Spring Ideas

Spring is always the time of year I like to make resolutions. In New England it seems apropos to resolve to do something in the spring: people are coming out of hibernation mode, it's the time of year for spring-cleaning, there is way more daylight, which always is a motivator to me. This spring I would like to resolve to do the following:

~Make my first quilt. I've collected a bunch of vintage sheets and would like to recycle them into a simple quilt, maybe using this method.

~Finish my 3 sewing projects: a muumuu, the dress you see below on the dress form, and this skirt.

~Read voraciously.

~Learn to become more frugal. I really like the perspective on Kristen's post here re: thrifty versus frugal living.

~Redecorate the apartment in a vintage/retro vibe, which kinda flies in the face of the above resolution, I know, but I can't resist some amazing vintage curtains on sale from this sweet Esty seller:

Reading leads to thinking, lots of thinking...

After finishing the Twilight Saga this past weekend I was feeling the need to seek out and read literature. I never know how to find a good book; it's easy enough to ask The English Teacher, but our tastes differ and he will read anything just to be reading- he gives every book a chance. One of my favorite books is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, I love the writing style and stories about familial ties and origins. I Googled Middlesex to see to what kind of list the title might belong, maybe a "Top 10 Books of the New Millennium" or "Top 25 Novels with Verse-y Prose" to find titles to read. It actually was a much more obvious list I found, the Pulitzer Prize Winners for Fiction (Middlesex won in 2003). I love lists, so my goal for the following months is to read most, if not all, of the Pulitzer Prize winners. So to make a long post longer, I saw 2007's winner was Cormac McCarthy's The Road . My husband and other family members loved this book, and they all spoke rather wistfully about it. We had a copy of it lying around so I jumped right in and finished it yesterday.

In a nutshell, it's a post-apocalyptic setting with a father and his young son travelling the road from North to South, seemingly in the U.S., to avoid the coming winter. It's intentionally vague about why and how the world is as it is. It's dark. It stressed me out. I loved it.

There are many posts on others' blogs that thoughtfully review The Road and right now I can't really seem to express articulately what I thought about this book yet, so I won't try very hard here, but I would urge someone to read it. I will say the timing of my encounter with this book may have something to do with how I feel about it; my lackluster job, the word depression being thrown around on the Today Show, the Dow sinking below 7000, and various other crises I'm not sure if it makes me care more or less about them. One part of me reduces the situation in the U.S.- things could be a lot worse, we haven't resorted to cannibalism and another part of me thinks, yeah, yet. The less dramatic part of me just wants to take away from the book a notion of simplicity. What surrounds me in my life is actually necessary, do I work this well-paying, but mind-numbing job because I think it's what's necessary? Is it necessary for me to have a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath home to sustain my existence?
::sigh::
I don't always get so meta about books, but I think I've been too long in reading a thought-provoking book that my brain is ready to latch onto new perspectives via literature. Vampires are fun and all and I did get swept up in the Twilight mania, but I much prefer getting swept up in examining my life because a well-written piece of literature moved me to do so.

The English Teacher's Stepford Wife

I never read the Stepford Wives novel nor have I watched the 1970s movie, but I am the happy owner of the DVD for the 2004 version. Despite it's glaring plot holes (are they robots or just brainwashed?!) I watch this movie repeatedly- I am visually addicted to it. I love the color choices, the psychotic tidiness of Stepford, and the wardrobe choices. Example:



This screen cap inspires me to have a wardrobe full of spring dresses, particularly Faith Hill's dress with the little lace trim and the big, bright poppy print. It's not necessarily the dress styles that I love, but just the visual enjoyment I have when looking at all theses dresses together, the colors and the patterns, and the idea I could have that same thrill when I open my closet. It's only February, maybe by May I'll have sewn up a fleet of spring dresses, or at the very least collected fabrics which are sometimes just as fun to look at stacked together.

Too much milk and two almost-done projects

I discovered on Monday that the milk we just bought was set to "expire" that day. I generally don't pay much attention to those dates, I mean if it smells fine and tastes fine...So what to do with a gallon of milk? I made corn chowder and biscuits for supper and rice pudding for dessert, that put a major dent in it. At work, in order to meet our Carbon Challenge we switched from a 5 day week to a 4 day week (4 10-hour days). So Monday, my day off this week, was a perfect day for solving the problem of too much milk. The English Teacher suggested I stay home everyday, when asked if he would subsidize this request he replied yes, as long as I cooked that well everyday. Oh, if only!

I am inches, no, millimeters away from finishing two projects. One is a navy blue polka-dotted dress (see pattern at right) and another is the Go-Go Garter Scarf from Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'N Bitch. I ignored the pattern's request to use purple, teal, and green (I think, I can't remember) colored yarns, and used pale blue, pink, and a cocoa colored organic cotton yarn. While working on it at the In-Laws house over Memorial Day weekend, my brother-in-law saw me knitting together the blue and pink and asked me if I was "expecting" (I am not). I don't outwardly look like I'm in a state of expectancy, so I guess he deduced that knitting=pregnancy or it was the baby blue and pink that threw him. Oh well! Hopefully I will be able to post the FO by this weekend.

Current Obsessions

Here's quickie post just for the sheer purpose of posting something, these are things with which I am currently obsessed:

Crocheting, or rather learning to crochet

Redecorating my kitchen, I want to paint the walls and floor, and buy new cabinets

Juno soundtrack

Inventing a new career for myself

Other people's blogs

Spring clothes, enough with the snow Mother Nature, do you hear me?!

Wardrobe Overhaul

The long weekend allowed me to take inventory of what I had (or lack thereof) hanging in my closet. My crowded, messy, shared closet was the first hurdle, I couldn't see anything that was in there. My first step was to buy a garment rack and designate a new home for my clothing away from the black hole of a closet, out in the open. After hanging up my sad duds I sifted through what remained of several recent purges, which was not much. I have a few things that I do wear often which are in good condition and are well-made, but one's wardrobe cannot subsist on two nice button-up shirts, two nice sweaters, and some work pants. Truly, sad duds. With the help of Lucky's Style Manual and a couple of my favorite blogs (Chic & Icing's Wardrobe Taming posts) , I figured out what I needed most to start building a basics wardrobe. It will probably take me a while as I like to research and price compare, but I think it will be fun and chronicling it here will keep me organized (I am a Capricorn).

Long time, no post

I haven't even been that busy not to post. I have no excuse. Well, last week I was on vacation in Sunset Beach, NC. I took zero pictures as it was the same thing everyday, lying on the beach and swimming in the warmer part of the Atlantic Ocean (Sand Beach it is not!).

I made a resolution on vacation that I would get my financials in order, e.g. SAVE MY MONEY, BE ABLE TO RETIRE SOMEDAY. I'm certainly not in dire fudiciary straits comparitively but I could use some stringent budgeting and saving.

But that stuff is no fun to post about...the family Lobster Feed is Saturday, I'm pumped for some good Maine Lobster (especially after an unfortunate Alaskan Crab experience). Last year it was at my parents' house in the country, this year it's at my aunt's house in the "city", so PuppyMan will not be attending. It's a shame as he so loved his first experience with a crustacean:





I have no idea what was going on in his puppy-brain but the resulting behavior was hilarious.

The Sewer-Worker's Wife

Maybe I should change the name of this blog for the summer. Husband is temporarily working for Bangor's Public Works, the Sewer Department, as a laborer. Last summer Husband did the scholarly thing and attended a 3 week workshop on Longfellow at Bowdoin; this summer it's 6 weeks of jackhammering manhole covers and sewer flushing.

I married this man knowing he had a flair for the unusual and I am very proud of him for venturing out of his comfort zone of indoors and non-manual work. Husband apparently loves what he's doing. He's a poet in a hardhat.

Living up to my Blog's name

This past weekend I certainly filled the role of The English Teacher's Wife, demure and supportive, as we spent a large portion of Saturday and part of Sunday attending various graduating seniors's parties. These seniors, or maybe 18 year olds in general are always so surprisingly grown up and at the same time so naive. What a strange stage in life.

Earlier on Saturday I went shopping with my mom "for Father's Day". Somehow Mom and I managed to get a few things for ourselves as well. Mom actually bought me a rose toile patterned quilt for our bed and (thoughtful Mom, she is!) a color-coordinating blanket to go over the quilt so PoochieMan could luxuriate without getting hairs all over it. Doesn't he look comfy?




I also made some headway on getting my summer dress made. The fabric is cut out now I just need to find some free time to get it stitched together.

Enemy Territory

It is hard for me to admit this as a Red Sox fan, but touring Yankees Stadium for an Uncle's 60th birthday party was awesome. I married a New Yorker and fortunately he did not inherit the Yankee Fan gene, the rest of this family however...

Two of the more thrilling parts of the tour was being able to sit in the dugout and visiting the club house. This was the weekend the Yankees were in Boston, so I'm not sure if the locker room looks any different when the players are at home. The lockers were surprisingly personal, Mussina apparently reads Field & Stream magazine (Husband remarks, "I read that!"); according to his locker contents Matsui uses Speed Stick deodorant and is a very neat and orderly individual. I really wanted to see both Jeter's lockers, one for him, one for his fan mail, but it was in the back (we were smooshed in a small area separating us from the lockers by means of those nylon "velvet ropes").

Considering the fact that this historical stadium will be torn down soon I am happy I was able to see it. Whether Yankees fan or not one cannot help but be a little bit in awe of the Greats that have played in the "House that Ruth Built".