It's the hard-knock life for us!

***Warning: Sad story to follow***
I love to sing that Annie song with my children. Usually we sing it when I am making them perform a cleaning task. The singing makes the work more enjoyable. And of course its poking fun at how good their lives are as well. Sometimes, however life really is hard knocks for a kid. And that just takes all the laugh right of of me.

Yesterday was just such a day. We received news that Dunham's best buddy Will (age 6) from back in Minnesota has been diagnosed with a very aggressive and rare Cancer called Sinonasal Teratocarcinosarcomas. He will under go Chemotherapy multiple times, be isolated for months and then be subjected to a pretty rough surgery to boot. Never have I cried as much in one day as I did yesterday. I cried big heaving sobs. You see Will & Dunn spent almost everyday in each others company between school and play dates. When you spend that much time with someone-elses child they become a little bit yours to. There are pieces of our dear Will dispersed through our everyday. Like when Dunn asks for a sandwich "like Will likes it". Or when Dunn is playing Lego's and sets up a play scenario that Will came up with and he drags me by the hand to come take a look. Wills favorite Koolaid flavor, Bionicle, sword ect...its all documented in Dunns beautiful head. Does that make sense? My heart says it does and its grieving and scared.

I cried so much yesterday that my children were at a loss. I just couldn't stop. And so with wet cheeks and puffy eyes I shared the news with Dunn about Will in the simplest way that I could. The look on my baby boys face was immeasurable sadness. Jon used to work at Children's Hospital and so all of our children know what cancer means and what it looks like on a child. Dunn asked me a few questions about how Will was doing and if he was in pain or did his tummy feel sick yet?. He processed the information and walked away from me with slopped shoulders. About an hour latter as I was making dinner he came and hugged my leg. I picked him up and reassured him that it would be all right because Will was one tough little bugger. Dunn then leaned his forehead against mine (I started crying again) and he said "Mom, I know everything he likes and I can make him feel better".

Ah, yes doll that is true. So true and simple. So we wrote down some ideas and came up with a plan for doing exactly what Will likes cause Dunn knows. And as I laid down to sleep last night with all my children tucked safely in their beds the thought of Dunn knowing was reassuring. Is it odd to be reassured by a 6 year-olds knowledge?

This morning as I sit writing this I am pondering how amazing children are. The natural empathy that a small child posses is enough to light up a very dark corner of the world. I am making a vow today to help my children nurture their friendships even the long distance ones. And to make sure that I put some more effort into nurturing mine too. I am certain that there is nothing nicer than knowing what another person likes and that they know the same about you.

S~

It has been interesting...

To say the least. I have been on the road with the kids and our dog for 17 days now. The move went very smoothly. I can not sing the praises of professional movers enough. I hope that from this move forward that I am so lucky to be afforded such a service. I should use the word "move" loosely as it's only our stuff that has moved to a warehouse in Chicago. The children and I are still moving about the country.


We spent the Memorial Day weekend at Jon's parents lake home with siblings and cousins galore. It was such a relaxing end to what has been a busy four months. After our stint at the lake we drove down to Kansas City Kansas for a lovely two night visit with our friend Kat and her boys Ficher & Ty. All five kids ran around Kat's kid fest house at break neck speed and enjoyed each others company immensely. I just kept unwinding a little bit each day in Kat's relaxed presence. Thank you Kat!

Off to Colorado we went to stay in Monument with my brother Shawn and his wife Michelle. They have three little girls similar in age to my three. All 6 were busy from the start having a water gun fights, making water balloons and running off lots of energy. Much exploring of the woods behind their house ensued over the weekend along with general mess making and mischief. Just the sort of freedom my little people needed after the constraints of house selling perfection.

We are now in Taos, New Mexico visiting with my Mom & Dad. They have a lovely log home right on a mountain stream in the woods. An idyllic setting for all kinds of relaxing and discovery. I celebrated my 38th birthday on the 9th with dinner and a cold beer at Outback Pizza. A place I always visit when I am in town. We went to Santa Fe on Thursday and visited the Georgia O'Keeffe and New Mexico Art Museums. The New Mexico Art Museum had a stellar display of Cowboy Boots as art that made me want to run out and buy a pair. Truly amazing.
We will be in Taos for about another week and then we will head back to Colorado where Jon will meet us. We will all then drive to Washington together. Yea! On the house buying front we are still working through the short sale process on one house. We put an offer in on a second house in the same neighborhood and should know today if they have excepted our offer. Cross your fingers for me because this is the house I wanted all along. Will post a link to it as soon as I find out if it's ours.

On a sewing note I am working on an Alabama Chanin skirt. I have to figure out how to get the pictures from my camera onto my mom's computer so I can post them here. I am working on the beading of the third panel (3 of 4). Only one more to go and then I can assemble it. I hope to complete it while I am still here as it's the perfect kind of thing to wear in Taos.
Lastly, Thank you for all of the kind emails, Washington info and suggestions and general well wishes. It always makes my day to hear from you. I have found more interesting blogs and crafty artistic souls since I started blogging. So much inspiration out there.
Happy Trails,
Sonja

SOLD!

Just a little update to let everyone know our house in Minneapolis has finally sold. I had a celebratory two beer night last night. I also let the kids take out as many toys as they wanted and they didn't have to put them away before bed. Let's just say that made this morning a little more stressful for me but the kids think I am the most amazing mom ever. So off to Mom Hall of Fame I go.


Now on to the actual moving and packing and closing on this house. We put an offer in on a house in Mukilteo, WA. It's a short sale...Have any experience with those? A whole nother beast I tell you. In all likely hood the kids and I will be homeless for at least the month of June. So I am devising an all over the country road trip with three kids and a dog. I am calling it an adventure and not a vacation. During an adventure you expect things to go terribly wrong. Because part of the fun of an adventure is the unpredictability and digging yourself out from under unfortunate happenings. Whilst a vacation is horribly ruined if things don't go as planned. See, it's all about setting the expectations.

Wish me luck!
S~

2010 Textile Center Garage Sale

I don't get to go this year....so sad. If you live local than put this on your calender because you have got to go. I highly recommend the preview sale on Friday. Don't complain about the $25 entrance fee as its for charity and it's worth every penny to have first dibs on the good stuff. Remember these posts from last year? 
http://soduel.blogspot.com/2009/04/textile-center-garage-sale.html
http://soduel.blogspot.com/2009/04/fabric-goodness.html

Textile Center Garage Sale Success Tips~Girlfriends, girlfriends girlfriends!  Take some with you and make sure they know your sewing style and any items you are hoping to score
~Several shopping bags.  I think several small to medium size bags is better than one huge one.
~Cash
~Arrive at least thirty minutes early there will be a line.
~If you like it pick it up and put it in your bag.  You will not get a second chance and you can always thin out your score at the end of the shopping period.

For more information visit the Textile Center website.

Happy Stitching!
S~

Who steals a minivan with three car seats in it?

Last night such an individual did exactly that while we all snoozed softly in our beds. A Toyota Sienna Minivan might be about the most uncool vehicle imaginable that one could steal. However mine is a snazzy apple red which might have been the enticing factor.

Here's a recap of my life at this very moment...My house is for sale, My husband is in Seattle (Mukilteo really), I have been single parenting for 8 weeks and now, My only vehicle has been stolen with the car seats in it and we have about one cup of milk left. Oh! and yesterday my less than a year old Electolux vacuum died. You need a working vacuum when your trying to sell your house. You also need a car so that you can get out of your house for showings.

I really feel like sitting down and having an ugly cry...the kind where my eyes get huge and puffy red and snot runs out of my nose and loud wailing noises emanate from a deep hidden spot in my gut. But I can't do that yet because I am waiting for the insurance people to call me back.

S~

We are on the market!

After a whirl wind month of no sleep, truck loads of stuff carted to various places, painters, inspectors and a cabinet maker, our home is finally for sale. Ouch, that hurts a bit to say. I can honestly say preparing a house for sale is more work than I imagined and I don't want to do it again anytime soon. Preparing a house for sale with three little people under foot is monumental! A big apology to all the folks in my universe that have tolerated my dropped balls, missed dates and general tardiness. A super huge thank you to all the brides that didn't leave horrible feedback via etsy for my month off schedule production. No weddings actually missed just shipping dates. But when your a bride a missed anything is panic time. And finally the biggest thank you of all for all the well wishes, play dates, good catches, and general support donated generously by family & friends. On the day before our house hit the market I lost my engagement ring. The next day my husband left for Seattle. Through it all I only cried once. Pretty good I think. Wish us luck everyone as I think we are going to need it.

Here is a little slide show of our house is your curious:  http://www.spacecrafting.com/ssp.aspx?id=4e7474f4-c553-4d27-acf0-fda39d1b8861&b=1

Getting our house ready to sell.

I have never considered myself a pack rat. However if you saw the amount of stuff I have removed from my house over the last week, you would probably beg to differ. Piles and boxes and shopping bags full of stuff. What has been so interesting to me is how easy it was to get rid of it all. I had no emotional attachment to any of it. So why did I keep it for years? I think the answer is two fold. The big one is space. If I have space to store stuff I am very likely to fill that space over time. The second aspect is usefulness. If something has a useful purpose I am likely to store it away for when I need it. I love to be able to create on a whim without purchasing supplies. So my basement has served me quite well.


Here's the big light bulb moment for me in the midst of my purge. A few days ago I was getting the opinion of a fellow parent who is an architect about a new front door for my house. During the conversation he mentioned to me that while house hunting he calculated that his family of four needed only 1200 square feet to live comfortable. I thought that was crazy! 1200 feet is nothing. How can a family of four live in that. Kids get big and they have lots of friends. As I came home and looked at all the space in my home after removing the unnecessary stuff I got it. What is the point of having a big house filled with stuff you don't use? One of the aspects of moving to Seattle that is so exciting for me is the house shopping part. This is my opportunity to get a much bigger house. Like twice as big and I wouldn’t have been apposed to three times as big.

Suddenly this morning, as I drank my cup of coffee and looked through the new listings our Realtor in Seattle sent, the houses didn't look as good to me. They have everything I specified weeks earlier. The big kitchens with the granite countertops and shiny stainless steel appliances, the massive empty bonus room, 3 bathrooms and 3 garage stalls suddenly don't look so appealing. These houses feel a little soulless. Yet my sweet little old house that I have made over time and time again and have been wishing away looks just about right. It lives really well. It has never failed to serve our needs.

Now, as I am making it over yet again with a new homeowner in mind I am missing my house. Because what we do when we sell a house is remove part of the current owners to make room for the new. I hope more than anything that a lovely freshly married young couple like Jon & I were will buy this sunny old house and make it home. That they will have babies in this house and love the sound of their chubby feet on its old maple floors. That they will grow and stretch and just be happy in this house. It’s a house that is good for that kind of thing.

Yesterday as we celebrated our 10 year anniversary (7 of which occurred in this house) we did lot’s of reminiscing about the old gal. What she looked like when we bought her. What she looks like now. How we live with lot’s of little imperfections until your ready to sell it. At which point you fix all the things that annoyed you while living in it. I have had several moments of “Why didn’t I do that years ago?” In the end I am sure we will buy a new home in the same fashion that we bought this one. We will walk in and both of us will get giddy. We will be swept away by the energy of the house. The house will pick us.

New Year Big Move

The New Year Has started with a bang! I woke this morning around 5 AM freezing my tush off to find that the power was out in our neighborhood. This is Minnesota, so of course it was close to zero when the power went out. The thermostat read 52 degrees inside. Burr!


Last night we made it home from our ski trip to Taos, NM around 8 pm and did lots of unpacking and greeting of our house. It was a much needed vacation for us all. And yet it is so nice to be home. The New Year will find us better rested and more relaxed. At least for a bit. Now here comes the really big BANG! We will be readying our home for the real estate market over the next couple of weeks. Jon has accepted a new job in Seattle, Washington. So with much excitement and a little heart ache we will be relocating there. Jon starts his new job in February and I will follow with the kids when we have closed on a new house.

I am just starting to panic a little bit about the amount of effort this is going to take. Moving cross country with three kids and a dog. Keeping my house ready to show at the drop of a hat with three kids and a dog. I, by nature am an assimilator. I have lived all over the place and am excited to try out a new local. But the process of getting there is a little over whelming.

Blogging and crafting will be taking a backseat until we are settled. I will be popping in from time to time with little updates on the moving drama.

I still plan on doing the sew along! And will be contacting the folks that emailed me while I was on vacation.

UFP's a post about nothing

I know I am not the only person around craft town with a boat load of UFP's. What is a UFP you ask? Unfinished projects my dears. My whole life feels sorta like one big UFP right now. Shall I give you the run down?

~Ella got 5 stitches in her leg and needs to have them removed today- 1 UFP
~Dining room / Sun room remodel project needs completion and both rooms complete redecoration- Technically that's 3 UFP's
~Several needle felted cake toppers and assorted critters that need eye's and other necessaries - 5 UFP's
~No less than 8 sewing projects cut out and supplies gathered for holiday giving - 8 UFP's
~One advent elf from last year that needs completing before December this year - 1 UFP (though with all those stink'n pockets it should count for more.) Even worse the new Marie Claire Idees has a new one I want to make!

~Boxes of stuff to photograph to put up in POCKETFULL shop - I'll say that's just 1 UFP
~Then there are a slew of inherited UFP's all involving my mother and needle & thread which I feel some historical weight to complete/alter/use in some fashion as I can not stand to throw them out!- 6 UFP's This one I need to photograph for prosperity.
~ Promised UFP's in which I have promised folks tutorials, pattern pieces or some other bit of creative knowledge (1 tut, 1 pattern, 2 life size woven trees and 1 felting class) - 5 UFP's
~The final UFP is a big one and it's probably where all my mojo has gone. That's because it's a secret UFP and I am not aloud to share it with anyone outside my house. I think the weight of this one is preventing me from completing any given task. UGH! - One massive UFP.

Grand total: 31 UFP's

I could probably add a few if I thought real hard about it for a bit. What I am hoping for here is through the public admittance of total complete failure and acknowledging how I am feeling about said failure, I will find a foothold out of my UFP funk.

DESTASH in progress

Back away slowly. This is your only and final warning..........

Do you know what happens when a woman who comes from a long line of woman who could recreate the worlds history of handicrafts should all of humanity be wiped clean from the earth and along with them every craft book DESTASHES? (insert a little overzealous horn tooting here)

It's almost to much to think about isn't it? I have been collecting an impressive collection of random interesting bits for half my life. Once again I come from a long line of woman who have done just the same thing so I can hardly take credit. I am also fully aware that people naturally think that there stuff is the greatest stuff ever. In any event, having given some thought on how to disperse of my most amazing stuff, I have decided to start another ETSY shop. As I go through stuff and decide that I can indeed go on creating without said stuff I will photograph it and possibly write something quippy to describe it (or not depending on my mood) and then put it up in the shop. It won't happen overnight. This is a slow destash. A destash with thought.

Up first are primarily items for Halloween and fall crafting. Stay tuned for more than a Pocketfull .

Firsts

I didn't shed a single tear at school. In fact I gave a big high five to Jon and congratulated myself on selecting the perfect school and lucking out with a fantastic teacher for Soren. However, at this moment as I am downloading pictures from the camera I am a little misty. How did I manage to grow a Kindergartner in such a short period of time?

Soren is so confident of herself at this moment. This...I am five and I run the world moment. This...I am a girl and I rock moment. She thoroughly anticipated that we would just drop her off on the school house steps and she would find her own way to class. This was the first push off of many to come. The moment where your child looks at you with those eye's that say "get lost, I can handle this on my own".

So I will say adieu to my little girl and embrace this new creature that has emerged. There is no doubt in my mind that you will find your way darling. No doubt at all.

Giraffe Food

At the Minnesota Zoo a few days ago the kids had the opportunity to feed the Giraffes. Rye crackers is apparently what giraffes eat. Two rye crackers for $5 which I had to borrow from my friend Karen because there are no ATM's in the African bush.

Soren followed up the day with a horrific long black tongue licking her nightmare in the middle of the night. She was so freaked out by the way the giraffe's long tongue was hand like in it's ability to grab on to stuff that's all she talked about for at least 24 hours.

Ella didn't say a word......just stared at the sweet spotted head in amazement

Soren even though she kept screaming and dropping the cracker every time the giraffe tried to take it from her, thought she should comfort her little brother just in case he was scared too. He wasn't but how thoughtful of her to transfer her fear to him so that she could get a little distance from it.

Blueberry Picking

The Lilliput people and I spent the morning picking blueberries at Rush River Produce in Madien Rock, WI. My dear friend Karen organizes this blueberry picking craziness each year. And i thank her wildly for the experience each year. If you live in this part of the country make your way to Rush River. Absolutely worth the drive.

So what do you get when you combine 3 moms, 7 kids, an 1.5 hour stunning drive through river towns to the blueberry farm and a rather chilly morning. Believe it or not you get 3 relaxed and tired mamma's, 7 happy blue tired children, more blueberries than can safely be consumed by a small village and a 1.5 hour drive home!

I did not take many pictures, however if you click on the farm link above you can see more pictures of the farm. The children, being unaccustomed to this much space and freedom, ran themselves silly tired in the sprawling maze of blueberry bushes. I am impressed by how long they all stuck with the picking. My three picked for a good hour straight. Of course they ate most of what they picked, so there was the motivation :) Fortunately for us the owners of the farm are long time friends of Karen and they happily let all of our children run free and gorge themselves on the blue stuff.
Tracy, Karen & I, being ladies who lunch, fixed a wonderful spread for our delicate pallets. I am joking of course! Karen is the kind of woman that always comes prepared (she prepared lunch for all of us on the spot). I could go on and on about the joys of being friends with this woman. But time is precious and I don't want to give her a big head. So just let me say that if you have ever dreamed of having one more woman around the house to help with the never ending work, This would be the woman you would want. She does it all with the most splendid sense of humor and flair. Back off! I have first dibs.
Karen made this Guacamole in the field from scratch. See what I mean? A real gem.

Lake Life this 4th

We are so fortunate to have a family lake home on stunning Deer Lake only an hour from our house. We are even more fortunate to have a slew of cousins to spend weekends at the lake with. I didn't grow up with cousins in close proximity. However, watching my children's relationships with their cousins develop over the years has been a real source of joy for me and them too. I will also say that nothing speaks Americana like a gang of wet, tanned and laughing children running around a watery playground. These are the moments my little people will remember and reminisce about with their own families one day. And these are the carefree imperfect snapshots that I am sure I will be cherishing for so many years to come. Happy Birthday America!

Birds, Business & Other News

Lots of birds around here. The needle felted wedding order variety flew out the door this morning. I am enjoying making these wedding cake toppers very much....most of the time. I am a worrier. So I worry if the bride will be happy. I worry about the fact that I never get these shipped off when I say I will. And finally I worry that the bride won't receive the birdies due to postal service chaos. I have yet to have an unhappy bride or loss in the mail so why do I continue to worry?

I am happy to report that Mama Robin successfully hatched 3 of her babies about two days ago. After the brutal squirrel attack that she endured, and the subsequent loss of one egg, I wasn't so sure she would make it through the 13 day incubation period. But she did! The kids each get to take a peak at the babies once a day. So fun to see how much they have changed in just a couple of days.

The surprise of all surprises today was that I was contacted by a craft book publications editor asking me if I would like to submit a project for consideration for a publication in spring 12010! Huge right? Actually, I am a little over the moon about it as it seems crazy that someone would think one of my projects was book worthy.

Off to the Children's Theatre with Soren and Dunn this evening to see Ramona Quimby. I love going more than they do I think. But don't let them know that as they think it's all for the kids.

Finally one more wedding order that left today........

Weddings

I love weddings! I especially love to make something special for a wedding. It's like giving a little piece of my happy marriage to start a new one. I have spent much of the last 6 weeks creating custom needle felted bird wedding cake toppers for some very special clients. Most of them are pretty traditional colorways. The ones I love doing are in vivid color or have some quirky request attached. This particular bride and groom have personality and are nice to boot. It was great fun to create these birdies for them. And is wonderful to imagine them on their frosted perch surveying the festivities. They are making me feel quite joyful!

A craft Pinata just exploded in my house

That will be my excuse should anyone just pop in to visit this evening or probably tomorrow too. I don't know about anyone else, but I can create the biggest crafting mess you have ever seen. And not just in one zone. I spread my crafty chaos around. No flat area is spared. I walk around while I craft. Dunno why. Just do. This is the buffet in my dining room. I have two projects going on plus some shipping and photographing work. I have been sewing allot for the girls. And needle felting up a storm for wedding orders. Not to mention a few crafty detours along with the work.

There is no good reason for this woolly mess. I had a feverish moment of needing one more wisp of pink wool. Pulled every color out of the bag to find it.

In the sun room. The ironing board is there as well. Couldn't take a picture because it's cover is so ugly. A new one has been on my to do list for at least two weeks. A new iron too. There are more pictures. But I think you get the point. The mess is so big at this point that cleaning it up and putting everything away properly is going to be an undertaking.

I big light bulb moment today was because of this mess. I thought, now I understand how my children feel when in a creative flurry they dump out an entire bin of the littlest Lego's imaginable to find just the right piece and then I say to them now you are going to have to clean that up! (massive run on) The look on their sweet little faces is utter despair. How on this green earth am I ever going to clean this up all by myself? I'll be like 10 by the time I get done. I am never going to say that to them again. My modeling behavior is telling then to be free...create. And that's just what I want them to do. I'll help clean up the Lego's. So let me leave you with a couple happy pictures born from my creative mess.

Sweet little Mint Julep birdie for a custom order.
Flower Pocket skirt for Soren.

Fishing in the Fountain

What a crazy Sunday. We awoke this morning to find it snowing. Then the sun came out and melted the fluffy white stuff. Warming up the back yard to about 40 degrees. It kinda felt a little spring like. Yes, my son has just a t-shirt on and my daughter striped of her coat. I know it's only 40 degrees and yes they are playing in water. Fishing really. Which apparently works up a sweat. When you spend two months with the temperatures hovering around zero, 40 feels well, like Spring. Looks like it's fish for dinner tonight.

There is a lobster in my bed!

My two girls both started having blood curdling cry out in the middle of the night dreams starting at about 2.5 years old. The kind of dreams where I am sure a stranger is murdering them in their beds. The obvious reaction to such screams when I am dead asleep is to jump out of bed and race to their rooms, heart pounding out of my chest, adrenaline rushing through my nervous system as I prepare to take on the beast in the bedroom. Your brain doesn’t stop to think about the scream first. It just tells you to get to it as fast as you can. I am surprised every time I go through this routine that my heart doesn’t stop beating due to the shock of it all.

My youngest has just started having these night terror dreams. She sleeps through them only waking her self up once so far. My 5 year old Soren, wakes up and screams until you make it to her room. And then can give you detailed description of the offending creature or event. She is so convinced that the dream is real at times that she shakes like a leaf. When the girls started having dreams I would wonder what in the heck do they have to be scarred of. They were two! As Soren got older with the ability to describe her dreams I realized that the dreams of my children were just their brains way of working through anything that made them uncertain during the week. Maybe she observed ants working in the yard and was brave enough to pick one up only to have it bite her. Sure enough this is fodder for a really terrifying dream of ants crawling all over her in bed. This can’t and wouldn’t happen in real life but it is a terrifying thought to a three year old. A foot getting stuck in the couch crevice blossoms into the Lion at the zoo catching her and trying to eat her. I racked up the drama dreams to Soren just being a very creative and dramatic child. So of course she would have very dramatic dreams. When Ella started having them I told my self it was just a girl thing.

The reason that I have been giving this so much thought lately is that my boy Dunn (4) has just started to have bad dreams. He is 4! Why now? Why not at 2.5 like the girls? To top it off he reacts to his dreams in a completely different manner. No screaming. He is rational and methodical in his reaction to a perceived threat. I wake up to his feet hitting the wood floor. He walks calmly to my bedroom and says “Mom, there is a lobster in my bed”. We live in Minnesota so this is very funny to me. Smiling I say “ok, lets go check it out”. I take my brave little man by the hand and walk him back to his room. He is obviously scarred by the sight of his bed and clings to me. So I pick him up and say “see, no lobster”. He insists that there is indeed a lobster in his bed and that he can see him right there! When I tell him there can’t possibly be a lobster in his bed because lobsters live in the ocean and his bed is not an ocean he says “oh” and crawls back in and goes right to sleep. Every one of his bad dreams goes down something along those lines.

I of course see many differences between my girl’s brains and my boy’s brain through out the day. I am sure Dunn’s calm response to a potential threat has been programmed through the ions. As have many other attributes of his personality. The more I learn about his sweet little brain the more I understand my husband! I have aha moments where I want to give the big guy a squeeze for being such a man. I am embracing my boy’s boyisims and likewise reveling in my girl’s girlyness. I just wish the girls could do it less dramatically in the middle of the night!

The difference between the girls and the boy frequently remind me of all those fairytales where the prince comes to the fair maidens rescue. Such stories have offended me as a woman from time to time and I thought twice before reading such stories to my girls. But here is the deal. Maybe there is some truth to such fairytales. Maybe what allows us to be really successful woman is that we have a strong protective man standing behind us to slay the dragons. Vice versa, what allows the man to do the slaying is that we will admire his strength and bravery and reward his efforts with a nice steak dinner and probably a little hanky panky. I think it will take many more ions for this hard wired division of labor to change. I for one am not holding my breath. Nor can I say I would want it to change. I am a woman who can do everything with out the help of a man. But I am sure glad I have such a wonderful husband to do the car maintenance, take out the trash and lift really heavy stuff. All that “man” work frees me up to be a better mom. And I am pretty sure that all my “woman” work frees my husband up to be a better dad.

What do you do?

Someone asked me last night what we do at the lake in the winter. That's a good question. Going to the lake in the winter is probably my favorite part of winter in Minnesota. There are not that many people around. The lake is silently frozen. The air crisp. And frankly, we don't do anything significant. We hang out as a family, eat, snuggle in front of the fire, read, take walks and naps. The lake in the winter is a wonderful escape from our very busy lives precisely because there isn't much to do or much that needs to be done. I am not doing laundry, something for the kids school or grocery shopping. The long list of what I am not doing is exactly what makes these weekend trips so utterly important for our family. We are just being together....that's it. My favorite thing to do at the lake more than any other thing is to go for a walk down the long woodsy road that surrounds our precious lake. It is my favorite thing to do in the summer too but for different reasons.

Our winter walks seem to bring us together in a way that few other things do. Maybe it's because I love to walk in the woods. It speaks to something ancient in my soul. And I love to see my children experience the simple joys in life. These moments are moments that we just talk about stuff without the distractions of life. Sometimes we are quietly side by side. Sometimes we are causing a playful ruckus that probably startles almost any living thing around us. On this walk my 5 year old daughter was taking most of the photos. It was so much fun to load these on the computer last night to see what she had captured. I have to say, I am having a little bit of parental pride as I think she captured it perfectly.