Seasons

I had planned to be back here by now, but I think it'll be early next week.

Season's change, sometimes gradually and with out notice, sometimes harsh and blinding. The harsh makes us think, how did we get here? How did the world come crashing in? How do we deal with information, how do we process it, how do we interpret it? We've had a long week of harsh and interpreting. Carefully, prayerfully and yet it still stings and burns like a fresh wound. Pray for us.

I happened upon a quote today, perhaps divinely.

“Life is like photography, you develop from the negatives.”

As kitschy as it is, I think it's true.

This week.

For a week of rest and reflection, I'm taking a break here.

I'll be back soon.

Stay Consistent

So this is what the mornings look like now. All frosty and delicious. There is something about a 35 degree morning that makes you want to be warm and cozy at home. Isabel woke up so well—early even-- bounding out of bed in all her pink-feety-jammied fuzziness. Did I say early? I did.

We had set out her clothes last night, and Eric warmed them up, so she wouldn’t be getting into assaulting cold clothes. She got dressed, easy- no crying. Truman got dressed with Eric, no crying. I whispered a prayer and breathed a sigh of relief.

She snuggled on top of the covers in our freshly made bed— “Mom, I cry sometimes because I don’t like to leave in the middle of the night. We go to Wendy’s in the middle of the night now. We go in the daytime when it’s hot.” True darlin’. That’s what it feels like.

I got to explain a few things about the time of year, how soon we’ll change our hours a bit and be better--more in tune with the sun.

I’m going to be honest, the last two weeks I dread mornings. I dread dragging kids out of bed into the cold darkness, making their little bodies shiver and get all goose-bumpy with as we pull on cold clothes. As they wail, and cry. It takes twice as long as it should to wrestle them into their clothes. Not to mention their coats and shoes too. I keep thinking, what on earth will I do when we get to gloves, scarfs, hats, snow boots and God forbid the whole teflon-type-suit on super snow days.

I don’t remember last year being this um, discouraging.

We’ve adjusted lots of things: our morning routine, breakfasting and such. But now we get up even earlier to accommodate for how long it takes the little people to wake up without the aid of the sun.

I found myself saying last night to one of my trusted mentors, I’m overwhelmed and exhausted with mornings. Together we brainstormed ideas for helping with afternoon and bedtime, which in turn may help in the morning. Exerting energy is so important— something we forget in the cold.

So we took a little failed walk on our favorite trail. Rainy, freezing cold with our excited dog and overwhelmed children. Again lots of crying, stamping of feet, throwing a set of mittens over a bridge, disciplining, packing in the car, going home defeated.

But then something happened. A collective sigh of exerted energy. Even for those ten minutes. We came home, spent some family time drank hot chocolate. And the rest of the evening was... dare I say... Lovely.

In the words of my sweet mentor-friend, “Stay consistent, Mary.”

Our new Kitchen Gem!

 

Have you seen anything like this?

It reminds me of our Mokapot but instead of our two shots of espresso, it delivers four, into the perfectly sized demitasse cups I’ve had sitting in my cupboard for years.

The other night, after we received two (TWO!) of these coffee-making-little-gems from our beloved, Grandpa John, Eric says, “well we’re going to have to get some cups to fit this thing.”

And I shot back, “You know I am the dish queen. I have a stack of something I think will work.”

Turns out I have seven of these delightful gold flowered little buggers and a few saki shot glasses (another sweet gift from John)... I think we’ll be fine.

 

So, whose coming over for a latte? We can now make 10 at a time!

Long Road

We took this drive a few weeks ago, that ended up in a detour, which was muddy and extremely bumpy. I was sure our fate was sealed, we’d be stuck in the mud forever. I sat anxious in the front seat, knuckles turning white as we moved every few feet. All I wanted was to get to the smooth place again, where I could take road conditions for granted. I wanted to settle back into my seat, with a sigh of relief and just let Eric drive. And when we reached the paved road again, I did just that.

 Do you ever feel like you’re driving down a long road, unsure of what’s coming? Where you feel like the drive is unpleasant, unsure and muddy? I do.

At what level do I let go-- settle back for the ride? Follow life as it ebbs and flows?

My goal in life is to listen for the rhythm that is divinely and deeply engrained, to have truth speakers around me, to follow the open doors, to be ok with the closed ones. When my goal gets derailed and I turn to other things to set the pace, when I don’t listen to the calling in my heart, I feel frazzled and like I’ve lost my way.

A good friend gave hope last night, “do you make your decisions based on what other people think of you or what is best for your family?” See she’s got my best interests in mind— I know that God shows up in the voices of friends.

The Craft Fair.

It was such a great success! We saw a ton of people we knew, met an amazing group of new people!

Here's some pictures of our booth:

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I'm daydreaming over at techno anthro today. You can go visit!

Craft Fair in Sioux Center!

Friends,

I know I’ve been rather absent here but, I have some awesome news. After weeks of working on some great new products, we’ve got a booth, some new tags and we’re excited.

Wendy and I will be at the craft show in Sioux Center Iowa!

Helping Hands Craft Show
Saturday, October 17, 2009
9AM-3PM
Sioux Center Middle School
Sioux Center IA 51250

We will have lots of new felted bags, Halloween totes, scarves, cup cozies, wonderful smelling bath products, headbands and some vintage items.
Andrea and Aimee will be there too! Yes!

Ok, so if you’re going to be in the area for the weekend... come on by and see all of us.

If you need more information, shoot me an email at theyellowdoorpaperie[at] gmail.com!

Crafting, Cocoa and a Cold Afternoon

After a quiet morning of crafting and cocoa, the family took off towards Akron, for my dear friend Wendy's family farm auction. They have worked tirelessly for weeks getting ready.

The weather was forcasted to be rather nasty, but instead we just got a dusting of snow. Truman's been battling ear infections, and Isabel has been under the weather, and this was our first big outing as a family for the weekend.

It was chilly outside, but with a warm home to play in and with a sweet family to hang around with the kids, we took sometime to look at all the goods being auctioned. 

We found such gems to take home with us! 

This table, isn’t it so amazing. I’m going to clean, sand and paint it. I’m thinking it’ll still be white— any suggestions?

Isn’t this the sweetest cabinet you’ve ever seen? It’s filled with all sorts of nuts and bolts, a few hinges. Soon it’ll be in my workshop, just waiting for crafty things to fill it up. Though I am contemplating making part of our living room.

And finally, these barrels, Eric’s going to use them for planting. Potatoes? Flowers? Who knows, but they’ll be perfect!

Let's Make: Apples

Good Monday friends,

I didn't quite believe my eyes when I got out of bed and saw the blanket of snow over our backyard. Some years,  we've had snow as early as Sept. 30th.  Flakes are falling for a second time this week and it leaves me hoping for more autumn weather. Though it was so beautful outside, maybe I can stand it for today!

This weather does call for some warm and cozy, tummy filling recipes. And seeing that we have tubs full of apples briming all over the kitchen, and lots of great recipes were left in comments and some posts stumbled into my google reader last week, I thought I'd compile a list and share my apple-musings. I picked ones that fell out of the normal apple sauce, apple syrup... we have jars and jars of those right now. If you have any more recipes, add them to the comments, we'd all love some more recipes to peruse.

Becca from A Lonely Pea-- Sent over Apple Bubble Soda

Wendy shared her favorite Apple Crisp Recipe from the Contessa herself.

Heather from  Shivaya Naturals gave this awesome quick recipe:
We love apple turnovers with puff pastry. We just cook cubed apples until soft with honey and spices, and then take 5x5" or larger squares of puff pastry and add the filling. Close into a triangle, brush with egg yolk, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and bake at 350 until golden brown.

Emily from techno anthro has a lovely little food blog where she made Apple Streusel Pie!

Jodi suggested making, Super Amazing Crunchy Apple Pecan Pie (This isn't jodi's recipe but one I found online).


Molly at Orangette (via Kyrie) for Apple Pie Cake.

Erin from Bluebirdbaby made Baked Apple Pancake.

Chelsea from lady I swear by all flowers, maple sautee apples

Sowasabi apple dumplings delicious!

Perches wealth of ideas

(Image from SXC.hu)

Fancy Nancy aka Isabel

Isabel dressed for the Fancy Nancy Tea Party held by our local library, last week.

She had her dress picked out days ahead, saying she wanted to be Purplicious, and wasn't she? My mom says her ensemble reminds her of when I was young.

I don't know if I was that into purple, Mom, was I?

More to come but my flickr uploader is being finicky lately, and I don't have time to upload photos one by one... this weekend you'll see her little friends too!

edit: Her tights are from the We Love Colors and they wash so beautifully!

Apples, Apples, Apples

We are so excited to have apples this year. If you have an apple tree, you know that they produce heavily every other year-- and this is the year!

Two years ago, I had new-baby-brain and when asked by a neighbor "Can we have some apples?" I answered, "take as many as you'd like."

The neighbor brought a truck, an apple picker and several friends. They cleaned my tree. And left me enough wormy apples to clean and cut into a pie. One of the wives brough me half an apple quickbread loaf and a pint of apple jelly (from someone else's apples).

Seriously.

Would you have cleaned an apple tree or would you have taken a few grocery bags?

Being extremely grateful this yearThis year, we're taking full advantage of our lovely apple tree. The variety, Winter Banana, has a very light colored skin, with a little blush to them. And they are wonderful for eating, sauce, pie. Not overly sweet, but crunchy and not too tart, they are now my favorite type of apple.

We've been trying to wash, core, peel and then do something with the apples every night.

On Monday we froze bags of apples, last night Eric made gallons of apple sauce and then boiled the  peels/cores in stock pot of water, then strained makes a wonderful apple cider. And you've used all of the the apple, the mush from the strained apples will go to feed the chickens, or our friends pigs.

Any good apple recipes? I'm dying to try something new.

Though I've had two requests today for apple crisp. We're going to be baking up a storm this weekend-- which sounds amazing.

Fall Traditions: Pumpkinland

The tradition started in college, with my girlfriends, we had an annual fall party. Which always included a trip to the community pumpkin patch, over the years this pumpkin patch has seen our kids grow up. Funny you can mark the time by the fall photos.

This year, in our first trip (and a few more to come I’m sure), we took some time to visit the animals, the kids love the horse, black beauty, to cluck at the chickens, warble at the guineas, and love on the puppies.

And Truman picked a few apples off the ground to bring inside the outbuilding, where you can load up on pumpkins, gourds and apples. Hot chocolate, apple cider and some awesome baked goods. A little slice of heaven in Orange City.



Here’s our last trip in college, it was nice, in pregnancy to have a friend on the same path. Our sweet daughters were born only 2 weeks apart. 

New Music

I always love good music, here's a few bands that I've newly discovered:

Pomplamoose: I first heard them through MY*Bohemia


Renee & Jeremy, thanks to MommyCoddle:


Sara Lindsay, I went to elementary school with her brother, Mike and now look at her all grown up. Her CD release party was just his week!


Alela Diane:

The Puddle Jumper

Last night was one of those nights, where whining was used in place of talking. Where eating one more bite of quinoa became near world war three, instead of getting angry, I just set the timer. If she hadn’t finished her one bite by the time one minute was up, we would no longer be taking our special trip.

She finally ate the bite, as the timer rang, “Ummm, Mom this is Yummy.” And then proceeded to eat the rest on her plate. All that whining for nothing... grrr.

It was rainy and dreary, and it still is. So we bundled up, donned our rain boots and coats, packed into the car with the dog.

Our town has a three mile, wooded trail that connects us to our neighboring town. It is a godsend!

The whining dissipated as we ran down the trail head, found some puddles and jumped to our hearts content.

O the wonders of fresh air and woods, on our spirits.

We came home for baths and hot cocoa, the evening ended much better than it started.

Links and Love

Good morning sunshines,

This fine morning is cold. COLD. The kids have sneakers and jackets on. Long pants. It is raining. My how fast the seasons change. I broke out a wool sweater, that was my mother’s from college. Yep, I’m pretty much in love with it.

We’ve crockpotted two huge batches of Marina Sauce and we a lot more coming up. This batch will be frozen, since I used alot of eggplant, green peppers and squash in it. We’re going to be eating lasagna for the rest of our lives, there’s a lot worse things we could do right? But first I'm making this for dinner, it will be perfect for all of those extra green peppers we have. O yum.

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And here is some linky love::
These sticky buns.
All the fall colors.
This swap, all the lovely people I’m meeting.
I want this dollhouse for my own. So cheery.

And Finally, this video from TED. It's Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love discussing Genius.
If you have time, it is totally worth watching.