Keeping the mood up

This brought me some happiness in January. Getting the record player out of the basement. Cleaning out the horribly cluttered shelves in the dining room and filling it with speakers and records and cookbooks. Getting these prints on the walls and setting up the little calendar a friend bought me at Renegade Chicago in December. 

There was the moment I finally figured out how to put the new needle on correctly and spin the record at the right speed  (33, btw). Marvin Gaye's voice shot through the crackle of the speakers and filled up our downstairs. I squealed. And danced. And sang. Matt came back in from a walk the moment Side A finished, so he missed the magic of that first record playing in our home. But, we had a ton of fun later listening to his Zappa album while we thoroughly cleaned the downstairs.

I told Matt, this is how I was raised to clean up. Saturday morning, put a record on and everyone gets to work. In the summer, throw the windows open and let the breeze blow in. Sing "know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em" with your mom and get the dusting done.

A couple years ago someone posted a link to this video of Jason Schwartzman in a record shop. It's kind of silly and very hipsterlicious* as he sits on the floors and describes all the records he's going to buy but (spoiler alert) at the end he says, "For some reason I want the house to have a positive, fun, loving feeling [...] you're trying to keep it up, trying to keep the mood up." 

That last line always stuck with me. 

And now I have a record player to keep the mood up.

*The spell check suggests 'oversuspicious'. Fits, I think.

All Kinda Perfect

For my 34th birthday, I wanted to head way up north on a trip that was long overdue to see one of my favorite people. We've been back in Michigan for over two years and I had not been to the Upper Peninsula in that time, which I realize means I hadn't really been home until now.

Right as we moved in to our new home, I bought an old plastic Polaroid camera at a neighbor's estate sale for a couple dollars. It just sat on a bookshelf all this time begging me to see if it actually worked. I finally caved in to the price ($24 for 8 exposures!) and bought a pack of Impossible Project film for this road trip. It was a rainy day on the way home and we had a long day of driving ahead, but since it was my birthday we stopped off at Pictured Rocks for a few shots from the tourist lookout.


When we drove back into Munising, I realized I had left my cell phone on top of the car. We circled back and we didn't find the cell phone but I ran over for another photo.


Then we got back in the car to continue south. This really special place is along Route 2.


And here, you might see the very faint bend of a 5 mile long bridge on the horizon. When we first crossed over, I saw a man with long jet black hair when we were still a few cars back in line. I turned to Matt and said, "Oh my, that's the same man who used to take my bridge fare in high school!"

"Yeah, he took my money in February. He's (so and so's) cousin. He's a really nice guy."

Later over beers, I told my friends who live three hours further northwest this story and they said the same thing, "I love that guy."

I love that bridge and what is on the other side. It means adventure. It means hold on, I'm almost there.

I took more shots in digital this weekend that I'll share. As well as some in medium format B&W and color film, assuming the Yashica I snagged the other week, while visiting another favorite person in another part of the state that I claim as home, works.

So yeah, I juggled three cameras and many hours in and out of the car on a rainy day, soaking in some beauty on my 34th birthday. It was all kinda perfect.

Summer in the City

A kind friend popped by last week to say, 'hey, post again, will you?' I got swept up in a beautiful summer and disappeared for a few months.We moved here a year ago in August, just in time to catch the remaining summer nights where the air was still hot and muggy air at 10pm and live music echoed off the buildings from the amphitheater by the river. We couldn't wait for our first full summer in this city. So, when summer came, we just soaked it all in. It was hard time to leave when the weekends came so as much as we could, we stayed close to home. Oh, how great this city is in the summer. 

Here are the highlights:

Checking out movie sets. Matt took this one and it's a favorite.

Taking nieces and their parents around town to candy stores, playgrounds, museums, parks, and art installation.

Soccer. I wanted to move here anyway, but soccer league was a top 5 draw. The season ended Saturday and without a doubt, the biggest thrills of the summer were out on the field. We struggled. But then we bonded. And in the end, we figured out how to play a pretty decent game of soccer together.

Knitting. So much knitting, brought on by neighbors who are voracious with the needs and the birth of so many babies. I couldn't keep up! But I sure did try! This was a happy little baby sweater for the newest kid on our block.

And of course the actual welcoming of the babies! I'm not sure why 90% of babies born to my close friends and family are girls, but it was a summer of even more girls! One of my oldest friends had sweet little girl and I was happily here for the whole journey, even a couple lovely pre- and post-baby photo sessions.

Eating lots of Katie's Cannoli. When you come to Detroit, head to Supino's in Eastern Market and get cannoli. Really, do it! Buy more than you think you want.

Rooftop parties. Somehow we got invited to two rooftop parties this year. And I thought this kind of thing only happened in New York.

The weather. So hot. So muggy. Five straight weeks of it. And now I'm not quite sure what to think of the very slight chill in the evening air.

Canada! We finally got our passports and went over to Windsor to have dinner for our 10th anniversary. We drove around, were in awe of a new dose of culture (aka Vietnamese restaurants) and drove up the river and saw the soccer fields on Belle Isle from another country. We then made a beer run at the Beer Store. Beer bought in Canada truly tastes much better and bonus, comes out on a conveyor belt! We kept it casual and ate at a place with brown vinyl ambiance, made up for by pretty amazing haddock and chips. A couple weeks later we also went to a family reunion deep in the farm fields of southeastern Ontario. We'll be doing a lot more exploring in Ontario over the next year.

Shopping at the market on Saturdays. And now Tuesdays as well!

Biking with the dog, down the trail and along the river. She runs hard and then likes to take breaks in the grass.

Recycling. At the coolest recycling center I can imagine. Again, hot muggy days with funk music bouncing off the walls. Bee branding is a theme in Detroit. Bee themed grocery story. Bee themed hardware store. Bee themed recycling center.

And finally a little garden patch. We got a late start, threw some seedlings and seeds in the ground in late June, well after the other raised beds were thigh high. But, our crop is catching up and we should have a decent haul by the end of August or September.

There's more of course. Summer concerts. Little neighborhood projects to ward off graffiti and weeds. Quick trips up north. This weekend, I'm headed west, to walk on the Lake Michigan beach without shoes, catch a sunset on the big lake and get my fill in the blueberry fields while I can. 

Fall has always been my favorite season, but right now, it's really hard to imagine that the changing leaves will be as magical as this season has been.

An Autumn Week in the Life

In the spring I participated in the Week in the Life project. You can see a few of my pages here and here. I knew then that I wanted my mini book for 2010 to include a week in the spring when we were in Boston and a week in the fall when I expected we would be elsewhere. When October rolled around, I luckily remembered my plan but had to really remind myself to pick a week to document before the year was up. Two weeks ago ended up being the week. 


My life is so full right now and moving at an incredible pace. It was harder to find space in the day for the camera, especially during the weekdays when I sit behind a desk during the good light hours. But somehow I managed to take at least a few photos each day. Now, as I look back through them, I'm struck by the incredible amount of activity I managed to fit into those non-office hours.

Internally, I never feel like I fit enough in. It's this thing I have. Call it ambition. Or an appetite for living. Or just plain foolishness. I don't know. One of my occasional mantras is a line from the Indigo Girls song Get Out The Map... "Why do we hurdle ourselves through every inch of time and space? I must say around some corner I can sense a resting place." It pops into my head from time to time, especially when I'm hurdling too much.

The photographic evidence suggests I fit in plenty, even when I feel like I've been napping a lot more than usual. With family and friends nearby to fill up my spare time, I've been recognizing the very fullness of my life lately. I've also been recognizing that I need stretches to sit or to lay down and nap. For this reason, knitting has re-entered my routine because I can sit and accomplish something on the couch.

I'm sure I'm not the only one hurdling myself through time and space. Here's just a slice of what kept me busy one week this fall.

Saturday:: An afternoon of napping followed by an epic 4-mile walk to get hockey tickets for an evening's game. And another walk to take the train to the game.

Sunday:: Visiting Matt's family for their Sunday routine. The evening back home included trick or treaters and prepping the bathroom for a coat of paint that was applied around 10pm (just squeezing in that one last activity before the weekend was over).

Monday:: A quick dinner of pierogies while cleaning up for a few visiting neighborhood knitters.

Tuesday:: A birthday dinner and a concert with and for my mom, who also has also fallen for one of my favorite bands. There was also a little side conversation at the concert with a friend from way back and his wife.

Wednesday-Friday:: The rest of the weekdays disappeared into a swirl of migraine, taking it a bit more slowly, dog walking, chasing fat squirrels up trees, and adding another layer of lime green paint to the bathroom. Monday night I framed and hung that photo that my grandpa took. Thursday night I went for a run, of sorts, since I'm trying to prep for a 5k in December, again with friends from way back.

Saturday:: Matt drove me to the airport and saw me off for a week away. I slept for 2/3rds of the flight, and then woke to manage an hour of work and a little knitting before landing. I packed four different knitting projects, as if I could somehow invent the time to finish three projects and start a new one. I did finish one and came close on a second.

I spent the next few days blissfully reuniting with my newly two year old niece.

She goes goes goes too. Her approach to life is pretty much to jump when she wants to jump (and when her adults let her). The second she's done jumping, she runs, or swings, or reads a book, or dresses up, or talks to her family, or plays with her friends, or listens to music, or paints with watercolor, or savors a popsicle.

Two year olds are great at hurdling themselves through time and space, followed by a nice long nap. Maybe it's just a stage I never outgrew.

Mmm donuts

While trickers were treating at our door...

I made donuts and sipped hot apple cider.

Wow. It's been a crazy whirlwind the past few weeks. In a very short span of time, I accepted a job that had been a long time in the works. Once the decision was made, we picked up within a week and moved from the Boston area back home to Michigan. As my art journal pages hinted at, I'd been going through a big discernment process about whether it was the right move. Boston's a pretty great place, and we had a nice little life going there.

Turns out that coming home was definitely the right move. A lot of angst we've felt over the past 8 years while we were living in Chicago and Boston feels lifted off our shoulders. An opportunity aligned with our desire to be here, and it all came together at last.

For years whenever we came home, I couldn't quite imagine us moving back. Home was all too familiar, and that made me uneasy. I always wanted to move away and experience other places. One high school teacher told us a statistic she most likely made up that 75% of us would grow up and live within 30 minutes of home. I thought that definitely would not be me. Nuh uh. No way. I can't stay here. Not that it's bad. It's perfectly nice. But I need to experience other places. I need to live somewhere with hills or mountains to climb, with new views.

So, now I have lived elsewhere. While away, I always wanted to be closer to family and friends, but was indifferent to living in Michigan again. But over the last year, especially, something shifted. Right now, this feels like exactly where we need to be. We don't know how long it will last. Two years? Forty years? We'll see.

Before leaving Boston, I had the most amazing week meeting up with friends. Totally unexpectedly, people gave me presents! A Knitting on the Road book, cute office supplies, a red velvet cupcake, this great book by a woman who grew up in the town where I taught. Most importantly, friends gave us their time, for coffee meet-ups, dinners, and help packing and loading the truck.

The day before the final 3-day packing/driving whirlwind, a friend and I got to go for an afternoon hike through my favorite woods. We took a route I'd never taken, but went to places I'd been so many times through those six years. On the way, we came across this spot. It was a spot I'd never seen.

I took this photo and then my camera battery died. This was my last shot from our leaving. A yet undiscovered, secret little pool in the woods, discovered on a long walk and chat with a good friend. A reminder of what I loved about living there.

In all the busyness, the camera never got charged, and then it accidentally got packed away in a box I couldn't find. I've been living without it for almost three weeks! It's been painful. Once the photography stopped, my blogging stopped. I didn't realize it until now, but my camera is my muse. Now that we're reunited, the storytelling about this new phase of life can begin.

right now

listening: Knee Deep Shag, a Kalamazoo mostly defunct college band. Although I heard they had a reunion show last weekend.
eating: stirfry and a grape popsicle.
drinking: water.
wearing: hiking shirt and jeans. my hair in a ponytail.
feeling: super tired after a long hike with a friend and a busy week. it's 8:00pm and i'm fighting the urge to go to bed.
weather: overcast and chilly but really nice.
wanting: to not have to pack everything in two days but also excited to have it over with and to find the perfect house to move into.
needing: energy.
thinking: i'm incredibly grateful for this week. i'll remember it always. i've been getting together with friends for 6 days straight and while it's totally tired me out, i don't care because it's been wonderful.
enjoying: the thought that I'll get a fresh start at organizing my stuff.
wondering: what the heck next week is going to be like.

your turn

Time for D-Troit

News! We're relocating from Boston to Detroit for a new job for me and to be closer to our family and friends. We've lived in Boston for the last six months years, and there are many things to love about life here, but it's time to be closer to home. 

For years now, I've felt like I've lived in a parallel universe. We've lived our life here. Meanwhile, our friends and family lived their lives there. Time passed. We aged. Matt and I both started sprouting the occasional white hair. We visited and kept in touch, but you can't help feel disconnected. For now, it's time to reconnect. For everything, there is a season.

And because I'm a crafty nerd, I've already started a photo journal to document the transition. I grabbed the B and D from google images, printed, and cut them out. Glued them on with a glue stick. Done!

During this last week in Boston, it's been great to catch up with all our friends. Dinners and coffee dates have kept me extra busy. I have a hiking date Thursday to finally tackle the full length of my favorite trail next door. We almost moved away three years ago, and then my return to graduate school kept us here another three years. At times, I've wished we moved home then but at the same time, I've made lifelong friends in that time and therefore wouldn't trade any of it. We've also had great neighbors/friends and are leaving behind a sweet little community that sprung up around the joys of dog ownership. It started with the dogs, and it became about the people. It's been an experience we'll always remember, and I think we needed to experience that level of neighborliness before planting roots elsewhere.

Oh, and of course there is a lot of packing to be done. The books are packed (not a small feat) and tomorrow I'm tackling the clothes, craft supplies and office stuff. Maybe the kitchen too. We've also been selling and donating some stuff along the way. I'm looking forward to settling into a new place and getting a fresh start.

We're definitely swimming against the current by relocating to Detroit right now. My brother, bless him, asked me if I'd been hit on the head! But, we're really looking forward to getting to know the city. We both grew up in Michigan and have fathers who were raised in Detroit's environs, and yet, we know too little about this place. It's time for that to change. I visited in late March and I can tell you, I met some salt of the earth people who were against-all-odds dedicated to making a positive difference. I left incredibly inspired, and I'm looking forward to soaking up even more inspiration.

And don't even get me started on how many craft shows and thrift stores there are in the Midwest. And music. Lots of great indie artists to connect with. I think it's going to be great!

I'll pop in here when I can over the next couple weeks. Hold tight! I'll be back in force soon enough with so much to share!

p.s. I'll definitely share the inside pages of this album when they are done!

Walk Right on By

I was walking this beautiful girl today and stumbled upon a life lesson she's teaching me. A life lesson I don't want to forget.

If you're approaching something scary, it helps to focus on something else you love or want (in her case treats or squirrels). If you do, you'll be able to walk right on by without being scared. Or maybe I should say without freaking out.

We've been approaching a major fork in the road of our life for what feels like an eternity - about three months. The fork involves job changes and where-to-live and all the stuff that's too often not pleasant to navigate. It's been a bumpy ride.

This turning point has been on the horizon for awhile, but this weekend, we're right up to that point where it's either left or right. Honestly, at this moment, it's completely out of my hands. That's scary. A weekend of waiting on fate. So for the weekend, I just need to focus on other things I love.

I'll be taking a lot of walks with our beautiful mutt this weekend. Hope you find yourself spending time on what you love this weekend too.

looking back

I started blogging back in 2004, a way long time ago when we were about to move from Chicago to Boston. We thought it might be a good way to keep in touch with family. That blog, called chitown2beantown (creative, huh?) is still hanging out online so it's fun to go back through the archives every once and a while to see what I was up to several years back.

In May 2007...

I was finishing up a semester of adjunct teaching at a local college, and was scrapbooking about it. Now I'm doing the same thing but I don't have plans to scrapbook about it this time. Just plans to finish grading papers so I can be done!

I went to an event in Cambridge where Barbara Kingsolver gave a talk. It's on my wish list right now to go to Cambridge for brunch, to walk around on a nice day and to visit the bookstores there. Must be a spring thing!

I'd just bought a digital SLR with some of that adjunct teaching money and was playing around with it and enjoying the spring. This week I was walking the dog around here and remembered these photos, as I passed the same spots. I've been missing being out in the woods and have been thinking a lot about how I haven't been taking nature photos a lot lately. Need to get back to that. Doing a couple big hikes is also on my wish list too.

Matt was growing a playoffs beard. This weekend the Red Wings (we're from Michigan) didn't make it to round 3, so there was some serious disappointment around here.

Do you have spring routines? Even some you weren't aware of until you looked closely?

A Week in the Life complete!

I ended up doing something completely different with my Week in the Life project than I said I was going to do. I ended up organizing the photos and journaling by day. I didn't do journaling as I went along. And I couldn't find the baseball card dividers that I know I bought so I went a different route. Maybe I gave them away in my recent supply purge? Hmmm..

Anyway, it was easier to make photo collages in Picasa. I've been doing that a lot this year. And then I decided that I didn't want to use up printer ink to print full 8.5x11 pages, and I was too impatient to send it out for printing, so I printed the collages at 5x7 and put together a mini-album that is 7x7. I love this because now I can repeat this process in the fall, in the same album.

I incorporated the washi tape I got in the mail the week I did this project. Total trend right now. The album has other pages from Sunday, Thurs, Fri, and Saturday which I'm not showing because they are either less interesting (hello, migraine on Friday) or because they have work/school related people in them.

Every evening this week I've gathered a small stack of supplies for this album and headed out into the living room to chip away at it while Matt has been watching hockey finals. It's been quite enjoyable to have a small project to unwind with. I look forward to doing this again!