thrifty sunday: you are my sunshine

Friday was great: playdate replete with teeny tiny cupcakes and on the way home, a surprise meet-me-for-lunch message from one of our best gals who was breezing through town on her way south. After some rice and beans and a margarita, I stopped into Goodwill to look around, blatantly milking my baby-free afternoon for all it was worth. 

Three treasures came home with me, totaling $9 and some change. Considering I would've paid a lot more for just one of them, I feel like I scored. 

1. Little wooly vest for George, for when he's feeling like a cultural anthropologist: 

The middle section of the vest is not symmetrical; this detail eluded me until just now. Anyway, I feel like he needs a graying pony tail and some hornrims to really complete the sensitive adjunct professor look.

2. Amazing homemade wallhanging that immediately went up in our bedroom:

It's pretty big, like maybe 18 inches by 18 inches, and fits beautifully on the wall that I often wake up facing. I've tried several other pieces of art there, and nothing ever worked. Clearly, the wall was biding its time until I found the perfect piece.

3. The sweetest ever, can-you-believe-someone-got-rid-of-this crewel work wallhanging:

I have my suspicions that the same person is responsible for both this and the above piece, and if that is indeed the case, I would like to call this woman (assumption, sue me) up and thank her from the bottom of my homemade-loving heart. This one is a little smaller -- maybe 9 inches by 14 inches -- and the lines are sort of wonky, but that only adds to its charm. As with a lot of things that I find at thrift stores, I wonder how someone saw fit to give this away. I imagine it being lovingly worked on after bedtimes by a long-haired lady in high waisted jeans, then hanging in a nursery circa 1978. I figured that it would be expensive, considering its awesomeness/similarity to something one might find at Urban Outfitters, but I turned it over to see the price, which said $3.99! Easily one of my all-time favorite thrift purchases.

Happy shopping and happy week, you guys!

daytrippers

It's "midwinter break," which means, when your partner is a part-time teacher, you get this weird bonus vacation that, to other (better paid, more gainfully employed) teachers is merely a long weekend. In your face, full-time teachers! With all that extra money you're making, you could go to Mexico or something! Too bad you don't have the time!

To celebrate, we decided to take a little day trip to Seattle, to visit my favorite within-driving-distance art museum: The Frye. In my opinion, SAM  is great and all, but it's so expansive, expensive and a little sterile. I like my museums with worn-in rugs and crazy amazing conversation couches. Oh, and free. The Frye is free to anyone and everyone, all the time, as stipulated by the Fryes who so graciously left their art collection to the public of Seattle. The paintings in the permanent collection are hung salon style: beautiful and cluttery and almost encroaching on one another, but not quite. I love it there.

We're all sick (again) and a little crabby, but it was nice to be out in the world, showing George some of my favorite paintings and watching him relate to the art in his own way. The Frye family were in the cattle ranching business, so they had a lot of cow paintings in their collection. This worked out beautifully for the boy who loves to moo (or, brroo, as the case may be). I hope as he gets older he finds different pieces interesting and beautiful, scary, sad, and that I encourage him to discuss them without getting in the way of his thoughts. As we left, I regretted a little being so persistent in pointing out every. single. cow. But I look forward to the time when he can steer us in and out of the galleries, pausing where his eye catches -- that is, if anything catches his eye.

It's the good thing about free museums, after all. You can walk in,

And right back out, if you want.  

(No, George is not walking. He took one step and gingerly lowered himself to the floor, as he, like his mother, enjoys being an expert at things before he tries them.)

fancy pants

American Apparel makes these leggings. These GOLD leggings. In the early days of my pregnancy, before I knew George was a George and not a Prairie (steal my name and I'll kill you -- wait, who am I kidding? Nobody else would ever use this name), I dreamed about my little long-haired lady wearing Holly Hobbie dresses and dancing around the garden to Vashti Bunyan. And these leggings completed her outfit. 

Then, I had a boy. But! What do you know? My boy is fancy. When given a choice between pretty gray and hot pink, there's nary a glance toward the understated. He is a gold leggings kinda kid. In addition, however, to the myriad other unfortunate facts about American Apparel, they want $20 for their gold leggings, and I am not about to lay down money for something I could make in about fifteen minutes. If I were more ambitious and/or didn't have soup on the stove and bread that is failing to rise but must, nevertheless, be watched hawkishly, I might do some sort of tutorial, but alas. Instead, here's one that someone else seems to have worked hard on (No promises about the blog; I just googled "leggings tutorial."). 

They are an undeniable hit. He wore them out last night to the songwriters' circle at Honeymoon and got not one, but three shout-outs from musicians, plus a bunch of pokes and squeezes from adoring strangers. What can I say? If I ran for president, my platform would be Gold Leggings For Everyone. 

on frenemies

Until I had a child, the term 'frenemy' was useless to me. The term itself, I guess, remains useless to me in its total stupidity, but the concept has wormed its way, unwelcomed, into my life. As someone who relishes quality over quantity and enjoys burning bridges, the people I know fall easily into two camps: those I like and those I don't. The latter are short-timers in my particular story, and I prefer things that way, as I'm quick to judge and act accordingly. I'm not terribly proud of any of this, but it's something I've come to understand about myself and if we're being honest, I'd say it saves both me and them a lot of teeth-gnashing and time. Do you want to hang out with someone that doesn't like you? Yeah, me either.

Cut to new parenthood, when you're just kind of desperate for a lent ear, someone with under-eye bags as phenomenal as yours, who won't snicker at your elastic waist pants. It's as though you're rebounding from the most hellacious breakup imaginable; you'd sleep with the first person that asked for the time with a smile -- he seemed nice, right?! RIGHT?! RIGHT????!?!?!?! This vulnerable state so rarely produces healthy relationships, but they're often the hardest to walk away from. After all, you've gone through so much together. And you have so much in common. And, anyway, you're probably just too picky.

I recently "unfriended" two people on Facebook, in one case, in something of a blaze of glory: She was a friend of a friend that I saw regularly enough but never cared for -- too smarmy and disingenuous, too self-interested without being self-aware. I found myself picking apart her every visible comment, her status updates. And that was just online. In person, I was curt and dismissive. She was annoying, sure, but I was fast becoming AS annoying; nobody likes a snarky know-it-all (except me; snarky know-it-alls, there's room at my table). When she began simultaneuously insulting a friend's writing and prosthelytizing about feeding her kid meat, I allowed myself one last jab before hitting delete and removing her from my life (kind of) forever.

I found her parenting choices repugnant, but I still knowingly spent time with her. Much like the good-for-nothing boyfriend, I hated myself with her but found it hard to sever the tie. Mom friends are hard to come by, I told myself. Maybe I'm being too judgmental. 

And you know, maybe I was. Maybe I am. But I didn't like myself when we interacted. A younger version of me would've allowed the urge to hunt for chinks in her armor to go unchecked. To, with one liners, make her look dumb, just for the fun of it (she could stick up for herself, right?). It's a shameful skill. One I'd hate to pass on. One I don't want to model for my son or hers. And speaking of her son, I want him to think his mother is an absolute genius -- the best in the world, because undermining another mother's work is nowhere near my agenda. 

When we ran into each other a few days ago, we were cordial but brief. I felt a little sorry for possibly being too hasty. But isn't that always the way? I'm lucky enough to have a few wonderful friends with whom I regularly share coffee, copious sweets, with whom I don't always agree, but who make me feel nice. Friends that I hope feel nice in my company. Good riddance to the frenemies; friends only from here on out. 

George and Stanley Cat, our household's Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie (um, what's up 2006? I don't get out much, okay?)

day off

When you live in a place where seasonal affective disorder is a big enough deal that anyone can tell you where to get a SAD light, or argue the matter of how much vitamin D you ought to be taking, a sunny day in mid-February is -- much like that unexpected snow day in November -- MAGICAL. Even when it's 35 degrees. 

Today, I woke up with George at the regular diaper change time (six-ish) and couldn't fall easily back asleep. At nine-thirty, Nathan scooped him into the sling and left me with a king sized bed to myself, for lolling around, sleeping on my stomach (a treat rarely allowed by my child who must have uninhibited access to my front at all times) and utilizing my full pillow instead of the corner, as there was nobody but me to potentially suffocate. At ten-fifty, I awoke again to the smell of a soon-to-be-delivered coffee and omelette breakfast and SUN streaming through the window shades. Glorious, sunglasses-necessitating sun. 

Nathan had the day off, so we walked around downtown, window shopped, bought a record and had some coffee. Our sunny window seat was warm.

And my boys were so cute.

Sigh. Thanks for the sneak preview, Spring.