{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

. . . . . . . .

{this moment} ritual from Soulemama

daddy's quilt

Daddy's quilt

This was a long time coming!

Mark and Moses enjoying the quilt before it's washed and mailed.

I 'gave' this quilt to my father for Christmas the first year Mark came home to Texas with me (2010).  At that time, it was a pieced quilt top and that was it.  Needless to say, my father was less than impressed with my unfinished gift.

Moses knows it's not for him...

I brought it back home to DC with me and it sat for a good long while on my shelf collecting dust.  Eventually (I don't remember when), I got around to doing the quilt sandwich and started stitching.  But my straight lines weren't straight and the quilt was doing that horrible shifty thing quilts sometimes do.  In frustration, I stuck it away for another long period of time.

Last fall, I finally dug it out again and spent several hours with my seam ripper.  I re-basted the quilt and then started the stitches again with my walking foot, this time, smooth as buttah. I bound it, washed it and mailed it to my dad this last Christmas.

I'm so glad it's finally done!  

I quilted dense straight lines across the white sashing approximately 1/4" apart.

The fabrics in this quilt are very meaningful to me.  I am certain most quilters have favorite fabrics that they love to work with. These blue batiks are cut from a few meters that I truly consider some of my most prized possessions. I purchased the fabric from a market in Yogyakarta when I lived in Indonesia almost 7 (!) years ago.  They were probably the most beautiful thing I brought home with me!  I'm sure you can find batik fabric online and in stores that is also lovely, but I still remember haggling with the vendor, adding more meters to drive the price down, stretching my Indonesian language skills, working my mental math muscles as quickly as possible in the dappled sunlight.  These hand printed batiks will be very slowly portioned out for only the most special projects until I can kembali (return) to Indonesia some day!

I love the fact that the quilting isn't perfect.

Although I was afraid I mailed it too late to arrive in time for Christmas, it did finally arrive on time (after being two years late, that is).  Anyway, my dad knows it was worth the wait!

keeping the back simple with a soft solid white sheet.

I got creative and quilted two concentric squares in each individual batik piece.  It was a little bit of a bear to keep rotating the quilt, but I was so happy with the finished product that it was totally worth it.

you can see the quilting I did in each of the squares between rows of sashing.

We couldn't get to Houston last year, my first Christmas away from my family (besides the one I spent in Indonesia). As Mark says, a quilt is like a warm hug.  I hope my dad feels that when he lays in his recliner under this quilt at night to watch TV.

happy quilt!

I was glad to see my dad using his quilt during my visit to Houston.  It is already well-loved!

love you, Daddy!  

my mama's garden

Although those photographs might all look similar, there is actually very little overlap in the contents of each image.  I took all the images standing in one spot in the middle of my parents' backyard, rotating clockwise about 25 degrees each photo.  My mama's garden is a container garden full of more than 30 10-gallon pots.  Plus, a fig tree (far left) and some smaller pots for herbs (pictured separately, below).

Houston is very lucky to have such a long growing season.  Actually, the weather reasonably permits two whole growing seasons-- time to grow a whole set of plants and start over in the middle of the summer with a whole new set of plants.  In DC, we hadn't even begun our seeds yet (although we could have), and my mama's already eating zucchini she grew in the backyard.

tomatoes 

eggplant

aren't eggplant blossoms the prettiest?  and those dark purple stalks!

My mama's growing all my favorites.  She has over ten tomato plants, bell peppers, zucchini, squash, eggplant... if I were home, I would eat from her garden all summer (and spring and fall) long.

pepper blossoms

more tomatoes.  tomatoes are my favorite to grow, too.

zucchini

yellow squash

Although I have successfully regenerated green onions in our apartment before, and I tried to start a pineapple plant, I'm amazed by the plants my family has cultivated from pits of food purchased at the grocery store.  Mangoes, avocados and I think my mama might've mentioned a guava?

incredible avocado plant grown from a pit

mango tree grown from a pit

all the herbs: cilantro, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and basil

even lemongrass!

Definitely makes me want to get my hands in the dirt!  Even though it's getting a bit late to start our plants from seed this year, we will definitely be doing our own container garden again.  I can't wait!

oil ranch

Alanna, posing at the entrance to Oil Ranch

my sister Michelle, 'milking a cow'.  sort of.

Friday during my Houston trip, I accompanied my sister Michelle on my niece Alanna's field trip to Oil Ranch.  It wasn't exactly chaperoning, because this is pre-school and the parents almost outnumbered the kids.  But it was fun to be able to do something special with my niece (and my sister).

hen and eggs, being a chain link fence.

feeding the sheep.

Oil Ranch is part amusement park, part petting zoo/dude ranch.  It seems to be a popular spot for elementary school aged children and apparently corporate events?  They have tons of animals (donkeys, geese, chickens, bunnies, cows, donkeys, etc), offer pony rides, train rides, hay rides, and several other interactive children's activities.  It was not a hot day by Houston standards, but the sun was strong, and we really appreciated their picnic pavilions (where we ate our packed lunches)!

bunnies!

pony ride, anyone?

Alanna on a big horse

I really enjoyed watching Alanna be active and interact with other children.  She'll be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I am sure that she will do well in relationships with her teachers and classmates.

my niece and I at Oil Ranch - courtesy of Michelle Herrera

The day was fun, but tiring.  Did I really forget, after all my summers working with children in camps and the year I spent nannying, that children are a lot of work?  My niece was not high maintenance, and I did not even provide much direct care for her, but even trailing around after one child (with my sister) at Oil Ranch was exhausting.  I also got pretty sun burnt, so I must not be used to equatorial conditions anymore.  Or perhaps my whirlwind, less than 5 day trip to Texas had an impact on my energy level?  I didn't sleep in the same bed twice for the five days leading up to our field trip.  Yeah, let's go with that.

Alanna, milking a cow.  for real.

In any case, I already appreciate the memories from this day and hope I get to do something similar with my nephew David in the next few years!

faces from home

Coming home from a vacation is always difficult, but I smartly scheduled a midnight flight on a Sunday evening after a whirlwind trip-- and then an early morning Monday appointment.  Yikes.

While I'm getting my head on straight and jumping back into regular life, I'm going to look through these photos to bring a smile to my face.  Michelle won't like her photo, but we didn't get one together!  And I somehow missed photographing my dad altogether on this trip.  Guess I'll have to visit again soon!

my niece Alanna and I at Oil Ranch

my younger sister Erin and I

finally a good photo of me and my Mama!

my older sister Michelle

my sweet nephew David!

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

. . . . . . . .

{this moment} ritual from Soulemama

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

. . . . . . . .

{this moment} ritual from Soulemama

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

. . . . . . . .

{this moment} ritual from Soulemama

a peek in Aunt Sarah's garden

Last weekend, Mark and I headed up to Binghamton for a family visit.  Mark had concert tickets to see Ani DiFranco and Martin Sexton with his dad.  I opted not to go to the concert, since I had seen both artists in the last year or so and thought Mark might enjoy the time with just his dad.  I ended up the lucky one, however, because while they were at the concert, I got to go to a garden party!

Mark's Aunt Sarah and her husband Keefe live near the New York/Pennsylvania border and have a beautiful home and property there.  Mark has told me they built the house themselves, after they were married on the land (which I think is a beautiful story-and talk about 'handmade something'!).  The house itself is also beautiful and customized to their needs.  The kitchen counter tops are 4" taller than standard to accommodate their tall height!  I felt a little like a dwarf in the kitchen.  But, the best part is their back patio. Raised high on stilts with stairs to the side, their patio allows them to look over an enormous back yard and eight (8!) gardens that Aunt Sarah has planted around the property.  It was an incredible view!

Leslie, Ashlinn, Josh and I got to tour each one.  The variety and beauty of all of her flowers is astounding.  I've never seen such colors before!  None of my photographs have been edited.  I metered for light and snapped and what you see is a depiction of the what I saw with my eyes.

It's clear that these gardens are Aunt Sarah's peace.  A literal piece of land and a tangible peace felt amidst them.  The largest of the gardens is gated and has a grape arbor, too!

 

Sarah and Keefe have started a considerable garden.  They've got 24 tomato plants growing in a raised bed and more strawberry plants than you can count!  We got to sample the strawberries, mounded atop Keefe's homemade ice cream.  That was a real treat!  I'm so mad I didn't snap a picture... I was too busy eating.

Seeing so much growth was very encouraging for me to get out in my garden and do.  It's been awhile since Mark and I did any weeding in our own veggie plot.  I appreciate the lives Sarah and Keefe have carved for themselves, out in the country, away from the city.  I feel that I could live that way. With internet everywhere these days, there's no need to feel remote or disconnected (although if you wanted that, you could have it in the country!).  Since Indonesia, I feel like I've been on a quest to discover how things are done; how tortillas and tomato sauce are made instead of bought, how veggies and herbs are grown, how clothing and housewares are sewn.  Indonesia would be an entirely different experience for me than it was six years ago.
 

The more I learn and experience a handmade life, the more I want to get away from the commercial life where handmade things are passed over in favor of those that are commercially produced.  I much prefer Aunt Sarah's rambling flower garden than the strategically spaced pansies planted in the parking lots of office buildings.  I'm trying to do a little of this where I am, right in the city.  I guess this is the major appeal of urban homesteading.  My garden will grow this summer, but it's got nothing on Aunt Sarah's garden!