My Feet Have A Dream

Every tootsie's gotta dream.....
You know that thing about how girls are supposed to be obsessed with shoes? Yeah. I'm not. I mean, I have a bunch of shoes but its nowhere near an obsession, I basically can't hack high heels at all and none of the shoes I own are of any value....most of them aren't even purchased new. Hello estate sale shoes! Hello Goodwill wonders!

But...BUT....then there are these shoes. *sigh* I've been thinking about them for months. They're kind of my dream shoes. Hand made, custom fit to my crazy high arch, sausage toed, super wide feet, a grassroots company where they're working with real, natural leather right here on the East Coast. I realize the shoes are 150 dollars a pair but they are far more versatile and in my opinion more romantic than any runway Leboutins. I waffle back and forth between wistfully daydreaming about a pair of West Indians or a set of New Chinese in that rich, classic brown color. They may be most the ideal, perfect, crunchy chick shoe ever conceived.... forget Birkenstocks and Dansko clogs!

I see a visit to their workshop in my future. Aurora, New York...I'm coming sometime soon!

Poetry Friday: A Laundry Poem

Today, a laundry poem that I chuckled while writing, because I am working on my own mountain between attacking the last of the last of the moving boxes. And we all need a little touch of comic relief + heroism now and then, don't we? Sometimes it is just the thing.

Joan of D’ark and Dirty

Laundry is the great monster

Mommy wrestles; her eternal foe.

Every day, long tentacles flailing from the

Hamper, dripping ooze in the form of

Socks and spotted onesies, by the pound.

She hacks at it, vigorously sorting its many limbs

Into piles: whites, darks, reds.

She rises periodically from the latest fray,

Ceremoniously mounting the stairs,

A badge of crisp pillowcase on her arm.

She strategizes the endless new advance,

Not faltering in the face of the grim smells

Of covert hand grenades the enemy leaves

Moldering in the depths of the diaper bag.

We are polished, lest the monster take our very skins

And admonished sternly of his wily ways

She sprays over us her protective elixirs:  

Tide (jumbo, extra concentrated)

And Shout, in little rhythmic squirts.

Laundry sometimes roars and beats Its chest

Rattling the floorboards with the throaty,

Conquering cry of a monster that has

Boldly taken our last dish towel to his bowels.  

But, Mommy rallies with a Monday morning war cry.

There is a great clanging of machine lids and

The sound of lusty Patsy Cline yodeling from the basement

And before we know it, Laundry is only a simpering

Trio of washcloths and a single pair of underwear

Slinking there behind the dryer hose.  

Halloween of Yore...

It was a great Halloween. I called it the best one in our memory as a family although A said that he thought we'd had others just as happy and full of cheer. I may be a child of the moment, only really remembering what I just ate or maybe it really was just that fabulous. Who knows.

I was a gardener (I had leaves and sticks in my hair) and Nib was my yard gnome. The big boys were both firemen of course.

There was a wonderful dinnertime open-house costume party at the next door neighbors. The grown-up wore costumes, even if they didn't have little kids, there were lots of homemade get-ups and everyone was very warm and jolly, grinning at each other and swapping stories over the pizza and caramel apple dip. At exactly the right time the party disbanded in a whirl of glitter and feathers and pretend noses....and we all took to the streets to wish each other a happy autumn, make introductions, hand out candy to each other's children and kick our way through the leaves on all the sidewalks.

Here's a neighbor at the costume party who was also a gnome. So funny to see them together!

Dee collected lollipops on his rounds saying when asked what he'd like from a basket or bowl "I like lollipops." and then carried them in bouquets all over town. They didn't go in the bucket...just in the hand.

A said that it was truly surreal trick-or-treating...crowds of people out halloing across the street and parents back slapping each other over their children's costume choices and neighbors passing out glow-in-the-dark bracelets for all the small ones trooping down the street. Such a fabulous sense of community and togetherness and warmth and trust. I am won over, completely.

A is a careful and studious carver and spends a good bit of time on his creation every year. This year he was carving swiss cheese holes in his pumpkin to make a gleeful Sponge Bob.

And here are all of them on the porch: Mommy, Dee, Daddy and Ru...four in a row.

Our pumpkins we carved were wonderful this year too. No botched slips of the knife, very warm and cheery glows and I'm cooking them down today to make them twice useful. Pumpkin pie, here we come!

Pajama Christening

Time for a little sewing.

I keep finding that Ru has no pajamas and he keeps going to bed in an undershirt and a diaper. Its getting a little bit chilly for these sorts of shenanigans. Today I was moping a little about how I just spent a good bit of money on curtains so I shouldn't go buy pajamas and I was just moaning to A about how overtaxed I feel about running all over kingdom come all the time and therefore never being home or staying caught up on day to day maintenance. Ahem. Yes...that is the reason why I stayed home today and sent A off with the car so that I'd be grounded here. But, a boy needs warm bed clothes...what's a mommy to do?
Remember her sewing machine of course! Silly me!  I'd been thinking a while back that I'd love to try to make some simple elastic waist pajama pants for the boys anyhow, just for the experience of seeing how it would work...and then here I was with a genuine need for some!

It was my first little project in the Sunroom Studio that is going to be our creative space. This means its been christened and will forthwith be a place to dream and cut and paint with great abandon.That's a pleasant kind of milestone to mark off.

I just meant to make a couple for Ru but of course Dee couldn't resist chiming in and asking for a pair of his own and what mommy could resist eager pleas for some pants of one's own. Pajama pants all round!

 

I made three very serviceable  pairs, some of which were personally designed by the wearers, and hopefully, here ends The Great Pajama Drought.