Running Stitch

“lets find our Mama, she can fix it..YES!” because really. How long will that last? Mama can fix it?

Yesterday someone asked me when kissing it to make it better stopped working.

I don’t think it ever does. I mean the term Kiss and make up is still popular. The arms of my beloved are certainly the thing I yearn for first when I’m hurt (physically or emotionally).

*******
“Mama I like you to be happy and to talk to me, Okay?”

Okay. yes.

*****

**I’m giving away a Baby RingSling over at ClotherdiaperMama’s Friday, all you have to do is comment on the post before Sunday at midnight to be entered.

You never know when those moments will come. The ones that make you stop. Make you pause mid step. Make the sound of your breath, so loud in your own ears. The ones that put your life into harsh contrast. The ones that make you focus on the the sounds of your little ones as they pound through the house, squealing with glee? indignation? it’s hard to tell sometimes.

It could be a song on the radio that makes you slow down to the speed limit just so you can hear the end of it before you roll into the driveway.

It could be that your uncle had a stroke.

It could be that life is a series of many moments, and sometimes they all run together to catch up with you and knock you down, so that you are forced to focus on them.

It could be that there is a part of your past, someone who was a part of your world many years ago. Someone who took you under her wing and showered you with the gentle kindness that grandmothers tend to embody. Someone who made the world a more beautiful place through her years of activism and art. Someone who is wrapped up in memories of a life at the beach, in a round house, of happiness and joy and a feeling of safety that life may just be beautiful after all.

It could be that someone…that she, passed, silently and peacefully in the night.

But WHY??!! WHY!!! WHY!?? Would you want to?

Oh right because you procrastinated (what?!) and now it is time to deliver, in person.

And that would be awkward with out the quilt, ya think?

Last week while in San Francisco we had dinner with Beth and Merideth of Housemade fame who we met when we were all wee baby bloggers on the Home Renovation circuit.

A while ago Beth told me she had always wanted to make a jeans quilt out of their jeans but had never gotten around to it.

So after a a flurry of emails, some of which pertained to the quilt, I opened the front door to an enormous box of jeans (I had encouraged Beth to cut the legs off the pants to cut down on shipping).

I started cutting squares immediately but quickly realized that this quilt would cost a MILLION DOLLARS to mail because hello, jeans, heavy. So we decided that I would bring it with me when I came in July.

Flash forward to the Saturday before Blogher when I had the sudden thought. Wait. It’s July?!!

So I took the day off, Scott ran the ship solo and brought me tasty morsels like Quilting cheese guy to keep my energy up.

I finished the top Saturday.

Sometimes I wonder if this will be the memory they have of me, sitting quilting amongs their bustle, and then I think….good.

I finished tying the knots with some help from Miami Mama (because ow, my fingers ow) Tuesday or Monday. One of those days…and then the binding Thursday right before I shoved it into my backpack with not enough underwear or sweatshirts for the arduous journey full of chilly winds and waiting ’round the airport in my future.

Ta Da.

I think they like it.

This Saturday was the annual Quilters Garage sale at one of my favorite quilts shops. Past years have found me selling my extra fabric and notions at my own booth but this year we had some scheduling conflicts so I was only able to be a buyer…woe unto me.

My first purchase was this rope I used for the strap on this bag. The rope itself inspired the bag…not much doesn’t inspire me to make a bag. Especially snail bags.

It just doesn’t seem to be quite out of my system.

Which is available in our etsy shop.

Because the trees outside my window inspired me to make this bag.

or was it the trees outside the front door, or the house…well either way this is also available in the shop.

Then I found this fabric. Uh perfect! For the upcoming Turtledash bandanas! that I’m making for the participants, you know I’m pretty sure that will be done by October. Right?!

And finally this fabric, which reminds me of someone…who could it be?

And if you aren’t feeling the crafty vibe yet, check out SouleMama’s interview this week over at Simple Mom. Simple Mom is also giving away The Creative Family by Amanda Soule. I think her blog may a new daily read for me.

Today’s three miler (per hal higdon’s official half training plan) was a hilly one. Mostly because they were cutting trees down on our normal route. It’s over now. And that’s all I have to say about that.

I love running, you know, when I’m not hating it, because it gives me that time to think. I know it’s the alone time (or child free time) mixed in with the endorphins that give me that happy glowing feeling after a run. Although the fact that this feeling could also be happening because the run is over, is a very real possibility.

I also love that my husband and I run together, you know on the days that he chooses to run at my pace, cuz he is a tad faster than I. I enjoy our Sunday morning runs because we get to talk about stuff that we don’t get to talk about at night when we’re putting the kids to bed or in the morning when we’re trying to get him off to work and the kids back to the table, where we keep the breakfast thank you very much.

We often have conversations on our way home, after we’ve each had some quiet running time to ourselves to reflect, about what we want to do with our day, our house, our lives.

This and this really bothers me.
Me too!
Let’s do this to solve it!
Grooovy!

It could be as small as cleaning out the amassed cookbook collection, which we rarely use because, hello! Google. Every frenzied oh my it’s 4:30 already parent’s dream. (Although I will never, ever part with my Susan Branch cookbooks, because they are so beautiful, sometimes I just read them for fun.) Or as big as cleaning out the shed and making it into a functioning pottery studio, one that is closer to home and easier to access for trimming and carving.

Baby steps towards a fully functioning Studio. Baby steps towards our Turtledash training.

The Turtledash is officially 76 days away..Are you running?

**Don’t forget (like I did) you can still support Juls on her way to her 13th Marathon, she is running in honor of her husband Tom, and her stepfather. Click here to donate.

Last weekend after Blogher was all over I met up with two California RBF’s. Mia was one of the first running blogs I ever read, we trained through birth and after births together.

I found Juls blog through Jeff (haven’t we all found someone through him?). Her posts touched my heart and I read for awhile before I realized what a freaking running goddess she was. But by then I couldn’t run away and hide…because she would have caught me!

Mia already wrote the post I want to write about this meet up. The one that makes your cry, and laugh and stitches together all that our RBF meet up reunion means to me. And then Juls followed her up with this post, complete with more love.

Dang them.

All I’ve got is the pictures.

But oh, the pictures….

This was the first round only an hour in. (of photos first round of photos!!)

Juls realizes Scott took a picture of his leg on accident.

Hour two, Scott tells. The joke.

Mia Anticipates.

NOOOOOOOOOOO.

The Punchline.

my work here is done.

It’s dark now.

It’s cold now. Mia knit that hat.

My stomach still hurts.

**Don’t forget (like I did) you can still support Juls on her way to her 13th Marathon, she is running in honor of her husband Tom, and her stepfather. Click here to donate.

Today was Legolas’s birthday. In honor of it all I made her this purse. Fabric contributed by the fabulous Green Jello, thank you Anne.

And I made these in honor of them being, you know. Chocolate.

You know what went wrong here? I said to my husband as I was popping them in the oven. “I’m getting so much better at cooking I hardly have to read the recipe anymore.”

Yes I did.

Apparently the part about not overfilling the cups was key.

Happy Birthday Legolas. Hope you enjoyed the cocoa powder I put in the scones I made ten minutes before you arrived!

The Beautiful Blogging session, was the cornerstone of my blogher experience. The room was full of women who shared a purpose. All of us are interested in making the blogosphere and our lives beautiful.

I do not suffer the idea that this is a novel idea. I said yesterday that I gravitate to the beautiful post, I don’t have the time or energy for the angry, the hateful, the let’s band together and dis her posts or blogs.

The first blog I click on each morning, right after I click on yours! If I’m honest, is Soulemama’s. She helps me set the tone for my days, the computer boots up while I pour cereal, find pants, and wipe up spills. And then tea in hand I sit down for her post. She leaves me a little gift each morning in the form of a beautiful picture, or a calming thought.

And then I’m off to find out that the cat’s food has been left in a mountainess pile for her to gorge herself on.

Today, Amanda Soule’s post was a thank you to her readers.

And it struck me that sometimes we overlook all the beauty in our lives everyday. We forget to thank others for being a part of that beauty, no matter how small, no matter how disconnected.

Each of you that come here, contribute to my day. Each of you that leave comments, help me to find out about you and share the beauty that is you and I thank you for that.

I thank each and every blogger that I interacted with at Blogher, whether the interaction was good, bad or indifferent, it helped me to focus on the importance of beauty and how sometimes it is harder to see than others.

There is a beauty in the sadness of my little guy as he claims my lap as his own every time I sit down since we’ve gotten home. He is growing up and he is becoming attached to me, his dad, his brother. He missed us while we were gone. He is becoming a person all on his own with all his own feelings. And he is so beautiful.

Trying to explain what a blog is to people who don’t blog, is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks. Trying to explain to people what Blogher is like even if they do have a blog can be overwhelming.

I’m not even going to try, because after spending most of my adult life and retirement savings in the San Francisco airport yesterday as I watched flight after flight get cancelled (two of them mine) and flight after flight bump back an hour, two hours, three hours..(one of them mine) I don’t have the minutes or mouila left in my life to explain to you what Blogher is.

But you should go. Really. And take your card, even if you made it yourself.

Every single person there had a completely different experience than I did, but as I cruise the blogosphere today (not yesterday while I was trapped at SFO with wireless at 10 dollars an hour-uh no) and read account after account of people’s experiences I see post after post by people who had powerful, moving experiences at Blogher. Some of them happened during sessions, some of them happened during breaks, some of them happened in the lobby, out on the street and some of them just happened within.

I always come away from Blogher inspired. I want to write better, do more, live fuller. And I want to walk into a room of like minded women and leave that room, full of ambition to change things. To leave the world more hope-full.

I choose the blogs I read, and the friends I keep (in a little bag in my purse for when I need them) on how they make me feel. I no longer have the time in my life for highschool drama. It is so draining. I think you will find negativity anywhere you go. I chose the blogher sessions I went to based on how I feel about blogging.

Kelli knits during one of the sessions

I want to blog beautiful, I want to leave the world a better place, I want my boys to have a record of how I feel about them, their dad, the leaking Burrow and their world. I want them to have a record of how I enjoy being a grown up and talking to people who understand not only why I blog but why I continue and what I gain from the experience but how also how I missed those chubby, grubby warm bodies every minute I was away from them and how it almost broke me when we arrived at the airport early only to find our flight had been cancelled and that I was hours and even more hours from seeing them then I thought I was.

I cried. And it wasn’t beautiful. Because, Hello! Help me out here, I just want to get home to my babies!

But sit in the airport we did, me and my best friend, the father of those two boys, who has talked me down off a ledge or two, who spent Saturday night pep talking me into going to the cocktail party even though Marilyn had left and Kelli was in her hotel room with a teething one year old and I don’t knnooooow anyooone! I just want to go home!

And then leaving the cocktail party with me after I managed to talk to two women then coming back with me when I came to my senses and realized that he was right, just walk up to someone and say. “hey so, what’s your blog about!” And only that one person ran away! But she and she? The talked to me. And finally Kelli came back to the book signing (hai! a whole other post!) And I realized I could do this. And I should do this, because these woman? some of them are probably just as freaked out as I am about leaving the house! wearing unstained clothes, talking to other adults, (hundreds of them) all of whom had heard of a blog before ten minutes ago.

Rita Arens editor of Sleep is for the Weak, and Kelli, contributor.

And as I was talking to other adult woman all of whom have done some amazing things, I realized that my purpose at this Blogher was to go out and let my small corner of the blogosphere know about all the stuff that goes on at these conferences. There is some drama, but you can find that in any bathroom of any hotel ever, and there is some unhappiness, but I think you often find that that baggage comes with someone and isn’t necessarily created.

My job is to tell you about the hope and the vision for our future that I saw at this conference. Authors, Mothers, entrepreneurs all in one room working toward the future together. Toward a greener, more equal, more beautiful tomorrow full of hope for us and our children. That is what Blogher was all about for me.

Finding the Beauty.

And I found that beauty in so many people and so many moments. Like that moment when our 11am scheduled flight finally arrived at 6pm. As the plane pulled into the terminal the waiting throngs stood up and cheered. They could have thrown things, they could have lost their tempers..but they cheered.

And it was beautiful.

It took me all day to write this entry, because living life to the fullest sometimes means stepping away from the computer to actually play with those little boys I’ve been missing, and it means rocking a slightly stressed two year old on you lap for an hour while typing..I’ll take it.

It’s hard to know which story to tell first, there were certainly more hours than usual in this weekend, and almost a new story for each hour.

There is the one about the quilt we delivered and the grilled zucchini we devoured.

The one about the conference. And the after conference. And my husband meeting more people (as usual) than I did at a conference he didn’t even attend.

And the one about three women, who year after year can meet and talk, and talk and talk.

I would love to tell you those stories but right now? I’m tired and I miss the wee men, so I’ll save those stories for later this week after I’ve settled back into my life and hugged my boys and when I need a few moments to remember that I can be a grown up too.