happy halloween

after a full school day of parading and partying on friday, our little ghosts are ready for another round. very very soon we will hit the streets of brooklyn, pumpkin buckets in hand, to load up on an obscene amount of candy that will be divvied up over the next six months.. or just tossed when no one's looking. the girls have been practicing their trick-or-treating approach and they've got it down. eve, taking her costume seriously, has very specific plans of how to startle and scare and surprise as many of the good people of brooklyn as she possibly can. a test round on a group of 5th graders hanging out on the street on our way home yesterday went very well. giggles trailed after her floating figure all the way to our building. ruth has no interest in scaring others, but she doesn't mind showing her ghost shoes. they may say "BOO" but when said in fancy gold metallic iron-on dots, well that's only going to make people happy, especially those little girls of the just days away from four-years-old variety. 

happy halloween!

++

dots from here. the service was so fast and, come on. iron-on metallic dots? too cool. any residual 10-year-old envy of my friend and her BeDazzler has been washed away. 

gymnast shoes from pearl river. a few reinforcing rounds through the sewing machine fixed eve's ripped seam and she was ready to go for a night on the town. also, be warned; they are slippers and and slippers aren't water proof. our ghosts had soggy feet at the end of the night. but throw enough candy at them and they don't even notice.

weekend

we cowered in the cold wind on the way home from school today. fall is here and winter is right around the corner. the coats will come out of storage this weekend and the shorts and sandals will be put back in their place. we will run outside for a bit and do some special preparations for upcoming programs and assignments. we will see where the wild things are. we will go to church and we will make soup (because soup makes the girls' hair golden.. a lie i told long ago to get them to eat up. a lie eve has never forgotten and a lie both she and ruth fully believe. i plan on a deathbed confession..). but mostly we will just be. at home, cozy on a blustery fall weekend. changing out our closets for the season, picking up toys, resting, snacking, looking and listening. 

+listening to this american life. honestly, does it get any better than this program? after years of listening, i just don't know how it could. the moth is pretty great too (if you live in new york, please go to a story slam at some point. really worth waiting in line for. some people have stories to share and share them very well. hey, wait! i went to link and found: chicago! detroit! you can go to story slams too! and LA, you've been able to for awhile!). 

+looking at this. have you seen this? after looking at the pictures watch the video linked under the article. beautiful and moving. people and the things they do are incredible. i want the royal de luxe to come to new york. i want to watch the big giant rise out of the east river and i want to, somehow, be one of those people grabbing the ropes to make that little giantess move. 

+listening to animal noises. anywhere we can find them. over and over and over and guessing who they belong to. the kids love it. charlie loves anything that sounds dangerous. and cows.  

+looking over and backing up our summer photos. this summer was lovely and i miss it. i normally don't say that about summer, but i'm saying it now. i miss the textures and colors and sounds of coastal oregon mornings, and i miss being the masters of our own schedules. but more i miss seeing little sandaled feet. even when, or maybe especially when, they're popping up during dinner. luckily, little feet in little boots kicking crunchy leaves on the way home from school are a pretty great replacement for now. 

here's to the weekend.

carefree

my 50mm lens broke. then one phone died while the other disappeared. two days later a water balloon burst all over (and killed) my one-month-old laptop. a water balloon. inside my home. i can really only blame myself, but still, there were a few days these past two weeks where i was pretty sure that life was against me. 

then the crisp fall wind came and blew in the anniversary of our wedding. nine years. (high-five, chip). last tuesday rolled around, chip surprise-took the day off work and pushed me out of the door to have a day of wandering all to myself. the city was wonderful and strange without my squad. i hardly knew what to do or how to interact with the city without kids.. or at the very least without the threat of an outrageous babysitting bill or looming pick-up time. but, i eventually figured it out. i wandered in soho and central park, i saw a movie at 5pm at the Paris (i was the youngest by 35 years, at least. maybe my favorite NY movie viewing experience to date.), i wandered down 5th avenue and grew even firmer in my deep love of brooklyn. chip and i met at balthazar for dinner, wandered to the east village for ice cream and another movie, then took a cab to the west village to stay the night at the jane*. all by ourselves. no kids calling our names in the night or "whispering" in our faces in the morning. it was a first ever and it was nice. and chip did it all. (big-time high-five, chip). the next morning i watched the hudson from our window and after leaving the hotel, chip took off to work while i slowly wandered home.

for a life that has seemed anything but carefree lately, it was the perfect gift. the break from everything, the time alone with chip and the happy reunion with the kids.. just right. 

and now we are back. back to schedules and volunteering and lunch-packing and scrambling to find the missing shoe and fundraising and playing and eating and meetings and eating (charlie is beastly hungry all the time lately) and trying our best to wrap it all up in pajamas, brushed teeth and a cup full of water before 8pm every night.. and i'm trying my best to approach all we have going on with the same happy attitude i approached my day of wandering. 

so it seemed right that when reuniting with my lonely sewing machine i turn to one of my favorite japanese craft books newly translated into english (hooray!); carefree clothes for girls. the japanese version made me want to dye the girls' hair red and move to the country, and the new english version does the same.. but since that doesn't make any sense (yet) i'm happy that it also makes me want to sew up a ton of these adorable clothes for eve and ruth's life in the city.

i skipped on the lovely handwork the book instructs for the apron (i get impatient for a final product when i haven't sewn in awhile.. but really, the detailed handwork in the book is insanely charming). and i went for strips of bias tape along the pant leg rather than the wide lace in the instructions- no lace on hand and i find stripes+cropped pant+little girl to be an irresistible combination (and who really has the power to resist the sailor trend, especially after just lodging in the "captain's quarters" at a hotel that was originally built to lodge sailors in port and was actually home to the survivors of the titanic while that sad mess was sorted out? not me). i love it. simple and darling and so easy to sew. eve's feelings about the outfit? she can put "special secret and even super secret messages and things in the gigantic pocket without anyone knowing" all while practicing moves for ballet class, so she's a fan. even ruth, while in her cave (laundry hamper turned on its side with blanket over it), rotating between her bat costume and skirted lime green swimsuit and shouting "pumpkin pie!" every thirty seconds gives it a very enthusiastic thumbs up. so, even with 80% of technology dead in our home, and charlie throwing everything he can find to the ground, it isn't so hard to feel carefree with images of life on the sea, super secret messages and pumpkin pie on the brain. 

* for those who follow the link to the jane, know that chip didn't surprise me with a tiny room with bunk beds (although that would have been ridiculous and hysterical.. and a revisit to our past- on a maiden scouting voyage to new york nearly 9 years ago we visited the jane when it was gritty and cheap and a friend was lodging in one of those tiny tiny rooms until he found an apartment).. we stayed in one of the captain's rooms which was cool and fun, but not without some mysterious weirdness..