I could get right away, and that I would not fret about if it got banged up.  Hopefully I would also find something that I could accept stylistically within the above parameters.

     

    IMG_4228 I went to a furniture store that gaurantees delivery within days.  A store that G would dismiss as "cheap s***".  And I found everything on my list.  In one day I furnished a family room, a dining room (chairs only) and two bedrooms, and I am happy with my choices.  To tell the truth, my elitist self was surprised.  But the other part of me, the part that just wants a room that looks nice and is comfortable was perfectly content.  The part of me that says I just need a house that works, not furniture for the generations, is happier than she has been with the house in a long time. I should let that part of me out a little more often.  And I particularly like my dining room, the one with chairs that match, chairs that look good with the table, chairs that are comfortable.  It is a frivolous thing, this caring about appearances, about just wanting the world to look perfect and perfectly put together, but it is still a valid part of who I am, frivolous or not.

     

    The chairs I chose are not particularly contemporary, but neither is my table.  I learned that contemporary dining sets, at least at this particular store, don't tend to include armchairs, or that if they do, the arms are too low to be useful.   My new furniture might now win any design contest, but it works, and that in and of itself makes me very happy.  

     

    This doesn't mean that I no longer yearn for beautiful hand-crafted things.  There is much on Rob Hare's website that appeals to me, and I am not giving up on my dream of working with him someday.  There is a part of me that wants to live with beautiful furniture, furniture that was made by hand, not churned out in some giant factory, and this part of me lives on.  At some other point in my life such things may be possible again.  I certainly believe so, just as I believe strongly in supporting craftsmanship, in buying and using beautiful things, in taking care and pride in the things we gather, be they precious or commonplace, and in gathering things with thought and care within whatever parameters life sets for us.

     

    ** photo of rob hare's dining chairs courtesy of robhare-furnituremaker.com.

     

     

     

     

  • Knitting again

    IMG_4243 Last night I picked up my knitting for the first time since the Thursday before Thanksgiving.  In all my rush and business and exhaustion I had forgotten how calming it is to knit even a few rows.

     

    And so, after my tasks were done for the day, I sat in a comfortable chair with a cat, a glass of wine and yarn, and I spent some time creating something beautiful just for me.

     

  • Sorting through it all

    It's been over a week since I've posted here, and even more time since I have managed to reply to comments.  I have been a hit-and-run reader of email, and all of your comments have greatly cheered me, even though I may have been too overwhelmed to respond.

    In fact, I have been mostly out of touch with the world at large since before Thanksgiving, caught up as I was in a frenzy of doing.  Then, with family here, and the house full, I was caught up in a different kind of frenzy, one I had sorely missed.    Their presence filled my heart and helped me catch up on a bit of sleep too, allowed me precious time to catch up with myself and make a little peace with my place in the world.  

     

    IMG_4240

    But now the family is gone and most of the biggest items on the "getting" list are in order.  Now I am left with the sorting and moving and reconfiguring of our lives.  In some ways this is the hardest part.  G must move to the smaller room on the other end of the house and his things must move with him.  This will require some sort of elimination and it feels strange to be sorting through his things and thereby the artifacts of his life while he is only a few miles waiting to come home.  Even though I know he will not be able to come up the few steps to get to this room; even though I now realize that his closet had become a source of great stress for  him; even as I realize that he is content with the simplicity of few choices and easy decisions; even as I think of all these things,I feel the responsibility of sorting through the remnants of a life lived and saved and the weight of making the right decisions.

     

    And of course, sorting through G's things are only one part.  My small library will become a small bedroom for a live-in caregiver.  I had help moving the books this past weekend and they are now piled up, almost one thousand strong, on the living room floor where they will sit, one step up from the main level of the house, while new floors go in and G returns home. I am not yet sure of their fate.  Shelves will go back up in other rooms, but that will have to wait for the new year, after all the floors have been installed, but sacrifices will have to be made.   

     

    G struggles with the loss of his view of himself as a man in control of life, a man who goes to work, a man who fixes people, a man who hopes to travel. His life now encompasses a smaller sphere, but still a sphere where there is time spent with loved ones.

     

    I too struggle with changing images of self and yet to some extent the loss of books seems minor in comparison.  But books too are defining.  I have always seen myself as a person who has a library, who loves books, who collects books that I have read, that mean something to me and who also collects books I have not read, books full of the promise of worlds unexplored, of knowledge not yet gained. But books are not everything; I am just not yet sure of the balance point. 

     

    The decisions seem overwhelming at times and at other times simple.  Perhaps being a person who over-thinks everything is not always an advantage. The days are short, the nights are long, the decisions are hard.  And yet the destination is clear, it is just the path that remains somewhat hidden in fog.

     

  • Planters in Winter

    IMG_4223 It was finally time to turn my attention to the planters this past weekend.  The remains of summer greenery needed to be cleared, pots needed to be cleaned and stored, and those pots which remain outside year-round needed their seasonal greenery.

     

    In seasons past I would run around to several nurseries to find just what I wanted, and I would usually do it slightly earlier in the season, while there was still a larger selection, although after the end of season sales had begun.  

     

    This year I was late and short of time so only went to one nursery, where I contented myself with what was available.  Usually I am looking for height in the tall clay planters by the front door, but the options were limited.  Surprisingly, I found some very nice dwarf hinoki cypresses which I thought would work in combination with winterberry branches. I hoped to put two cypress in each pot, but they were too large, so one will have to do.  The pots feel a little sparse, but I do think they will be lovely when the snow falls.

    IMG_4226 More hinoki cypress and some arborvitae have taken up residence down by the garage in the large zinc planters.  These had been pulled out decoratively for the summerl, but of course in the winter they are dangerously close to the driveway where they could be crushed by the plows, so they have been pushed back against the safety of the wall.  

     

    All of these planters have deep gouges and crush marks where they have met with plows past and this winter may be their last, as the bottoms are falling out of two planters now.

     

    Luckily I also found some fabulous, very architectural looking, black planters made of a durable polyester resin that I believe will be fabulous with the house and landscaping.  Perusing the sizes and shapes available already has my mind spinning with ideas for the next season.