Head to the Crate!

I love Crate and Barrel.  It's in my top ten list of stores.  Target, Sign of the Arrow, HomeGoods,  Hobby Lobby, Harrods,  Trotters, J. Crew,  the White House Visitor's Shop and American Girl - in no particular order.  The Crate (a pet name I just made up- pass it on!) is a given.  As in, you know at least 50% of their inventory.  Need a set of 24 white buffet plates? Head to the Crate.  Giant popcorn bowl needed?  You'll find it at the Crate.  Want to buy a gift that you don't have to wrap?  Everyone loves the classic black and white cardboard box found where?  I hear you, the Crate. 

A few days ago, I received the summer catalog in the mail.  Now in less I am in need of any of the above aforementioned staples, I usually make two pilgrimages to the Crate each year - one at the beginning of summer and one right after Thanksgiving.  These are the times when the Crate really shines!



Oh!  The orange, the yellow, the lime!!!!   I could dance through the store its so sunny.  Even the wall of clear glassware seems to reflect the sunshine.   My eyes darted from floor displays to wall vignettes.  I love it all.  I can't have it all, but I can search for the one goodie that captured my eye in the catalog - the "water-repellent polyurethane tote with black and white striped fabric lining in four fashionable brights: aqua, orange, yellow or very berry."  I find them past the elevator, right by bedding,.  They are beautiful.  They look like yummy  lollipops.  The decision as to which color to buy is painstaking - I feel I should be at Camp David with the world's leaders helping me decide.  First color eliminated: aqua.  The color wasn't as cute in person as it was in the catalog.  Then I eliminated the very berry.   I like pink or red, not the unsure of itself berry.   The yellow and orange were calling my name.  They screamed summer.  I decided to head upstairs to delay the decision even longer. 

I love the elevator ride because you get the full view of the store.  Its like the stairway to heaven.  I am ready to move in upstairs.  Really, would it be so bad for a family of five to live on the top floor?  We could leave during the day and eat in this dining room at night:

I am upstairs, when I spot it - the most beautiful chair I have ever seen.  I was half expecting it to be called the Julie chair.  I sit on it.  It is unbelievably comfortable.  After spending probably too much time sitting in the chair in my pretend living room, I had to walk away.  I did the glance back at the chair - you know the look you give when you are walking away from the one you love. 

I realize my own awkwardness and head back downstairs and back to the tote decision.

I leave the store feeling like I have met an old friend for lunch, happy to have caught up and vowing to meet again soon.  Realistically, we both know it won't be until the Christmas catalog arrives.  I mean, everyone knows their ornaments rock.  
 
As to what color I bought.......orange you glad I finally decided?
 

Sew proud

This weekend, Caroline tackled her first sewing project.  She's done a lot of hand sewing, enough to warrant her own sewing box full of supplies, but this was the first attempt at sewing by herself at the machine.  I am proud to announce that she's a natural!   Guiding the fabric, putting the right amount of pressure on the pedal, sewing around curves - she listened, learned and figured it out.  It was strange to be in the house, hear the machine humming and realizing that I was not the one "in the zone."  At one point during her sewing, I needed to run an errand to the crafter's mothership, Hobby Lobby.  The look on her face when I asked her to go was priceless.  She didn't want to leave the machine!   And now, after one solo project under her belt, or should I say apron, she is dreaming of her own machine.  Hmmm......I'm thinking of a 10th birthday present that would be sew perfect.

Give peace a chance

My third child is turning five in a few months.  I love this age.  I love all ages, but this age is like the re-birth of spring.  As a parent, you have just plowed through a long year and a half winter of testing limits, separation anxiety, questionable listening skills and a child seeking his place in the world.  You have heard things from preschool teachers like "he lives life to the fullest" and "he's learning to listen."  You have endured several of his self-inflicting hair cuts. You have marveled at how he can bring up poop in every conversation.  You have wondered how that whole tub of lotion he spread on your wall did not take the paint off. 

But one day, you wake up and he's changed over night.  He loves to help.  He listens to what you say!  He constantly professes his love for you.  He has discovered himself.  He knows that he loves chipmunks, superheroes, wind-up toys and gum.  He knows that he loves to dance under the hand dryers in public restrooms. He loves to dress himself and in his book of style, no outfit is complete without his plastic peace necklace.

I am pleased as punch that he and I have both survived the winter and even more pleased that he knows I stuck with him, I've had his back, I'm his people.  He is sweet and funny, this shadow of mine.

Peace out.

  

Pick me, pick me, pick me

I have been a mother for almost ten years. I've felt like a mother for fifteen years.  Five extra years of dreaming, praying, persevering and mourning.  Five years of surgical prodecures and medications, all of the time considering a child's needs above my own, but without a child to hold.  As important as my children's birthdays are to me , February 23, 2000, January 2, 2002 and July 22, 2005 are more important.  On those three days,  two mothers (the same one for two of my children) trusted me and chose me to mother their children and make them my own.  In moments that I believe could only have been directed by God, these women also considered a child's needs above their own and made the heart-wrenching decision to gift their child to Bart and I.  I do not wish to take any political stand here.  I  understand conservative and liberal viewpoints and I love that our country is based on the democratic foundation of political diversity.  But abortion, I don't understand.  I think many people voice their opinion without personal experience, but I live it daily.   I have heard from our birthmothers that their decisions to chose life allowed them the peace to live without regret.  They carry in their hearts, and see in pictures and letters, the knowledge that their birthchildren are cherished, are thriving and were very much wanted.  Their conception was no mistake.  It was predestined.  Let this sink into your soul.  Regardless of your gender, your race, your color, your country, your political affliation or your social class - we are all humans with the most basic of desires - to live and to be loved.  I have never felt more human than the moments that these two women handed me their babies and I looked them in the eye and told them thank you.  We shared their sorrow with them, they shared our happiness with us.  It felt right to all of us.  We felt like we had all been led there to that moment.  I wish them and all of the mothers in the world, whether with a child in their arms or in their hearts, a happy mother's day.  Choose to live in the fullness of the gift.   

Its so easy being green

Is it just me or is spring shopping even more fun this year with the kaleidoscope of reusable shopping bags?  Today, I was treated to the yummiest of retro bags.  And I do mean treated.  With the purchase of any two Kellogg products, you can receive this for FREE!   I mean really, I must go back for Tony the Tiger and the Sugar Smacks frog, whatever his name is.  They are must haves.

Now I realize that you can use the same bag at any store, but why?  I say go out and gather bags from every store within a 10 mile radius.  Hug the earth, shout it loud and show your style suburban shoppers!

If walls could talk

Don't you just love seeing what people hang on their walls?   If you are like me, which I know you are, you welcome any lull in conversation at a party so that you wander and "read" the house's walls.  I love a house that tells me something about its family without uttering a word.  I am truly out of wall space in my house, although there are a few spaces I want to rework.  Each Friday, I will post a picture of one of my walls.  Oh it would be so lovely if you left a comment with a picture of one of your walls.  Imagine my delight!

So, with no fanfare whatsoever, here is a wall in my kitchen.  I have no idea what it says about me, except that Bart and I wanted to give our children some guidelines to live by and apparently, I like very large cutlery.