{all work and no play... yet}

This is the house that Justin built.

Perhaps you remember it as the giant pile of wood that I showed you in September? (Inspired by a little playhouse we saw while on holiday in Denmark) Well, that's almost exactly what it still was until last weekend. Almost all this -- walls, studs, screws, paint -- in three days. I keep having to pop out into the garden and touch it, just to make sure it's really, really real.

There's still plenty more to do -- several more coats of paint on the inside, and a whole roof to go -- and then the proper fun can begin. Curtains! Pictures! Little window boxes full of bright little flowers! Oh, and Tilly will probably enjoy it a bit, too.

Our final deadline is the 29th of June -- Tilly's second birthday, when hopefully a little crowd of friends will help her warm her new home with apple-juice toasts and a little summer picnic!

{thoughts of a beachy nature}

We're now back from our three weeks in Norwich -- three lovely weeks of seeing my family, wearing lots of scarves, and weekly trips to the sea. Partly because it's one of my favourite places, partly because this was one of the only days I brought my camera with me, here's a little taste of what goes on at the British seaside.

Yes, that's hot chocolate and sheepskin-lined shoes for a day at the beach.

 

And here we have a bit of a family tradition -- collecting a few favourite stones, and then lugging them all the way across the world in our suitcases. (Yes, baggage-handlers, you can thank us for those almost-but-not-quite-unliftable bags. Sorry.)

I took a lot more photos on the trip, but mostly on my phone, the best of which ended up on Instagram (@redredastrid). 

{i carry your heart}

Yesterday, I heard it. Quick and quiet, an overture to the slow bass of my own heartbeat, there was another heartbeat. A little eight-week-old heartbeat.

And so, with that little sound-byte of proof, I'm happy to tell you that we'll be expecting another little family member at the start of December. A winter baby -- a baby to we'll be counting down for through advent, a baby to knit for!

{life in the slow lane}

When I was eleven, I was forced to run the 800 metres for Sports Day. I had (mistakenly) believed that if I left it long enough to sign up for an event, I'd be able to relax on the field all afternoon, sunning myself and making daisy-chains, watching others compete. And so the nice events, the javelinning and the shot-putting and the jumping-over-or-into things, all went to my cleverer (and less cunning) classmates.

I had no idea that the race would prove so prophetic of my entire sprint-or-crawl pace of life.

On race day, I ran, flat out, for a hundred metres, and then limped and panted and groaned until my breath returned. And repeated, and repeated, until the finish line, where I promptly fainted into a sad little heap.

So here I find myself, double as many and more years later, making mad, short dashes to achieve something, some distance. Long nights of frantic sewing -- my own personal sweat-shop. Nights-upon-nights of commitments. Weeks of sprinting this life alone while Justin is travelling for work. Social and personal sprints. And then inevitable collapse. Regain of breath. Repeat. Repeat.

Now, predicting that it'll take a few weeks or months to regain my breath as we stumble through the first tiring leg of a new adventure, I finally feel at peace with the slow, crawling pace. While all motivation to sew or create has disappeared, (to be replaced only by motivation to crawl into bed, whatever time of day it is) I've fallen back in love with the steady and undemanding pace of words. To read and write fiction, it seems, is the way to be occupied. An unread novel by a favourite author, so patiently waiting on the shelf, read in bed. A writing challenge set by an old friend, slowly worked upon.

Of course, this means giving up on some of the more energetic goals. In January, we'd set ourselves the goal of running a 5K this year, without walking. It was supposed to be achieved this last weekend, at the Run for Compassion, but the goal of not walking was quickly replaced by the goals of not falling down dead and not being sick on the road. But it still felt good -- an accomplishment, in a different way -- to walk across the finish line, alive, exhausted, and keeping pace with a toddler making her first run.

Whenever I can't stand my own mental booing, though -- the voice inside that says "Keep running! You'll lose! Faster! Faster!" -- I watch this video (via Cloistered Away) and see the power of crawling across the finish line. And remember the clapping, and the guidance, and feel thankful for the people who stand and cheer, even for those who walk the race.

{this week in review}

 

*  An Easter egg hunt with small friends. One pink egg, safe in her basket, Tilly called it a day and went to splash in the puddles.

*  A new white, white, completely white raised bed, built from scrap wood from the garage, and vaguely inspired by this tutorial from Ana White (via Pinterest). Hello, personal supply of tomatoes and courgettes.

*  February's quilt finally bound, finished, and delivered. A Valentine's-inspired quilt in April... but who doesn't love hearts for spring, too?

*  A last-minute Easter brunch planned. Nothing says happy day like waffles. Lots of waffles.

{ideas of a geometric kind}

Angular, modern, minimal, simple -- these are the designs I'm drawn to at the moment. A new quilt, a just-for-us quilt, is brewing.

{bird feeder fail}

Have you always wanted to use every bowl and utensil you own, all at once, and cover your kitchen in corn syrup and birdseed? Yes! Try this -- make bird feeders with three toddlers. 

Tilly's friend, Selah, was a pro at mixing and cutting out the animals, while little Radley enjoyed banging the measuring spoons together, and Tilly tried her hardest to sneak mouthfuls of the birdseed from the spoon, while exclaiming "Yummy!"

We got to try out our new IKEA woodland creatures cutters -- lovely hedgehogs, bears and moose, and, of course, a Dala horse -- which took on a more abstract quality when created in birdseed. Sadly, the recipe I'd found (from here) wasn't very good, or we measured wrongly, as our menagerie of feeders never hardened. Twenty-four hours later, slick and shiny with grease, their heads fell off as I slipped a spatula beneath them.

The food was still enjoyed by the birds, but as sticky blobs and crumbling hunks, scattered on the grass, rather than prettily hung in the trees.

With three-quarters of a bag of birdseed still left, we'd love to hear about your (successful) homemade bird feeders, if you've got any, and give them a try...

{take me out to the ballgame}

This weekend, we'll be cheering on Justin and the fifty-five other people who are setting a new Guinness World Record by playing forty-nine hours of baseball, to raise money for Mercy Project. Stop by and cheer them on if you can!

Meanwhile, Tilly will be working on setting her own world record for the most times a toddler can try to escape from a baseball stadium in a weekend. So many exits...

{photography amongst the bluebonnets: a beginner's guide}

As any Texan will tell you, it's rather a tradition around here to take family portraits in the wildflowers that grow alongside the roads. Justin was away, but Tilly, a few friends and I took a little road-trip down to the town of Independence one morning, to frolic, picnic and take photos in the fields.

This is what happened when I tried to sit Tilly down in a nice fat clump of flowers, as I could see the other families were doing:

Major scowls... and then attempted escape! So, as perhaps there are other families who can't magically produce smiles out of thin air, these are the things that I found did work for getting a semi-decent photo in the bluebonnets.

1. Find a spot far enough away from any roads that you can let the children run free. No matter how good your photos, no one wants to remember the day little Suzie was squashed by an eighteen-wheeler.

2. Wear your running shoes. As your children run towards something -- a butterfly, a family member, someone's discarded lunch -- sprint ahead, quite far ahead, and then turn and get a shot of them running towards you.

3. Accept, and work with, the back-of-the-head shot (from behind, no one can see them scowling, at least). Try to angle yourself so that the wildflowers fill in the background, and it might look as if your child is gazing thoughtfully across the meadow (when they might really be turning away in a sulk).

4. Find something for them to hold onto. A fence, a tree trunk, a flower. A large enough prop will prevent them running off so quickly, and the little props serve to hold their attention for a second, while you snap away.

5. Remember, one good shot is enough. You're probably not going to wallpaper your house with this roll of film -- just one, lovely photo to frame or save is all you need.

6. But... take lots. My 400 photos yielded less than a handful that I really liked.

7. Try something different. Lie the child down and take a photo from above (if it isn't too muddy). Throw them in the air a bit to get them laughing. If they're a little older, perhaps let them try a self-portrait?

8. Bring help. Bonny and Jonathan, who joined us, were a wonderful help, serving as safety officers, entertainers, photographers, subjects, and, perhaps most importantly, navigators to actually get us there.

And for those of you with children who will sit and smile, well, perhaps there is a secret that you could share with the rest of us? 

{tea for twenty}

A long time ago, while waiting not-so-patiently for Tilly to arrive, I sewed twenty tea cups to a big bit of linen, which has hung, framed, for a few years. I've actually never really liked how it came out -- the fraying edges and bumpy linen just didn't seem to belong on the wall. With garden tea-party season upon us, I thought it might be enjoyed a bit more turned into a quilt for Tilly and her friends and toys to sit on.

This is the first time I've used linen in a quilt, and I just loved it. I don't usually use a lot of yellow, but it's so trendy-Japanesy next to the linen.

In other news, I've spent the last five days trying to fix my broken Internet -- turning everything off and on again, on the phone to customer service, at my wit's end -- before discovering today that I had been messing with the wrong box. So sorry to the lovely Indian fellow who tried so hard to find out what type of modem I had, in vain, (uh, it was a hard-drive) and was so helpful to such a moron!

And because I've been Internet-less for almost a week, here are a few others things that I've been filling my time with. 

• Planning for the New Year. What, you're supposed to do that in January? Well, I just discovered Susannah Conway's printable (free) workbook recently. Great for dreamers and self-analyists, and those of us who get to things a bit late.
• Baking and sharing honey-comb cookies (that's when you squish too many on a sheet).

• Listing (and numbering) everything I get rid of as I organise and simplify. Yes, it takes a bit longer, but is so satisfying, and will no doubt make quite amusing reading in retrospect. A few favourites from the list so far: 46. a bag of four-year-old jelly beans, in flavours I don't like.   78. five half-finished felt rabbits.   95. crusty chocolate lip balm (9 years old) which I bought at Heathrow airport the first time I flew to China alone to see my family. 
• Sewing yellow-and-linen potholders for friends who recently moved into the most amazing modern house, and believing that if something I've made lives there, part of me gets to, too!

{in my shoes}

These seven words always arrive when I need them. Sung, barely in tune with how much I want them to be true. And then shouted, louder and louder, as these amazing people around me show again and again what it's like to walk through life together. Thank you.

P.S. Sadly, these shoes will never once ever walk again -- after six years, this week their feeble little soles have snapped completely in two. Rest in pieces, stripy friends.

{a few letters short of an alphabet}

• Freshly-picked chives make a breakfast of leftovers -- turkey, potato, and cheddar omelettes -- so much tastier. 
• Our garden community of woodlice and a yellow bucket provide hours of quiet entertainment for the littlest family member. 
• Watching Susan Cain on video bravely, nervously, discussing the power of introverts. Now certain she's an INFJ, too. 
• A new addition to the household -- a potty -- is catapulting us into the unknown. How quickly the next stage always arrives.
• Loving this version of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' "Home". It's like people living in an overexposed Polaroid.