Because this winter has been so difficult and long and depressing, I found myself enjoying crafty projects more than I have been in the past several years. There was a time, all the way back toward the beginnings of this blog, when I used to take my sewing machine out daily, and I used to have a knitting or crochet project started at all times. Now the sewing machine only gets pulled out when I need to adjust or repair something, and I haven’t touched the knitting needles for year. I never make anything from scratch anymore, because I fail to see value in the clothes that I make (I only see the mistakes). However, there are very few additions to my closet that haven’t suffered some sort of adjustment, because when I find something in the thrift store, I tend to see the potential in my head, rather than the reality that’s right there in front of my eyes.
I heard this song on the radio and it got me to turn it full blast in the car and sing along, which doesn’t happen often. If you click on the image, it will take you to the NPR website where you can listen to the song.
February has been a slow month in books read. Maybe because of the interminable snow days, when I felt compelled to cook more, clean more (well, not really, that’s a lie), entertain the kids more, when I generally felt more stressed, so I couldn’t enjoy my reading. But January was better, so I’m going to put than in here too.
Female figurines made of fired clay, (Cucuteni 4200 BC – 3500 BC) Source: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University.
I have been spending a lot of (mostly idle) time in front of this view up here (yes, it’s my old kitchen desk that you’re remembering, I’m sure), to avoid paying any attention to the other, wider view of the inside:
I tend to feel very cold in the mornings, when I wake up long before the sun, because the baby is an early riser. Those are the hours when I want to wrap myself in a shawl to warm up while I drink my coffee and read my blogs, before I start making breakfast for the kids and an actual effort to wake up.
I read this Vagina Monologues playwright: ‘It never said a woman is someone with a vagina’ article in the Guardian the other day and it just added up to a lot of confusion I have been feeling lately about the dismissive attitude I see projected often towards individual experiences of feminism for the reason of not being inclusive enough. (This other Guardian articles,Class is permanent and Stop this stream of sob stories from self-pitying middle-class writers – we’ve suffered enough, have also contributed to the confusion.)
I’m sitting on the sofa reading a murder mystery located in a freezing Sweden spring (Asa Larsson’s Until Thy Wrath Be Past–really good, by the way). The stove, where the chicken stew (my mother’s recipe) is simmering, imparts a delicious warmth to the whole house. The light is turning crepuscular. I’m warm in my wool slippers and cardigan. The baby in his crib upstairs. Every once in a while I can hear him muttering something in his sleep.