Kitty-Cat Sweatpants and Growing Up

 I had a moment in the grocery store today, when I was shopping for Christmas pajamas at a Black Friday sale. I found a cute pajama outfit for Lucy that had a fuzzy red shirt decorated with ice-skating penguins. I debated for a moment in buying it, wondering if Lucy would like the penguins. And a random memory from elementary school popped into my mind. I was in fifth grade - two years older than Lucy is now - and I was absolutely mortified because my mom had bought me a red sweatpants outfit with decorated with puffed-paint kitty cats and a tiger stripe design. I felt like I was way too old for kitty cats then and I really resented it when my mom made me wear the outfit to school one day (I think it was Valentine's Day, which is why my mom insisted on red). And I realize that I'm getting at a point now where it is hard to choose Lucy's clothes for her. She wants to be her own person and often choose her own style. She mentioned in a school assignment last year that she's "really good at fashion," so I should let her enjoy that more. And hopefully I won't put her in a mortifying situation like the one I found my fifth-grade self in. 

There have been a few moments where she has liked the aesthetic that I choose for her still, and her school picture this year was a good compromise. I choose the outfit (a vintage floral print with a shirt and skirt), and Lucy choose the butterfly headband (she did not want a hairdo) and the necklace. She did not want a hairdo, but she did agree to let me put mousse in her hair to help tame/shape her curls. This may be the last year that I get to have that much influence, though. I need to let her make more of her own choices.

This is what the full outfit looks like (she also wore it on the first week of school):

And yes, I did buy the penguin pajamas, not because of the penguins but I think that she'll really like the soft fuzzy red fabric. And if she hates the penguins, then I'll look for something more "tween" next year. Or maybe I'll start letting her choose her own Christmas pajamas, so she can be the fashionista that she wants to be on Christmas Eve.

Sam is still really easy when it comes to clothes and almost always wants me to make selections for him. He just wants things that are comfortable (e.g. sweatshirts, t-shirts and Levi jeans) and have neutral colors. But he has gotten into the habit of wearing button-up shirts for his school pictures, and he just doesn't seem to question that or consider what other options might exist. Really, Sam doesn't want to spend any more time thinking about clothes than he has to. He usually gets dressed with whatever clothes he pulls out of the drawer first.

These kids could not be more opposite, and not just in their attitudes toward clothing. I'm glad I get to be stretched as a parent and learn about different ways to connect with and teach them. I'm learning a lot about myself in the process, too. 

My Grandmas’ Embroidery Floss

This summer I inherited two different sets of embroidery floss, one from each of my grandmas. My Grandma J gave me her embroidery floss earlier this spring. She had just moved into an assisted living center and I was staying at her vacant house in the evenings, while visiting her new apartment during the day. The floss was in the drawer of the bedroom I was staying in, and Grandma just happened to have the color floss that I needed to complete a cross-stitch project I had brought with me. She was very pleased to give me the floss and see me use it: I worked on my William Morris bookmark every day that we watched Hallmark shows and old movies together.

On this same trip, I showed my Auntie T my cross-stitch project and she mentioned that she had taken lots of embroidery floss from Grandma L's house, after Grandma L passed away a few years ago. When Grandma J died earlier this summer, Auntie T came out for the funeral and she brought Grandma L's embroidery floss to give to me.

So now I have two sets of embroidery floss, one from each grandma. I've been using colors from both of the sets for the current project I'm working on. Tonight I was thinking about how the ways that my grandmas chose to store their thread both remind me of them. They both are organized by color and number, although Grandma L kept hers even more contained by using small ziplock bags that are bound together by a silver ring. These threads are neatly wrapped in circles so they don't tangle. By contrast, Grandma J cut her floss into equidistant strands and tied them onto numbered boards. She left the strands loose, so they have a little bit of a quirky character as they enmesh and interact. 

I like to think about how these two collections - and two grandmas - form different parts of me: an organized, independent and slightly quirky person, who also feels the need to engage and intertwine into her community.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

 

The kids are on Spring Break this week, and we visited the Tulip Festival as a mid-week activity. I'm so glad that the festival is happening this year. We have gone every year that we have lived here, except last year the festival was completely closed due to Covid. The closures happened just weeks before the festival was supposed to begin, and the farmers really suffered. I'm especially grateful that we could go this year.

I like to go earlier in the festival weeks, so that we can catch the beginnings of the tulips with the outgoing daffodils. There weren't as many tulips open as I hoped (although we did see plenty), but the daffodil fields were fabulous and full of color! 

Every time I see fields of daffodils, I'm reminded of the song "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" that I sang when I was in my first sixth grade choir. This song, inspired by Wordsworth's famous poem, is fun because the music parts "dance" and interplay with each other to create text painting that mimics the dancing of the daffodils in the wind. I still remember my choral part, and Vivian told me recently that she still remembers her part too. I've been searching for weeks to figure out the composer. The song was stuck in my head this afternoon (due to this trip to see the daffodil fields), and I finally figured out the composer from an obscure YouTube video. The version that we sang was by Mary Lynn Lightfoot (and I've been discovering some of her other choral compositions today too, and I really like her work). I ordered the sheet music so I can have a copy. If only our director Mrs. Burke knew that I still remembered the song she taught me over twenty-five years ago!

Bio for the WMS

 I have been voted in as a new board member for the William Morris Society in the United States, and my responsibilities will truly start up in about February. I'm humbled and surprised that I would be invited to join the board, especially since I don't consider myself any type of expert in William Morris at all. But I am a fan of his work, so if that is the only true marker for membership (or board participation), then I'm glad to belong. The people I have met have been very warm and welcoming, and I hope this is a place where I can learn and make contributions to a community.

As an incoming board member, I was asked to write a bio for the upcoming newsletter. This is what I wrote:

While I’m certain that I will never achieve as much as William Morris completed during his lifetime, I feel a kinship with him in that we both abhor “a disease called idleness” that is mentioned in News from Nowhere. I am a person who likes to be busy. Much of my time is spent teaching art history courses at Seattle University or engaged elsewhere in the community. In the pre-pandemic days, I sang in the chorale of the Seattle Symphony and I volunteered as the Permanent Collection Training Chair for docents at the Seattle Art Museum. I look forward to being able to fully participate in those activities again. Lately, in these quieter moments at home, I find meaningful work in writing projects, helping my daughter decorate her dollhouse, stitching up rips in doll clothes, and teaching my son how to play the piano. On the sunnier days in Seattle, I spend time gardening in my flower bed and studying the birds that fly into my yard. The more I learn about William Morris, I feel like he would appreciate and understand the ways that I choose to spend my time.

Due to my mother’s niche interest in interior design, I grew up in a house in which every room was decorated with wallpaper that evoked popular styles of the 18th and 19th centuries. When I was in college, my mother introduced me to the Pre-Raphaelites, specifically William Holman Hunt. My curiosity was piqued, and I spent some time studying the Pre-Raphaelites, their broader circle, and Victorian art as part of my undergraduate studies in art history. I have continued to do so since that point, as a way to feel connected with my mom after she passed away. But, like William Morris, I have focused my attention and energy on several areas of art and world history. My graduate work in art history focused on colonialism and representations of art that involved political statements against African slavery and racism.

In recent years, my interest in the paintings of Kehinde Wiley have connected my interests in politics, race, and Victorian art. As a contemporary painter, Wiley creates monumental portraits of Black figures who are juxtaposed against decorative backgrounds that often are inspired by the Morrisian designs. These paintings are intended to raise awareness of the inequality and inequity that Black people have experienced; Wiley chooses portraiture as a starting point since historically Black people have not been celebrated as primary figures in Western portraits. I am drawn to Wiley’s paintings because he adopts European compositions and expensive Arts & Crafts wallpaper designs for his paintings, which are relatable to me given my own background and studies. My hope is that these relatable elements also help me, as a White woman, to better understand Wiley’s statements about what the Black experience is like.

It is through my writings on Kehinde Wiley that I became familiar with the William Morris Society in the United States back in 2018. And since becoming associated with this group, I feel like this is a place where I am meant to be! I’m currently interested in exploring William Morris’s artistic production and political ideologies, as well as those of May Morris, within the 19th-century framework of class, race, and the suffrage movement.

Covid is a Worm Hole

When I was a sophomore in college, some friends took me and my roommates out to go caving in Nutty Putty Cave in Utah Valley. There is a specific area of this cave that is nicknamed the "Worm Hole," which is so tight that one person can barely fit in the hole and you have to crawl through on your belly. This also means you can't turn your body around go backwards at any point - you have to commit to going through the tunnel in one direction. While I explored the other caverns of the cave with my friends, I opted to sit out and not do the Worm Hole. I knew I would feel claustrophobic and didn't want to feel like I might get stuck.

Anyhow, recently I've had a recurring dream in which I'm tunneling through the Worm Hole. I can't go backwards, but I have to keep going forwards if I ever want to get out. It's a stressful dream. Last time I dreamt about it, I had a hard time falling back asleep. (And, in the past few weeks with the stress of the election and work, I haven't always slept that well.)

I think that my brain is processing Covid in the context of this Worm Hole, especially as the weather gets colder and it is apparent that we'll be spending even more time stuck indoors. As is the case with the narrow tunnel in the cave, I can't go back and turn around. I can't reset. I just have to keep crawling forward, even if the context is suffocating and it's difficult to see when the experience will end. And, while some days are better than others, sometimes it really does feel like I'm crawling through the day. 

The Chili Party Recipe

When I was a teenager, my grandparents moved to Utah and they would have our families over for a Christmas chili party each year. Grandma told me once that they chose to serve chili because it would be easy to feed a large group of people. Grandpa would make the chili and Grandma would make plates of Christmas cookies to send home with each family. The cookies that I remember the most are the Peanut Butter Blossoms (with Hershey kisses) and M&M cookies with green and red candies.

I remember Grandma expressing how she wanted to find a way to celebrate with the families in the area, but they were also mindful that Christmas traditions had already been established before she and Grandpa moved to Utah, so this was an event that they hoped wouldn't "step on anyone's toes." But it wasn't difficult to incorporate this into our Christmas traditions at all: now I remember it being a memorable part of the Christmas holiday. The white elephant gift exchange that we held at the party was always memorable, too. There was one year that a Burl Ives CD was a hot ticket item that kept bouncing between the cousins.

 I got a copy of my Grandpa's chili recipe from my aunt this week, and it is even written in Grandpa's own handwriting! Even if we don't have a Christmas chili party, I hope that this can become a fall tradition for my own family. We are having it over Halloween weekend this year, and it seems appropriate to eat it in October as a way to remember Grandpa's birthday month.

First Family Bike Ride!

When I was a kid, I loved riding my bike. For me, bike rides were a way to experience freedom and adventure. I could be by myself, go explore, and feel the freedom of independence. I especially loved going along the gravel trail that was in my neighborhood and seeing the Canadian geese at the pond. I would even take the trail all the way past my elementary school, and sometimes meet up with friends.

So, as an adult, it was hard for me to accept that Sam didn't want to ride a bike because I felt like he was missing out on those experiences. Ever since he was about five, he has stubbornly refused to ride one. For several years I came to terms with it, and accepted that his childhood would not be the same as my own. And for the past two years, I have been content with letting Sam ride his scooter alongside Lucy's bike.

But this summer, it was time for Lucy to get her training wheels off. If she was going to learn, then I thought this was a good time for Sam to learn too. Plus, with quarantine and the restrictions due to Covid, I felt like I wanted to put the pressure on Sam so that we could have another way to exercise as a family outside (especially since the Y is practically closed, and we aren't ready to go there anyway due to the rising cases). He kept on hesitating and deflecting my pleas, but we finally got him to agree by bribing him. We promised that we would give him the Mandalorian LEGO set that comes out this fall (for which he has been saving all summer), if he would buckle down and learn how to do it. It didn't take him long to agree to this arrangement. And so he learned to ride a bike, at twelve years old, through coercion and manipulation. But it worked!

With Lucy's training wheels off as well, both kids took time to practice riding in the long drive way across from our house. It basically only took Sam about two days to learn how to ride his bike. He got confident really quickly, and even exclaimed, "Why didn't I learn how to do this seven years ago?" In fact, Lucy noticed how quickly Sam picked it up and muttered to herself, "Why is he faster than me? I've been practicing longer than him..." And this is true, if you count the two years she has been on training wheels.

Regardless, they have both picked up well on bike riding. Lucy can get herself going on her own, and so far we haven't had a major fall yet. We have gone on several rides together, and this is now one of their favorite ways to earn "active minutes" (which then translate into every-other-day screen time). And Sam has agreed with me that bike riding does give a sense of freedom, which he likes. As a parent, I feel like I've finally succeeded in teaching him the joys of bike riding. And I hope he will also remember this experience of facing a fear, overcoming the challenge, realizing that the challenge wasn't that hard in the first place, and developing a love for something that he thought was a fear.

First time practicing on the Cedar River trail by our house. We've been back twice and also explored the other side of the trail by the Community Center and Carco Theater.

Our first bike ride with all four of us was this evening! We went on the east end of the Cedar River trail in Maple Valley. I thought this day would never come!

Lucy's "Helpless Land" World

Tonight Lucy told me that she likes to pretend a game called "Helpless Land" in the backyard. It's a place where people help each other. I said, "Oh, so you mean, 'Helpful Land' then?" and she said, "Yes, but I call it 'Helpless Land' because I think it's easier to say." I asked her what people do in Helpless Land, and they do helpful things like "chop wood" for other people.

She pretends that the shed in her backyard is the house that she grew up in, but the house was magically transported to Helpless Land. And in order to get between Helpless Land and the real world, you need to go through the "door" of the weeping birch branches. There is something very romantic for her about being in the branches of trees: the other day she asked me to take a picture of her nestled in the branches of a blossoming dogwood tree in our neighborhood:

When we had this conversation about Helpless Land, I told Lucy that I had a game that I used to pretend when I was a little girl. There was a section of trees behind our garage (in our Colorado house) that created a little covered shelter. I used to pretend in that I lived in the forest and that space was my home, and I would go around gathering "food" from the forest to cook in a pretend stew. Lucy was really amused at the thought, and I think she liked to be able to relate to me about pretending outside. I'm glad that our yard - and the outdoors - can be a magical and exciting place for her, especially during this quarantine period.

I think that her Helpless Land game must have involved flower petals, because I noticed a lot of them were strewn in the front yard when I looked out the window. I'm wondering if she was incorporating a flower girl into her story. Earlier this week we read a book about the character Pinkalicious becoming a flower girl. Lucy said, "Oh, I would love to be a flower girl" and then was surprised when I told her that she was a flower girl at E and T's wedding. We pulled out her basket and crown, and I let her dehead the camellia bush in the side yard so she could have some petals to throw. She was pretty excited to revive this experience that she could hardly remember, but had been romanticized for her in a story.

The Phantom Returns

We just finished a very successful Halloween season. Sam was a dementor (from Harry Potter) and Lucy was a flamenco dancer. J went as Bob Ross and I went as a witch. But a day or two before Halloween, Sam started talking about the costume that he wants to wear for Halloween next year. He said that he wanted to be the Phantom of the Opera, which surprised me because I didn't know that he was really familiar with that character. Anyhow, he started peppering me with questions about the Phantom and his costume, and finally two nights ago I pulled out my soundtrack of the original London cast so that he could hear. Since then, he's listened to the soundtrack several times, and he sings along with the help of either the lyrics book or sheet music. He's listening to it now while I type. He has also started to figure out how to play the songs on the piano, and last night he watched the 2004 film on Netflix. Lucy is getting into the spirit of Phantom too, and she tries to squeakily sing the high notes that Christine Daae hits.

It's really fun for me to see this sudden and intense interest in The Phantom of the Opera, because it reminds me of how I became obsessed with that show when I was just a year older than Sam is now. My dad took our family to see the show when we lived in Denver, since one of his patients was the understudy for the Phantom. I remember we had really good seats too, in the front and only about six rows from the stage. I was blown away by the set, music, and costumes, and then after the show we got a backstage tour from this patient, which made the whole event utterly unforgettable. I became obsessed with the show. I even remember finding a book at the library with the contact addresses of famous people, and I wrote a letter to Michael Crawford to let him know how much I loved his voice.

At this time, I had converted the closet of my bedroom into a reading room. I had pulled in some pillows and a lamp so I could comfortably read while sitting on the floor. I remember reading Gaston Leroux's book and comparing how the phantom Erik was different from the one in the musical. I thought the phantom was the epitome of masculinity back then, which is funny now.

Sam isn't interested in the phantom for his "masculinity," but he likes how the phantom is spooky and plays the organ. He's impressed with how he knows his way around the opera house and can pull off creepy pranks. And he likes the idea of wearing a fancy mask, hat and suit for Halloween. We'll see if he ends up wearing this costume next year. Regardless, I think this interest in the musical is going to last for a while. And this is fun for me, since I get to relive my own past a little bit and think about what it was like when I was about Sam's age. So far Lucy has been the one who is keenly interested in musicals, but it is apparent that Sam has a little bit of my genes too.

The "Mental Load"

My dearest friend Kelly just shared this article with me, which discusses gender roles and the "mental load" that women carry in relation to household and daily tasks. I do think that this article makes some broad generalizations about society's role in shaping gender and personality characteristics for each gender, but it raises some important points to consider. I feel very lucky to have married a helpful and proactive husband, but I think that both of us would agree that I still bear the majority of "mental load" necessary for running our household. This is partially due to circumstance (since I am at home more than J), but also because of my personality. J describes me as "fastidious" and I think I've become more fastidious since becoming a mother. I like to feel in control of my environment, which encourages me to have a heightened awareness of my surroundings and the tasks that need to be done. I also prefer to do smaller tasks on a regular basis, instead of having to focus on a pileup of tasks all at the same time. This is one way that J and I are different: he doesn't mind doing something at the last minute or waiting until a need is immediate. I also have a lower tolerance for clutter and dirt than J, so chores fill my "mental load" checklist on a more regular basis than they do for J.

That being said, I'm so glad that J knows how to help around the house and assume responsibilities without direction. Even though he isn't as bothered by clutter, he knows that it bothers me so he is  more sensitive to clutter on my behalf. I appreciate that he is a conscientious husband. And I want to make sure that I raise Sam in a way that naturally encourages him to avoid gender stereotypes and be prepared to assume the "mental load" for his adult life. And, if he chooses to share his life with someone or have a family, I want him to be prepared to equally share that "mental load" with another. So this article is prompting me to think about the way that Sam completes his chores. I typically assign him to a particular task, but I think I'm going to have him try to look around the house and determine where there is a genuine need for a chore to be performed.

My mom definitely was a person who assumed the "mental load" for our family. I think that this was part of her personality: she liked to assume control so that things would happen in the way that she wanted them to. I think a good portion of her "mental load" involved thinking about things that related to the health and physical well-being of herself and her family (particularly regarding food, cleaning products, or clothing with fabrics that didn't irritate her skin). My mom was busy during of her waking moments. I enjoyed seeing this picture that V showed me earlier this month, because it is a rare image of my mom sleeping (see below). I think I'm probably just a little bit younger than Sam in this photo. This picture is also appropriate, too, because my mom is sleeping on a brown silky pillowcase so that her skin wouldn't touch the cotton pillowcase.

Sometimes I wish I could ask my mom more about this topic of the "mental load" and gender roles now that I'm an adult: I wonder if she felt overwhelmed with the mental load or if she simply could prioritize and took the "mental load" all in stride. I also wish I could ask her what she why she opted for a more traditional division of gender roles when it came to household responsibilities. I have some good guesses as to what she would say, but I wonder if she would give me a more nuanced explanation to me, since I am now an adult with my own household.

I do know, though, that I could have been more aware of things that needed to be done around the house when I was growing up. I remember that I would spend time cleaning my room and organizing my own things (because that was an environment that I could easily control), but I typically would leave my dishes out and not put things away in the kitchen. And there were other small things that I wouldn't assume responsibility for, like replacing empty toilet paper rolls with a fresh roll. When I was growing up, it was common practice for everyone grab a new roll when necessary and simply leave it sitting upright on the back of the toilet (while usually just leaving the empty cardboard roll still in the hanger). When I was a newlywed, I remember J specifically had to ask me to start replacing the toilet paper by hanging the roll on the holder, and I was surprised to realize that I had acquired this quirk! Before that moment, it genuinely never crossed my mind that it was strange to leave the roll out until J pointed it out. It will be interesting to see what quirks (and, hopefully, good habits) Sam and Lucy develop as a product of their upbringing.

My Old Jewelry

For some reason, lately I've been thinking about the jewelry that I used to have as a child. Perhaps it's because I found my faux-Victorian "Happy Birthday" tin last summer, when I unearthed a box of my childhood things in my dad's attic. When I was little, I would put some of my keepsakes and jewelry in that tin. I'm pretty sure that I kept a white crystal turtle and a brown crystal hare in there; I got those keepsakes in second grade from my little boyfriend, David S., who went to some place on vacation (I think called the Crystal Forest?) and brought me some the souvenirs.

I also kept jewelry in a ballerina jewelry box (that looked very similar to this one) for a long time. I think I gave that box to one of my little sisters when I got older, and I may have given my sisters some of my jewelry too. I had several necklaces, including an "I [heart] Primary" necklace and an "LDS" necklace with my emerald birthstone.

If I remember right, I think hat I have both a blue-and-orange butterfly pin, and also a white butterfly bookmark. Both of them were made of enamel, and the bookmark had a little gold hook so that the butterfly would rest outside the book, along the spine. I remember that one of these was slightly loose (perhaps the pin?) and I could slightly wiggle the lower two wings. These are the closest things that I have been able to find online that match what I used to have:

I also had a rose pendant that was on a gold chain necklace with simulated pearls and a twist clasp. I'm not sure if it was from the 1928 Collection jewelry line, but the aesthetic is very similar to this one, although my pendant rested on a solid oval base and had this rose shape.

My favorite necklace, at least when I was a teenager, was a "House of Seven Gables" pendant that was shaped like the actual house. I got the necklace in the gift shop of the House of Seven Gables, during my 8th grade trip to Boston (and the surrounding area) and New York City. I found one pendant charm on,one which kind of resembles my pendant, but mine had more definite shape with precise lines (as well as a darker color). But this is kind of close:

I still have one bracelet that I wore as I child; I think I got it when I was around eight or nine years old. It is a braided silver bracelet that only lies flat against the wrist when it is curved in a certain direction; you can't clasp it if it the bracelet is flipped the other way and curved the opposite direction. It still fits me, and when I put it on for this picture I remembered how tricky it is to balance the clasp on your wrist while you try to fasten it:

Now that I have a daughter, I wish that I had hung onto some of my jewelry so that I could pass it along to her. I tend to get rid of things that I don't use regularly, so it's unsurprising that my childhood self had that same tendency to purge items that were too small or didn't get enough use as I got older. If only I had held onto some of these things!

"CHA!" movie pics

When I was in Utah a few weeks ago, we sat down as a family and watched some old home movies. We happened to come across one that I made probably in 1998, with my high-school friends Julie and Heidi. The movie is probably about 20 minutes long. We named the movie "CHA!" after the Vancome Lady on MAD TV (who would say, "Tcha, you know what, uh-uh!").

The premise of the movie is that two unpopular, nerdy girls (who play "Hi Ho Cherry-O" for fun) walk into a magical closet and emerge as beautiful and popular girls. Julie and I played these girls.  

As soon as Julie emerged from the closet, a boy called her on the phone (to emphasize her popularity and desirability!). (Actually, it's funny because every time a character becomes popular, the phone rings and a boy is calling. This was funny to watch, because the boys who are on the line are always the names of the boys that we actually liked at the time.)

My line: "I need to go into the closet too. I want to be popular like Julie." 

As soon as we both become popular, Julie and I did a Michael Jackson dance (that Julie choreographed!) to "The Way You Make Me Feel"

After we became popular, Julie and I decided to throw a party. However, our nerdy friends Tootsie and Flootsie (played by my sister V and her friend Patricia) tried to crash our party and we had to get rid of them.  

After we got rid of the party, our popular friends (also played by V and Patricia) came over. 

Heidi played a mystical goddess who appeared to me and Julie. This is where the "Cha..." line to comes into the film. Heidi reprimands the popular girls for their mean behavior toward their nerdy friends. 

Julie and I resolve to be nice to the unpopular girls... 

...including Heidi, who came skipping down the road toward us. 

Heidi asks if we want to do some coloring in her coloring book (a nerdy activity!)... 

Julie and I decide to be kind to Heidi and stay friends with her. We pull her out of a tree (she is saying "Where's Heidi?" like the character Arnie in What's Eating Gilbert Grape) and decide to invite her to visit the magical closet.

And we all have become beautiful and popular, thanks to the CHA! closet. We end the movie by saying, "And we owe it all to CHA!"

It was fun to watch this movie so many years later, especially since I don't get to see Heidi and Julie very often. My family got a kick out of it, and we also noticed that a lot of my mom's clothes and accessories (like the bag Heidi carries) were used for the nerdy characters (although the Hawaiian shirt that I wore was mine). The yellow, polyester, faux-patchwork quilt shirt that Julie wears in the first scene is one shirt that particularly reminds me of my mom. I think this old shirt was thrown out a few years ago, so I'm glad that we have it captured on film.

Apple Gathering

My family received a bumper crop of fruit on their trees this year, and a few times this week we have gone out into the back yard in order to pick apples off of the trees (and also off of the ground). Lucy has loved gathering the apples and putting them into bushel baskets, and she particularly has liked sorting the "yucky" ones from the good ones.

I do think that this experience has affected (and perhaps tainted?) her thoughts about apples and picking apples. Tonight, my brother A pointed to a picture on our dining room wall, The Apple Gatherers (1880) by Frederick Morgan, and asked Lucy, "What are they doing?"

Lucy replied, "Picking apples...yuck!"

We all chuckled at the thought that she now things picking apples consists of yucky fruit, and even more that the S family's trees make (solely?) yucky fruit. Oh dear! Ha ha! Some of the apples are tart or have worms, but some of the fruit is quite good.

This painting by Frederick Morgan has been in our dining room for years and years, and it is something that I associated with my family's home (as well as my mom's aesthetic preferences). However, it just occurred to me this week that the painting is on the same wall that faces the fruit trees in the yard, which makes me wonder if my mom thought about the subject matter and the physical alignment with our miniature orchard when she placed the painting on the wall.

Ironically, this painting portrays a romanticized view of orchard workers gathering a bountiful harvest, but my two-year-old isn't old enough to think about the romanticized effort or the suggestions of fertility and bounty by having (mostly) women collect the fruit! Maybe one day she'll think more than "yuck" when she sees this painting.