Happy New Year

2008 hangs above us waiting to surprise and inspire. Wishing you and your loved ones happiness hanging from every corner. Be back soon! xo, Anna

Christmas Break

What a full year. Do I dare sound too typical and ask where its gone? Here we are nearing the end of December and I still can't find November. Looking over my shoulder, I am in awe really at what 2007 has been. Fruitful. Sweet. Challenging. Exhausting. Just full. And blessed, every last day of it. Thank you for being part of it. You're the sweet part.



I'll be breaking for a bit, friends. There are sweets to bake. Gifts to wrap. Children to cuddle. Handsome eyes to look into. Couches to be slumbered upon. Oh and theres a book due in four weeks too. All these souls and blessings need some nurturing to carry them into the new year, including mine.

I'm wishing days of peace for you. I'm praying for peace everywhere. I'm hoping for our awareness of the good around us. And I'll see you here again very soon.
With my very best, Merry Christmas, xoox, AnnaMaria

Hey, where do you think you're going?

Every weekday for two weeks now the weirdest thing has been happening. Little Eleni, yea, I said little...teeny tiny Eleni is up and dressed at the crack of dawn. What could possibly be so important? Shoes too? Really? As in you're leaving the house? Certainly not. Neh-nuh neh-nuh no.



Just days ago she was flitting her sparkley self around the house barefoot from one adventure to another. Some with me, some without me. All of them near me. I could hear the adventures, and would look up from my work sometimes to see them. It was good. I was happy. She was happy. But now. Well. Eleni started a new adventure. Pre-school. Sigh. In fact I haven't even been able to write about this until now. I have been a bit reflective though, huh? I thought I would feel like 16 years of waiting would make me happy to have all the children cared for during the day. Happy would not describe this feeling. It's an ache of sorts. I can't explain it. My nose starts to sting like tears are about to come when I think about the silence in the house. The sparkleys just hanging there with no one to dance them from one room to another. My lap is like this big empty space that makes it really easy to type with no one's sweet smelling head in my face while I try to see the monitors. Then the swelling feeling around the heart comes. It feels tragic even though I know its right.



Back to Eleni. She's been in tears too. She cries every time I pick her up to bring her home. She can't stand the thought of not playing with her 14 new best friends, learning from her two favorite teachers, eating yummy prepared hot meals (everyday at 12 on the nose!), napping on fancy little cots and experiencing one outer-home adventure after another. Every morning I remind her that she need not put herself through the torture of a ride to school with Daddy and the unspeakable torment of memorizing all the street names and buildings between our house and the newly built architecture-award-nominated little perfect school. But she goes anyway. She goes anyway!



Not only does she go but she waits to go as though being here is the torture. Being here is great! Are you kidding me?! Theres pajamas. Coffee. Phone calls. Errands. Writing. Blogging. Camera malfunctions. Laundry. UPS shipments. Me! I'm here! What's not to love, I tell you??



Okay. Go. Just be back here before dark and promise to sparkle and sing and tell me every detail of every minute of every day of your time without me. And hug me harder from now on. It's imperative. Lets arrange some time with me trying to write with you in my lap for old time's sake, 'kay? I love you and you are growing to be an impressively lovely girl. Mean it.
xo Mommy

Lest-we-forget links

Merry 8 days away! xoAM

SHOP!

My little shop is open for business at 11am CST today. Whew. I'm gonna go clean house now. Hope you're having a good Saturday. Love love love, Anna Maria

What beauty is this?

Last year I wondered why it was called a Christmas cactus. This year I 'm wondering what I did to deserve this little bloom of progress. A small but welcome joy. Wishing you such. xoA

Fancy and Not

Well its not exactly popcorn, but snowflakey thingies came more easily somehow. The cheer shown in the tree day post was unfortunately not felt so much by me because I was too busy coming down with something. I felt so guilty for not feeling good and not being peppy for everyone, but just going through the motions. Fancy festivities. Not fancy feelings. So I spent 6 hours on the couch with that garland, ibuprofen and tea on Sunday morning so it actually got finished. But I'm better now, thank you. And I am happy with the garland, but maybe the stringy parts between are too belt-like and thick. Dunno.



There could be lots of posts coming that are more photos than words, because thats the easier, faster part for me. I have to tell you. I have to. I never want to work as hard as I'm working right now ever again. In one way I love the amount of things that are getting accomplished but some days feel like I'm dragging a pile of boulders for miles before I can see some progress. I am tired of being top-priority busy. Certainly there are some mid-priority tasks in there somewhere that I'm attaching the wrong priority to. I don't think so though. I've checked. Like 6 times. And its seems that everything is at the top of the list these days. Which I'm pretty sure is actually a good thing. Because I'm doing things that matter to me and hopefully a few other people. (I'm doing things that matter. I'm doing things that matter. ) I just can't tell from here. Anyone else know what I mean? You must. I am feeling a little nostalgic for the days when nursing a newborn at 11am was top priority. Everyone told me I would miss it. I knew I would. I didn't know how much. Not that it was ever that simple. But it seems like it from here. Hungry? Feed it. Crying? Feed it. Tired? Feed it. Hurt? Feed it.



It's just that season where there is such a yearning enjoy my family and home and I feel like I've had my back to a lot of it for a while. Too long. I'm tired. I'm happy. But I'm tired. That's not so bad. And to say sorry for more photos than words and short or no posts would be silly in light of the kindness and encouragement you are constantly showing me. You know its time to slow down when you miss being sick on the couch just so something can get accomplished. Any little thing all the way done would do. Even this post.

love from here, xo,AM

Tree Day

Killing time with crafts.

Setting the stage.

Nativity play.

Let's do this thing people.

Wait for me!

Captives

Nope. He just works there. Seriously. Just a coincidence.

Up on the rooftop and heading home.

Good Night.

xo,AM

Jolly

The spirits are lifted here a bit after a trying week or two and I could almost say jolly to describe it. Guess who's back? Now to restore my faith in technology. Is that even a real thing? I think not. I have other sorts of faith so technology can do what it wants. (Obviously it already does)

Trimming time here.....unboxing stuff tonight! My mind instantly goes from that to all the sticky candy cane wrappers stuck between couch cushions that I'll come across in a few days and how the candy canes on the top of the tree will be among the only that survive for more than a week or two. I do love the family life.

Have a sweet weekend! xoAM

xo,AM

Uncommon Quilting

Before I forget, I wanted to share this inspiring book by Jeanne Williamson that I recently came across. It would make an ideal gift for someone who loves to quilt, collage, paint or all of the above. The concept behind the book in itself is a very inspiring thing for a designer. Jeanne set out to make a quilt every week for one year. 52 quilts! That dedication alone is so inspiring. And she continued this from 1999 to 2005 until she had 365 quilts. Not quilts in the sense that most people think of them, but smaller scale "art" quilts, for lack of a better description. The materials she uses in many of them are uncommon to say the least...cupcake wrappers, potato bags, newspaper .... along with more traditional things like paint, fabric, stitching.

I love her choice of consistently making them about the same size of about 8x10" so that the resulting collection has a stunning flow but such variety. In the end they seem to be a mental landscape of sorts and record the time, moods and happenings in her life over the course of a year. In looking through the book you can't help but notice how personal the collection is. It leaves the quilter in me thinking differently and the painter in me also a bit changed. While it specifically goes over how to make some of the quilts in the book (see some more images here) the overall urge that I get is to make any one item over and over again. Also to let some things be failures and some things be successes but let all the work speak for the dedication that I have to my craft. Inspiring, no?

Okay-thought you'd wanna see. Back to work. My feet are freezing! Where are those kids' soccer socks.....
xo,AM

Making me Happy

Hey did seven days just pass since my last post? Is time moving faster or am I moving slower? I am certain that I'm not moving slower. I really appreciate the shoulders that nuzzled under the crying from my last post. Boy howdy. I had actually gotten my camera back the very next day after that, quite surprisingly. I was so overjoyed and snapping pictures of stupid anythings. But then the playback button wouldn't work. I don't need to describe all the emotions, etc. after that. You know, if you can't say something nice. But I will say that while I feel I received a lemon, that the Canon people have been extremely helpful, and, umm, human. Do you ever feel like no matter what you say that the person on the other end of the line is going to repeat the same phrase?? They really seemed to listen to me when I calmly suggested that instead of me shipping it back again, that if perhaps one of their repair technicians in New Jersey could just step outside and open their arms, then I would gladly throw it back from Nashville. Yup. That much feeling behind the throw. I know it would have gotten there, in fact maybe even an overthrow. Point being, they bent at my expression of frustration by sending me a FedEx label to overnight it instead of the standard UPS, and giving me an extension number to a person, instead of the standard 800 for follow up. So waiting again now. Hopefully for a replacement. Come on Canon, I know you can do it.

Oh yea. On with the making me happy part. I totally stole the yarn-ball ornament idea from the store window at GapKids. How cute is that? The kids and I had a ball (duh) making them. It kept them all on the floor for about an hour chatting about their personal successes of ultimate winding capabilities. We started the centers with styrofoam balls to keep them light and not take up too much yarn. Winding proved to be good unwinding.



Also I cannot put my hooks down lately. Good and mindless happiness. I am just stringing the longest white chain that may or may not get fancier for a possible garland of sorts. Thought about crocheting little clusters into it for a popcorn effect. Anyone seen anything similar I could look at for inspiration?



And every evening when I cannot think anymore, I have a crush on Sasha Kagan and her beautiful book! I cannot get enough of it. It's exactly the sorta thing I need in the crochet department, because its more an index of all the types of stitches, patterns, and gorgeous ideas with instructions and perfect illustrations than it is a group of finite patterns to follow. I cannot get into following a pattern for any finished thing, I like to come up with the whatever myself...I just need the inspiration and possibilities in front of me. Anyway, currently working on a scarf using the Katherine's Wheel pattern. Its sooo pretty and fun to make and Saint Katherine is one of my favorite saints, so I particularly love the reference to the "wheel" that is part of her story.



Also making pretty little things to populate the beginnings of my shop. We hope to have that up and running by this weekend, but I've learned not to attach a date to anything. I will of course let you know, and if you want an email update about it you can sign up on the mailing list by clicking the top sentence/link here.

Thats the report folks. I have to admit feeling a bit of sourness the past week every time I thought of blogging, because I didn't have my new camera to play with. So these pics are just from the old snappy. On with it though. Wishing you happiness today.

xoAM