the new domesticity and socks...

My sock is coming along. I think I'm in the homestretch now which is nice. I'm enjoying it and I think I have learned why I always mess up the gussets and how to avoid that in the future. Which is good, now I can have more sockfidence.

This week I read Homeward Bound by Emily Matchar which was a fascinating read. It's about this movement to embrace and celebrate the domestic arts again with cooking and crafting and blogging about it all. She covers the history of domesticity and then looks at how this recent resurgence of interest connects to the economy and parenting and gender roles and the internet. Her research is extensive and it's eerie how she seems to have read all the same books and blogs that I have read in the last year or so. In a time when most of the people I know are making jam and/or knitting and/or keeping chickens or bees in the city and at parties we all end up talking about our gardens, this book seems like a perfect depiction of our moment in time and culture. I also appreciate how she calls out the class issues in living this way and points out how very few people can make a living off their blog or etsy shop. Highly recommended.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along.

What's Goin' On...

We got derailed by a quick little bug over the weekend. It wasn't too bad, but it did cancel Chris and my plans to see 12th Night in the park. I'm hoping to still catch it later on.

                               In the summer, we become fruititarians. I'm ok with that. It's such a short time that we can drench ourselves in blueberries, rasberries, cherries. We eat them in sticky handfuls. A lucky few get put up in the freezer for later jam making. Mostly we just eat them and are delighted.

                                  I know my pictures are sometime a little unbalanced and Brixton gets more screen time. It's too bad I can't follow Unity to school and take pictures of all the interesting works she does and all her wild and tumultuous friendships. Ok no because that would be creepy but still.

                              Yesterday he spent the morning hammering, and then starting cuddling with a shirt of Unity's. The shirt became "baby Walker", don't ask me how. It's funny because Walker is actually a family name on my mom's side but he wouldn't know that. So for the rest of the day we changed baby Walker's diaper and played with him, and rocked him when he cried. I love this hammering cuddling little one.

And the big ones too of course.

   

There's something growing in my kitchen...

I know, I know, usually that's a bad thing. Check it out though: kombucha, sourdough starter, kimchi.

Today

Secret craft projects...shhh.

Fancy Unity

Do you remember when you were a kid and there was a fictional story that just really took over your imagination? I think most of us had that moment where we really tried to live inside the stories we loved. I remember asking my mom if she could make my hair look like Wily Kit from the Thundercats. I was so sad when that didn't work out.

Unity, as we all know by now, loves Fancy Nancy. She often tries to reinact scenes from Fancy Nancy books by drawing her own versions. Grandma Ann just sent the Fancy Nancy Christmas book (thanks Grandma!) and Unity has been busy trying to make her own version of Nancy's doll closet. She drew clothes for the dolls and used push pins to hang them up. It's amazing to see what she comes up with all on her own.

                               Ok it's super nerdy to post a picture of my food storage containers, but I am excited about them. And this is why. Over the years I have learned more and more about the chemicals that are in plastic and how bad they are for human health. Sadly, I learned this after Unity had been useing BPA bottles for about six months, but as soon as I learned it, I threw them out and got glass ones. BPA is an endocrine disrupter and has serious and long lasting effects on our bodies. It's in everything- so it's hard to avoid but I have been trying to cut back on the plastic as much as I can. The other thing is it's released by heat so please don't put your plastic in the dishwasher! Ok now I'm done with the public service annoucement. Anyway, one of the groups where I get a lot of my safety information from, the Environmental Working Group, had a special offer to buy glass food containers and it would benefit the EWG. Now, being the reusers that we are, we've had our plastic yogurt containers for a while. And I've been washing them by hand. But I got excited by the idea of getting rid of all that plastic, so I got the fancy new glass containers and I am pleased. (Yes, they have plastic lids. Sigh. I'm washing those by hand. I guess we just can't escape the plastic.)

Ricotta Cookies

Whenever we don't know what to do, we bake. The kids love helping with measuring and mixing, and of course eating. I much prefer baking to regular cooking, so everyone wins. I had some leftover ricotta so we made ricotta cookies. They are so soft and light! The only problem is, the recipe makes about 700 cookies. I guess there are worse problems to have.

Also, I got some new glass jars for kitchen storage. We buy so many things in bulk and I need a better way to organize them. Plus, they are more pleasing to the eye than the old tubs and baggies.

baking and bus stop comforting

She was singing to him, to help him calm down.

Blackberry muffins- I love the purple swirls.

this weekend

Ok so I have a question. What do you do when you have a sink full of dishes and a pile of laundry that needs folding? You make a cherry pie of course! So I did, with a coconut almond topping. Yum.

We moved Brixton up to the bigger car seat. Sniffle.

and we hung out with Chris's good friend Erin and her kids Keira and Samara, aged five and three. They just moved back to Seattle and Keira and Unity hit it off immediately. I think it was the dress that did it. We are looking forward to more playdates with them.

Making Soap

Making soap was a fun project that I had been wanting to do for a long time and finally got around to a couple of days ago. We gathered herbs and flowers from our garden (rosemary, lavender, calendula, chamomille, lemon balm and bay). We made a kind of soap called melt and pour which is really easy and safe for kids- I got the supplies here. We had a blast with our project- it was just the kind of hands-on helpfullness that Unity loves right now.

Edit to add that those are totally not her shoes- she borrowed them from a friend. I'm actually not a big fan of high heels for 4 year olds. Shocking I know. We gave them back and I'm hoping that's the end of it for now.

Blueberry Cornbread muffins

We got a ton of fruit from the farmers market this week. While I was looking at the piles and trying to figure out what to make so it wouldn't go bad before we could eat it all, an idea floated into my mind, of blueberry cornbread muffins. You guys have heard of this right? I don't think I made it up cause I am such a paint-by-numbers cook but I didn't have a recipe for it. I combined a recipe for blueberry muffins with the cornbread one, both from the King Arthur Flour Baking book. They turned out great and we ate the last of them for breakfast this morning (meaning they didn't even last 24 hours.)

Berries and bread

So our garden is a little overgrown right now. Chris and I both have the habit of jumping all in when we start a new project. Why have one jar of kombucha going when you could have two? Why have just half your yard dug up and turned into garden when you could do the whole thing? And then the days go on and the project loses it's new luster and the work of it sets in. Anyways the berries coming out of our garden this year are great! Berries don't need a lot of help you see, they just do their thing and then there they are- ready for snacking, or Strawberry Pie. (From the wonderful Pie book) I've also been working on my bread, it's getting easier and we always snarf it down right away.

cooking, cleaning, mirrors

And here you see Unity enjoying some of her birthday presents- she likes both really cooking and playing restaurant. This morning she asked me could she please clean the floor with a sponge. I swear, I am not making this up! She really really please wanted to. So I um gave her a sponge and while she happily crawled around cleaning I had to take a photo for posterity. Also, Brixton and I have fun goofing in the mirror.

give me a rose in the wintertime

We are all recuperating from a nasty little stomach bug that hit us this weekend. But today I'm feeling thankful for my overall health, in that way that only the first day of recovery can give you. Along with that, in these short dark days of winter it's so nice to have a few splashes of color. So here is a primrose and a (slightly sickly) geranium from our windowsills.