Domesticity

Spring Gives Way to Summer

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I know that the summer solstice isn’t for another couple of weeks, but it has felt distinctly summer-like here in the Florida panhandle for at least the past month. Sampson and I have been busy with projects, visitors, and travel, and that level of bustle shows no sign of abating anytime soon. I thought I’d check in with a little peek at what we’ve been up to lately.

Decluttering

Despite the fact that it is far too early to have any definite timeframe nailed down, we cannot deny that our next move is on the horizon. Neither can we deny that eight years of marriage and a series of military moves that happened to put us in successively larger houses have allowed the Law of Expanding Crap nearly unchecked play. Our next move is almost certainly going to be to a much smaller space, and we have a lot of stuff that does not need to make the trip with us.

Sampson and I are off to a decent start at being more mindful about what we want to keep. We have severely pruned our wardrobes, scrapped bags upon bags of papers I don’t even know why we kept in the first place, and even filled boxes with books to donate. That last one is the toughest for this bookworm, so I’m most proud of that area of reduction. (Our bookcases still look full, mind, but they are no longer overflowing.)

We still have a long way to go, but seeing such major progress nearly every weekend for the past several weeks is motivating. Our goal is that by the time we move, we will take with us only those things we truly need and appreciate. I don’t want to dig through boxes in the new place and unwrap items that make me go, “Ugh, why on earth did we bother to pack this?” I’d much rather be excited about being reunited with our household goods.

Atlanta and New Orleans

In an effort not to let ourselves stagnate, we took a couple of long weekends for short road trips. Sampson wanted to see The Mitty at Road Atlanta, so we made a trip of it. In addition to seeing (and hearing, and feeling) amazing classic race cars whip around a beautiful course, we enjoyed all kinds of great food we can’t get in Pensacola. Among the highlights was my first time trying Ethiopian food in Little Five Points.

For my birthday weekend, we headed three hours west and wound up in New Orleans. Although we rapidly discovered that we are way too old and crotchety for the nonsense on Bourbon Street, we discovered all manner of other delicious dining spots and even enjoyed a cocktail or three. We spent most of the day on my birthday exploring the National World War II Museum.

(He)brewing Up Summer Learning

I had such an incredible experience at Middlebury College’s Hebrew for Lifelong Learners program last summer that I signed up to go this summer, too. I must have made it sound like fun, because this time my mother-in-law will join me for the intensive immersion course. I can’t wait to spend three weeks with lush green mountain landscapes in my eyes and no English in my ears or on my lips.

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So, what have you been up to lately?

Sprouting Spearmint

#blogExodus 4: Grow

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#blogExodus 5775 topicsSpring is the season of sprouting, of tender new growth stretching toward the sun after dreaming beneath the earth through the darker, colder months. I think we are past the danger of a hard freeze here in the Florida panhandle, and all around us are blossoms and soft new leaves. Also, the weeds we call a lawn are greening right up, so the yard looks more alive than it has in months.

Tobacco Hornworm

Voracious little buggers, and devilishly hard to spot.

An experienced gardener I am not, but I managed to grow some cherry tomatoes and herbs out on the patio last year. There is something deeply satisfying about eating something we picked right outside our own back door, and I look forward to snipping basil and thyme for our cooking throughout the coming spring and summer. We will probably skip the tomatoes this year, as the constant struggle against hungry tobacco hornworms got pretty old last year. The daily search for gigantic freaking caterpillars as long and thick as my finger (I leave it to the reader to guess which finger) that still somehow manage to camouflage themselves almost perfectly in the foliage is something I can cheerfully do without.

Herbs, though, are low-maintenance and give excellent culinary bang for the effort. I was delighted to see that, in spite of a winter’s complete and utter neglect, my pots of spearmint and thyme survived well enough to put out a few tentative shoots for a new season. I may be a suburban modern for whom growing edible plants is a hobby rather than a subsistence necessity, but I still delight in the feeling of connection to the agrarian rhythms to which our forebears shaped their lives.

Sprouting Spearmint

Sprouting spearmint, making me dream of future pitchers of iced tea.

#blogExodus, the brainchild of Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, invites participants to chronicle the weeks leading up to Passover through blog posts, photos, and other social media expressions.

#blogExodus 3: Cleanse

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#blogExodus 5775 topicsI ought to be well on my way to cleansing my house of all traces of chametz, leavened grain products, but I’m almost assuredly not as far along in my religiously mandated crumb search-and-destroy mission as I could be. Better turn in my balabusta credentials before someone notices that I’d rather bake bread than obsess over the fact that enjoying such might leave a bit of floury evidence thereof in odd corners.

These days I’m more concerned about clearing out as much unnecessary stuff from our house as we possibly can before our next move. In over eight years of marriage and four different duty stations, we have managed to accumulate all manner of things we don’t need anymore: paperwork, old school notebooks, outdated clothes, small appliances we received for wedding gifts and never used, and hobby items we haven’t touched in years. I suspect the whole mass puffs up, like bread dough rising to peek over the top of its oiled bowl, when given time and inattention. (“Just throw it in the office for now. we’ll figure out where to put it later.” Surprise! We never figure out a better place for it.)

We have made some progress in clearing out a few things, such as a big pile of electronics that needed recycling, and it does feel good to reclaim the space — both mental and physical — it had ballooned up to fill. We have a ways to go before we’re ready for the mini-exodus that is military move, but given that it’s going to happen sometime between this Passover and the next, it’s not too early to look around with an eye toward cleaning out that which no longer serves.

#blogExodus, the brainchild of Rabbi Phyllis Sommer, invites participants to chronicle the weeks leading up to Passover through blog posts, photos, and other social media expressions.

Fresh Off the Needles: My Very First Sweater

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2015-02-04 12.11.19

Partway through the raglan increases.

I first picked up a pair of knitting needles in June 2010, and I’ve come a long way since my first fumbling, awkward cast-on (only achieved by dint of watching YouTube instructional videos over and over and over again). No matter how much I had accomplished, though, something deep in my fiber-crafting soul told me that I must someday tackle The Sweater. The compulsion finally won out at the beginning of February, and I embarked on calculations for my very own Incredible Custom-Fit Raglan.

Torso mostly complete.

Torso mostly complete. Being able to try it on as I went was key.

I knit like a woman obsessed, which wasn’t difficult because I had deliberately opted for a simple, no-frills, plain stockinette version. The elapsed time from casting on the neck stitches to binding off the second sleeve was two weeks. We’re stationed in Florida, you see, and February’s arrival meant that warm weather was potentially just around the corner. I was racing the arrival of springtime, and if I lost, I would not likely have the chance to wear my new sweater until November.

I won the race, and although it’s definitely warming up now (just ask my allergies), I’ve had a number of opportunities to wear my cozy burgundy sweater. I learned a lot about in-the-round garment construction on this project, and I’ve got my eye on rather more complicated variations in the future. Some of them might even be appropriate for warmer weather (think lacy cardigans), so I won’t get too frustrated waiting for our too-short chilly season.

Completed Sweater

Ta-daaa! It’s a real, wearable (in public, even) sweater!

Fresh Off the Needles: Hue Shift Afghan

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Well, not really fresh off. I finished my Hue Shift Afghan back in February, and it has been brightening up our ratty old vintage couch ever since.

Hue Shift Afghan

Well, this is the finished product spread out in all its glory on our bed, which is not a couch. Thank goodness.

Hue Shift Afghan, View Two

Another view of its full-spectrum yarniness.

Our cats immediately decided that I had spent fifteen months (well, there was a lengthy summer hiatus when it was just too dang hot in the Florida panhandle to even contemplate knitting a big ol’ blanket) of my crafting life solely to provide them with their very own handmade snuggly thing.

Stripy Cat, Stripy Blanket

Stripy cat. Stripy blanket. It was meant to be.

All Snuggled Up

Immediately after I snapped this shot, Val pulled her head all the way back inside her snuggly sanctum.

The pattern was an enjoyable, easy-to-memorize knit, which made it a great project to work on during semi-weekly knit/crochet get-togethers with my next-door neighbor. I could envision making another one in the future, particularly if I scale it down for a baby blanket. Maybe I could power through that in somewhat under a year and a quarter.