This Sally Mann photograph speaks to me. What if I didn’t pay any bills for several months in order to have this photograph. Is that irresponsible? See the whole show at Jackson Fine Art.
After all the reflective posting I’ve done today in order to feel that I’ve processed these past few months, here’s what today looks like:
This past weekend I got so much reading in! Sean spent a lot of time with Snowden, playing on the floor, taking her out for a run in the jogger, feeding her–all the usual stuff but we didn’t have any other plans. First time in many many months-a year probably-I had all the time I needed and wanted to read and sketch ideas and browse the Internet and make lists and cook some good food too.
My mother-in-law loaned me The Creative Family and Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. The parenting book is excellent. I read several chapters with great interest in the suggestions for how to raise children in the company of other families in which there might be differences in parenting styles. The authors give excellent ideas on how to talk about parenting perspectives with people that one might share a lot in common with, but not everything; a guide for weathering potential conflicts in a constructive way. For my own parenting, I found the “toilet teaching” chapter to have great suggestions that I think will be a useful bridge for us between elimination communication and 100% child-instigated toilet use. I highly recommend this book for thoughtful, intentional parenting. It’s a more “grown up” book than I find the Sear’s books to be.
The Creative Family has fun craft ideas and Amanda Soule does a nice job of explaining how creative living is for everyone, regardless of age. I love how she lives her life right along side her three children without feeling (apparently) like she’s lost herself in her mothering and is no longer the individual she wants to be. Sure, becoming a parent changes all of us, but we can still be ourselves and have a rich, balanced life. Again, intentional seems to be a key word in parenting books I’m drawn to.
Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food justified my hefty expenditure at PCC this weekend. I find that we are making even more food shifts. We’ve always eaten very healthy foods; with the exception of those very convenient exercise/nutrition bars we take hiking (actually, I can only stomach the Lara Bars these days: a three or four raw ingredient mixture), we eat virtually no packaged foods. (One time I read Sean an article out of a women’s magazine, Real Simple I think, touting ridding your pantry of nacho chips, wheat thins, Milano cookies, and M&M’s for weight loss: Sean, in an uncharacteristically high pitched voice, said “Wait! How come we don’t have those things?”) However I’ve been thrifty in buying non-organic butter and sometimes-horrors!-the 365 brand milk from Whole Foods. Now I’m a true convert: we need the pastured organic cow butter and the single source whole milk from Bow Washington, yep the un-homogenized in the glass bottle. I won’t explain myself, just read the book. This is an actual picture of the cow that produced the milk in our refrigerator:
Not pictured is a memoir that I read this weekend called Breaking Clean by Judy Blunt. It is a well written coming of age account set on a rough Prairie ranch in Southern Montana. I can’t say I identify with the author, but I found her storytelling fascinating and disturbing at times. My mom has been recommending I read it for over a year. I finally remembered to put it on my library hold list and now I’m telling you to read it too!
For pure junk food, or creative inspiration if I need to justify myself, I read the VF article on Calvin Klein and now I’m on a mission to hunt out images of his 1970’s collections. Do I need a trench coat? I also indulged in the Lanvin Spring/Summer 2008 fashion show online. MUST BUY QUALITY SEWING MACHINE! I’m so inspired it pains me.
Don’t bother with this month’s Gourmet-it’s boring. Made more tasty vegan cookies out of Veganomicon, chewy raspberry chocolate, and another stew from Cynthia Lair’s Feeding the Whole Family. Quilts in the Sun is pure warm weather sewing eye candy. What a great Saturday and Sunday. Thank you Sean for letting me read so much and spend so much time at my desk!
Snowden is now 15 months old but we never blogged about her first birthday. Above is a picture of a photo display I put up on our wall to celebrate her first anniversary-some birth photos and one photo for each month of 2007. We invited our immediate family over for a party–AND THEY ALL CAME! (Except dearest M and J but they were very far away and we see them all the time so they made up for it) It’s not that I’m surprised that everyone cared, I’m surprised that everyone could make it, and made it a priority! It was a big group of people and made me all emotional to think back over Snowden’s first year and how these people in the room are HER FAMILY. It was a fun afternoon get together. Sean and I assembled some chicken sandwiches, cheese and pear quesadillas, a butternut squash gallette and fruit salad. I made a coconut cake and a big mess in our kitchen making true pina-coladas for everyone. It was very festive and Snowden received very lovely and thoughtful gifts.
This party was the weekend after her birthday. I want to make special note of what we did on January 16th, her actual birthday. As is Baughn family tradition from way, way back, we went to Vera’s house in the evening for Pagliacci Pizza and salad and a cake. I felt strongly about celebrating Snowden’s birthday in our own home but since the 16th was a weeknight we didn’t have any plans and I knew it was important to Sean and Vera in particular to celebrate a birth at Vera’s home. We went over and Snowden had a nice evening, she blew our her candle and opened the gift of a great little wooden/cloth three wheel cart. She also received one of Vera’s traditional birthday cards: a card holding $2: $1 for her first year, and $1 to grow on. At the time, and especially in retrospect I’m so happy we went over and celebrated that special day with her. Vera died less than 1 month later leaving a large hole in the fabric of the family. I’m thankful for the memory we have of celebrating Snowden’s first birthday with Vera in her last month. It seems like the passing of a torch. Here is a picture of Snowden and Vera meeting for the first time:
Also, in the spirit of reflection, this is a bit of my journaling after Snowden was born: “So the nurse laid you down on my bare chest so we were skin to skin. You were all the softness in the world. First I rested my hand on your back-I could feel the shape of your ribs but you had a soft padding over them. . . I nestled my face down to touch your very warm, damp head . . .You seemed very relaxed laying on me. I tried to look at your face but I admit, I mostly just felt you. The first time I really looked at your face was when they sat me up so I could nurse you for the first time. . . Remember, I didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl. I felt somewhat detached and unsure of my relationship to my growing belly. When Sean said “it’s a girl”, I said, “Are you sure?” and everyone laughed! I really, really wanted a girl. I really, really wanted you! This was the first moment when I could let my guard down and just love you.” Here’s a photo of me holding Snowden for the first time:
