classical indian curative

yesterday it rained and rained and we decided some warm chai and classical indian music might be just the thing. a new yoga studio was having an open house, and a friend of ours was playing sitar along with a friend of his on tabla. it was a lovely reprieve on a wet, dark sunday. on the way home tristan said, nice people, nice kids. we were all in agreement on that.

discovery

i took my little guy to the local discovery museum today. it was so fun watching him play with each and every thing there. we have a lot of fun at home, but it sure is nice to do something different every once in a while.







there was a story time, which was also a first him. i mean, we read stories for hours on end at home, but hadn't yet attended a public story time. i wasn't sure he was going to have the patience, but the story was one that he knows well: the cat in the hat. so he loved it. the museum also had two of his very favorite books in their collection.



there is a tibet exhibit at the museum. pretty cool stuff. we made a prayer flag for dad. played in a nomad tent. hung out with a yak.







there is also a cool log cabin, virginia style.



tristan loves to organize and stack things. these train cars were topsy turvy all over the track and he lined them all up.



sometimes i sure miss the tiny baby i can wrap up in a sling against my chest and gaze at quietly the whole day through. but i also really love this little man who plays and reads and talks so enthusiastically. as he discovers the world, so do we, all over again.

curtain accomplished

i have mentioned in past blog entries, my quirky sewing room. it is a narrow room that houses the washer, drier, utility sink and door to the garage. so really it is a mud room. but also, i think it is a breakfast nook. it is connected to the kitchen, has the same awful linoleum flooring and there is an interior window between it and the living room. why anyone ever wanted a window between that room and the living room is beyond me. also puzzling is the huge mirror on one wall. i covered it with a sheet. it's an odd room, but i am ever so grateful for it.

i have used various curtains in the window, as the sewing room can be pretty cluttery and i'd rather there wasn't a clear view into it from our living room. i also work on secret surprises in there sometimes! it's been a long time goal to make a curtain for that window, preferably a somewhat sheer patchwork curtain. sheer is important, so that i don't feel totally separated when i'm in there, and so that i can peek into the living room and see what my family is up to.

that goal has finally been accomplished.



the above photo is a view of the curtain from the living room. i moved my desk into the living room recently as i wanted a place for our computers and tashi's homework, which always end up covering the dining room table.

here is the curtain with the sewing room light shining through it.





it's pleasing to have something handmade there. and it was a satisfying project, though troubling at times. the lace was tricky as it overlaps the seams. i probably should have sewn all the panels together first, and then sewn the lace on top of the fabric. but i wanted to be able to peek through the lace. it worked out fine, though if you examine it really closely, you might realize that the construction is a bit haphazard.

i also tried french seams for the first time so that the backside doesn't look totally ragged. the backside is what i have to look at when in the sewing room after all. here is a peek at the french seams from the sewing room.



i feel like our living room has found it's missing piece.

into the golden sun

we've spent another week+ dealing with illness, this time a flu virus that took tashi, tristan and i down. tristan was not as badly hit as he was a month ago, and he bounced back pretty quickly from this round. but tashi has had a couple of alarming relapses into the fevered state, and i don't think i have ever before suffered such severe body aches.

it seems we have finally emerged from the worst of it, all three of us toting a lingering cough. it was not enough to keep tristan and i inside today as the outdoor temps soared to the mid seventies. we spent a refreshing couple of hours at a playground, and got to see some friends who we've missed for months.







there is so much to be grateful for, and so much to hope for as the season begins to shift. it is time to work the soil, and time to consider which seeds, symbolic and actual, will be planted and nurtured into fruition.

half way there

we did not do much on imbolg this year as dan had a gig wednesday evening, and, after my day at work, i was left with little energy to pull together a celebration. we did spend some time outside appreciating the slant of sunlight falling across our yard. tristan climbed into his sand box for the first time in months. our yule tree and other greenery sit in the fire pit waiting to be burned; hopefully we will do that within the week. i took some photos to mark the day and feel that even this small time out of doors was a great commemoration of the half way mark between winter solstice and spring equinox.

pants for the yogi

one can only imagine how much my heart glowed when i heard tristan singing this song from his car seat this morning, sun saltutation dance for the sun!



it seems to confirm that my timing was just right for making him some crescent moon yoga pants, a hand drawn pattern from little comet tails. this was my first time using an actual garment pattern and i'm hoping that it will lead to the disintegration of my fear of working with patterns and making clothing. it's a very user friendly hand drawn pattern with basic instructions.



one can make plain yoga pants, or pants with a crescent booty. i chose the latter as the crescent booty is so nice and roomy for the cloth diapers. my friend & doula, stasi york, who passed on the pattern to me also left me a couple of colors of nice fleece. i chose the grey.




i think they turned out quite well, and he wanted to put them on right away, before the hem had been sewn. there is nothing more rewarding than a wiggly toddler who actually asks to put something on.






he put up a little fuss when i asked to remove them so i could add a hem, but all was well when i could put them back on him. they are super soft, cozy, warm and seem to fit quite well.



perfect for a little yogi!

albemarle day

dan's sister barb paid us a brief visit this weekend and we went on a wondrous drive yesterday. after enjoying a favorite back road drive through free union, past buck mountain, boonesville, and around to whitehall, we stopped off at the whitehall community center, where there was a surprising one day exhibit of tapestries created by inuit women. the little community hall, which i've entered only once before when dan's band played for a school fundraiser, was wonderfully transformed. we were lucky to have caught wind of the exhibit on the evening news the night before.










the tapestries of boiled wool were simple, bright, stunning and complex all at once. they were charming, but also hinted at difficult living on the tundra. i feel so lucky that we got to peek at this world, and hope that more surprises find their way into the little community center. you can learn more about the exhibit, and its wonderfully engaging curator, judith varney burch at the arctic inuit art website.

we were ready for a nutritional boost afterwards, so made the requisite stop at mudhouse crozet.



and then we just wandered, up to the blue ridge parkway, down the switchbacks of afton mountain, through batesville, and back home. we made a quick stop to the barn swallow on our way home, a lovely gallery where i was employed when we first moved to charlottesville.


it was a refreshing day of beauty and vistas, after several days homebound with an ill tristan, followed by my own sinus infection. and now it's a new week, the world rocks, the midwest faces a blizzard, and the signs of spring are beginning to reveal themselves in our own little blue ridge oasis.