life of seven

18

We had such a wonderful time celebrating Cate's 18th birthday with family and friends. A friend suggested making the party a fancy dress up one, with live background music (plenty of willing participants for that around here!) and I knew that would be perfect. We bought plenty of bouquets and spread them through the house, lit candles, and asked people to bring fancy appetizers. But, the funnest part of the night was the live entertainment portion, where everyone was treated to a cello solo, a euphonium/piano duet, and several performances of Cate's favorite songs. So, lots of Hamilton, La La Land, and The Greatest Showman was heard. It was so much fun and made the night feel really special, which is what I wanted. I wanted my girl, who is so grown up now, to have a grown up party and feel as loved and special as she deserves. Which is a lot. I know it was a memorable evening for her, one she won't forget. I'm sure, if I continue blogging frequently, I will write more thoughts on what it is like to have my children transition from kids to adults. For now, I will say, that it is magical. It's amazing. I'm so proud of them I could just burst. I miss newborns, and toddlers, of course, but having grown-up Cate in my life a close friend, and watching her set goals and achieve them, is indescribable. The whole parenting package is absolutely miraculous as I've seen it unfold for 18 years now. So many unexpected delights and fun and laughter, and, now, as my kids are getting older, the discovery that I have made friends for life. 

Mr. Knightly

***Finds blog site, checks login info, dusts off keyboard, wiggles fingers in anticipation*** 

My husband paid me what I took as a compliment the other day, though it perhaps wasn't intended as such. "Your worst failing in life," he began.

"Oh, no Ben," I groaned. "Do we have to have this conversation?" anticipating what was to come. One thing you need to know about Ben. His Jane Austen doppleganger, in personality, at any rate, would be Mr. Knightly.

Have you ever looked for your, and your friends' and families' literary dopplegangers? Those characters in literature that you recognize immediately because they are so much like you, or remind you exactly of another person? It is great fun. One of mine is the rather obscure Katherine Krupnik, the absentminded, artistic, excellent cook if she remembers to plan dinner, schedule-phobic, family-adoring mother of Anastasia Krupnik. Yep. Pretty much describes me to a T. But back to what I was saying.

You would think it would be wonderful to be married to Mr. Knightly. Actually, it is. Mr. Knightly, undoubtedly, would be my pick over, say, Mr. Darcy, or Mr. Bingley, Colonel Brandon, Mr Ferrars, or, borrowing from the Hunger Games, Gale, or Peeta (no contest there- who even invited those two schmucks into the competition???). Now, when you bring up Gilbert Blythe, the competition gets a bit tougher, but in general, I can say wholeheartedly that Mr. Knightly from Emma is one of my favorite literary male characters. So, it is lucky I married my own Mr. Knightly.

But here's the thing with Mr Knightly: the "Badly done, Emma! Badly done!" scene. Emma deserved that, and knows she deserved it. See, Mr. Knightly is not afraid to speak his mind when he thinks something should be corrected or rectified. And, so, being married to Mr.Knightly's doppelganger, perhaps you can imagine, has its own set of peculiar challenges. Ben and I devote time, lots and lots and lots of time, evaluating ourselves, our marriage, our family, and our lives, to discuss what's working, and what's not, what could be improved, and so on. Because of this, I have him to thank for helping me come up with systems to make our house run smoothly, homeschooling plans where everyone knows what is supposed to happen each day, meals that get on the table most evenings (even though I can space out about that at times: "Dinner? We need to eat dinner again tonight? But I made dinner last night! Do we really need to eat again so soon?" Told you I was like Katherine Krupnik! Thanks to Ben's help with coming up with a plan, that rarely happens anymore), a house that gets cleaned three times a day, time for me to spend with God each morning.

All these things have bettered our lives, even though they have been challenging to implement at first. That's the thing, us creative types don't realize at first that a clean workspace and environment actually encourages creativity, not inhibits it. While a detailed daily schedule really doesn't fit me well (I've tried), instead, having a daily routine that I stick to quite closely really makes the homeschooling day go more smoothly for everyone. Each child knows what is supposed to happen every day, and what their jobs and responsibilities are.

These things, I have to thank, in large part, to my Mr. Knightly. 

At times, though, being married to a real life Mr. Knightly can have it's own set of frustrations. Being reminded frequently of things that need to be corrected can feel overwhelming at times. In the book, he tells Emma something like (I don't have the exact words in front of me), "I have rebuked and corrected you, and you have born it wonderfully!" Every now and then, to keep my spirits up, and to make fun of himself for how high a standard he sets, at times, for our lives, Ben jokingly quotes that exact phrase to me. 

Anyway, the other day, Ben said to me, "Do you want to know what your worst failing is?"

"Not particularly, no," I groaned.

"Your worst failing," he continued, ignoring my scrunched up face and the fact I crumpled myself in a heap upon hearing the words (we were both laughing, by the way), "your worst failing is that you have not been faithful to your blog where you take pictures of our kids, and write about our lives, and put our stories as they all grow up, into your blog."

"That's my worst failing?" I repeated, straightening up. "Wow, you must think I'm amazing. How can that be my worst failing?"

"You are amazing."

"Oh." See, it's really a great thing to be married to Mr. Knightly.

"But I want you to write your blog."

"Oh. Okay. I agree. Actually, yeah, I really miss recording all of that down, too."

One of my dearest friends, Tarah, is akin to my husband in that she is not afraid to bring up the hard topics. Every now and then, she sends me a text. "WRITE YOUR BLOG!" Well, she happened to be over that night. "Write your blog, Jen!"

"Okay, okay, I'll do it! Okay!"

Yesterday, I saw her at church. "Write your blog!"

"Okay, okay, I will!"

And so I have, today, at least. 

I'll leave you with a picture of Cate on her 18th (for real!) birthday.

Impulsive

We were looking at old photos on Facebook last night, and my heart broke a little, realizing how many memories were on there, even though I don't feel that I put all that many photos up. And I realized I had hardly taken a picture since my last post, back in December. And what of all the memories about life I have written about on here? That does it, I thought, and first thing this morning pulled up Life of Seven and decided to post. I'm a person of extremes, I believe, always have been. It works for and against me, and I have tried to become more balanced over the years. But the times it works in my favor is when I decide something is a good idea and go with it. For instance, reading. Last year I read so little beside audio books. The beginning of this year, my sister printed out a checklist for friends who would want to do her invented "52 book challenge." To make a long story short, I scoffed at the idea initially. There was no way I could possibly read that much this year. But I got to thinking about it while I heard my kids talk about how fun it would be to try to reach that reading goal and realized how silly it is that I don't read more. I used to read all the time. I used to read voraciously, in every spare moment of the day. I used to go to the Denver Public Library and leave with a brown paper grocery bag filled to the brim with books (granted, a huge percentage of them were Babysitter's club books and the like) and read non stop for about three days before I finally slowed down, but got dangerously near to the end of my library stack before the three weeks before the next library visit were up.

"Where is that girl?" I thought when faced with Stephanie's 52 book challenge. Years ago, I would have scoffed at the 52 book challenge list because that would have taken me closer to a month than a year. But once I decided I wanted to find that "girl who reads" again, I started picking up books in my free time, like I used to. No lingering over the decision or easing in to it. No, reading is a great thing, and I'm going to do it, I determined. So here I am at the end of February and I find myself ahead of schedule, ahead of the schedule that I thought was impossible just a few weeks before (So far this year, I've read or listened to 12 books, in case you were wondering). 

My impulsiveness relates to my blog post today as well, and even blogging in general. One day a few years ago, I decided to start a blog, because I wanted to write more, and have more motivation to take more pictures of my kids. Which actually doesn't sound very virtuous, now that I think of it, hah! "Hey kids, I probably wouldn't bother to take pictures of you on my own, but now that I have a blog, lets get some quick pictures of you riding your bikes." "Look, Clemmie's walking! Better let the blog know." Shallow reasons or not, there's no denying that I've missed recording details and pictures from life when I haven't posted regularly. Well, why wait around? I decided. Let's rev up the engines again and have a go. So that's what I'm doing today.

 And now let me take a second and tell you about those photos: First of all, Clemmie was in a great mood and smiling for the camera. The problem is, when you ask her to smile, she squinches up her face and closes her eyes. So out of the different pictures I took, only a few of them showed her eyes open. But she's actually not pouting. I feel like the luckiest mom in the world when I look at those pictures of my four beautiful girls.

And the final ones, why yes, that is Cate on her 17th birthday. The strawberry cake was pink and lovely and tasted...well, it was okay. Beautiful food doesn't necessarily always taste good.

And about Cate: I'm going to just copy and paste what I wrote on Facebook the morning of her birthday, because my day is getting away from me and there are children who are supposed to be doing school work right now but are actually playing while my back is turned. 

So, here is what I wrote about Cate, and I still mean it with all my heart: "I love this girl SO MUCH! Happy 17th birthday, Cate! Your first moments on this earth feel like they happened just yesterday, and at the same time, a million years ago. Over the last 17 years, while I've taught you to do things like talk and read and ride a bike and share with your siblings and how you should tell the truth and love God, at the same time, you were teaching me just as much, if not more, about life. About how precious relationships are. About the fierce love a mother feels for her child. About turning to God when you feel hopelessly inadequate. About putting time and effort and work into something, and reaping the glorious rewards for years (and years) to come. The privilege of being your mother has made me a better person than I could have ever been without you. Happy birthday, my darling. Every day that goes by, you become more lovely and sweet and good and interesting and fun than you were the day before. God blessed my life so much when he gave me you!"

 

Expanding horizons

The funny thing is Cate isn't the softball player of the house (there she is, on the left, sitting). That would be Gideon, who is quite a good catcher, pitcher, and hitter. The even funnier thing is that they needed a sub that had to be a girl, since it's a co-ed league. Guess who filled in for them. Yes. Me. 

Let me explain that I have not had anything to do with a game of baseball since I was in second grade at gym class and kept having the ball pitched to me, over and over and over again. I kept swinging. No hits. How the boys teased me. I'm sure it was in tears that I walked off base and silently vowed to never humiliate myself again when it came to ball games.

The things I do for my children. I agreed to play right field for the church's team, so that they wouldn't have to forfeit the game. I was told no balls would come my way. Then, in practice they tried pitching to me, and to my utter shock, the ball and bat connected on nearly every try (it is slow pitch softball, so I suppose not worth bragging about). I was so relieved to know I could somehow hit the ball that I didn't feel too humiliated when I walked onto the field for the real game. Other than pulling both hamstrings when chasing after a ball and the fact that it rained during half of the evening game, it wasn't too bad. Yes, I connected with the ball enough to hit two fouls and finally actually hitting it, though because of my injury, I couldn't make it to first base in time. Well, you know, that's what you get sometimes when you need to hire a sub. Haha. Cate made it to home twice, and our team ultimately scored 13 runs. Which wasn't good enough to win, since the score ended up at 23-13. I will say, though, that besides my injury, both the first baseman and the catcher were also injured and couldn't run for the balls either. So, not too bad, really, for a group of young adults who don't normally play softball. 

"Live a little," I remind the kids often. I guess I needed that reminder, too.

 

 

Sixteen

Last post, I mentioned "the sixteen year old", all casually. There is nothing casual about this; my girl had her sixteenth birthday last month, while life was a little crazy and blogging got put to the side for a bit.

I adore Cate, and I think it's safe to say that everyone who knows her adores her as well. You hear a lot of cliches about teenagers, and even more about sixteen year olds at that, but I must say Cate is a dream come true. Yes, she has a phone and does a decent amount of texting her friends. And, yes, she loves to stay up late and sleep in; and once in a while, we butt heads on occasion, but none of this stops her from being such a charming person that I get to spend my life with each day. I've said it many times before, but while each stage of my children's life is so fleeting, and I feel heartbroken that those years will never return, I'm learning to always look forward to what is to come. If ever a child eased a mother's transition from parenting little kids to parenting big kids, it would be Cate. Cool, calm, consistent; sweet, smart, once in a while sassy; lovely and ladylike. She's been such a delight from the moment we first met. I'll never forget those long wet lashes blinking right at me letting me know she was fine, and that I would do a fine job being her mother. 16 was a big year for me. Actually that's the year I gasp met my husband!! Well, I don't plan to let Cate learn to drive until she's at least thirty-two, so meeting her future husband will be close to impossible before that (Joking. Mostly joking). It's hard to believe she's so near to being an adult, however, I will happily encourage all the play and silliness her heart still desires. I wish I could have made her a doll this year, like I have for so many other birthdays. But on the other hand, once dolls are stowed away and other interests take there place, I've learned that life is far from boring. The child who is still engaged in toys and dolls and playing morning tonight is not really capable yet of long, deep, conversations about politics, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or the Bible, or smirking at Lemony Snicket quotes, or admiring Jane Austen ones, like Cate loves to do. I also don't have buckle her in her carseat any more, or get her dressed, or cut her food. Sometimes I wonder if being a parent is nothing but lamenting what's gone while being thrilled about what took its place. At any rate, that's 95% of what a parent blogs about. Clearly. (my apologies)

This year, I tried to give Cate a more grown up birthday, by taking her out to breakfast, going with a few friends to a fancy fondue restaurant for dessert, and a shared birthday party with a friend from church, who has a birthday the same day as Cate. It was more like a birthday week, which is perhaps what sixteen should be. I believe I truly surprised Cate with the scarf you see in the photo that I knitted up for her. I'd been working on it for several months, and actually it was completely finished but for one stripe and weaving in the ends, back in December. Then, about two days before her birthday I realized it still needed to be finished on time. I quickly did the last bit of work on it and hoped she wouldn't notice. Then, the night before her birthday I blocked it on the floor. Somehow, on her birthday morning, when she opened it, she was completely surprised. She loves it and wears it all the time. It's my second Spring Fever I've knit, and I really don't think will be my last. It is such a fun knit.

Well, happy birthday, my darling, darling Darling. Those sixteen years passed by in the blink of an eye.

And now you are going to have to forgive me in the coming few weeks. Three more birthdays are right around the corner, that I will share with you. If you feel overwhelmed with all the celebrating, perhaps that will give you a taste of what the spring months are like for me over here: how to make each child feel extra loved as they reach another milestone, how to work at not getting lazy by the time the last birthday, Jude's, on May tenth rolls around. Each child is important and deserves their own special day. So, next post, you can read a bit about Gideon.

 

Beauty in the Every Day

 

School work is what's been happening around here. And knitting squeezed in while I'm helping Jude find "P-P-P" sounds. Despite feeling like my busiest homeschool year yet, with five kids to teach, and a baby and a VERY busy three year old to entertain, it also feels like my most productive year yet. It's fun how the busier and the more work I have to do, the more productive I am. I have no idea why that is. We watched an Andy Griffith episode the other night where Andy tries to free Aunt Bea of her duties by hiring an English butler for a short time. Aunt Bea begins to feel sad and depressed and Opie eventually tells the butler that Aunt Bea used to always sing, when she was going about the house working, but that she hasn't sung for a while. And then the sweet butler puts two and two together and  realizes that he's worked Aunt Bea out of a job and left her feeling useless, so he finds an opportunity to get himself fired, and Aunt Bea gets straight to work cleaning up and cooking and she's happy again.

I couldn't help but understand poor Aunt Bea during the show. I'm pretty sure I'm the same way. Not when it comes to housework, really, because honestly I'm not a great housekeeper, but I just don't care to have huge chunks of leisure time with nothing productive to do. I get pretty antsy and then I just can't wait to get back to daily life and find some outlet for work, and with it, creativity. I probably get it from my mom, who has absolute boundless energy and hasn't sit still for more than an hour in her life. For me it's not necessarily physical activity I crave, but I hate the feeling of not being in the middle of some big, interesting project. A business; a blog; a fairisle sweater; a group of friends over for dinner; figuring out the settings on my camera; sourdough bread; teaching a five year old to read; remembering what sine, cosine and tangent mean and trying to do quick refresher on husing a scientific calculator for the tenth grader; and if all those things aren't enough, dreaming of another, bigger project to tackle in the future. 

Don't mistake me and think that all the projects around the house always get done, haha, far from it. I often have to bring myself back to reality when my husband asks where the clean towels are. Or any towels, for that matter, would do just now... For instance, in the middle of packing for our trip, rather than let my mind put all it's energy into making sure to stay organized and not forget anything for our three months out of the country, I suddenly got sidetracked in the middle of it and began unravelling a sweater I'd knit years ago but wasn't get much wear anymore. This kind of thing tends to drive the rest of my family crazy, and I have to work hard to not float off on a tangent (HAH!) that often.

I think there is joy to be found in all sorts of daily tasks, and plenty of engagement for the mind if you really try. It's something I remind my kids of when they get weary of what can be the daily monotony of their lives. However, it's hard for me to preach to them, "Stick to you scales on the piano everyday and have a good attitude about it, and you'll discover that it's actually fun and you'll be glad you did years down the road from now," when mid cleaning I become distracted and leave to do something else more stimulating.

Oh, the lessons we learn from our kids; so often it's just like looking in a mirror. I guess that's why the Bible talks about striving to make our lives a reflection of Jesus. The closer we get toward living life like the perfect Man, the greater the fruits from it will be reflected in those around us. I say this not to make myself feel more condemned about my failings, but rather as an inspiration and a reminder of God's grace in me, working in me, to enable me to do the task He's set forth for me to do. 

And in the meantime I'm going to pull out my scientific calculator and try to show Cate the joy there is to be found in algebra. I know it's there if she looks for it.

Book Party Traditions

You know it's a great party when the party decorations include a party bunting made of pages from a book (unless you are such a lover of books that pages torn out to become merely party decorations makes you ill- however neither I nor my friends at the party are yet of this ilk).

Every year my sister Stephanie and another friend host a book lover's party. When I attended last year, Clementine was a mere week or two old! This year I left her with Ben and the boys and remembered bitter-sweetly that at the last party she had met many important friends and family in her life for the very first time. 

At the party, we bring themed food from a favorite book, and you can see by some of the pictures here that there are some pretty creative and fun renditions of fun book-themed food. We also do a book exchange. About a month or two before the party I always worry about what I am going to bring, because, despite thinking of myself as a reader, I often look over the year at what I've read and it's a lot of unfinished books, or else it's books that I read right along with my friends, and I just can't bring that to a book exchange because no one wants to come home with a book they just read. I ended up bringing Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth, forgetting that three of my friends are pregnant. Not a good book to read while pregnant. Too high a worry and gross-out factor. Oh well, it was the best I could do. Next year I vow to have many, many choices for the next book party. I am going to read, and finish,  more books. Yes. 

Cate brought the first book in the Mistborn trilogy. I'll say this for the series. I have not seen Cate's face, outside of practicing piano, eating meals, or doing chores, for the last 10 days, since she began reading the series. Several days she has told me that she was growing close to getting tired of reading so much. This is Cate we're talking about here. A couple of afternoons after reading all day she felt a little nauseous.

I remember when growing up and visiting our city's largest library, the Denver Public Library, and leaving with a brown paper grocery bag filled to the brim with books, diving into them on the drive home, not letting up all afternoon, continuing through dinner (if I could sneak the book on my lap under the table) and into the evening, and then telling my mom, "I think I'm getting sick. My tummy hurts."

"Um, Jenny, you probably aren't sick. You just sat and read for 6 hours straight. Go outside and get some fresh air."

Watching Cate consume, no, inhale, Mistborn reminds me of that. She's halfway through the third book and her kindle tells her she has 13 hours to go. A dream come true for a book lover who is always on the lookout for new reading material like a man in desert looks for water.

I came home with The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and couldn't be happier. I hear it's a great inspiration to get people reading again, not only in the entertaining book itself, but in the great book suggestions throughout the novel. I'll tell the truth- instead of messing with my stupid phone, I carried the book around with me this morning and am about 70 pages in. Yes. Thank you, book party.

Grace brought Daddy Long Legs and came home with The Bronze Bow. Good. I want her to read that book. I want to read that book. Evie brought the ever delightful Betsy-Tacy and came home with Twenty and Ten, a book I forgot about, but have read at least 3 times growing up.

Oh, how I love yearly traditions, especially when they are good ones, like the annual book party.

 

 

 

Another milk post

I'm drinking milk again, without it hurting my baby girl, and it makes me so happy. Raw milk was the trick. 

Ben did a little research when I told him about the issue and he couldn't understand, when I described it to him, why I assumed lactose was the issue. 

"From everything I'm reading online it seems more like a milk protein sensitivity rather than a lactose one," he said to me.

I admit I got a little offended that he seemed to think he knew more about the milk problem than I did, since I was the one avoiding milk products, and specifically lactose, since last August.

Oh boy, just when we think we are SO SMART, and let others know it, truth does what it so often has a way of doing: it comes in and we discover that we weren't quite so smart after all. "Pride goeth before a fall," is a saying we use frequently around here, and this time I'm the one who took the fall.

After too much protesting on my part, I agreed to try to discover exactly what Clementine's tummy was having trouble digesting. Milk protein? Lactose? Both? Could she do goat's milk, buffalo milk, yogurt, what? I systematically eliminated products and introduced them back one at a time and that led me to where we are today, with a baby who happily tolerates my drinking raw milk with the protein structure unaltered so that it is digestible for her, and who has even had a few sips herself with no adverse affects. I don't give my babies cow's milk before they turn one, usually, but I was curious to see if she could handle drinking a little bit straight. It seems she can.

Now my morning coffee is so delicious, if not even more delicious than it was with regular milk, because the raw milk really does have such a fresh flavor. I'm not really a farm gal, and fresh eggs and milk and cream are mentally a little bit challenging for me, I admit. It's a matter of getting past what to me is "the gross factor" but once I get past the idea of it I agree that the flavors are so much better than what can be purchased at a store. It's funny how the things we get used to growing up become sort of ingrained and we have to tell ourselves that really, homemade mac and cheese is so much better than powdery boxed Kraft (that is an easy one for me) or that real cheese is a good sight better than American or Velveta (another easy one for me, less so for my husband) or fresh, unprocessed, non-homegenized raw milk from a cow is superior to milk that has been cooked and cooled and set on a store shelf.

Okay. Wow. I've written how many blog posts now about milk? I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. Cate just came in and read over my shoulder and commented, "You're writing about milk, again?"

Yeah, kids. I'm just trying to prove what I've always said to you, that you can write about anything, absolutely anything, and make it interesting. Well, I guess leave off the interesting part, and that statement is 100% true.

Patience

Sometimes I really surprise myself when I think about the fact that I am a knitter. Because, you see, I am not a patient person, at all. Sitting for long periods of time, working on one thing, for months until it is finished, is definitely not my normal thing.

I used to pick up a book and if it didn't grab me by the very first page, if not the first paragraph, I'd put it down and call it boring. I managed to still read a lot despite my rigorous (ahem) standards. Now I am a little more generous before deciding not to read something, but patient, no that really doesn't describe me.

Cate and Grace have been cross stitching quite a bit lately. Cate is completing this sampler by Alicia Paulson. She has already made this one, and loved every stitch of it. Grace is making this right now. I have two Anglophiles for daughters, and couldn't be more pleased about it. Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana...sigh. We were a little embarrassingly excited about her birth, I admit it here. I even posted about the new princess on Facebook. 

But about the cross stitching- that's something I never really enjoyed. I didn't have the patience to sit there and sort out the colors, try to figure out which direction the x's should go in, look for my needle, again, start and end each color perfectly so the back looked almost as good as the front, and have the stamina to make it to the very end. However, cross stitching is a craft Cate and Grace both love to do, as different as their two personalities and tastes in other areas are. I say, great, now I will have some beautiful art on my walls I would otherwise not have.

I'm surprised, due to my impatient nature, that knitting thousands of little stitches, and putting hours upon hours into one little project, that grows at a snail's pace, appeals to me at all. When I first learned to knit, I hated it. I think the gross acrylic yarn was a huge part of that. But about twelve or thirteen years ago, an issue of Martha Stewart Living came out that featured a knitting section,  showing beautiful warm cozy scarves knit out of the most beautiful wool- I wanted to reach through the magazine pages and touch it. I don't think I even really knew what wool was, at least in the crafting and textile sense. Of course I knew that it came from sheep. And I knew wool was scratchy. I was very well versed in this since I was very young, because whenever I would reach for a sweater or dress or scarf in the store, Mom would read the label:

"This has wool in it, Jenny. Wool is itchy." Back would go the item.

However, on the magazine pages, these wool scarves looked so soft and wonderful and I wondered what it would feel like to knit with yarn that didn't make me cringe when I squeezed it in the skein.

Shortly thereafter I went into a yarn shop, not Michael's, not Hobby Lobby, not Joann's, but an actual yarn shop. One that I had known of all my life, but never paid a second glance until now.

It took a couple of false starts and a couple of items that pretty much went straight to the trash can, before I finally made something awesome: fair isle hats made of Lamb's Pride bulky for Cate and Grace. Scratchy? Yes, I think Lamb's Pride is one of the scratchiest yarns out there, and I haven't knit with it since, but the colors were glorious, and the bouncy wool was like nothing else I'd ever knit with.

It didn't take me long to want to try some much more complex designs, using smaller and smaller needles. Suddenly I wanted to knit sweaters, fingering-weight ones at that. It was a challenge. Did I have the endurance to knit with size one needles, and entire adult sweater? Yes, I did, one tiny stitch at a time, and the tiny stitches added up to one inch after another until one day I'd pick up the knitting and the sweater that seemed impossible to make was almost done. An exercise in patience and persistence.

Maybe that's the way Cate and Grace love their stitching: working on a project that is tiny, minute, and tedious, and transforming it into beautiful art. In the same way they sit at the piano each day, little by little whittling away at a piece, or perhaps polishing is a better word, and from one day to the next it moves forward in the tiniest degree. 

The discouragement and frustration at recognizing how much work would need to go into a piano piece before it was "finished" is what sealed my pianistic doom. Once I could play the notes I really had no patience for spending more time on the pice and I wanted to move on to something else. Fingering? Technique? Dynamics? Pedaling? and another six months after all those are learned and memorized before it finally begins to sound professional? Too hard, too boring, and so I gave up  without really trying.  

It's funny how beauty is often synonymous with time. A garden with hours of work put into it. A loaf of bread with a long, slow rise so flavors and textures are fully developed. A ridiculously complex fair isle sweater; a piano sonata; an Olympic figure skating performance; an enormous lego structure; a perfectly organized house; all these things are admirable and the comment inevitably is, "Wow, that must have taken an incredible amount of work to learn/build/train/do." 

I guess I'm discovering there really are no shortcuts to glory. Yes, cutting corners is possible, but the price is often paid in some way that leads to disappointment with the finished project. But putting the work into it will pay off as long as you don't give up before the job is done. It's a lesson I'm maybe starting to learn. I think my kids are learning it too.

Cate's recital

Somehow the two weeks before Disney World, both Cate and Grace ended up playing in two piano competitions. It's been a busy time leading up to a huge trip, but everyone had a great time. Both competitions the girls ended up competing against each other. For some reason this doesn't seem to bother either of them very much. They are really sweet, really. This weekend, Cate received honorable mention and got to play in the honors recital. Grace was so happy for Cate and was glad to support her from the audience. Next year the girls will be in different levels, since Cate will be in high school groups, and Grace, middle school. 

It was a fun recital- under an hour, which is the perfect length for a recital to be, I've discovered. I do enjoy live performances, but after an hour of listening to music I usually reach my limit. So last night was just about right. Cate did such a great job. She played her Ginastera piece, which is loud, modern, and makes for a very exciting performance. We were so proud of her.

Now I am doing laundry, cleaning, and packing. It's not easy to get nine people ready to leave town for two weeks, even with access to a washing machine while we're away. Which means I need to stop typing and get back to work.