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June 12, 2015

Happy Friday + Randomness

Happy Friday! I had such a lovely time yesterday at the University Book Store storytime. The staff was warm and welcoming, and a sweet group of toddlers and adults gathered around a circular kids’ table as I read aloud Little Kunoichi. We followed up with a simple origami craft (samurai hats!) and I also created a little coloring sheet to go with the origami activity. This whole putting-a-book-out-in-the-world process continues to be surreal, and one of my favorite parts has been the charming, funny, and downright amazing stories people have shared with me. At the reading, a woman named Erin asked if I would sign the Little Kunoichi copies she’d brought from home, and as I scrawled away, she recounted her daughter’s reaction to the book and I was — as per usual — in tears (the daughter’s reaction was positive, thank goodness, and the tears were grateful ones). I was so moved that a real-life little girl struggling with school felt a kinship with the book and was encouraged to keep trying. Erin had serendipitously just written about it here. Thank you, Erin, I am deeply humbled.

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Perhaps you have a little one that might enjoy a coloring sheet? Feel free to download it from here. And if you’re interested in making an origami samurai hat as well, instructions can be found here.

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It’s been quite a week! Between the flurry of school activities that fill the end of the academic year and book shenanigans, I’m zipping to and fro, trying to keep up — I’m looking forward to a calm weekend. I hope yours is calm and fun.

Oh, it’s happening
One year older tomorrow*
I’m a June baby

*Each year seems to go faster and my birthdays are piling up. I can’t help but visualize calendar pages fluttering like a flip book. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the idiom “in the fullness of time.” It used to be a common repartee, the equivalent of “whenever it’s ready”. I’m fond of that phrase. Despite the surface sense of rapidity, I feel like life events have been unfolding in the fullness of time…

May 22, 2015

Happy Friday + Randomness

Happy Friday! A couple of days ago, I attended an event called “Young Author’s Day” at K’s school. It’s a big deal — the entire school participates and all the students are shuffled into groups of about 10 kids from various grades. Each student takes a turn reading a story he/she had written, and my favorite part is listening to the “About the Author” section. They all invariably include information about their family, a hobby and a totally random factoid like how they like to eat cereal for dinner or are completely opposed to school uniforms.

K’s group was exceptional. The fifth graders blew me away with their poetry (their haikus made me want to delete all of mine from here), and K recounted how M and I got engaged, which the teacher found hilarious. There was one girl who read a story about finding a lizard in the middle of the street and how she ended up keeping it as a pet (a true story).

The first grader who went last stole my heart, though. I saw how her hands trembled as she clutched her book with the green construction paper cover. Her cheeks blossomed into the color of the brightest of pink peonies, and her voice was so soft, barely a whisper, that all the kids tipped to their sides, cocking their ears to catch the small gasps of quickly strung together words. I remember being that little girl. The one who refused to go until there was no choice, the one who hoped that reading the story super fast would make it less frightening. I couldn’t quite hear the story in its entirety, but I saw her carefully drawn illustrations of a fox and clouds, and a little girl that looked very much like her. She beamed with relief and pride as the group enveloped her in applause and hands shot up to praise her efforts. What a beautiful, beautiful thing.

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Have a delightful weekend, my friends! I am going to RELAX. So, so, so, so excited about this.

At Mockingbird Books
I’ll be doing a reading
I feel like that girl*

I’ll be doing a storytime reading of Little Kunoichi at one of our lovely local bookstore this weekend – there might be a little bit of trembling involved…

January 30, 2015

Happy Friday + Randomness

Happy Friday! Sometimes don’t you wish you could pluck the moon and sun from the sky, put them into a container and take them out only when you need them? As I typed that it dawned on me that we use celestial movements as markers of the passage of time, but they aren’t time itself. I need a refresher course in the fourth dimension. The power to stop time…maybe in the future someone will figure out how to make it into an app.

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K: Look Mama! The froggies are breeding — that means they’re making babies. Just like you and Daddy did!*

*We finally had a successful discussion about the birds and the bees. As predicted, I was at my awkwardest, and she was completely grossed out.

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Abby-Sophia
You’re the giveaway winner!
Cute sock softies time

Have a wonderful weekend all!

January 14, 2015

Arrows

sometimes. life shoots arrows

that pierce blindly

the released air

sounds

like sighs of sadness

hiccups of laughter

or maybe

gasps of wonder*

*I am having a week in which the highs and lows are engaged in a major tug-of-war. So for today, this is all.

October 8, 2014

2014 Fall Sewing Plans

It’s like clockwork. The frenetic start of the school year eases into a predictable routine, the air tingles with promises of cozy sweater weather, and then, M or K comes home with a cold and BAM, I’m laid flat on my back, sniffling and coughing up a lung. Due to my wimpy immune system, even the mildest cold tends to hit me hard.

I’m determined to not get sucked into the illness vortex this time (last year I was fighting one ailment after another from November to February), so I’ve been slowing things down dramatically. Yesterday, I did nothing. Okay, I dragged myself to Trader Joe’s and ran a couple of errands as I always do on Tuesdays, but otherwise, zilch. And yes, I drew that illustration, but that took less time than you would imagine. Alright, alright, I may have cut out a pattern that I thought I might be able to sew up for today, but I stopped myself from proceeding beyond tracing out the pieces when the world started spinning.

My mom told me during her last visit in August that when I was a baby, I would work so hard on everything that she used to worry that I had some kind of compulsive disorder. Take walking, for example. At 9 months, I was so intent on walking, I would go at it full force, fall flat on my face, turn a lurid and frightening shade of crimson, get up with renewed vigor and do it over. Sometimes I would fall backwards and hit my head and knock myself out. And yet, I would continue relentlessly and without breaks. It seems to explain a lot about my current spotty brain functionality. It also makes me wonder why my mom didn’t babyproof a little better if I was concussing myself on a regular basis.

You’d think that I would have mastered walking quicker than most due to my persistence, but my mom said she couldn’t believe how long it took me to get the hang of it (months). When my younger brother came along and casually sauntered a few days after his ninth month without much of a stumble, my fanatical determination seemed doubly worrisome to my mom. The funny thing is, my brother and I have approached everything in much the same way our whole lives — effortlessly for him, unglamorously full of prolonged effort for me.

I’m not sure what made me think of that; wandering thoughts may be a symptom of this head cold. Anyway, I did have enough energy to start planning my fall sewing in a more structured way. Unlike last year’s out-of-control plan that I didn’t even come close to executing, this year, I have only three sewing projects and one super easy knitting venture on the docket: A wool zip-up vest, a plaid shirt (a must for Fall, no?), a pair of skinny jeans and a (gasp) cashmere knitted scarf. I’m going for quality vs. quantity, folks. I know I poo-poo’d knitting before, but I think I can manage a big rectangle…at least I hope I can. I’ll be using this book for the vest, but I’m researching patterns for the others. I’ve gotten some good skinny jeans recs from the Monday post, and I’m digging deeper. I’ll update this post with pattern candidates later!

For now, I’m off to brew up some Indian spice herbal tea with a touch of manuka honey and almond milk and will call it a day.