Hi, we started moving Monday, the computer is here in the forest not in Denver so online time is spotty. Hopefully I will be able to posts some pictures of our new house soon. We’re dealing with the regular moving stresses but moving back to friends helps a lot no more being new for us.

Wish I had more time to share all the wonder and fun we’ve been having, in between the stresses.

Here is a gift for all of you.

Back in the house in the Forest for the week, surround by boxes. As this move looms even closer I find that I am spending more time thinking about how I want this old life to return and less about decorating the new home. Speaking of the new home here is a peek of the front porch.

Following the usual style of upheaval in our lives lately we had a consistent and chaotic Chanukkah ending with an evening at a latke cook off, and then had “Christmas” with most of Kevin’s family on Wednesday including plenty of time at the hot springs. Hope everyone’s holidays are joyous and peaceful.

Stacey

The house is a mess, Alder is in tears half the time; I think we must be moving. We fill boxes tripping over toys that we can’t pack and let A watch movies when he wants, his version of hiding away. We all talk about “When we are in Denver we will ____”

I keep by my side a book to get through this words to keep me going.

Sabbaths, by Wendell Berry. In moments of stalling I open the book and find a sense of peace that sustains me through the next box or shelf.

Who do you reach for when life is too much in the details?

this spot will be three blocks from our house, drawn in 2005

The days to the move are counting down and things are disappearing into boxes and the awfully large trailer that is parked behind the house. But the biggest change around here is the love that seems to be flowing more than ever. We have so much to do in the next few months between moving, Kevin’s business and my projects but rather than fighting for time we are coming more together. This return to Denver has some special effect on all of us, an energy has returned to this family that has been missing for a few years. The fog that had settled over us is lifting and there is so much to do and be part of. (okay I know this is bad grammar but I can’t fix it without changing the meaning)

We aren’t running off with any unrealistic view of Denver, we have lived there and we know it is going to take a lot of time and work to make everything come together but it is effort we are ready to put in. Even Alder wakes up in the morning and wants to know what he can help pack.

What is important with this move is that it doesn’t feel like a stop on a train, someplace we are while we are waiting for something better, even the place we are moving into is one we want to stay in for a long time.

Today we were up in Denver for the day just sort of living as if we were already moved in, while Papa worked. It feels so natural for me and Alder is so happy when we are there wandering around. It will be even better when we can have a home to come to that doesn’t involve driving an hour and a half each way.

I think I’ve said all these things before but it all just makes me so happy I have to say it again and again to everyone I know just to share my joy because for once I feel like I am not jumping into the unknown but into an exciting familiar world.

I promise a picture of it soon, at least from the outside since we aren’t moving in for a few more weeks. But I have been working in my mind on how to set it up.  Of course it helps to have the internet for inspiration. These are a few of the things I have found so far. To be honest this post is primarily here so I can quickly find these links over myself. However if you have another favorite house design resource tell me, please!

Entryways

Rental tips.

Decorating with textiles

Eclectic Interiors

Waldorf Home

All these house tours

Not that we can afford the stuff here it is inspirational (not a store)

I’m not a super huge fan of this magazine but occasionally I find something

The insanity of moving is settling in and I’m almost finished drinking a pot of coffee today (this coming from a woman who maybe has a cup a week in normal caffeinated situations). But while I am cleaning, packing, wrapping gifts, celebrating the Holiday, I have had some random thoughts.

1) Most people talk about wonderful first kisses, and I have had many and miss them terribly, but am I the only person who has had a perfectly romantic last kiss?

2) Listening to water in a river has a cyclic rhythm that repeats, not exactly but fairly similar. But if you try to listen too hard for it you get lost in the individual sounds.

3) Stress brings out moments of vagueness in me that can be frightening, it is almost like I am distanced from the world by a screen unable to interact.

4) I wonder why so many of the women that I went to high school with are still single but so few of the men are.

5) There is one thing I most desperately miss at this house, the ability to just let Alder out the door to play outside. The benefits of moving far out weigh this but I will miss this and hope that I can still give him opportunities to be by himself outside. Because of this I want to go out to the mountains or prairie once a week, not just to hike but to amble.

6) My music collection is dated, I haven’t bought many CDs since the late 1990’s, but I wouldn’t know where to begin at this point.

7) I love scrubbing my cast iron pot and kettle with oil and salt to clean them. It i so satisfying to see they glowing black (yes I did say glowing black).

I miss writing a lot, I have had much time to work on fiction since we decided to move.

9) I think it is amusing that a highschool boy was flirting with me at a coffee shop the other day, it made me feel good about myself.

10) Whenever we move (which has been way too often) I get sucked into apartmenttherapy.com

I’m guessing things are going to be rather sporadic around this blog for the next few weeks. [I am not sure why but wordpress has a bug where 8 and ) turn into a smiley face every time I use them, I guess it's a happy bug.]

the cold air of negative four brings out

wooden handle on black iron

heating goodness of

sake

lime

tamari

waiting for the noodles to go translucent

miso sitting by the side

noodles clear

fermented paste mingles

we make offerings to our bodies

of the substances they have asked for

later under paper lights with jazz rhythms in my head

i read the alphabet told through the greats

starting to tell my son the stories

the histories that drew me in

as a child reading the notes from

inside my father’s albums

the words got me before the music

always the stories before the music

then the eight year old me

black disk in hand lets it spin

trying to find the stories in the sounds

lost in rhythms as the natural song of our house

fades

the typewriter fades

the sound of dishes being done

in the harvest gold kitchen

i fade into the music as it turns stories into sound

and turns sound into tales of their own creation.

Inspired by Jazz ABZ

lately we’ve been all over the place, straddling between the house in the wood and Denver. I look forward to the time when spending time in Denver also means being able to go home as well. Nine hours out around town with Alder is long with no home base. He likes a lot of what we do in town but he misses his toys and doing projects. So for the next week or so we are staying put, he can play and I will pack.

There has been time for a date

…some awesome thrifting

…a little bit of journaling

…and a lot of this

Every December since Alder was born a sense of dread comes over me. I see all the wonderful Advent calendars and Christmas decorations that fill the crafty internet world and part of me want s to join in. But, and a big but, I am Jewish. Even though I grew up with a Christmas tree, the Hanukkah bush my grandmother called it. I feel weird going through with it in my own home. This is possibly because I am more religious than the rest of my family. The argument in my head goes something like this.

“The holidays feelings and excitement looks so tempting,” the soft side says.

“Yes but why decorate for a holiday we don’t celebrate?”

“We could decorate for Hanukkah,” the soft side counters.

“But Hanukkah isn’t really a big religious deal it was just Americanized because it happens around Christmas”

“What about Solstice?” the soft side offers.

“Hmm”

“Come on it’ll be fun and we only ever give a few gifts anyway,” the soft side is digging in deep.

“But how do we explain the difference to Alder”

“Come on just enjoy the season!” the soft side begs.

Each year it goes back and forth until one of us wins. This year my rational side won by default, we’re moving and there is no way I am going to decorate in the middle of that. I will still make Latkes  and Cabbage Soup one evening. And we will light the menorah and play dreidle with gelt (chocolate money). But this year the does of the holidays we’ll get is for visits to the other side of the family (I am sure my mother in law has already started planning).

This is the tree we had two years ago, it was a little last minute but Kevin felt like doing something from his childhood. We decorated it with Alder’s toys and fabric scraps tied together for garland.

We’re back from 10 days up in Denver. Included in the excitement was signing a lease for next month. We are returning to the city! It has been a tough two years since we left and while we were up there both of us realized how natural we felt there. Even Alder is excited (he woke up at 4 yesterday and started packing his toys). While I am ready for this change, ready to be near like minded people and not have to drive everywhere, there is part of me that is sad to leave the farm. Honestly if we had found some people like us around here I would be writing about choosing chickens and goats right now, instead I am thinking about bike trails and museum free days. Once, a few years ago I wrote about how I was more of a front stoop person than a back porch one, well now we are going to have a front stoop walking distance to a coffee shop. The best thing about our new place is that we are only four blocks from a huge park that has some great playgrounds, handball courts, tennis courts, a Nature and Science Museum, a Zoo and lots of land to wander on.

Still in Denver we will be at the intersection of prairie and mountains, except the mountains are much closer and there are rivers for boating as well! So here we go again packing up, but this time it’s too something we know and love in a place where we have a support system and friends. We are going to have to work hard to make this succeed but it is a natural sort of working, not desperate.  I’ll admit it I was never willing to work night shifts at the super market when we were in Vermont, I just didn’t have the commitment to the place, in Denver it would seem okay, away to live our life.