Assortment

On A Back Road

 

 

They'd rattled loose from basketball season the day before, the sun was a circle of brilliant yellow set in a sky of brilliant blue, and they were itching to be out in it. 

I looked up from the project I was working on outside when I heard the Jeep engine start. The boy behind the wheel looked at me; I looked at him. When I didn't shake my head, he put it in reverse and slowly backed out into the driveway. Then he put it in drive and went to the end of the driveway and back.  I still didn't shake my head.

Before long, he was driving on the lawn around the house. Then he was driving around on the lawn beyond the driveway, then his brother hopped on the back bumper and took a joyride. Around and around. When it became apparent that the new objective was to take corners (on the lawn, mind you) sharp enough to sling the joy-riding brother off the back bumper (which the joy-riding brother thought was crazy-fun), I decided I'd better take them out to a back road somewhere. 

 

Yes, this was a Sunday afternoon, and yes, we were on a lonely back road, but we were not, I soon found, out for a "Sunday drive." Oh, no. This was an eighth-grader-at-the-wheel, let's-see-what-this-4x4-can-do-on-a-muddy-back-road-and-how-fast-it-can-do-it sort of drive. It was loud, it was bouncy, and it was a tiny bit scary for the mama who was saying this is more of a 25 mph road, not a 45, and this is the only Jeep we have and we really need to keep it operable, but I think these words came out as yammering. When a splash of muddy water completely obliterated our view out the windshield, boy cheers erupted. People? There's a handle on the dashboard of the passenger's side of the Jeep for a reason. 

 

 

End of the road. Time to switch drivers. The dashboard was suddenly higher (almost too high). We lowered the steering wheel; he stretched to see over top. A bit slower, a bit more careful. For a while. Then the gas was confused with the brake and, well, when our seats hit our seats, the back seat brother was yelling for the driving brother to do that again (and again). The mama said no. Then the honking started. THEN THE HONKING STARTED. In the middle of nowhere, hoooonking the Morse Code. Hilarious.

He took us all the way to the highway, pausing to honk echoes under the overpass of the interstate. I wonder what people thought. 

 

As I pulled onto the two-lane and headed toward home, the ride seemed so smooth and peaceful. That is, until the radio was cranked and soon we are all headbanging to My House. We rolled down our driveway with layers of sun, layers of mud, layers of memories.

We wash the Jeep, sometimes. But then I wonder why.

 

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.

With What You Have | 39

 

Words about contentment inspired this series that celebrates ingenuity, creativity, and resourcefulness. Join me in the comments and share what you've done with what you have.

 

I thought I was joking when I called this one my five year project. Thing is, come June, it really will have been five years since I cast on for this throw in this creamy alpaca yarn. Talk about power in words. 

When the latest knitting project came off the needles a couple weeks back, ideas for what might be next kept hopping into view. They tend to do that, those ideas. Let's make all the things, and let's begin with this, in this yarn, they said with breathless, wild abandon, not for a moment paying any attention to the five year project that was sitting, untouched and unfinished in the knitting basket. 

Well.

 

 

After some harnessing of my wanty ideas, I was soon quite taken with the notion of sitting beneath this softest throw during stolen moments in this blustery February, falling into the meditative rhythm of the cable pattern once again (never be afraid of knitting cables, friends), passing yarn from chunky needle to chunky needle as the winds toss and the rains fall. Of course this is the next in queue. 

Do what you can with what you have. 

Free pattern here. Yarn here.

 

P.S. Don't worry one bit about the mistake I made in the edge band there. I'm not worried in the slightest - it's the story of wandering thoughts, lost delightfully in the motion of the stitches, which sometimes causes you to purl instead of knit. 

Wishing you the loveliest of weekends, friends!

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.

 

In Ironstone. In White.

 

The colors of vanilla piled up like that. Of course I've been thinking about vintage ironstone lately. Tucked between the big and small projects, the schlepping of boys, the appointments (scheduled & sudden), and the cleaning of muddy paws several times a day (you know it's been raining here, which of course means it's been mudding here), I've been thinking about antique ironstone, no doubt set off by the recent crashing to the floor of my most-used white platter. Shards are useless when plating food, as you know. 

Maybe it's not just the loss of the platter, maybe it's the tail-of-winter-but-not-yet-spring turn of the year and the taking of inventory that goes with it, maybe it's the anticipation of summer evenings with the long picnic table by the creek laden with food piled high on giant white oval plates. Maybe it's all of that. 

So many things we've edited from our lives since moving into the little house nearly four years ago. So many. Things that were, come to find out, not necessary to our enjoyment of life. Things don't fulfill. And superfluous things take far more than they give. I can now say never have there been truer words. 

But. 

The right things can make an experience sweeter, can make life sweeter.  

Steaming pancakes, straight off the griddle, stacked ever so teeteringly-high on a white platter and set in front of seven hungry boys. Grilled cheese, softly melted and crisply crunched, cut fancy on the diagonal and towered like wooden blocks, borne by ironstone, and set right beside the deep pot of roasted tomato soup. And on that birthday, when the elcairs were swiped from the grocery store bakery box and piled onto the platter, then sprinkled with edible confetti and poked with birthday candles, we all forgot that there was nothing homemade about them. 

I want these experiences. Again and again, with an ever-changing cast of hungry folk around the table, filling up. Gracious, yes. Dinner plates can stand in for the broken platter for a time, but I admit I've already commenced trolling for another.

A large one. In ironstone. In white.  

 

 

 

Have you been looking for a tastefully designed, small house plan that lives large? You may just find what you've been seeking in the Shelter Collection - four small floor plans designed for gracious living in 900-1400 square feet. Peruse the study plans & building plans here.