Crafty-ness, again

The more I work with crafts, the more I've realized that learning how to make beautiful things is within my reach. Tim and I have been working on a quilt together, but I've taken some time to make other projects too. Keep in mind that I only make easy projects, I only make practical projects, and I am paid to write instructions for how to make things like these, so forgive the instructions if you didn't want to know.

First, magnets! I made these a while ago, and I have another batch waiting to be made, but here are some easy magnets I made for myself and gave to my sister as a birthday gift:


How to make: Trace an clear acrylic rock (you can find them in all sizes at craft stores) onto pretty patterned paper, cut out the shape, and hot glue it to the back of the rock. Hot glue a magnet to the back of the paper, trim any excess paper from around the edges of the rock, and done! The hot glue does show through the acrylic though, so I've been looking for an equally strong adhesive that will work better.

Next up, baby blocks! I got this idea from our Create: For for the Home book, which is probably my very favorite magazine of any that we've published since I started working at Northridge. It took me two failed attempts to get these right, but I really like how they turned out. They're just fabric blocks that babies can throw, eat, and handle without anyone or anything getting damaged:


How to make: Cut out six equal squares of fabric and sew four of them side by side in a row. (Remember to sew with the right sides together so the seams are on the inside.) Sew one side of the fifth square along the top of the first block in the row; when you reach the end of the side, leave the needle in the fabric and rotate the row so the next side of the fifth square is lined up with the top of the second square. Do that for all four sides of the fifth square, then repeat with the sixth square on the bottom of the row. On the last side, leave a gap. Turn the block right side out, fill with stuffing (I used leftover quilt batting and then I started pulling stuffing from an old pillow we didn't use), and hand stitch the gap closed.

This next project is the one I think I'm most proud of: crayon holders that roll up (can't think of a more succinct name). They have little pockets for 12 crayons and then roll up neatly, perfect for little kids who need something to do at church. Again, these came straight from Create: For for the Home, and the best part was that I followed the instructions I wrote for the magazine exactly and they worked! I think that is a sign of true success, if you can follow your own step-by-steps and get the results you wanted.



How to make: If you want the full instructions, let me know, but essentially you place a folded piece of fabric along the bottom of a long strip and sew lines every 1" to make the pockets. Sew a hair tie to one end, then place your outside piece of fabric over the pockets, stitch around the edges (leaving a little gap), and turn it right side out. Hand stitch the gap closed and add a button to the outside for the hair tie to go over. (I messed up the button on the first one I tried, so I took it off and just used the hair tie to hold the roll-up closed.) And there you go! I can't wait to have nieces (and nephews, eventually) that are old enough to use these and not just eat the crayons.

Then, feeling cocky about my crayon success, I attempted a bag made out of old jeans. I've written instructions for a couple of bags for the magazines and though they are a little trickier that other projects, I saw that it was possible. I guess that's all I need, just a little possibility. I came up with the design for this bag myself and it didn't turn out at all like I originally planned, but for a first attempt, it wasn't too bad. I am most proud that the handles are A) the same length, and B) in the same place on each side of the bag.


How to make: First you cut out two pieces for the outside of the bag and two pieces for the lining inside the bag. You sew the inside pieces together, then the outside, then you sew them together around the top (inserting handles as you do), turn the bag right side out, and hand stitch the opening closed. Done. Okay, there's actually a little more to it than that, but that's the basic idea. And then, if you want, you can cut out three flowers, layer them, add a button to the center, and attach it to the bag.

Finally, for Rachel's graduation party during our weekend at Snowbird, I made some pom pom garlands out of yarn to make things a little more festive. The idea came from our November issue of Simply Handmade and they were SUPER easy:


How to make: Wrap yarn around your fingers about a hundred times. Tie yarn of the same color around the middle of the wrapped yarn and cut open the loops on either end. Trim the ends so they are more even and fluff to make a pom pom. String all the finished pom poms onto a length of yarn (the yarn is thick enough the pom poms will stay in place - I tried thread first but they just slid up and down), hang up your garlands, and enjoy!

So there you go: that's what crafy-ness looks like at my house lately. I think I'm getting better and more adventurous. And I'm also having a lot of fun, which is definitely the best part.

Survivors at the Summit

For four years, my family has attended the annual Survivors at the Summit event hosted at the Snowbird resort by the Cancer Wellness House. It's a fundraiser for the CWH with a pancake breakfast and then an incredibly arduous hike to the Hidden Summit, where they have a ceremony each year at the top. Whether we've hiked or ridden the tram to the top, it's been a a wonderful way for us to come together as a family and show our support for my dad and feel the support and love of other families who also deal with cancer.

This year, my mom had shirts made for us so we could look a little more like a unified team. On the front, they had a little Survivor's at the Summit logo, and on the back they said, "Love is stronger than cancer." I have to admit, I struggled a little with that phrase. I knew what it meant but I couldn't quite wrap it around my perspective on cancer.

My perspective shifted a little though, and I was able to understand better what that phrase means. If we give in to the fear and uncertainty and grief of cancer, we give power to cancer. But if we choose love and life and hope and family, in spite of the daily struggles and trials and set backs, love is stronger than cancer, and as a family, we become stronger than it too. It's a powerful message, and we actually had several people ask us where they could get one. Who knows, maybe next year they CWH will make their own.

This year, we stayed both Friday and Saturday night at a condo at Snowbird, which was absolutely lovely. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful or secluded location. Here's a recap of the weekend in pictures:

First we celebrated the fact that my sister Rachel is done with school and graduated!!! Her husband Jase made her an awesome cap (out of file folders, no less) and we had ourselves a little party. I am so proud of her!


Instead of hiking, my dad and Tim and I volunteered to help with the event in the morning. Honestly, we didn't do much, but we were real helpful when there was anything to do, like putting up signs.


Dad with two of my aunts who came to support him. They both hiked the mountain - go Auntie Robin and Auntie Annie!


My mom's best friend Maureen came with her husband and her daughter Madelyn, Madelyn's husband Mike, and their adorable little girl Marina. Madelyn lived in Pittsburgh while I was there, and I hadn't seen her since I moved back. I was so excited when I found out they were coming - it was great to catch up!


The whole group, there to support my dad...


...minus me and Tim because we were manning one of the booths at the time.


The yellow flags at the top of the mountain are like prayer flags, and each one has a message to someone who has or had cancer. It's incredible to see all the flags flapping (sometimes almost flying away) in the wind.



Here are some examples of flags written for my dad:



And of course, we love being in such a beautiful place. The view never gets old from the top of the summit.


Here are our shirts from the back. I really, really love this picture. I love that we're together, unified by our shirts, yes, but really unified in what it means. I means a lot to me that we go every year to this event.

Summer storms

I love the summer storms that have been rolling in almost every day this week. The days start with crisp sunshine and clear blue skies, but by mid-afternoon, the clouds have not only flown in, they've turned a little gray underneath. Then the breeze starts to pick up, and I watch from my office window as the tree branches start to dance. At first it's just a little shuffle-and-sway, but soon they're jumping and jiving to a rhythm I can feel through the glass. The drops start to slide down the window and the pavement produces a splattered pattern, until with a quick flash and booming roll, the thunderstorm starts up in earnest. The world is shaded, but it's not like January, gray and grim. The leaves, grass, flowers, and buildings are just as colored as when the sky is tranquil, just slick with rain. Usually the storms have moved on by the time I leave work in the evenings, but I can't get enough of the warm dampness and sweet smells that surround me when I walk to my car. I even relish the humidity hanging in the air. Sometimes I could swear that the rain has brought the woodsy smells of the mountain forests all the way down to the valley.

When I was growing up, I remember my mom gathering us up to sit on our front porch during thunderstorms, wrapped in our old brown blanket and counting between flashes and claps. Sometimes we'd run outside, my dad leading the way, when the rain came down in sheets and the sun was still glowing, jumping in puddles and watching the curb overflow with a torrential river. The storms usually moved on quickly, and the torrential rain never lasted more than ten minutes, but maybe that's why we celebrated them. My parents knew the joy of summer storms, and it's something I've carried with me. Summer isn't complete without a few crackling, drenching, sudden and swift downpours.

And of course, the full clouds at the end of the day make for the most amazing sunsets.



I can't get enough of this kind of summer.

Book Review

I hate to admit that I haven't been reading much lately, but between work and life, it's something that doesn't happen as much as I'd like. I have read a couple of books in the last few months, however, and I liked them enough that I thought I'd give my recommendations.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
From Amazon.com: This remarkable new novel weaves together the lives of Andi Alpers, a depressed modern-day teenager, and Alexandrine Paradis, a brave young woman caught up in the French Revolution. While in Paris with her estranged father, a Nobel geneticist hired to match the DNA of a heart said to belong to the last dauphin of France, Andi discovers a diary hidden within a guitar case - and so begins the story of Alexandrine, who herself had close ties to the dauphin. Redemption and the will to change are powerful themes of the novel, and music is ever present - Andi and Alex have a passion for the guitar, and the playlist running through Revolution is a who's who of classic and contemporary influences. Danger, intrigue, music, and impeccably researched history fill the pages of Revolution, as both young women learn that, "it is love, not death, that undoes us."

My friend Jen recommended this book to me. Well, recommended is a very tame word - she actually brought this book to my house, shoved it my hands, and said, "You have to read this. End of story." I'm always busy, so it took me a while to start and then once I did, it took me a little while to get into it. The main character, Andi, is not in a good place when the book starts. Her family has completely fallen apart and she's on the edge of the deep end (sometimes literally). Truthfully, it was a little depressing. However, once she got to Paris and started meeting people and reading this diary written in the aftermath of the French Revolution, I got completely hooked. There's an element of mystery as you try to piece together what happened to the girl who wrote the diary and how it fits in with the history of the French Revolution, and I loved seeing the similarities between the girls and how their lives intersect (quite literally). And of course, it was a great story, completely compelling and incredibly well-written. And in the end, there is an incredibly beautiful message of hope and healing. It's definitely worth reading.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
From Amazon.com: Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

I read this book for my ward's book group and I really enjoyed it. Again, it took me a little while to get into the groove of it, but once I did, I couldn't stop reading. It's written from the perspective of three very different women, and each one has her own distinct voice and personality. It felt a little choppy at times because of the jumps, and I would have like more resolution at the end, but it was a novel about change and so leaving the end open for the characters' lives to change fit the theme, I think. It had a ton of great moments, but funny and insightful, and it brought attention to an issue that I had never explored or heard much about before. There was a line near the end that really summed it up for me, and I didn't write it down but it was essentially that reaching across lines to understand each other is essential to our humanity. I also loved learning about the author's life and realizing that this was a very personal story to her. There's a quote on the book cover that compares it to To Kill A Mockingbird (which is pretty much my favorite book ever) and it isn't at that level, but I definitely recommend it.

Post script: I saw the movie and I loved it. I think it took all the best parts of the book and then gave the story more resolution, which was just perfect. So thumbs up for both the movie and the book!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Amazon's summary wasn't great, so here's my own: Starting in January 1946, writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a stranger and a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, about a book that he acquired that had her name in it. After the grimness of London during World War II, Juliet is eager to correspond with a fellow book-lover and learn more about Guernsey and the Literary Society. "And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name." (That last part was from Amazon.)

I absolutely loved this book - I saved the best recommendation for last! Full of quirky characters and both funny and moving stories, this book was written entirely in letters and was one of the best books I've read in a long time, possibly ever. I read it in just one day - I couldn't stop once I started! Through the letters, you get to know a cast of wonderful characters (I had a hard time keeping them straight at first), but you also get an incredible sense of what life was like for them during WWII. It wasn't all light and fluffy, though that aspect was definitely there, but the hardships, the bombings, the prison camps, and the losses were presented in a very non-dramatic way, making them even more powerful. The book was romantic without being sentimental, beautiful without florid descriptions, funny without even trying (you can ask Tim, I laughed out loud every other page), and touching without manipulation (I also cried quite a bit). It's a book about the power of books and stories to see us through our darkest times. It's about the power and love of a community, and the importance of compassion even in the face of brutality and fear. I definitely recommend it - though I think I might have been the last person on the planet to read it - it was wonderful.

Thank goodness for girls' nights

The other night I was with some of my friends for a semi-impromtu girls' night - nothing fancy, just a few treats and some catching up. It was good to see them, and even more good to plan for our next get-together. But I had a moment of clarity during the evening that I wish I fully put into words. This moment happened as I was listening to one of my girlfriends talk about the challenges she's facing right now and it allowed me to see all of us a little more clearly. I saw how we're all struggling with different things and how we're all in different places in our lives, but that it's a time of growth for all of us.

It was not a happy realization, or a sad one; it didn't make me grateful or pleased or discouraged. It was just...clarity. It wasn't a "Everyone struggles, even if you don't see it" epiphany and it wasn't quite a "We're all in this together" realization either. I just could see how our friendships had changed and grown as our lives have taken us on different courses, but how we're still friends and how girls' night is a safe place to share the things we're struggling with. We really are in every stage of life - married with two kids, married and expecting a second kid, married with no kids, single and working, single and looking for a job. We've completed different levels of education, we have different personalities, we have different ways of approaching the things that challenge us, but we're all in the same state of facing our individual challenges.

In my moment of seeing clearly, I guess what I really saw is that even though we're all struggling with very different things, we're all on our way to bigger and better things. This is a transition time for each of us, though what we're transitioning to isn't always clear and it definitely isn't the same thing. And the changes that are taking place are good reason for these girls' nights, no matter how impromptu, thrown together, or short they may be. We all need someplace to unwind and hopefully, if my moment of clarity was any indication, get some perspective. After all, and as we always said in high school, it's the little things in life that make living so grand.

Harry Potter: A Farewell

Thirteen years ago, Harry Potter was introduced into my life. A decade of books, overlapping with a decade of movies. Characters who have become friends, quotes that are now part of my permanent vocabulary, moments that have thrilled me and saddened me and moved me deeply.

Harry Potter is an inextricable part of my generation's growing up. Whenever it comes up, my friends and I can swap stories; we still remember how we came by our first Harry Potter book, which volume of the series we read first, how old we were, and all our initial reactions. A lot of our stories start the same ("I resisted because it seemed like such a fad") but all the stories end the same - we were hooked. Hooked on not only the magic in the books, but the magic of the books. We were given a world of vivid characters, fantastic creatures, mystical secrets, and hilarious one-liners (I'm looking at you, Fred and George), and a gift of that magnitude and depth is a once-in-lifetime experience.

And now, it feels like it's all over. The stories we love are always with us, as J.K. Rowling herself said just last week, but the excitement of midnight showings and pre-ordering books and skipping ahead because I absolutely HAVE to find out what happens in the end, is over. I know I'm being overly sentimental, but it really does feel like saying goodbye to a friend - or in this case, a world of friends.

Tim and I and our group went to see the last installment of the movie last night at midnight. We decided to make t-shirts instead of dressing up as characters (pictures below), and we were definitely a smashing hit. I won't say too much about the movie for anyone who wants to be surprised, but I loved it. LOVED it. It was different from the book, of course, but I laughed and cried and felt more for the characters through it (one character in particular). (I also nearly had a nervous breakdown at one point, which was exactly the point at which I had a nervous breakdown when I read the book for the first time. So you know they did a good job.)

At one point in the movie, Dumbledore is talking to Harry in a conversation that is very similar to the one in the book, but the writer added something in:

Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.

Dumbledore went on to make his point, but as soon as I heard that phrase, "Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic," I felt like the essence of the entire series had been summed up in a subtle tribute to J.K. Rowling. Words are a source of magic and that's the reason we all fell in love these books in the first place. Maybe it's because I am always aware of the power of finding the right words, but that one short line meant so much to me. I will be forever grateful for these books, and I can't wait to read them all again.






Mischief managed!

Musings on insecurity

I've been thinking a lot lately about insecurity. I realize that I have posted about this before, but it's something that comes up for me occasionally and I am always looking for validation and/or feedback and/or suggestions for how to cope. Lately I've been thinking about the insecurities that come from family. Family dynamics are always interesting to watch and every family has its own unique culture - a way of communicating, a hierarchy, a type of humor - but sometimes we get stuck in these patterns of reactions and assumptions and we don't say anything, or we say too much, and it seems like the cycle just goes on and on. I want to know how to break the cycle, for myself and for Tim.

I don't think we ever fully let go of our childhood hurts, especially when it comes to our siblings. I see this not only with my siblings and with my husband's, but even in the relationships of the adults around me. I wish so much that I could take back some of the ways I unintentionally caused hurt while I was growing up. I remember my mom trying to warn me about not cultivating good relationships with my siblings when we were young, but I didn't fully listen. I think I was too scared by the prospect of irreperable damage I might have already caused to face what my actions meant.

How do we escape the roles of our childhood? And maybe even more daunting, how do we prevent our children from taking on those roles that will impair their ability to have relationships later? How do we avoid reinforcing the birth-order stereotypes and sibling hierarchy and subconscious competitions and help our children be friends?

I'm an adult now, with adult siblings and adult siblings-in-law, but sometimes I still feel like a little kid who can't figure out how to communicate what I'm feeling. How to make myself be heard and how to make people listen without jumping to conclusions or misunderstanding. I wish that just saying I'm sorry were enough; I wish other people saying "I'm sorry" was enough. I want a quick fix, though I know there isn't one.

Maybe the solution is just to be more direct with my opinions and my questions, risk looking foolish and risk getting hurt or hurting others. I believe in being genuine and honest in relationships, but I sometimes I don't practice it very well. I'm afraid, and I hate being afraid. Is it worth the risk? That's what I want to know more than anything else.

Whenever I reach the end of a personal stream of consciousness blog post like this, I always doubt whether I should really publish it. It feels so indulgent to present all my inner thoughts like they're important to the world, but one of things I love about blogging is that it makes me part of a community of people who have something to say and who don't mind reading what I have to say too. At least, I hope so. I'm putting my faith in you, blogging universe. Don't let me down. Because seriously, I don't think my insecurities could take it. (Just kidding)