So Many Discussion Board Posts, So Little Time to Sew

But I manage to finish this portrait of Rebecca and Comet!
What a face, huh?

A Post About a Wagon (with bad photos and a LOT of words...)

Remember my minimalist bedroom? Well, it's still pretty bare, but things have changed a bit.

That is, things have changed in my life, and the decor of my bedroom, now also an office, reflects those changes. I'm still a blogger, a crafter, and a mom, but I am now also--again--a full-time professor. From home. From my bedroom to be exact (where you will note, there is still not enough light for a decent photo!).
When I started this blog, the Crowes were embarking on a new life, with Mom (formerly "Dr. Crowe") staying home and Dad (formerly "Mr. Mom") heading into the world of work for the first time in nearly a decade. The career he thought he wanted--well, it turned out he didn't, and he wound up working long, hard hours--for three years--somewhere he didn't want to be. Still, the move was worthwhile and refreshing and enlightening and enlargening; our sense of our possibilities got bigger and clearer. We have a better idea of what we want: fulfillment, flexibility, family-centered days, self-sufficiency, and simplicity. We have a better idea of what we don't want: anybody spending most of their hours in ways that feel wasteful or wrong.

Enter another remix. New Life, 2.0! I have been very fortunate to be offered a one-year, full-time contract as a professor for the school where I taught before the move, and the truly sweet part is that I am teaching and conducting my service entirely online. In short, this means more of what I liked about teaching (reading, writing, scholarship, meaningful interaction with students) and less of what I didn't like--which I won't go into now. ;-) It also means we three Crowes can inhabit the same space every day, that both A's parents can be available when necessary, and that her Dad can have as whole and happy a life as she and I have enjoyed these past three years.

That this gig is potentially temporary also feels like a plus to me--one of the values we've come to strive for is a kind of weightlessness, fewer things and fewer--what's the right word? Constraints? We desire the ability to revise when it feels necessary, to keep making rather than simply withstanding our lives. For now, the best possible way for us to get closest to the life we want is for me to teach and for Mark to be at home as a parent, as Annabelle's teacher, and as my support system. I can say that I am filled with joy--and some trepidation--as we start this school year (today!). I'm worried about whether I'll have enough time to make art--but I think I will. I hope I will. You all will help with that, right? You'll give me a friendly nudge if it seems I am living too much in my mind and not enough with my hands?

So, then, what about this business of recovering, as in "art and craft from a recovering academic"? It's clear that I never stopped being an academic and never expected to, which is I guess why I didn't say recovered. Teaching turns out to be a fairly essential part of who I am, but I do feel like I'm still recovering--from the way I made my job so central to my life that it threatened to eclipse all else, from the way I submitted to parts of academic life that made me miserable. And from the confusion that led me to believe that to be a strong person, I had to learn to just deal with it all, persevere in a course that was, truly, untenable for me. Have I fallen off the wagon? I don't think so--I think maybe I've hopped on a new wagon, or I'm just putting the old wagon on a slightly different course. We'll see--and I'll keep you, as ever, posted.

Finished and Begun

Big changes are afoot in my family life, and I'm brewing a post about them. Meanwhile, the cycle of completion and undertaking continues!

Who, me? 37?

Yup--and it came with sunshine, pirate-themed putt-putt, a log-flume ride, french fries on the pier, vegan brownies and mint-chip ice cream. This is not to mention the company--handsome-gentleman husband, bright-faced and especially-cheerful daughter, beautiful sister bearing flowers, cuddly little dog. So. Much. Good.

I Love the Word August

We begin to loosen our grip on summer, of which there is never enough. We're eased into the letting go by late blooms, dinner picnics, one more picture (for mid-winter remembering) of a black-and-white dog in the grass. . .
. . . we check out fallish books (anything over 300 pages counts) and daydream on the porch, perhaps imagining a wisp of wood smoke (because August still smells of flowers and grass, yes, but there is at least the anticipation of smoke and pumpkin and spiced apple) . . .
. . . on the gloomiest days (like today) we work our rainy-summer puzzle . . .
. . . and our fingers turn to felt.

Summer Stitch Progress

Still stitching spare moments onto this white canvas--my summer for-fun project. Annabelle, ever my business manager, suggests that I sell pieces like this with family names ("The Crowes") or other words--"Welcome," for example, stitched to the right of the decorative bits.
I think such a thing would be lovely, but oh, the work. I might have to start a little sweat shop to crank them out--and my first underpaid worker* would be Miss A. herself!
* To hear her tell it, she's already the oppressed underclass around here--she moans her way through the emptying of the dishwasher and the sweeping of the kitchen floor every morning. We may have a strike on our hands.