(hank by lisa stamm)
i met lisa stamm in my twenties when we were tottering around new york city in impractically high heels, drinking martinis, going to gallery openings and late night parties, brunching on sundays and having pre children adventures. she introduced me to my first husband at a champagne bar, did my make up at my wedding and supported me through all kinds of milestones and changes. she has been an incredible friend and i have known her a long time. but i had no idea that she is an artist. about two years ago i was scrolling through my facebook feed and saw a soulful, impassioned pencil drawing of a beagle that she shared and was completely captivated. i was not alone. lisa received such a big response to the tribute drawing she had done of her beloved dog, scooby that for the first time she considered taking commissions. and so began the pet project shop.
Read Moreas i am sitting in my north boulder home this evening there are two horrible incidents being dealt with by the boulder police and additional swat teams: the north boulder high school has been locked up (all students who were at sports practices brought inside) and a shooter in a south boulder king soopers market, who as i write this, is still “active.” i don’t know if these situations are related but i can say that it has been a frightening afternoon and none of us have enough bandwidth for this after the past year of the corona, BLM, fires, electrical outages, floods, me too, the crazy election and all of the isolation. my favorite of the jewish holidays is approaching - passover - the one that puts everything in order and i am hoping that all the madness that seems to exist in our current world will somehow be safely dealt with because this is just TOO MUCH! i am reposting a story about passover and vacuuming because it calms me down…
Read More(hank anxiously contemplating going on a walk)
despite having the absolute best of intentions hank and i have been having a bit of a setback with our walks and exercise routine. after hearing from his doctor that he really needed to lose some weight (i think MY doctor might recommend the same for me given that my candy intake has remained steady - i DID just receive the most gorgeous box of see’s scotchmallows from a dear friend for valentine’s - and my exercise has NOT because my bar studio closed) we intended to make a real effort to take regular, rigorous walks.
Read Morelast year i spent valentine’s weekend in west des moines with my brother and mother celebrating and mourning gg, my grandma. we toured around my mother’s hometown driving by her high school (which has been completely rebuilt), her old house and attended gg’s service in her tiny hometown church in Audubon, iowa. it was an intense, emotional weekend where i got to meet many distant family members and friends of gg’s (AND go to the cracker barrel TWICE for chicken n’ dumplins - which are pretty delicious!) and learn even more wonderful stories about a woman who was all goodness (except for the fact that she put raisins in my oatmeal when i was about six, triggering a life long disgust for brown, dried fruit - other than that, she was an AMAZING grandma to me and my children.)
Read More(it’s a new dawn… hot pink sunrise from a few days ago)
today at the start of my writing group we had a check in. for the first time in about a year i said, “i think i’m okay.” it felt weird to articulate that but i DO actually feel pretty okay. i am still watching the news, but not nearly so much. every time i turn it on biden is doing something helpful and normal. his awesome press secretary is polite and informative (and has the most gorgeous red hair) and of course i am just delighted every time kamala makes a speech… i might have mentioned that she and i attended the same elementary school!
Read More(fireworks over the white house on inauguration night; photo: nbc news)
for the past several months my brain has felt like a kaleidoscope - loads of tiny fragments of intentions and obligations and responsibilities and information that i think i am about to get a handle on and then someone twists the cylinder just a tiny bit or A LOT and i am left scrambling to understand the new design. between the pandemic and homeschooling and the kids going back to school and homeschooling again and BLM and the election and the capital riots and my classes and my work it’s been difficult for me to keep it all straight.
Read Morethe best way i can describe the last three months is humbling… because i’d had such a slow spring work-wise, due to the pandemic, i decided to enroll in a few classes (three!) to bump up and fill in holes in my design knowledge. two of the courses were technical and between them i learned the adobe suite (illustrator, in design, photoshop), sketch up and autocad. i cannot emphasize enough how far out of my wheelhouse these programs are… i am probably the last person on the planet who still uses a paper agenda to keep track of my schedule and when we have daylight savings my car clock is an hour off for six months because i have no idea how to change it. a few times i have given my first husband a ride when the clock was wrong and he has modified it, which causes me to show up either an hour early or an hour late to places because i have taught myself to adjust for it.
Read Morecorona has completely upended christmas this year. we are not meant to travel or even celebrate locally with others outside of our immediate families. so this will be the first boulder christmas for my family… since we’ve returned to the states we have always gone to california. traditions i have taken for granted will have to wait: my mother’s christmas buns (i CANNOT replicate these - i tried when we were living in amsterdam and they came out like little rocks) or visiting the giant gingerbread house at the fairmont hotel with our dear friends, or going to see the nutcracker (the SF ballet does a terrific one!) or my very favorite - christmas dinner at my sister in law’s house in san francisco (this is a big affair - they also include several other families from various aspects of their lives. i only see these families at this dinner and it is so much fun to note how their children have grown and hear the stories of what has happened to them over the course of the year. plus the food is DELICIOUS - jedo makes a big roast with red pepper sauce, shanon brings a huge, creative, colorful salad, others bring all kinds of interesting side dishes and my mother shares a platter of frosted cookies, homemade caramels and chocolate peanut butter balls. when the kids were smaller, they would eat first while we grown ups hovered over them, cutting their roast beef and encouraging them to try the salad and refilling their milk. we generously let them have first dibs on the desserts and then they would be sequestered away with chocolate smeared faces and a movie. the grown ups would then enjoy a long, relaxing, yummy dinner. last year the kids were deemed competent enough to cut their own meat and we all ate at the same time, which was lovely. the whole evening is chaotic [especially during the opening of presents - one year all of the kids were given red adidas track suits like the royal tenenbaums, which was amazing] festive and exhausting. it is perfect. i can’t wait for next year when i really hope we can resume this special celebration.)
Read Morehere are the proper images of the gezellig article i wrote for the boulder county home + garden winter edition… wishing you all a super cozy holiday season! x0xx
Read Moreas we all struggle through this crazy global pandemic, we are missing the ability to travel and experience the customs and traditions of other cultures. i had so much fun writing this article for boulder county home+ garden about dutch “gezellig” (coziness) and remembering our time living as ex-pats in amsterdam. all three of my sweeties made it into this piece (hank and my darling children) as well as my living room! MANY THANKS (as always) to heather knierim of HBK photography for the lovely photos! wishing you all loads of gezellig as we all bunker down this winter… HAPPY, HAPPY HOLIDAYS! x0x0xx
Read Moreas if a global pandemic and quarantine and the whole country feeling like the apocalypse isn’t stressful enough, today i made my children pose for the holiday card… (our poppies are in FULL bloom and i couldn’t help myself.) they always look so forward to this photo shoot and were absolutely GRATEFUL that i suggested it (i’m a thoughtful, FUN mama like that.) i DID have to use the full force of my diminishing strength (since i can’t go to my bar method classes) to pull my son off the sofa and detach him from the Xbox and i didn’t even try to get him to change out of his corona comfort clothes (no one really knows how many days he’s been in them) - i just matched lucy’s outfit to his - but i could tell by the warm snarl on his face that he was thrilled. i ALSO had to promise them dunkin’ donuts AND frozen custard from the good times drive thru which is a much richer offer than i usually extend, but i really didn’t want to miss the poppies.
Read Morethere are few things in this world as disgusting as raisins. they look like droppings, get stuck in your teeth (marring your smile and causing cavities) and are notorious for popping up in all kinds of baked goods (scones, muffins, cookies) that should only have chocolate chips. and unfortunately, because of their size and color, raisins sometimes appear to be chocolate, which is a terrible surprise for the unsuspecting consumer.
Read Morei’m not going to lie… the last couple of weeks have been completely BANANAS and overwhelming. living through a pandemic alone is pretty unsettling what with the social distancing and the COOKING and the home schooling. then there is the election and all the news that logically i shouldn’t watch because it’s all so crazy but i am the worst kind of rubbernecker where i have it on all the time so i don’t miss anything but really i just want to miss ALL of it. then when we finally got into a home schooling rhythm (which wasn’t smooth by the way - lucy and i both cried over her fractions several times a week. sometimes i had to email her teacher that she was missing the google meet because we needed a minute to collect ourselves and wash our faces and eat some chocolate. PRAISE JESUS that unit is over!) our district announced that the kids are going back - lucy FULL time and theo one day a week. i know the people who manage the schools and these decisions are doing their very best but it felt like a BIG leap to go from nothing to four days a week for lu. of course, i am thrilled that they can do some live learning and i AM relieved that we got through so many months of online schooling and my children are still alive. that was a valid concern for me - EVERY time you read about a mother who drove her kids into a lake, she is ALWAYS a home schooler.
Read Morethe other day my son inadvertently changed my life forever. we were sitting around and he took a selfie of us, but when he showed it to me we were in “anime” like a japanese cartoon. i have to say… we looked AMAZING… especially me. my eyes were huge, i had no wrinkles, my neck was perfectly smooth, you couldn’t tell that my hair was frizzy or that i was in my jams and i was even a bit tan. i couldn’t believe it.
Read Morehank just turned THREE years old (twenty-one in dog years.) we were feeling very remiss as last september we did not have a proper party so we wanted to make sure we celebrated even though we’re in the middle of a pandemic.
Read More"say, say, oh playmate,
come out and play with me
and bring your dollies three
climb up my apple tree
slide down my rain barrel
into my cellar door
and we'll be jolly friends
forever more, 1-2-3-4"
when i was little, i was desperate for an apple tree like the one in my favorite hand clapping song. i also wanted a rain barrel, although i wasn’t really sure what that was. forty years later, i do have a great, big, sweeping apple tree in my backyard. my tree has a beautiful, twisted, architectural trunk with a hole the perfect size for hiding easter eggs, it makes lots of shade (crucial for a fair-skinned mama living in a town that bumps up against the sun,) in the winter, the way the snow lands on the branches is right out of fairy tale, it’s covered in lacy, white blossoms in the spring, and every other year or so, my tree grows apples in the late summer.
Read Morewe just had our first blizzard in boulder… in typical colorado fashion we went straight from summer to winter, with only an afternoon of fall. i never get used to the roller coaster weather here. i am never prepared with the right size snow boots for the kids or snow pants that fit properly or matching pairs of mittens. at best, i get a whiff of the cow poo smell (which is a pretty reliable snow predictor - i don’t know why) and i have a few hours to get ready. at worst, i wake up and the yard is all white and i have to scurry around and see how i can outfit the kids in some collection of warm clothes before school starts. we are usually late on this first snow day… i just always expect there will be that third season before the snow comes and even after seven years here, i haven’t learned to check the weather.
Read Morewhen i was growing up we did not have the friendliest neighbors. the grumpy lady on the left would complain about the noise when we rode our big wheels past her house, the grouchy lady across the street would yell at us just for being outside and the old man next door was very kind, but SO old and frail that he was just a periodic face in the window. after i left for college, i didn’t live in a proper house again for over twenty years… i was always in apartments.
Read More(lucy‘s first day of school four years ago)
today is the first day of “school.” of course it is unlike any previous first day. usually we all walk over to the elementary school and the teachers are out on the lawn with big signs so the kids know where to line up. i stand near my kids and take pictures of them and with them and with their new teachers. when they start marching toward the doors i follow (a reasonable distance behind) waving and blowing kisses and crying… i ALWAYS cry. except this year because they didn’t go anywhere. well…lucy went into the playroom where her desk is all set up and theo went to his bedroom. he has a desk in there, but prefers to sit on his bed with his big, navy study pillow. i DID suggest that it might be more productive for him to sit at his desk, but i couldn’t in good conscience enforce it as i like to do everything in my bed (except eat because that is too messy.) i always studied in bed and i still frequently work in bed because i like to be comfortable.
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